RethinkChurch

A New Beginning --- http://youtu.be/hlfYHAV1i8w

An alternative to leaving UMC for some gays is to vote to make one structural change in the church that enables hearts and minds to evole to a more tolerant, loving, compassionate state: - http://tinyurl.com/85ugyqq

This is an offer in response to your request for writers. "Finding Common Ground: Occupy Wall Street to The Tea Party" Underlying Theme: Let's seek to build bridges to points we both agree upon. Here I try to edit out the noise of chaos in the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement and The Tea Party.  I watch for the light of God's truth during times of strife, change, and confrontations. I filter this through a Methodist - conservative upbringing, in context of values learned more through personal experience than through any church dogma. The column becomes a daily blog of running emotions, highlighting and giving voice to underlying tensions between the right and left, with linked in "license permitted" videos, personal observations, commentary on other writers, hot links and embedded videos, political movements for reform all from a street level perspective of an armchair Jungian Methodist Mystic.      Here's an example of how it will look  Let's seek to build bridges to points we both agree upon.  http://tinyurl.com/3fa94u8   and   http://tinyurl.com/7qh28pv  I can turn over to RethinkChurch during our active affiliation as one of "your writers" any revenues accruing to my blog at, "United Methodist Church Unofficial Layman's Open Forum"  http://umc-unofficiallaymanopenforum.ning.com/ It would be hoped that you might consider partnering me in this undertaking with a retired or active, Methodist minister or writer for his/her comments and running critique even if they do not agree with my methodologies and comments. Dr Riley Case might prove to be a good counter point commentator, but that would be expecting perhaps a miracle of association that would only serve to frustrate whoever volunteers to partner by mixing their gentle, professional competence, in a boiling pit of layman's chaos and asking them to accept the combination  is a worthy moral equivalency that somehow emerges to the preservation of their dignity. So I can wing it solo should no tempering ecclesiastical over sight wish to "partner."  Thank you. In the mean time you have got to "unthrottle" the RethinkChurch Conversations to allow much greater lay input administrative powers. Every church website seems to quickly default to either no layman input freedoms or discouraged layman input. RethinkChurch as it defaults to the same tendencies repelling against its fear of chaos, quickly renders itself irrelevant. All voices matter, especially those with which we do not at first seem to harmonize.         Let's seek to build bridges to points we both agree upon. Rich Buckley

(Rich’s Thoughts and Emotions) Occupy Wall Street – New York (OWS-NY) has survived the season and given many of us hope that we might find ways to listen to each other in the spirit of non-violence. I bow my head in appreciation to the Movement that it has kept the call for violence at bay. The energy of the season is rushing in upon us. The moment seems all too brief, perhaps not more than a 72-hour window when Western hearts everywhere open themselves to the symbols of peace and love, where a willingness to listen and absorb the energy you send me, seems at least as strong or stronger as the apparent need for my energy to be heard is sent out to you. These are moments of cosmic unity. May they transform our hearts and heal our divisions. Pass the Love.. rich buckley (http://youtu.be/r_YOG3jMlV4 )