Whatever the title, the idea is that I have come on board to basically develop and jettison the community deeper in their spiritual lives. The idea is that I would be thinking deeply about the practices we do as a community to draw us deeper into worship while also developing relational discipleship within the community as well.

So my first major task I’ve set for myself is starting a Saturday service, focused on developing a contemplative worship experience set to a liturgy with plenty of time to stop and be still before God. It is very hard to have those times within the normal contemporary {Protestant} worship service. Even many liturgical traditions leave little time to simply be still before God.

My hope and my desire through the crafting of this time is to do exactly that. I am starting conservatively with one service a month, though I would love for this to get legs and become a weekly event.

I desire to share all my created resources here, for those who are interested in doing this themselves. For each person I am creating hand crafted booklets including original work by local artist Amber Perrodin. I will include high quality downloads of that plus images of them printed and bound after production.

I am really excited about this event. It is something I have been dreaming about for some time, finally getting actualize it. Below is the trailer I made for our Sunday gathering.

In Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy, while examining Nietzsche he explores the contrast of Nietzsche’s superman centered state to that of the liberal democracy. Nietzsche holds that man is not equal, there are a select who are better and should be given a freedom to exercise their greatness, even at the expense of the majority. We shouldn’t care for the life or death of the ‘weak’ class, they are only meant as support for the exploits of the ruling supermen. This is because it is only on the backs of the great leader that history moves forward. He feels that it is only by the efforts of Napoleon that the 19th century is shaped, never mind the wake of destruction he felt in his wake.

The liberal sees all men created equal and should be treated as such. His efforts are for moving society towards equality, freedom being giving not only to an elect but to all. The central goal is not the exploits of a great leader but rather the happiness of all. Liberals want everyone to be happy; Nietzsche doesn’t shy away from struggle and anguish if it is in the name of greatness. Nietzsche sees liberality as creating equality through a lowest common denominator. Nietzsche wants to create a system that allows the freedom for the greatest to be great, even if it is as a result of injustice towards the masses.

The question between these two systems seems to come up on the personal level also. It seems that even in a democratic society for one man to excel greatly it is done on the labour and exploitation of another. What business has risen to significant power without questionable if not out right unethical practices? It seems to be great means robbing from another.

Although there is the complication that it is through these great riches that we have some many of the great edifices of culture. The great pyramids of Egypt or the wonderful cathedrals of Europe couldn’t have been made without the exploitive measures of the powerful from the weak. As Christians we look negatively upon Pharaoh for enslaving the Israelites, but it was through exactly that kind of slavery that the pyramids were built. As Protestants we chide the Catholics for selling indulgences, but it was through that commerces that the Church became rich enough to commission its great works.

The same can be said of Rockefeller a century ago or the Gates of today. Is it better to amass such wealth and power so as to do such large scale constructs?

But what kind of person does it take to be a Rockefeller or a Napoleon? I take it that while you might want these men as acquaintances owing a favor to you, they wouldn’t make good friends. What great man of history is also a great husband or father? It seems that to have success in the area of one’s profession a grave sacrifice has to be made of those who are closest to you, one’s family & friends. Not to mention the certain paranoia that usually accompanies men of power, where when they can they off any other contenders of greatness.

On one level we can say it is a choice, one is not better than the other. One can have professional success or have a rich contented personal life; though many try to have both it seems in the end one has to make a choice. On another level it seems we must make a value judgment, one choice must be right while the other wrong.

This causes me to think about the Kingdom of God, how Jesus showed another way than the way of the world.

I have swung back and forth between the two. When explicitly spelled out, in terms of Christian morality/ethics, it seems that the family man is the right course of action. When you look at the ‘great’ men throughout history they are usually horrible people on the personal level, only through their exploits are they appreciated. Looking at the Christ’s example we can see that he implicitly states that ends don’t justify means. The for the Israelites was a establishment of the Davidic throne. It had been promised, and Jesus came pronouncing the Kingdom of God. Justifiably the people were expecting a revolution, violent and brutal it must be. Jesus through his acts of servanthood (i.e., washing the feet of the disciples) and ultimately laying down his life for the other he shows that the process is just as important as the result.

