28 September 2012

His Holiness the Dalai Lama to give lectures in Middlebury Oct. 12-13

His Holiness the Dalai Lama to give lectures Oct. 12-13

March 13, 2012

Update: Tickets to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama are sold out. Live video feeds will be provided to both Dana Auditorium and the McCullough Student Center Social Space during both of his talks. Seating for these on-campus video viewing areas is free and open to the public, and is available on a first-come, first-served basis. The lectures will also be streamed live online. This link will be live a few minutes before the lectures begin: http://go.middlebury.edu/dlstream.

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. ― Do spiritual and religious traditions offer guidance that inspires action? His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet and winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, will explore this thought-provoking subject when he visits Middlebury College to deliver two lectures ― one to the campus community and another to the public ― on Oct. 12-13.

Middlebury faculty, staff and students may attend his talk, “Educating the Heart,” at 1:45 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 12. His lecture at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 13, “Finding Common Ground: Ethics for a Whole World,” will be open to the public. Tickets for both events, which will take place in Nelson Arena, will be available through the Middlebury College Box Office.

The theme of his visit, “Cultivating Hope, Wisdom, and Compassion,” encompasses both of his lectures. According to Middlebury College President Ron Liebowitz, the purpose of the talks is to help people explore resources for hope, optimism and cooperation, while challenging them to lead lives of courage and engagement.

“We are deeply honored that the Dalai Lama, a man of peace who embodies these qualities, is coming to Middlebury,” said Liebowitz.

“The problems that face humankind today, and that this generation of students will be called upon to address, will necessitate not only knowledge and technological ingenuity, but also compassion, determination and sacrifice,” said Liebowitz. “These human attributes and virtues have long been fostered and sustained by the world’s religious, spiritual and philosophical communities.”

In a 2010 opinion piece in The New York Times, the Dalai Lama wrote, “Finding common ground among faiths can help us bridge needless divides at a time when unified action is more crucial than ever.”

“The Dalai Lama understands that the challenges we face in healing our planet require many peoples to come together as one if we are to be successful,” said Middlebury College Chaplain Laurie Jordan, who helped to organize his visit. “We are interested in exploring how activists and everyday citizens alike can draw strength from each other and from cultivating their own inner lives.”

The Dalai Lama’s visit this fall will be his third to Middlebury. He was previously on campus for two symposiums — in 1984 for “Christ and the Bodhisattva,” and in 1990 for “Spirit and Nature: Religion, Ethics and Environmental Crisis.”

A steering committee at the college has been working under the guidance of the Venerable Lama Tenzin Dhonden, personal peace emissary for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to arrange this fall’s events.

Born in Tibet 77 years ago, Tenzin Gyatso was named the 14th Dalai Lama when he was 2 years old, becoming the successor in a line of political and spiritual leaders spanning six centuries. In 1959 he escaped after a failed Tibetan uprising against China. Since then he has been living in Dharamsala, in northern India, the seat of the Tibetan political administration in exile.

In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent struggle for the liberation of Tibet. He also became the first Nobel Laureate to be recognized for his concern for global environmental problems.

The Dalai Lama has received many awards, honorary doctorates and prizes in recognition of his message of peace, inter-religious understanding, universal responsibility and compassion. The author of numerous books, he makes frequent speaking engagements around the world.

More Information
More information about the Dalai Lama’s visit is available here: http://www.middlebury.edu/studentlife/services/chaplain/hhdl.

25 September 2012

Dynamic Ecclesiology of Communion ~ Cheers theme ~ "where everyone knows your name"

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

All those night when you've got no lights,
The check is in the mail;
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by it's tail;
And your third fiance didn't show;

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.

Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead;
The morning's looking bright;
And your shrink ran off to Europe,
And didn't even write;
And your husband wants to be a girl;

Be glad there's one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to go where people know,
People are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows your name.

Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;

(fade out)

Feast of St. Sergius of Moscow ~ My "senior sermon" from 2006

Peter Carey - Sermon – Feast of St. Sergius of Moscow

25 September 2006

Virginia Theological Seminary Chapel

Experts at fear

We are all experts at fear, and we have been instructed to fear just about everything. Terrorism, melting ice caps, contaminated spinach, fears for our children, fears that our church may not learn to speak one to another. These fears can paralyze us and petrify us, and turn our hearts to stone. We can be buried by these fears.

Hope

We need courageous hope. Today we pray courageously in the psalm “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me out of all my terror.” We pray this prayer so it may shape us, so it might give us strength and allow us to recognize the audacious, foolish and miraculous action of being “delivered out of all our terror!” Setting aside our fears, seeking God, we begin to live the dream that God has for us: “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me out of all my terror.”

