lent God Cant and biodynamic farming

Dear Earthlings,

We are having a family crisis here on planet earth and Church for Our Common Home, an untraditional church and counseling center, is offering you a care plan for Lent including ' the talking cure.' Please join us for the next six weeks on Sundays, at 5 pm (PST) on Zoom or in person, March 1st to April 5, for a conversation about our relationship with God. We will use the inspiration and guidance of Thomas J. Oord's awesome new book, God Can’t How to believe in God and love after tragedy, abuse or other evils. The first chapter is available as a gift on www.godcan’t.com . The following are six relationship issues with God that we will consider and talk about;

3/1 Chapter 1 God Can’t Prevent Evil

3/8 Chapter 2 God Feels Our Pain

3/15 Chapter 3 God Works to Heal

3/22 Chapter 4 God Squeezes Good from Bad

3/29 Chapter 5 God Needs Our Cooperation

4/5 The intertwining of these

5 relationship issues combined together.

Have you ever benefited from the talking cure? I'm sure you have whether you were talking to your spouse, a friend, a taxi cab driver or a complete stranger. Some have experienced this type of healing with a paid counselor or minister. We benefit from talking together to explore in relationship what we think and feel. I believe the benefit of talking to another is almost universal in order to heal broken relationships. We need the talking cure to heal our broken relationship currently with God and the Natural World of Plants and Animals. So, come join us and let's talk and share our feelings about God and the creation!

We will also consider the Six Principles of Biodynamic Farming during the next six weeks and intertwine them with the six relationship issues outlined above about God.We are well served to consider them together. It is not helpful to separate them for when we leave out one, we are leaving out the other for they are interconnected.. Exploring our relationship with God and the Natural World together invites us to explore how they are interrelated and how our thinking and feelings about one affects the other.

Many of us have been alienated from God AND have been alienated from the natural world as well. This began a few hundred years ago when we began to treat the natural world as if it had no feelings and as if God had no feelings and or did not exist at all or was an all powerful force that cared nothing for us. It has been our lack of mutuality with God and nature that has put us on a suicidal course destroying our own habitat and common home, Mother Earth. We have been like self centered teenagers, who are now noticing that we are suddenly in ecologic crisis. This crisis hopefully will lead us into to using the talking cure and a kind of family systems therapy to consider the rest of our families feelings and experiences due to the harm done by our lack of sensitively to the reality that when one member is sick, everyone in the family will suffer. Likewise when any member of the family begins the talking cure about troubled relationships, everyone in the family benefits

One of the best parts of being an untraditional church is that we are able to have discussions, talk and interact with one another more than most churches are able to do during worship. So the next six weeks we will talk about our thoughts and feelings about God AND about Plants and Animals and how they are interconnected- during our worship service!

Steiner's six Biodynamic farming principles include, plant diversity, crop rotation, animal life, composting , homeopathic solutions and life force. In 1924 a group of farmers went to Rudolph Steiner and asked for his help. They shared that their farms and land were sick and suffering. Rudolf Steiner offered lectures and gave us the six principles of biodynamic farming that infuse organic farming with the foundational philosophy and theology that we are an organic whole. This offers us a new metaphysics, not based on dualism and the Cartesian worldview, but on an organic worldview including Spirit, Life Force or God. Earlier, Descarte the called father of science said that the Earth had no soul and this falsehood has been internalized and has impacted all our family relationships! Steiner then postulated a reversal of this false hypothesis.

This Lent, I urge you to talk to others about the ways you may be angry at God or feel s/he does not even exist for you. Many of us have given up on God because when we were abused or suffered from tragedy, we had this bad and inaccurate idea that God could have done something but just didn't. The book God Can't challenges our dysfunctional thinking and invites us to bring our hurt feelings out into the open that we have felt that God has abandoned us. We begin with a God of love who CAN'T stop abuse or evil single handedly but needs the collaboration and cooperation of the human race and other creatures.

Why intertwine this conversation about our relationship with God with biodynamic farming? Because in both our relationships with God and our relationships with Plants and Animals we need to give up our Cartesian worldview that the world is meaningless and other life forms are without feelings or purpose. It is the spiritual dimension of farming and everythings else that we desperately need in our world today. Like process theology and ecofeminist theology, biodynamic farming embraces the metaphysical as well as the physical and asks us to experience the organic wholeness of Gaia aka Our Common Home Planet Earth. We are being called by the land, Gaia and by God to wake up to the suffering all around us and to acknowledge the need and possibility of a process to be in more loving relationship with everyone in our family - including God and our fellow earthlings of Plants and Animals. Our family is not just our human family but all earthlings that share one common home. Check out this great article about the regenerative potential of biodynamic farming for it is truly inspiring how biodynamic farming can actually heal the planet. http://www.churchforourcommonhome.com/biodymanic-farming Similarly, I believe when we heal our relationship with God this will be regenerative and have global effects of healing and wholeness for all earthlings and creatures. biodynamics.com/

On Easter we will celebrate our dedication to improving our relationship with God and the natural world. Six principles to understand healthy farming and six principles for healthy relationships with God promise to us to enjoy our celebrate of Spring and Hope. We are an internet and home church as well as a counseling center and know the practices of good family therapy and the talking cure can be used in all our relationships. Family therapy and the talking cure is the simple and straight forward care plan for a family in crisis and broken relationships. This Lent join our six week family care plan with the talking cure and explore some of the members of our family most often left out. Our vision is to create healthier relationships of mutuality and love.

