soupablog

A relaxing weekend with some similarities.

Last night was the spring Franciscan Retreat for my church community. It was a good, healing time for me, and it helped me to slow down and ease out of some depression, I believe. I'll link to photos that Gordon took once they're live. I didn't do the photo-taking this time, though I usually take a batch. There were others to play that role. — it's a great time — differences are set aside, younger and older generations mingle, food and drink are shared, there's a lot of playing and music and art and storytelling.

Then at lunch, I ran into some old friends, the Roberts, and was able to catch up. That was nice.

Then I met Amy and the kids over at our neighborhood association's annual block party. It reminds me what a great neighborhood we live in. The police and firemen were there, loving on the kids (although the firemen got called away twice on real emergencies!) — volleyball, frisbee, balloons, face painting … it's a great time — differences are set aside, younger and older generations mingle, food and drink are shared, there's a lot of playing and music and art and storytelling.

"If I only had a ball of string, a rock and some tape" — Rev. MacGyver

I'm reposting two fun iPhone snapshots from Tim Snyder at the new Netzer Co-op digs at First English Lutheran in Austin. Jonny Baker might need to further repost for one of his Worship Tricks.

Tim writes: "…This is why you shouldn't worship in a box -- well not literally anyways.

PROBLEM: Worship is designed and set-up. With the final touches in place, we discovered a slight problem — no remote to control the Keynote slide show as we utilize rear projection while worshiping inside a "box" of transfiguration white sheet (our dwelling place for Jesus). How will we ever control the computer placed outside the box while worshipping inside the box?

Solution: Call in Rev. MacGyver (Tim and Ryan with their powers combined)

RESULT: A ball of string, a rock and tape are acquired. We throw the ball of string up and over the rafters of the church and dangle a rock guided by other strings suspended from the pew to create a pully mechanism. One end will be in the box — the other will suspend a rock above the space bar of the the computer outside the box.

Brilliant.

separated at birth?

at first i thought thehighcalling.com's marcus goodyear and rhys coiro from 24 were separated at birth, but then i thought about it, and i've never seen the two of them in the same room at the same time.

within seconds of my posting this (above), marcus posted the following (completely coincidental [that's tim snyder in the background]):

Liveblog: Conversations with Phyllis Tickle (FRI PM)

-- note -- sorry about abandoning the live blogging last night. it was engaging, to be sure, but just not conducive to blogging.

5:52 pm - I'm here at St. Mark's, San Antonio, in the historic heart of downtown. The room is abuzz, and for a so-called emergent topic, the place is brimming with folks over 50. At 39, I'm clearly the youngest person here. Mary Ellen is here from ¡Viva! — and we were able to talk a bit about the upcoming Open House. Phyllis Tickle's flight was delayed, and she just showed up.

Integrity and the Path of Least Resistance

Hello and welcome to the one thousandth post here at soupablog.com.  Ta-da!

Thanks for letting me have fun with the campaign-season-inspired emotional buildup. Sorry if this post lets you down; if it does it only proves the point I was making about election-style hype.

This is one of those posts I’ve stopped and started writing numerous times over the past week, not because of its quasi milestone status but rather because here I wanted to drive a stake in the ground, clear the air, and start afresh, for my own health and for yours.

But before I do so, I’d like to sincerely thank all of you who have entered into conversation with me here at soupablog. These comments have spilled over into my ‘real life’ in so many enriching ways; I couldn’t begin to count. Dozens of emails, letters, lunches, coffees, and late night conversations about theology and thought, faith and doubt, art and music, design, politics, and myriad other threads have left me encouraged, provoked, breathless, strengthened, challenged and convicted.

I’m convinced this little blog has got some of the best readers in the world. Some of you are loyal strangers, some are family, some are lurking co-workers, some are in my tribe, and others are lifelong friends. And each of you knows different facets of the real me.

And it is for this reason I want to write tonight about integrity. I want to unpack my feelings about my own integrity because the more I insinuate myself into broad conversations with a wide variety of people — and the more technologies allow these widely various peoples to be in conversation with each other [1] — the more we — the more I — leave room for ambiguity and misunderstanding.

From birth we all desire to be understood. We learn there is powerful potential energy stored up in vocabulary and syntax and grammar. We communicate with sentences and paragraphs and hand gestures and facial expressions and emoticons and color and symbol. Each time we gain a new communication tool, we potentially become more understanding and more human (this evening I sat down and taught my twelve-year-old son the difference between imply and infer — it’s a great distinction to apprehend earlier rather than later).

But it’s the misunderstanding — or the propensity to misunderstand — that I want to explore, for when meaning is obscured or misunderstood, one’s hard-fought reputation — one’s integrity — goes on the line.

This weekend, Abe Levy, a local religion editor for the San Antonio Express-News, interviewed me for an article he was writing on religion and politics. He had contacted me once a few years prior when he was looking for emerging churches in San Antonio, but as I recall, I declined the interview at the time. But this time I felt compelled to action, to insert myself into the conversation.  But I also had an equal-but-opposite reaction: palpable fear of being misunderstood, of being misquoted, for I knew the feelings of frustration and violation upon being misquoted a few years earlier in the San Antonio Business Journal. That’s another story for another time.

I called and left a message with Mr. Levy.  I was willing to go on the record but I had some real misgivings about being misquoted or misrepresented.  When he called I voiced those fears but he quickly allayed them.

The interview commenced, and the whole experience was rather white-knuckled for reasons of integrity: I knew going into the interview that I’d sort of be fulfilling the interviewer’s desire to find a “moderate evangelical voting left-of-center this year” who would go on record about congregational discussions of politics, or the lack thereof, whether from the pulpit or elsewhere. And I knew my words would be typeset and published in the local newspaper of record and read daily by relatives and old friends whom I love and who would self-identify as being very conservative Christians. Many of those relatives and friends would probably, incorrectly, presume that I too would (still) self-identify as very conservative.

But by granting this interview I’d be clearly stating my intention to vote for Barack Obama — so this would be a coming-out of sorts in their eyes. Although I consider myself a moderate (progressive on some issues, conservative on others, willing to vote either side of the aisle for matters of faith) I knew some could read my words and perhaps feel betrayed or bewildered, confused or disappointed.

