soupablog

SXSW Interactive Sketchnotes 08 - @soupiset

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from soupiset's posterous

Advent Sketchbook: Steamroll

via flickr.com

Jean Baptiste, steamroller.

Posted via web from soupiset's posterous

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.

vocation, avocation, vacation, volition, and deconstructing the one-line bio

"there are all different kinds of voices
calling you to all different kinds of work....
the place God calls you to is the place
where your deep gladness
and the world's deep hunger meet."

— frederich buechner, "wishful thinking"
     [emphasis mine]

when i think occasionally about vocation, i think of this beuchner quote, and maybe for a brief second my mind flashes to vanier and nouwen ensconced in stained glass, and then maybe i think about my day-job, my hobbies, my down-time, and then how i describe what i do. for it seems quite a lot of folks tell me i do quite a lot.

this all made me think tonight about my one-line bio on this blog which says that this is what i do:

"paul soupiset is a graphic designer, illustrator, songwriter, liturgical arts director, youth media consultant, journalist, mentor, typophile, husband, father, and self-described armchair theologian who lives in san antonio, texas, usa, with his wife amy and four children."

meh. this rather modern rendering of my vocation/avocation mixology may not be far from truth, but it certainly comes off dry and lifeless as a boxed butterfly held in place with stainless t-pins under glass. i feel more integrated than these classification-words.

four years ago i wrote these other words about the tendency toward the verbal dissection tray:

"modernity classifies, distinguishes, taxonomizes and vivisects in order to understand [and i should now add, to control]. post-modernity understands by context, looking for patterns, unified wholes. just as the former lends itself to fracture, specialization, innovation and discovery, the latter lends itself to healing, community, renovation and recovery. this brings hope to me and many."

i hope i was on to something there. our stories are bigger than the one-line bio. there are stories at play here. lives that touch ours and vice-versa. idiocy and brilliance and triumph and shame in every day. jokes and pranks and bad puns and paradoxes. and box lunches and coffee spills. i'd like to start thinking a bit more about the me that's under (and above) the labels. to understand myself and my calling a little better by looking at the patterns to which i return, to dig the contextual, and to paint with a bigger brush and maybe be okay with the results. maybe you can do the same and comment about the jouney.

what would a more integrated un-bio paragraph look like? it would have to change daily, i suppose. ooh. too much work. maybe today it would've read something like this:

"when he gets right down to it, paul  believes in this idea of humanity being created in the image of a creator God. and he believes that through the act of creating (scribbling, drawing, singing, cooking, photographing, building community, procreating, and then sharing creations with others) we experience some of what God is. paul gets paid to create and he is really proud of the design staff he's helped to assemble at his studio, and he gets to participate in a lot of creativity there. creative solutions for clients, creative ways to juggle deadlines, budgets and timelines, creative ways to make his co-worker friends laugh during their morning staff huddles… paul can be controlling at times because he can picture the end product in his head and is impatient when others can't see it just yet. he wants you to trust him that the end is going to be really cool. he likes engaging at work and on his weblog but also needs time off to recharge, to be creative just for himself instead of others, and to fulfill his wanderlust for undiscovered places and cool artifacts along the way. his home base is texas. but his family of six likes getting out and going. his kids travel remarkably well having been subjected to a benign givenness about being thrown in a minivan for roadtrips since birth."

maybe tomorrow it would be something else. but vocation is more than my 40-hour job, and avocation is more than what i do outside of work if that makes sense. and heck, adventure and vacation can even be found within the workplace (for me it's occasional symposia, conventions, photo shoots, press-okays; even staff outings and client retreats feel like mini getaways).

it's always something new. or, i tell you, it can be.

this morning i got to offer a full time position to my summer intern. what a great honor to bear the good news. i got an unexpected hug from the husband of that intern at lunchtime. don't know why that memory stuck with me but it did. then this afternoon i received an (unrelated) perk which made me feel great to be a employee at this particular studio. so sometimes work can bring its own refreshment.

these are things which cannot be encapsulated. "there are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work...." [and play and rest]. i am so fortunate to do, as buechner has said, the "kind of work ... that you need most to do" and then, by exercising creativity not just in the workplace but also in family life, in community, and a-vocationally, that I can also be about the kind of work "that the world most needs to have done."

look into that place where your deepest passion meets human need.

food? clothing? shelter? safety? maslow would add things like fostering self-esteem in others, creativity, spontaneity. there's a lot of venn-intersection, i'd wager, between your heart and the world's outstretched hands.

i'll stop rambling and go to bed.

sleep tight.

