Dear Friends and Patrons,

After seeking to deepen and express the idea of a truly Christian priesthood, Jonah and Patrick now turn their attention to that which all true “shepherds of souls” are called to build and cultivate: community.

Why would we ever want to join be a part of a community?

What is the nature of Christ-Community, what is unique about it?

What does it mean that this community, in the course of history, has done things that one could only be deeply ashamed of?

Five Butterflies, by Odilon Redon, ca. 1912. From the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

Beginning in a more biographical way, Patrick and Jonah share how they found their way into the Community of Christians, the walls that prevented them from entering it and the doors that opened, calling them in.

We look forward to exploring the question of community into the summer and hope this first episode stirs your own reflections on community, Christ-Community and very much welcome your comments, reflections and questions.

With warm June greetings to all!

Our thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed the opening music, "On the Road" and the closing music, "Seeking Together". You can find more of his music here.

Our thanks also to Emily Watson for her excellent digital production work behind the scenes.

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In this final episode on the question, What is a Priest, Patrick and Jonah turn their attention away from the consecrated priesthood and towards the "Priesthood of all Believers." They take up the idea that everyone who comes into contact with Christ is in the process of consecration, is in the process of changing and transforming into his likeness.

This meeting with Christ, though, is vital to the consecration process - to the process of reuniting that which has been profaned with that which is utmost sacred. Patrick brings a reading from 2 Corinthians (verses 14-17), which opens a beautiful line of questions, including, "What does it mean to live for more than just myself? For someone who has died for me? Who am I, where do I go, when I am no longer just myself, but myself for him, with him, in him?

Jonah brings forth the concept that in relation with this being, it transforms us from our old selves into a new self, into a relationship, into a community. They explore the feeling that, when united with Christ, one has the feeling, "I am more myself than I ever was."

We are so grateful that you have joined us along the way with this series, "What is a Priest?" and we look forward to hearing your thoughts and reflections in the comments. We will be back next week with a new theme.

Notes from this Episode:

- John 2:13-22

- 2 Corinthians 5:14-17

Our thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed the opening music, "On the Road" and the closing music, "Seeking Together". You can find more of his music here.

Our thanks also to Emily Watson for her excellent digital production work behind the scenes.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dear Patrons!

Thanks for your patience with our erratic posting of episodes! Now that the ordinations have taken place we are hopeful this will settle into a more regular rhythm.

This past weekend (May 14-16, 2021) eight individuals stepped forward to be consecrated into the priesthood. It was a powerful, spiritually potent and beautiful event, blessed by some of the most glorious Ascension-in-nature experiences.

During that weekend Jonah and I took the opportunity to sit down with fellow priest, Julia Polter, and have a conversation.

Jonah asked Julia about how she experiences her priesthood in the hospital rooms where she has been serving as a chaplain this past year and this opened up essential new elements in our exploration of the question: What is a priest?

We hope you enjoy this conversation and are not distracted by the background sounds! Far away from our ‘studio’ in Toronto and in the middle of a large community event, this was the best we could do.

Julia will be moving to the Pacific Northwest to the city of Bellingham, WA, which is located 50 miles from Vancouver, Canada.

Her new work includes supporting The Christian Community in the Vancouver/Seattle area while leading a Clinical Pastoral Education Center at Peace Health, a 300-bed city hospital in Bellingham. She will design and direct a program there to educate divinity school students and seminarians in spiritual care.

Our thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed the opening music, "On the Road" and the closing music, "Seeking Together". You can find more of his music here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this fifth episode on the question, “What is a Priest?”, the conversation deepens the element of creativity, of creation, in priestly work and, especially, what is generated through the creative, priestly activity of Jesus Christ.

The focus this time for Patrick and Jonah is on the image of Priest as Creator. It is no longer enough, we come to understand in this episode, to just be there at the threshold between the Spiritual World and the Physical World. Priests, and all humanity as consecrated individuals, are called into active participation in the creation of a new humanity, a new community and even "a new earth."

