Stories and Women Today Leading a Planetary Movement for Our Survival

Dear Earthlings,

The story of women coming into planetary leadership gives us courage and hope. The most precious gift we can give or receive this year is the gift of a new vision for an ecologic civilization including women in leadership. We are being called instinctually, politically, religiously to save our common home for our children, grandchildren and for Mother's and children of all species. Religious stories of pregnancy and birth are metaphoric and inspire men, women and children to give birth this year to a new vision and hope for the future and our survival. Women with courage, tenacity and creativity in politics, religion, education, justice work of many varieties, locally and globally, mothers, grandmothers, maids, movie stars and midwives coming together to work for our survival as a human species.

The planet is on fire and women are calling 911. We don't care if you are Chinese, American or from Kenya, let's just come together and put the fire out before our children, families and communities burn and die. It is a past time to come together as a human family and dedicate ourselves to saving the living Earth. Maybe it has to be with us women boldly stepping into global and local leadership to make manifest this vision of planetary cooperation including the super powers- China the United States. All global leaders, countries and global citizens are invited at the round table of cooperation for conversation that leads to action to create an ecological civilization.

We need vision and hope more now than ever before and our religious stories provide the needed visionary food to grow and develop. As we give birth to a planetary movement we call upon the Spirits of our brave ancestors to help us. Mother Mary is one such individual and the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of many Mother Mary stories of vision and hope amidst genocide and despair.

Mother Mary like Greta Thunberg, is a teenager with eloquence and wisdom far beyond her age. Mary praises God in the Christmas story and gives thanks to her God, the God of mercy and justice, "My soul proclaims your greatness God......you who have deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places. You who have filled the hungry with good things, while you have sent the rich away empty." We are called during our planetary crisis to follow in Mary's legacy and join all the justice movements of history working for peace and healthy air, water and food-enough to share with all creatures.

This Sunday we will tell the story of courage, hope and vision--the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Set in what is now Mexico, several hundred years ago, the pregnant Mary comes back in a vision cast as an indigenous Native Indian woman. She gives Juan Diego a powerless regular guy marching orders. There is work to be done she says and if the big shots, the power elite laugh at you, never mind. Never give up. No time to give in to fear and despair or take any of the insanity of the superpowers personally. Our Lady does not give us the option to stop when we suffer rejection and failure. No matter how hopeless things appear she eggs us forward to keep trying. She tells us to make a way when there seems to be no way, to rebuild a community of justice and beauty in the same spot where sacred life has been denigrated by Empire. When we tell this story, her message is not only for Juan Diego, Our Lady is speaking directly to all of us during our current planetary crisis.

We have a planetary emergency on our hands and it is time for women to support one another in leadership. As I continue as co-convenor with Rev. Jeff Wells with a new group working with Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. our vision is for the US and China to work together to save our world, and to do this with regular people around the world. I need your support. As the first women to serve my first full time church in New England many years ago, at the time, I was the first woman minister in its then 285 year history. Frankly, it has not been easy to be the first woman minister in all the churches I have served. Perhaps women previously have not supported one another, because we felt we were barely hanging on by our finger nails and wanted to stay included in work places where women had not been allowed historically. Necessity is the Mother of Invention as they say, and during a planetary emergency we all are catapulted into supporting one another in new and radial ways. Let's experiment! I want to support you women out there in leadership. Please call on me and share more about the work you are doing and your dreams and visions for a livable future for our planet. I want to show up for your events, sign up and join your organizations, pray with you on the phone or on Zoom, give you encouragement when you feel depressed and like giving up. We need your support here at Church for Our Common Home and our work with Dr. Cobb and the US China Project and our new project of an Interfaith Secret Prayer Garden at the John Cobb Eco Farm. May we all become like Our Lady of Guadalupe and give one another encouragement. Our story we pray will be like hers and may roses bloom in the desert of our planetary catastrophe.

An awesome woman I am working with on the China/US Project is Audrey Kitagawa. She was the first woman president of the Parliament of World Religions when I meet her in Korea a few years ago, at the first ecologic interfaith conference. She was the key note speaker with Dr. Cobb and gifted us with her grace and wisdom. Her beautiful presence warms my heart for she is a global citizen having worked with the United Nations. She is accomplished, wise, beautiful, gracious and please read more about her organization, Humanity's Team Gregg Braden (humanitysteam.org)

Ceasar Chavez called upon the Spirit of Mary and Our Lady of Guadalupe to guide and protect him in his work for justice for farm workers. We plan to paint a mural on our barn of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Ceasar Chavez as we work for justice for the soil and for people and other living things here at the John Cobb Eco Farm. May our prayers here at our Interfaith Secret Prayer Garden and online prayer practice fill us with fruits of the Spirit; Forbearance and long suffering, Forgiveness and Love of Enemies, Patience, Generosity, Gentleness, Goodness, Peace and Self Control, Kindness, Faithfulness, Joy, Courage and Creativity. May our dreams and visions of an ecologic civilization aka justice for Mothers and children of all species be born this Christmas morning.

Sending love, Bonnie

P.S. Sorry I sent a bad link last time and here is a YouTube as a book end to the video above. Funny YouTube Ad

P.S.S. Our Lady of Guadalupe has inspired justice movements and spirit filled art work for centuries. The image of Our Lady in a tree below is written about in the link below. "This piece, which appeared seemingly overnight during the summer of 2017, is the work of South Bend artist Beatrice Bradley, a 20-year-old junior at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, who is majoring in studio art with a concentration in painting."