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: 

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:

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?

good theology, bad theology, acorn squash and songwriting

I called my friend Tim the college senior about a meeting we were supposed to have this afternoon and he shared an insight he had earlier in the day today...  he compared his morning trip to the farmers market to the cycle of the lectionary — a really good theological insight from a twenty-one year old kid — he was basically comparing acorn squash ("err, thanks: what do i do with this in-season veggie i've never come across?") and the sometimes-randomness of the lectionary pericope 'handed' to you because it's in season ("thanks be to God — err, I think. What do I do with this scripture??"). Great fresh thoughts. I told him he needs to blog about it or write an essay or something while it's still fresh. hope he does. i'll link it 4 U if & when.

and Chelsea does some brutally honest reflecting about suburban fears of perceived inner city type dangers. also, good theology, if not named as such. this reflects many of the fears some of my friends seem to have about imagined violence, safety, etc. (especially moms with children: understandable to a point).

"he saw a man who was in leg irons. He was a prisoner of some sort, and [my friend] was a little freaked out by the time she got to the 12th floor.... But it got me thinking... Why are we so afraid of people "different" than we are? Jesus would have gone up to that man, struck up a conversation, and probably absolved him of his sins. Me? I would have meekly scurried away and said a prayer of thanks for the nice armed guards.

If this resonates with you, I wish you could meet moms like Lisa Scandrette who talks with calm ease about the realities of her nearby homeless neighbors living under the bridges of San Francisco's Mission District ...  the normalcy of drunks passing out on her stoop etc. and gunshots every few evenings — and then the correlating givenness with which her well-adjusted pre-teen daughter shrugs off these 'dangers' because she's been exposed to this reality and is streetwise enough to not worry so much.

Chelsea, I commend your honesty, and would love to read a followup blogpost about how or whether these fears inhibit kingdom work. (She still manages to go down to the Riverside apartments and participate in Homer's roll-up-yer-sleeves ministry with the poor, so I'm not singling her out).. But ... In what ways does the wealthier confessing Christian's fear of being hurt (or God allowing hurt) keep the poor at arms' length? how does this jive with shiny new churches all springing up outside our outermost beltway, Loop 1604, instead of inhabiting the abandoned places of empire? What do we do with inner city ruins? How should a Christian respond to phenomena like gated communities? Talk amongst yourselves.

I'll agree with Dan Kimball on this thought: we (parishioners, congregants) are all "lower-case t" theologians, awares or not.

oh yeah, also: i was a visitor at a church service this evening and was struck by a mix of good theology (in this case, words about thanksgiving-for-provision coming from the college & young adult pastor's mouth) and IMO bad theology (in this case coming from the triumphalist self-congratulatory lyrics of the contempo- and 20th cent. choral arranged praise songs) — all this commingling and the whole congregation taking it in ... is no one else squirming in their pew with the tension these create? are the songs we are singing in American churches really okay with you guys? how about the way we are arranging music?
and this: what ever happened to the lament? we're at war.

if any of this resonates just a little, i will point you to two quick-read mini-essays from a few years ago, which I maybe haven't linked to in a while. perennial favorites, plus a new one that dovetails.

if you want to know soupablog's feelings about the contemporary worship scene, let me nod my head in agreement with my friends John and Brian:

the first is called
An Open Letter to Songwriters by Brian McLaren

and the second is
An Unauthorized Postscript to An Open Letter to Songwriters, by John Mortensen

and one more after you've read those two if you're still with me:

"we have a thousand songs about loving God, but how many songs do we have about loving our neighbors? We have a thousand songs about God blessing us, but how many of our songs plead with God to bless the poor, the oppressed, the war-torn, the unloved?"

Mark quoted Dostoevsky tonight:

Beauty is not only a terrible thing,
it is also a mysterious thing.
There God and the Devil strive for mastery,
and the battleground is the heart of men.

Austinchange and McLaren recap

Austinchange.org and Brian McLaren hosted a series of conversations in Austin yesterday revolving around his new book EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE. Some links from Bob Carlton… The Austin American Statesman had some great coverage:

Here
Here and
Here

Per Bob,  "These initial blog posts represent the breadth of POVs from some of the 600 people who came to one or more of these 4 events:"

Rick Diamond
Jacob Vanhorn
Clifton Stringer
Charles Whitmire

Young's Helleborine at Almond Bing

God can be poetic at just the right time so that the result seems to spite man(un)kind. Like evolving orchids that "seem to thrive on post-industrial landscapes" such as abandoned coal mine tailings.

Photo and story attributed to the Beeb.

Walter Brueggemann's 19 Theses

Once upon a time, Emergent Village carried the MP3 of Walter Brueggemann's near-famous 19 Theses. Their link went dead when the new website went live; tonight I'm bringin' 'em back for you, the Soupablog reader, along with Paul Fromont and Alan Jamieson's transcription.

My friend Troy Bronsink moderates the session, and it's also interesting to hear them dialog during the nearly 40 minutes of Q&A which follow.
I tried to keep the files intact, but edited out a few long audio gaps.

