Category: Engaging Culture

The Sacredness of All Life

Have you considered all the ways in which …

LIFE IS SACRED

Abortion (of choice-caused conception)
Senseless killing (can there be “just war”?)
Death penalties (where’s the capital in that?)

Euthanasia (euphemism for “Mercy Killing”)
Suicide (the traumatized need mercy)
Poisoning our food, air, water, soil, bodies—

Won’t we do what we can to minimize these?
Accepted and un-confronted, a culture of death
will affect who we are, alone and together

Who and what do we want to be?
“Free”
Free, you say?

Where’s the freedom of the pre-born?
Is all fair in love and war, really?
Whose and what “vengeance is mine”?

Too complicated politically to fix?
Are Justice-and-Mercy scales broke?
Isn’t life a gift? Is death escape?

Will crumbling foundations give way in revolt?
Or, as we’re breaking and remaking will we find
that we’ve broken ourselves against bedrock?

Then what and where and who will we be?

~Catherine Lawton


This post previously published in 2021.

Art © Cladach Publishing

Are We In the Midst of A “New Reformation”?

“The fundamentalism of the last century is waning. And the liberalism of the last fifty years has failed to reform the Church.” –Adam Hamilton

If you don’t sense deep, unsettling change in our ways of doing church and being Christians in the world today, then I don’t know what planet you live on, or what church you attend (or have quit attending). I certainly have felt the winds of change, not only as a Christian writer/publisher, but as a church member and a person seeking to live on mission as a Jesus follower today.

My studies at Northwind Seminary (where I received my Masters Degree in Specialized Ministry) guided my thinking to gain a broader perspective on what many are calling “a New Reformation.” You’d be right if you said, “Didn’t we have a Great Reformation already?” But look back through history, and you will see that many times of renewal, revival, awakening, and reform have occurred during periods of upheaval in the world and a mix of self-satisfaction, apathy, and spiritual hunger among Christians.

If you want to be involved in what God is doing in the church and in the world, you pay attention, you listen to the winds of the Spirit; and you join hands, prayers, and efforts with other “listeners.”

In that spirit I want to share Northwind Seminary’s take* on the “New Reformation” we seem to be experiencing:

Ecclesia semper reformanda is a common Latin phrase used by church reformers to remind the people of God that “the church must always be about reforming.” The early Jesus Movement and Apostolic Church, the Imperial Church of the Holy Roman Empire, the Protestant Reformation, and Roman Catholic Counter Reformation, all had their day and role to play in the growth of the Christian tradition. At least three “Great Awakenings” in the history of American Christianity served to renew the Church at critical times. The “Great Emergence” of new church forms and fresh expressions of ecclesia at the turn of the third Millennium of Christianity served to prepare the way for a Global Church—no longer centered in Europe or America, but growing in the global south, Asia, and Africa. What next ‘new thing’ will the Spirit of God do in the world? What new ways and forms will characterize the next Church?

Behold, I am doing a new thing; do you not perceive it? –Isaiah 43:19

…Affirming a both/and approach, we affirm the great classical Creeds of the Christian tradition as well as the prophetic radical edge of what it means to follow Jesus today in a postmodern, post-Christian, traumatized world. As Richard Rohr reminds us: “The prophets of old were both radicals and traditionalists. With penetrating insight and wisdom, they saw into the heart of their own tradition and called the people of God to embrace a new day. We shouldn’t be surprised if we find ourselves falling in love with our tradition and wanting to radically change the way things are.”

…“I believe that Christianity is in need of a new reformation,” writes Adam Hamilton….“The fundamentalism of the last century is waning. And the liberalism of the last fifty years” has failed to reform the Church. “The new reformation will be led by people who are able to see the gray in a world of black and white.”

…”The new Reformation,” says theologian Elaine Heath, “is all about the emergence of a generous, hospitable, equitable form of Christian practice that heals the wounds of the world.”

According to Robert J. Duncan, founding president of Northwind Seminary, “The Church is moving from the modern to a postmodern world, fueled by digital media and innovative uses of new technology. We have an opportunity to redeem the technology of the global culture and use it for ministry in the digital age….Electronic circuit riding in the twenty-first century is the new form of evangelism and mission.”

