• What is your metaphor for God? Do you think of God as a father? a friend? a rock? the color purple? What image makes sense for you when you think about God?
• Where does your soul find rest?
• Where does God lead you?
• What are you afraid of?
• How does God comfort and protect you?
• How does God bless you?

Then give participants a paper with lots of space between the following lines:
The Lord is [blank]
I shall not want.
God makes me [blank]
God leads me [blank]
God restores my soul.
God leads me in paths of righteousness for God’s name’s sake.
Yea though I walk [blank]
I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
Your [blank] comfort me.
You [blank]
You anoint my head with oil.
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Each blank corresponds with an answer to the question prompts in order. Give participants some time to craft their psalm. Invite people to share aloud. If you try this with your faith community, let us know how it turns out!

And yet, I find myself thinking a lot these days about that habitual kind of “ritual.” The small and homely kind. Brushing your teeth, reading the paper, kissing someone good night and good morning. It seems to me that these things that we repeat – week by week, month by month, year by year – transform us too. They give shape and order to our lives. They make us into the people that we are becoming.

As the calendar rolled over to 2010, my brother and his girlfriend stayed with me for a couple of days. On Sunday morning over a leisurely breakfast, they pulled up their Sunday websites to share with me: PostSecret and the New York Times Weddings & Celebrations. As we looked over shoulders, the silence was punctuated by sighs, laughter, and the occasional groan. I was moved and surprised. My brother and his girlfriend are completely secular people, and yet their Sunday rituals still carry a sense of setting time aside for something special, sacred even. They bear witness to other people’s secrets. They share in other couples’ joy.

It made me think about my own habitual rituals. Are mine transforming me into a person of empathy, compassion, and joy? Do they shape me into the person that I would like to become? I’ve joined my brother and his girlfriend in reading secrets over Sunday breakfast, and added a dose of dance and poetry. Then I go to church, for the healing of the ritual and the shaping of the habit.

Dear friends, Paul and I are planning a ritual around Jesus’ story of the sower, the seeds, and the good soil. Please see draft 1.0 below and post a comment… what do you notice? Email bowie@faithhousemanhattan.org for directions if you’d like to come on Friday, May 15th at 7 PM.

Opening
Paul awakens our wonder with a “fool’s mass” of garden items

Remembering
Someone reads Gospel story about sower, seeds and soil
Second Reading Genesis 1

Thinking
Group discussion

Doing
Bowie helps people put together bags of seeds and soil, offers ideas on sowing.

Departing
Group prayers and blessings on our bags

I never realized till I left California (2 years ago) how different the traditional church there, is to my experience of church in other parts. A traditional church in California tends to have a group of people coming together in a strip mall shopping center where the church is renting some office space / store and has a number of chairs lined up side by side to look like pews. The people show up in anything from the really casual attire such as jeans and a t-shirt to slightly more dressy attire such as “business casual”. Or I think you call it “smart casual” if my memory serves. The traditional church in this part of the world tends to sing songs to a “rock band” in some form of contemporary worship and then the pastor will speak. This is such a contrast to “traditional” church in NY and England where there are pews and big gothic looking churches which remind you in their splendor how big God is in comparision with us. This form of traditional church has an actual priest in most cases who dresses in the traditional robes and communion is taken with real wine instead of grape juice. Having grown up in the first and not in the later, my concept of church tends to be more modern and contemporary in comparision with my later counterparts. In a church much like the second type that I speak of, I tend to get very uncomfortable and uneasy. It is hard for me to relate to and understand the ritual and liturgy of that style. I try to connect with it but I don’t know how. The thing for me here is that this style is not something I am accustomed to so I don’t understand why we need to go through each step of the liturgy to reach out and touch God because to me God is reachable whether or not we make those steps. If I want to speak to God right here and now I do not need to walk through each of those steps, I just simply call out. If I want to understand God’s thoughts and mind, I read the word. I don’t need an experience of God or have a ritual to tell me God is here with me, right here, right now.

Therefore, the reason I write this here and now is because I am a part of the emerging church movement here in NYC and having become a part of this I have started down a very different path of exploration in my walk with Christ than at any other time in my life. A time when I feel like I may be truly discovering for myself what it means to be a Christian. A time of vulnerability and openess which allows me to really take apart the teachings of the past and reconstruct them. I feel this time will teach me more about Christ than I have ever known before and through it more about myself.

The Emerging Church seems to stem out of that second type of church that I mentioned earlier but there are a lot of things about it that interest me and a lot of things about it that I question. You see my journey in this direction started more than 10 years ago when I met a few guys at an alternative christian concert. They were wearing a Tourniquet T-shirt. Some of you may have been around long enough in that scene to know of whom I speak of, others, may not. For those that weren’t Tourniquet was your average everyday metal band with a twist. They were Christians. The music was really good and certainly not that cheesy 80′s type stuff most of us know all too well (like Amy Grant and Michael W Smith). You could almost say this started my descent into my dark side but really as I look back on it now it was a spiritual journey I was led on. By this time I had only been a christian for about 3 years; I barely knew or understood all the tenements of being a Christian. But much like the Steve Taylor song, “I just want to be a clone”, the church was doing a fine job of making sure I understood “their” idea of Jesus. My idea of Jesus was being formed at that ripe young age of 17. That meeting eventually led me into the gothic scene and into the alternative church… Interestingly enough I had many a member of that conservative church (way back in high school) tell me that they were concerned for my soul… Me hanging out with these people in black… I would usually just smile and tell them they didn’t really understand and not to worry, God had my back. After all, I knew Jesus had hung out with prostitutes and “outsiders”, so why couldn’t I hang out with the goths? I bet Jesus would.

