Wisdom Will Workshop Saturday August 19 11-4 pm

WISDOM WILL WORKSHOP in the Barn! Come share your life story as we invite you to create a Wisdom Will for future generations. We will begin with a historical overview of ethical or wisdom wills in the Bible as well as an overview of modern resources, books and websites.  Writing prompts and small group sharing promise an experiential workshop of depth, meaning and intimacy. What are the most meaningful stories, experiences and wisdom of your life you want to share with future generations? Exploring the benefits of written wills versus video wills, we will also offer support and future gatherings to assure your completion of your own Wisdom Will. Great for Christmas gifts for your children, grandchildren, friends and future generations.  Suggested reading, Dr. Ranger’s Wisdom Will, Audacity to Live, Memories of a ‘Why-Not’ Woman, available on Amazon.

We prepare for our death affirming our sacred life as we sing and break bread together. Vegetarian lunch in the rose garden with quiche made form our beloved chickens who gift us with eggs and salad from our biodynamic vegetable garden.

Come for the great honor to meet Dr. Ranger who has her doctorate in Hebrew Scriptures and did her research on the Wisdom Literature of the Bible. Since the Bible is the primary document of the Faith for Jews and Christians, it is important to her that people read this document with reverence and with a readiness to explore through its imagery and metaphors “the language of God’s Love for all persons.” Her friends and family members celebrated in many different churches: Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Buddhist, to name a few. High school and college friends represented diverse religions and cultures: Native American, Black, Asian, Thai, and Indian. Sharing in beliefs, spiritual practices, worship services, family rituals, and meals were enriching experiences for her. She went on to study Scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other world religions–as well as their Systematic, Liturgical, and Spiritual Theologies. She has traveled in all but seven States, and in Canada, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Turkey, France, England, Peru, Caribbean, Mexico, and Vietnam–experiences that have taught her to honor diversity in Religious Traditions, rituals, cultures, educational backgrounds, professions, gender, age, sexual orientation, economic status, etc. She is convinced that people can reach out to learn about the richness of Traditions other than their own–only to know and love their own Traditions more fully. She is a cradle Catholic and has a great love for the Church and all of us pilgrim people who cherish and live zealously our “universal call to Holiness.” Her passion is Interfaith Dialogue. She has been honored by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, and has completed a first draft of the History of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon.

She has taught Scripture Studies, Theological Studies, Liturgy, and Spirituality to high school students, lay congregants, and B.A., M.A., M.Div., and D. Min. students at Marylhurst University, Mt. Angel Seminary, George Fox University, St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, San Francisco Theological Seminary, and Clark Community College. 

Suggested donation $ 25-100 or whatever you can afford.

Reservations needed with limited retreat stays available for the Wisdom Will Workshop at the Secret Garden Retreat Center. Camping also available.

Please bring your family and friends and join us for music, wisdom, food, and friendship this summer to all three special events!

With love from the hearts and spirits of all us creatures here at the John Cobb Eco Farm and Secret Garden Retreat Center,

Rev. Bonnie Tarwater

P.S. Tours of the Interfaith Secret Prayer Garden inviting prayers for the Earth available by appointment.

Jim Scott concert July 17 Thursday 7 pm in the barn Church for Our Common Home

Dear Earthlings,

Please join us for A Multimedia Experience by Jim Scott www.jimscott.org in the barn here in Dallas, Oregon a short drive from Salem and Corvallis Oregon and just over an hour from Portland. Please let us know if you would like to stay the night or camp overnight or for the weekend.

Special thanks to good friends of Church for Our Common Home, Rev. and Mrs. Bryan and Edie Jessup for inviting their colleague and dear friend Jim Scott to come to Church for Our Common Home for our first concert in the barn! This musical program is a mixing of powerful songs and beautiful projected images, “The Year to Save the Earth” takes us from celebration to grieving, protest to positive vision for the planet. Jim Scott’s lyrical melodies and outspoken poetry celebrate what’s beautiful, amazing, and fragile about our Earth. As well as hard reality, the program’s message is one of optimism with many invitations to join in the singing. Facing the urgency of the environmental crisis, the musical and visual experience challenges us to feel, to learn and to act. Prolific composer, guitarist Jim Scott brings warmth and humor in his jazz and world music influenced songs as well as outspoken messages of peace, justice, and the Earth. Jim’s played at more than 700 UU churches over four decades of travels. Formerly a member of the Paul Winter Consort, Jim was composer of their celebrated Missa Gaia/Earth Mass and sang their anthem song Common Ground. He has toured the world, recorded nine CDs of original music and published a growing line of choral works. One of the originators of the Unitarian Universalist Church “Green Sanctuary” program, Jim also compiled the Earth and Spirit Songbook, an anthology of 110 songs of Earth by many contemporary composers.