‘Fear’ in text

So we turn to the Gospel, where we hear Jesus tell of the Kingdom of God … here must be the good news, after all … but we hear a parable from Matthew in which sorting and judgment comes, in which a net is thrown into the sea, and picks up fish of every kind. Upon the shore, the angels of the Lord sort the good from the evil, and place them into baskets and the bad will weep and gnash their teeth. On first sight, this parable does not look like good news. However, it should provoke fear of the Lord which is unlike earthly fears – it is awe of the Lord. It might provoke a radical call to examine our lives, to see where our wills may be one with God’s will. When we remember these parables of judgment, we remember that our very lives are dependent upon God. In remembering God, we remember that all that we have is gift, and we remember that the one who judges us also loves us, and forgives us.

Hope Under Awe and Grace of God

Though our lives are assaulted by fears on every side we proclaim a life lived in Hope. We live in awe of the Lord, so that we might remember God even in the darkest moments, even as our fears crush in upon us. We may need to step away from earthly fears, we may need to look to God, and cultivate the awe of the Lord.

One who lived in awe of the Lord was St. Sergius of Moscow who we remember today. He also lived in a time of great fear in Russia. The Tartars occupied Russia and the Russian people had to live under the oppression that any occupying force creates. Sergius did a most audacious, foolish and miraculous thing of going to the forest. As a 20 year old, together with his brother Stephen, he settled in the dense forests of Radonege with bears for his companions, suffered from fierce cold in winter, and the harshness of the forest. There they built a chapel made of wood, where they could live amidst the fir trees, the bears, live in awe of the Lord. In time, tales of Sergius rivaled stories of St. Francis as he befriended animals and became an icon of Russia. However he was ever humble. While he became a counselor to worldly leaders, and assisted in helping motivate the Russians to remove the Tartars, he never sought or accepted ecclesiastical posts. One contemporary commented that, “he has about him the smell of fir forests.” His simple chapel has now become the Church of the Holy Trinity, where the oft-depicted Rublev Icon sits. He lived in Hope, and remained in awe of God.

In our own times of fear and anxiety, when the ways of this world dominate our hearts and our understanding, we turn to God. We remember that God has already done that audacious, foolish and miraculous thing of becoming human, of delivering us from our terrors. For God has sent his angels to “encamp around those who fear Him, and he will deliver them.” The psalmist reminds us that God has besieged us with Grace; that God has stuck to us like flypaper; that God has encamped around us and will not leave. Instead of terror and worldy fear, instead of weapons of death and destruction, God has sent his angel to surround us and deliver us from these fears that infect our lives In order to recognize God’s encampment we may need to go to the woods (figuratively or literally), seek sabbath – practice prayer – cultivate courage - we may need to commune with bears, we may need to go to the fir trees, and seek the Lord, rather than accept the assault of fear upon our very souls. We may need to approach this table where a most audacious, foolish, and miraculous thing happens – where we have communion with our maker (and live to tell the tale).

What I pray for you, and for me is to experience that grace that passes human understanding. “For the things that are impossible with humankind are possible with God.” God has given us Grace to step away from earthly fears and to remember the miraculous, audacious and foolishness of God who will deliver all those who stand in awe.

24 September 2012

Wandering into the unknown

In the early Christian era, many Celtic Christians embarked on a kind of pilgrimage called a peregrinatio. Unlike the pilgrimages to the Holy Land undertaken by Christians in the Middle Ages, a peregrinatio proposes no specific relic to see, shrine to visit, or icon to venerate. Nothing allows the pilgrim to return home with a sense of ‘I’ve been there and done that.‘ Instead, a peregrinatio is a wandering into the unknown, inaugurated by the pilgrim’s inner conviction of fate and fortune. Essentially a peregrinatio represents travel for the sake of Love, initiated and sustained by the love of God. It calls the traveler to leave all that is familiar, to let go of security and any goals or desires for life except one; to find the place of one’s own resurrection.

—Karla Kincannon, from "Creativity and Divine Surprise" (Upper Room Books, 2005).

23 September 2012

For fun: James Bond travel journey ~ from Lonely Planet

50 years of James Bond: a dream 007 travel itinerary

Robert Reid
Lonely Planet Author

View gallery

Bond, James Bond that is, turns 50 on the silver screen this year. For those of us who leave room for a little glamour into our suitcases, he’s the ultimate travel guide, shaking it up in classiest hotels, casinos and worldwide settings mostly linked to a map of a once-was British imperial world. For the ultimate Bond fan on a mission, here’s a dream round-the-world itinerary hitting the best travel destinations over the 50 years of films.