Please join us at our temporary month to month rental home,1035 22 St. NE Salem, Oregon 97301. We plan to move into our new farm shortly but the exact dates keep changing.............. stay tuned.or join us on the internet Zoom, click link on church website.(If you have difficulty there is help available.)4/12 Easter sunrise worship, 7 am followed by a

CELEBRATION breakfast and Vegetarian Potluck immediately following service at the Mary Magdalene Café!

Love and blessings, Rev. Bonnie Tarwater Minister Church for Our Common Home Co-President of UUSCM https://www.uuscm.org/

Church for Our Common Home is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Call with any questions!Topic: Church for Our Common Home's Personal Meeting RoomJoin Zoom Meeting

Affiliate Community Minister of First UU Church of San Diego Church for Our Common Home | Rev. Bonnie Tarwater | (858) 248-5123

1035 22nd street NE Salen, Oregon 97301 revtarwater@yahoo.com www.churchforourcommonhome.com

www.ourcommonhomecounselingcenter.com

Walk Forth to Ecologic Civilization! Dec 1 sharing of China/Korea trip

Dear Earthlings,

Please join us next Sunday Dec. 1st, 5 pm for a program of stories, photos and videos of my recent trip to China and Korea with Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. and the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China. We will enjoy and feast on a vegetarian Thanksgiving, "bring your left over pot luck" at 6 pm pot luck and also come at 5 pm for a Taize chanting worship service.

The Food was FANTASTIC in China and Korea and how fitting we feast together this Thanksgiving as we learn from China and Korea on how to create an ecological civilization with food and farming. I'm providing the Kimche and chopsticks.

The last line of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene is the command,"Walk Forth and announce the Kingdom." Kingdom I translate as Ecologic Civilization! In an empowering translation by Jean-Yves Leloup of the Beatitudes, in the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 5 he changes the common translation of "Blessed are those" to "Walk Forth." This infuses one of the most important teachings of Jesus with the urgency and energy Jesus intended. This is the teaching of Jesus we need today during our ecologic crisis. May we WALK FORTH, fearlessly with God together to create an Ecologic Civilization! Please see our 12 Step Program for Ecologic Civilization on web site home page, www.churchforourcommonhome.com to read our vision as together we imagine where we are walking forth.

Here I am giving a talk at a university in Beijing about Rudolph Steiner and Whitehead (see their photos behind me!

"Walk forth, you gentle and humble ones, for your gentleness is your strength, The earth resists those who are violent, and offers herself to those who respect her....To act more gently is not to act more feebly or slowly, it is to act with more consciousness and love. Now we begin to understand why the earth is given as the rightful heritage of the gentle, and denied to the violent." (The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, translated by Jean-Yves Leloup)

Join us this Advent season as we commune with God and continue to Walk Forth as Church for Our Common Home to create a biodynamic farm with plants, animals, other human creatures, (especially children and old people) sensitive and living as one organic whole in love. As we "Walk Forth" we experience the spirits of Mary Magdalene and Jesus in communion and love. We invite you to join us for our upcoming China/Korea Walk Forth Program and for worship all both in person or live stream on our church web site every Sunday at 5 pm (PST) Or if you want to be more interactive join us on Zoom.

Directions for joining the meeting on Zoom or call Bonnie and she will walk you through the process:

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/6979956226

Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll): +14086380968,6979956226# or +16465588656,6979956226#

Or Telephone:

Dial: +1 408 638 0968 (US Toll) or +1 646 558 8656 (US Toll)

Meeting ID: 697 995 6226

International numbers available: https://zoom.us/zoomconference?m=hxyK3YFCAcelrpEyaw_aCfeA-cjVI-e

Dream Group 1st and 3rd Sunday 3-5 pm on Zoom if you are not able to be with us in person with this link.

Mr. Chicken Man is my nickname for the Korean gentlemen above who is the most famous and prolific philosopher in Korea, having written over 90 books. When we first arrived at his house, he showed us the grave of his beloved chicken who had died and shared how much he loved her. Dr. Cobb said, "Oh yes, like a beloved pet." "Oh no!" he said, "I loved her deeply and we were very close, much more than a relationship with a pet. I wrote a book about our love and relationship." He was perhaps my favorite intellectual we met on the journey. My kind of guy! I'm crying in this photo because I became overcome with emotion when Dr. Cobb began talking about God's unconditional love for all of us. The power of their shared wisdom was overwhelmingly beautiful and meaningful and touched me deeply.

Invitations in December!

Xmas service and potluck Sunday Dec. 22 5 pm.

Xmas worship and come help us make dinner for Haven House Interfaith Homeless Shelter, in Escondido on Wednesday Xmas day in the evening at 5 pm

Annual Alcohol-free New Years Eve Celebration, Tuesday, Dec. 31 Celebration, 5 pm.

We will show the movie that will make you want to join us in our vision of biodynamic farming,

The Littlest Big Farm, with popcorn!

We will also have a dream and vision sharing circle, music, dancing, a bonfire ritual to purify and warm us on our journey as we WALK FORTH into the New Year. Please bring finger food to share.