Backstory: Our Lady of Guadalupe on the tree | Latest | NDWorks | University of Notre Dame\

C

Pregnant with Ecological Civilization A New Advent Story of Vision and Hope

Dear Earthlings,

The Rev. Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. gave a series of sermons on ecological civilization and process theology at Church of the Village a Methodist Church in New York City, a few weeks ago. His last sermon was about, "Love of Enemies." I attended on Zoom. Dr. Cobb's benediction and final blessing was electrifying and I felt as if an arrow had pierced my heart.

"Imagine President Biden and President Xi of China," he said, "meeting together to work together to save our world." I was moved to imagine this far out possibility and shared my enthusiasm.

The USA has a history of calling and treating China as, "Enemy Number 1" Imagining the two major superpowers working to save us is a new idea. I like it. After worship, Rev. Jeff Wells, the wonderful and dynamic lead minister at Church of the Village invited small group discussion on Zoom with the preacher. I shared with Dr. Cobb that his invitation to imagine the two presidents coming together to save our living earth was electrifying to me. I went on to suggest that because he has a close relationship with people in the highest levels of Chinese government and he is an American citizen, he is in a unique position to actually make this invitation for real.

I know Cobb knows Chinese politicians because I traveled in China with Dr. Cobb a few years ago. We had a meeting with Mr. Jialu Xu, the Vice President of the Chinese Parliament, a friend and fellow philosophy professor of Dr. Cobb's. There was no security, not a gun in sight. We drank tea and the two men talked and a few of us listened. You won't believe one of the things they talked about. Mr. Jialu Xu turned to John Cobb, his old friend for they have gotten together many times during Cobb's trips to China. The Vice President of China asked John Cobb, " What is your favorite Gospel in the New Testament, John?" He replied, "Well, of course, I appreciate the Gospel of John like everyone, but as a theologian, I am particularly fond of Paul!"

OK, if that doesn't blow your mind, I'll eat my hat. If the highest levels of the Chinese government can be friends with our "Protestant Pope" the major interpreter of Alfred North Whitehead, a philosopher, theologian and environmentalist who has dedicated his life to "Seizing An Alternative Before It is Too Late" than we can ask the American people to sign a letter in support and create a movement of radical global cooperation.

A few hours after the service and sermon about "Love of Enemies" I received an email from John Cobb with a draft of letter he had written to the two presidents. He asked me to help him. So, of course I said yes, not knowing what that would entail. I read his letter at our (4 pm PST ) Church for Our Common Home worship service that afternoon and we reflected on his message. Since that time, a small group has formed talking about beginning a movement to save our earth by encouraging China and the US to work together. We are pregnant with hope for the vision of ecological civilization for our living earth.

I suggested that Dr. Cobb contact some of his famous friends to help him begin a movement of global citizens challenging their super power leaders to save our living Earth. I asked for David Korten's email for I had met him briefly in Toronto at the Parliament of World Religions a few years back. I thought he would have ideas about how to get press attention for he and his wife began YES! Magazine, YES! Magazine (I will give you YES! Magazine if you have not read it for Christmas. It is fantastic!) I hoped he would have press contacts for us. David's life story is inspiring. He had a change of mind or a kind of conversion experince and gave up capitalism. He left Harvard and has gifted us with inspiring ideas and books like, Change the Story, Change the Future. He is a member of the Club of Rome, Club of Rome.

David responded to my email suggesting I talk with his friend John Perkins. John Perkins is the NY Times Best Selling author of the brilliant book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, as well as the founder of Pachamama Alliance, and has writing many books about global injustice and the wisdom of indigenous peoples and shamanism. He shares generously about his adventures in Ecuador and around the world. John is a rare bird both part shaman, part economist. He takes people on adventures and writes like the wind. Check out his website and sign up for his newsletter. It is fantastic. John Perkins

It turns out that John Perkins is currently writing a book about China. I invited him to meet Dr. Cobb on Zoom. Since that meeting, we have sent Dr. Cobb's letter to President Biden and President Xi, as well as letters asking for other famous people to sign on in support. Dr. Cobb's brilliant letter writing has gone out to Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama, Al Gore, Greta Thunberg etc. We also sent out a press release, had Dr. Cobb's letter translated as well as the press release translated into Spanish, Mandarin and Hindi. There are plans to have people sign in support as well as groups. We have even hired a publicist! Here is Cobb's letter to the presidents in case you missed it in our previous blog. Cobb's letter to the Presidents.

Our movement needs a new name, something that captures the hope for China and the US Working for a Living Earth. Please send your ideas.

This Advent is a dangerous historic time. Covid, floods of refugees, genocide of species and eco systems, starvation, poverty and injustice, war and the horrors of the Blah Blah Blah of politics as usual or worse. Church for Our Common Home will share about the letters and emerging movement as we share a new story and the vision of an ecological civilization in response to the bad news. Light comes in the darkness, babies are born in stables as their refugee parents hope for a better life for their children.

And then guess what happened? After the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland the presidents met for three hours on Zoom. Do you think they read Dr. Cobb's letter? It is possible. Everything effects everything else so of course it had to help, yes?

This Advent I ask that you join me in imagining that we are all pregnant with a new story, a vision of our human family turning catastrophe into an alternative. If you are anything like me, you are hoping beyond hope that we can be a part of meaningful work for the common good. We gather weekly on Zoom at Church for Our Common Home to worship with the animals and to pray to Emmanuel, the God who is with us. I agree with Margaret Mead who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Pregnancy is dangerous. We have no idea how we will feel day to day or if the birth will be unusually difficult and painful. Will our vision of an ecologic civilization be born healthy and strong, or premature and completely different than what we imagined. Chaos and darkness before birth is the given. Mr. Rick Smyre is a futurist who is a part of our group. Lifeboat Foundation Bios: Rick Smyre He wrote a book entitled, Preparing for a World That Does Not Exist Yet. His work develops “capacities for transformation” in the thinking and activities of citizen leaders in local communities. Sounds like a worthy Advent Adventure to me.