But was also Jesus who left it all after thirty years of life and lived nomadic for 3 years before being killed. He is the person who said that following him meant leaving one’s family, living everything. So his life while not one of the despotic ruler is still not the banale life of the ‘burbs.

It seems I’ve so often falsely composed this as a dichotomy between the content family man (read boring suburbia life) and the mow everyone else down Nietzschian superman. There is a third way, the way of Jesus which is just a radical but also just as extolling of people & the events of life.

My Christian life is like
the ridiculous consumer driven
‘green eco-friendly’ products.

We Americans are an idealistic lot on the whole. We like to dream big. We like to talk about change—though the actual following through is where we often fall short. How often have we all watched the olympics, gotten inspired to do some great athletic feat, only to make it to the gym once, if at all.

Take the ‘green’ movement sweeping the country. It didn’t take long for the large corporations to jump on the band wagon. Now with just about any purchase you have the opportunity to do your part in making a clean planet. So instead of actually making substantial changes in how we live, we just buy this light bulb instead of that one or this car instead of that one. Somehow all this is justifiable to ourselves & others. I’m outraged at the state of the gulf coast, so damn it I’m boycotting B.P! Make no mention of how I’m not going to stop purchasing petrol, lessen my consumption, nothing that would actually cause some inconvenience or substantial change of my lifestyle.

So is any different with spiritual life, my relation to the divine? None.

How often have I tried to buy my way out of actually changing? Instead of walking the difficult road of transformation I take the interstate {paved with comfort & good intentions}. It is much easier to show up every Sunday to Church (& maybe even teach a Sunday school class) than it is to live by faith. Maybe for some going to church is an act of faith, though for me and anyone else who has grown up in the church it is far from an act of faith, rather simply an act of repetition.

A faithless Christianity can include lots of things that on the surface seem spiritual or pietistic: Bible reading, formal prayer, giving, service, or even leadership. There is much I can do to make myself look very spiritual though without much if any spiritual transformation.

Transformation is much harder, impossible to truly quantify—as it then would become objective, rational, & therefore definable, thus losing its power—even harder to accomplish through our own powers.

So this is why I’m a Toyota Prius. All to often I find myself faking it, trying to buy a transformation through my broken cisterns. All too often I deny the reality of my faults, to the harm of those around me {read: faulty pedals/computer systems} all the while boasting of my excellent qualities of goodness. Only after my faults have reached a critical mass will I acknowledge my failures.

Maybe we should all look to the simple answers for these problems. Environmental problems won’t be solved simply through scientific discoveries, but through people radically changing the way the live their lives. The same goes for our relation to God, we won’t find the answer to our problems in the latest Christian 5 steps to glory but rather through the simple process of abiding, following the simple command of loving God & neighbor.

Here’s the link to the LifeHacker.com article.

This reminds me of a previous post about air drying our clothes instead of using a electric dryer. About a month ago our electric dryer which had been on the fringe for some time decided to shoot sparks, flames, and smoke out. Since that unplugging we haven’t used it at all. We have talked & even agreed upon getting another dryer, though we haven’t actually made the trip to purchase one. It has been a month and there hasn’t been much trouble with laundry getting dry. Granted we are beginning the Summer which equals lots of sun & heat to dry the clothes.

Funny thing about air drying clothes—they get stiff— you know how you iron & starch your clothes to get that flat stiff look—well if I lay items on our drying racks well I get that exact result without any of the extra labor.

I say all that as introduction to say…so I have been running.

So I have really been enjoying running, training for something, the working towards a goal has been rather good for a my soul (especially when the weather has been so drab, I needed to this to help keep me out of the rut). But there is this other side to it, I feel rather bourgeois.