Professor Leonard Sweet identifies an important parallel between the modern and the postmodern Reformations: “If the technology that fueled the Protestant Reformation was the printing press, and the product was ‘The Book,’ the technology that is fueling the Postmodern Reformation is the microprocessor and the product is ‘The Net.’

As a Christian futurist, Professor Sweet adds: “The NextChurch has two challenges: getting clear and clearing out.” Getting clear about who Jesus is and clearing out spiritual deformities that dis-order the church’s structural life and dis-able mission.” In the process, “the role of pastoral leadership is dramatically shifting from representative to participatory models” in the priesthood of believers.

…Professor Thomas Jay Oord sees a light at the end of the revolution. As we walk in God’s light we are becoming all that God has called us to be… as our ever-loving and relational God “guides us, inspires, nurtures, nudges, and coaxes us” into greater creativity and wholeness.

*The entire article, originally written and posted by Michael J. Christensen, can be found here: https://kairos.edu/2023/10/27/partnership-spotlight-northwind-theological-seminary/

and here: https://donkeysdelight.blogspot.com/2023/08/northwind-seminary-shares-its-mission.html

More about Northwind Seminary here: https://www.northwindseminary.org/

The beautiful photo by theologian/photographer Thomas Jay Oord is used with his generous permission.(I added the bolding of phrases.)

On hopeful paths of prayer and poetry,

~Catherine Lawton

 

Giving Thanks To “A Worthy King”

For Christ the King Sunday (Nov. 19 this year) I again share this poem:

Worthy to Receive Glory

Made to honor, we give fealty,

We seek true north like a needle.

But to look for your king

in a pulpit, disappoints;

in a government, fails;

in the mirror, distorts.

Look instead with the eyes of your heart

to the Wounded who heals;

to the Throne that is true;

to the Lamb who was slain,

Christ the King.

–Catherine Lawton

(Excerpted from the book Glimpsing Glory)

In Revelation Chapter 5, Christ the King is depicted as a Lamb who has been slaughtered. All the magnificence of Heaven bows down and worships this Lamb.

In Isaiah 53 we are told “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”

Then why do we continually seek the pretty, the popular, the powerful, the polished to emulate, venerate, and follow?

More questions: Have we ever given thanks to God for entering into our humanity and suffering with us and for us? Have we given thanks for the privilege of suffering with him and for him? Are we giving our hearts, our allegiance, our lives to the slaughtered Lamb who lives? the wounded one who heals? Are we willing to bring our wounds to the Lamb for healing? to transform us into wounded healers?

This Thanksgiving I want to join my thanks giving and praise with the angels and those who “fell down and worshiped” the lamb as they held aloft bowls filled with “the prayers of the saints” and as they sang a “new song”:

You are worthy …

for you were slaughtered

and by your blood you ransomed,

for God,

saints from every tribe and language

and people and nation….

To the one seated on the throne

and to the Lamb

be blessing and honor and glory

and might forever and ever!

(Rev. 5:9-13, NRSV)

Giving thanks,

 


Photo: Photo: “Thanksgiving” Stained-Glass Windows used by permission of Library of Congress

Current Buzz – Feb. 2020

Over a month into 2020 we’ve had some surprises as well as some planned happenings. In this post I’ll share with you some of the surprises. One of our authors has garnered increased media attention lately:

Hostage In Taipei : A True Story of Forgiveness and Hope by McGill Alexander

This memoir by now-retired South African ambassador and brigadier general tells the dramatic hostage story that occurred in Taiwan. A few years after the book was released, National Geographic TV broadcast a docudrama of this amazing story and testimony of the Alexander’s, which was re-enacted by a British production company. Now the “Locked-up Abroad” episodes, including this one (Season 1, Ep. 10: “Taiwan”), have become available on Amazon video. Viewers of the docudrama sometimes search for more about the story and land on Alexander’s Wikipedia page, which leads to info about Hostage In Taipei, which may lead to the interested party purchasing the paperback or ebook. One such viewer / searcher / reader was a Christian media person, who then invited McGill Alexander as a guest on his podcast. Find it in audio or video here:

 Artwork for Audio Mullet #35: How To Forgive The Man Who Shot Your Daughter Audio Mullet #35: How To Forgive The Man Who Shot Your Daughter  Or, even better, watch video of the episode on Youtube here.