We need you! It's time to gather and imagine a movement dedicated to the safety of our grandchildrenfuture generations and Mother's and children of all species. It is darkest before the dawn. Crisis is an invitation for transformation. We are pregnant as a human species whether we want to be or not with new visions and hope, for us humans can be tenacious and hard working. It does not surprise me that this adventure came out of a sermon on the radical notion that humans can learn to love their enemies. Martin Luther King, Mohamad Gandhi and Nelson Mandela all found a way out of no way. It is time for us Earthlings to follow in the power and example of Black Lives Matters, go into the streets, go to the internet, gather together in local gatherings and to pray to save our living Earth.

Walt and I moved to Oregon a year and a half ago to create a community to learn to live in harmony and love with the nature world, to learn to love and pray for our common home. Our support system is growing online and in person as we reach out to people and to communities also seeking a new way to live. There are pioneering people and communities around the world and I long to get connected and support one another, to work in partnership. Our ministry has recently joined in partnership with The Church of the Village in New York City The Church of the Village,, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, The UU Congregation of Salem, as well as the Claremont Nexus Group, Claremont Nexus Group a new organization begun by Dr. Cobb to connect the world of process thinkers with one another.

As a mother, grandmother and minister, as an Earthling, I sense that God is calling me to do whatever I am able to do to create a more livable world for future generations, no matter how impossible. I'm all in. How about you? What the hell is our choice? Exactly, I rest my case. Please join us as we share a new story for Advent, a visionary story of hope. Come dream dreams and share visions. What do you think an ecological civilization will be like?

Sending love, Bonnie

P.S. Check this Youtube out. You will love it. Thank you to Dr. Kevin Clark for sharing this entertaining and poignant Youtube with me and consider this a Hanukka gift from me and Kevin. Please share it with your friends. Link about The Juice Media and Honest Government Ads

Sunday worship

Nov. 28 Pregnant with Ecologic Civilization : An Advent Story of Visionary Hope in 2021

Dec 5 Advent Taize service

Dec 12 Our Lady of Guadalupe Special Worship

Dec. 19 Healing worship

Dec. 25th Christmas morning worship on Saturday 10 am PST in the Manger/ Barn with the animals

Dec. 26 Call for Artists for the Earth In worship we will begin writing and drawing together virtually or in the Barn what our vision of an ecologic civilization looks and feel like.

Jan 9 2022 I may be in southern California and we will have Zoom worship and people in San Diego will be invited to gather in person.

Church for Our Common Home | Rev. Bonnie Tarwater | (858) 248-5123 Sunday worship 4 pm PST

The Secret Prayer Garden and Retreat Center at the John Cobb Eco Farm Tuesday Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina 9 am PST Zoom ID 3025719458 Thursday Dream Group 5 pm PST

154235 Strong Road, Dallas, Oregon 97338, revtarwater@yahoo.com www.churchforourcommonhome.com

The Secret Prayer Garden

"For you God created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb." Psalm 139:13

Dearest Earthlings,

We live and move and have our being in the body of God. (Acts 17:27) Who cares? So ? What are you talking about?

Yesterday I read in the news that 23 million people may starve to death in Afghanistan. Did I read that right, 23 million people? The US, where I live, has recently stopped our "longest forever war." Now the Afghani people have been abandoned by the the US and the world. Refugees from climate change, drought, starvation, war, war, war. And then there are the over 700 US military bases around the world and some 400 in the US that pollute more than any other country. One little tid bit I learned from the 26th UN Climate Change Conference Cop26, last week. We are reminded as we near Thanksgiving of the genocide of the Native American people as well as eco systems here in the US and everywhere. Lies are told, retold and believed. Winter is coming, people and animals, trees and the soil will hurt and freeze to death. And did I hear that right, 500 plus oil lobbyists, more than any countries delegation of people, were in Glasgow Scotland at the UN Climate Conference?

And who cares about prayer in such a time of catastrophe lies, insanity and death?

You and me and all of us, I'm guessing. A Secret Garden in our Hearts to honor Love in a world too often without it. There is still life all around us to love and pray and care for. Please join us this fall and winter season and pray for Mother Earth who like you is also in God's body. Please sit with your back up against a tree here or where you live. Buddha taught us about silent meditation in nature or anywhere. “Here, monks, monks go to the forest, or go to a tree, or go to an empty house and sit cross-legged, sit straight and stay mindfully in front of you." Or if you don't have a tree, sit in a chair which was once a tree perhaps.

Jesus, hundreds of years after Buddha, also taught us about silent prayer and meditation, “When you pray, go by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your God in secret. Your God who sees in secret, you." Gospel of Matthew 6:6

Mary Magdalene, the myth and untraditional story goes, traveled to the South of France after the death and resurrection of Jesus where she lived a long life of silent prayer and contemplation in a cave. Giving up fear of death is also a possible gift of a silent contemplative prayer practice. We will remain in God's body when we die, perhaps.

We are busy painting prayer boxes and putting them on trees and walking the twelve prayer stations over our five beautiful acres. Sometimes our neighbor's dogs join me and sometimes the cats and always God is there with me, if there is a God. Of course there is a God! Just sit still and wait and pray or meditate and you will feel her. You are not alone, not now, not ever.