It the simplest of terms,

• the need to exercise or the excess enough to be able or desire to run is rather bourgeois.
• I happen to own a collection of outdoor & running apparel (read: expensive fancy crap) from my younger days. I’m thankful for it, it gives me no excuse on those days of single digit or negative degree windchill with snow & ice on the ground—but the whole idea of specialty clothing is bourgeois. The laborer has his good jeans & his work jeans, translated the newest pair & the older pair.
• I slap my iphone (I could probably just stop there, right?) onto my arm, earbuds in—while I’m nerdy enough to listen to seminary lectures on the Old Testament while running, it is still pretty bourgeois. I can justify it by saying it also keeps track of my runs, but really it is a luxury; we ran just fine in high school without such things.
• The one bourgeois characteristic I have done my best to avoid, though I still succumb on occasion: location. Only the bourgeois can afford to get into their car, drive down the street or across town to then run around for a while at a park, then get back in their car and drive home (maybe stopping for starbucks on the way). I totally get the reason. Running in town—be it big city or suburb—is rough; lack of sidewalks, trying not to get run over, random loose dogs (seemingly always with foaming mouths), not to mention the mental toil of keeping up with all that while keeping a steady pace, with a loose body, & easy breathing.

This small list, that with additional thought could be no doubt expanded upon, might seem silly; it no doubt speaks of my desire to live a life {as best as possible} free from contradiction and compromise. But aren’t contradictions everywhere? How can anyone avoid them; why even care then?

I don’t think there is an easy solution; I mean I could simply scrap all the stuff or just not run. That would then either cause me to fail to enjoy the gifts I have been given or to invalidate the enjoyment and serenity that running gives me.

I’ve tried to live in the tension, I ‘need’ a new pair of running shoes. I’ve had the same pair for some 7-8 years, the soles flap around while I run. But that same pair continue to get me home—through rain, snow, & ice—so what is need anyway?

How To Spot a Church Movement – Tall Skinny Kiwi

Andrew Jones passes on some wisdom that he gained from Fuller prof. Dr Paul Pierson.

Key ideas that stuck out to me:

They always begin on the periphery of the institutional church

The result is the desire for a more authentic Christian life that often leads to concern for the church and world.

The movement is countercultural in some ways, often because it reaches out to those who have not been valued by their society.

Consequently there will be opposition by many in the dominant culture and church.

Make Plans, Not Resolutions: Reflections on Proverbs 16 – Jeremy Carr

The night before seeing this blog post I had a significant conversation with my wife about our plans for the future. I’m not sure how to take these words, because I’ve always been uncomfortable with planning. It seems so contradictory to faith and trust in God’s sovereign plan. It seems this post makes things rather simplistic, rather than speaking to the complexity and the aspect of faithful obedience while blind to an understanding of future events. On one hand we are to plan. I see this closely tied to Genesis 2, where we are called to be God’s stewards of the Earth. Conversely though, we often times—seen most strongly in the Bible—we are called to blindly step forward without much of a, or any, plan. The pin which holds it together I would argue is obedience. If you aren’t living in obedience then the call of faith won’t come. That life of obedience requires planning, but that won’t get you all the way when it comes living faithfully. Many times you will be called to do things that aren’t planned for and can’t be explained logically.

So this is the place I am. Trying to understand how to continue moving forward in faith when you don’t have much of a idea of where you are being lead.

The Revolutionary Table (aka living la vida local) – Mark Van Steenwyk

Mark describes himself as a ‘foodie’. He is not the only one; there has been a resurgence of food-conscious persons within the U.S. recently. Mark as many others also have realized the implications of their food choices beyond the organic/fast food dichotomy. Mark’s post speak of the economic implications that purchasing foods shipped around the world, cheaply priced by being subsidized by the backs of the farmers in already poor and marginalized countries.

What is most helpful, is that he finishes his post by giving a list of different web resources for living a sustainable lifestyle through locally-seasonally grown & preserved products.

