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Resolving a One-Year Ecesis Interval for Alaska Paper Birch: Dating a Rockfall Event, Wishbone Hill, Southcentral Alaska
Get PDFNumerous large boulders at the base of Wishbone Hill, northeast of Anchorage, Alaska, suggest a historic rockfall event and potential for future surface instability, putting lives and property at risk. The source of the rockfall-boulders is an exposed syncline with a cliff face composed of conglomerate. The age of trees growing atop boulders provides a minimum exposure-age of those boulders and, thus, the rockfall event. To determine when the rockfall occurred, we dated trees growing atop the boulders using tree-ring samples collected from 30 Alaska paper birch trees. After mounting and polishing, each tree-ring sample was dot-counted, and tree-ring widths were measured using Measure J2X software to generate a master chronology (1938-2017). To estimate the youngest age for the rockfall event, we recorded pith-year for each sample. For samples lacking a pith (n=21), we used pith indicators to match existing rings to diagrams of corresponding ring widths, projecting approximate pith for each sample. All samples we corrected for sampling height (mean=0.8m) using a low estimate growth rate (0.6m/yr). The oldest birch tree sampled included pith and, with height correction, we estimate a germination year of 1936. When using first-year growth as an event’s temporal marker, accounting for the ecesis interval, the time between the availability of a new surface (i.e., boulders) and germination provides a more representative date of the event than using the pith/germination date alone. Considering birch ecesis and primary observations recorded in 1935, we propose that the rockfall event most likely occurred in 1934-1935. This finding suggests an ecesis interval as low as one year for Alaska paper birch in fresh rockfall areas. The risk of another destabilizing event may prompt those utilizing this area for recreational and residential purposes to reconsider future use
Collegeville Connections: A Pilgrim’s Calling Through Advent
No full textLast year, when the pandemic disrupted all of our usual practices of gathering, First Congregational UCC, Boulder, created practices of “pilgrimage worship.” For Advent and Epiphany, a church family mowed a labyrinthian path through a field on their farm and the church’s Arts Ministry installed prayer stations along the way, inviting pilgrims to walk while reflecting on their callings in relation to Mary and Joseph’s journey. Join Chris Braudaway-Bauman with Jessie Bazan and Jane Patterson to begin your Advent with an online version of this pilgrimage and a conversation about celebrating callings during different liturgical seasons
Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
No full textObedience: The Year of St. Joseph
Get PDFThis piece responds to Pope Francis\u27 proclaiming this year to be the Year of St. Joseph through the lens of exploring obedience as a form of resistance. The piece asks readers to not only grapple with their own privilege during a time where inequalities are rampant and apparent but to resist human made forms of oppression. The author uses her identity as a Chicana mother to invite readers to lament the complex grief that we are collectively experiencing during this time of global pandemic, COVID-19
Christ, Be Our Light: An Epiphany Encounter
Get PDFCan hymn singing during liturgy affect the worshipping community’s life in the world? This paper proposes that singing the hymn Christ, Be Our Light by Bernadette Farrell during the liturgy of the Feast of the Epiphany can help transform the hearts of the worshipping community and compel its members to the social action highlighted in the hymn. An examination of the theology of the Feast through the lens of its proper prayers, a theological and literary analysis of the lyrics and analysis of the musical setting of the hymn reveal a strong connection between hymn and Feast. A theology of hymn singing influenced by Martin Heidegger, Don Saliers, and others is presented, affirming the transformational power of congregational hymn singing
Right Seeing: Means and End in Patristic Monastic Lives
Get PDFRight seeing is a central motif in the biographical Lives of Saints Antony and Macrina. ‘Right seeing’, used here to signify the alignment of one’s vision with truth, is manifest variously as ‘the discernment of spirits’, as firmly hopeful trust in the revelation of the divine, and as perceiving the world from the divine perspective. Manifest in these ways, right seeing is both a guide for ascetic training the telos of which is union with God, and it is the fruit of that very union with God unto which askesis aspires
Rooted in the Heart of Relationships A personal theology of ministry and discipleship
Get PDFHow is one expected to engage in ministry without having spent time reflecting on what ministry and discipleship are? This piece represents just one potential theology of ministry and discipleship, crafted after three years of studying theology and doing ministry here at St. John\u27s