Here’s the awkward little snippet from the article. I’ll deconstruct it a little, below.

“Such political activity caused Paul Soupiset to move away from conservative Christian churches, he said, because his former church, in voter guides and from the pulpit, put pressure on its members to oppose abortion and homosexuality. Now, he attends Covenant Baptist Church on the North Side, which, according to its pastor Gordon Atkinson, avoids discussion of politics from the pulpit and other official church settings.

‘My friends and conversation partners about faith sort of reject the far right and the far left and there's sort of a more winsome middle ground to be had,’ said Soupiset, who is voting for Obama. ‘For example, I can state clearly that I'm probably pro life but to me, how that phrase has been defined has been narrow and insufficient. Life's not just about the abortion issue but about being pro-people who are living imprisoned or met with the short end of justice.’

When I read it for the first time in print, I panicked, focusing not on the broad brushstrokes of the interview which were good, but rather on the finer points which weren’t: In my mind, I had once again been misunderstood (or else my over-editing during the phoned-in interview actually, inexplicably, produced some of these words which is even more alarming). My face went red, flush with anger. I felt betrayed.

First off, the opening sentence implies a cause-and-effect relationship that just wasn’t there. I didn’t communicate and/or certainly didn’t mean to communicate a move away from conservative Christian churches simply because they shoved voter guides in our faces; rather, leaving behind the frustration/intrusion of so-called pro-life voter guides only made the leaving a little easier. Our family left, rather, for many reasons, largely because we were trying our best to follow Jesus and because we felt his Spirit was blowing in a new direction and we wanted very much to be about following Him into the inner city and to be available there for His use.

Secondly, the author missed the point I was trying to make — my point was and is that the gospel is so much bigger than the abortion and homosexuality issues, yet that’s what evangelicalism is focusing on. I have more of a problem with the conservative church wasting so much of its precious resources, sharpening their knives, polishing their armor and battling these two Big Issues, when so much more pressing, more real, Kingdom work is at hand, such as changing the circumstances which foster rampant teenage pregnancy in the first place.

Third, the word “probably” in the middle of the second graf was particularly irksome (especially following the phrase “state clearly”) — this had to have been some kind of internal monologue type blunder while reviewing my words, collecting my thoughts and backing up to get a fresh start at the next statement. I have clearly stated before that I consider myself pro-life and anti-abortion, but also that the conversation is not as cut-and-dried as others have made it. Complexities abound.

Next, I simply kicked myself for giving the interview in the first place. My friends and family wouldn’t — couldn’t — know the Jesus-underpinnings of my beliefs that necessitated that change in my beliefs (orthodoxy) and actions (orthopraxy). They wouldn’t know that following Jesus meant rejecting the current war and researching peacemaking, rejecting fear and embracing hope (both eschatological and social hope), rejecting the pursuit of wealth and opening myself up to a preferential position toward the poor.

And finally, I remembered what it was like to be a conservative. I remembered the visceral hatred I felt toward progressives. That smug AM talk-radio feeling. Heck, I wouldn’t have given myself a fair shake. I feared when people read my little part of the interview they’d take on the tone of the gentleman from Concordia Lutheran in Abe’s article (which was published on the September 28):

“Yeah, maybe we're only looking for conservatives, but I'm sorry, that's all we have at the church,” said [John], a founder of Salt and Light at Concordia and former chair of the Bexar County Christian Coalition. “We know — do I dare call them heathens — are going to support their candidates. So we know we have to find conservatives, and where are they? They're in church.”

If my following Jesus out into the world means being mislabeled a heathen, was I up for it? I was experiencing feelings similar to sitcom character George Costanza when his worlds collided in Seinfeld, Episode 118 [2]:

[Inside Jerry's apartment -- Jerry sits on the couch listening to George.]

GEORGE: Ah, you have no idea of the magnitude of this thing. If she is allowed to infiltrate this world, then George Costanza as you know him, Ceases to Exist! You see, right now, I have Relationship George, but there is also Independent George. That's the George you know, the George you grew up with — Movie George, Coffee shop George, Liar George, Bawdy George.

JERRY: I, I love that George.

GEORGE: Me Too! And he's Dying, Jerry! If Relationship George walks through this door, he will Kill Independent George! A George, divided against itself, Cannot Stand!

(Elaine enters)

GEORGE: You're Killing Independent George! You know that, don't you?

George’s existential crisis had to do with a different kind of integrity issue. Not to get too Jungian about it, but he was maintaining two personas, living one reality around his friends and an entirely different reality in front of his girlfriend. This duplicity produces tension. Like a rubber band stretched taut around two poles that are slowly diverging, eventually something’s gotta give.

What different kinds of Pauls am I projecting? Husband Paul? Designer Paul? Contemplative Paul? Musician Paul? To some friends, like my amigo Jeff, I am simply ‘more progressive’ than he is. He’s voting for McCain, I’m voting for Obama. No big deal. In fact, because of this difference we sit around after a night of playing music together and have wonderful theological conversations wherein theories find currency, iron sharpens iron, and the deep roots of our friendship get watered. To many of my other friends and co-workers, I am simply ‘more conservative’ than they are.  Again: no big deal. I might have a more provincial view of many issues, but maybe I learn something from them [3]. And at the end of the day we’re both enriched.

I’m growing increasingly tired of keeping up appearances. I’m going to do what I can to peel back the veneer and truly be me. This might be a little rough at times for all of us. If you’re right of center and need to call me a liberal so that I fit more easily into your worldview, so be it. I won’t be offended. If you’re left of center and need to distance yourself from me because I’m not progressive enough with you on all your issues, so be it. I won’t be moved on some things.

Let’s circle this back around to soupablog and its next thousand posts. What’s that gonna look like?  I wouldn’t expect too much to change. Hopefully the next 1,000 will be full of creativity and wit and observations.

My goal will still be to look at art, faith, design, music, architecture, politics, and my own family’s adventures through the lens of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If that’s too spiritual for you, then so be it. I won’t get offended. If your view of Christ and culture doesn’t allow for gospel-transformed culture, then so be it. I won’t get offended. But in order to know the real me, you’ll need come along on his little journey.