Goldeneye, Jamaica

Start here at ground zero for 007. This North Coast hotel, near the so-called James Bond beach, feels like the sort of place he’d retire to, probably because he was ‘born’ here, when creator Ian Fleming – a British Naval Intelligence vet – lived here, shut the windows and set up in his bedroom to type out 14 007 novels. He chose the name James Bond after a birder authority he admired – and because it was so dull sounding. While here, detour to nearby Mammee Bay, where Ursula Andress, as Honey Ryder, appears dripping in brine in the first film Dr No.

By the way, Sting wrote the top-selling stalker song of all time ‘Every breath you take’ here. The hotel is now owned by Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records. Bungalows run a mere $1200 a night (including breakfast, at least).

Jökulsárlón, Iceland

Its name – Icelandic for ‘glacial river lagoon’ – says it all, yet you’ll still reel from the site of luminous-blue icebergs drifting through a lagoon off the Ring Road on the other side of the island from Reykjavik. The icebergs, as seen in the 1985 film View to a Kill (the Duran Duran one) and the car chase scene of 2002 film Die Another Day (not to overlook Tomb Raider) can spend five years floating before they melt into the 600m-deep lagoon. Plan on visiting mid-May to mid-September, when boat trips get you on the water.

Stoke Park Golf Club, England

Sean Connery only came to love golf after shooting a pivotal match with Goldfinger in that 1964 film at this golf club – the course also appeared in the 1997 film Tomorrow Never Dies. The course, Britain’s first country club, is set on an estate with a 1000-year history, though much of what we see was designed by former owner John Penn, who sold millions of acres in Pennsylvania and used the money to transform this in the late 18th century.

Schilthorn, Switzerland

Try to ignore the fact that George Lazenby did his magic up here in the 1969 film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service for a bit. The 360-degree peak-top views can, on clear days, spot Mt Blanc in France and the Black Forest in Germany. It’s unreal. The slightly goofy revolving restaurant, seen in the film, is named Piz Gloria after Fleming’s 1964 novel. The name is a mistake – using the Romansh word for peak ‘Piz,’ though that Swiss dialect isn’t used in the area. The hike up is a workout – I know, I’ve done it – but you can opt instead for a cable-car ride up from Gimmelwald or Mürren, two highlight villages of the Jungfrau Region.

Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic

The Casino Royale of Casino Royale — actually the first of Fleming’s books, but only released as a true Bond film in the Daniel Craig era — is Grandhotel Pupp, originally built by Lords as Saxony Hall in the Czech Republic’s original ‘glam resort,’ a few hours from Prague. The film is set in Montenegro, but it’s all Karlovy Vary. And there’s indeed a casino here, as graceful as the one in which Craig’s Bond pulls his stunt with Le Chiffre who bleeds tears. Le sad.

Udaipur, India

OK, the film is sort of crappy (the name too), but the Roger Moore film Octopussy makes as compelling a case for visiting Rajasthan’s Udaipur as any Bond destination. Particularly the Lake Palace, which appears to float on the lake (perhaps because of Jackie O’s visit). Built in the 1740s of marble as a royal summer pad, it’s actually situated on Jag Niwas island and now functions as a luxury hotel, the Taj Lake Palace, with open-air courtyards and mango-tree-shaded pool. Rates start at 37,000 rupees (US$670).

Ao Phang-Nga Marine National Park, Thailand

It looks like paradise – a shallow bay of 42 limestone rock-tower islands jutting out of perfect turquoise water – but it’s no secret, particularly during December or January peak season. One popular ‘local’ is Francisco Scaramanga, who lived on Ko Phing Kan, or James Bond Island in the 1974 Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun. It’s a highlight of the boat tours (a three-hour trip is about 500B per person, about US$16).

Himeji Castle, Japan

You Only Live Twice, the film in which Sean Connery appears to have four or five lives, is the ‘Japan Bond’ pic. Shot in 1966 and 1967, it was set in many locales of Japan, drawing so many Bond-chasing crowds it interrupted some shots. Three moats surround this castle – also used in a couple Kurosawa films – which appears as a (frickin’) ninja training site, and is Japan’s largest and most visited. It dates to 1333, was remodeled in the late 16^th century, and survived heavy bombing in WWII.

Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco

Sure, all the San Franciscans roll their eyes about the taffy shops, souvenir shirts, bus groups and those (delicious) clam chowder bowls served from a huge carved-out roll of sourdough bread. But wait, James Bond was into it. At least he was happy to meet a CIA agent Chuck Lee here in A View to a Kill (and it’s where Maud Adams walks by in the background as an impromptu extra, becoming the only Bond girl to appear in three Bond films). Not a bad place to sit, stare out at the Golden Gate Bridge and consider a globe-trotting journey, 007 style.

Santos Woodcarving Popsicles

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