Click here for the Brueggemann 19 Theses Microsite.

of Webber and McLaren and charting it on paper

Interesting. Hm. I just went back and found these handouts I created way back in 2004 ...€” they provide a tabular [ironically modern] outline explaining the postmodern paradigm in light of the last 2000 years to an audience of evangelical types. the material borrows heavily from Webber and McLaren, and would be good for evangelical or post-evangelical audiences. Maybe one or two of my readers can benefit from me making this available again on the blog. who knows. posted here as a free resource [caveat: it's 3 years old] for you the soupablog reader.

Download paradigms talk handout (LTR-sized PDF)
and the accompanying chart
Download the chart thing (TAB-sized PDF)

Christus Victor: atonement haiku

Tyndale's portmanteau
hammers down driving wedges
scapegoat, bloody mess

And Christus Victor
with divine satisfaction
Mar[k']s Hill reaction;

Ransom and Anselm:
Yom Kippur, but westernized
are we satisifed?

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

quick austin roadtrip

Roxburgh and others continue work on new missional order

Earlier this week, Alan Roxburgh and the Allelon Community hosted a group “work[ing] on the formation of a Missional Order for the purpose of training and releasing leaders in local contexts.” at his home in Vancouver. Present were Chris Erdman, Tim Keel (Jacob's Well), Karen Ward (Church of the Apostles in Seattle), Patsy Fratanduono (Cedar Ridge), Bob Roxburgh, Ed Searcy, and Gary Waller, according to Keel, who also posted [this] robust 12-page new monasticism PDF from the Community of Friends in Renewal (CFR) -- [download file.]

Erdman writes in his own blog, that they set out to “sketch the broad contours of a Missional Order that will sustain and nourish a dispersed community of missional leaders around practices, mutual commitments, and on-going learning. The Order is initiated by the Allelon Community which will provide updates and more information in the months to come.”

Two related links:
Allelon Community Center for Learning and Missional
and Communal Catechesis :: A Major Conference in 2007

Listen: Brian McLaren in SA (MP3) 11.28.05

   
    Podcast: Listen to the Nov 28 2005 Brian McLaren talk in San Antonio here .

    (thizzzanks to M Dizzle for the pizzost)

Brian McLaren, redux

free the dalit!

my post late last night was eaten by amy's PC: about 45 minutes of typing down the drain. so i'm not gonna even try and reconstruct. here's the synopsis of what you missed:

I. brian mclaren came and talked to our cohort and other guests in san antonio last night. i wrote about how much I enjoyed my time getting to know brian better, how much fun it was to play host to such a gracious, enjoyable guy, how good the company and food and drink was at La Fonda, but that's all since been better said by others, here, and here, for example. despite several times being at the same events, this was the first time we'd been able to talk uninterrupted, for more than ten minutes at a time.

II. sounds like the austin cohort is now in good hands. between jim mueller, scott hall, glen barbier, greg willis, and whomever from ECN chooses to engage... let's just say our group will be able to gain a lot from the folks up the road.

III. communique journal is moving along nicely now that it's being delegated properly -- i'm hoping it's one of my hobbies that i can continue with -- it's meant so much to so many people over the years -- look for a new issue in december.

IV. what I've really been wanting to blog about is Trinity House's first advent service. But I'm afraid the PC will crash again, so let me post this, and start typing on the 2nd post.

V. in the meanwhile, here's two stanzas i really like from a poem by my friend pam (amahoro means "peace" in bantu):

for the calloused hands trembling
after years of hard labor
yet no rest for the weary
amahoro, amahoro

for an untouchable people
the “lowest of low”
unaware of their value
amahoro, amahoro

Mike Ray blogs

better bookmark "revolutionary heart",
from the theological guinness connoisseur
who likes to sign his email "shalom, homies".
that's right, mike is blogging.

Emergent Gathering 2005 - part two

so now on to the good stuff: people, food, conversations @ Emergent Gathering 2005.
i'm going to mention a lot of names of a lot of special people whose names probably won't mean a thing to most readers, but they're traveling partners, sojourners, and i've linked to their blogs or websites whenever i could, and the listing is mostly for my benefit, for my future recollection. but enjoy...

the high points:

+ the new monasticism / intentional community: new friend, michael james tupper is a methodist minister who has been asking a lot of the same questions our community has about the new monasticism. so much so that he's taken a twelve week sabbatical to visit the various communities mentioned in School(s) for Conversion he and another new friend, presbyterian pastor karen sloan (see more on her and Dominican experiences below) led a conversation on the above topic. it drew a really great and thought-provoking group of folks ranging from (all these are new friends too!) denizens of communality in lexington, ky, to the people of oak grove abbey in austin (more on both of these below too). additionally there was a couple involved with the order of st.anne there were a few skeptics who had grown up in intentional communities and bore some woundedness, and i'm processing their cautionary words but left with more hope than anything: all the warnings revolved around ingrown community that was existing to fortify "from" rather than to focus, missionally, out onto/with the community-at-large. i'm going to try to connect to Michael's post-sabbatical "report".

