THOUGHTS, WRITINGS, RECORDINGS
from our priests
Philip Peter Incao
Landscape by Jennifer Thomson
February 14, 1941 - February 28, 2022 • Philip Incao crossed the threshold in Crestone, Colorado at 6:30 am on Monday, February 28. The funeral will take place on Thursday, March 3, at 1:00 PM at The Incaos' house in Crestone, CO.
Dear Friends,
A beloved member of our community, a beloved physician from our area, Philip Incao has died at 6:30 am on Monday in Crestone, Colorado. We are far from him and yet we wish to honor his life by holding a vigil, of sorts, from afar. Anyone is able to participate inwardly in their own home at any time of day or night, up to the time of his funeral which will be Thursday, 3 pm our time (1 pm Mountain standard time).
We can light a candle, read a verse, the prologue from the Gospel of John, the Lord's prayer. He is going through a mighty transition time, we can accompany that. Many in our community were close to him, united with him for many years even from afar.
We are in conversation with the family about a memorial event at The Christian Community here in Hillsdale at a later time, to be announced.
Rev. Mimi Coleman
Sebastian Incao's words on his father:
My father, Philip Frank Incao was born in 1941 in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn NY to Philip and Anne Incao. From an early age, my father was curious and mystified by what happens to one after death. As a young child, he asked his mother a big question one evening at bedtime, the answer would change his life and begin his journey. He asked his mother, “What happens to you after you die?” Nothing she replied, you’re dead. Unsatisfied with this answer and wanting to know more, he decided early on he wanted to explore this through becoming and working as a doctor.
After graduating from medical school, my father was disillusioned with the allopathic approach to the human body, fear, and denial of the dying process, and total disregard for the spirit. The body, seen as mechanical and divided into individual parts, treated in a one size fits all approach with no discernment or intelligence for its innate capacity to heal and maintain homeostasis, left him deeply unsatisfied. While enlisted in the Navy and living in Berkley California, he was introduced to Anthrophosophy and the works of Rudolf Steiner. This began a lifelong study that finally began to address the mysteries and questions he was so interested in, and began to nourish in him a new vision of what medicine and healing could be as the role of Physician in Anthroprosophical medicine.
He moved to Harlemville NY with his wife Annemarie, where an Anthroprosophical community was being started and opened his practice.
As a child, I remember a busy waiting room with patients waiting for hours to speak to my father. He took his time, he listened, he was curious about people and their lives, he asked a lot of questions and he never rushed. Through his patience, diligence, his ability to listen, and truly be interested in a patient's story, he helped them attain a better understanding of themselves, their Karmic process, and how it related to illness and the healing process; from this, he grew a lifelong following of patients who cherished his care.
Patients had a deep respect for my father, and throughout my life, I was often told from people in the community that they had moved to Harlemville because of him, stayed in Harlemville because of him, or that he had saved their life.
One Steiner quote I came across while going through his voluminous collection of life papers stood out to me. It reads “The real nature of thinking is warm, luminous, and penetrating deeply into the phenomena of the world…it is the power of love in its spiritual form”. This was very much my father’s nature.
My father's adventurous spirit took his three boys on many trips and adventures that were memorable and so important to the well-rounded development of a child, which left a deep impression on all our lives. He loved to hike and camp, taking us into the White Mountains, the Smoky Mountains, The Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Grand Tetons, the Adirondacks, and various National Parks across the country.
He shared with us experiences which were invaluable growing up in a small town and isolated community, lessons one cannot learn in school or see from home… We made an epic road trip in a huge station wagon across the country, returning home through the Provinces of Canada. When I was 12, we canoed for 2 weeks with a group down the Mississippi through several states, camping on inlets and shorelines, cooking over fires. We hiked high up into the Sierra Nevada mountains where there were frozen glaciers without a soul around, and deep down into the scorching bottom of the Grand Canyon along stretches of the Colorado River. I remember waking in our tent to the dog barking and my father grabbing a pot and beating on it as a brown bear visited camp. He did something for us his father had tried to do for him growing up that left a great impression, showing us the beauty of the country, the wildness that still existed in great expanses of wilderness and mountain ranges and rugged plains, the diversity of landscapes and peoples and cultures. It showed us the possibilities of the world were vast and to be discovered.
