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Religious Trellis

-Raised by maternal grandparents in a north Georgia cotton mill village with a strong Southern Baptist influence. Was bullied as a youngster.
-As a teenager chose to be baptized and confirmed in the more liberal United Methodist Church.
-Traveled with the international cast of the musical “Up With People.”
-Met my Dad and his same sex partner in New York.
-Completed high school at private Presbyterian school. Home of the Foxfire books.
-Served the United Methodist Church as local pastor for over a decade.
-Trained & worked as Licensed Practical Nurse while completing graduate degree in Counseling & Human Systems.
-Taught senior high schoolers Hebrew & Christian scriptures using the contextual curriculum of Mark Link, S.J. While also serving as guidance counselor.
-was academic counselor at community college for ten years.
-retired 2010. Was mentor for several Education for Ministry groups in local Episcopal Church.
-Quadruple bypass 2016
-Chemotherapy for cancer 2017
-auditing Process courses. Presently reading The Elephant is Running by Bruce Epperly.

Thanks for reading my post Brian and for your commentary. As I re-read what I’d written I think it may have been better if I had chosen something other than the Christian scriptures on which to comment. Sorry.
I seem to have made unilateral power and relational power look as if they are either/ or propositions. Are they not both and…in process thought? I remember a course I took years ago that taught that management could be autocratic, democratic or laissez faire, depending on the occasion.

Kaeti, I read the article Bill referenced. Congratulations and thank you for the wonderful summary of the breakout room conversation!

Found it! Thank you Nelson

Dr McDaniel, I found several of Ms Farmer’s writings on beauty on the Open Horizons site as well as Spirituality & Practice. I could not find the slideshow. Would you provide us with a link or the full title of her work?

Well, as I said, I left the Mesle ‘sandbox’ and went to play in a couple of others. 1.The definitions of materialist, idealist, empiricist I owe to Keith Ward, a philosopher often mentioned in process texts, esp. Thomas Oord. 2.The bit about Whitehead’s initial concern I swiped from S.E.Frost’s BASIC TEACHINGS OF THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS, revised ed. 1962.p.267.
To play with the ‘god’ thing again. I don’t believe there is a divine being. I’m beginning to enjoy the idea of maybe a ‘divine becoming.’ The future does not exist and that divinity is becoming like the rest of the universe. Panentheism is where I have been and now McDaniel has introduced me to the idea of two kinds of panentheism. Can that Divine becoming fit in here?
As for Whitehead, seems he definitely was not a materialist, but he didn’t deny matter. I think he was saying that scientists were giving it a priority that he felt belonged to idealism. I think his use of the word ‘god’ fits into the cultural context in which he lived but he soon expanded that concept to where the culturally accepted term no longer applied.
An aside here: I’ve been watching the process YouTube that some may find helpful.

Some forty-five years ago I was moving from having an image of God as a being that looked much like Michelangelo’s in the Sistine Chapel into more of panentheistic understanding. Acts 17:28 helped.”in him we live and move and have our being.” Ok. Then, I had difficulty with the “him” part, the god as any kind of being being didn’t make sense. I didn’t have any idea what god was like except that whatever it was we “lived and had our being” in it. Now, I’ve heard “in whom we live and move and have our “BECOMING.” WOW! I get it.
Several years ago one of my favorite authors, Fredrick Buechner was being honored at the National Cathedral. Barbara Brown Taylor introduced him this was: “Mr Buechner, you re-arrange the air.” I’m beginning to feel that way. The air is being re-arranged.

Ursula LeGuin has written: “Story is our boat for sailing on the river of time.” With apologies to such a brilliant mind, is it fair to say that experience is our boat for sailing on the river of time?

It worked. Thanks. By the way, I go by Danny

Thank you for the resources Dr McDaniel.

Dr McDaniel I have read your postings on Spirituality & Practice over the years. I particularly like your music postings. My dad designed album covers for jazz musicians. I’m also enrolled in their spiritual literacy program and am hoping the two programs with compliment each other and deepen my spiritual seeking.