+ our wonderful housemates. great experience. we lived in and helped host one of the gathering's "houses of hospitality" -- large cabins with quarters for families and singles -- the houses had large common kitchens, dining and living rooms where other Gathering folks (the ones who either camped or stayed in the hotels or apartments) would come for shared meals.we bought groceries (my foray into santa fe to find rice for lunch and quinoa [KEEN-wa] for shelly p. was my first trip to a Trader Joe's ). I got to know and appreciate Troy Bronsink even more (friend from WALP, and a great singer-songwriter-thinker-speaker), had really great conversations with Sherry Maddock and Jennifer P from Communality; and reconnected with Baylor friend Greg Willis, and met Jolie Willis and Heather Taylor all from Oak Grove Abbey (see link, above) ...got to know and listen to Ryan and Holly Sharp (more on a possible house concert in support of their excellent CD very soon), have great conversation with Tim Conder, met and instantly clicked with Glen Barbier from Austin, listened to great stories from Lisa Scandrette, who, although wasn't an official housemate, had taken shelter there to knit along with Laci Scott who I kept mildly amused with a running soundtrack. Lance White (aka HumanFuel) was on-hand to serve as a counter-point to our conversations, and Tim and Saranell Hartmann with baby Simeon were a great encouragement and a lot of fun to chat with... Jen, Damien O'Farrell (we found this wounded puppy... that's another story) and I know I'm missing folks (sorry)

+ we fell in love with the joneses. debbie and andrew jones have some amazing kids. five to be exact. we basically adopted the wonderfully effervescent hanna jones who stayed in our bedroom most of the nights, and jordan lived at the jones' cabin for 2 days, hanging out with sam. I got to hear elizabeth jones' camino de santiago pilgrimage story ... and hear firsthand the beautiful, poetic story of debbie's dreadlocks -- a talei had heard a while back... i didn't get to really talk to andrew at all -- he was surrounded by people the whole time wanting a bit of his time. their nonchalant hospitality is my new benchmark. would that God let me be that carefree, flexible, and genuinely free to love.

+ hope and encouragement for emergent cohorts. cliff and i have been leading this emergent learning community in san antonio for about a year now; at the Gathering, some of us were able to share learning community stories...  tim hartmann (baltimore md cohort) and i facilitated a discussion with other cohort leaders and curious parties. one notable outcome, i think, will be that we decentralize the cohort responsibilities a bit so that tim conder doesn't shoulder all the burden. also, if glen and others step up to the plate, you can expect to see an Austin cohort by year's end.

+ practiced liturgy of the hours and had a great discussion - the aforementioned karen sloan is a self-described "young evangelical Presbyterian pastor [who] ended up spending quite a bit of time around communities of men in the Order of Preachers, or as they are commonly known, Dominicans." Each night she led evening prayers in a simple liturgy modeled after the Dominicans' liturgy of the hours; she is writing a book about the story of the journey of her last year and IVP will be publishing it in the winter of 2006 i believe. I'd love to have her down to Viva Books for a book signing.

+ more? grace mclaren is great. doug pagitt's new book is great, too, from the excerpts i've heard. It was great to finally hear CIVA mentioned in an Emergent circle. Got to meet Cincinnati Heidi, got to talk a couple of times with the instantly-likable Randy Buist (met him at WALP).. good conversations with Nate from Houston cohort; Michael Toy rocks. Will Samson, as always, encourages me and spurs me  on. Amy really connected with Jen and Sherry and Jolie and Heather; we're considering field trips to their communities.Rick Bennett gave me two cigars, one of which I'll pass on to Cliff. the 'garden party' was a truly memorable time of worship and sharing. i didn't get to actually go into santa fe, save that trip to the grocery store and back. note to self: next time, wake up earlier to experience breakfast at harry's. the guys and gals at Trinity House reealllly would benefit from coming next year. got to met rusty interning in roswell.

