NORTH AMERICAN SEMINARY NEWSLETTER FALL 2016

Observing light through the darkness

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The Journey — REV. PATRICK KENNEDY, SEMINARY CO-DIRECTOR

Each of us is on a journey, on the road, in the middle of a story. Sometimes we want it to be ‘all good’; sometimes we want to label life a ‘vale of tears.’ But only when we feel ourselves to be ‘on the way’ do we really feel alive and aligned with our true humanness.

Each student who comes to the Seminary has made a dramatic choice in their story: to leave ‘regular life’ and willingly, consciously, step out onto ‘the path.’ It’s somewhat surprising, at times, to find that there are others making the same choice at exactly the same moment. Will they be like me? Will we be like long-lost close friends reunited? Who will I meet there, on the road?

What we find at the Seminary is that we come to study with exactly those people who will play decisive roles in our becoming. People who are very differ-ent from us will be there. And people who may very well bring up those parts of ourselves that, let’s say, haven’t quite decided to become Christian yet. This can be annoying at best, and a major obstacle at worst, for a student hoping to discover a ‘clear path’ to higher wisdom and an inner life.

However, the whole work of becoming in the schooling we develop here includes the mystery-power of the social life. Each one of us plays a special role in each other’s becoming, and all of the social challenges of living, studying and praying together daily over the course of months serves to bring out much in us that would otherwise remain hidden from our view. It is easy to speak of the ‘call to love’ if we love each other from afar. Love becomes a real question only up close, in the details of daily life.

“An enemy is someone whose story you haven’t heard yet.” This powerful thought has inspired us here at the Seminary to make sure that we hear each other’s stories – we wish to take into our work not just the story of the cosmos, the story of humanity, or the practice of telling stories to the children, but our stories. As we hear where each one has come from, what each has been through and aspires to, empathy and fellowship can grow. Then we notice not just that each one is on a journey, but that we are on a journey together. We can aspire, here at the Seminary, to become what the early Christians were known as: people of the Way.

With this newsletter we hope to share some of our journey with you. b

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Meeting the Three-fold Seminary — MATTHIAS GILES AND JOAN VAN HOLSTEIJN, SECOND YEAR

Following the spring term in Spring Valley, we left for Dornach to meet our fellow seminarians who study in Stuttgart and Hamburg. The first week was full in every possible way. Over meals and breathless walks up the hill, during breaks and in moments of shared joy over a bit of beauty, we slowly began to get to know one another. Many of us struggled to bridge the space between one another with broken sentences in German and English. Some happily discovered Spanish, French, Dutch, or Modern Greek as a common language. This struggle was a gift, evoking greater attention and making perceptible both the distance and the bridge that lives, often hidden, in every encounter.

In Dornach, we gathered around a table in the archives, surrounded by Rudolf Steiner’s personal library, and looked at original manuscripts of the words of the renewed sacraments. Through conversations with members of the executive council of the Anthroposophical Society, we were offered a window into the impulses, interests, and questions driving the leadership. It was a joy to find that so many of them carry their own deep connection to the Christian Communi-ty. We were also gifted with the opportunity to meet Ninetta Sombart, artist of many altar paintings that hang in over 30 Christian Community chapels,

Bastiaan speaking about a painting in Ninetta Sombart’s home

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including here in Spring Valley. We filled ourselves with impressions, too many to number, of the land and architecture. The plants, in full blossom, radiated life and color in that place where the Act of Consecration was first celebrated.

As the first week came to a close, we piled into a bus and rode to the Seminary in Stuttgart. There, we built upon the themes of ‘encounter’ and ‘renewal’ through an incredible course on Social Sculpture with Tom Tritschel. He brought to us the biography of the Being of Art. Moving quickly through the first great ‘Turning point in time,’ the Mystery of Golgotha, he revealed to us, through the art of Malevich and Beuys, the great revolution of modern art that bears witness to the second ‘Turning point,’ the reappearance of Christ in the etheric world. Our own experience of social art was facilitated through afternoon gatherings of singing, improvisational theater, and games, all strengthened by the daily foundation of the sacrament.

