The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle

I began reading this new book this morning after a fitful night of sleep. Perhaps it's an occupational hazard, but I often wake with people and problems from church on my mind. At first, I try to pray. This morning that lasted for an hour and then I got up for tea.

I've long been a voice of change in the church. Even in my days working for para-church organization, I was a voice (often unheard, but always met with confused, skeptical looks) that asserted that something was changing in the way that we celebrate and practice our Christian faith.

The church has a movement called "the emergent church." (If you're new to the emerging church concept, click here for an article from Christianity Today.) I like the distinction. Although all I've heard at this point is the ancient practices have become desirous again. I've wanted the church to talk about something new... really new... Reformation new.

I have great hopes for this book by Tickle. She begins with the image of a rummage sale quoting Dyer who says, "every 500 years the church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale." She goes onto name the "rummage sales": The Great Reformation, the Great Schism, Gregory the Great and the Monastic movement, and finally the introduction of Jesus of Nazareth and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I read a book almost a year ago that talked about the Phoenix (and I believe that I'm repeating myself even here on this blog). The mythical bird, the Phoenix is engulfed in flames only to be reborn of its own ashes. It emerges as a hybrid of what it was and what it will be.

Between you and me, I have been praying for fire for a long time for my beloved church.

Confessions of a post-Christian

Newsweek recently ran a cover story about the decline of a Christian nation. I was horrified to think that we were a theocracy in the first place. (Although i didn't look up my 5th grade social studies textbook to confirm what we all should know... we are a republic not a theocracy.)

I found Judith Warner's response to the Newsweek article particularly insightful. The quote that I'm considering says, " “The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds irresistibly upon the young, but to stir up their own … Not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs,” William Ellery Channing, the Unitarian theologian, once said."

"What identity will my children have to rebel against, in the course of growing up? Is there a way to make their experience be a moving-toward, instead of away?"

For years in and with my own family, I have sought that "moving-toward" attitude. When each child came home interested in spiritual things of any kind, my response was continually, "go try it, practice it. Faith is practiced." And over time, that is what has happened to our family... we have become a group of individuals that practice faith in a meaningful way as individuals. And consequentially, our practices have blessed the others' practices.

I hope for our country, and for that matter, all living things, to touch our inward springs. I hope that instead of creating a society without religion, we are creating a society filled with people comfortable sharing their spirit, conversant about faith, and ever-inquisitive about that which we cannot understand.

The Red Balloon

Have you seen the foreign film, The Red Balloon? It's about a little boy and an "obedient" red balloon. The little boy spends this fantastic day being friends with the balloon. It goes everywhere with him, he runs and laughs and plays with it. And at the end of the day, his mother tried to kick it out of the house... but the balloon waited outside the boy's window.

Perhaps as a Lenten reminder we could walk around with a balloon. Or better yet, isn't red the color for Pentecost? Perhaps we could imagine the Holy Spirit as that playful, ever-present, faithful companion just like the red balloon was to the boy.

Maybe I've just touched on a great Pentecost illustration... balloons for everyone!

Feels Like Rain

Pete and I saw Buddy Guy with BB King on Fat Tuesday. Feels Like Rain was my first exposure to Buddy Guy and it courted me once again in a relationship with the blues. I love the imagery of rain being used here to speak of something wonderful like love. Rain so often is used for... well, for the blues. But I love the tension. Enjoy it here with John Mayer and Buddy Guy.

Read

Feels Like Rain Lyrics

here.

answering my own questions

I'm writing my sermon... again. The reflection is about the psalm that Jesus quotes while on the cross. It begins with the words, "my God, why have you forsaken me?" I've written a sermon about this already. But it was explicitly about the cross. This time, we're not quite at the cross yet. We're just beginning the journey of Lent.

And so I'm wondering about how we question God's Way. And I'm wondering about how much of this world we don't understand. I'm wondering about how much of this life doesn't go the way that we wish. And I'm wishing that I could get to a place where my knee jerk reaction wasn't blaming God.

The psalmist both blames God and trusts God. The psalmist seems to understand that 1. there is a God and 2. I am not God. The first gives us someone to blame. The second resolves us to trust.

When I hold those two things in tension, I am always reminded of a David Wilcox song, "Show the Way."