soupablog

Advent Sketchbook: Steamroll

via flickr.com

Jean Baptiste, steamroller.

Posted via web from soupiset's posterous

Advent Sketchbook: Ovoid

via flickr.com

"There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a netzer shall grow out of his roots." Isaiah 11:1 (NKJV)

Posted via web from soupiset's posterous

"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.

Breakout Session: Between Heaven & Helvetica

“[A]n art work has value as a creation because man is made in the image of God, and therefore man not only can love and think and feel emotion, but also has the capacity to create. Being in the image of the Creator, we are called upon to have creativity.… We never find men anywhere in the world or in any culture in the world who do not produce art. Creativity is a part of the distinction between man and non-man. All people are to some degree creative. Creativity is intrinsic to our mannishness.” — Francis Schaeffer

Yesterday I gave an hour-and-a-half design breakout session for participants at the 2009 Baptist Media Forum at Camp Buckner, up near Inks Lake. The seminar was entitled Between Heaven & Helvetica: How Good Design Can Energize Your Existing Communications.  I hadn't delivered a talk that long before, so I was a little nervous to say the least. I figured I'd leave a half-hour for Q&A and prepared what I thought was an hour's worth of content.

My stated purpose was to "embark upon an interactive, multi-sensory conversation among 
designers, self-proclaimed non-creatives, quasi-creatives, and people who have 
to work with creatives in order to sketch at the intersection(s) of good design, good theology, and our role 
as culture creators." True to form, it was meandering and quirky — a soupçon of  history, theology of the Imago Dei, a little design philosophy and advice, and visual inspiration/stimulation (I hope).

About 15 minutes into it, I realized I had too much content, but pressed forward, and we ended up getting through most of it without much compromise. Before I went on, my friend Marcus Goodyear gave a great presentation on online community building; I knew he was going to skew his content heavily (actually completely) online, so I weighted my presentation toward traditional media and channel-neutral branding design.

The preso was a mashup featuring three youth media case studies tied to some theological points I made at the presentation's "history unlesson" ... as well as a gallery of twenty logos I had designed, which I will glom together and present to you below. I also re-fashioned and re-presented my "six design nuggets for non-creatives" talk as a 10-minute overview.

I was really pleased with the mix of people — I asked the group of media professionals (I assumed I'd be getting mostly PR folks, writers and editors) to classify themselves (how modern of me): almost a third of the room comprised designers and creatives. Another third considered themselves quasi-creative, and only one guy thought he was a non-creative.

My friend Tim Snyder made the trip out to the hill country with his visiting friend (my new friend) Josh. They audited the whole session and Josh participated in the interactive [Playdoh sculpting!] portion of the talk as well. With them and Marcus and my friend Brad Russell from The Baptist Standard there in the room, I was more at ease than I would've been.

After the presentation, Tim and Josh and I spent the rest of the day together. On the drive back to San Antonio, we stopped in the Blue Bonnet Café in Marble Falls, TX. That's Josh and his chocolate meringue pie. After that we crashed at my house for a bit ( I really needed a nap) before heading to Alamo Drafthouse Theater to see Slumdog Millionaire.

It was a nice break in the middle of the week.

I leave you with an excerpt from an essay by Leland Ryken that I published in Communiqué back in the day, and dredged up for the conversation yesterday (but didn't have time to share with the group):

"What does the image of God in people say about the arts? It affirms human creativity as something good in principle, since it is an imitation of one of God's own acts and perfections. Someone once wrote, "As image-bearer of God, [people possess] the possibility both to create something beautiful, and to delight in it (Kuyper 142). Christian poet Chad Walsh once wrote that the artist "can honestly see himself as a kind of earthly assistant to God..., carrying on the delegated work of creation, making the fullness of creation fuller" (308). This applies equally to those who are not themselves creative artists but who delight to enter into the creativity of others. And it stands as a rebuke to those who disparage God's gift of creativity in people."

Here's a handful of the logos I've designed* — I used these in the presentation:

 

*the All Saints logo was a collaboration between myself and Von Glitschka, whose work also made it into the presentation.

stations of the cross

two of my stations of the cross from last year.
i miss that harmony guitar.
photographed by reallivepreacher

Station 10: Jesus is Crucified (detail on right)

Station 14: Jesus is Laid in the Tomb (detail on right)

i'm available by commission to finish the other twelve.