One of my readers, someone very close to me, recently took issue with a posting I had put up about the current presidential race. They suggested that by introducing politics into my blog, I was “changing the emphasis, changing the discourse, changing from a pleasant walk in the park to the cacophony of The World.”

I gently take issue with this description, and hope this reader doesn’t mind my anonymously quoting them. Here’s my take on this. As an artist who is a follower of Jesus, a huge part of my calling is to prophetically lean into current situations (such as the war) in order to artfully, creatively bring about change and to speak truth to power. This includes the art I create and the artifacts our culture creates — I plan to be right there in the middle of the cacophony of the world: in the world yet not of it [4]. Some of our best art comes from the margins, from places of real hurt where salvation is something real and imminently needed; I want a Christ “seeking out the poorer quarters where the ragged people go / looking for the places only they would know”, and for the same reason, I want to follow him there, too.

That’s where I’ll be, god-willing, trying to figure out my place in this world. I’ll engage and then reflect right here on the virtual pages of soupablog. You’re all invited along for the ride. Family, friends, co-workers, strangers.

Thank you for reading.
— Paul R. Soupiset, San Antonio

footnotes:

1.These would include commenting on a blog, engaging in a threaded discussion on Facebook, tagging, rating, forwarding or engaging in other so-called Web 2.0 behaviors. A current example: when my friend T.J. launched into a spirited discussion on the abortion issue on Facebook this week, I replied and in doing so became involved in a multi-person conversation with his aunt across the country, an old church friend of his who relocated to another state, and other strangers, all of whom I’ve never met.

2. Transcribed by Dan Coogan http://www.cooganphoto.com / Originally posted on The News Guys(Mike's) site http://www.geocities.com/tnguymFrom

3. From these folks I’ve learned, for example, about immigration and the gospel. I’ve also grappled with my previously hard-line stance on labor unions after having seen the plight of a worker through the lens of the gospel. These are just top-of-mind examples.

4. I reject the isolationist, suburban gated-community temptation to be removed from (not in) the world, for life is not a sanitized walk in the park; if it is, Christ’s incarnation would’ve played out a much different way. When we try to protect ourselves from the world, we miss the lepers and the orphans and the needy. We miss out on living as well. My dad's been a huge encouragement on this fornt recently: he just wrote an essay about his interactions with hurricane ike survivors.

The Nehemiah Center :: Managua, Nicaragua

"The Nehemiah Center is a community of service and learning which trains lay and pastoral leaders in an integral, biblical worldview and encourages local, national and international collaboration for a Christ-centered, transformational development of communities and nations."

My buddy Pamela serving as an international partner as a communications specialist for the Nehemiah Center in Managua via Food for the Hungry. The Center's new website went live this week. She's a missionary and as you can glean from this description above, part of their gospel mission is to serve as community organizers.

From the stories I've heard, Nehemiah's work in the community is an also/and between spiritual needs and physical ones. In their work with the extreme poverty they encounter daily, they "promote the health of the whole person" — mind, body and soul, a holism I'm convinced Jesus was all about.

"The people of Nicaragua face enormous daily challenges living in their communities. Extreme poverty limits many families to one meal a day. Malnourishment and parasite-caused diseases are common, especially among children. Access to free quality health care is extremely limited.

 

To address these pressing needs, the Nehemiah Center has adopted the Community Health Evangelism (CHE) strategy designed by our international collaborator Life Wind. CHE is multifaceted, and promotes the health of the whole person—physically, spiritually, emotionally, and socially."

 

House Concert Photos, one week late

last sunday lane ayo took some photos of our third Casa Soupiset house concert,
hailing from woodland park, colorado, tim and laurie are the blackthorn project.

my mandolin never sounded so good.

more house concerts to come. if you weren't on the invitation list, contact me and i'll add you.

Hospitality at the Sharps

daley hake snapped this as we were saying our farewells to ryan and holly sharp. staying with our friends was the perfect punctuation mark between the sonoma county mini-vacation and the ypulse youth media conference.

i'll do some more intensive blogging soon about the whole trip, but just wanted to say hello, we're having a blast, and we miss you all...

— paul

grilling & fireworks at the menjivar's

TJ's new MBP at Ruta.

Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows on MSNBC

the reverend jennifer baskerville-burrows is a chaplain at syracuse university and rector at grace episcopal church. she is a localvore and writes the beautiful food blog cookin' in the 'cuse, and was one of the first friends to greet me at the recent Trinity Wall Street consultancy. today Jennifer and her community garden was on MSNBC: 

noted, without comment

(Post)Lentenblog 2008 :: Labyrinth 16 [slide show]

It's not quite complete, the labyrinth.
But that didn't keep Kate's Sunday school class from checking it out.
This made my day.

I posted a Flickr slide show here.

more on the trinity consultation

a slideshowing of the folks
who converged in connecticut.
that's eliacín rosario-cruz,
from mustard seed associates
[photos by susan richardson]

i went to a netzer shinding tonight.

for about a week i had facebooked a 'maybe' as to whether i'd be able to make it to the netzer co-op and its shindig (worship/food/table/fellowship experience) tonight. turns out i was able to attend, and boy was i happy to have gone. i brought the girls with me as well, and it was good for their soul and spirit.

i've posted the iphone photo gallery (sorry, 2 megapixel graininess) herein.

the netzer co-op is an intentional community with its epicenter in downtown seguin, texas, not far from texas lutheran university. its denizens seek a life in Christ, times of shared word and table, artistic alt.worship, and a balance between inward (contemplation and worship) journey and outward (missional engagements with the poor, for example) journey.

since shortly after its inception, i've been blessed to call these folks my friends, and surprised that i've found a place in their community as guide, mentor, elder, and spiritual director, the latter distinction neither by certificate nor official training but with fear and trembling.