+ processing it all. i'm decompressing, processing, and will go a little more in-depth on a few of the topics soon.

weekend update

i need to go to bed because i'm waking  up early for a client meeting so maybe if i do one long run-on sentence it'll go down quicker paul thought and wrote like caddy compson's benjy moments in long streams, long streams to catch you up starting with  friday perhaps yes friday night where my parents kept the kids and amy and i had a much-needed date night and had a great time and made a pilgrimage to the apple store in san antonio's latest temple to consumerism: the shops at la cantera and then was saturday when hurricane rita came and we moved furniture most of the day and soccer games were canceled and sunday came and our missional community went to san pedro manor and spoke and learned and loved and remembered and grew and welcomed mark and rachel with open arms and jordan made me proud and devin made us all proud and my six-and-a-half-month-old baby stole the show and the beautiful and wise and weathered nursing home residences drank in emma's soft, round baby skin cheeks and fair smile and i watched and met betty who came from new orleans and hadn't found her hurricane-scattered children and she had been in the superdome and had heard the worst and then mark amazed me the way he could embrace strangers so easily y se puede hablar en espanol con las abuelitas y yo sitting there in contrast, forgetting mis palabras y no puedo recuerdo mucho and grace, and love, and later selfless susan serving spaghetti, starbucks, and birthday cliff and birthday ginger and casey started his blog and hannah and kate had laughing moments and amy made that chocolate cake and love and lethargy mixed and kids played pool just like river-city, and mike was there and i was there and we were late for soccer practice and i waited with jordan instead of going to mosaic roadtrip but that was okay, and i got to talk to george and that was good and then mark came by for some furniture and i made grilled cheese for jordan and i had a really good talk about our missional community and church and how important he is and watched grey's anatomy on abc tv and read two blog posts from cliff and they got my mind wheels rotating and a typed in a long comment and asked myself some questions and isn't it warm for september and my wasn't our electric bill high and isn't the wild goose fluid and good and beautiful and isn't she worth following?

hauerwassail!

+ think tank / generous orthodoxy blog posts about hauerwas today.
+ then I read cliff's post today. an intro to hauerwas.
+ for the last month the half-read book on my bedside table has been hauerwas'   "Cross-Shattered Christ"meditations on the last seven words of Christ. a simpler, more approachable read than "With the Grain of the Universe," his gifford lectures...
so anyway, i was sufficiently encouraged by the two posts to finish the book, which i'll do starting..... now. soon.

cliff k is blogging

My pastor, friend, kindred-spirit, partner-in-crime, missional-community-co-planter, confessor, sounding board, lunch-buddy and theological sparring partner, Cliff Knighten now [finally!] has a blog.

Expect good things.

Beyond Foundationalism a'comin

Virusdoc wanted a layman's synopsis of Beyond Foundationalism. --Erik, you said you had "long been committed to the defunct-ness of foundationalist epistemologies," but couldn't determine "what to put in their place that allows any semblance of civil discourse between competing worldviews." I'm gonna try and formulate some thoughts over the next coupla days....

Upon finishing "Beyond Foundationalism"

1. it took a month of sporadic reading, but i finally finished "Beyond Foundationalism".
2. my brain is full, and i need time to process.
3. generally: a really, really good treatment, good collaboration.
4. i commend this book to you.
5. i'm already thinking of the implications in my own sphere.

thanks, stan & john.

silent retreat

been meaning to carve away some solitude?

For Emergent SA this past Saturday, i modified a silent retreat handout from last year (virusdoc, this will look really familiar to you) and thought i'd list it here as well.

The assignment, if you missed the meeting but want to still benefit was, after reading the silence and solitude chapter of The Sacred Way (3, I think), to actually carve away some time, an afternoon, or at least an hour, and practice hesychia, attentive silence before God.

Download this PDF from your friends at EmergentSA as your guide.
(NOTE: PDF is 444KB)

our daily blog

a few random thoughts for monday.

+ my friend danny in Kansas owns this cool painting to the left. His drawing instructor, josh cross, did the piece. note to self: buy more cool art. i have a great waddy armstrong painting on my living room wall, but it belongs to a friend's collection. it's on loan.

+ i think i'm going to buy a penny whistle.

+ an old college friend emailed me today. She's living in Tegucigalpa (which, of course, is fun to say). She's getting ready to move to Madrid (not as much fun to say, but easier). Jenn, thanks for writing. And yes, your son is right: you should blog :)

+ both of the above mentioned people are reading Blue Like Jazz currently. It's on my list of books to complete. I love the opening. need to make time to read it now that:

+ I'm getting ready to start a book discussion group on Guder's Missional Church.

+ My friend Waldemar gave me Repenting of Religion. (Boyd?) Anyone read it? I think it's from Baker. I'm going to go thru it. He deals with some Bonhoeffer themes.

+ today was Random Music Day for me. in some ways, every day is, but this seemed especially random. been listening to dixie chicks, thompson twins, energy orchard, astrud gilberto and then a whole bunch of shuffled songs on iTunes.