Our beloved dog, Juno was killed instantly a week ago by a truck in front of our house. He was chasing the truck and was caught under a wheel. He is now buried- from dust to dust- at the 7th prayer station dedicated to the Mother's of All Species and Their Children. (Photo of Juno's grave see below behind the Mother Mary statue at the center and heart of our farm). Perhaps religion was invented for mothers' whose children die. Juno now lies inside Mother Earth's body underground. His spirit soars and runs free here and moving as fast as the wind, blessing us with the unconditional love and joy that was Juno. He was twenty pounds and I carried and held him like he was my baby. I believe that many of us long to hold babies. After having a baby inside your body and then holding a baby and nursing them, you want to feel that again and again. God longs to hold us, perhaps. When we pray in silent contemplation it feels to me as if God wants to hold us.

God loves all of creation. I like that idea. After having had a baby inside my body, it feels right to call God a she sometimes, but obviously she has no gender. S/he has countless galaxies inside her body, so gender seems irrelevant somehow when you put it into that cosmic perspective.

The Catholic Prayer Stations tell the story of the crucifixtion and resurrection of Jesus. Our prayer stations tell a transfaith story of Mother Earth and her goodness as we acknowledge how we have crucified her and now pray for her resurrection as we make amends by developing inner "Fruits of the Spirit" to give her as nourishment in her time of need.

For years I have been saying, "We are going to build a church to pray for the earth." I never really understood what I meant when I said that, but it seems to be revealing and unfolding itself here with our interfaith, interspecies twelve prayer stations. We are creating a kind of outdoor church without walls, under trees where we feel the rain fall and we behold the moon and God's universe of stars and galaxies. God is way out there in black matter that makes up 95 percent of the stuff of the universe. God is in you and you are in and part of God's body. The universe is God's body and we are all together this Thanksgiving, all together in God's body in her womb or garden or cosmos, and with all our pain and joy. We eat at her table here on Mother Earth. We eat in order to live and move and have her being inside us. May we join together in prayer and give thanks for our togetherness.

Thanks be to God.

Sending love, Bonnie

A Thanksgiving Invitation "Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 4You are invited to pray with us in person, online, on Zoom and in the secret prayer garden of your heart at the The Secret Prayer Garden. We are in Dallas Oregon only 15 miles outside of Salem, Oregon and an hour and a half drive from the Portland international airport. Please come for a prayer or meditation pilgrimage at twelve trees and prayer stations. All prayer and meditation practices are welcome. Sitting with your back up against the trees, standing, siting on benches or lying on the Earth we invite prayers for this place and for our common home, Mother Earth and the cosmos. An interfaith and interspecies prayer pilgrimage, the prayer stations are individually dedicated to;

1. the interconnected web of life 2. the wilderness 3. minerals and the billions of life forms in each handful of soil 4. water 5. green plants 6. the wind, 7. the sun and the moon and the mother and children of all species 8. the animals underground 9. the wild animals 10. the birds and flying animals 11. flowers, fragrance and the beauty of nature 12. the holy human family living in harmony with the natural world, loving and caring for one another with a new dream and vision of an ecologic civilization.

Each prayer station also invites us to we develop inner, “Fruits of the Spirit” offering them to the planet as spiritual food during this time of planetary crisis. 1. Hope 2. Forbearance and long suffering 3. Forgiveness and Love of Enemies 4. Patience 5. Generosity 6. Gentleness 7. Goodness 8. Peace and Self Control 9. Kindness10. Faithfulness 11. Joy 12. Courage and creativity.

Twelve trees and prayer stations have small prayer boxes to place flowers and light candles. Artists are making icons dedicated to spiritual teachers and wisdom traditions and please let us know if you are interested in making art work for the outdoor prayer stations. We call upon their spirits to guide us and they include; 1. Indigenous and shamanic wisdom traditions 2. Hagar the mother of Islam and Ishmael 3. Jesus on Love Your Enemy Lane 4. St. Brigit and the triple goddess of pre-Christianity and Celtic spirituality 5. Hildegard 6. Krishna, Rada and Hinduism 7. Mothers and children of all species, the Sun and the Moon 8. Buddha 9. Daoism and our Sister Eco Farm in China, the Cobb Sunshine Eco Farm. 10. St. Fancies and St. Clare of Assisi 11. Jesus and Mary Magdalene 12. The Angel Gabriel in the Barn with the Holy Human Family living in harmony with the natural world.

(Photo below of huge tree is the 5th prayer station asking for prayer for all green life on earth or the veritas of God according to St. Hildegard. He ask to develop generosity within ourselves. . The photo of Juno is in the Rose Garden, the 11th prayer station asking for prayers of thanksgiving for flowers and the beauty of nature. We give joy to Mother Earth this Thanksgiving as food she needs.

The Secret Prayer Garden

“When you pray, go by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your God in secret. Your God who sees in secret, will reward you."