Doug TenNapel and Ethan Nicolle welcome special guest McGill Alexander from South Africa, who was in an intense hostage situation many years ago while living in Taiwan. A notorious murderer and rapist held his family hostage for 26 hours, shooting McGill and his daughter – both survived. McGill and his wife later brought a Bible to the man who held them hostage and led him to Christ, forgiving him for what he put them through. This interview is all about that act – loving those who are your enemies, praying for those who persecute you. Why are we called to do it and what does it mean?

(In the 40-minute interview, McGill tells the story with such passion and freshness, you’d think it happened yesterday.)

Then, it so happens that one of the “Mullet” podcasters, Ethan Nicolle, also co-hosts the Babylon Bee podcast, which then hosted McGill on Jan 24. This one is probably even more indepth and thoughtful. You can listen to this 48-minute podcast segment on this page: Forgiving The Man Who Took My Family Hostage: The McGill Alexander Interview Jan 24, 2020.

You may know the Babylon Bee as a satire site. There are good vibes but no satire this time, as the story is deadly serious, has eternal ramifications, and has provided challenging, inspiring testimony to the world. In their interview, Kyle Mann and Ethan Nicolle covered these topics and more:

    • McGill’s story : How this hostage event happened and who the criminal was

    • McGill’s Christian faith

    • How did McGill get through this horrible event?

    • Forgiveness- what is it and what does it look like?

    • How long did it take to forgive, was this a process, and what was going through his mind as all this was happening?

    • Is forgiveness completely unconditional?

    • Does forgiveness condone the evil?

    • We live in a “show no mercy” culture nowadays, especially on social media. How does forgiveness shape how we approach this culture?

We appreciate the length of these podcasts and the time they gave McGill to tell his story, as well as the excellent questions and subjects covered in the discussions. (Thank you, Ethan.) We are also pleased at the increase in sales we have noticed as a result of these media opportunities. And we are even more pleased that the Alexander’s story is reaching ever-widening audiences.

In another part of the world, McGill Alexander was invited to Indonesia by CNA, an English-language Asian news network, to appear in an episode of The Negotiators to tell his hostage-crisis story, which was also reenacted. The 47-minute episode can be viewed at:

 The Negotiators: Ep 2: Taipei Hostage Crisis (Updated: ) Taiwan’s most-wanted criminal holds a South African diplomat’s family hostage at gunpoint. Negotiators find themselves trying to do their work in the midst of a frantic media circus.


Even though McGill was ill while in Indonesia for this filming, he did a great job.

I thank God for continuing to open doors for this story and testimony to be told through both Christian and secular media.

 

Cladach Authors in their Communities

We love to see our authors out participating in their communities, sharing their expertise and their books, and meeting readers. These events happen around the country and sometimes around the world. We love to receive reports and photos of local author activities, such as the following:

Donna Marie Merritt

Donna Marie Merritt was a guest artist at the Watertown (Connecticut) Farmers’ Market, selling and signing her many books including BIBLE POEMS. Donna is a long time resident of Watertown and well-known local poet, who has also worked in the community as a school teacher and librarian. Her goal is to ensure that every person of every age has books they love to read.  Worthy goal, I’d say.

John Buzzard

On Saturday November 2, John Buzzard, author of the Cladach historical novel THAT DAY BY THE CREEK, has sold and signed copies of his books at the Empire Ranch Cowboy Festival in Sonoita, Arizona, along with other members of the Western Writers of America. Looks like a great time, John! And I like the cowboy hat.

Marilyn Bay

Marilyn Bay signed copies of her novel, PRAIRIE TRUTH, at Coffeehouse Ten24 in Eaton, Colorado. Marilyn says she enjoyed visiting with people “about books, writing and the rest of life.”… Marilyn’s roots go deep in Northern Colorado farming soil, and her books, including ALL WE LIKE SHEEP: LESSONS FROM THE SHEEP FARM find eager readers near and far.

James Troy Turner

James Troy Turner sold and signed copies of poetry books, POEMS and MORE POEMS during the downtown festivities for Sugar Beet Days in Sterling, Colorado. Troy enjoyed signing his books, showing off his dog, PJ, and visiting with both new and old friends and customers, some of whom remember him from his farm-equipment mechanic days.