In order to deepen this, Patrick and Jonah lead us into a contemplation of how a new, ”third world” - a consecrated world - comes into being that is neither just earth or just heaven, but like a child born of their marriage. A guiding image is given out of esoteric Christian geometry of the “Vesica Piscis”*:

Jonah also shares a story about Emily (editor of the podcast and this blurb, hello from behind the scenes!) and her experience of recognizing a mystery in what happens at the giving of the peace at the conclusion of communion in the Act of Consecration (Eucharist service in The Christian Community). She could ’see’ how this peace blessing worked as a kind of weaving of community.

And where is this new, ”third world”, to be found? Are we all still stuck in the world as it always has been? To illuminate this question, Patrick shares the secret meaning behind the tradition of the Easter Egg Hunt and the true feelings this can awaken with the child to search for this new world that is hidden within the old.

As always, we so look forward to your questions and thoughts and send you all our very warmest greetings.

Notes:

• 2nd Corinthians 5:17 - Jonah worded this as, "if we are all active in christ, we are in a new creating power"
• Book of Revelation 1:5-6 - “To him who loves us and has freed us from the sickness of sin through his bloody and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father…"
• Book of Revelation 3 - White Robes
• John 14:12 - “[You] He will do even greater things than these…"
• John 15:5 - “I am the vine, you are the branches…"
• Matthew 25:14-30 - Parable of the talents
• Matthew 13:1-9 - Parable of the sower
• John 20:27 - "Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.' "
• Acts 9:1-19 - Damascus experience of st. paul
• Matthew 25:40 - what you do to the least of these, you do to me
• * The Vesica Piscis in Geometry and in the Artwork of Christianity

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Welcome back to The Light in Every Thing.

This week we pick up the thread of the last three episodes, "What is a Priest?" We recap some of our journey so far, remembering that a priest holds a place on a kind of "shoreline" between our world and the Spiritual world. The job of a priest is both to offer something from the physical world to the spiritual world, and then secondly to turn around and bring something from the spiritual world back to the physical world, a kind of gift or Divine Offering.

And so we describe today the lineage of offering, from the story of Cain and Abel, with the image of them as "creator" and "shepherd," all the way through to Jesus and beyond.

But first, we delve into the question, "What is different in the work of a Priest after Christ and what he accomplished at Golgotha?"

We explore the transformation of priestly offering from another angle today: how it has shifted from something external and tangible (like a lamb, or a bull) to something inside an individual, something active: to Love itself. This is a generative act - to Love, to sacrifice one's own life for their friends. Patrick discusses how the future of Christianity rests in this new priestly work which is actually generative, and creative, building something new - and goes beyond an older way of "giving up" or sacrifice, which was towards a recovery of the Garden of Eden.

The Being of Christ, The Word, The Name of God, Love- Patrick and Jonah string together all of these pictures into one image, an image that we might strive to be made in the likeness of. Through today's episode, we see in Christ Jesus a new image of Priesthood, of the individual, and of community. We see that humanity has moved into a role of "creator-hood," by the priestly example of Christ Jesus.

Notes:
- In this episode, Patrick references the point where the whole Hebrew nation are called into priesthood as Numbers 6 - Numbers is actually a reference to Aaron's blessing. (Numbers 6:22-27)
- The correct reference for that point in our episode today is Exodus 19:6, "and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."
- John 17 - The High Priestly Prayer.

The Shoreline of the north side of the South Fork of Long Island. Long Beach, Sag Harbor, NY.

Our thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed the opening music, "On the Road" and the closing music, "Seeking Together". You can find more of his music here.

Our thanks also to Emily Watson for her excellent digital production work behind the scenes, and this week for her photograph of her hometown, above.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer ("Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog") by Caspar David Friedrich.

In this episode of The Light in Every Thing, Jonah and Patrick continue to unpack their question, "What is a Priest?"

Two central elements have now emerged: what is offered from the shoreline to the divine ‘ocean’ of God’s spirit and what ‘laps upon our shores’ from that world of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth, a gift from that world that blesses ours. The priest is called to stand at that shoreline, turned in the one direction when bringing the offering gift of the human community and turned towards the shore bearing the blessing of that higher world into ours.