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.

lunchblog: child of the wind

Was thinking about incomplete projects today.
All our best-intentioned efforts.

Things I've said 'yes' to — because I'm wired to say 'yes' …
then set aside for many reasons.  play, pause. play, pause.

Not so much aborted because the thing didn't have merit,
but maybe more because something else had more merit.

Not so much ignored because of entropy,
but maybe more because I have too many plates spinning on sticks.

Not so much started because saying 'yes' was
modeled as a child in my artist-mom and fix-it-all-dad,
though that's in there somewhere.

Not so much started because my identity
is too enmeshed in seeking approval of others,
though the tendency to be a pleaser is in there as well.

And it reminded me of this stations of the cross project.
I only have two stations completed (the two above are
further along than when this shot was taken).

I allowed myself to give up the project for now because
it was already used in context with another group stations project.
And maybe because they weren't being
    executed the way I had envisioned.

Now they're sitting in a corner of an unused room gathering dust.
And I no longer have the drive to complete the project. for now.

Maybe

Maybe when the seasons turn cool and Ordinary Time gives way
to the rhythmic sway of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent
    maybe then I'll be inspired.

It of course brings up questions of the agency of the
Holy Spirit in the Christ-follower's life.
Are we to truly be children of the Wind?
Breeze-Flexible, Malleable, willing to follow the Wild Goose?
Yes, ¿no?

Then:

Is artistic inspiration extractable from spiritual in-spiration?
In-filling In-dwelling In-breathing?

And is this a cop-out?
    I just didn't feel inspired today. Or yesterday for that matter.

Or is it soul-care for the over-burdened, a lesson for the weary,
cardinal direction for the wayward dabbler?

and then there's the home-front:

the deck that's falling apart;
the soil beneath my dead lawn that's
starting to crack from dehydration;

a thousand points of shame to own and be
embarrassed about mostly when relatives come to visit.
lack of landscaping. dehydrated lawn. cracked
foundation. peeling paint. dilapidated deck.
do i own these failures more than others?
how do these not kill you all? nagging failures…
when it comes to labor, it's in much worse form
to pull the "i'm just not inspired" card.

there's always the "i'm tired" card.

i ramble.

unabashedsummercamppost

believe it or not, back in 1990 i was a young, relatively thin and tan summer counselor at singing hills, the elementary-school-aged summer camp at laity lodge youth camp (LLYC) — an amazing 1900-acre encampment nestled in a canyon along the frio river. that's me in the white hat.

there i taught 6 and 7 year olds how to properly use a carabiner, how to tie abseiling harnesses from scratch, how yell to their belay and rappel off cliffs; i prayed with homesick kids, played guitar in nightly "round-up" worship services, got in shaving cream fights, played a lot of dodge ball and capture-the-flag, snuck the kids out to secret midnight popsicle parties that were really over about 9:45pm, worked on art projects with them, and painfully worked through the most immature, insanely jealous stage of my fledgling relationship with a young, beautiful girls counselor named amy, but that's another conversation. the memories go deep there. and in short, i grew to love the place.

now its almost two decades later and i still have this affinity with that land, with the water and the hills and the people i've met.

this weekend we made one of at least three yearly pilgrimages back to leakey, texas, back to LLYC, and specifically, back to the camp's annual work weekend.

it's a blast, despite that "work" word. a lot of alumni families, current staff, work crew and random folks who have been associated with the youth camps for the last 40 years bring multiple generations of their own families there to pool their energy for a weekend and come together to put the finishing touches on the camp just prior to opening day. we sweat, we work hard, and in exchange, we get fed like kings (e.g.: saturday evening was beef tenderloin), we get to stay in the same cabins as the campers, and we worship there along the banks of the frio, singing many of the same old-school worship songs we did 18 years ago, replete with hand motions and silly inside-joke asides. whether you're back east, in the deep south, or up in the texas hill country, any camp that's survived 40 years builds up a lot of traditions. we sleep, we laugh. we talk.