You are also invited every Saturday in December,

9-11 am for an online class:

Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. “Human Self-Destruction or Healthy Future? Might Whitehead Help?” Please join us here in Rancho Penasquitos in my home office through the Claremont Institute for Process Studies, through Dec. 21th https://claremontprocess.org/

Love and Blessings always,

Bonnie

Day of the Dead Celebration Death Doulas and Midwives Nov. 3

Dearest Earthlings,

Please join us this Sunday November 3 at 5 pm for a Day of the Dead Celebration and please bring photos of loved ones who have passed for the altar, memories and food they enjoyed. Doula is a Greek work meaning 'woman servant' and like a midwife she is someone who gives us love and care during the death transition. Our worship will reflect on Love is More Powerful Than Death, by Cynthia Bourgeault, a love story of her continued relationship after her beloved Rafe died. We will consider how Mary Magdalene was a kind of doula or midwife for Jesus in his transition during and after the resurrection. In our death denying culture we hunger to learn from and follow from the rich Mexican tradition to commune with our dead ancestor and loved ones and reflect on the resurrection of the soul.

We invite you to join us on for worship Sunday at 5 pm and/or for

Dream Group 1st and 3rd Sunday 3-5 pm on Zoom if you are not able to be with us in person with this link.

Directions for joining the meeting on Zoom:

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/6979956226

Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll): +14086380968,6979956226# or +16465588656,6979956226#

Or Telephone:

Dial: +1 408 638 0968 (US Toll) or +1 646 558 8656 (US Toll)

Meeting ID: 697 995 6226

International numbers available: https://zoom.us/zoomconference?m=hxyK3YFCAcelrpEyaw_aCfeA-cjVI-e

Dec. 1st Sunday 5 pm Taize and Thanksgiving Potluck and

Sharing of China and Korea trip with stories and photos after Thanksgiving potluck.

((Photo above of Bonnie, Dr. Cobb and friends on the constant move in China)

Dec. 15th 8 pm Join us after church and potluck to hear Blind Boys of Alabama at the Belly Up in Solana Beach and order tix now $40.00.

Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer Contemplation of scriptures and Centering Prayer, an ancient Christian contemplative silent prayer practice, every Wednesday at 10 am.

Monthly Taize Chanting service first Sunday of every month.

Beach worship every second Sunday at La Jolla Shores Beach near lifeguard tower.

Prayer and Healing Service third Sunday of the month.

Dream Circle every first and third Sunday before worship 3-5 pm.

Class with Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. “Human Self-Destruction or Healthy Future? Might Whitehead Help?” Please join us for an online class 10 weeks 9-11 am (PST) through the Claremont Institute for Process Studies, through Dec. 14th https://claremontprocess.org/

through Dec. 14, 2019.

Please call Rev. Bonnie if you would like a pastoral visit and/or if you would like to pray or if you have prayer requests. (858) 248-5123.

Dreams and Prayers from California Beaches to Beijing for an Ecologic Civilization

Dearest Earthlings,

This is a photo of Dr. John B. Cobb Jr.with the Vice President of China, new and old friends and there I am, (the only woman) in the back row. It was a life transformative trip and I will of course share more as time goes on, but for now, as my beloved granddaughter Laina (one of my greatest teacher about life and God) says proudly when she comes to my house, "I came back!"

So many surprises! I about fell off my chair when the Vice President asked Dr. Cobb, "Which do you like better the Gospel of John or Paul in the Bible?" He is not only the nation's Vice President, but a professor of philosophy and are you ready for more surprises? How weird and surprising is it that Dr. Cobb being Christian theologian is less of a problem than it is for him here in the United States. Now that says a lot about the insanity of our secular anti God brainwashing! There was no security when we went to visit him. No gates, no guns, no security checks. And are you sitting down? Nowhere in China did we see trash, graffiti, homeless people on the streets and generally, people seem more relaxed. Socialism, what a great idea for us to consider here in the United States while our capitalism of billionaires is literally killing our planet, our future as a species and millions of other species. How about we all work together to assure people have education, health care, housing! What do you say Jesus? Oh yeah thats right, that's what you taught also!

Please join us as we resume regular worship every Sunday, 5 pm, in person and online skype and or live stream, as we create community, pray for the earth, share dreams and co-create an ecologic civilization together. Special thanks to my husband Walt who offered Lectio Divina, aka bible study while I was gone, and please join us as we resume worship, October 13 for our second Sunday regular worship at the La Jolla Shores Beach.

The greatest meaning for this trip for me, as always, was experiencing this holy invisible thing we call God or love. Traveling with Dr. Cobb inspired me, not only because of what he has accomplished in China, which is awe inspiring, but because he remained loving, generous, fun, caring and graceful 24/7 at his remarkable age of 94 years old. His life work is tremendously inspiring, however more than his accomplishments, it is his loving nature, humility and relationality as a human being that I am most inspired and touched by. Thank you Laina aged 2 and John aged 94 for showing me the WAY of Jesus, of socialism and "caring for the least of these" and our dreams of an ecologic civilization.