Dennis and Kit Ellingson

Dennis Ellingson, known as “The Herb Guy,” and Kit Ellingson set up their booth for the Master Gardener’s Fair in Central Point, Oregon. We’d love to have been there along with others of the public who stopped by to check out Dennis’s books and plants and Kit’s photography. Dennis and Kit are joint authors of THE GODLY GRANDPARENT and Dennis’s books include the ever-popular GOD’S HEALING HERBS and GOD’S WILD HERBS.

Don’t we have resourceful, creative, and engaging authors!?

A Story of Resiliency, Integrity, and Community

Each generation must find its way amidst cultural changes, clashes and conflicts. Carolina and Mauricio had to do this in the new novel, PRAIRIE TRUTH (just released). Reading a good historical novel not only gives the reader momentary escape, but paints a colorful picture and historical perspective that helps to clarify the conflicts of today.

Like the characters in PRAIRIE TRUTH, and like those who actually lived in the San Luis Valley of New Mexico / Colorado in the 1800s, I can look back at generations of my own family tree and find abundant examples of people fleeing persecution, oppression, and hardship to seek an identity, a living, and fulfillment.

My husband’s Danish forebears immigrated to America when Germany took over the southern section of Denmark on which their farm was located, and attempted to conscript their sons into the German army.

My Scots-Irish ancestors had earlier found their way to America amidst turmoils, persecutions, and deprivations in their part of the British Isles.

My great-grandparents found their way to a homestead in Eastern Colorado to seek new opportunities.

Members of my mother’s birth family found their way to the agricultural fields of California to escape the poverty of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression era in Oklahoma and southeast Colorado.

Another great-great grandmother, who is said to have been a Cherokee Indian escaped from the Trail of Tears, hid at the back of a tobacco farmer’s fields in Indiana and raised his illegitimate child. That child, who grew to be my great-grandfather, took the farmer’s name, avoided school, farmed steadily, and carved out a quiet life raising a family and serving the Lord, keeping silent about his parentage.

Fact can be stranger than fiction, and that makes fiction like PRAIRIE TRUTH believable. In this historical novel, a young woman born on the Colorado prairie to a white settler’s daughter and a Cheyenne Indian, never fully accepted by either culture, leaves home and rides her horse toward the mountains and high valleys southwest of Denver. There she learns the language and customs, and blends in, at least for a time. There she make friends, proves her abilities to contribute to the good of a community, and falls in love.

She finds out that her new community itself—the San Luis Valley of Colorado in 1888—is racially and culturally and religiously mixed also. Wars have been fought and won or lost. Borders of nations and states have been re-drawn. They must adjust to new language, new laws, and prejudices. But also, new opportunities present themselves.

The sufferings, traumas, and separations of the past were as real as those of today. The challenges of the present may feel insurmountable at times. But learning how resiliency, integrity, and community have carved paths of hope in times past, gives us courage to face into our problems today with renewed faith and hope for a better future.

~Catherine

 

 

A Worthy King

Worthy to Receive Glory

Made to honor, we give fealty,

We seek true north like a needle.

But to look for your king

in a pulpit, disappoints;

in a government, fails;

in the mirror, distorts.

Look instead with the eyes of your heart

to the Wounded who heals;

to the Throne that is true;

to the Lamb who was slain,

Christ the King.

–Catherine Lawton

© 2018, 2020

Excerpted from the book Glimpsing Glory

In Revelation Chapter 5 Christ the King is depicted as a Lamb who had been slaughtered. Yet all the magnificence of Heaven bowed down and worshiped this lamb.

In Isaiah 53 we are told “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”

Then why do we continually seek the pretty, the popular, the powerful, and the polished to emulate, venerate, and follow?

 


Photo: “Thanksgiving” Stained-Glass Windows used by permission of Library of Congress

Experiencing the People and Places of the Stories

I love hearing from our authors about their interactions with their readers.

Judith Galblum Pex (Judy) often forwards emails and vignettes to me.

