Dear Children of all Ages who Love Animals!
Click Here for Christmas Music Video
The Christmas story from the point of view of the animals is a way to celebrate and explore needed ways to live in harmony with the earth. As we learn biodynamic farming, we are dedicated to loving, praying and caring for all the divine life forms in our community, including those with four legs, wings, the plants and those too small to be seen with the human eye who live in the soil.
We welcome you to theater improv in worship this next year as we recast ancient stories for relevance during our global crisis. The traditional Christmas story has three kings or wise men who bring gifts to honor the baby Jesus. God is calling us to activate our religious imagination and ask, where are the wise women in the story and what gifts do our children need for survival? This coming Sunday we will cast Dr. Alice Miller (1923-2010, For Your Own Good, The Drama of the Gifted Child etc.) who took the lid off the global epidemic of child abuse that creates disturbed baby killing leaders of genocide (Herod in the Christmas story and anyone come to mind in the news in modern times?) and the lying communities that are in collusion with them. My second king will be played by Bishop Tutu who led the country of South Africa out of apartheid and systemic racism with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a profound way to tell the truth AND reconcile and heal from trauma.
Last, we will cast Our Lady of Guadalupe, an indigenous woman in a Mother Mary costume who is sent by God and lives in the imaginal realm of vision and story telling. This is not a shy woman but a holy courageous wise women of color who persistently makes demands to the status quo and powers that be to include her and build her a new kind of church for people who look like her and carry wisdom of how to live in harmony with the earth. These three wise guides will bless us in our work this year to become 1. Truth tellers 2. Communities for healing from trauma 3. God loving, protectors of indigenous ancient religious wisdom and Mother Earth.
(photo of mural gifted by anonymous artists in Encinitas Calif. painted in secret one night)
The global crisis of this past year begs us to play goofy theater games, sing, dance, and share stories of inspiration, creativity and courage. Am I losing it or is there wisdom in this rededication to the arts and play as THE WAY when there seems to be no way? Intention is everything, so if our intention is to escape the truth, I am not for it. On the other hand, if we are able to face the truth about our global catastrophe and both our personal and political collusion with greed, inequality and massive suffering and genocide then YES, lets do it!
Here are some photos of where we are and our fundraising letter! AND join us for our Zoom non alcohol DANCE party with dream sharing and incubation and ritual on New Years Eve, December 31, 5 pm PST.
Dear Earthlings,
Call your Mother (Earth) today with your tax-deductible donations for Church for Our Common Home, dedicated to Mother Earth, the Divine Feminine, and the Arts! We welcome, credit/debit cards/Pay Pal and checks and we need your financial help. We moved in one day before the Covid-19 lock down in late spring. Catapulted here by our vision to create a safe harbor in nature during our planetary crisis, to create a small, loving, organic, sacred place, for our children, grandchildren and families, as well as all the non-human creatures, and we invite YOU to join us! We came in trust, but not with a lot of financial resources. Whatever you are able to donate, we thank you and appreciate every dollar very much. If you are unable to support us financially we understand and ask for your prayers.
Church for Our Common Home is exploring new ways to live, worship, pray, heal, dream, grow our own healthy food, and we are committed to creating loving community in harmony with all the creatures here on our recently purchased five-acre farm. We invite you to join us on Zoom for worship, every Sunday at 5 pm PST or in person as soon as it is safe. We need and want you to join us and we are now set up as a retreat center for short or long stays! A beautiful paradise down a quiet rural road, nested among a magnificent giant fir tree forest and rolling pastures, with a vast clear sky blazing with stars at night, we are serenaded during the day by bird songs and quiet gentle breezes. We offer three weekly programs on Zoom including Sunday worship, Silent Meditation aka Centering Prayer, bible and wisdom teachings study aka Lectio Divina, and Dream Group. This year we offered a class on Hildegard and Walt and I offer counseling, both traditional counseling as well as dream work, spiritual direction and pastoral counseling in person and/or on phone or Zoom.
What do you want to do here, or be here or bring here? When can you come visit? We are able to sleep at least seven people.
We are exploring biodynamic farming, somewhat like regenerative farming, using no chemicals, but also using biodynamic preparations We have made a sacred promise to live in close and loving relationships with all living creatures here, visible and invisible on the John Cobb Farm. We will keep and cultivate our wild wooded areas, invite animal and plant diversity and mix in a large amount of prayer for the soil, plants, creatures of every kind, for our human family and Mother Earth.
Zoom enables us to be a global ministry and we are interacting with people from Canada, China and Columbia to Bulgaria, Boston and Brooklyn. Our local neighbors have been a joy to get to know. One of the families lent us twenty two sheep, a donkey and horse who grazed on our pastures. We were delighted to donate vegetables from our first vegetable harvest as well as over a hundred twenty five pounds of apples from our apple trees to the local Food Share. We plan to make a large sign this spring, “Free Front Yard Food” (thanks to the inspiration of our Treasurer Juan Ibarra) and invite neighbors here for regular pot lucks, concerts, dances, art workshops and neighborhood gatherings.
Currently painting a mural on the barn we have converted the inside of the barn into an art gallery, art work space, dance studio and general party place. Our flower garden is the Mary Magdalene Garden Café where we enjoy outside dining, bonfire and star gazing with sing a longs. Our water pump shed has a broken water pump that we hope to repair, and envision creating a pond for ducks. We day dream about creating a Chapel to Pray for the Earth and hope you’ll come help us build it as a sculptural work of art. We are just outside of Salem, just a little more than an hour south of Portland, only an hour drive to the gorgeous Oregon coast to the west, and Mount Hood stands majestically to our east and in the middle of the fertile farming paradise that is Willamette Valley. Our pink house was built in 1945 and came with two outdoor cats, Molly and Susie Q, wild deer, hummingbirds, goffers, hawks, blue jay, squirrels, butterflies and more. Juno our new puppy joyfully hops and prances around the farm and we look forward to getting goats and chickens in the spring.
When you join us for worship and/or send a tax-deductible donation, we will send you dancing rainbow ribbons that we use for DANCING at the end of Zoom worship. Join us also for our yearly non-alcoholic DANCE Party on January 31st beginning at 5 pm with dream sharing, ritual and dream incubation for 2021.
We are exploring the wisdom of Julian of Norwich this Advent. She lived 650 years ago during the pandemic of the Black Plague and was an anchoress who lived in one room. She had a window where she did spiritual counseling and remained connected to the outside world, much like Zoom has connected us to you and the outside world during our pandemic and social distancing. Our Zoom portal/window invites you to commune with us and the spirit of Julian, a woman who never lost her composure or trust in God’s love during a time of pandemic, poverty, patriarchy and great social injustice. “All will be well.” She assures us, “and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Sending love this holiday season…..Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Bonnie and Walt Zoom ID 3025719458