it was great taking the girls to a shared meal with a new community, to let them see their friend 'mister tim,' michael and bri leading a group in worship; to sit at the feet of brianna while she painted; to listen to jeff and tim playing simple worship songs. good for them to see reiley and t.j. from covenant there as fellow guests and participants. the gathering was taking place in the unfinished space above the chiro-java coffee shop. what started as a dream for the netzers more than a year ago, to sink roots at this location, is coming to fruition. the quite-affordable group housing they're looking at is only a block away!

there were three eastertide stations corresponding to Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again. abigail was very interested and engaged at the stations; we prayed together and i helped her hammer a nail into a wooden cross after discussing the symbolism; at the second station we helped each other light a votive and add it to the growing points of candlelight' the third station had the collage i had made (the one which tim used in chapel on wednesday) and asked us to consider what we should do next.

i left feeling hopeful about the next generation of Christ-followers, including the twentysomethings i left behind in seguin, and my passel of pre-tweens as well.

we proclaim this mystery:

Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again.

overdue spring break photos - ruidoso new mexico

here is the long overdue gallery of photos from our 2008 spring break trip to ruidoso: it's a photo-collaboration between members of the soupiset and broderick family, taken using several cameras and phone-cameras. highlights include emma just being silly, a cool collection of old neon motel signs (i spent a morning doing nothing but driving around ruidoso looking for 'em!), and an obligatory shot of jordan with a candy cigarette for shock value. you'll see trestle bridges, ancient petroglyphs, some stalagmites, a greyhound named pirate, an ancient can of shuffleboard wax, and yours truly on snow skis. [march 16-21, 2008.]

i should note that many of the best photos were taken by high school freshman sheridan broderick; impressive eye for composition. she's at least a third generation artist.

Paul Soupiset featured in An Illustrated Life podcast episode

or, A Tale of Two "Dannys" and Two "Everydays"

When I knew I was traveling to NYC recently, there were three people I wanted to sit down with and have conversations. The first was a former design intern named Danny Adrain, who is now a senior designer at Razorfish. The second was Thomas Turner, the young editor of Everyday Liturgy. And the third was Danny Gregory, a fellow creative director / author / sketchbook artist / podcaster, and creative force behind the Everyday Matters movement / craze / meme.

I ended up getting to hang with all three. I digress.

Danny Gregory, his wife Patti, and their son Jack welcomed me into their world for an hour or so — they live in a beautiful eighth floor apartment in the Village. Every inch of their apartment was either window glazing, book shelves, or space for hung artwork.

After talking a while [and letting the dogs smell me], we sat down and recorded this audio podcast about my moleskine journal sketching, about my faith and art and intersections therein. It's one of those things where afterwards, listening to it, I felt strange and self-conscious about all of the things I would've said differently (did I represent my art well enough? did I represent my faith well enough? my upbringing, parents and education? did I come off like a total dweeb? important questions like that).

Nonetheless, I invite you to listen. And commentezvous, por favor.

photos by oscar williams

bricolage :: manhattan, brooklyn, west cornwall, and back again

i waited to blog about my recent new york trip, hoping some unifying thread would be found running through the whole of the tapestry — some way to serve up the sights and sounds and smells of the last week that would remain engaging. some way to let you experience some of the energy of the city, some of the joys and loneliness of being a solo guy traipsing around manhattan, of being a fish out of water in a consultancy full of anglican vibe, some of the small pleasures in meeting new friends, in logging a few precious hours with some heretofore online friends, in spending a few quiet evenings with friends danny and kristen trying restaurants in their park slope neighborhood of brooklyn.

no magical thread has been found, other than a celebration of the beautiful, threadless remnants that would not be sewn together, and a new label for that tendency of mine towards assemblage, appropriation, pastiche, and montage: yes, the word of the week was bricolage.

bri•co•lage (n)  Something made or put together using whatever materials happen to be available

robert wuthnow's book after the baby boomers: how twenty and thirty-somethings are shaping the future of american religion was the preparatory text for the consultancy hosted by trinity church wall street; one of the main pulls from the text was the idea of spiritual tinkering:

Like the farmer rummaging through the junk pile for makeshift parts the spiritual tinkerer is able to sift through a veritable scrap heap of ideas and practices from childhood, from religious organizations, classes, conversations with friends, books, magazines, television programs and web sites. The tinkerer is free to engage in this kind of rummaging...

maybe i'll post some of my new york sketches soon. but for now, i'll post a few of the photos i shot (haven't been color corrected yet or anything).

m is for: manhattan. moma. mosaics.

then after brooklyn, guggenheim, apple store,
i headed out to west cornwall, connecticut:

Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals + Ryan Sharp Snippet

It came in today! My advance copy of Jesus for President, the new Shane Claiborne + Chris Haw book for which I contributed 40 or so watercolor illustrations; designed by my friends Holly and Ryan over at SharpSeven. I'm really geeking out over how cool it turned out, thumbing through it like a little kid. It's cool to finally see the other contributors' work (several artists, photographers) and see how the whole thing comes together.

Please consider buying a copy.

It's four-color throughout, but somehow the price is less than $12 over at the big box place. I'm sure VivaBooks will sell it as well.

Here's an illustration I did, which you can see closer when you buy the book:

file under: filet'o'fish'o'war

Here's designer Ryan hard at work with his other love. This is fresh footage BTW:

trinity house baby meme

ah. life. another twentysomething former trinity house couple has gone and birthed a beautiful baby. join me in welcoming gabriella burns to the world.
see a touching slideshow here, courtesy mark menjivar.

Catching up with Claude

Tonight, Emergent|SA got together at our downtown San Antonio hangout, Ruta Maya Coffee Co., for an evening with Claude Nikondeha, Amahoro Africa. It had been quite a few years since I had spoken with Claude in person, and it brought joy to catch up with him again. He has a missionary's heart for Christ's work in Africa, with none of the imperialist, colonialist baggage. He's open to God doing things in new, different, unconventional ways, and his whole being seems bent toward lives engaged in God's Kingdom-work, whether its lone outposts of conversational gospel in red-light districts or serendipitous sermon-free church plants in urban Africa, or charting an emergent type of accountability/edibility among his close friends in Phoenix.