Over the years, I have heard Dr. Cobb talk about the accomplishments of China in creating ecological civilization, but I realize now that I did not really fully believe him. This was not a conscious thought on my part, just an attitude, you know, yeah , yeah John, China is really great. Well, as often is the case, Dr. Cobb is a real live prophet in the tradition of Jesus, Mohamed, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Dr. Cobb is clearly telling us the problem and pointing us toward a journey toward God. I experienced people in many different settings talking, thinking and working in unity together for a new vision to live by both in China and in Korea. This was tremendously inspiring and life giving. The term "ecologic civilization" was used often and everywhere and the depth of its meaning was palpable. People are clearly energized and unified with a new vision to live by. Not just some people, but different kinds of people from big cities to small towns all sharing a common national and global vision. This was inspiring and surprising to me. Many people I met are feeling empowered and it was like a contagion that I caught while I was there. This feeling is so different than the depression and rugged individualism and competition here in the United States. The best part of any trip is perhaps coming "home" to loved ones. The brown mountains, palm trees and eucalyptus trees of southern California were some of my loved ones and friends I missed while I was away and I felt them welcome me back. I look forward to praying on the beaches of California tomorrow with all of you as we send love to Beijing and beyond and interconnect with all life here on our common home - Mother Earth.

A Dream from China. "I am dreaming that I am on the bus and am sitting on the front seat with John Cobb and off to the right in front of the bus moving rapidly undulating up and down like a huge dragon, a huge creature the same color grey as the concrete is leading us on the way on our journey toward ecologic civilization. We are following the dragon, fast, forward into our interconnectedness. "

My first association of my dream includes my experience of the enormity of snake or dragon like energy that has been the project of building China the last few decades. The good news is that the government in China two years ago created programs encouraging more people to move from the city to the country to create more farming and rural life, not to increase the huge industrial urban life. The amount of energy poured into making new roads or ways of moving forward in the world is mind blowing in China. This dream is not literally only about the building of concrete roads, but is about the new energy for a new journey in a new direction for an ecological civilization is leading the bus or collective group of us in a new direction. We really are an interconnected web of life and it is time we support one another in the spiritual discipline of worship, community building, prayer and dream sharing.

Please join us for a celebration of this journey to create an ecological civilization on Sunday, December 1st 5 pm. We will enjoy a Taize worship service and a pot luck and I will share more photos and stories about our trip to China and Korea. I'm excited to share this with you.

Church for Our Common Home is dedicated to prayer, dream sharing, creating loving community and other counter cultural values as we give up our competitive, depression and become disciples of Jesus and/or Lao Tzu and any and all the prophets from the past as well as living prophets like Dr. Cobb living today. Please call me. I mean it. I want to get to know you. We need you and want to invite you on a journey following a snake or dragon of huge energy here on the beaches of the west coast as we send our prayers and dreams of ecological civilization to Beijing and beyond. Dreaming it forward of course I plan to paint my snake with rainbow colors.

Sending love always,

Bonnie

Rev. Bonnie Tarwater

Minister Church for Our Common Home

13014 Calle De Las Rosas, SD CA 92129

churchforourcommonhome.com (858) 248-5123 revtarwater@yahoo.com

Affiliate Community Minister of First UU Church of San Diego

"There is no place like home!" Our Common Home Mother Earth

Dearest Earthlings,

Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz, closes her eyes clicks her red ruby slippers and says a mantra, over and over, "There is no place like home

there's no place like home, there is no place like home................" and this jets her into the dream state taking her home again to the loving relationships she only appreciated after she had left home, had wild and wonderful adventures and in the process grew up. We are in a similar stage of individuation as a human species this year in 2019, fifty years after the moon landing. We have begun to integrate our hearts, our brains, courage and even our animal nature as symbolized perhaps by Dorothy's little dog Toto. In a kind of dream state of reflection we too have begun to ask the God of love, or Spirit or our higher power, to take us back to our common home, the paradise of Gaia where we feel confident we will be able to live in gratitude for all the relationships of love and of home that we had previously taken for granted.

Like Dorothy, I am off for a wild and wonderful adventure not to Oz, but to China and Korea with Dr. John Cobb, but unless someone gives a donation to the Go Fund Me Page below or above, I won't be able to come home! My expenses are paid to get there but we have not raised enough for me to return home. And "There is no place like home!" Please help me come home by clicking on the link below.

http://gofundme.com/sywvn7-climate-action

Well, it doesn't course work that way, of course, but you get the idea. We thank everyone who has generously contributed to this adventure as we go to learn more about how to create an Ecology Civilization and what all they are doing in China. After two weeks in China, we will go to Korea and will meet religious leaders at an interfaith ecologic conference, “Interfaith Dialogue for a Sustainable Ecological Civilization”

http://www.yeojuecoforum.org/.

We are all invited to listen to the earth speak to us in our nightly dreams and I will share how dream sharing is an ancient spiritual practice whose time had come back. Dream sharing is honored in all the wisdom traditions and after having been left out for hundreds of years, dream honoring with in an interfaith community is potentially powerful practice of getting to know one another at a deep level as we listen to the earth speak.

No worship for the next four Sundays, however Walt will facilitate a Lectio Divina and introduce Centering Prayer beginning September 15th and then every Sunday at 5 pm until my return on October 6.