In this episode Patrick and Jonah deepen this picture by asking about each of these ‘gifts’, exploring the ways in which a priest works between these two worlds. One source of offering is explored in relationship to the harm we have done. How can we heal what we have desecrated - the world and ourselves? Can we, through offering, make amends? And how can what we offer become a ‘substance’ that can be made use of by the Creator in sharing further blessing?

We end today with a forward-looking image of the Priest cultivating a consecrated city, as opposed to a backward-looking hope of returning to the Garden of Eden.

Notes from this Episode:

- Hebrews 7, Melchizedek blessing Abraham's line

- Genesis 4, Abel's Offering

- John 8, Jesus writing on the ground

- Luke 15:11-32, Prodigal Son

- Genesis "Garden of Eden", and Book of Revelation “New Jerusalem”

Our thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed the opening music, "On the Road" and the closing music, "Seeking Together". You can find more of his music here.

Our thanks also to Emily Watson for her excellent digital production work behind the scenes.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Light in Every Thing, Patrick and Jonah enter further into the question, "What is a Priest?"

What has the activity of a priest been in the ancient, pre-Christian world? How did Christ renew the priesthood in Jesus? And what is the future of this priestly work?

Today, two fundamental ideas build the core focus for the conversation: the work of consecrating and the activity of offering at an altar. To unfold these two ideas, Jonah and Patrick discuss many stories and images from the Old Testament, including the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, and the figure of Melchizedek, the first "Priest" named as such in the bible. It becomes clear that we can only come to the idea of ‘priest’ through a cosmology - or larger, world context - in which priestly activity is needed.

Central to the reclamation and rediscovery of priesthood is a whole new approach to what is usually translated as "sacrifice". In this episode we explore the original from Hebrew meaning and why this activity at an altar has - for so many millennia - been the way human beings have sought to draw nearer to God.

Notes from this episode:

• Click here for more on the Garden of Eden.
• In this episode we give a shout out to The Bible Project. You can find their podcast episodes on the images and descriptions of priest in sacred scripture here.
• Click here for the story of Melchizedek in Genesis 14.
• More here about Wendell Berry.

Our thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed the opening music, "On the Road" and the closing music, "Seeking Together". You can find more of his music here.

Our thanks also to Emily Watson for her excellent digital production work behind the scenes.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this first episode of a new series, Patrick and Jonah enter into a new theme: What is a priest?

Following their conversation last week about the story of Jonah and the whale as a sign of the Spirit, they turn this week to explore the idea of a "Priesthood of all believers," and look at how every human being can be a sign of the spirit and have a quality of priesthood in their work. Using the example of Marie Condo and her Netflix show, Tidying Up with Marie Condo, they discuss her ability to invite her clients into a reverence for their home and performs a kind of spiritual connection and greeting of gratitude for the being of their home. In such a simple action we see how one person can bless and consecrate this world through a connection to the higher world of beings and inspire the people with her to join in this reconnecting, consecrating work.

In addition, Jonah shares his experience of one of his early guides and teachers, Orland Bishop, and how the words from his mouth felt like something that was coming from a deeper, more real world than the one apparent to the senses.

How can we each become a "sign" of the Spirit? How can we each work to become a consecrated one, and become a beacon in our daily lives for others to see, recognize, and follow?

In this episode they explore the question from the perspective of direct experiences in life. In the coming epispdes we will explore what a priest is through the help of imagery from the Old Testament, the gospels and Apocalypse and through the renewed priesthood in the movement for religious renewal.

Notes from this Episode:

- The story of Jonah and the Whale, which was referenced in regards to last week's episode (Episode 34).

- Marie Condo, and Tidying up with Marie Condo.

- The Sacrament of Confirmation: a free PDF from Floris Books is available, on all seven Sacraments of The Christian Community. Written by Evelyn Capel.

- The Story of Moses, from Exodus

- The High Priestly Prayer, John 17

Our thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed the opening music, "On the Road" and the closing music, "Seeking Together". You can find more of his music here.

Our thanks also to Emily Watson for her excellent digital production work behind the scenes.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.