this year's work weekend, i was on the grounds crew. weeding flower beds and later raking acorns out of a volleyball sand pit. harder than it sounds. in prior years i've hauled heavy equipment out of their winter storage barns, climbed precarious ladders to clean cobwebs off of huge wagon-wheel chandeliers in the ranch-house, hauled speaker mains and monitors into place in their pavilion, worked with six or seven men to drag unbelievably heavy pontoon docks into the water for the swimmers ... that kind of thing.

we go home and then, two months later, we'll take our kids to be campers there. this year, three out of our four kids will be old enough to attend. we can only afford the one-week session, but the kids love it nonetheless. amy and i have this years-old tradition with the kids. on the last stretch of the highway, just before arriving at camp, we pass a road sign for the haby ranch.

"Hey, Mama…," I call in a really over-the-top vaudeville voice.

"Yes, Daddy?" she sweetly comes in on cue, knowing what's next.

"Say, that's the sign for the Haby Ranch … do you know who used to live at that ranch?"

and then as an answer — to the younger kids' delight and to the older kids' chagrin — the whole mini van launches into an overly loud version of Bill Grogan's Goat, a call-and-response kids' song we used to sing for our campers back at singing hills:

Bill Grogan's Goat (repeat),
Was feelin' fine (repeat),
Ate three red shirts (repeat),
Right off the line (repeat).

Bill grabbed a stick (repeat),
Gave him a whack (repeat),
And tied him to (repeat),
The railroad track (repeat).

The whistle blew! (repeat),
The train grew nigh (repeat),
Bill Grogan's Goat (repeat),
Was doomed to die (repeat).

He heaved a sigh (repeat),
Of...aw-ful...pain (repeat),
Coughed up the shirts (repeat),
And flagged the train! (repeat).

the song is timed by daddy to wrap up just as we arrive on the camp property. the kids get dropped off, we drive home, and miss 'em and send them care packages.

then, one week later, we drive back to pick 'em up and hear the crazy camp stories that we used to tell our own parents. and we remember that camp is ineffable. we remember getting frustrated with our own parents' line of questioning following camp. so we don't pry too much, making sure to leave camp a sacred mystery. i am already predicting that kate, who shares my tendency for waxing nostalgic, will weep much of the ride home because of the painfully beautiful experience and the inevitable departure. it is a thin space, to be sure.

but this place, part of the HEB Foundation, is more than just a youth camp.

many of you are aware of the related adult, ecumenical retreat center there on the same property, overlooking the river, a couple of hours' drive from san antonio. heck, this summer alone (!) you can catch the following at laity lodge's adult retreats: lauren winner, j.i. packer, marva dawn, gordon macdonald,  david dark and sarah masen, michael card, gordon atkinson, ashley cleveland, charlie peacock, and cynthia clawson. whew; that's just a partial list. now, a friend of ours, john, has started a family camp there at laity lodge as well. this is in addition to everything i've already mentioned, plus free foundation camps for groups during the year.

in a few weeks, it'll be time to pull the kids' camp trunks out of the barn and start filling them with flashlights, rain ponchos, and travel-sized toothpaste. there will be health forms to get signed and more gasoline money spent than we'd rather.

and somewhere out there tonight, there's probably a college grad student googling for capture-the-flag, just making sure she's got the rules straight in her head. and somewhere out there tonight, there's probably a school nurse biding her time until she can spend nine weeks with "camp" instead of "school" in her title. and somewhere out there tonight, there's probably a young, relatively thin and tan college kid, making sure he's got picks and backup strings and capos packed tight in that hard-shell guitar case.

let the summer begin

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.

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:

Lentenblog 2008 :: Labyrinth 11

labyrinth update
fun stuff; we had our first work day on Sunday.

i have more to post about the topic sometime soon.
i have some video footage abigail took that i need to edit down.

but bottom line: the labyrinth course was too small when executed.
36' will work in flat terazzo or level pavers, but not in rock-lined footpaths.
lesson learned.

thanks to everyone who came and helped on the first draft. we got a section of the circle finished — based on completing about 80 degrees out of 360 in one hour.

second, larger draft coming soon.

i almost don't have it in me to ask the kids to volunteer again.

