The Gold Star, though, goes to Joe Lowery, who did get broadcast but is worth watching a second time:

First, it seems that the ritual should allow people to spend as much or as little time as they wish, preferably delivering a significant ritual experience whether someone gives it five minutes or thirty. The most obvious way to do this is with an art installation – unlike a traditional liturgy which has a fixed a beginning, middle, and end, an art installation allows participants to manage their own experience. An installation can also be left up all day if folks would rather experience it during lunch or on their way home.

The ritual installations should be useful both for those who want to participate every day and those who would only participate occasionally. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to do a series in which each day is predicated on the one before it. Further, each day ought to be different enough from the preceding one that it’s worthwhile to come back each day, which means that the installation either needs to be replaced each day, change each day, or have a high repeatability factor.

I think the best way to accomplish this would be focusing on user-generated content, a method that a lot of websites use to bring in traffic. Basically, the website puts up a story, article, or something similar and then allows visitors to the site to either comment on it or alter it. Occasionally visitors to the site just read the articles, but others come back multiple times a day to check on conversations, etc. It started with blogs and webforums but it’s become mainstream – even CNN.com is allowing comments on its stories these days.

Thinking in this way would allow the design team to create weekly installations rather than daily ones, saving time, money, and energy, and it also creates a very emergent atmosphere in which the participants become co-creators.

What would this look line in practice? Here are some ideas:

Simple installations:

• place a pad of yellow stickies on an altar and write a prayer request on the top sticky. When a person comes to the altar, they tear off the sticky and take it with them, promising to pray for that thing throughout the rest of the day. They then write a new prayer request on the next sticky down. This extremely low-budget option allows folks to come back as often as they wish and builds community by getting the entire building praying for each others concerns.
• Buy one of those “make magnetic poetry” kits, the kind in which you can write your own words, and make a magnet for every word in that week’s psalm. Put them up on a white board, along with all the left over blank magnets, and allow folks to write their own psalms with the magnet poetry. You might need several kits for this since some folks will be hesitant to destroy someone else’s creation and replace it with their own. The majority of folks will probably just stop in each morning to read what others have created, but some inspired people will go nuts with this.
• Display a large print out of the week’s gospel reading, along with a poster-sized piece of paper with the word “questions” written at the top. Invite folks to write down the questions they are left with after reading the scripture (and discourage answers). I’ve seen these sorts of question lists become brilliant discussions as each question is influenced by the ones written before it.
• For a penitential season, Build a wooden cross (or more, if you need them). Leave little slips of paper on which participants can write an anonymous confession. Leave a hammer and nails so that they can nail these to the cross. Encourage them to read the other confessions and pray for absolution for those who have come before them.

Complex installations:

• For All Saints Day, create a flickr account and leave instructions for how folks can upload pictures to it. Set up a projector and an internet-connected laptop that projects a slideshow from the flickr account. During the work day, folks can take a five minute break from what they’re doing to look around on google for a picture of someone they consider a saint and upload it for the rest of the community to see. Since the slideshow would be constantly changing, there’s plenty of reason to come back each day.
• Set up a wiki online with pages for the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. In the chapel, set up three projectors, one for each page. Hand out the url for the wiki and encourage people to change the creeds to reflect what they actually believe, including the option of resetting it to the original. This could also be done with a white board and erasers, or it could be done by allowing people to annotate (rather than edit), the text.
• For Advent, borrow ten sets of computer speakers (shouldn’t be hard in an office building) and set them up in a circle around the room. Also set up a recording station (like a confessional) in which participants can record the hopes they have for God’s plan in the world. Send these recordings as separate channels, one to each speaker, so that participants can walk up to individual speakers to hear what they have to say, or stand in the middle and hear it all as one big cacophony. Note that this requires an audio interface with multiple outputs, like a MOTU ultralite, as well as an audio program that can manage multiple channels, like Live or Logic. You could also go low-tech with 10 walkmans.

Hey, Transmissioners -

This Wednesday, July 16, 7pm, we’ll be gathering at Bowie and George’s new apartment for a ritual focused on what it means to be both a Christian and a citizen of an empire, looking at our current context through the lens of historical relationships between Empires and the Church. Featuring fancy sandwiches and deviled eggs by Isaac, Bible history by John, church history by Bowie, and a ritual by all of us, this one will be both educational and transformative. Hope you can make it!

Literary sculpture, originally uploaded by davosmit

“A group of books in the moorland near the Bronte village of Haworth”

THOU

The question I am left with is the question of her loneliness.
And I prefer to put it off.
It is morning.

Astonished light is washing over the moor from north to east.
I am walking into the light.
One way to put off loneliness is to interpose God.