The Gospel of Matthew 6:6

Dearest Earthlings,

Please pray, contribute financially and or volunteer to make art work with us to create The Secret Prayer Garden both online and here in The Secret Garden Retreat Center at the John Cobb Eco Farm. We are creating twelve prayer altars or stations we will attach to trees with each one dedicated to one of the “Fruits of the Spirit” from Galatians 5:22,23, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (with three additional virtues, I have added, courage, generosity and creativity.) We invite you to join us in developing these inner fruits of the spirit within ourselves and offer them as food to our common home Mother Earth. Church for Our Common Home is a church dedicated to pray for the natural world which is suffering at this historic time. All life grows with love and we encourage all prayer and meditation practices from the wisdom traditions that teach us to love creation. You may go on a prayer pilgrimage with us here on our five acers or use this as an internet virtual prayer practice wherever you live. Each of the twelve small altars are dedicated to a virtue, a spiritual teacher and living creatures. The living creatures may include animals, trees, flowers, plants, the wind, soil, the stars as well as geographic places. We invite artists to make art work that may be icons or small statutes to decorate the twelve stations. When complete, people will be provided a map of The Secret Prayer Garden and you will be invited to sit or lie on the earth, sit with your back against the tree, lie prostrate on the earth or sit in chairs and benches provided. The wooden altars are big enough to hold an icon, art work or small statue, flowers and candles. The last altar will be “Creativity” and will be in the barn celebrating the Angel Gabriel, the Holy Family and the manger animals including donkeys, sheep, cows, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats and goats. Some of the saints and spiritual teachers included are Jesus, Mary Magdalene, St. Francis and St. Clare, Buddha, Butterfly Maiden, Krishna and Rada, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Hildegard, Hagar, and more. The tree altars we hope will invite prayers for the our common home, Mother Earth and all her creatures including, the Pacific Ocean, roses, sunflowers, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the soil, birds, bugs and butterflies, red robins and blue jays, hummingbirds, oak trees, fir trees, farm animals, cats, dogs, etc. The twelve altars invite us to develop the twelve inner virtues as we also pray for God's creatures. God and all her creatures are in need and appreciative our prayers and benefit when we have developed these inner fruits of the spirit. We ask that you imagine giving the inner fruits away in radical generosity to all human and non-human life forms we encounter. We follow in the the spirit of Findhorn in Scotland, one of the earliest ecological spiritual communities that changed the chemistry of their infertile sandy soil to become rich soil where cabbages grew as big as cars.

Please contact me if you want to support the Secret Prayer Garden and please pray for its becoming, blossoming and growing in healing love. Special thanks to Ron Welty for generously making our wooden altars and please keep him in your prayers. Ron is being of service although he has been ill and in pain and we feel incredibly blessed for his loving support and care for The Secret Prayer Garden. Please see the tree altar that Ron has made for our Secret Prayer Garden below. Won't you help me and Ron make manifest The Secret Prayer Garden at Church for Our Common Home, an interfaith, interspecies and interconnected prayer garden for God and creation?

Sending love, Bonnie

P.S. The altar to the left is not finished but I offer it as an example. The icon is our church logo, of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa which I altered. Please note my addition of the photo of the earth in the Madonna's hand and as her and Jesus' halo. We invite you to reimagine ancient symbols and how to transform them for The Secret Prayer Garden. I encourage you to experiment and try transforming ancient icons into altar art for our tree boxes. The Secret Prayer Garden is like the secret garden in Frances Hodgson Burnett's brilliant book, The Secret Garden a place for beauty and healing love. Mary Lennox in the story finds the garden after it has been closed for many years. In a similar way our hearts have been closed for decades and centuries to the power of prayer and the invitation to have secret intimacy with God in our atheistic culture. We are called by God at this historic time to learn and commit to prayer practices and care for the natural world in radical love. May we follow Jesus and Mary Lennox into the Secret Prayer Garden to pray without ceasing.

"What was this under her hands which was square and made of iron and which her fingers found a hole in? It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years and she put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and found it fitted the keyhole. She put the key in and turned it. It took two hands to do it, but it did turn. And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk to see if anyone was coming. No one was coming. No one ever did come, it seemed, and she took another long breath, because she could not help it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the door which opened slowly—slowly. Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with excitement, and wonder, and delight. She was standing inside the secret garden. Chapter 9 It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place anyone could imagine......... “How still it is!” she whispered. “How still!” Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin, who had flown to his treetop, was still as all the rest. He did not even flutter his wings; he sat without stirring, and looked at Mary. “No wonder it is still,” she whispered again. “I am the first person who has spoken in here for ten years.”

Psalm 46 "Be still and know that I am God."

Please join us the first Sunday of October and every month for a Taize worship service. This Sunday we will have a Taize service about The Secret Prayer Garden.Please enjoy the book The Secret Garden which is free in print and read aloud online youtube just click here bhttps://youtu.be/Yx_GpxQvi5E

Gigantic Evil and the Search for the key to the Secret Garden

“Enter by the narrow gate. The wide gate puts you on the spacious road to damnation, and many take it. But it’s a small gate, a narrow road that leads to Life, and only a few find it.” Jesus, The Gospel of Matthew

Dear Earth Creatures,

It is an unprecedented time of GIGANTIC EVIL, with incomprehensible suffering, death and destruction for humans and non-human creatures here on our common home, planet earth. We have never needed spiritual guidance more and many of us find the teachings of Jesus lead to Life. Walter Wink is a rare bird, a biblical scholar who does not shy away from telling the truth about the enormity of the "GIGANTIC EVIL" of our modern world. He also offers us a key to the small gate on the narrow road as we follow Jesus. The spacious road to damnation is taken by all of us sometimes, we know that, for we have all been on that road. According to Wink, there are three demonic manifestations on this road to damnation and they include; outer personal possession, collective possession and the inner personal demonic. The recent anniversary of 9/11 has come and gone and the Empire continues to lie about history and the past and lies unabashedly about the present. Wars, massive ecologic destruction, crimes against humanity and the natural world are so massive we become numb with disbelief. "...the evil of our time has become so gigantic that it has virtually outstripped the symbol and become autonomous, unrepresentable beyond comprehension. We have killed Satan.........While the symbol may have fallen on hard times, the reality to which it gave expression has become all the more virulent. Satan, did not begin life as an idea but an experience.......Without a means of symbolization, however, evil cannot come to conscious awareness and thus be consciously resisted. Like an undiagnosed disease it rages through society, and we are helpless to produce a cure. Evil must be symbolized precisely because it cannot be thought."