Lentenblog 2008 :: Labyrinth 10: Setting aside a space

      

click the video thumbnail above to watch a vlog version

Finally.

Rain, illness, travel and other hurdles had kept me from coming back to the labyrinth site until today. I borrowed my dad's gasoline-powered weed-eater and went to the back of the property this afternoon.

It was very peaceful. I was the only one there. It was really nice to be alone.

So for about the first hour this afternoon I used the weed-eater to chop off a bunch of dead shin- and knee-high grass. By about 4:00 it looked like this. The clump in the foreground is about an inch tall.

Next, I used this $4 rake to clear the dead grass away. This took about twice as long as I had planned; I got twice the number of blisters I had planned… But then, just as the sun had dropped below sight, I had finished — well, at least enough to rest. Just in time for a metaphoric shabbat.

If you squint, you can kind of see the circle of the labyrinth starting to take shape.
the Prayer Walk, off in the background of this photo will lead straight into the Labyrinth.

The center of the labyrinth will be where the surveryor's flag and dog tie-out are located, there in the middle of the composition.

It's only after periods of exhausting physical labor that the God-phrase "It is finished" comes to mind. I think of Christ's work on the cross, and I think about the YHWH's work in the creation accounts. I think about resting after work, and I think about saying, "It is good" and letting it apply both to the end result and to the process of having worked hard.

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:

Barry Brake playing from Sacred Harp

Hey: You know that Aaron Copeland-esque Americana hymn sound — the one that feels like wide open spaces, blue skies, golden prairies and the faded glory of the America-That-Was — the one that spread and grew in the south-and-westward movement of New Englanders across America in the 1800s … the shape-note tradition, the open-fifths-gospel-tinged-beauty-of-it-all … it's music embodied in community, not music-as-performance. This is music properly situated. un-embroidered.

The Sacred Harp oeuvre may not be your sonic cup of tea. It may be too precious or too sentimental for you. Nonetheless, you should hear this. My composer / performer / thinker / author friend Barry created some original settings of hymns from the Sacred Harp.

Listen.

Let it be your prayer today.

Another unrelated musical gift: a friend I know through correspondence, Roger, sent me an original composition today — it's guitar and mandolin, and I'm enjoying listening to it. Thanks, RWW.

Year A :: Advent II

The drawing above is of my friend Tim — the associate pastor at Covenant — and some of the kids of the church. One of the best rituals I've found at our little church is Children’s Time on the Blanket. Kids from two to maybe ten or so come up in the middle of the service, not for a children's sermon, but rather just for a time for the pastor to talk with the kids, to take up their offerings for a given missionary family, and to pray together.

Emma (our almost three year old) will walk up front to 'blanket time' and always catch herself mid-step, five or six paces into it, and do an about-face and come back to us for money; we'll give her a dollar bill or a quarter to put in the bag (like most kids she prefers shiny, weighty coins to paper currency any day) and then she and the other kids will go up to talk with Tim or Gordon.

Thanks, Tim and Gordon, for keeping this tradition alive.

I think if some of our present-day world leaders had, as children, walked up for Children’s Time on the Blanket, the world might be a more peaceful place.

Wednesday I asked another friend up at church to sing and play our Call to Worship for this morning, and she said yes. So this morning she got up with her guitar and voice and brought something that was wonderful: a simple Advent spiritual, Come, Lord Jesus (Come and be born in our hearts), delivered with a calypso strumming pattern — she told me it was the way the song had been passed down to her.

I hope the congregation received the song with open ears and hearts. Sometimes I wonder how this friend feels because of her present situation: She is a new San Antonian not by choice, but is here because she was displaced from her native New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. She lost everything, relocated. She still brings her infant granddaughter weekly, and they come to worship God. They get a ride up to church because she cannot afford a bus pass. She gets by without internet or email. I met her at the Franciscan retreats we have up at church, and since then we've talked about guitars and songs and her old life back in New Orleans. She's got a lovely singing voice, and in a strange way, I really feel like she's one of the reasons I'm there up at Covenant these days.