I am happy to announce that Church for Our Common Home is developing an internet ministry that invites worship, educational programs and dream sharing in person as well as on the internet. Jamie Long and our Digital Arts Team are working tirelessly to reach out in hospitality to our fellow earthlings in different places on our planet, from Somalia to Seoul Korea. Thank you Jamie and everyone involved and everyone who is tuning in. Please check out also our new edited videos of worship.

http://www.churchforourcommonhome.com/new-page

If you don't want to use Pay Pal on the Go Fund Me Page above, please feel free to make a tax deductible donation to Church for Our Common Home with checks or credit cards and or contact me with any questions.

In gratitude,

Rev. Bonnie Tarwater

Minister Church for Our Common Home

13014 Calle De Las Rosas, SD CA 92129

churchforourcommonhome.com (858) 248-5123 revtarwater@yahoo.com

Affiliate Community Minister of First UU Church of San Diego

Trip to China, Ecology Conference in Korea and Dreams with Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. to create an Ecologic Civilization

Dear Earthlings,

I am overjoyed to be traveling to China and Korea with Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. to help create an Ecologic Civilization. Dr. Zhihe Wang and Dr. Meijun Fan, the co-directors of the Post Modern Institute for the Development of China,postmodernchina.org/have invited me on this adventure which promises to be a life transformative experience for me and our church. I will bring back ideas to contribute to the environmental movement and our church mission. We are leaving on September 16th and returning October 2019.

In China we will travel to four different provinces: Beijing in Hebei Province, Taigu in Shandong Province, Liandu in Zhejiang Province and Puer in southwest China on the Vietnam border in the Yunnan Province. We will then travel to Korea for the first Interfaith Ecologic Conference where Dr. Cobb will be the keynote speaker and I have been invited to present a paper. We will learn from religious leaders and scholars at the. “Interfaith Dialogue for a Sustainable Ecological Civilization” http://www.yeojuecoforum.org/.We are invited to listen to the earth speak to us in dreams and I will share how dream sharing invites us to become close interfaith friends. Dream sharing is honored in all the wisdom traditions and after having been left out for hundreds of years, dream honorings is an ancient spiritual practice whose time had come back.

Church for Our Common Home offers an internet ministry that invites worship, educational programs and dream sharing in person as well as on the internet. James Long has created an exciting new lay ministry at Church for Our Common Home and our Digital Arts Team. Please watch our worship on Sundays 5 pm Pacific Standard Time on Live Stream and on the church Facebook page and see the edited versions at this link.http://www.churchforourcommonhome.com/new-page Special thanks to our church member Jamie Long and our new Digit Arts Team for they are moving our ministry out into the world in a big way, just in time for my presentation at the first Interfaith Ecology conference on the planet. Providence seems to be at work!

This conference in Korea is particularly meaningful for me because I lived in Korea beginning when I was six years old and have not previously returned. Here is my passport photo when my family and I moved to Korea in 1962, 57 years ago. How much has changed in Korea since I attended the first grade in Seoul?

Here is a photo of me on a medical tour of China in 1981 when I was 25 years old. How much have I changed in the last 60 years? China, Korea and I have changed more than any of us could have imagined!

Dr. Cobb is the preeminent interpreter of Alfred North Whitehead and process thought and theology, teaches a “… a process-relational worldview (e.g. the philosophical tradition of Alfred North Whitehead)–including the principles of interconnection, change, and intrinsic value–for advancing the common good.” The process God is one of creativity, transformative change and love and s/he is calling us forward for the common good on this trip to China and Korea in hope that we can change the way we think and live in order to create an ecologic civilization. https://claremontprocess.org/

Here is a photo of the Institute for the Post Modern Development of China and Church for Our Common Home sponsoring a special Earth Day Program and dinner in 2019, hosting Dr. Oon, from Malaysia about her international work with Eco Enzymeshttps://www.enzymesos.com/what-is-eco-enzymeand the 2019 winner of the John Cobb Common Good Award, at Church for Our Common Home.

Dr. Cobb, Dr. Wang and Dr. Fan have been instrumental in making this ecologic revolution a reality in China. It is urgent that we learn to live more ecologically and organically in order to change and survive as a human species. Together this unlikely and amazing trio of Cobb, Wang and Fan have created 37 process centers at major universities in China, who in turn have helped to inspire emerging eco-villages, organic farming and other sustainability projects we need to learn about and emulate. I will bring back ideas to the United States, locally to San Diego, to my denomination of the Unitarian Universalist Association https://www.uua.org/connect/web and to our Church for Our Common Home. It has not only the prophetic genius of Dr. Cobb as a teacher that has given me and millions of us a new ecologic vision to live by, it is because he practices what he preaches and is the best ambassador of Christianity of anyone I have ever known. It is his radically loving natures that inspire me perhaps more than his prophetic genius.

Fifty years ago, in 1969 space travelers went to the moon and brought back this photo of our common home- Mother Earth. That same year, Dr. Cobb had an awakening and wrote a book, Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecologyabout our environmental crisis. He has led us as a prophet, philosopher, theologian and environmentalist in his inspiring and tireless life’s work, not only telling the truth about the severity of our problem, but offering a vision to save the world. So, is it too late to save ourselves from our global catastrophe? I say NEVER! Why? Because I am a grandmother with my third grandchild due to be born the first week of September and as Dr. Cobb says, “Where there is life there is hope.” We have no choice but to work to save the world’s future generations of human and non-human life. I go on this trip to companion a planetary treasure and holy man, Dr. Cobb to China and Korea and will bring back his wisdom and stories of people from around the world working to save us from extinction. Please call me if you have any questions, ideas or special requests (858) 248-5123. The Institute for the Post Modern Development of China has generously offered to pay some of my expenses outside of travel costs while I am in China. I am raising funds for my air travel, other travel expenses and need your support to cover the estimated cost of $3,000.00. No gift of support is too small. Please make tax deductible checks to Church for Our Common Home credit cards are also welcomed.