It was good to see TJ, Lane, Danielle, Tim and Bob there as well.
I'll leave you with a large pull-quote from Bob about tonight:

"What a hope-filled night it was, crashing the Emergent|SA Feb gathering. ... I got to Ruta Maya early, in time to stumble upon the San Antonio Obama staff, squatting for the past 3 days until their offices open this Sat.  It was great to hear their stories of community organizing in Iowa, Idaho, Nevada and Washington - a swarm of people in their early 20s helping connect people to a powerful campaign.

It was even more hope-filled to hear Claude Nikondeha of Amahoro Africa.  Claude talked with great energy about how this network helps build relationships, sharing stories and exploring the shape of the emerging church in post colonial Africa and beyond. He was quite moving talking about what God is doing in East Africa, particularly in terms of new models of faith communities and courageous people fostering new model of  transformation. 

Founded in just the past few years, Amahoro is now consists of over 200 leaders representing 200 communities. For more about Claude, see this interview.

Two things Claude said really grabbed me:

• he talked about what a contrast America is with Africa - particularly how un-involved or interdependent our lives are with one another in the U.S.
• he used a term I had never heard or even considered - pre-emptive reconciliation. Talking about the recent conflicts in Kenya, Claude talked about the power of engaging in reconciliation BEFORE an outbreak or a provocation.

I came away from these two hours just brimming with hope, eager to see the world that these Obama staffers and Claude are birthing." — Bob Carlton

two videos i directed from 12 years ago

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
— Oscar Wilde.

Ah the '90s: In honor of chris' wedding, here's a music video and a companion interview video i filmed of his band Love Coma twelve years ago — disclaimer, 12 years ago I was in my mid-20's, the technology of doing your own video production on a Mac was in relative infancy (with this many transitions and funky after-effects, you had to render your work over a weekend using a standard 1996 desktop Mac) and come back in on Monday morning to verify what you thought you had done); rendering, filming, editing, computer animation (yep, I did that too), and cro-magnon post production. i think i blogged this elsewhere once, but after the first day of filming the video we found out the female dancer in the video was a ... em .... you know, female dancer.

Young and naïve was I.

Interesting note for locals: In the interview, about 3 minutes in, you can see the shell of the old Alamo Cement plant in the video, prior to its becoming Quarry Market. 

ring them bells, ring them bells

my longtime good friend, musical conspirator, confidant, record co-producer, former groomsman, fellow painter, sketcher, cartoonist, songwriter, etc., and all around creative tour de force, christopher andrew taylor, cleans up well, and is now happily married to his longtime better half, cat. congratulations, you two kids. here's what i snapped with the iphone (if you squint you can see justin and ruben in the lower right):

Dogwood Abbey

"In our world of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture and country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found." - Henri Nouwen

My college-mate and former Trinity House denizen Pete Z is currently off at grad school (Wake Forest) and experiencing community with the folks at Dogwood Abbey in Winston-Salem: "…we meet once a month so far and hope to up that within a bit to move to meeting for communion and prayer one week, skip a week, then full service...then skip a week."

Their monastic model is described like this :

The Abbey will be a...

1. Center for reflective theological exploration. The Abbey will be an open space for conversation about God where anyone can participate.

2. Center for spiritual direction. The Abbey will provide individual and group spiritual direction via retreats and/or personal appointments.

3. Center for contemplative practice. The Abbey will be open daily for folks to come pray, and will hold regular retreats and studies on prayer and contemplation.

4. Center for ecclesial experimentation. The Abbey will be a place where the traditional church can experiment with new ideas in community and worship through use of space, apprenticeship, and through staff retreats with Abbey leaders.

5. Center for deep ecumenical friendship. The Abbey will host regular ecumenical gatherings for fellowship, dialog, and activism.

6. Center for community engagement. The Abbey hopes to blur the lines of the sacred and secular dichotomy by partnering with local businesses, farmers, and artisans in whatever ways we can.

Sounds beautiful, huh?

The Baby Meme: a tale of two pregnant Rachels

I got an email this morning: our friend Rachel F. is going into labor (update! Ethan Grayer Faunce born, 8lbs 10oz, 22in!). Rachel and her husband Jonathan were Trinity House folks; also, Jonathan is a web designer at Toolbox. It's an exciting time, waiting nervously for life to emerge from the womb.

Rachel M. (the other Rachel in our life) is an artist, advocate, and yoga instructor, also from the Trinity House days. She's also pregnant. Her husband Mark is a photographer and an audio anthropologist. Mark captured audio/film of their recent trip the midwife here. Not to be missed.

Click the photo, then the little play button, to view the movie.

Holy God,
please wrap these mothers, babies
        and fathers
    in your divine embrace;
we pray for security amidst fears.
we pray for comfort amidst troubles.
we pray for mercy amidst pain.
we pray for joy and wonder.
we pray for a warm nest, for wholeness,
    for life and health and peace.
Amen.

farmers market onions, etsy animals, and simplicity on the mind

Amy's out fulfilling a continuing education credit this morning. I had asked the kids to wake me at 8, and we made 'Saturday Pancakes' as is our frequent ritual. Then we loaded into my car and got Abigail off to gymnastics a few minutes late (they make the kids run laps for the parents' timing errors!).

Afterwards, we drove to Bobbi and Ben's house a half-mile away. Ben is retired now, but is one of the great designer/illustrators that hailed from San Antonio. Bobbi was our paper specifications rep for years. They were having a garage sale, and I had heard from Mark that an oak flat file was going on sale (I missed it by about 5 minutes, they said, which is probably good since I have neither the space nor the money for such a purchase). In the end I picked up a few books for a dollar apiece: a Graphis logo annual to add to my collection, a visual source book, and a how-to-draw-in-pen-and-ink book that had some nice cross-hatching examples.

Next, I wanted to take the kids to a local farmers market, so we headed off to Jackson-Keller and McCullough (someone let me know if there's a better Saturday farmers market in or near San Antonio, I suspect there is). Jordan bought a length of sugar cane, and I bought onions and potatoes, and we admired the fresh produce. Pecans are abundant — as Greg Garrett said recently, "hooray for fall, for falling pecans and temperatures…"

I came home and (even though it was only 10:50 in the morning and I was still pancake-sated) sliced into one of the beautiful onions, and tossed it in a skillet with a slab of butter and some sea-salt. While the onions were browning I thin-sliced two of the red potatoes and eventually tossed them into the pan as well.