Longing To Know

got to meet and then bend the ear of esther l. meek (geneva college in penn.) this week, twice. redeemer presbyterian hosted her 'longing to know' epistemology discussion downtown, and then cliff, susan and i ran into her at the brazos press reception (SBL Convention). i'm so lame: i got all tongue-tied trying to explain to her my thoughts based on her discussion. i knew what i wanted to say, but couldn't form the words. sigh.

evolution thought

file under teleosoterievolution:

having never taken much science or evolution in school (and my personal jury is out on evolution vs so-called creationism vs intelligent design vs. dude-we're-all-just-a-loopy-dream-in-andy-kauffman's-head) i recently wondered in my simplistic way so f God left the world to evolve on its own, only creating conditions for life -- yet not superintending species for example -- it stands that he did not preconceive mankind as the end or pinnacle of creation (despite scripture saying the opposite) indeed we cannot and should not conceive that mankind is the end of evolution either i mean something will evolve past us i mean it's hard for me to imagine an evolution as wild and beautiful and "jeff-goldbloom-life-will-find-a-way-ish" that would suddenly stop with clumsy, stupid mankind firing bombs into Iraq or is there a way that God had a hands-off role in evolution but somehow he guided it to end at mankind - that doesn't sound consistent, right, if he foreknew the end of his random creation but that only in his foreknowing did he provide for the incarnation i'm sittting here thinking this when my mind turns to this thought if i then hold a Christ-centered worldview and try to reconcile evolution with it (or vice versa), do I then believe God designed salvation (primarily) for humans who are one of the myriad stopgap species and will another higher-evolved species come along requiring additional salvation but my view of scripture holds a universal redemption of all creation, ergo all species and all matter will find redemption, BUT that mankind's sin caused (a) the need for a universal redemption (b) caused the world to go awry in the first place (c) man and his story to be the center of God's work in the world and mankind is the chief means through which God will acheive the redemption kind of like, if my daughter spilled some milk, she's gonna be the one to help me clean it up and if my mind can imagine no higher species evolving in reality but possible a devolution or microbial reversal or whatever does this mean we are the pinnacle as the scripture would lead me to believe and would the Holy Spirit come and inhabit me if i were a stopgap punctuation in the amoeba to tadpole to reptile to monkey to chimp to man to gamillothorp to werthingnicol to blailliabloth to quillerpia ad infinitum continuum?

brother erik shakes his head at my ignorance.

and i go to sleep.

my brain hurts.

Recap: Emergent values for a church planting mode

this is a frist stab, about four hours of wordsmithing. i'm posting it in loose draft form in hopes that i can get some feedback. this would be an emergent values set for a church plant. this takes my last 7 Values Set and distills them, and fills in some missing holes, and more importantly, fits everything on a single page.
---------------------

Recap: Emergent values for a church planting mode
paul soupiset

1. Unity amidst diversity.

~ We value the whole Church as the body and bride of Jesus Christ our Lord and long for a recovered apostolic tradition.

~ We seek to recover a Spirit-led, healing unity that allows for the Church’s myriad differences and complexity.

~ We value and welcome people regardless of where they are in their spiritual journey, offering them a safe place.

~ We welcome the diversity of our God-given humanity. We value a spirituality which seeks not to conform nor limit but seeks to embrace the mosaic of race, gender, age, giftedness, wealth, poverty, ethnicity, language and culture. Our leadership must also reflect this diversity.

2. Experiencing God in worship.

~ We value worship that is God-centered.

~ We value proclaiming the story of God, remembering thankfully His saving history, His action to rescue and renew Creation, and anticipating His final redemption. We seek to embody God-centered worship through a liturgy of shared lives, the apostles’ teaching, the sacraments, prayer, silence and meditation, the proclamation of the Word, incorporation of the creative arts, poetry, parables, laments, psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs —and other participatory, scriptural means.

~ We value freedom in worship and seek to cultivate engaged worshippers that are authentic, participatory, contemplative and multi-sensory.

~ We value worship which honors, communicates and invites us to particpate in the Holy Trinity. Our worship aims to reflect the mystery and trancendence of God the Father; to proclaim the story and bear witness to the incarnation and redemptive acts of God the Son in Jesus; experience the presence of God the Spirit through community and symbol.

3. A missional community.

~ We value neighbors. We strive to prefer others before self.

~ We seek to be a missional community, distinctive yet culturally-engaged and culturally-sensitive. We seek to be a permeable community that never insulates, protects nor isolates itself from life in the world. We value the laity of the church as the primary means to accomplish the messy, work of the kingdom, reproducing believers, fostering spiritual disciplines, and multiplying churches.

~ We value Jesus Christ’s call to follow Himself back into the margins of society to proclaim and embody the Gospel. We value sharing the gospel primarily by telling our stories with sympathy, patience, and creativity to an audience for whom our examples, terms, language, prayer might be a foreign tongue. God can use our stories in transformational ways.

4. Authenticity.

~ We value honesty, brokenness and confession before Holy God, desiring to be similarly transparent with and accountable to others about our inmost struggles, doubts, thoughts, hopes, transgressions and struggles. We will regard others’ stories and confessions with grace, patience, confidentiality, and love, emphasizing healing and inward transformation.