It was astounding and acutely enlivening to find the same impulses and pressing questions of renewal that we carried with us from the Seminary in Spring Valley also living in a very real way in the students of Hamburg and Stuttgart, and even among the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society in Dornach. The energy and power of these impulses grew and potentized over the weeks into a nearly palpable substance, like a tone that grows stronger as it finds its echo in so many other instruments. As we dispersed again for the summer, we were left with an after-image: a feeling of joy and gratefulness for having seen the faces of the others and for having experienced that our little Spring Valley Seminary is a true and worthy part of a bigger seminary. Together, we have celebrated the Act of Consecration of Man, sung and played, and shared our thoughts. We left knowing that we are a part of this much wider movement for religious renewal, which might still look small outwardly, but is nevertheless, at this growing point of the three-fold Seminary, full of strength, potential, and joy. b

Group photo of the students and instructors from the three Christian Community seminaries

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A Path to Seminary and the Gift of Illness — VICTORIA CAPON, FIRST YEAR

In November of 2013, as a Waldorf teacher looking for spiritual renewal, I at- tended an orientation course with Bastiaan Baan in Chicago entitled “Working with the Spirit of the Christian Community.” I had just accepted a teaching position at the Waldorf School of Cape Cod.

During my first year with the class I had a car accident and needed three weeks for recovery. Through contemplation and prayer, I felt the lifting of a dark cloud of fear and doubt that had been constricting me. I began to see clearly that the time was drawing near, and that I needed to follow the calling that I had ignored for so long.

Teachers often learn much more from their students than they could possibly teach them. I found my path to Seminary in the faces of the children as I told them stories of the saints and as we painted the first seven days of Creation. I turned the class over to a very talented and capable young Waldorf teacher, said my goodbyes, and ended the school year. Looking forward to a summer of drawing, reading, and spending time out in nature with my husband, I suddenly found myself sitting in a Doctor’s office and being told that, quite possibly, I had contracted Lyme disease…

Now?

Now that I was finally embracing my calling?

Now?

Yes, now. A redeeming angel was sent my way. A kind, generous, talented, and highly trained woman who has become a dear friend in the Boston congre-gation helped to guide me through the brain fog, joint pain, muscle cramps, headaches, and insomnia which became a symbol, a question, a challenge, “Are you really sure?” “Are you going to let this illness stop you?” “No!” I answered. “This will not stop me.”

My summer became about healing and deepening my resolve to offer myself up to this inspiring and transformative experience. I am now becoming aware that there won’t be just one ‘eye of the needle,’ but many strands of many colors to thread and stitch this newly emerging tapestry that we all are creating together. b

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Triptych pastels by Victoria Capon

Inner Life — GAIL RITSCHER, FIRST YEAR

It’s not that I didn’t have an inner life before I joined the Seminary. I could memorize and recite Rudolf Steiner’s verses and meditations with the best of them. I filled the room with clouds of incense and made Tibetan singing bowls howl as I tried to empty my mind of the everyday and ignore the three dogs snoring gently at my feet. I even told myself that they were catching my vibe – and, who knows, maybe they were. I was happy enough with my routine of quasi-quiet and very real prayer, but what I really wanted was to meditate – and that, I knew, was not what was happening. So when I was asked by the Seminary directors in the second week of classes what my goals for the year were, I unhesitatingly included “Learn to meditate!” They assured me they could help, and here is what I have learned so far:

First, create a special location to meditate, no matter how small. It will then be waiting for you in the right mood when you get there. Second, it’s important to be grounded when you open yourself to the spiritual world, so sit with both feet on the floor. Third, bring yourself to inner quiet. This part can be tricky, and it’s a very individual process. Shake off the everyday. Breathe deeply. Try to feel expanded beyond the body, empty. Simply be. Once you have maintained inner quiet for few minutes, work with your meditation verse – in part or in full – and then return to inner quiet. The bracketing quiet periods should each be longer than the verse in the middle, and the whole thing should last a maximum of 20 minutes.