Augmented Reality used to Fix Cars – Slashdot

Here’s a story via slashdot. I have never been good at fixing any car I’ve owned. Maybe this is what I need.

Pack a Gun to Protect Valuables from Airline Theft or Loss [Air Travel Tip] – Life Hacker

Never time you travel, just pack a gun in your check-on luggage. TSA will make sure that it doesn’t get lost.

the difference between “cultivating communities” and “building churches” – Kathy Escobar

A thoughtful post about the personal struggles of a community being a community instead of building a church. The interesting point that she makes is that she found that they needed to separate the two. Having them mixed caused a lack of commitment within the group. Having strong doses of music, teaching, & programs caused people to disengage from the messier {though essential} parts of community building.

If I reflect I can see a lot of her experiences within my own experiences. My community, while making up some families of our church, isn’t really tied to the church much at all. We could drop one or the other without much noticeable impact on the other.

It seemed that in previous centuries the church building was a cultural center for the community; today though, it has a periphery place. It may be a place of teaching or worship but not community. What are the implications for that? Is that good? Is it something I/we should be trying to counter-act?

She also recommends Jean Vanier’s Community and Growth a great read on communal living. He is the founder of the l’arche community in canada where henri nouwen lived and was deeply inspired.

Haiti | To Hell With Altruistic Capitalism – Kester Brewin

Here is my last link for the day. With all the blog post about Haiti or Pat Robertson’s comments on Haiti, here is Marxian analysis. I can deeply sympathize with his outlook. It is amazing that we can ignore the horrible conditions of a nation for decades, and it isn’t until a natural disaster that we come to help. Kester Brewin rightly points to many of the problems originating from economic relations, where we have dealt extremely unjustly with them. I pray that this incident will shed enough light upon the people of this nation for long enough for some substantial change.

image by kmevans

We are quickly coming to that furious final month of the year. Those who have squandered this year with too much work and not enough time with family and friends try to make it up with guilt-laden gift giving and gluttonous gatherings.

That is the picture of much of the American culture, including much of the Christian community. There is another way though. This blog post, by Michael Cook, explains why he does things very different. Instead of the Mardi Gras mentality of over-indulgence before Lent; he commits to a time of fasting as part of the Orthodox Church community.

Instead of partaking in the over consumption of turkey he chooses to drink deeply in the spiritual, prayer & worship as the main course.

While I probably won’t follow in his fasting, I can share in his desire to walk through this season with a heart of contentment rather than the one the worlds bids me to partake in.

I will conclude with a few of his words:

A drastic and intentional move away from consumption and consumerism towards compassion and contentedness.  Self denial.  Learning to be content with what is, instead of what might be.  Happiness with what you have, instead of with what you want.  Being able to say no to the things of the world, saying no to the compunction for owning things, and trading them all in, for a season – a 40 day journey – of learning to be content.  Content to be with God.  I have said it once before, but for the Orthodox Christian: “Fasting is Feasting!”

Case in point: My wife comes home yesterday, excited about a secret. She couldn’t hold it in, so she had to reveal to me that someone was planning a wonderful gift for me, later this week or next. This would make most people very excited. But for me it is the beginning of a downward spiral—Let me explain.

First thing that happens when she makes the revelation, a) excitement, oh there is something for me. What could it be? b) No really, what could it be! After berating her for a while, she closes up & doesn’t offer any more help. This is the point where my thoughts spiral upwards, towards the heavens of possibilities.  This quickly manifests into a ridiculous beast, i.e., new car, cabin in Colorado, book deal, imac, touring with U2…well you get the idea.

The real problem comes when I actually have to come to the reality of the gift. What do you do when you open up the box and it is just a shirt, a nice shirt but a shirt nonetheless. This is the moment when the giver expects the magic to happen, the twinkle in the eye, the joyous exclamation of thanks, but usually all I can muster is a half fake smile and a thanks; while inside I am resenting the gift and the giver for not being the Ferrari that I obviously deserve.