In gratitude,

Rev. Bonnie Tarwater

Minister Church for Our Common Home

13014 Calle De Las Rosas, SD CA 92129

churchforourcommonhome.com (858) 248-5123 revtarwater@yahoo.com

Affiliate Community Minister of First UU Church of San Diego

Call to Arts! Procession of the Species

Dear Earthlings,

Please join us in art making, worship, prayer, lament, singing, dance, dreaming and protesting in the streets with "Call to Arts! Procession of the Species" a program recently launched by the UU Ministry for the Earth and their talented Program Director Aly Tharp. Aly and I are collaborating to create an Earth Worship service at our yearly denominational meeting of the Unitarian Universalists on June 20th in Spokane Washington. We will dance with the giant rod puppets of species of plants or animals in worship for the DANCE WITH THE ANIMALS FOR JUSTICE at the Earth Worship and we will march and procese with them in the Procession of the Species. This program will NOT end this June but is a creative community vision that we will continue to dream forward into a new future. We need and want all of you to join us so please read the details on the link below. You are welcome to join us regardless of whether you are a UU or whether you think you are an artist or if you attend the upcoming conference. https://www.uumfe.org/2019/05/17/call-to-arts-join-the-procession-of-the-species/ "If you can talk you can sing and if you can walk you can dance." (African proverb) so call me and lets talk about how you want to dream and dance with us and the animals! (858) 248-5123.

The Earth worship will have four parts:

1. Gratitude and Prayer

2. Lament and Sharing of the Agony

3. Silence and Transformation

4. Dancing with the Animals for Justice

Earth Worship enacts the heartbreaking true story of Tahlequah, the mother whale, using giant rod puppets. She traveled 1,000's of miles for 17 days carrying her dead baby on her back--her beloved baby who had been born and lived only 30 hours. Tahlequah is our teacher for she is not disassociated from her feelings or the raw energy they engender. God is calling us as humans to act like Tahlequah and get in touch with our own grief and agony about the fact that we are living in a time of the the extinction of life on earth - the only one caused by us humans. The United Nations recently declared we have only 12 more years to turn around our course or in the next 10 years one million species will DIE!

It is past time that religious leaders and religious communities provide the sacred worship space to lament, mourn, and follow Tahlequah symbolically in a 1000 mile journey from our head to our hearts and bodies in order to express our grief. She loved her baby who lived inside her body from 10-18 months then died shortly and tragically after she was born. She publicly mourned the death of what is most sacred to any mother, her new born baby and went on a journey to lament and shared the truth of her agony and trauma. Too often we have lost our religious traditions of public mourning and our worship too often is tepid at best or criminally boring. Many of us have become disassociated from our feelings as individuals and repress our feelings. We will not have the energy or vision to save our common home and turn this Titanic sized ship of ecological destruction headed us for catastrophe unless we EXPERIENCE AND EXPRESS OUR FEELINGS. We will find a way when there is no way when we stop isolating and gather in beloved community to lament, pray, dance, work and celebrate together.

Church for Our Common Home acknowledges that sometimes we also need individual relationships to explore and effectively express our grief and trauma. We offer individual counseling at our counseling center - Our Common Home Counseling Center. Individual relationship of love are needed for healing as well as communities of love for healing. If you begin to feel your feelings of agony about the the extinction of life on earth and feel you need to talk to someone privately please call us to set up an appointment in person, or by phone or Skype.

Catherine Keller shares the wisdom of Emmanuel Katongole an Ugandan Catholic priest and theologian who reminds us of the paradox found when public lament like Tahlequah the mother whale models reveals, "a way of hoping in the shattered ruins of life.” “Emmanuel Katongole finds over and over this phenomenon of lament in prayer, poetry and song: a “complex performance, a discipline, that involves many actions”: “Crying out, exercising memory, maintaining silence." In his own political theology, he has demonstrated that lament, in the contemporary culture of Africa as in the First Testament psalms of lamentation, “is a way of hoping in the shattered ruins of life” The sharing of agony does not cover over but exposes a traumatic history so its participants may live again. Effects of anger and compassion affect a solidarity that sustains. And the systemic justice required does not then confuse itself with retaliation.” Catherine Keller, Political Theology of the Earth

National Geographic published a story August of 2108 about Tahlequah. “The death of another calf is a significant blow to J Pod, which hasn’t seen a successful birth in three years. Combined, the three pods have 75 members, and time is running out to maintain its viability. Ken Balcomb, founder and principal investigator at the Center for Whale Research, gives it five years. “We’ve got at most five more years of reproductive life in this population to make it happen”—meaning, to have viable offspring—"but if we don’t do it in those five years it isn’t going to happen,” he writes.

A few years ago a dream was offered at a dream group, at Church for Our Common Home about the extinction of whales.

Dream, "Whale and Elephants, Mother Mary and Ganesha."