Since most Seminary days begin with the Act of Consecration of Man, I try to carry my mood of inner quiet with me into the chapel. There, bearing in my consciousness that the angels help us with our daily tasks, I join my prayers to those of the priest as they stream up from the earthly altar to the angelic altar, archangelic altar, and on up – altar to altar, like a heavenly staircase. b

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Religious rituals can be transformative and provide a sense of the sacred, includ-ing meaning, structure, and identity for individuals and communities. They use elements involving all of our senses and faculties, purposely and skillfully integrated into the ritual’s theme. If it is truly effective, the ritual will acknowl-edge both male and female spiritual forces in religious history; it will express the realities of existence, the constant cycles of life as observed in nature, from birth to death and even through rebirth. This is dramatized through observing the changing seasons and events in the life of the divine person/s. The shapes and colors of altar cloths and vestments thus reflect the season’s mood. These correlations may be adapted to local conditions if there is a sense of disparity between the season and the celebration.

Rituals can, however, be problematic. There are those who deny that there is a spiritual world. For them, science has enlightened our understanding of the universe and they are embarrassed by or dismissive of religious rituals, which require submissive posturing to an invisible higher world. Others believe rituals are not essential to salvation or that the solution to suffering is to escape altogether from existence. Rituals can indeed be a hindrance if they maintain unquestioned dogmas and if the esoteric meaning of holy days or symbols used are no longer understood or explained. Rather than accept divine matters as a mystery or on blind faith, however, spiritual investigation can offer real insight. Rituals can also offend by being restricted to one group based on cultural, gender or racial ties, etc., whereas inclusive ones serve to unite humanity. A rarely used, or so-called ‘dead language,’ can lend a magical element to the ritual. However, if the language is not understood by the participants, or if it is associated with dominance and exclusivity, the ritual may lose its appeal.

Many religious movements recognize their own powerlessness in the face of harmful forces in the material world and in humanity, which need beneficial spiritual forces in order to be overcome. Rituals assist the participant in entering a higher consciousness and, for a moment, leave everyday life behind but also increasingly infuse that everyday life with the sacred. b

The Importance of Religious Ritual in Life — JAMES GREAVES, FIRST YEAR

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During the last week of October, we had an open course about how to culti-vate an individual relationship with Jesus Christ. The course was given by the two directors of the Seminary, Bastiaan Baan and Patrick Kennedy, and enriched by the participation of more than forty guests coming from different places of North America. We focused on the nature of the different kinds of relationships we can develop with Jesus Christ, and some favorable conditions for cultivat-ing them. The course was rounded off with suggestions for a daily devotional practice and developing a prayer life through the study of the Gospels. Christ is within each and every single human being, but it depends on each one to engage and cultivate an individual relationship with Him. He knocks at our door and leaves us in freedom.

The first step in building a relationship is to acknowledge the one with whom you want to cultivate a relationship. We need to turn to Him with the recogni-tion of who He is and how He works through our hearts in this moment.

Open Course: Cultivating an Individual Relationship with Jesus Christ — LUIS GONZALEZ, SECOND YEAR

Closing gathering of the Open Course participants

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Once we create the inner connection with the Christ, we have to struggle to keep it alive. It is not the connection with Christ, but rather the denial of God that is built into the human constitution. In order to work progressively with this reality, we have to descend once and again underneath the layers upon which our ego has created its foundation in order to discover that we are powerless because of our inability to go beyond them. We have to become a beggar for spirit. Christ wants to be asked. We meet Him and stand in front of Him with our empty hands. This is a kind of death, which is the path to resurrection through Him, through the power of His love. In the midst of these forces, we can grow wings. He sees us, He knows us, He looks through us, and we can only have such an encounter with Him from ‘I to I.’ b

Art class

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This past April our Seminary made a road trip to Ipswich, Massachusetts for the weeklong course: “I Stand at Peace with the world.” We were the very fortu-nate guests of Carrie and John Schuchardt, founders of The House of Peace, a refuge and home for special needs and refugee peoples.

That week the occupants of The House of Peace included a few refugees from Syria. One was a five-year-old girl receiving treatments at the Shriners Hospital for burn injuries she suffered while her family was seeking refuge from the ravages of the war.

At dinner during the first night, Carrie shared their mission and the biography of this child. When Carrie began describing the details of her injuries and how she came to be there, I began quietly sobbing. I couldn’t fathom such injury, burns over 40% of her body, her loss of 40 family members, or the dawning that this was only one story among thousands. I was overwhelmed with grief and powerlessness. Waves of confusion and my sense of injustice kept crashing into my consciousness.