Please bring your family and friends and join us for this special summer concert!

With love from our heart to yours,

Rev. Bonnie Tarwater Minister Church for Our Common Home 15435 Strong Road, Dallas, OR 97338 (858) 248-5123, revtarwater@yahoo.com churchforourcommonhome.com

Tree Prayer Stations a Story of torture, murder and the regeneration of Mother Earth

Dear Earthlings,

Please join us as we gather for worship, prayer, music and dancing in the barn with the animals today, July 10th, 4 pm pst either in person or on Zoom. Walt's triple bypass surgery went well and his recovery is miraculous. Thank you for your love and prayers and for understanding about my taking the past six weeks for a leave of absence to care for Walt. It will be a joy to be together again as we enjoy a Taize worship that offers a message of HOPE. We will also be resuming our Zoom programming with Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina on Tuesday' mornings 9-10 am pst and Dream Group on Thursdays at 5 pm pst this next week. Go to church website to find Zoom links.

Next Sunday we will celebrate Mary Magdalene in an anointing and healing worship in honor of her Feast Day July 22.

From my heart to your heart in love,

Rev. Bonnie

P. S. We welcome two male bunnies, Al and Steve seen in the photo. Like the other animals who have come to live with us, we did not seek them out, but they seem to have found us. They will be joining us in the barn this afternoon in praise and thanksgiving of God's beautiful creation!

Please pray for Walt's beautiful heart

Dear Earthlings,

Please pray for our beloved Walt Rutherford who is having heart by pass surgery tomorrow Saturday, May 21st. We are confident in Walt's doctors and their extraordinary genius and ask for prayers for the excellent medical team at the Salem Hospital. Walt is in good spirits and his beautiful heart calls out for your love and healing prayers. I am taking a six week leave of absence from my commitments with Church for Our Common Home to care for him and will resume work with the church the week of July 5th. Sunday worship at Church for Our Common Home will begin again on July 10th, 4 pm pst in person in the barn and on Zoom. Please contact me with any questions and thank you for your prayers and understanding about my leave of absence

Matthew the goat is seen here in the photo admiring Nancy Mahoney's beautiful painting she graciously gifted us for the Fourth Tree Prayer Station. Here we call upon the Spirits of Celtic Spirituality, St. Brigit, the triple Goddesses of pre Christianity, as we honor the women healers of Europe murdered in genocide as "witches." May they be with us as we pray for our common home, Mother Earth,

The Secret Prayer Garden is our Living Rosary and like the Catholic tradition of the Stations of the Cross we of tell the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Mother Earth with our visions of ecological civilization as the new resurrection story. Each Tree Prayer Station asks for prayers for life forms here on our common home, water, soil, animals, plants etc. wrapped in prayers of gratitude and love. This station invites prayers for the miracle of WATER! Located next to a creek and a water well, it sits in a pasture often muddy and saturated with water. The miracle that is water makes up 40-75 percent of our own bodies and about 70 percent of Mother Earth. While praying for water we experince our interconnected web of life within and everywhere here on our common home. We nurse our Holy Mama who breasts feeds us for LIFE as we drink and commune with her daily! We pray to develop the Fruit of the Spirit of Patience at this Tree Prayer Station.

The Living Earth Movement (LEM) invites you to our fourth Thursday of every month meeting next week, May 26th, 1 pm pst on Zoom with a talk from David Korten, www.davidkorten.org an author best know for his brilliant book, When Corporations Rule the World. A former professor at Harvard he serves on our LEM board ns he and Rev. Jeff Wells will share conversation and we look forward to also sharing conversation with you. Please sign up to receive the LEM mailings and Zoom links or go to the LEM web site and scroll down on home page for Zoom links.

Also please join a new small group of LEM, Earthful Faith a support group that takes time for brainstorm ideas about how to best engage religious people in the global LEM. We call the worlds religious people to step up in leadership with Dr. John Cobb who has written a brilliant new Christian curriculum. The Earthful Faith Group is developing a plan to involve American Christians and people around the world to join us. Please find a draft of this proufound latest book by Dr. Cobb on the Church for Our Common Home website, www.churchforourcommonhome.com. Sharing our feelings about the ecologic crisis, coupled with brainstorming and exploring ideas and sharing resources we are responding to our crisis in creative and radically love new ways, in beloved community. Please join this exciting new religion that has grown out of the LEM. You are invited Thursdays, June 2nd and 30th, 3 pm pst on Zoom. There will be a Zoom link on the Living Earth Movement website or contact me for more information.

From my heart to your heart in love,

Rev. Bonnie

www.livingearthmovement.eco

P. S. We welcome the three Mother sheep and their four baby lambs who have come to live with us here at the John Cobb Eco Farm.