~ We seek to recover an ethos of mystery and paradox, living with hard questions that have no easy answers, and to live within and minister amidst the tension that Jesus Christ told us to expect.

5. A (generous) orthodox Tradition.

~ We value and affirm the view of God as laid out in the Nicene Creed, which is rooted in sacred scripture.

~ We value the inherited Tradition of the church, including the classic spiritual disciplines: meditation, prayer, fasting, study, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration, and the observance of the christian calendar.

-----

this ministry meme / full disclosure

i never connected these dots before, but upon reflection, i have a lot of these dots to connect:
my maternal great-grandfather was a minister back east. episcopalian i believe.
on the other side of the family, my paternal grandfather was a pastor at the little church of la villita here in san antonio.
my uncle -- my dad's brother -- is an ordained chaplain (and maybe a diaconal minister? i forget) in the methodist church, after going to an episcopalian seminary in austin.
my first cousin patric is shipping out wednesday to join the army and study for the chaplaincy there.
my brother is a deacon in the baptist church. my mom works full time on staff of bible study fellowship international in san antonio, one of my best friends and mentors is a pastor, (the other mentor is an elder)

memetic conspiracy theorists would have a heyday. no wonder he's interested in the ministry. the ministry wants him! election. free will. destiny. density. blip. bloop. unique? not unique? distinction? intinction. i'm going to sleep.

unrelated for the repeat soupablog readers: my drivers' licence is drying out nicely, thank you.

Toward an Emergent Church Values Set VII

Mystery

We value and embrace mystery.

[Mystery] must be entered into… For we do not solve mysteries; we enter into them. The deeper we enter into them, the more illumination we get.... a problem is solved, it is over and done with. We go on to other problems… But a mystery, once recognized, is something we are never finished with. It is never exhausted. Instead, we return to it again and it unfolds new levels to us… We live in a universe permeated by a divine reality whose hem we touch when we encounter mysteries. (-Diogenes Allen)

If modernity waxed formulaic, it may be said that postmodernity is waning formulaic. Twentieth century mainliners put God in a handmade, gilded box; twentieth century evangelicals shoeboxed God their own simple way; charismatics, seekers, home-churchers -- whomever -- they all had their version of grab-n-go, portion-controlled God (would you like fries with that, ma'am?).

When the name of the game was Knowledge, we did what we could to tidy up the rough edges of the gospel; we rationalized, categorized, worked out our alliterative homiletics and matching three-point sermons fearlessly. When the strategy du jour was 'defending' the gospel (the gospel needs defending?), we hunkered down and constructed bulwarks. Airtight apologetics. Our authors and authorities plumbed the depths of God and returned with answers (by-golly)!

But Holy God always breaks out of our best attempts at boxing him up, boxing him in. He breaks out of our best-constructed apologetics. He offends us. He makes us stumble. He makes us eat his flesh and drink his blood. He embodies mystery. Beauty. Awe. Wonder.

Ecclesiax described an intentional return to mystery this way:

God is more than just a collection of rational propositions meant to be engaged by our brains alone. God is Spirit. God is mysterious. Mystical. We would not be in favor of nullifying the supernatural, opting for the cold, factual, scientific analysis that has tried to put God in a quantifiable box. We believe that God is beyond our finite attempts to 'box-ify' Him. Our best articulated theology is like a crayon scribble to the eyes of God. God allows us the privilege, the joy, of experiencing Him on His terms... we believe, mystical terms...

As we move forward "not having all the answers but knowing the one who does" we are freed up to take the word of God devotionally and for edification rather than as a database. We are freed up to echo the role of paraclete and come alongside someone who is hurt and simply be with them, rather than explaining the answer to their persistent "whys" -- and maybe we'll be blessed with community wherein we may enter as sojourners into further mysteries: the crucifixion and resurrection, the body and blood, the bread and the wine, the ascention, the mystery of the annunciation, the Incarnation, the baptism of Christ, the eschaton.

Cedar Ridge Community Church put it nicely:

We recognize that this world, life and God are all too profound and complex to be reduced to simplistic formulas or to be neatly packed and cataloged in boxes. We embrace the wonder and mystery of all of creation and of the Creator, and seek to celebrate, enjoy, and experience the goodness of God, that far surpasses our understanding.

1 Timothy 3:16 (NLT)
Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith:
Christ appeared in the flesh
and was shown to be righteous by the Spirit.
He was seen by angels
and was announced to the nations.
He was believed on in the world
and was taken up into heaven.

Sam, OtR and the PAL part of PayPal

emergent blogger and activist rudy carrasco's son sam was just diagnosed with leukemia yesterday. jen lemen has organized a donation via PayPal here. prayers and donations via the blogosphere underscore my earlier post about blogging as spiritual formation. If you're part of this far-flung community, or even not, please consider breaking out of the norm and give out of sacrifice to this ministry.

