urban mystic

The Great Emergence

I'm attending THE GREAT EMERGENCE in Memphis, Tennessee. www.thegreatemergence.com
It is based around Phyllis Tickle's book by the same title. There will be other great speakers such as Peter Rollins from Belfast, Doug Pagitt, Sybil Macbeth (I've already admired her book PRAYING IN COLOR) for sme time now, also my friend Will Sampson (I met him on a plane flying back from New Mexico).

The first session w/ Phyllis focused on the Hinge time of history...every 500 years the church has a huge rummage sale.

The Great Emergence

I'm attending THE GREAT EMERGENCE in Memphis, Tennessee. www.thegreatemergence.com
It is based around Phyllis Tickle's book by the same title. There will be other great speakers such as Peter Rollins from Belfast, Doug Pagitt, Sybil Macbeth (I've already admired her book PRAYING IN COLOR) for sme time now, also my friend Will Sampson (I met him on a plane flying back from New Mexico).

The first session w/ Phyllis focused on the Hinge time of history...every 500 years the church has a huge rummage sale.

The second session is about the past 150 years that have led up to the Hinge that we are presently in....The Great Emergence. There have been several events (44 of them) that have shaken the foundation of what has been our authority since the reformation - Sola Scriptura.

The Cloud of Unknowing

I'm re-reading the classic The Cloud of Unknowing. I'd like to present some of the stuff I'm finding...

PHRASES I LIKE
"...He kindled your desire with the greatest grace and attached to it a leach of longing,..."
"...should not remain in this life without some taste of the infinite sweetness;..."
"Therefore love Jesus, and then everything that He haw will be yours."

CONCEPTS I LIKE
"With respect to these powers, God is the creator of them. The first is the power of knowledge, and to the God is incomprehensible. The second is the loving power (power of love), and by means of this, God may be comprehended fully by each person, but by each in a different way." ch.4

"And for this reason it is not called a cloud of the air, but rather a cloud of unknowing that is between you and your God." ch.4

"And if ever you come to this cloud to dwell in it and work in it as I bid you, then, just as this cloud of unknowing is above you and between you and your God, it will be necessary for you to put in the same way a cloud of forgetting beneath you,..." ch.5

"He may be well loved, but he may not be thought of. He may be reached and held close by means of love, but by means of thought never." ch.6

"You are to step above it with great courage and with determination, and with a devout and pleasant stirring of love, and you are to try to pierce that darkness which is above you. You are to strike that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love; and you are not to retreat no matter what comes to pass." ch.6

Cycical Theory of History

Yesterday I was reading about the novel Finnegans Wake, which is based around the cyclical theory of history as developed by philosopher Giambattista Vico in 1725. Vico saw that history passes through four phases - the divine or theocratic; the aristocractic or heroic; the democratic or individualistic; and then the final stage of chaos. The fall into confusion starts the process again as humanity is jolted into a supernatural reverence.

I've been unaware of this cyclical view but think that it is basically accurate. There's no doubt we have moved into the chaotic phase, but how far along are we? How much more chaotic will things get? How much chaos can we handle? Has the shift back to the supernatural started? It is going to be a fun ride!

The Forgotten Ways - Alan Hirsch

I also wanted tell you about a new (but not brand new) book that my wife and I have been reading. In all our reading on new ways of doing church, it’s the first resource we’ve seen that connects today’s thinking about post-modern or post-Christendom or “emerging / missional/ incarnational” ministry to some familiar concepts about people group movements. We were affirmed and, at the same time, challenged by hearing the author speak at a recent Church Planting Canada conference. We’re far enough into the book now that we could hardily recommend it as a good overview of what some are seeing as the future of the church – the current situation and the challenges but also the possibilities.

 Here’s the info:

The Forgotten Ways, Reactivating the Missional Church – by Alan Hirsch. 

Brazos

Press:

Grand Rapids

,

Michigan

2006.