If you are anything like me, you tire of hearing people rage about certain individuals as the evil doers responsible for all the gigantic evil. Unfortunately, our present gigantic evil is made up of many corrupt systems of injstuce. "A megalomaniac like Hitler would get nowhere if he were not riding the cresting wave of resentment from milllions of would -be megalomaniacs longing to be released from the restraints of truth and civility."

I am not sure how we can recast Satan and rewrite a useful modern story about the forces of the Powers and Principalities. We need new stories and symbols. God's Garden, Paradise, The Garden of Eden remind us of ancient stories of beauty, complexity and meaning. For many of us the book, by Frances Hodgson Burrnett, The Secret Garden made the story of the Garden of Eden come alive for us as children. It is a story about the miracle of love in a garden of natural beauty. The imaginal realm is not about the imagination and it is not a geographic place. It is "the substratum of human existence where the most fundamental changes in consciousness take place." It is the secret hidden place Jesus is referring to in the psychic realm that makes manifest love and miraculous healing, transformation and LIFE!

You may say, what does this have to do with finding a key to the locked and abandoned garden in the children's book, The Secret Garden, a modern day Story about a Garden of Eden?

Everything...............for evil, as well as divine blessings of love, healing and transformation, come from the alchemy in the imaginal realms, within the vast regions of our hearts. "It is a prejudice of modern thought that events happen only in the outer world. What Christians regard as the most significant event in human history happened according to the gospels, in the psychic realm, and it altered external history irrevocable. Ascension was an "objective" event, if you will, but it took place in the imaginal realm at the substratum of human existence where the most fundamental changes in consciousness take place. The ascension was a "fact" on the imaginal plane, not just as an assertion of faith. It irreversibly altered the nature of the disciples consciousness."

May we alter our consciousness during this time of "gigantic evil" by devoting ourselves to our relationship with God, spend time in "secret" and private prayer and study the teachings of Jesus. We do something counter cultural as we commit to developing the, "Fruits of the Spirit" within ourselves during these desperate times. The narrow road takes us to the outer walls of God's Secret Garden. God calls us to find the key to the small gate and to enter the Secret Garden where together we plant seeds of, "....love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control ” in our hearts. (Galatians 5:22)

‌Please note we have a new Zoom link for our reoccurring Sunday worship 4 pm PST

Zoom Link 84988692997

A friendship between Mary, in The Secret Garden, a ten year old girl and a bird begin Mary's planting seeds that become fruits of her inner spirit. Like many of us, she begins life seemingly with hopeless wounds from abandonment and the self centeredness that often follows. Mary begins her inner transformation in part because of her new friendship with a bird and the divine presence in the natural world. This surprising pair, bird and wounded girl, work together and voila! they find the hidden key to the Secret Garden. “…….the most interesting thing happened to her….She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare flower-bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending to peck things our of the earth to persuade her that he had not followed her. But she knew he had followed her, and the surprise so filled her with delight that she almost trembled a little. “You do remember me!” She cried, “You do! You are prettier than anything else in the world!” She chirped, and talked and coaxed and he hoped and flirter his tail and twittered. It was as if he were talking. His red waist coat was like satin, and he pulled his tiny breast out and was so fine and so grand and so pretty that it was really as if he were showing her how important and like a human person a robin could be." Mary has found a spirit guide, a companion in her journey to love and be loved.

Please join us for weekly worship, as we, interact with the barn animals during worship in the barn. Many of us experience the divine in the natural world. We are like a Manger Church as we worship with the goats, chickens and ducks in the barn. May we enter the small gate, with Jesus into the imaginal realm, The Secret Garden as we pray for the "Fruits of the Spirit" love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control to flower within us and amongst us.

Sending love always, Bonnie

Synchronicity Mary Magdalene and the Pink House on Strong Road

Dearest Earthlings,

When I first visited this house with our real estate agent, I had been feeling called to find a place for contemplation and prayer, a place to bring our untraditional church with an Arts Ministry to work ecologically to grow and pray for our own healthy food, creating a safe harbor during ecologic disaster, a place to work to save paradise. The address took my breath away. 15435 Strong Road and 153 is the Magdalene number and the number of the divine feminine according to gematria. Gematria is a system that assigns each letter in Greek, the language the New Testament was written in, to a number which has symbolic meaning. The word Magdalene means tower and tower of strength and the combination of numbers 15435 and "Strong Road" caught my attention. The icing on the cake is the color, a very unusual color for a house -- bright pink! Synchronicity, a word coined by Carl Jung, is a meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved. When we have a synchronistic experience some hidden but important truth may be revealed and gift us with new direction and guidance.

The spirit of Mary Magdalene said to me once in a dream while staying near her cave in the south of France. "I've been waiting for you." She is waiting here for you and all of us here on Strong Road. She is calling us during fires, floods and pandemics here in her paradise, her garden. She is the earth who continues to sing a love song as ancient as the Song of Songs,

"Winds of the south and winds of the north, wake up and blow now: breathe through my garden, drive him mad with my fragrance, draw him into my garden; let his tongue stop its talking, let it taste my choice fruits. I enter your garden, my sister-bride, to gather myrrh and spice. I eat of your honeycomb, and drink honeyed wine with sweet milk. Eat, friends, and drink! Sate yourselves, oh lovers." ( The Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation by Priests for Equality)

Church for Our Common Home began several years ago as the Church of Mary Magdalene, a home church following in the footsteps of the early church when women were spiritual teachers and leaders, women like Mary Magdalene. The teachings of Jesus transformed and empowered women two thousand years ago and has continued to do so throughout history. Stumbling on the teachings of Jesus, as an adult myself, the teachings of nonviolence, love of enemies, forgiveness and a God of love with me always, rocked my world and I have never been the same. As I studied the teachings of Jesus in seminary, I was lucky for I was also learning that Mary Magdalene was probably Jesus's wife, lover, mother of his children and co-minister. Jesus's love for women was as radical in the ancient world as it is today. Women are called today, after their service as mothers caring for the young to mature into wise elders, leaders and teachers like Mary Magdalene. There are legends that Mary Magdalene escaped after Jesus was tortured and murdered by the Roman Empire and as a refugee she brought his-- rather their teachings of radical love, to the south of France. For who taught Jesus about love? One person surely was one of his main teachers about love, Mary Magdalene.