My heart was so conflicted… I did not think I would be able to meet her and her guardian uncle without completely breaking down. I cannot do this… it is too hard. I demanded of Christ: Really? I stand at peace with the world? How could he? How could I? After dinner, I asked to speak with Bastiaan and shared my anguish. Bastiaan, in his unique way, reminded me of Christ’s words in the Sacrament: “I stand at peace with the world. This peace with the world can be with you also because I give it to you.” As we spoke together, my heart desper-ately searched and demanded answers that could help me to be present with this child. He included another truth spoken to us by Christ: “I remain with you until the end, and beyond.” I asked myself: If I sit in the Act of Consecration almost every day for this year, what is it that I am being consecrated for?

Here was a reality at The House of Peace that made me dig so deep, to practice my faith in this Being who made such promises, in the face of what man does to man… without Christ. I slowly repeated to myself, “I stand at peace with the world,” then added, “this peace with the world can be with you also, because I give it to you.” I repeated this over and over that evening in preparation for the morning’s meeting. New thoughts came as I said this to myself: Who is this ‘I’, that can promise such peace? Who is this ‘I’ that remains with us all, through it all… until the end and beyond? Even in the face of man’s actions toward his brothers and sisters, how could Christ stand at peace? With us? With me? What could I do, should I do? And then I had to sleep, but I prayed harder and more fiercely than I had in my entire life that I might be able to meet what the coming day was bringing to this house of peace.

I Stand at Peace with the World— JANE ELLEN JOHNSON, FIRST YEAR, 2015-2016

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Fragile and dusty pinkPetals that quiver in the

Autumn breeze

Tiny seeds dressed up like gnomesWith three pointed hats of pink, green and black

Five petaled flowers,The human being nods.

The seeds that ray out toThe three aspects of God

— Victoria Capon

So, the next day dawned, and in I went for breakfast… and there she was, with her uncle… a shy, beautiful, precious child. My heart swelled with love, and only love. While beholding her, I found my peace as the mother in me only saw the child in her. My heart belongs with hers… as my heart belongs with each and every being on this earth. And it hit me, full-force, in those dark Syrian eyes she was looking out from. She was the least of our brethren; she was Christ; she was standing at peace with this world for me – for us. b

Carrie and John Schuchardt, founders of the House of Peace

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In September of this year, Will Crane, our Spacial Dynamics instructor, intro-duced several exercises. In one exercise, we formed a circle and were instruct-ed to call a person’s name, make eye contact, and toss the ball to him or her. Then, Will added two more balls. We watched attentively in order to be ready. It became even more interesting when Will asked the group to walk while tossing, and finally, run around in the same circle, not forgetting to call out the name, make eye-contact and toss the ball! Here we were running in the circle with our names being called out, having balls tossed at us systematically and trying not to drop the ball. We soon developed a rhythm that allowed our concern to dissipate and our tossing to become smoother and more accurate. By relieving our tension, the circle now acting as an organ, we could catch the ball more than 25 times before dropping it.

Later, in October, Jennifer Kleinbach and Barbara Renold joined with Will Crane to share a different perspective of sound. They introduced us to the exercises of the pentathlon. We explored jumping, running, wrestling, and discus and javelin throwing. Do sounds come only from the larynx? How do these activities help us in speech formation?

With Jennifer, the second-year students were asked to use the same motions from the discus-throwing exercise to sound out words and phrases. I was struck by the significant change in my speech when I moved as if to throw a discus. The sounds that I made sounded out with direction. Jumping in mid-air gave

my speech a lighter, airy sound. As I looked around to my class-mates, I realized that we were all experiencing a different placement of our body that helped each one produce the speech exercises. My voice sometimes had less tension in it and the spacing between my words sometimes had a rhythmical sound. I experienced what Barbara and Jennifer told us when we were in the field: Speech comes from the bottom of our feet and works upward. And, “with lots of practice, we will be able to sound these words and sentences without the jumping and discus throwing. It will become second nature to us.” b

Spacial Dynamics in Relation to Speech— ZOE SCOULOS, SECOND YEAR

Tom takes a leap

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Everywhere in autumn time, once-living forms of nature are hurled down. The wind races along and tears from the trees the brightly colored leaves, flinging them down to the earth’s dark surface. Squirrels leap along branches, throwing down acorns that pelt the ground and crumble beneath our feet. Stars fall from the night. Raindrops seem as though flung from the clouds, and everywhere beneath our feet we tread on seeds – seeds falling from brittle stems, naked boughs, or bronzed gardens. The earth receives the summer’s bounty into her dark body.