I picture her learning today's spiritual, chord-by-chord, decades earlier in Louisiana, perhaps singing with family or friends around her New Orleans living room. Perhaps she picked it up by taking in the sounds flowing out of the African-American congregation which I'd imagine she once regularly attended. Now days, her stories come in trickles, perhaps a little cautiously, usually while we're tuning instruments or handing out chord sheets. I'm convinced there's a deep well of story there.

Imagine my surprise when, close to the end of the service today, I looked up and spotted a couple of Emergent Village folks filing into the back of the church — the esteemed Glen Barbier and the inimitable Lance White, as well as their well-spoken sustainable gardener friend Steven Hebbard — all had made the morning road trip from Austin. I understand they got a little turned around, so they missed a good bit of the service.

But, as is often the case, a shared meal proved deeper and perhaps just as soul-satisfying as the service anyway (not to diminish from the service this week, or from the thoughts of John the Baptist swirling in my head). We all headed to Chipotle and spent at least two? two-and-a-half? certainly not three? hours eating and talking and connecting. When tribes collide.

One more missive. This afternoon Amy took a page from the Soupablog School for Nabbing a Christmas Tree this year, and went out and got back with a nice tree in well under an hour. Maybe more like 40 minutes. My kinda woman. Hunters: 1, Gatherers, 0.  We had that sucker in the stand and unfurled in record time. Now our house smells like pine, and we'll have to bring in some ornaments over the next few nights. We're usually Late Decorators when it comes to Christmas. Lots of reasons, but if I explained them, it might sound like I'm railing on you Early Decorators out there.

Kate (see note, right) says I should draw a picture of our pretty tree. Maybe once it's decorated. I've got other pictures I'm drawing too, but how can you say no to a note like this?

Some days:

My life is one big wonderful also/and.

Here's the Advent II lection from this morning's service.
We focused on the Isaiah and Matthew passages.
Looking ahead, here are the Advent III readings.

advent ramblings. a soupablog podcast post.

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?

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)

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

falling into rhythms

Just returned from helping facilitate the second Franciscan spirituality retreat out at Covenant.   I was blessed to part of the first one back in March, and it was good to return to the rhythms of fixed-hour prayer with others, good to contemplate a rule of life. Tim Heavin is really doing the organizing, with several members leading vespers, compline, lauds and terce; I'm left to plan some of the canticles and other music.

i went ahead and also added a makeshift prayer station, sort of inspired by something lily lewin would do. it had a good set of headphones playing chants and choral settings appropriate to the canonical hour. i also found use for the century-old, rusty, square nails i had pulled from boards recovered from Sue and Tom's house in Galveston: we set up a little silver dish offering the nails that folks could take as a memento/artifact from the retreat (jokes about stigmata ensued).

Our family's spiritual journey has led us to the community here at Covenant — a simple community; cross-generational, ecumenical (generously incorporating practices and cues from everything from Baptist to Wesleyan/Holiness to Anglo/Catholic), self-described as "a place where the less than perfect are more than welcome", and one with a growing contemplative culture. Here Amy feels loved, valued, and welcome; and the kids are loved, and engaged with friends. I'm healing and re-engaging and worshiping God here. We joined the congregation as members today.

A Day of Dialogue & Sabbath - Who's with me?

 

Emergent San Antonio invites you into
A Day of Dialogue & Sabbath
April 28, 2007

You’re invited to the major Emergent|SA Cohort event for this spring. The event will be a day of praxis (action + reflection). Jump in your car — or better, share the half-hour ride — out to a relaxing little internet café in Seguin where we’ll start things off. In the morning we will begin with an “open spaces” dialogue with our cohort lead learners Tim Snyder, Paul Soupiset, and Travis Baker.

If you’re new to, familiar with, or vaguely curious about the emerging church conversation, this slow-paced day is a great way to get to know some kindred spirits, find an on-ramp into the emerging conversation, meet new friends and chill over coffee in Seguin. There will be plenty of time for stillness and personal reflection as well as group interaction. Extroverts and introverts alike will feel at home.

After lunch, we'll have several Sabbath opportunities available in the surrounding neighborhoods. We’ll close the event with an evening prayer together.