Church for Our Common Home became our new name and direction when we made a deeper commitment to heal the ecologic planetary crisis which has its roots in the spiritual crisis when we do not understand or live as if all living creatures, including men, women, children, animals, plants, as well as large living organisms, like our planet, are sacred and interconnected. We are a holy whole. Dr. John Cobb Jr. a great teacher and supporter of Church for Our Common Home shares the initials JC with Jesus Christ. Our new name for this five acre farm and garden has become the John Cobb Eco Farm. Behind our pink house and retreat center, here on the JC Eco Farm is the Mary Magdalene Cafe, a patio in a beautiful rose garden where we break bread together after worship in the same way people did for the first couple of centuries of the early church. Not celibate men or virgin mothers, but grown men and women, some sexually active and in intimate love relationships who were and are inspired to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the garden.

Our new home in Oregon, is dedicated to Mother Earth, the divine feminine, loving community and the arts offers and offers an alternative to the abuse of the institutional celibate church taken over by the Roman Empire a few hundred years after Jesus and Mary Magdalene lived. Jesus was a Jew and most likely he was married. Mary Magdalene was betrayed when the Catholic church called her a prostitute when there is not one word about her being a prostitute in the Bible.

Thank you to Margaret Starbird, the modern living prophet and one of the first scholars to write a revisionist history that challenges the lies of the misogynistic, celibate, patriarchal church and brings back the lost bride, Mary Magdalene. Please listen to the interview I had with Margaret Starbird on our church web site. Podcasts — Church For Our Common Home

Margaret's courageous personal journey celebrates prayer, scripture study, gematria,, truth telling and a deep honoring of synchronicities and symbolism. It is an invitation for all of us to follow Spirit into an inner garden and love.

The Black Madonna has always been the logo of our ministry, seen here to the left with my addition of the photo of Mother Earth in her hand along with the earth made into her and babies halo. The Black Madonna is often been a symbol of Mary Magdalene. Perhaps this is a girl daughter not a son in her lap? She is the wounded feminine scares on her face. Many ancient goddesses were rendered dark to represent night and the feminine principle in juxtaposition to the sun, day and solar masculine principles and archetypes. Mary Magdalene, the lost Bride for two thousand years has been left out of our religious imagination and consciousness contributing to the sun and solar principle being dangerously out of balance. Please join us as we seek to live in balance and celebrate the spirits of Mary Magdalene and Jesus in holy union in the garden.

Please join us for a series for several weeks in worship beginning next Sunday in honor of Mary Magdalene. Her story is the heart of the story of Christianity. Love is stronger than death. The love between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in life and after death and in the imaginal realm is our guide during this unparalleled historic time as we witness the death of eco systems as well as personal and collective painful loss.

Preparing for Death, In God's Garden of Love "For this God is our God for ever and ever. S/he will be our guide even unto death." Psalm 48:14

Love always,

Bonnie Zoom ID 3025719458 (no password needed)

"The imaginal realm is real, and through it you will never be separated from anyone or anything you have ever loved, for love is the ground in which you live and move and have your being. This is the message that Mary Magdalene has perennially to bring. This is the message we most need to hear." The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, Cynthia Bourgeult

Julian of Norwich Summer Book Group Zoom Tuesday's 4:30 pm PST

Dear Earthlings,

Please join us tomorrow for our 8 week Summer Book Group on Zoom about Julian of Norwich, the 14th century English mystic extraordinaire! Tuesday's, 4:30 pm PST, (or if you are on the east coast, 7:30 pm EST) June 8th through July 27th.

An Explorers Guide to Julian of Norwich by Veronica Mary Rolf

Please read the first chapter 'Why Julian Now?' if you are able, but come for conversation and share a cup of tea with us even if you don't have the book yet or haven't completed the reading. Julian's book, Revelations of Divine Love, was written 600 years ago and is not that accessible unless we have some commentary like the kind Rolf's book provides. I can think of four answers to the question, 'Why Julian Now?' and they include; 1. Julian invites us to celebrate the Motherhood of God and I need and want more of the divine feminine, the Motherhood of God, whatever you want to call it. Sign me up! Medicine for the body, mind and soul. 2. I am fascinated by near death experiences and other visionary and paranormal experiences and as Julian shares her mystical experiences, she invites us to to honor our own mystical experiences. 3. Many people report after a near death experience they have no fear of death and a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. Preparing for death is a spiritual practice and Julian is our guide. I want that too! 4. Maybe you are like me and you still need to heal from having been brainwashed that God has wrath or anger. In order to heal the unconscious behaviors we have adopted and learned from our families and culture using punishment and power over models found in many religions, families, schools, societies and between countries etc. reviewing the theology we have been taught is crucial. The root of our violent punishing ideologies are transformed as we reimagine a God of wrath and shapeshift her into a God of love, caring and forgiveness. 5. AND Julian teaches ecologic ways of being and living, "God is nature.......... nature is God." The first woman to write a book in English and a theology book no less sharing her God encounters. Need I say more? I rest my case. We neeeeeeed Julian now for all of these reasons and more, a woman who survived and thrived living in isolation during a pandemic similar to our covid pandemic. May the spirit of Julian inspire and guide us this summer. Invite your friends and family and please call with any questions about our book group.