Here’s the website for the book:

http://www.theforgottenways.org/

 Here’s mp3s of Alan Hirsch speaking:

http://curieux.typepad.com/AlanHirsch1.mp3

http://curieux.typepad.com/AlanHirsch2.mp3

 Here’s where you can read a few pages of the book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1587431645/ref=sib_dp_pt/105-3069912-5641262#reader-link

A Mid-Winter Prayer

From the rising of the midwinter sun to its setting

Scatter the darkness with the light of your love, O Shining One.

Make me short on mean thoughts, long on offering words of comfort

Make me short on being driven, long on paying attention

Make me short on focusing only on my own, long on looking beyond

Make me short on obsessive lists, long on spontaneous acts of kindness

Make me short on mindless activity, long on time to reflect

Make me short on tradition as a habit, long on re-discovery and re-owning

Make me short on rushing and tiring, long on walking and wondering

Make me short on false festive jollity, long on stilling and rooted joy

Make me short on guilt, long on being merciful to myself

Make me short on being overwhelmed, long on peaceableness as I set forth this day

from The Celtic Wheel of the Year by Tess Ward

Visit to the Old World

I'm currently visiting England with a side trip to Paris and Berlin. The trip started out in south London where we spend a coupl of days exploring SE England: Cantebury, Brighton, Hatings. Then we focused our attention on London for a few day. I participated in a thinktank on missions in the emerging church. We then went to Bath and explored that region: Cardiff,Wales, prehistoric sites near Avebury and Bath itself. Then it was on the the Greebelt Arts Festival in Chetendham. There were 20,000 people there! After we spent some days in Oxford and Stratford. Then it was a quick train trip down to Paris to stay with our friends Bernardo and Sandra and their new son, Brendon.

Labyrinth v.4.1

OK...here's one more. This is a spiral that expands. It also has lots of little yellow wild flowers. Nice! The picture is after its second cut. Also I had a wonderful conversation with J. just after I finished. She gave me my first feedback from someone who actually "gets" what I'm doing. Thanks!

3rd Labyrinth

On Monday morning I made my third guerrilla labyrinth, this on a spiral in a very public place...along the Lachine Canal, just west of Atwater. It is just along side a this very popular bike path. A few people made nice comments as I made it. They are becoming quite easy and quick to do. At this point I don't have anything to explain what they are or how to use it. I'm working on that though, various ideas are being worked on. I have my 4th one planned not too far from this one. Give me a few days.

A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong

I picked this book up at the Grande Biblioteque Nationale and had it read by the next morning. It gives you a huge, huge picture of humanity and religion (or myth) with out getting bogged down in academic crap. Here's some quotes:

The Palaeolithic Period - 20,000 - 8000 BCE (hunter/gather)
p. 22 "...the myth of the Sky God was a failure, because it did not touch people's ordinary lives, told them nothing about their human nature and did not help them to solve their perennial problems. The demise of the Sky Gods helps to explain why the Creator God worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims has disappeared from the lives of many people in the West. A myth does not impart factual information, but is primarily a guide to behaviour. Its truth will only be revealed if it is put into practice - ritually or ethically. If it is perused as though it were a purely intellectual hypothesis, it becomes remote and incredible." My thoughts: the myth we tell people about must be relevant to real life. It must be practiced in ritual in order to be meaningful.

p. 37 "The myth tells us what we have to do if we want to become a fully human person. Every single one of us has to be a hero at some time in our lives. Every baby forced through the narrow passage of the birth canal, which is not unlike the labyrinthine tunnels at Lascaux, has to leave the safety of the womb, and face the trauma of entry into a terrifyingly unfamiliar world. Every mother who gives birth, and who risks death for her child, is also heroic. You cannot be a hero unless you are prepared to give up everything; there is no ascent to the heights without a prior descent into darkness, no new life without some form of death. Throughout our lives, we all find ourselves in situations in which we come face to face with the unknown, and the myth of the hero shows us how we should behave. We all have to face the final rite of passage, which is death."  My thoughts: - this idea of life coming from death (a la Jesus)goes way, way, way back in our genes.