Location: ChiroJava in Seguin, Texas
    (114 S. Austin Street on the main square; see map below)
Date & Time: April 28, 2007 9:30am - 5:30pm
Cost: FREE (bring your own money for lunch and optional dinner)
Hosted by: ClayPeople Community, ChiroJava, Emergent|SA, and INTERMISSION at Texas Lutheran University

Comment over at the Emergent|SA blog to organize ridesharing and to give us a rough headcount.

CHIRO JAVA:

lentenblog moleskine 032807 when abbots go bad

So they have this little café & bakery on Bainbridge Island, the Blackbird, that made these little hand-shaped cookies cookies made in the shape of a hand. After i did the hand-construct sketch on the left margin, i was reminded of said cookies. Which caused me to hum 'Blackbird' in my head while i was tracing the labyrinth. (The Beatles' version was stuck in my head, not Over The Rhine's) now the birdcage on the right makes more sense, eh? then i imagined this labyrinth black market where street-corner preachers gone bad would open their trenchcoats to reveal an assortment of polaroids showing 7-, 9-, and 11-circuit labyrinths for sale, cheap. Brooklyn Bridge cheap.

Here's to you, sidewalk preachers, cookie cutters, cactus-burners, lightpole leaners, labyrinthine dreamers.

Let the day begin.

lentenblog moleskine 032607 graven

thanks for stopping by, especially new visitors to soupablog via real live preacher's post today. these lentenblog sketches will continue through easter, possibly beyond, and will be an official part of the via crucis 2007: holy week & easter grid blog — this won't affect you, gentle soupablog reader, except that the lentenblog subject lines will have a grid blog moniker prepended to it. and i'll be linking to other gridbloggers' posts.

thanks to national public radio, i have "ankle injuries" by fujiya & miyagi stuck in my head.

lentenblog moleskine 032107 iesu

click here for detail

here's where i was since last night

lentenblog moleskine 030707 seattle tacoma

this one is for my [fraternal] twin brother, mark. i missed you today. the watercolor circles [above] i drew this evening remind me of an order of worship [below] i created in Adobe Illustrator last year. It was a program for the sunday worship service that served the trinity house community. just now i went back and found it, buried in my 160GB digital scriptorium, and will paste it here. it's funny how you don't realize until the end of something that it can remind you of something else you created so recently. i like both these illustrations, but for totally different reasons. but i suppose both have to do with love.

lentenblog moleskine 022307 Christus Victor

smallfire::redux

if you're interested in alternative worship, you already know about smallfire.

it had been a while since i'd visited, and was again amazed by all of the creativity and collaboration across the pond. here's some screen grabs. thanks steve collins, for all the work you've done documenting this phenomenon.

collins writes:

"Alternative worship is what happens when people create worship for themselves, in a way that fully reflects who they are as people and the culture that they live their everyday lives in.

Because most forms of church have become culturally disconnected from the wider world, alternative worship can seem like a radical break with conventional church practices. It uses the technologies and media of our everyday lives - TV, video, CDs, computers - things that we take for granted in a domestic environment but seldom see in churches. It takes much of its content from the secular world - the music, the language, often the imagery - because it sees the presence of God in these things, and knows that spirituality has to make sense in the context of our secular lives if it is to nourish us and help us be salt and light.

At the same time, alternative worship searches the traditions of the Church for resources that fit the needs of the present. Christianity has rich storehouses of spiritual treasures. Many of these lie neglected or forgotten, but have renewed relevance - others have been exhausted by overuse and need to be rested, or have become irrelevant to the current needs of church and world. Alternative worship tries to interpret tradition faithfully into new contexts - but this may mean changing the form in order to preserve or revivify the meaning.....

Alternative worship is deeply concerned for community. Community is a place of honesty, commitment and support, where people grow through relationship. Community is essential to living any kind of authentic Christian life in societies which work against it in fine detail. Community is not clique, but reaches out to others, maybe locally, maybe globally. Whenever we meet as God's people we are aware of those not present who are also God's people. And we are aware of those who do not consider themselves God's people but are, more than they ever think.

Alternative worship is intensely concerned with creativity. Partly this is because reinventing worship requires it; but more because of a belief that creativity is essential to human wholeness and should be offered back to the Creator in worship. Since we are made in the image of a creator God, we are all creative - but life, and often sadly the Church, conspires to tell us that we are not, that we have nothing worth offering. Alternative worship offers people the chance of creative expression in worship. Not just the team making things to be admired by the congregation, but the congregation making things as worship, to be admired by the team...."

abbey of the arts

has a website

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.