Amidst this casting down of the living earth, are the trees. In sacrificial glory, they visibly pour forth their sweetness. Sweetness they have kept for themselves throughout the balmy summer days. After gathering the summer sunlight and drawing it inwards, they have molded and shaped it into forms of leaf and branch, bark and bud, now to pour it forth again as radiant color. Light that took on form and shape, becoming substance in sugar, burns with hidden flame and flares out, streaming and radiating towards us. What words do the red and yellow, orange, copper and vermilion speak to our listening hearts as they blaze towards us, saturating us with their being?

They tell of darkness moving between us and the light. Darkness that threatens to cut us off from the light. A darkness like blackened logs beneath a smolder-ing fire, where the blackness feels as though it sucks our souls downwards into itself. No longer are our souls spread out on glorious wings of green that throughout summer engulfed us and carried us out of ourselves on a huge wave of living beingness. The light of the outer world is sinking.

We breathe in a dying world. In autumn we move within an entombment of the outer world. And into this mood is placed the image of Michael standing over the black and fiery dragon. Gratefully, we find at the Michaelmas altar gentle colors: peach blossom and green. They speak to us of a higher light that can awaken within us out of shining ether worlds. b

Autumn Contemplations— SARAH AMMON, FIRST YEAR

Charcoal drawing by Matthias Giles

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The topic of new priesthood is far too big for this short article, and the scope of its meaning goes well beyond my own understanding. Nevertheless, during the course of this training I have learned some things that I wish I had known earlier, things that I think are important for life in the congregations.

For instance, Rudolf Steiner once remarked to the group of people who asked him about religious life and would later found the Christian Community that the name ‘priest’ was occupied already. In fact, he tried to find another name – but this did not come to realization. He did not come back to this theme at a later time. Priesthood is one of the oldest professions in the world. To suggest that its name could be changed means a fundamental change to the profession itself!

I find it confusing that the outer form of priesthood in the Christian Community has stayed so much ‘the same.’ With this, I mean in terms of the vestments and the way the priest celebrates the sacraments. Rudolf Steiner said that when the priest is without his vestments, he is “a human being among human beings.” This feels so right – that the life of the congregation is everyone’s responsibili-ty – a circle. However, this needs to be learned. We need to learn to relate in a new way to the person who, in vestments, has celebrated the service, spoken the words of Christ – and also to the same person when he or she is without vestments, as a striving human being, not to be too highly elevated or too severely disappointed in.

It is necessary to discern between the celebrating priest – the priest who also works with members of the congregation in pastoral care – and the “human being among human beings,” in order to free a certain energy of responsibility in the life of the congregation.

This is a learning process for all of us: for the priests and for the people in the congregations. b

Some Thoughts on the New Priesthood — JOAN VAN HOLSTEIJN, SECOND YEAR

Working with autumn colors

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“And about the ninth hour Jesus called out with a loud voice: ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ That means: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew. 27:46; Mark. 15:34)

The meaning of Christ Jesus’ words on the cross has long been a riddle to me. Was He experiencing a moment of human despair? Perhaps He had such experiences, but this alone does not suffice to explain this cosmically significant moment.

These words also reference the beginning of Psalm 22, which describes a path of suffering culminating in words of overcoming: “[…] future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!” Could Christ have been pointing to His own fulfillment of this prophecy?

Rudolf Steiner presents a third view on this important question. He reports from his spiritual-scientific research that Christ’s recorded words are actually a misun-derstanding of an important phrase known in the Mysteries: “And the ancient cry which was always heard in the Mysteries when the spiritual nature of a human being forsook his physical body to gaze into spiritual worlds – ‘My God, my God, how hast thou glorified me!’ – is altered by Matthew, so that with his attention fixed on the physical body, he says, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!’” (GA 123, 12 Sept. 1910)

Rudolf Steiner emphasizes that Christ’s true words on the cross indicate the enactment of a profound Mystery or initiation experience. (Ibid. and GA 97, 2 Dec. 1906) This would seem to demonstrate the deep interrelationship between Christianity and all true Mystery traditions of antiquity – a view that Rudolf Steiner expands upon in his book Christianity as Mystical Fact.