Prayers for Sam, for his parents, for the docs.

in similar yet unrelated news, fans of Over The Rhine (my favorite recoirding artists) are organizing a similar PayPal donate-a-thon to send funds to the band (who recently had their trailer full of musican equipment stolen while on tour -- all that was left behind was a B-3 organ!).

Prayers for OtR, the thieves, and for the discovery of the equipment.

Good uses of technology.

........:::::::::|||||||||||::::::::::::...........

Pavlov 2

Virusdoc.net: Discussion on Church-bells

http://WWW.virusdoc.net/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/69

Okay, I'm trying a trackback for the first time. We'll see if this works. Erik asked the following in his post:

What I seem to believe (without having really considered it), is that the proper religious experience is a product of matching one's personal preference/personality with a "worship style" and "teaching style" that motivate you, that move you, in a manner that makes you feel like you have encountered the Divine.

This sounds so mechanistic, so behaviourist: is church really nothing more than a bunch of dogs, lining up to hear the right bell tone, so that their inner mouths can salivate with anticipation for the flavor of immortality? And if I don't feel "led" or "moved" by the service I'm attending, does this mean that they are just ringing Pavlov's bell at the wrong frequency? Or in the wrong meter? Or in the wrong type of acoustic environment?

Here's an approximation of the reply I was going to send to Erik yesterday (before my broswer ate it.):

The wine and the bread, incense, stained glass, musical settings, lighting: one way to think of the physical world that surrounds us during worship is as media. If we can agree that God is mediated to us through the bread and the wine (or better put, that God mediates himself to us through the bread and wine), and that God mediates himself to us through, say, the Incarnation, what do we say, then, about a moving piece of music? What about the "sunlight shafts piercing through leaded glass" ? What about the Starbucks latte that is ordered in the church's coffee house that lets us pay attention during the service? What do we say, then, about the donuts, about the carpet color, about whatever else surrounds us?

So we can think of media as that necessary scrim between (holy) God and (unholy) man. UV protection, if you will. But it gets interesting, since man was created to have a role in the mediation:

Someone went to the store and bought that wine. Someone bought the bread (or baked it). Someone composed the music. If we agreed earlier that God mediates himself through the eucharist, but the physical objects are culturative objects placed there, "ordered" by man, man is also mediating simultaneously. Creating media. And helping with that scrim.

Erik then asked:

If it's really that instinctual, that neurologic, wouldn't chemical modulators of the brain be a more efficient means of expressing this search? A nice Merlot or biotech's latest prescription offering?

Seen through the above lens, a rephrasing of Erik's question might be rendered: "If mediation between God and man is required (I'd say it is), and if media is that which can be perceived with the existing senses, what qualifies as media? Something that numbs the senses? Something that manipulates me? Something that turns me into a passive spectator or a mindless automaton? What if the medium is one that is misused by man? What does that say about God, assuming He is on the other side co-mediating my experience with these men and women called ministers, laity, congregants?"

I would maintain that the second any medium is employed that is incongruent to God's character (as, uh, mediated to us through the scriptures), one can safely assume that God was not a co-mediator in that exchange.

That doesn't rule out a grey area in-between: it actually gets more complicated from there: e.g.: Let's say you have a good old-fashioned Southern Baptist Altar Call. You're sitting in church, and the church pianist is softly playing "Just as I am" for the 9th verse. Congregant A was genuinely moved by the sermon and this music helped the individual -- the melody might have conjured up a safe memory of the past or the major chord might have brought a wave of peace to the person. Congregant B is sitting one pew back and receives the same notes, the same melody, and percieves it as a manipulation of the emotions. The person may have almost been at a point to draw closer to God, but the melody unleashed a wave of cynicism and pushed the person further away. Believes the pianist and the pastor are conspiring to force a decision. If those two congregants simultaneously had such differing experiences, what can we say about God and man?

If God is drawing person A and is not drawing person B with the same media, we either conclude he is cruel, or we conclude that he has ways & means & timing that are beyond us. He is God; we are not. It can be distilled down to a matter of faith.

If the pianist and pastor were in cahoots to manipulate, we believe from scripture that God oftenworks despite men and their bad intentions, to proclaim His Gospel.

Christ told a parable of the seed (Luke chapter 8) to emphasize the receiver's role.

Anyway, I guess my best guess is that Merlot might be used of God to soften a heart. To clear a head. Drunkenness wouldn't be used of God because it is against his character. If scripture speaks out against the role of chemicals, we can assume a biochemical mediation would be beyond God's character...

We are creaturely. We are sheep that must be dealt with by sticks and carrots (wait, that's a burro. anyway)...

I don't know if any of this helped my friend, or not...