I write this simply to show my depravity as a human being. And when I say the anticipation is killing me, mark my word, I’m speaking the literal truth.

painted by Jennie A. Brownscombe

Today begins the month of November.

It is a rather awkward month in some particularly peculiar ways. Let me give you a few examples.

I am very much a proponent of not getting ready for one holiday before all other major holidays leading up to it are celebrated. I mean if we are going to take Thanksgiving Day seriously, then lets not treat it like the poor step child of Christmas. Go into the major retailers and you will see Christmas paraphernalia of various sorts already being displayed. I try to keep all my family’s excitement over Christmas at bay until December 1st, but I’m lucky to even get to mid-November. This year has been particularly bad, both wife & daughter began talks as early as August or September—that’s just craziness.

So poor November.

Why does it become awkward? Well because you feel the tension of saving one’s love for others until December. For an example, say I want to give a small gift to my wife or child to show my love or gratitude. Well if I do it now, yeah they will love me, but then I set them & myself up for disappointment next month. If it’s really good then I have to top it at Christmas. If I don’t then I just look like I half-aced it.

So here is the tension, I love you but I have to regulate my love quotient to a certain bare minimum—so how about just a hug and a smile? Christmas cards are coming soon, I should save the stamp; so I can’t even sending you a card!

This one is for you November.

The basic premise is, Eric gets fed up with technology while studying at MIT. So he decides to live within a Mennonite/Amish community for 18 months. He happens upon a Amish-looking man who leads to a perfect contact for entering this community.The author lives with his newly married wife in a rented cabin, without electricity or automatic tools of any kind.

image by cindy47452

While the adaptation to that drastic change is remarkable in-itself, the contrast of ideologies is most interesting. He explores and tries to explain his experience of work, among other things. The work that he explains is very different than what one does in the city.

He beautiful describes experience after experience, where it is work that brings the community together, building relationships through laboring alongside each other. There are some clear reasons for this. One of the simplest; without the noise of power tools one is able to continue dialogue through the work. I’ve experienced this time and again, except it usually involves the roar of an engine stifling communication.

Secondly, he savours the opportunity to live and work in the same environment, right next to his wife. In this environment, you don’t have to leave your home everyday to work somewhere else. Your work is tied very close to the homestead.

He also realises that the work isn’t as hard as he would of expected. He describes the late summer threshing of wheat, some of the hardest work of the season. It was hard work, but the work environment continued to enable both numerous breaks and continued conversation; which enables work to stop feeling like work and simply hanging out with friends. He actually took a log on a few occasions of this work; he found that over a 9 hour work period, he had breaks totalling 4 hours. Some of these breaks were planned, some simply a result of poor organisation.

The point is that, even during the hardest work there was much leisure involved. The idea of leisure is close to this community’s heart. They don’t want to get caught up in the rat race of production. Though this doesn’t mean they are backward or stupid. They are highly thoughtful of the means by which they work. They want efficiency but not at the cost of one’s soul.

It is amazing how very wise the Amish are at discerning the influence that our tools have upon how we live, both positively and negatively. They are very slow to adopt any new tool into the community, only through much deliberation on the benefits and drawbacks of any given thing.

As I was reading, I couldn’t help but think of Marshall McLuhan, his ideas about how technologies shapes our thoughts and different media issuing different responses. There is such a parallel between the Mennonites and McLuhan in perspective, that I shouldn’t be surprised at the fact Shane Hipps (author of Flickering Pixels, which is McLuhan translated for the Christian community) is pastoring a Mennonite community.

{This book has definitely inspired me to push my level of simplicity to a higher level. Eric Brende concludes the book, by describing his current simplistic living. They have moved to a small community, neither him or his wife have ‘jobs’ except the small collection of things they make or do for a means of living. When you live simply, it becomes much simpler to live.}