Rev. Calli

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Everything posted by Rev. Calli

  1. Greetings to you my brother, Welcome back. We shall have to discuss the relative merits of Garrett vs Chandler at some point In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  2. Greetings to you my brother, I echo the sentiments of my dear brother Mark 45 when I too offer my welcome. Ok, Shatner Kirk, or Pine Kirk? In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  3. Greetings to you my brother, Very very kewl In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  4. Greetings to you my brother, As our brother LeopardBoy pointed out, a lot depends on a person's particular faith system (or lack of one). Speaking from a Christian context, I personally don't think a clergy person's place has really changed all that much. Granted it's not like in the day when the clergy were among the most educated people in their particular village or city. People can easily read the bible on their own and have readily available commentaries to help them understand what is actually being said in scripture and how that can relate to their own lives. At least in the Protestant churches, there is no theological need for a Priest to act as a mediator between God and the individual. You can read the bible till your eyes bleed, pray until your knees cramp up, sing songs of praise until you go horse, but sometimes to really feel the presence of God in your life, you need to feel a human hand, hear a human voice, to know that in your times of sorrow and pain that you are not alone. The physical presence of a member of the clergy helps many to really feel the presence of God. A great deal of my ministry involved chaplaincy work. One of the most important concepts I learned was that of the "Ministry of Presence." How important it is for many people when facing a tragedy, to have someone there sitting with them, not praying, not talking, just holding their hand. Letting them know that God is with them. Of course, for many (again in the Christian context) having clergy helps in the act of worship. Alas, so many feel inadequate in their personal prayer and devotional life. For them, having a professional helps them feel the connection to God in worship. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  5. Greetings to you my brother, Welcome to the forum! I hope you find the same enjoyment here that I do. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  6. Greetings to you my dear brother, Greetings to you my dear brother, At least he didn't ask you for money. I've had that happen to me. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  7. Greetings to you my brother, I wear a simple wooden cross pendant, but typically only on the days I conduct the worship services at my church. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  8. Greetings to you my brother, I don't consider myself a survivor as much as someone who has been very very lucky. Lucky I have a wife and family who helped and supported me during my dark times. Lucky for the therapists who taught me to overcome the PTSD and the other manifestations of the abuse I suffered, and gave me the courage to hold the church of my youth accountable for what happened to me. Lucky for my friends who stood by me and supported me, and lucky to have the church I serve that didn't turn away, and continues to give me the opportunities to serve. Fred
  9. Greetings to you my brother, Well, at least we like you In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  10. Greetings to you all my sisters and brothers, Looking at the question from my particular perspective, I think that at least part of the problem is the same one that people of faith often face with how others view them. People tend to generalize groups by what any one subset of the group proclaims the loudest. Let me use my little corner of Wisconsin for an example. In Madison, WI, there is a group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation. This is a pretty militant atheist group that regularly puts up billboards speaking out against faith in general, and at least in Wisconsin led a crusade against cities that had religious symbology as part of their city seals. Many Christians and other people of faith began to think of all atheists as intolerant and even prejudiced against them because of their beliefs. Of course, that's nonsense because most atheists (IMHO) could care less about what others believe as long as no one tries to force them to hold those views. But the Freedom From Religion folk gets all the press. So it is easy to make the generalization that Atheist = Anti faith. On the other hand, in Milwaukee is a group called the Wisconsin Voice for Christian Youth. This is actually a media company that runs a Christian Television station and a few Radio Stations in the area. Their programming is very evangelical and fundamentalist, and in my view comes very close to the same kind of bigotry that the Westboro Baptist church spews out. Their viewpoint is very much at odds with what most of the mainstream Christian Churches teach, yet because their message gets spread every day via television and radio, many come to think that WVCY represents mainstream Christianity. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  11. Greetings to you all my sisters and brothers, My mother and father were both Roman Catholic. My mom was born in the Catholic church, and my father converted from (gasp) Methodism in 1946 so that he and my mother could be married in the Catholic church she attended. Needless to say, I grew up Roman Catholic. Like most Catholic boys, there was a time when I wanted to be a priest. I used to talk about my dream of entering the priesthood to one of the assistant pastors at the church I grew up in. Unfortunately, about the time I entered puberty, I made the mistake of confessing to him about engaging in typical boyhood acts of self-love, figuring he would give me a typical penance of saying a rosary or two. I was very shocked and ashamed of myself when he seemed to take my confession as a personal insult, telling me he could not give me my penance right then, but that I had to go and wait for him in the basement of the church where he would assign me my penance. That penance consisted of submitting to a beating, then being raped. Afterwards, he told me if I wanted to save my soul, and ever be able to enter the priesthood, I would have to come only to him for confession every week, and that I could never tell anybody else about our arrangement, as no one else would be as understanding and forgiving as he was. This situation went on for close to a year. Finally, I was mad enough about the whole situation to tell him off and stop coming to church altogether. I never gave up my basic Christian faith, but I did reject the Catholic church as full of hypocrites. A couple of years later, I was blessed to meet my future wife, who was and is a faithful member of the United Methodist Church. I began to go to church with her, at first as a joke because at the time I considered all ministers as out and out liars. As I got to know my pastor tho and realized that he was an honest and truthful guy, and as I began to understand the teachings of John Wesley, my faith began to blossom once more, and my early desire to enter the priesthood returned, just in a little different form. So as they say, the rest is history. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  12. Greetings to you my dear brother, Welcome back! Are you going to go to Pierogi Fest in Whiting next weekend? In Solidarity, Rev. Calli
  13. Greetings to you all my sisters and brothers, When I was in high school, I didn't like most of my classes, and my grades showed it. While I would occasionally get an A, most of my grades were C's and B's, and to my parent's dismay a few somewhat lower. Looking back, I think most of the problem was the way the classes were taught. I learn best by doing, and not having somebody lecture me. That all being said, I have been very surprised in my adult life about how useful many of the classes I had taken in high school turned out to be. History, social studies, English, speech, business math, typing, all have been very useful in the careers I have followed in my adult life. Surprisingly, for about 7 years I had a job where I even found geometry useful. I am very glad that during my years in school (keep in mind this was the early 1970's), none of my science teachers ever insisted on teaching what we call Creationism now. Since most of the core concepts of Creationism turn the physical sciences on their heads (for example, disregarding what we have learned thru archeology and carbon dating about the true age of the world) at the very least it would have been very confusing to me, and I suspect lead me to reject what science teaches as false. Our teachers did talk about what different faith systems taught about the creation of the world, but they were always very careful to label these teachings for what they are, matters of faith taught by different religions and not provable by science. When my children were old enough to go to school, both my wife and I resisted the temptation to enroll our children in one of the many private schools that had sprung up in the Milwaukee area, due to Wisconsin's adoption of the school voucher system. We didn't want our children indoctrinated in the fundamentalist and anti-science beliefs taught in most of these schools, as we wanted them both to understand modern science, and be able to distinguish between what faith teaches, and what science teaches. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  14. Greetings to you my brother, That's why I used typically and not always. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  15. Greetings to you my brother, The issue isn't having the belief. The issue is how it plays out in a Chrisians interactions with others. Do we who have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior look down our noses at those who have not, considering ourselves as special somehow like the Scribes and Pharisees of the time of Christ dud, or do we acknowledge that our God is a God of Grace who loves all people? Also, must we insist that every word in Scripture must be accepted at face value, without acknowleding that there are many things, especially in the Old Testement, that are wonderful stories that while they were attempts to explaine sime great truths, are just not factually accurate. It's absurd to insist in a world where we know full well how the world and humanity evolved that a Christian must take the tale of creation in Genisis literally. Sure it is important that we share our faith. But running around telling people they are damned to hell if the don't belive is not the way to help people come to live Christ and accept him as their own. The better way is to share the words of live and hope he gave, and live out the teachings by our actions. In Christ's service, Rev. Calli