Grilled onion is one of those memory-inducing smells — today it conjured images of my father slicing onions, chiles, tomatoes and cilantro for pico de gallo while his friend Dave grilled skirt steak from Bolner's for fajitas (this, years and years before fajitas were well-known around the country like they are today).

As someone who tries to follow in the way of Jesus (faltering, flailing, failing), I can't help but be drawn to themes of simplicity that stand in stark contrast to my day-in-day-out tendency toward crass western consumerism.

Speaking of simplicity: Last night I was able to catch up with a few of my designer friends from Boston and Chicago over a nice dinner down at Bruce Auden's Biga on the Banks. Jen Bennett is a designer at Big Blue Dot, and is a proponent/exponent of Etsy.

(Etsy is a website featuring all sorts of handmade items for sale, including, jewelry, screen-printed textiles, plush animals, journals, and much more — quite a few of the folks who sell their goods on Etsy live what one of their columnists called the "hybrid lifestyle: selling handmade crafts online, along with selling farm products locally." Others are freed up to work from home and parent full time; still others hold down 9-to-5 jobs and use Etsy as a sustainable creative outlet.)

In Jen's spare time, she is a stuffed animal designer, and is perfectly happy to design you a custom stuffed animal (she is making an armadillo for my editor friend Carol).

Here are a few shots from Jen's Etsy site. When you're considering gifts this holiday season, consider handmade.

o the weekends

Friday i worked from home on client work until mid-afternoon, then started out on a trip up to austin where i met bob carlton for dinner prior to the Austin Emergence 2007 panel discussion thingy.

Intuiting, perhaps, that i was born just miles from leon springs, texas, bob suggested we meet at Rudy's BBQ on 183. Over brisket and sausage and Rudy's now-famous BBQ "Sause" [sic], we shared in some good conversation and learned about the "hand-spa", then headed a couple miles away to this well-groomed, mall-like mega-church campus (ewww; i was half-expecting the perfect landscaping to have piped-in music from those injection-molded theme-park rocks. instead i quickly found the money-changers — err, sponsors — in the campus café).

so not a very likely setting for an emerging church confab; in fact, it had all the trappings of the contemporary-pop-culture-church-as-performance i've been running away from the last ten years: professional lighting rigging, three massive projection screens, tech geeks in back in a mixing board booth worthy of a concert hall, elevated-stage-instead-of-altar, auditorium, overstuffed chairs for the speakers, lapel mics, slick, auditorium seating for the rest of us and pre-produced video loops with schmutzy typefaces and royalty-free video loops. nothing to situate itself in time and place. OK: i'm not being very gracious. and i know this. and i will stop. now.

what came next is articulated well by bob here and here.

In the end I was impressed by most of the speakers and by the moderator, Scot McKnight, who I already had been tracking via books and weblog posts (and my bro-in-law syler's coffeeklatches with the prof) ...

The evening session (atonement theories!) finished. then comes the obligatory "we're in Austin, who's up for Magnolia Café or Kirbey Lane?"

My late-night dining partners were my buddies from Netzer Co-op. The entire current incarnation of the co-op was present, I believe: Lay-abbot Tim, Abbess/Painter Brianna, Contemplative Michael, Worship-Artist Ryan, and Novice Jonathan. I was honored to play the role of, as my friend Mark Menjivar would say, holy listener. They were/are at a turning point in their fledgling community all-too-similar to where Trinity House was at a year or so ago. Then I gave them some imperfect sage-green advice to go with Bri's green-green enchiladas. Usually-silent Michael suggested that after an evening of talking about theology, that they ditch the next morning's event and go buy sandwich fixings and spend the morning handing out food to the poor in Austin instead of listening to talking heads at the conference. Which is exactly what needed to be said. And done. I could've hugged him, the suggestion was so spontaneous and on-point. We stayed out too late and dragged ourselves to my gracious in-laws' where beds and sofas were awaiting my friends and me.

Next morning, thanks to Google Maps and the iPhone, we discovered Pacha, a cool little fair-trade coffee joint in Austin. Must return to soak in more. Planning to go to just the first session and then go with Netzer, I was drawn into the conversation in a deeper way than the day prior. I also got to meet Danielle Shroyer, the pastor of a fellowship in the DFW area that a few of my friends frequent. I like her: she's got a great perspective on many things.

And I love the theological underpinnings of Josh Carney's mind. Resolved: after his commendation (being the third or fourth this year, I will next read Jürgen Moltmann).

I felt pangs of guilt for Tim and I never joining up with the rest of Netzer on their outing. The praxis engagement and resultant reflection would've been better for me. I rationalized it away several times: I was Tim's ride so I needed to stay; I'm too old and just got in the way of their youthful missional expression; I knew I needed to get back on the road at about 2pm; I really wanted to talk to several of the folks afterwards, including Glenn and David (right). Kept thinking about the distribution of the food going on while I was wrapping up my stay at the conference. But I never went. Tim and I left and grabbed lunch and sat down to record a podcast interview for his blog at Jo's and then I hit the road for SA.

Came home, and prepped for this morning: I facilitated a discussion in our 'mystics/cynics/pilgrims' class at church (sort of the sunday school dropouts) about the way of the pilgrim, and led hymns, a taizé chant, worship songs, and an original composition in front of the congregation. the song that I wrote I dedicated today to my grandmother who turns 90 years old this week.

That's where I was this evening: at Lorraine Pearman's 90th birthday party.

Read a little Alan Roxburgh this evening, blogged this, and will be going to sleep.