Labyrinths, Jeff Bridges style

So my mom shows me an easy way to draw a labyrinth.  You may have already seen this before, but this method was new to me. I asked her where she learned it from and she said "Jeff Bridges." I said, "the actor?" and she said, "yes." Apparently on a TV talk show, though it's on his website as well. 

Here's my take on it, created as a quickie tutorial in CS2 while the kids all napped this afternoon:

Please click thumbnail to play the animated GIF at a larger size.

strangely warmed

a spiritual forebear of mine, John Wesley, used the term to describe a spiritual awakening:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ I felt my heart strangely warmed
- John Wesley, writing in 1738

i'm using it for more mundane purposes tonight, but in any case, for the first time in a long while, my heart is strangely warmed tonight — i was able to welcome into my house a dear old friend and brother, waldemar, and catch up for a few hours since he's passing through san antonio on business. we talked about our journeys, about the joys and trials of work and family (they've got five kids which must make our four seem like childsplay) and his relocation to phoenix, and many other things. the french press coffee did well tonight, which is also a good thing, and we're entering into monday with a more or less clean house, which is remarkable. to top it all off, i just checked email and got to see photos of baby sophia burns to boot; here's one, below:

here we see young casey and even younger sophia sharing the same smile.

this morning at trinity house we tried something i called unchained church — kind of a tip-o-the-hat to unchained radio (not the reformed baptist radio station, but the older idea of a free-form radio broadcast wherein you might hear Willie Nelson, Wham!, Yo Yo Ma and Dave Matthews Band in the same segment). i digress. okay. there were three boxes in the middle of the worship space, each painted to vaguely correspond to 'prayer' / 'word' / 'music'. inside each box were folded slips of paper with various worship cues, instructions which the community unfolded, read and followed — they essentially participated in the leading of worship today.

the 'word' box had all the lectionary readings on various slips, for example; the 'prayer' box had prayer cues (one slip said 'the Lord's prayer' while another directed the body to pray for our church, and still another simply said 'silence'…); the 'music' box had slips reading 'hymn' or 'chant' and allowed the 'chooser' to either pick a song or defer to the worship leader's choice if they didn't want to pick. get the idea? it was an interesting experiment in worship. it still contained a fourfold ordo of greeting / word / table / dismissal, and was surprisingly chaos free (at least for our chaos-friendly congregation), and meaningful, not just novely for novelty's sake, but wanting to make a point about participatory worship, about the importance of the consitiuent pieces of a given service, and to hopefully have a service stick in one's mind past noon on that given Sunday.

unrelated:
today (call it bad planning) i actually drove not once, not twice, but thrice to our grocery store.

here's emma and daddy:

Sacred Space initiates PRAY-AS-YOU-GO podcast for Lent

Daily, Lenten MP3s from the Jesuit Communication Centre in Dublin, starting Wednesday:

excerpt:

PRAY-AS-YOU-GO for Lent
      Fr. Peter Scally, SJ, at Jesuit Media Initiatives in London is running a trial for the whole of Lent this year of a new project called pray-as-you-go. Some of you may remember that Peter, while still a Jesuit Scholastic, was working at the Jesuit Communication Centre in Dublin when Sacred Space was launched as "something to do for Lent". In fact, it was Peter that came up with the name, Sacred Space.
      The idea is to provide daily prayer in the MP3 audio format for the many people who travel to and from work every day on bus, train, tube or subway - using music and scripture to guide them through a ten minute prayer session every day. It is downloadable for free from the internet, so that you can take it with you ....

The trial begins Ash Wednesday, March 1.