Emily had a relationship on this level with someone she calls Thou. She describes Thou as awake like herself all night
and full of strange power.

Thou woos Emily with a voice that comes out of the night wind.
Thou and Emily influence one another in the darkness,
playing near and far at once.

She talks about a sweetness that “proved us one.”
I am uneasy with the compensatory model of female religious experience and yet,
there is no question,

it would be sweet to have a friend to tell things to at night,
without the terrible sex price to pay.
This is a childish idea, I know.

by Anne Carson, from The Glass Essay

post inspired by…

* The Sabbath Poems on Samir Selmanovic’s Faith House blog (Samir is moving back to NYC this summer to start an interfaith emerging community)
* Our V-Day conversations about God blessings erotic love, but also being lover for many Christian celibates through the ages… (see posts below)
* My delight with Glass, Irony, and God (from whence this poem came)

Jenn & Isaac facing back of hall, originally uploaded by bowiesnodgrass.

Hi. We’re planning to do an Easter Service at Avalon (used to be Limelight), in Holy Communion Episcopal Church – which was founded by William Augustus Muhlenberg . It is a happy coincidence that his feast day this year is on Easter, April 8.

AVALON – Avenue of the Americas @ West 20th Street
6pm – all are welcome

Come join us for an experimental melange of ritual celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. We’ll be touching on the story of King Arthur and Avalon, will have fabulous music (coordinated by Isaac Everett), creative prayer stations, and communion (it is Holy Communion Church, so we’ve sorta gotta).

We will also be focusing on Mary Magdalene’s role in this tale. Mary was one of Jesus’ best apostles, both during and after his time on earth. In the early centuries of Christianity, the church conflated Mary Magdalene with prostitute characters in the bible – and for the next millennia and a half, most christians believed Mary was once a worker in the world’s oldest profession. Maybe she was. Jesus hung out with a lot of hookers.

And so did Muhlenburg. In the 1870s, this priest set up a network of Episcopal dioceses to participate in the Midnight Mission , a radical outreach effort for sex workers (which for him included both mistresses and brothel workers). In a very 19th century way, his effort was to help these fallen women find new homes in wholesome, Christian houses in the country…

130 years later, we find ourselves in a very different NYC. But in America 2007, sexuality is still a great divider and money something we don’t like to talk about‚Ķ so it‚Äôs time for us to start living a little more like Jesus. Let‚Äôs have a party for Easter and celebrate the first women who knew that Jesus was no longer dead, but alive… again!

Please contact us if you would like to participate in this effort.

Our first planning meeting will be held on February 21st (Ash Wednesday). We will have a short ritual to kick off Lent, followed by a meeting with food. More details to follow.

The ritual began by setting up paper lanterns, taping pieces of paper together and setting them around a candle. Each candle had two quotations on it, one from the Christian tradition and one from an Eastern tradition. Not only did this create a beautiful effect, but the texts actually obscured the light – a very important metaphor.

The sides of the lanterns which did not have texts had rorschach inkblots on them (abstract shapes used in psychological evaluation which look like whatever the viewer wants them to look like). Once again, another very important metaphor for the Bible and theology.

After several minutes wandering around them room, gazing at the inkblots, and reading the texts, Katie called us together again and handed out 12 inch square mirrors and dry erase markers. We were told to take some time to express our ideas about God. Trying to write about God while staring at myself in the mirror was surprisingly difficult – I was forced to remember that my conception of God is suspiciously similar to myself (just like Malcolm X’s God seemed quite a bit like Malcolm X, Bonhoeffer’s God seems a lot like Bonhoeffer, etc). So I eventually gave up on being objective and instead just drew a picture of myself with some incarnational words. I thought I was being all creative but two other people also incorporated pictures of themselves into their mirrors…

After finishing our mirrors, we set them up, wandered around, meditating and praying with the each other’s mirrors just as we did with the texts. Finally, Katie brought out a big basin of soapy water and we washed the mirrors clean, reminding ourselves that it is God whom we worship, not our conceptions of God.

This ritual worked for several reasons. First, the activities engaged us visually, verbally, and tactilely. Secondly, although we were given things to think about, we were also given the opportunity to explore our own ideas, share them, and get to know one another just a little bit better. Finally, the ritual made no doctrinal demands of us; Transmission is made of a pretty diverse group of people and the ritual allowed everyone to participate regardless of where they fall theologically.

All in all, a great service.

The texts used are reprinted below…

But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.

~St Paul’s first letter to the Church at Corinth

Our body is the tree of Perfect Wisdom,
And our mind is a bright mirror.
At all times diligently wipe them,
So that they will be free from dust.
~Shen-hsiu

The tree of Perfect Wisdom is originally no tree.
Nor has the bright mirror any frame.
Buddha-nature is forever clear and pure.
Where is there any dust?