Sorry not much critical reflection of the conference.

more later.
p

soupablog as portal

three posts from three friends of mine.
for three different reasons.
better than any thoughts i had today.
one
two
three

never thought i'd have this much fun playing cover songs

so jeff and i played orderup again tonight. orderup is the restaurant our friend david owns and operates. we play every once in a while on friday nights: two guys and their guitars playing a mix of original and cover songs. we've been having more fun with the cover songs: everything from the postal service and coldplay to lyle lovett and david francey; from the sundays and the church to john sebastian and bob dylan. we do several songs by the perishers. jeff harmonizes. he plays his olsen, and i bring the mandolin and the nylon-stringed guitar. last time i brought an acoustic bass. next time i think i'll bring the martin, for volume reasons, and we're gonna do losing my religion by r.e.m. anyway, in our thirtysomething kind of way, we have a blast. y'all come out next time.

photos by michele.

The Cobalt Season / House Concert at my House: Wednesday

Come to my house for a night of song and poetry and stories:

“Disgruntled with the American notions of materialism and Christianity, [The Cobalt Season] set forth on a pilgrimage, traveling from town to town relying upon the hospitality of old and new friends as well as the grace of God to see them through, searching for answers and insight into the questions they found themselves asking.” [Infuze]

We're suggesting $12 at the door to cover travel expenses; if you're not able to pay, please come anyway! If you're able to cover someone else, please bring extra dough. CDs will be on sale. I think they are $15 apiece and 2 for $25.  Please RSVP via Facebook

Brian McLaren - “I just got back from Africa and have been listening to In Search of a Unified Theory nonstop for a couple days. I’m totally blown away. I really liked But I Tell You, but this one just soars. The lyrics are powerful. The songs themselves are so strong, so well structured. The vocals are perfect. And the arrangements are completely amazing. I thought of several of my favorite bands - Innocence Mission, the Weepies, and Sigur Rós. This CD should win a bunch of awards. Thanks for making it, man!”

Directions to our house.

casey and chris

mike and ginger smiling

i think it's the guinness hat that's making him smile.

tyler

my friend and soupablog reader jeff d is becoming quite the photographer (he adds this pastime to coffee roasting, microbrewing, and being an excellent guitarist).

i really like this one he took and posted to his flickr site
the photo is of our friend and sailboat enthusiast tyler.

Buechner, Ericson, Bluebonnets, Cellulitis and Logic Boards

I'm back from a blogging hiatus. The iMac was in the shop. (Yes, even Macs can have faults. My logic board needed replacing.)

Jordan's weekend camping trip with my father and me was called off due to cellulitis stemming from an insect or spider bite on my son's thigh. Enough to make one afraid. Bed rest. Two days. Meds. Time will tell. Please pray. Thank you. I'll try and update you in 24 hours or so.

Some eight to ten years ago I read Godric by Frederick Buechner. And I hung upon every word.

Then maybe two or even three years ago I was rummaging through a garage sale in Austin and ran across a 1958 Knopf First Edition printing of Buechner's third novel, The Return of Ansel Gibbs. Even though the dust jacket printing was sun-faded, the hardback book itself was in good condition. I think it could possibly sell for fifty or sixty bucks, but I picked it up for fifty cents.

I think at the time I wrote to my friend, musician Eric Peters — a huge Buechner fan, check out Eric's music too — that I was starting to read the book, but I only cracked the first several pages and moved on to something else.

Finally I took the time this last week to go back and read …Ansel Gibbs and again I found myself hanging on Mr. Buechner's words. No time for a review. But it was a good read. I'd like to re-read Godric over the Christmas break, godwilling.

I did realize, after the fact, that my reading Gibbs coincided with Robert Gates' confirmation hearings.
(Gibbs is about a presidential cabinet nominee's decision to/not to pursue the post)

Tonight Amy and I fashioned a Leif Ericson costume for Jordan who will 'become' this famous Icelandic explorer for a day tomorrow at school. Leif is thought by some to be he first European to sail to the New World, no offense, St. Brendan. Jordan's costume looks really good and was essentially free — it was cobbled together from a coarse cloth pirates' shirt, a brown faux-suede tunic we cut and wrapped with a leather belt, wash-in red hair dye, birkenstocks with added cloth strips criss-crossed up the calf to mimic a roman-influenced sandal, a silver cross on a necklace (Norway's King Olaf insisted he take on Christianity; Leif settled for polytheism, just in case) ... we're still looking for his old plastic sword.

Monday I had a lunch with a friend who is a pastor at a large church in town. He spoke some very healing words and I've come again and again to realize how much we need others in our lives speaking truth into our daily rhythms. I am sad to say I haven't had that for months. So it felt like living water.

Then today I had lunch with a friend who I'm just getting to know, it seems. And we spoke some very simple words to each other that again brought healing to me. Plus, we ate at Radicke's Bluebonnet Café, a place I suggested that I hadn't been to in six or seven years. Good roadhouse comfort food. Chicken Fried Steak. That sort of fare.

This afternoon I got to use my Spanish to speak to Claudia, who speaks about as much English as I do Spanish. I classify myself as "Functional enough to get out of danger" — but it reminded my that I love Spanish and languages in general. Weird, huh. I love semiotics and contexts and puns and cognates and inferences and plays-upon-words.

Like Ansel Gibbs, I'm less a man of action than a man of words. Then again I'm 37 and a father of four and no one's given me permission to call myself a man. What happened to bildungs román? Rite of Passage? Calling out into manhood? Gauntlets?

I have a lot of work to do these next few weeks, so I shouldn't have even blogged this long. I need to be a man of action. MIssional, even. Yes, Bishop Newbigin, there is a Stanta Claus.