John Cobb preaching The Resurrection of Humanity and the Resurrection of Humanity

Dear Earthlings,

Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. will be preaching on Easter Sunday, The Resurrection of Humanity and the Resurrection of Nature, 4 pm PST at Church for Our Common Home on Zoom and live in the barn. Please join our combined Earth Day and Easter celebration, April 17th, here at the John Cobb Eco Farm in Oregon, where we worship with the animals and mothers and children of all species. Zoom below. Special guest musician Truman Price will play the fiddle for our dance at the Mary Magdalene Cafe after worship.

Click here to join worship every Sunday 4 pm pst Sunday

From my heart to your heart in love, Rev. Bonnie Tarwater

April 10th, Palm Sunday, Mary Magdalene Anoints Jesus, please bring oil or water for anointing ritual, 4 pm PST.

April 24th Rev. Bonnie will be the guest preacher at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Earthful Faith and the Living Earth Movement, for Earth Day, April 24th at 10:30 am PST.

Please join us for weekly meetings with Earthful Faith, a newly forming group of people from EL Salvador, Bolivia, India, Korea, the Philippines and across the U.S. as we explore engaging religious communities into our work with the Living Earth Movement, every Thursday at 3 pm PST on Zoom. Please contact Rev. Bonnie with any questions.

Also join our Living Earth Movement monthly meetings the fourth Thursday of every month at 1 pm PST April 28th. livingearthmovement.eco

Church for Our Common Home Rev. Bonnie Tarwater Sunday worship 4 pm PST The Secret Prayer Garden a living rosary to pray for the Earth with altars on 12 Tree Stations at the John Cobb Eco Farm. Tuesday Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina 9 am PST Thursday Dream Group 5 pm PST 15435 Strong Road, Dallas, Oregon 97338, revtarwater@yahoo.com(858) 248-5123 churchforourcommonhome.com

Dear Earthlings,

"This is not a book about how we can save the tress. This is a book about how the tress might save us.................The old trees were the mothers of the forest. The hubs were Mother Trees. Well, mother and father trees, since each Douglas fir tree has male and female pollen cones and female seed cones. But....it felt like mothering to me. With the elders tending to the young. Yes, that's it. Mother Trees. Mother Trees connect the forest." Finding the Mother Tree, Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, by Suzanne Simard

Dear Earthlings,

Please join us the month of February as we celebrate Dr. John Cobb and his 97th birthday AND the launching of the Living Earth Movement. Church for Our Common Home offer a Taize worship this Sunday as we explore Mother Trees and the forests that give us clean air and water. We will reflect on how trees cooperate and care for their young and the interconnected intimate forest community. Like a Mother Father Tree of Life, John Cobb has been our spiritual mother and father to many of us. He gifted us with the vision of an ecologic civilization and our hearts are filled with gratitude. Yes, he is a genius but more importantly to me, he has loved and cared for us. Like a Mother Tree he has cared for the young, his students. His passion has been like a contagion that has catapulted many of us into new ministries and radical new ways of thinking and living. Church for Our Common Home invites all humans, trees and animals to worship with John Cobb in the barn or on Zoom, Sunday's at 4 pm PST at the Secret Prayer Garden at the John Cobb Eco Farm!

On Friday, February 25, 4 pm PST, 7 pm EST the newest of Dr. Cobb's organizations, the Living Earth Movement, will host a Zoom 97th birthday party for Dr. Cobb as well as being a launching party for the Living Earth Movement. Our mission is to inspire global cooperation for the sake of all life on our planet, beginning with the United States and China. Our second and equally important priority is to promote the foundations for an ecological civilization, in which humans will learn to value and cooperate with the rest of the ecosphere. Please join us, bring your friends and plese let me know if you can help invite people and are able to help with this historic event.

Dr. Cobb you have inspired me to follow my heart and to love the Mother Trees, Mother Earth and the Mothers and children of all species! Ganbei! I toast you and give you thanks for all that you have taught me. Thank you for all of your support.

Rev. Jeff Wells, the pastor of Church of the Village and I are the co-convenors of The Living Earth Movement. Jeff and I also look forward to collaboration between our two "process" church communities. www.churchofthevillage.org

The Cobb Institute will also have a birthday celebration on Tuesday, February 8, 10-11:30am PT / 12-1:30pm CT / 1-2:30pm ET, to honor John. Rev. Rebecca Parker will interview him asking "What Have You Learned by Getting Old?"

The Institute for Postmodern Development of China will also host a birthday party on Zoom on Wednesday, February 9, 6-8pm PST, 9-11pm EST for "The Eco-Saint of Our Times." Join with students and friends from Korea, Malaysia, Hungary, Indonesia, and China. Translation will be provided.