  16. Greetings to you my brother, Certainly, there are many things that I hold as absolute truth. I wouldn't be able to be effective in the Christian ministry if I didn't. For me tho, the issue is not about what is truth and what is not, the issue is about judging people to be condemned by God for holding beliefs that are contrary to what I understand the basic Christian beliefs, or for performing actions that go against what I see are the teachings of Christ. Typically, hard core Christian fundamentalists take the view that if you do not accept their understanding of what you must believe to legitimately call yourself a Christian, then you do not have faith and are therefore damned by God for all eternity. Hardcore Atheists typically think Christians or followers of any faith system that ultimately worships a Supreme being are superstitious ignorant fools worthy of scorn, and have no trouble at all heaping that scorn toward anyone who suggests that there is something good about having a belief or at at least grudging acceptance of the idea of a supreme being. Faith is not science. I cannot go to a Lab, run experiments, and proclaim that there is or isn't a God, or that my understanding of Christianity is any truer than someone elses. Nor could I prove that God does not exist. All I can do is say this is what I believe, and this is why. I do that in hope that those who find themselves longing for a relationship with God (what in the UMC we call Prevenient Grace) are able to find their way to that relationship with my help, But if they don't, it doesn't mean that they are evil sinners, held over a pit of fire in the hands of an angry God. The cultures we grew up in, our life experiences, the disconnects we have seen between what people of faith say, and what they actually do can easily turn people away from God. But that doesn't mean that God turns away from them. I am reminded of this passage from the Gospel of Luke: One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:39-43 NRSV) This is the only instance in the New Testament where anyone is promised salvation by Jesus himself. It wasn't to one of his disciples, or a Rabbi, or anyone who society would normally think about as being worthy of salvation. It was promised to a con, an outcast, who by his own admission deserved what was happening to him Only God can see into our hearts, and only God can judge. That is why I cannot, will not condemn someone whose religious view is different from mine. Of course, I will point out where I disagree, and if someone is being especially obnoxious I may be a little sarcastic and even annoyed. But I will not use that disagreement to see them as anything less than a Child of God. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  17. Greetings to you my brother, There are two groups I try to avoid if at all possible. One: Hard core atheists. Two: Hard core fundamentalists of ANY religious persuasion. No one is so self righteous as those who believe that they and they only have the absolute truth. While I hope it is obvious to everyone who knows me that I'm a pretty committed Christian, I have come to understand that the way I understand my faith is not necessarily the only way it could be understood. And I have also come to the view that perhaps, just perhaps, there are other paths to God besides standard Christianity. And to cap it all off, I know that there are many people who have very good reason to be, at the very least, skeptical of the whole idea of God. It is not for me to judge or condemn. All I can do is share my faith as best I can, hoping that some will find my faith helping them to discover their own path to God. For those who choose a different path or no path at all, I know that God still loves them as much as God loves me, and they will still be my brothers and sisters. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  18. Greetings to you my brother, Short, sweet, to the point, and even from a Methodist! Gotta love it. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  19. Greetings to you all my sisters and brothers, First of all, let me preface my thoughts by pointing out I can only speak about this in a Christian context, as other faith systems may have very different understandings of the terms "church" and "ministry." And as our Brother Kaman points out, for many these are totally unnecessary constructs. That all being said, in Christianity a church (small c) is a body of people who share the essentially the same theological views, and who get together on a regular basis for worship, for instruction in the teachings of their particular church, to hold each other accountable for their faith life, and to equip and empower people to live out their faith. Our ministries are some of the concrete actions we take to live out our faith. Those ministries can take many different forms, and may not at first glance really seem like a ministry until you consider it under the lens of faith. In my experience, one of the more visible ways Christians in the ULC go into ministry is to engage in Marriage ministry, helping couples to formally commit themselves to each other and asking for Gods blessing on their union. Others may preach and teach about their religious views, hoping to help others come to a loving relationship with God. In the church I am a part of, aside from preaching and teaching, I am part of the group that established and supports a food ministry, serving free meals to the poor each Saturday night. We also have a clothing pantry, a mending ministry (one of our members is an excellent seamstress who repairs the clothes and backpacks of many of our guests). We have a free bread ministry (one of our members has a contact with two of the commercial bakeries in the Milwaukee area, and each week brings literally hundreds of loafs of bread, which we distribute free of charges to anyone who wants some (ofter leaving a large basket filled with bread outside the church doors under a large sign that says FREE BREAD. Last year we even built a couple of shower stalls in our church, so that the homeless could come and get free showers when they needed them. But our ministries do not have to be connected to a church per say, and some of us have careers that can rightly be called ministries, jobs we perform that we do as ways to live out our faith. For many years, I owned a coffee shop in Milwaukee, where I hosted multiple AA and SA groups, giving them free meeting space, and would frequently give free meals to people who came in off the street broke and hungry. I know people in the health care field who donate their time and knowledge to free clinics. I know lawyers who donate their time to the Legal Aid society here. I know people who give their time to cleaning up the parks or protesting injustice that they see in our society. Even the homebound, the elderly and shut ins who pray for others have ministries just as real and necessary as those who spend fortunes and donate so much of their time talent and treasure to the causes they want to support. These things and much more are valid ministries. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  20. Greetings to you my brother, Have you sent a message to brother Kevin or Amulet regarding your concerns about this issue? IMHO that would be the proper thing to do. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  21. Greetings to you my brother, I personally have no issue with using profanity at all. You should hear the language that my Men's group often uses (a couple of the members are ex-military and they taught me words I had never heard before). If I owned the forum, and could make the rules, mine regarding the use of certain words would be much more relaxed than what they are here. However, this forum is owned by ULC.NET, and brother Kevin makes the rules. It's his playground, and we are here only because he allows it. It's up to us to either follow the very few rules he sets, or go out and start our own forums. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  22. Greetings to you my brothers, All quite true. We do not give up the copyright to the original posts we make. In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  23. Greetings to you my dear brother Murph, Happy birthday my friend. I wish for you another grace filled year! Your brother, Reverend Calli
  24. Greetings to you my brother, Most Protestant churches, because of our understanding of the nature of Grace, do not have a ritual that corresponds with the Apostolic blessing the Catholic church uses. We do have rituals for the sick, and for those near death, but nothing we would say that implies the absolution of sins that someone from a Catholic tradition would use. The Book of Common Prayer fo the Anglican Church, the Book of Worship from the United Methodist Church, and the Star Book for Ministers (Baptist, non-denominational) have sections for Prayers of the sick. At the moment of death, many rituals contain this prayer (or one substantially similar). "Depart Christian soul, out of this world, in the name of God the Father who created you, in the name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you, in the name of the Holy Spirit who sanctified you. May you rest this day in peace, and dwell forever in the paradise of God." At the times I have been called to the bedside of someone who was dying, and whose faith I did not know, I would use this variation: "Depart beautiful soul, out of this world. In the name of God our parent who created you, who loved you, and who stands ready to receive you. May you rest this day in peace and dwell forever in the paradise of God." In solidarity, Rev. Calli
  25. Greetings to you my sister, When I first entered the ministry, my first real crisis came when I had to decide what I really wanted to be called. Truthfully, I just wanted people to call me by my first name, as I didn't want to be putting on airs, and implying by the use of a title that I was somehow better or higher up the faith ladder then they were. The thing I discovered tho, was that in both the church I was serving part-time, in the hospital where I was doing my CPE training, many but not all the people I served felt uncomfortable by calling me the exalted title of Fred. After talking privately to a few of them, as well as some of my colleagues, I came to learn that many people need to use a title in addressing someone who they feel is a spiritual authority, as that helps them to feel like they are talking so someone who perhaps is closer to the Creator than they are. , To me, it sounds silly, as I've known multiple laity who I consider much more spiritual and in tune with God than I am. But because I want to honor the needs of the people I serve, typically I will use the title of either Pastor or Chaplain (depending on if I am working in a church or hospital setting) and my first name. But when the people I am working with come to know me, I always tell them that I am alright with being called Fred. This btw is a pretty standard practice in the UMC (where I hold my ordination from). I do know a few old school type pastors who insist people call them Reverend so and so or even Reverend Doctor so and so. These same people also seem IMHO, to be pompous you know whats. Very occasionally, I will use the title of Reverend, but normally only when signing official documents like marriage licenses or letters to Judges on behalf of someone who needs a good word put in for them. When I outside of my official duties, I never use a title. Also, I do not carry around an ID card that Identifies me as a member of the clergy. It truth, I can't think of a single example of a mainline Christian church that issues ID cards to their clergy members. All we ever get is a copy of our ordination certificate. In 20 years, I have only had to show that twice. Once to do a wedding at a Prison in Indiana, and once when I was appointed as a temporary fill in chaplain at a Prison in Wisconsin. In solidarity, Rev. Calli