Editor's Note: the
RSS feed for this podcast has been updated to: http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/mp3/rss.xml

Communiqué Journal - Advent 2005

Announcing .... the rebirth of Communiqué: An Online Literary & Arts Journal. In ancient Rome, the adventus was a celebration honoring an anniversary: the date of the emperor’s rise to power. The Church later adopted the term Advent to mark the arrival of a different kind of Emperor – the Son of God in human form. It’s a season for honoring the past and sharing hope for the future. We could think of no time more appropriate to announce the rebirth of Communiqué Journal

When we published our first issue in 1998, Communiqué was one of the first of its kind. Eight years later, sites devoted to the intersection of faith, culture, and the arts permeate the web. The fact that there has been a proliferation of like-minded publications is a blessing. Beginning in the spring, Communiqué will be back with new offerings, published three times annually.

We celebrate the past.
For this, our Advent issue, we have searched our archives and identified eight of most compelling pieces we’ve featured in the past, including poetry by Luci Shaw, a short story by Greg Garrett, and the Byzantine iconography of John Snogren.

We live in the present.
We are pleased to feature a new essay by Troy Bronsink. "The Advent Community and the Emergence of God's Dreams for Creation" looks at four lectionary texts through an emergent theological perspective. We also stumbled across the poem "I Ache For That Long Lost Light" quite by accident. The verses were penned by Communiqué friend Louis Hemmings — a Dubliner who deals in rare and used theological books. His verses, nested in the signature file of a recent email, caught our eye. He granted us permission to share the poem with our readers this season.

We look hopefully to the future.
With this announcement, we joyfully await fresh submissions for next year’s issues. We continue to seek original stories, poems, essays, reviews, and art that explore, question, re-imagine, examine and celebrate aspects of culture and Christian conviction. The deadline for submissions for the spring issue is February 15.

Paul Soupiset, co-managing editor

http://communiquejournal.org

waiting | austin

waiting, an alt. worship experience, this sunday, 6-8pm, 9th & trinity at mosaic austin

Advent II

I tried setting this week's lectionary psalm (85:1-2, 8-13) to music tonight, but no dice. 9 syllables can be awkward. some excerpts from the aborted attempt to show you what i'm talking about:

He will speak peace to his faithful ones
Surely his salvation is at hand:
Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet,

righteousness and peace with kisses greet.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground;
from the sky will righteousness look down…

God will give his children what is good.
then the land will yield abundant food.
He will make a pathway for his steps…

nonetheless, i am intrigued by the idea of reclaiming psalms as something the community of faith would be actually singing... who knows, more may come when i make time. it's 1:36am, so I'm going home.

vandy revised common lectionary

revised common lectionary link

textweekdotcom

a start

D/F#           C2                 G                 D/F#
lay       me down       in fields       of peace [3X]

church as art: troy bronsink

Last night I introduced you to Pam Neumann, a missional thinker committing several years of her life to a traditional overseas missions model.

Tonight I'd like to introduce you to Troy Bronsink, someone I think of as a kindred soul: He is an artist, poet, musician, singer-songwriter, he's being ordained as a Presbyterian pastor - PC(USA) and he has a heart for marginalized people in the 'abandon spaces';  and he articulates the missional facets of the intersection of art and man and God with beauty and a wisdom beyond his years. He is doing something about the post-colonial shift from word-based culture to image-based culture, as companies are "moving from organization-centered to creativity-centered approaches" -- he understands that artists and their resultant artifacts are living gospels capable of "bear[ing] witness to God's kingdom within the symbols of culture" -- essentially the missional task.

When I met him back in April at WALP, he and I had some great conversations over food with Tim Samoff and Mike Crawford and Will Samson. I was really pleased he made it out to the Gathering.

His community's rule is metaphorically artistic, and i love it.-- a community commited to (a) Being God's Artwork (b) Being God's Artists, and (c) Being Curators of God's Artwork. This is explicated at his church as art website and you kinda need to go read it yourself (here). I wish I could get Troy to come talk to our missional community, because he puts into words that which I'm unable to, about the intersections of art and prophetic calling and lament and hospitality and monastic presence and music and ... argh. I come up short. But he's truly gifted. I think he'd do our community much more good than would a guest theologian.

Not that Troy's thoughts are not deeply theological. But they are deeply artistic, natively post-modern (in the best sense of the word), If you visit his website, be sure to read his "Case for a Church in Southwest Atlanta" -- you have to read a few grafs down to get to the really prime stuff.

Pray for his intentional community in Atlanta.

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.