Saturday Afternnoon
February 25, 2006

No coffee at this time.
Had lots earlier.

Wonderful presentation by Rev. James Dickerson, Pator of New Community Church in DC and Founder of Manna, Inc for Affordable Housing, today at WTU. This was a morning of prayer and reflection sponsored by the Consortium Faculty Spirituality Group.

Jim Dickerson was powerful.
He shared his personal spiritual journey and what he has learned in an informal and totally convincing way--like our friend on the journey.

As a one called to Social Justice Ministry, he realizes that the deeper he goes into social justice the deeper he must go into Contemplative Prayer. He devotes his Fridays to prayer at St. Anselm's ABBey in the District. He is their "Friday Monk"

He belives that we should not 'back off' but go deeper.
We seek the guidance of the Spirit and not just our own plan.

What he said is a challenge to me at a variety of levels.

Peace,
John

Dear Friends:

Not much coffee late this Friday afternoon--anticipating the snowstorm but hoping it will not affect the Prayer Service for Christian Unity and the presentation of the Consortium Ecumenism Awards Monday at Catholic U. [4:00 pm weather permitting].

I was at Catholic U. yesterday afternoon--along with lots of faculty and students-- to hear a public presentation on Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue by Dr. Paul McPartlan [He is a Visiting Professor at Catholic U. from England]. Dr. McPartlan is an official Vatican representative to this dialogue--which is just resuming after a significant lapse of time. The presentation was excellent and the questions acute.

One of the advantages of being executive director is going from campus to campus and hearing superb discussions in faculty groups, with other colleagues over lunch and on occasion in public lectures such as the one yesterday.

There is always more to learn.

[A sign that I am still 'professorial' in some sense is that I will be marking the papers from the class I taught on 'Spiritual Ecumenism' tomorrow during the snowstorm!]

John

Dear Friends:

Not much coffee late this Friday afternoon--anticipating the snowstorm but hoping it will not affect the Prayer Service for Christian Unity and the presentation of the Consortium Ecumenism Awards Monday at Catholic U. [4:00 pm weather permitting].

I was at Catholic U. yesterday afternoon--along with lots of faculty and students-- to hear a public presentation on Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue by Dr. Paul McPartlan [He is a Visiting Professor at Catholic U. from England]. Dr. McPartlan is an official Vatican representative to this dialogue--which is just resuming after a significant lapse of time. The presentation was excellent and the questions acute.

One of the advantages of being executive director is going from campus to campus and hearing superb discussions in faculty groups, with other colleagues over lunch and on occasion in public lectures such as the one yesterday.

There is always more to learn.

[A sign that I am still 'professorial' in some sense is that I will be marking the papers from the class I taught on 'Spiritual Ecumenism' tomorrow during the snowstorm!]

John