Judy is an American-born Israeli Jewish Christian. From their home and ministry in Eilat, Israel, she and her husband, John, have a unique perspective on the Middle East—and the world—especially because thousands of travelers stay in their hostel (The Shelter) each year. And because the Pexes are “Trail Angels” who help people who are walking the 600-mile Israel National Trail. Judy wrote a book (Walk the Land) about her and John’s experience of walking the famous and challenging Trail from one end of Israel to the other.

Here’s one experience Judy shared in a recent update:

“Last night John and I slept out at a camp site on the Israel Trail. In the morning we met a group with 50 participants called ‘Walk about Love.’ They enable people to do the Trail by providing meals and taking their bags from camp to camp. One of the women, a Reform Jewish rabbi, from New York City [in the picture above with Judy] immediately recognized me from Walk the Land, and very excitedly told me she had read my book and wanted a picture with me. Another woman was eager to have a copy in Hebrew. The organizers of the group knew the Shelter. … In preparing for her trip she came across my book on one of the sites and ordered it on Amazon. She used a Yiddish word to mean “preordained” when she realized she was meeting the author.”

And here’s another recent experience Judy had, this time at The Shelter:

“A tour group with 25 people from New Zealand led by a couple we know and guided by a friend of ours came to the Shelter today to hear about the work here and we sold fourteen books, a mixture of all three books.”


Judy receives emails from readers all over the world who have read her book(s). Here are examples of recent messages she has received and shared with me:

“I have just enjoyed reading your book “Walk the Land.”  It was lent to me by Astrid and Craig who are friends at our church and who met at your Hostel and were saved through your ministry.  Like Astrid I am Jewish, in fact I am a child survivor of the holocaust.”

–(a reader in Australia)

“Shalom Judy. I am currently reading your book Come Stay Celebrate. I’m only on chapter 9 and I can’t put it down. Your stories have reminded me of when I first believed in Jesus in 1986. How my life changed and how exciting it was to learn and grow. It’s created a hunger in me to keep learning and growing! Thank you for writing this book and sharing your faith and leading so many to Jesus!!”

–(a reader in Las Vegas Nevada)


Judy often shares experiences like these on her Facebook author page. You can follow her there: https://www.facebook.com/Judith-Pex-author-280669071951952/

Judy’s books:

Grace in Horrific Times

There are 110 million displaced people in the world today, more than ever before in history.

There are more natural disasters occurring than ever before in recorded history.

There is a growing spirit of division among people, as evidenced in current discourse, events, politics and elections. So much of this division seems fueled by fear, anger, and distrust.

There have been horrific times before in history. We humans like to think we have learned from those experiences and that we wouldn’t let such things happen again. Can we learn from history? Will we? Or must history repeat itself?

Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) And he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27)

Cladach has released books that feature true stories of God—and his people—at work even during the most horrific historical times. For instance:

All these personal memoirs happened in extremely tumultuous times and/or circumstances. Each describes injustices, cruelty, and evil forces unleashed on nations, people groups, and individuals. Each of these stories also gives witness to God’s personal presence, providence, and grace.

We offer these stories in the hope that readers will find renewed perspective, compassion, understanding, and hope.


Photo by theologian/photographer Thomas Jay Oord

Showing Love and Offering Hope in the World

We can each do something this day to increase shalom, well-being, and flourishing in our world—to participate in “God’s kingdom come.”

I like the quote by Anne Frank, that I photographed summer 2017 when I was visiting Birmingham, Alabama. This monument was erected in the context of the Civil Rights struggles of that city, quoting a young Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis. If she could think and pen such words, shouldn’t we—as followers of the Messiah—who revealed to us God’s heart of Love and compassion—be looking for ways to “improve the world” that God created, Christ gave his life for, ever lives to intercede for, and is coming back to reclaim and re-create? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” John 3:16.

As a believer and follower of Jesus, the Creator and Redeemer, I want to reflect his character of holy love into this groaning, strife-filled world.

One way I seek to do that is by publishing books that offer hope. I believe that hope is what sets “Christian books” apart among general book publishing. Whether through fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry; a story, essay, or poem may portray a context of brokenness, sin, and conflict. But into that milieu will shine a ray of hope that gives the reader renewed courage to reach up and take hold of “the helping hand at the end of God’s long arm of love.”

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