Steiner said “all ways into the spiritual world pass through the heart”, my father embodied this in his life’s work and most importantly as a loving father. He is survived by his loving wife Jennifer and his three sons, Quentin, Sylvan, and Sebastian.
* In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made to:
https://paam.wildapricot.org/Donate
The Dr. Philip Incao Fund for Spiritual Science & Medicine
Dr. Philip Incao is well known as one of the leading pioneers and outspoken advocates of Anthroposophic Medicine in our country. As Dr. Incao nears the threshold, he has reflected on the legacy he would like to leave to future generations of spiritual scientists and medical practitioners, aside from the deep insights and wisdom he has already shared with students, mentees, fellow practitioners, and patients throughout the decades. To honor his desire to support interested and motivated doctors who want to deepen their Anthroposophic understanding and spiritual schooling, we have established a fund specifically devoted to offering financial assistance for doctors and medical students wanting to attend Medial Section offerings and other Anthroposophic conferences and trainings focused on spiritual science.
LINK to the New York Times article on May 18, 2022
‘Being the Smoke’: One Man’s Choice to Be Cremated Under the Open Sky
A small Colorado town maintains the country’s only public outdoor funeral pyre.
Philip Incao saw it as his own perfect ending.
2022 Annual General Meeting
Dear Friends of The Christian Community,
The Christian Community of North America regional board looks forward to welcoming delegates and friends for the 2022 Annual General Meeting on March 19th, 11 am ET. The regional board has decided to move this annual meeting to March of each year going forward. This year will be a transitional one, so we will hold just the Annual General Meeting using the Zoom meeting platform. It is required that one named delegate from each congregation participate in this 1.5-hour meeting to approve the 2021 Financial Report and to re-elect Regional Board members, however, all are welcome to attend. In March 2023, we will look forward to resuming an in-person Delegates Meeting along with the General Meeting where we can meet for a few days, explore a theme together, share meals and conversation and enjoy updates from all the congregations.
A Zoom link and any necessary materials will be sent to all who have registered about a week prior to the meeting. Here is a shareable link for registration:
https://forms.gle/2y3SajgXL2g2ZaX78
NOTE: The yearly Treasurer’s Meeting will be held separately, as part of the 2nd Quarter treasurer’s call.
AGENDA
Saturday, March 19, 2022, 11am ET on Zoom
Each Congregation shall send one delegate to this meeting who is empowered to vote in the name of that congregation. All are welcome to attend this meeting. Only delegates may vote. Everyone should register:
https://forms.gle/2y3SajgXL2g2ZaX78
1. Welcome and Roll Call – Jodi Dill
2. State of the Region – Craig Wiggins
3. Financial Report 2021 and motion for approval – Allen Logue
4. Re-Election of Regional Board Members – Jodi Dill, George Riley, Kate Kristensen, Lisa Hildreth, Allen Logue,
5. Location Possibilities for Annual Delegates’ Meeting March 2023
6. Closing Thank you for your patience as we transition to this new annual rhythm. We look forward to seeing you on Zoom!
REGISTRATION LINK
If you have questions or need help with registration, please contact Trish Mooney at ccnaoffice@gmail.com or 301-996-5656.
Thanks to all,
Trish Mooney, Administrator
THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY IN NORTH AMERICA
2135 W. Wilson Ave. Chicago, IL 60625
Cell: 301-996-5656 (primary)
Office: 845-425-5705
Fire in the Temple
Fire in the Temple
The True Story of the Death of Rudolf Steiner
a new play in two parts newly revised by Glen Williamson
with Laurie Portocarrero and Eurythmists Sea-Anna Vasilas and Zachary Dolphin
Open Rehearsals:
Tuesday Feb 22nd, Open Rehearsal at CometTime in Philmont, Part One at 4:00
Limited space - RSVP to hold a seat! (518) 567-6766
Wednesday Feb 23rd, Open Rehearsal at CometTime in Philmont, Part Two at 4:00
Limited space - RSVP to hold a seat! (518) 567-6766
Performance!!
Thursday, February 24 Part One, 4:00 PM • Dinner Break, 5:30 pm • Part Two, 7:00 PM
Everyone who attends will be welcome to have a potluck dinner between sections.
Bring plenty of food to share
Switzerland, 1923. Spiritual teacher and clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner works to waken people to the spirit. His enemies oppose him and his pupils don’t understand their task. But ancient memories and faithful friendships
persist.
