Shuck and Jive

Monday, November 05, 2007

Name the New Wineskins Contest!

A commenter suggested that my use of the word "Winos" for the New Wineskins Association of Churches was offensive for recovering alcoholics. I agree. Winebibbers falls into that category as well. He suggested, "New Whiners."

What, dear reader, shall we call them? Go to the right of this blog for a poll. Name the Wineskins! I have started us out with a few. Feel free to make nominations.

Am I being naughty? Am I making fun? Am I ticking you off? I intend to do so.

The PCUSA is not a fundamentalist denomination even though we have a few. Leave if you must, but if you plan on taking your congregation, you gotta lotta paperwork to do.

OK, So What is the Latest, Presbyweb?

My site meter is going nuts again with visits from Presbyweb. Since I am too cheap to subscribe, I don't know what the traffic is about. Welcome whoever you are and for whyever you are here!

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Creating a Culture of Peace, March 7-9, 2008

We are now getting the word out about Creating a Culture of Peace. This is a 16-hour workshop on non-violent training at First Presbyterian Church, Elizabethton, March 7, 8, & 9. Tim Pluta, (watch a video of a speech he delivered in Jonesborough), will be a presenter.

The Episcopal Peace Fellowship on non-violence

EPF Brochure

Kirkridge CCP

Here is the schedule:

Friday: 6-9 p.m.

Saturday: 9-12, 2-6. 7-9

Sunday: 2-6

For a total of 16 hours

The cost for the event is $20 per individual and $30 per couple.

We are looking for congregations and organizations that will help sponsor this event with us.

Pics, Stories, and Speeches from Jonesborough Peace Rally

Democracy Now! TriCities has posted some photos and links to speeches about the rally and protest in Jonesborough.

Read an account of the Rally by organizer Linda Modica.
An account by David Swanson of TennesseeIndyMedia.
Photos and videos by Wes Rehberg.
More photos on AfterDowningStreet.
Depleted Uranium Poetry by Tim Pluta on YouTube.
Video speech by David Swanson, Part 1.
Video speech by David Swanson, Part 2.
Video of March in Jonesborough.

Ten Thousand Villages Festival Sale Nov. 17-18

First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton is the place to do your shopping for Christimas. We are hosting the Ten Thousand Villages Festival Sale on November 17th and 18th. Here are the details:

Hours:
8 am - 3 pm Saturday, November 17th
1 pm - 3 pm Sunday, November 18th

Fair trade is a growing worldwide movement and Ten Thousand Villages has been leading this movement for over 60 years. We at First Presbyterian Church have been active participants in this worthwhile marketing strategy since the early 1990s, and are responsible for tens of thousands of dollars going directly to the Ten Thousand Villages organization and the artisans with whom it deals.

“Green” and “Fair Trade” are partners in kind with “Peace” and Justice.” They are inseparable. When you allow a person, or a village, to use traditional skills to earn living wages from materials that they can acquire locally today and tomorrow and for the foreseeable future, they are going to ensure that their livelihoods are firmly grounded in ecologically sustainable systems.

For example, Albert Espin, an artisan and workshop owner near Quito Ecuador uses tagua nuts to craft beautiful, earth-friendly jewelry. His business employs six people who earn fair wages year-round, and he works directly with nut harvesters who make twice what they would if they were selling to the middlemen. Other craftspeople use bamboo, palm leaves, wild grasses and other naturally produced materials, as well as recycled materials like aluminum and newspaper, to hand craft a variety of goods that we in this country find unique and beautiful and FUN!

We can feel good about doing our Christmas shopping at the Ten Thousand Villages Festival Sale because we know the money we spend is going to help incubator businesses in small developing countries all over the world. Women in these countries are being empowered as they apply for, receive, and pay off micro-loans that help them get businesses started that employ many of their neighbors. Small companies are forming to locally produce handicrafts that simultaneously preserve age-old traditions and history while giving the rest of the world some insight into lesser known and fascinating cultures in the far corners of the world.

Meanwhile, in this country, we are seeing magazines like Natural Home advertise the new practice of planning green weddings where you can use the Ten Thousand Villages registry as a resource for couples who want to go green. In our own backyard, Dollywood has for four years welcomed the Ten Thousand Villages shop at the Festival of Nations. Additionally, Ten Thousand Villages has been ranked by “Better World Shopper” among the top ten “Small But Beautiful” companies based on its social and environmental responsibility. In short, these companies are “leading the way in building a better world.”

And you can help! Come to the sale in the John and Carolyn Martin Hall November 17^th and 18^th. Better yet, call Beth McPherson or Kathe Crossley and volunteer to help with the sale. We’ll also have volunteer sign-up sheets at the Peacemaking Table two weeks before the sale. Meanwhile, check out the items we’ve already received to whet our appetite. Happy shopping!