In another lecture, he similarly describes the meaning of Christ’s words as, “My God, my God, how greatly you have glorified me, made me spiritual.” (GA 96, 1 April 1907) When Christ was present on earth, He spoke of eternal life and of the overcoming of death; and with these words we can see that He experi-enced the influx of this life upon consciously encountering death. Knowledge of the true meaning of Christ’s words on the cross may encourage trust in the world of spiritual life on the other side of the threshold. b

Christ’s Words on the Cross— THOMAS O’KEEFE, SECOND YEAR

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Every day we open and close doors, pass over and through thresholds visible and invisible, spatial and temporal. Sometimes we notice and sometimes we don’t. Some are marked by wood or metal, others are so subtle that we notice them only in retrospect. The sheer multitude of the ways in which the images ‘threshold’ and ‘door’ are used to describe experiences outside of the visible world points to the potency and importance of the phenomena and activity they represent.

The threshold: the boundary, one side of which is qualitatively different from the other, the very place or moment that is neither one nor the other side, nor both – the line that distinguishes the house from the yard, the child from the adult, the waking life from the dream. Upon the threshold, at a single point, there stands the Door, that mobile entity which hides or reveals what lies on either side, that which opens and closes, grants entrance or prohibits it.

There are many thresholds, each unique in its quality by virtue of the bodies whose borders define it. Perhaps the most intimate threshold, our own skin, is so close that we scarcely notice how difficult it is to cross. We walk through life in search of a door, a way to breach the separation that divides us from the world.

Jesus Christ declared, “I am the door; whoever enters through me will be saved.” (John 10:9) We do not hear that He is the threshold, that static border, determined by difference, born by the meeting of one and an ‘other.’ No, He is the Door – that One who grants entrance, unites worlds. He is that activity which, when it lives in us, allows us to move beyond the borders of our own being and meet the other. b

Metamorphosing Platonic forms in clay

The Door at the Threshold — MATTHIAS GILES, SECOND YEAR

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“In a humanity scourged by anguished dreams, which asks itself: ‘How much more is to come?’ we want to be a quiet group which knows what is coming, because we know Who is coming. And with His Coming may come whatever has to come!” – Emil Bock

These words of Emil Bock, one of the founders of The Christian Community, have become a guide for me towards the future. They entered my life again this summer: Each day, the above text accompanied a group of 170 people who met in Cordoba, Argentina, during the North-South conference of the Americas in July. Many people in South America have to deal daily with poverty, chaos, and violence. In this context, we experienced the necessity of the above approach towards the future. I was deeply moved by the warmth and positiv-ity with which these people encounter the facts of daily life and an uncertain future. Somehow a spark of this unconditional trust came back with me after the conference.

Though on a much different scale, here at the Seminary we too have our challenges. Some of them are quite gratifying, because the challenges somehow show that we are developing in the right direction. Our last Open Course was bursting at the seams. We moved to the church for the week in order to have space enough for more than 50 participants!

Another new challenge is related to the benefit of having a second Seminary director as well as administrative support. During the three-and-a-half years that I worked more or less on my own, Seminary operating expenses were covered by a small amount of income and generous contributions. With the full-time work of our consultant, Janice Morgante, and the addition of our second Seminary director, Patrick Kennedy (who has a family to support), we need to increase our income.

Other challenges that we are still looking forward to: In early June of 2017, we intend to accompany our ten seminarians to the International Whitsun Conference of The Christian Community, in The Netherlands. It is an invaluable opportunity for our students to meet the worldwide movement. Our friends in The Netherlands will allow us to participate in the conference with a reduced fee. However, we expect that $10,000 will be required to cover the costs for travel, meals, and housing.

There is another gratifying challenge: In a year, the five-year period of my assignment as Seminary director will be complete. My colleagues have asked that we stay for a few more years, and my wife and I said yes! The procedure to obtain a new visa has begun so that, hopefully, we can continue our work here at the Seminary in North America.