Sending love,

Bonnie

P.S. I also recommend getting Mirabai Starr's, The Showings of Julian of Norwich, a New Translation Zoom ID 3025719458 Zoom for Book Group click on this red link

Zoom Book Group June July 2021

Dear Earthlings,

Please join us for a Summer Book Group on Zoom about Julian of Norwich. We will share a cup of tea together at tea time, Tuesday's early evenings, 4:30 pm PST, (or if you are on the east coast, 7:30 pm EST) beginning June 8thfor 8 weeks, through July 27th.

An Explorers Guide to Julian of Norwich by Veronica Mary Rolf

Many of us long to explore the divine feminine or the feminine face of God. Julian gifts us with a loving and merciful theology of the Motherhood of God and she is the first women to write theology in English. Julian of Norwich, a 14th century mystic, had a near death experience and she wrote about her near death visions in the first known book written in English by a woman, Revelations of Divine Love! Julian spent many years reflecting on her visionary experiences and messages from God. Her magnificent book, after years of reflections, offers us divine wisdom which we desperately need at this time of planetary crisis. The world has never needed motherly love and a theology of the Motherhood of God more than now.

This class is a free gift to our local and global community, however tax deductible donations are appreciated and needed by those who are able to donate financially. Church for Our Common Home is an untraditional home and internet church, counseling center, a retreat center on a five acre farm--the John Cobb Eco Farm. In the near future we look forward to building a chapel to pray for Our Common Home Mother Earth. Our beloved community invites the plants, animals and natural world as well as "the least of these" of all kinds. We offer weekly programs in person - in Dallas, Oregon and on Zoom. Worship in June and July will continue to dovetail with the themes of the Summer Book Group about Julian. Please contact me if you want to connect, have ideas, questions or prayer requests.

Sending love,

Bonnie

Zoom for Book Group click on this red link Zoom ID 3025719458

Artists above include a color painting at the top by Kathleen Sibilski. The third painting down is by Stephen Ried and and the statue of Julian is on the front of the Norwich Cathedral made by David Holgate in 2014.

Please join us for Pentecost next Sunday, May 22, 4 pm on Zoom. Bring a favorite animal and plant as your guest from your imagination. Everyone understood people who spoke different languages at Pentecost 2,000 years ago. Today God calls us to comprehend and learn the language of the natural world. Our current worship series on "Julian and Jesus" includes weekly readings and theology from Julian of Norwich and from Jesus. Julian teaches, "God is Nature ......... Nature is God."A New Story on Pentecost for 2021 by Bonnie Tarwater

When the day of Pentecost arrived, at the Julian and Jesus Eco Farm, AKA the John Cobb Farm, they all gathered in the barn with the goats, Matthew, Mark and Luke, along with Susie Q and Molly the outdoor cats, the lettuce, sunflowers, butterflies, bees, roses and grass. The disciples of Jesus and Julian had painted murals on the outside of the barn and had filled the inside of the barn with art work of dreams and visions shared by people trying to live in harmony with God and nature. The Dream Art Gallery featured art work of visions that were coming via dreams at night and during the day of God the Mother and Mother Earth with messages of wisdom and urgency meant for everyone, not just the dreamer. Above is the art work and image of a dream shared at a dream group at Church for Our Common Home. The elephants are coming to the sea shore to try to convince the whales not to give up. The whales believe they are about to go extinct. The elephants beg them, "Please don't give up and go extinct, whales. Please, please listen to us." Mother Mary and Ganesha, the Indian God, together soothe the elephants and stroke the elephant trunks in their transreligious friendship, saying there, there, shhhhh, all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well."

Suddenly everyone on the John Cobb Eco Farm heard what sounded like a violent rushing wind from above and simultaneously with a trembling from deep down under Mother Earth. The noise filled the barn and farm and every creature was in awe of the elements of wind and the Earth. Something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire; these separated and came to rest on the heads of each creature. All the humans, animals and plants were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as she enabled them. Now they were a devout prayerful community that included earth worms under the earth, to roses, radishes, red robins, as well as human radicals. But the human and non-human creatures were all bewildered to hear their native languages being spoken by one another. They were amazed and astonished: “Surely all of these creatures speaking are all from Our Common Home Mother Earth. How does it happen that each of us hears these words, meows, goat baas and bleats, humans singing along side natures spirits of many varieties and all communicating in their native tongues? …………………..…it’s like when the prophets like Julian and Joel have spoken: ‘In the days to come—it is our Mother Father God who speaks through the natural world —I will pour out my Spirit on all human and non-human kind, all the living creatures. The most unexpected ones will prophesy, your young people will see visions, and your elders will dream dreams and see the natural world calling us to make amends and live with them in harmony. Even the supposed most insignificant of my people and creatures including the smallest Hazel Nut seed as Julian of Norwich taught us--I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy....................and learn the language of love and all about our interconnectedness for we are ONE and everything we do effects everyone else..............there, there, shhhhh, no need to be afraid for as God the Mother says, "All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well............."

Click here to hear playing-pope-francis-ecological-encyclical-set-music "Creator Speaks in the Language of Trees" Composed by Linda Chase, vocals by Nedelka Prescod, piano by Anna Unch Pyon