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the HERALD Page 12B Religion Wednesday October 2 Proper breathing exercises give life to religion By JIM RYAN Herald Special 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time Oct Socialization and turn Ugh Jargon Okay they re like breathing in and breathing out Oh great An analogy Try this on Socialization is the breathing in We breathe in the rules and the spirit behind the rules of our culture We breathe in the customs myths and rituals of everyday life Breathing out is Individuation We personable or make our own or play with all the raw cultural material that we ve just breathed in Now some authorities 1 Bibby and wrote a book in 1986 called The Emerging Generation It s a book about adolescents based on a survey of adolescents from across Canada Their conclusion is that adolescents know how to breathe in but they re not any good at breathing out In fact they re holding their breath If you re lost the analogy Bibby and Posterski write that adolescents in the s were being socialized very well but dividuation t going as well The chief instruments of Religion and Reality by Jim Ryan socialization are l the family the schools the church the media In other words we can teach how to be like us but we Solidarity with women By REV NANCY J KNOX St John United Church In Canada women have a greater chance of living in ty than do men and the number of poor women living in our socie ty is growing at an alarming rate According to a report by the tional Council of Welfare publish ed in 1990 59 per cent of Canadian adults living poverty were women and per cent of women aged 16 and over were poor per cent of single parent families headed by women lived below the poverty line This is just one of the concerns that is being discussed and con sidered by churches involved in the Ecumenical Decade of Chur CLERGY COMMENT ches in Solidarity with Women The Decade has been declared for by the World Council of Churches The World Council saw that the United Nations Decade of Women which ended in did not do much to touch the churches It felt that it was crucial for churches to address the issues which continue to keep women from full participation in church and society Bible Digest For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich 2 Conn thmnsS Jesus paid it all All to Him owe Sin had left a crimson stain He washed it white as snow Hall Thank you Jesus for what you done for us For a great door and effectual is opened unto me and there are many adersanes 1 Conn 16 9 Your moment of greatest op could be accompanied by great opposition Find God will and do it The victory will be yours There ib no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord Pioverb 21 You can t manipulate the Lord Save yourself the effort The wise individual will trust Him Place life into His hands Moreover it is required in stewards thai j man found faithful 1 Corinthians Can God and man count on you Be faithful with what God hasten you 0 Lord my God I cried unto thee and thou hast healed me Psalm 2 There is someone who ares about your sorrow and pain Tell the Lord all about your burdens He can bring healing to you If a man die shall he live again Job 14 Jesus answered this question when He said John Jesus said unto her I am the resurrec lion and the life he that beheveth in me though were dead yet shall he live Do you know the Lord But is r the dead and he firstfruits of them 1 Cor nth li I hi hope for eternal lift is in hsus an II alone Have made your rtstr for Heaven If not all Jesus to But we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in our selves but in God which raiseth the dead 2 Conn 1 Life is fragile This is why we must place our lives into the capable hands of Jesus All of us need the Lord Do you know Him This week in our Canadian House of Commons one of the members was heard to call another member a slut This for me underlines the attitude that continues in our society that women become objects of den sion and sexual It is all the more that this com ment would come from a man elected for public office a man with supposed intelligence and one who has been granted trust and the opportunity for leader ship It is time for all of us women and men together to start look it the isnic us that directly impact women to realize the injustices that are part of women every lives and to decide to do something about them It s not always going to be easy Questions of gender our attitudes about what it means to be male and female today touch us at a deeply personal and emotional level There are bound to be ferences in the way we see the issues But with the courage that comes from our faith we can begin to journey together A woman is beaten within her own home every one to three minutes A woman is raped every two to five minutes A little girl is molested every five to ten minutes A daughter is molested by her own father every thirty minutes A woman is killed by her part ner every three days based on US and Canadian statistics Jesus in bringing in the Kingdom of God urged his followers to see the value of all people is the society He over turned the expectations of the day by talking to the woman at the well John by healing the woman on the Sabbath Luke 13 by freeing the woman from the mob John 1 11 by recognizing a woman s faith Mark 24 To mention just a few The Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women provides us the op to consider what it means to be a people of faith in a world that often seems far from the Sovereignty of God If you pre interested in the issues of the Decade there will be an opportunity for study on the four Thursday evenings in November at St John United Church at p or more details call 2531 have difficulty teaching them to discover themselves The Winter Commission writes that obedience is highly valued in our culture and Poterski found that adolescents echoed many of the views and tions of their parents The were worried by the lack of creativity in adolescent responses David Heller writes about children and religion religion understood in both the formal and the informal sense Heller s mam point is similar to the conclusion of Bibby and Posterski we en courage socialization in the religious sense but discourage individuation We want to hear repeated unchanged what we repeated unchanged as children Perhaps the parroting of dogma by children is a sign of our cultural defensiveness We never changed it or played with it why should they Heller looks at the unexpected and the original when he talks with children about God Statements like God is with me when I round second base We re getting to the point Reading and Posterski and Heller one begins to think that healthy religion will only come when we all to breathe in and out If all churchgoers are just holding their breaths afraid to let it out because we frown on personalizing or playing with our faith and our traditions then I afraid we 11 soon all pass out In another generation unless we revitalize our faith churches will all go empty Empty because this generation won t go just because an authority says so We might as well turn the churches into flea markets and secondhand stores What been selling has been second hand anyway Somebody had the vision but it certainly wasn in our generation But it s not too late We can teach our children to be healthy people people who know the traditions and t afraid to play with them We can start by playing with them ourselves Maybe even we can learn to breathe out Then what the Old Testament prophet said will come true both young and old will dream dreams and see vi ANGLICAN St Albans Anglican Church 19 St Albans Acton 853 Summer Service Sundays at St The Martyr Anglican Church 537 Main St Glen Williams Service Times Sunday 800am 10 am BAPTIST Acton Baptist Church 8 Mill St E Acton Worship 11 00 Christian Education a Maple Avenue Baptist Church Maple Ave Georgetown 8776665 Worship a m Family Bible Hour 30 a m Coffee Fellowship 30 m Baptist Church Mountainview Rd S Georgetown 84 Worship 1 a Children s Program 10 00 1 a Location of LOVE IN CHRIST Open Wed mornings CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY ALLIANCE Georgetown Alliance Church Main St S Georgetowa 873 Service Times Sunday 11 am Sunday School 9 EVANGELICAL Open Door Church Stewarttown Public School Service Times Sunday 11 am and 00 LUTHERAN utheran Windsor Carole Georgetown 1172 Worship 11 i m Sunday School 9 45 a UNITED St Andrew United Church S Georgetown Worship a St John United Church 11 St Geo town Worship 1 a Sunday School n NON DENOMINATIONAL PENTECOSTAL ALL PEOPLES CHURCH DELIVERANCE CENTRE 1 nchgate Blvd S Cor F Bible Study Worship Deliverance Sunday am 7 Wednesday We Provide Ch s Church Nursery Service Engllshtoltallan Translation Pastor George A 7922176 NEW APOSTOLIC CHURCH WHERE LIVHG APOSTLES ARE ACTIVE TODAY Sunday School 9 00am SERVICES 10 30am OOpm Wednesdays HILLS CONGREGATION 150 Man St South Acton Racier 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