United Religions Initiative

First Presbyterian of Elizabethton is a proud participant in the United Religions Initiative (URI). Our chapter is having its 7th annual Thanksgiving Celebration on November 17th! You are invited to celebrate religious and cultural diversity in our area. Here is the announcement:

The Northeast Tennessee chapter of the United Religions Initiative

(NETN-URI)

7^th Annual Thanksgiving Celebration

of Religious and Cultural Diversity

Date: Saturday, November 17, 2007 6:00 pm – 8:15 pm

Place: Johnson City Seniors’ Center (607 East Myrtle Ave.)

Bring: Potluck dish for every two people in your party indigenous to your culture. A small donation is most appreciated.

Canned food to benefit: Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee.

Types of food needed are assorted canned food items, dried beans, cereal, peanut butter, rice and pasta. Please no glass, baby food or home-canned items.

Join in our movement and dance activities following dinner.

RSVP to Tom Corum by emailing tec1930@cs.com or calling 423 283-9329. Please include the names of guests and a contact email address or phone number with your reply.

The purpose of the United Religions Initiative is to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings.

New Winos Are All About Jesus

The Layman and I are having a fun little chat. They have printed twelve letters of folks critical of my ministry. One even included the e-mail of my EP so tattlers wouldn't have to do the hard work of searching for it. I voluntarily met with my COM and EP over this nonsense and my ministry has been affirmed unanimously, of course. So what is next fellas?

Yesterday The Layman printed a letter from Tom Gray and reposted one of my blog entries. The Layman has never found a schismatic it didn't like and the new winebibbers are the latest vintage.

Tom Gray of Kirk of the Hills in Tulsa is one. He has decided to follow Jesus and to move his congregation to the fundamentalist EPC denomination. Whether or not the EPC will remain holy enough for him or other "tall steeple pastors" remains to be seen.

One commenter on this blog insightfully suggested that these big steeple boys (and they are all boys) will eventually go totally independent. They will then have their own little feifdoms without any responsibility to the denomination that provided the infrastructure for their congregations or even to the new denomination which they will use and leave on their way to independence. No responsibility and no accountability is the Promised Land. In their words, "unfettered."

Rev. Dr. G. Henry Wells, senior pastor of Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church (the site of the winebibbing conference) was quoted in the Layman article, "Let My People Go!"

"We are not leaving the PCUSA just to be leaving," he said, "but so we can do ministry unfettered and let God do His work in us where we are planted. We're going beyond denominational stuff," Wells said. "We're all about Jesus."

Now these poor tall steeple Moses caricatures so oppressed under the Pharoah of Louisville are trying to get sympathy for their cause. Somehow each reasons that the tall steeple he happens to currently serve is his own steeple. Shame on the PCUSA for thinking differently and for seeing to the stewardship of the whole of the Church.

The New Wineskins is aptly named all right as a temporary container for big steeple preachers drunk on their own power.

Oh, right, they're all about Jesus.

Friday, November 02, 2007

Why Some People Choose Not To Have Kids...

The interdisciplinary comments of some grade schoolers saved for posterity by school teachers who kept journals of amusing things their students wrote in papers:

The future of "I give" is "I take."
The parts of speech are lungs and air.
The inhabitants of Moscow are called Mosquitoes.
A census taker is man who goes from house to house increasing the population.
Water is composed of two gins. Oxygin and hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water.
(Define H2O and CO2.) H2O is hot water and CO2 is cold water.
A virgin forest is a forest where the hand of man has never set foot.
The general direction of the Alps is straight up.
A city purifies its water supply by filtering the water then forcing it through an aviator.
Most of the houses in France are made of plaster of Paris.
The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 opossums.
The spinal column is a long bunch of bones. The head sits on the top and you sit on the bottom.
We do not raise silk worms in the United States, because we get our silk from rayon. He is a larger worm and gives more silk.
One of the main causes of dust is janitors.
A scout obeys all to whom obedience is due and respects all duly constipated authorities.
One by-product of raising cattle is calves.
To prevent head colds, use an agonizer to spray into the nose until it drips into the throat.
The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
The climate is hottest next to the Creator.
Oliver Cromwell had a large red nose, but under it were deeply religious feelings.
The word trousers is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom.
Syntax is all the money collected at the church from sinners.
The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the other.
In spring, the salmon swim upstream to spoon.
Iron was discovered because someone smelt it.
In the middle of the 18th century, all the morons moved to Utah.
A person should take a bath once in the summer, not so often in the winter.

A New Presby

Welcome to Allison Emily Miller! She joins older brother, Lexton, and parents, Amber and Will, on their journey around the sun. Allison was born Monday, October 29th....