“And the elephants came to the oceans edge and spoke to the whales and said, ‘It is not OK that you are accepting your own extinction. We the elephants are here to tell you to not give up. Mother Mary is there and she is stroking the trunk of Ganesha - the Indian Hindu elephant God. ” Art work made of the dream is below.

Nothing I have ever done, creates intimacy faster and deeper than sharing dreams. The Bible and all the ancient religious traditions took the wisdom from dream seriously. It is an ancient spiritual practice whose time has come back and dream incubation is a part of our Earth Worship and arts program. Church for Our Common Home offers free dream group sharings every 1st and 3rd Sunday either in person or on Skype, 3-5 pm (PST)

Recently I had a dream I titled,

“Giraffes Visionary Creatures Calling For My Help"

“I am at the edge of the ocean on the cliffs looking down into a sea cave and I see a baby giraffe on the rocks and she is hurt and not safe and I must go rescue her. I see no way to get to her except going down the hole. There is a strong man there I know but his back is injured and he cannot help me. Then I realize I should call the San Diego Zoo, but know it will be better and faster for me to just call the fire department. I check on my baby giraffe again and she in more danger then before and the tide is coming up and it will soon be covering her with water. She is terrified and I must rescue her, NOW! ”

I offer you a dream incubation to say and/or write before you go to sleep. As move into Pentecost this weekend may we ask the Holy Spirit to bring us day and night visions.

Dear Spirit, you who are called by many names, you who are the Bringer of Dreams,

I give thanks for this day and this night, and for the gift of day and night dreams and visions. Please help me to remember my dreams and record them so I can share them for the healing and wholeness of all creatures and Gaia, a living being. Please guide me and my dream body to a sacred place where I will open and awaken to your wisdom and love. I ask for guidance for all of us Earthlings, as we learn new ways to honor and care for our common home, Mother Earth. May I be purified and healed and may I be awakened to the sacred in all nature that is alive. Amen

The National Geographic story ends with the recovery of Tahlequah. "The sharing of agony does not cover over but exposes a traumatic history so its participants may live again."

“Tahlequah carried her calf for at least 17 days and 1,000 miles, and researchers had worried she'd endangered herself by expending so much effort. But now she appears in good health.” (my italics and emphasis)

Love and blessings,

Bonnie

Dear God,

We are witnessing the 6th extinction of life on earth the only one created by us humans. We come to pray for help for we are often lost, self-centered and cause suffering from our ignorance and arrogance.

We come to pray to say thank you for creation and our part in it.

We come to lament and share our agony and witness the agony of creatures like Thalequah the whale mother whose baby died and whose species of whales are going extinct.

We come to pray and ask for your help in her name.

We come to pray in silence and to feel your holy presence.

We come to pray and confess and to make amends. 

We come to pray knowing you will transform and change us if we ask for courage to find a way, when there is no way.

We come to pray for healing  and to be empowered in your love.

We come to pray gracious God in celebration as we  Dance with the Animals for justice.

We come to pray to dedicate our church and our lives to care for our common home Mother Earth.

We come to pray for her, Gaia for she is a living being and all her creatures need our help. Amen

INVITATIONS Church for Our Common Home worships every second Sunday at the beach and this next Sunday we are gathering at a new beach and will meet at the La Jolla Shores Beach where we will also enjoy a bonfire. We are experimenting with a new beach because we could not get our internet connection and live stream to work at Torrey Pines State Park Beach. Look for our earth flag and/or call or text (858) 248-5123 to find us at the beach. We look forward to continuing to explore taking our worship services into the community to prisons and homeless shelters etc. and we ask for your ideas and invitations and we will try to join you.

Please join us for live stream every Sunday at 5 pm on our church website if you cannot join us in person and contact us with feedback as we get this up and running. Special thanks to our Media Director Anna Smith as well as John Michno. Special thanks also to the new secretary of the church board, Martha Garcia, as well as James Long. Our church is now available through the internet to others in far away places but all who share our common home.

Join us on Skype in order to be interactive and participate in our discussions as others are currently doing during worship.

GARAGE SALE We are having a garage sale as a church fundraiser on Father' Day weekend on Saturday, June 15th, so please bring us anything to sell.

NO WORSHIP FATHER'S DAY JUNE 16th.

Do you hear the voice of the Black Madonna on Mother's Day?

Dear Friends,

The Black Madonna is the ancient feminine face of God, Christian and pre Christian, including the Earth Goddesses and the Egyptian goddess Isis. For some of us she is the tender mother Jesus our Mother, as Julian of Norwich, (her feast day was May 8th) in the Middle Ages called Jesus. She is also the Holy Mama, Mary our Mother, the Mother symbol of all the world religions, for she is everyone's merciful Mother and she loves all her children, the oppressed and the oppressors. She is our universal mother. She is talking to us this Mother's Day morning with urgency. Do you hear her? Are you dreaming of her and/or are you having synchronistic experiences or intuitions and gut feelings of God trying to embolden you to love in radical new ways? The lectionary reading today is from the Gospel of John Chapter 10:27-30 Jesus tells us that his sheep hear his voice and they follow him and that no one can snatch them away from him and no one can snatch us away from the Black Madonna for the Black Madonna and Jesus are one.