Thanks Mark. Thanks Joseph. Thanks Frederick.

partners on the journey

erik — aka virusdoc — is blogging again and settling into his new digs as an assistant professor of biology at a large midwestern state school.

my heart is full.

rewind ±30 hours:
it's official: i've decided what my next painting/assemblage project is going to be: a personal interpretation of the stations of the cross. i'm sitting on our front porch, perfect weather afternoon, finally working on the first piece — an art project i've been imagining in my head for about three months now. finally giving life to an idea is loads of fun. white enamel paint under the fingernails. jason will joke about this later at barry's house:

fast-forward ±3 hours.
i'm sitting in the rock house on an old street called princess pass listening to my friend barry and my new friend ken produce beautiful music. it seems parachronistic. to be in a parlor. with three generations' worth of people. listening to jazz vocalizations. over piano at a dinner party. hushed conversation. clinking of glasses. and piano. sorry: for; the! extra, punctuation.

rewind ±8 hours.
i'm watching my son play basketball. but the thing is: he's doing really, really good. and he's my son. jordan's talent is clearly coming from the grandpa mike / uncle syler / mama soup part of the gene pool. he fast breaks. he dribbles. he shoots. he scores. who is this kid?

shuttle forward ±24 hours.
i'm eating a sandwich in a dining room in austin. i'm doing some consulting work for a growing church here. and i realize i've grabbed the wrong moleskine journal! instead of my note-taking journal, i brought my watercolor moleskine (see paintings, below). my mother-in-law is loving on my kids while i'm in this meeting. it's great to have grandparents in san antonio and austin and DFW. they love the kids well.

shuttle back ±2 hours.
the bread and the cup. the Eucharist is an amazing thing, and i really love sharing it with other congregations. josh and jeremy alder introduced a new ritual to our community. we take the elements and distribute them to one another. i am once again reminded of robert e. webber, calling upon 'performative symbol'...

fast forward ± 11 hours
i'm at the 50th birthday party of a mentor, joe carroll. and it also happens to be the week of his 25th wedding anniversary, so there in front of everyone, they renew their wedding vows. it was very cool and very warm. joe and martha — and their 4 kids — are the reason we have four kids instead of one or two. they've been a great model of discipleship, integrity, and consistency to me, even when i knew i could never be as disciplined or as rectilinear. it takes both types, in line-work as in life:

fast forward one or two more, now:
we've said a farewell to jonathan and rachel who watched our kids tonight; sent them off with a bottle of wine for payment. my parents are keeping little emma tonight, since amy works tomorrow. all this selflessness. recipient, recipient, recipient. read a fascinating e-mail trail from my community. weakness and strength abound in every group, i'm thinking. that's what bill said today in austin as well. what a great community i'm part of, and what a beautiful life. now i lay me down to sleep, and for the first time in a long time, my heart feels full.

good night, moon.

pray for my friend

a good friend, gentleman/wild man, and great old-school-photographer- turned-digital-guru with whom i've collaborated with many times over the years is in critical condition over at university hospital as we speak; swain was jogging recently and collapsed or was hit — no one knows for sure — and found unconscious by other joggers along contour drive. he's been intubated and by now has a tracheotomy. lapsing in and out of consciousness. no prognosis. no timetable. wait and see. wait and pray.

in any case, please pray for swain edens. God, please.

- paul.

pictured here is a piece swain shot back maybe ten years ago, for a magazine cover design i was art directing. i think it was a leaf-back medium format type shot. this cover, and actually the whole edition of su cassa was printed in a hexachrome inkset, so the photo looked great. i haven't had a client since who's paid for hexachrome inks.

Welcome Ian Miller Mitchell Henning

Yea Bets & Eric!

Ian Miller Mitchell Henning
Born 12/22/05. 6:40 p.m.
Weight: 8 lbs, 9 oz.
Length: 20 3/4 in.
Hair: Dark brown with a touch of red [no pink spikes]
Eyes: brown/black

"Mother and son are both doing
exceptionally well and thank you for your prayers."

pizzeria taqueria burgeria, manly food, baylor architecture, capitalism, and two camel quotes in one day

surprise intersection:
this post here contains the intersection when one friend of mine (barry bridges), goes to see another friend of mine (justin graves) play music at a restaurant owned by a third friend of mine (david galbreath). the fun part is i didn't know barry knew either of the others. my favorite part of the post is where barry calls david's menu "manly" -- i like that. [read the whole thing]

barry on architrecture of baylor:
"Crass commercialism, shopping-mall pandering, plastered with the facades and spires of academe — isn't this exactly what Robert Sloan's critics accused him of? Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, and the hand builds. A school can't help but express the views of the society that builds it." [read the whole thing.]

mike on capitalism vs. the gospel:
"Regardless of Jesus’ warning it seems that many would like to try to be the one that can get the camel through the eye of the needle." [read the whole thing]

pamela on redemptive relationships:
"Like threading a needle with a camel, though, it may be hard for the nonpoor to recognize the importance of relationships with the poor. We are so conditioned to see ourselves as self-sufficient and sophisticated—what in the world do we need to learn from the poor?" [read the whole thing]

real live preacher on old man cedar:
"You will be loved and cared for, for you have earned the right to exist. What was a battlefield is now a place of prayer. May your story be an example to us all." [read the whole thing]

Ryan Sharp update

updater:

Friday, October 28, 2005
Ryan Sharp + House Concert at the Soupiset casa
An evening of music and story and food.
127 Irvington Dr. + San Antonio TX 78209 + (210) 829-1539
Dinner 7pm; Concert 8pm;
ages 15 and over please.
$10 at the door plus a “covered dish”*

Ryan Sharp / The Cobalt Season / House Concert
We’re having them down to San Antonio for a house concert on Friday the 28th, about a week-and-a-half from today. If you're interested in supporting the thoughtful intersection of faith and the arts, and supporting a fellow sojourner, and listening to well-crafted music, then come. It'll follow typical house concert protocol: you bring ten bucks and a covered dish:

*The money goes straight to the performer; the food gets eaten by you at the house concert. You can bring whatever to eat. Water and Tea will be provided; feel free to bring beverage of your choice. Interested? Please let me know now via email.

Oh: Bring extra money for his CD; you’ll want one or two this holiday season.
http://www.myspace.com/cobaltseason

Influences       The Doves, Radiohead, Troy Bronsink, Deccatree, Mike Barnet, Damien Rice, James Taylor, The Indigo Girls, Over The Rhine, Rich Mullins, U2, Muse, Magnet, Sufjan Stevens, David Gray, Pedro The Lion, Kent, Switchfoot, Whiskeytown, Lyle Lovett, Ryan Adams, Jonatha Brooke, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Travis, Patti Griffin, Nickel Creek

Sounds Like       ...coming home...crisp, autumn air...angst and confusion...despairing hope...disillusionment with religion and politics...