Suggested Donation $30- $10
We Become Creative
Sermon from Rev. Carol Kelly
“We are given mistakes,
We are given nightmares,
And our task is to turn them into poetry.
And were I truly a poet,
I would feel that every moment of life is poetic,
Every moment of my life is a kind of clay I have to mold
The actual poet’s task is true for the poetic Spirit in everyone,
The work of giving form, expression,
To everything that happens,
Thus discovering and revealing meaning,
‘the pattern of glory’
Discovering that all experiences, light or dark,
Are stars-
And take their place in the constellation of wholeness”
The Journals of Helen M. Luke
We have come to the end of Epiphany and we can sense it. We do not want the star of grace to go too far away.
It will abide with us if we can keep the heart’s light of our prayer alive. The light of grace has touched our hearts and awakened long-buried treasures: our ideals, our hopes, our devotion. The magenta at the altar works right into our souls, reminding us of our true origins but more importantly of our destination as evolving human beings.
How do we hold our ideals in an “inner lantern” protected, yet steady, and go forth practicing a love which is selfless and perhaps brings no reward?
In the Gospel this morning we encounter Christ as He heals a woman who had been afflicted and unable to stand upright for eighteen years. (Luke 13:10-17) He has compassion for her, lays His hands on her and she is able to stand up straight. He is met by the rebuke of the Pharisees, by the “rules, (man-made) which state that He cannot “work” on the Sabbath.
In general, rules are made so that people do not have to think. We make rules so that we can all just stop at the stop sign and drive on the right side of the road so we don’t have to make it up as we go along. We don’t want to have to decide every time, what to do or what the form or process should be. This keeps everything going smoothly in certain areas. But what happens when the stoplight is broken? Interestingly, people get creative. They wake up to the other cars at the intersection, wait for them, let them through, everybody takes turns! It becomes a beautiful “dance” although it takes a little longer. Could this apply elsewhere?
The Pharisees continue to persecute and condemn Jesus for “breaking the rules” on the Sabbath. He actually brings the woman into her full humanity by allowing her to stand upright. This may seem trivial to us: “Why can’t they just see that this is more important?” But we too have rigidity of thought. We too have rules that we follow blindly, without much consideration and we can easily fall into condemnation of those who do not follow the rules.
In “The Spirit of the Circling Stars” Adam Bittleston writes: “Wherever we are rigid in thought, we are liable to cruelty, however little intended; and the way to transmutation of thought is through a fire of sacrifice, which prepares us to accept radically different conceptions of the world, whatever their consequences for ourselves may be.”
We are called upon to be creative in solving the problems which we must begin to love. This might mean breaking some old forms in order to find new ones. We are called upon to understand more deeply the One whose presence is among us, ready to heal us on the Sabbath, to bring the one great rule of love into the center of our consciousness.
Jan 21 - Feb 27 • The Red Thread
Between January 21 and February 27 Laura Summer will be working at Lightforms-art+spirit creating a serial piece on relationship called "Red Thread".
Feb 11-12 workshop: The Virgin of Guadalupe
The Virgin of Guadalupe : Mysterious Messenger of Destiny
A workshop with Stephanie Georgieff-Speaker, Author, Podcaster, Pilgrim.
February 11-12, 2022
Friday 7:00-8:30 pm and Saturday 9:00 am - 3:00pm
Free will offerings accepted.
"The Virgin of Guadalupe is a miracle and symbol of the task of Humanity and the Americas. Building upon the Mexican Mysteries, the Initiation of Humanity as well as the Virgin of the Apocalypse, the esoteric message coming from this American Madonna is a timely one for our current era."
To register, email Rev. Carol Kelly carolkelly.cc@gmail.com
Thank you to Stephanie Georgieff for the incredible historical synopsis and for unveiling beautiful mysteries of the Virgin of Guadalupe. It was truly a blessing to have her here.
For a glimpse into her book
The Virgin of Guadalupe
Mysterious Messenger of Destiny
Click Here
https://booklaunch.io/blackstefka/guadalupe-mysterious-messenger-of-destiny
Coming January 2022
LIGHTFORMS ART CENTER presents
24 paintings by Laura Summer, accompanying poems by Mary Szybist.
January 21 – February 26, 2022 • Open Fridays 3-7PM, Sat/Sun 11:30-5