We have recently been instructed by the United Nations that we have only twelve more years to change climate change before it is too late and that over one million plants and animals are going extinct. These words from scientists are another version of her voice crying out in pain to stop hurting her and that she is sick. Please read my chapter "At the Bedside of Mother Earth" on our church website. There is nothing like a crisis to bring families together. May the sickness of our Mother Earth bring us together as a human family like never before!

She is inside you and me and all creatures and she is the earth and she is the dark of the vast cosmos. We live in her body, we live in the earth's body, and we lived before we were born in our Mother's body. I added the photo of the earth taken from outer space to this icon above many years ago and now it is the holy icon for Church for Our Common Home, a non traditional church dedicated to the earth, the divine feminine and the arts. She is the Earth who gives us our home, our food, our air, volcanos and fire, oceans and mountains and all creatures to love us and to be loved by us. When we are not in awe of God, called by many names we are a sorry group of humans.

As we give thanks today for our Mothers who we lived inside of and who gave us birth and to the earth our common home, let us also give thanks to God the Mother of all for we live inside her body.

God I am calling the Black Madonna today gave me several signs for Mother Day that I want to share with you in the hopes that you will reflect on what signs she is gifting you with today. We are working on getting our weekly worship up on live stream more reliably this month, so hopefully you will be able to join us for worship every Sunday at 5 pm (PST) on our church website and we look forward to hearing from you.

This morning I received a response to an email I sent to Margaret Starbird, the brilliant and brave woman who wrote many divinely inspired books about Mary Magdalene, the forgotten and lost bride of Jesus, Christianity and western civilization. Many of us consider Mary Magdalene to be another form of the Black Madonna. Starbirds book, Women with the Alabaster Jar was the book Dan Brown "borrowed?" to write The Da Vinci Code. Here is an interview with her on our church web site.

Last week we offered a worship about gematria and the symbolism of numbers and studied Starbirds reflections on the 153 and Mary Magdalene. Praying under the tree in front of my house last week I noticed for the first time that the number of our house church is 13014 Calle De Las Rosas or the Street of the Roses. Although this is not 153, it is a form of 135 and in music the 153 or 135 is the basic chord of vibration and making music.

Yesterday, I received a group email from Matthew Fox inviting all of us to be apart of a new project to receive daily meditations about the Divine Feminine to begin today Mother's day. To sign up go to, www.DailyMeditationsWithMatthewFox.Org

Reading the email I noticed that Alessandra Belloni has written a new book on the Black Madonna, Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna which looks like a book sharing similar experiences to many of us about the Black Madonna and one may of us will enjoy reading.

My dream yesterday was that I am sitting on my red couch where I pray in the early morning, and out the window right next to my altar to the Black Madonna, something small was flying toward me fast in the dark night sky and as it got closer and bigger I could see that it was a large black appliance of some kind I could not make out and it was being flown by a red fox in an uniform. When it landed outside the window the fox quickly walked to my front door and knocked. I called out in fear and woke up. I looked up what appliance means and it is, "a device or piece of equipment designed to perform a specific task, typically a domestic one.....or the action or process of bringing something into operation." A fox is an animal whose home or den is called an "earth" and because of its ability to "transgress boundaries and has made it one of the most successful survivors on the planet." the fox is allowed "to be everywhere at once and nowhere at all" and the fox has super hearing abilities and can hear things far and wide from the earth. "...just as the fox-guide's subterranean knowledge (that) led the North American and Siberian shamans through paths not open or visible to humans. Thus if we approach the ubiquitous, mercurial fox--like the unconscious-- on its own terms, it may guide us through the transformational spaces between oppositional states of being......between unconventional, intuitive intelligence and collective social norms, and between animal human and spirit worlds, both beneficent and demonic--in the service of wholeness."(The Book of Symbols edited by Ronnberg and Martin)

Yesterday I heard a woman I do not know share about the feminine face of God at a 12 step meeting. This is rare.

So this Mother's Day I am committed to hearing her voice and listening to heartbeat that is the earth's heartbeat, to seeing her in the dark night of dreams and visions, to loving her in every person and creature I am blessed to be alive with today. I want to hear from you and your experiences of the Black Madonna, the feminine face of God calling you into healing and catapulting you to dedicate your life to the earth crisis we have created and we care called to solve for all of her creatures here on our common home Mother Earth.

I offer you a prayer and according to my dream our prayers are an appliance or process of bringing something into action. This Mothers Day I recommit to my prayer life for God needs our prayers of thanksgiving and love and we need to be in holy relationship with God to work to heal our planet and ourselves.

Dear Holy One, you who are the Black Madonna, ancient virgin, dark earth source, holy presence, refresh our hearts, you who hold the universe also live inside us. Heal our wounds, and reawaken our spirits and push us again into the light, sustain us in mystery, push us out into life and grant us new birth. Breath in us, breath with us, let your light shine for us, with us, in us, Black Madonna, ancient virgin, holy presence. Amen

(Poem/prayer offered at Seizing an Alternative Ecology conference 2015, at the Anima Mundi track)

We will dance to the Contours "Do you Love Me? Now that I can Dance" today for our Mother's Day worship for we need the energy of love and dancing for the journey. Please join us!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EoI-6lQFIE

Please contact us if you would like to be on our prayer list.

Love and blessings,

Bonnie

View fullsize

"Civilization of Love" by artist Linda Miroslava Sabbath