Please check out a dialogue sermon I did with Dr. Cobb and a second sermon that I preached about the Living Earth Movement at the UU COngregation of Salem. Special thanks to Rev. Rick Davis for warm welcome of me and I look forward to collaborating with the UU Congregation of Salem . May we care for one another like the trees! www.uusalem.org

Ganbei!To Love and Caring for one another like the forest!

Ganbei Vision of Presidents working together to save our world

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! If Bishop Tutu could imagine a South Africa without apartheid, you and I can imagine a world with China and the US working to save the human race from mass extinction! Let's do it together in 2022.

Ganbei!!! Cheers!!! Happy New Years! xīn nián kuài lè!

Please join me and Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. this Sunday, January 2nd, 4 pm PST on Zoom for a dialogue sermon to celebrate Dr. Cobb's vision of China and the US working together for peace on earth. Find the Zoom link on our church website.

Think about how impossible it must have seemed to Biship Tutu, who died at aged 90 this past week, when he was called by God and the new President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, to set up the Truth and Justice Commission to witness the stories of the victims of apartheid. They suffered torture, murder and unimaginable cruelty and injustice. Bishop Tutu and others in history have done the seemingly impossible and worked for justice, forgiveness and healing in the midst of despair. God is calling us to step up and do the same in 2022.

If you have not seen the movie Don't Look Up, please see it. Here is a link of the preview. Movie Preview Don't Look Up

This movie presents the truth of the urgency of our current planetary crisis! It is not a comet hurling toward earth that we currently face. It is climate catastrophe, the extinction of animals, plants and eco systems, more global pandemics, military complexes that will lead us toward nuclear war -- in a word -- suicide. We at Church for Our Common Home will study the teachings of Jesus and his radical teachings of love of enemies as well as prophets from many religions. We will take inspiration from non-violent movements begun by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Bishop Tutu and lesser known heroines like the Jewish midwives of 1350 B.C.E.

And this year another prophet in our midst calling us to imagine peace and justice with China and the US -- Dr. John Cobb.

The earliest recorded acts of civil disobedience come from women in 1350 B.C.E. when Jewish midwives refused to carry our Pharoh's order to kill Hebrew babies. We must become like our brave visionary ancestors. We call upon their spirits to give us courage! Do you know this history? Here is a small sampling:

1. Aristophanes in 388 BC who wrote the play, Lysistrata about women on both sides of a war who stop the war by withholding sex from their husband-soldiers until they quit the fight.

2. Jesus modeled and taught love of enemies and nonviolence and was crucified for it in 30 CE.

3.From 1181-1226 St. Francis and St Clare of Assisi Italy exemplify a nonviolent life of peace and justice in harmony with God's creation.

4.In 1780 Quakers start the first American antislavery society.

5. Labor movements in the 1900 largely non-violent strikes to secure economic justice.

6.In 1906 Gandhi in South Africa lays the foundation of non-violence on a national scale and later topples the English Empire from power in India

7.In1920 US women's suffrage movement secures constitutional amendments guaranteeing women the right to vote after a 75 year struggle.

8.1955-1968 The Montgomery bus boycott launches the US Civil rights movement. Rosa Parks refusal to go to the back of the bus sparked this move

9 .In 1986 a nonviolent revolution began in churches in the Phillipines which brought down the oppressive Marcos dictatorship.

.10 In 1976 Mairead Corrigan and Betty Willimas received the Nobelement.Peace Prize for their efforts at non-violent reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

11.In 2021 Dr. John B. Cobb Jr.’s writes a letter to President Xi and President Biden (letter in link) Dr. Cobb's letter to the Presidents to encourage leadership to change our self destructive direction as a human family. A small group of people gather and decide to mobilize a grassroots global movement to bring peace to our common home, Mother Earth, before it is too late!

Join us tonight, Friday on New Years Eve Dec. 31 at 5 pm PST on Zoom for a non alcohalic gathering for a dream incubation for 2022 and sharing of prophetic visions and dreams to prepare to respond to God's call for justice in the New Year.

Sending love,

Bonnie

Saving Paradise

Dear Earthlings,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and please join us tomorrow on Zoom, on Christmas morning as we sing carols and worship in the BARN with the animals. We will commune with the Holy Family and give thanks for the miracle of birth and the sacred Christ of love and hope born on Christmas morn! Just go to Church for Our Common Home website and click on the Zoom link.

www.churchforourcommonhome.com

Invitation Call for artists and interfaith communities to make icons and art work for our Interfaith Secret Prayer Garden and 12 prayer boxes and prayer stations on trees. We invite artists and communities to make interfaith prayer boxes for our trees with prayer boxes or altars each dedicated to water, air, the soil, animals and other living beings on our living Earth.

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 2 Dialogue Sermon with Dr. Cobb and Rev. Bonnie China/US Movement to Save Ourselves

Jan 9, Zoom worship and in person in San Diego.