The mind is the tree of Perfect Wisdom.
The body is the clear mirror.
The clear mirror is originally clear and pure.
Where has it been affected by any dust?
~Hui Neng

Moses said to God,”When I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’, what shall I say to them?”

And God said to moses: “Ehyeh*-Asher-Ehyeh”

~Exodus

*Meaning of Hebrew uncertain. Perhaps: to happen, to exist, to come into being or to become

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.
~Lao Tzu

The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn‚Äî and I would heal them.’

~Jesus

Whence all creation had its origin,
He, whether He fashioned it
or whether He did not,
He, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
He knows – or maybe even He does not know.

~Rig Veda

Katie’s Mirror, originally uploaded by bowiesnodgrass.

Katie planned an awesome ritual last night (which hopefully she or Ike will blog about – hint, hint). One part involved meditating on readings from sacred scriptures and Rorschach inkblots, taped into a rectangle, set over a candle. In another part, we were all given mirrors and dry-erase markers and asked to reflect on our faith in God. We then traded mirrors, and later shared our personal reflections.

* You can check out photos on flickr.

* And here’s my favorite reading from the evening –

Whence all creation had its origin,

He, whether He fashioned it or whether He did not,

He, who surveys it all from highest heaven,

He knows – or maybe even he does not know.

~ Rig Veda

To read full text, see more pictures, and read more letters, visit
www.myspace.com/thomasjsnodgrass5

Dear Jackson,

Tears and laughter, blood, betrayal, singing and dancing, Hebrew and primal scream – this has been your second week.

I guess this biggest news of this week is your conversion from Animism to Judaism. The Jewish midwife, who was good enough to assist with your birth on the Sabbath, recommended I call 1-800-BABY-BOY, which connected me with a really nice Rabbi named Jehoshua Krohn who exclaimed that you needed a Bris right away, and offered us a cut rate for letting you be a quick stop between other gigs.

Rabbi Krohn is a full-time Mohel, and he came to our apartment on Wednesday morning. The way this guy scampered through canting in Hebrew would have embarrassed any professional rapper – not to mention anecdotes and plenty of quotes from the Tanakh, Midrash and other sources, which he was good enough to translate for your mommy and daddy. Then came the operation. Now, I thought I’d be able to hide out in the other room during the cutting, but no. It was your daddy’s job to hold your legs while you reclined on my lap and your mommy held your arms. Like your natural child-birth, your circumcision was drug-free, the rabbi just dipped a rolled-up gauze pad in some Manischewitz and let you suck it down. Quite a liking you took to that Manischewitz, which I must confess we’ve used a couple times since to ease your painful memories of the event (which we celebrated later that night by acquainting you with the Jewish Elvis, Neil Diamond, in the Jazz Singer movie).

At the Bris you were given a Hebrew name. Your father suggested Gyuri, after your… How do we put this? Okay. My mother’s uncle in Hungary was a composer and professional pianist who disappeared in Russia during the Second World War. Either he was sent on the Russian campaign by Hitler, or he was kidnapped by the Russians during their occupation of Hungary, we’re not sure. Either way, he probably died in a forced-labor camp, although of course there is some chance he’s alive somewhere, playing the piano. The rabbi said that, first of all, the name Gyuri would have to be shortened to Uri, its Hebrew root, and also that we should not name you for someone who died tragically without adding something, which he proposed be Chaim. So your Hebrew name is Chaim Uri, meaning “Life to his light.” You’re recovering Okay, and your Daddy’s just getting to the point that seeing your wounded little wang doesn’t turn his stomach. Your mommy and I will understand if you’d like to continue as a practicing Animist or pagan, but wanted to have this option open for you, to be Jewish. And, of course, should you ever wish to be Christian, they’ll be more than happy to have you.

With a wolf’s love for his cub,

Your Daddy

In darkest despair
In brightest light
Oh holy star
Oh sacred night
I cry out to you Lord
Take this pain away
Bring unto us
The dawn of a new day

We are a forgetful people.
God is faithful –
we forget. God sustains –
we forget. God provides –
we forget. God delivers –
we forget. God’s ways endure
– we forget. God made us
in His image – we forget!

Peace on Earth originally uploaded by bowiesnodgrass.

Peel Slowly and See, originally uploaded by bowiesnodgrass.

Elizabeth and John had their baby! The healthy 8 1/2 pound boy was born at 4:30 am on Dec 30, 2006. Please pray for mommy, daddy, and baby.

Here’s a photo of his very first day of life! already being exposed to some Warhol pop culture…