Ready for the Future? — BASTIAAN BAAN, SEMINARY CO-DIRECTOR

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A much needed moment of levity

And our work continues to expand out into the English-speaking world: next summer I am invited to travel to New Zealand and Australia for a lecture tour and to meet with individuals who are preparing their way to the Seminary in North America.

In light of all these ways in which we are growing and expanding the work of the Seminary, we dare to ask you for your help – trusting that together we will be able to meet these challenges! The Seminary directors, together with the students, are deeply grateful for your generous gifts, which help us to realize our present tasks and to prepare for the future. With the help of Emil Bock and my South American friends, who gave me a living example, I look with growing trust towards the future!

P.S. – With your donation, please make clear the purpose for which it may be used, that is, “General Seminary Fund” or “Whitsun Conference.” b

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Spring Semester 2017 - Main CoursesWeek of January 23 • Sacrament I: Sources and Development of the Eucharist with Rev. Bastiaan Baan

Week of January 30 • Sacrament II: The Act of Consecration of Man with Rev. Patrick Kennedy

Week of February 6 • Seven Year Cycles and the Biography of the Soul with Jennifer Brooks Quinn, Biography Worker

Week of February 13 • Sacrament III: The Act of Consecration through the Year with Rev. Bastiaan Baan

Week of February 20 • The Fall of Mankind with Rev. Jonah Evans (Toronto)

Week of February 27 • Healings in the Gospel of Luke OPEN COURSE with Rev. Bastiaan Baan and Dr. Hans van Delden (MD), Professor of Medical Ethics (The Netherlands)

Week of March 6 • Christ and Judas – the Mystery of Freedom and Necessity with Rev. Richard Dancey (Washington, DC)

Week of March 13 • Sacrament IV: ‘The Path of Discipleship’ in the Sacrament and the Gospel Readings through the Year with Rev. Rev. Patrick Kennedy

Week of March 20 • Substances in the Rituals with Rev. Daniel Hafner (Nuremberg, Germany)

Week of March 27 • The Lamb of God: Offering and Transubstantiation with Rev. Lisa Hildreth (Boston, MA)

Week of April 3 • Finding our True Self through Christ with Rev. Tom Ravetz (Lenker, UK) and Deborah Ravetz

Week of April 10 • Holy Week - special program

Week of April 17 • Easter Vacation

Week of April 24 • The Twelve Senses in the Act of Consecration of Man OPEN COURSE with Rev. Baan, Rev. Peter van Breda (London, UK), and Rev. Kennedy

Week of May 1 • Nature Images with Rev. Peter Skaller (Hillsdale, NY)

Week of May 8 • Light, Life and Love with Rev. Gisela Wielki (NYC)

Week of May 15 • Pastoral Care II with Rev. Julia Polter (Boston)

Week of May 22 • Community Building in the Sign of Whitsun with Rev. Patrick Kennedy and Rev. Bastiaan Baan

June 2–7 • International Whitsun Conference in the Netherlands

845-356-0972www.christiancommunityseminary.orginfo@christiancommunityseminary.org

THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATIONS!Please use the enclosed envelope for your check,payable to:

The Seminary of the Christian Community7 Carmen Ct., Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977OR click the “Donate” button on the donation page.

OR call to make a credit card donation over the phone.A tax receipt will be issued upon request in accordance with government guidelines

Revenue code Federal identification #35-2181804

Fall Semester begins September 17, 2017Applications are due August 17, 2017

For application forms, visit www.christiancommunityseminary.orgContribution for the Fall semester:

$3,900 (includes housing) / $2,060 (without housing)

Spring 2017 Open CoursesFebruary 27–March 3

Healings in the Gospel of LukeWith Rev. Bastiaan Baan and

Dr. Hans van Delden MD, Professor Medical Ethics (The Netherlands)

April 24–28The Twelve Senses in the Act of Consecration of Man

With Rev. Bastiaan Baan, Rev. Peter van Breda (London)and Rev. Patrick Kennedy

For Open Course registration, visitwww.christiancommunityseminary.org

Page: Open Courses and retreats