Years later, I discovered Sanctuary in San Diego, California. Sanctuary was about 10 members strong, all gothic, all the time. It was ran by a man infamously known as Pastor Dave. Many of the goths in the area knew him, they knew of his style and his leanings toward Christ. They knew that he would come out to the local goth clubs and hang out with them. They knew that he was real, he could be trusted, and that he loved them. He was well loved by the scene too and now has over 200+ goths on his myspace friends list from all over the world. His church, Sanctuary, may have been gothic on the outside, with gothic worship and gothic leaning themes in messages but it was always strong in the word and in encouraging the people to really know Christ through his word and through spending time with him. The message was loud and clear that if you wanted and needed to know Christ the only way to do it was through his word.

Sanctuary later led me to Asylum in London. London was many things to me but the main thing London was to me was a turning point in my walk with God. For reasons I won’t get into my faith wavered during my time in London. For the first time in my life I doubted God. I wanted to believe but I had lost my trust. It certainly wasn’t Asylum’s fault. Asylum was much like Sanctuary only more heavy metal leaning (at the time any way). No, the fault was all mine. The decisions I made and the direction in which I was going led me to believe the church (the body worldwide) was, simply put, a complete and utter wreck. I had up to that point for years been watching people get hurt by the church. I watched hypocrites hurt one after another and I swore up and down I would not be one of them. BUT it happened… I DID become one. I didn’t mean for it to happen of course. I meant for it to go another way but it did happen and I can’t go back to change it, I know that. The thing I did learn from that though is that I had come to a point of “toxic faith”. I acted like I didn’t believe in God and made many a stupid decision. Yet deep in my heart I really couldn’t turn my back on God completely. I really truly wanted to but it wasn’t happening. I had had a real divine experience. So while I acted like a non-believer (whatever that might mean), I continued to go to church. This was a downward spiral into darkness.

Life marched on and I returned to California, during which time as I continued to walk around blind and lost till I discovered Regeneration, whom helped to set it right. My time at Regen helped me to see what was meant by a healthy church. People were hungry to hear God’s word. They would all bring their bibles to church and get excited about passages such as Leviticus, which most Christians choose to cower in fear of. These people would pray without ceasing, seek every moment of every day after God, they were walking talking true blue to the core healthy Christians. (Now keep in mind I am not saying that any of the churches previously mentioned didn’t have that, but this is the first of all of them to have such a DIVERSE crowd of people whom were ALL like that.) This church had the homeless and the rich, the student and the professional, the accountant and the creative. It was probably the first time I had really seen the idea of the Christian church being one body of different functions. It was a place of protection and growth for many. A place we could share our hardships and know that people would build us up, pray for us, and get us back on the move again. To me this is what I would call the first century church. This is how the church should be and should act. However, I have noticed a trend towards experiencing God because people are “sick of the Word”. This presents a lot of problems for me. Having had a “toxic” faith that was built more on my experience of God rather than what God has to say in His Word, I know where that “experience” of God can lead and I am not just saying this for myself but for others.

There’s a movement called the faith movement (that may or may not still be around). If you have ever been to one of their gatherings you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that people run around dancing in the aisles (during the sermon) and fall over and start shaking and go up for healings that never really happen despite being told it has. People in these movements are often worked into a frenzy through the worship till they end up following suggestions of the pastor later. Walking because they have been said to be healed only to find that they can’t. Not taking medicine because they were told they were healed and ending up in the hospital because of it. This is a very dangerous pattern that begins to develop for people through these movements. Over time people begin to lose faith and eventually turn from God because of such actions. Over time they lose sight of the fact that God loves them just as they are, if they ever knew that in the first place. This is where the “experience” of God gets dangerous. It is when people are not taking it upon them to learn and to be as wise as serpants and yet as gentle as doves. Instead often times they end up just the opposite and forget to love their neighbor as themselves.

Now I have yet to see this in the emerging church so far so good but I do worry that it sets a dangerous precedent to head right down that sort of road. I do understand the need to meet a generation where it is at and to make the message fresh. I understand the desire to show that you do love us as a generation and that you are not like the forefathers before you whom may have rained a God of hate and judgment over us but we don’t want “buddy Jesus”. We want a real person. We want to know whom he is and was. Jesus was a rebel but the church has made him soft. Jesus was passionate but the church has made him dispassionate.

So then I ask of the emerging church who on the surface seems to seek experience over the Word, how then will you teach us of God? How will we know God if we do not learn what God has to say? How will we grow if you do not challenge us to? Will we become a generation who seeks one experience of God after another, never being secure in our faith? How are we to know after all that God loves us if we cannot feel it, time and time again? God says in the Word that we are to be secure in our faith and know that we are loved but where is that balance if we only know a God of our experiences rather than a God whom has transcended time and generations to meet us exactly where we are at?

Valentine’s Day House Church

SETTING: 2-bedroom apartment in west Harlem. seven folks arrived, cooked dinner, welcomed our new guest, ate snacks, then started ritual.

* kiss of peace
* ritual reading of Song of Songs
* prayer: bodies – folks strike a pose, everyone follows suit, say a prayer
* prayer: love song lyric – pass out selections from popular love songs that could be read to address a lover relationship with the divine. folks select one, read or sing it to the group. sing alongs welcome
* dinner, dessert, wine and good conversation

SoS RITUAL READING

Instructions –
* prep and procure the props
* make copies of readings in large font for participants to read
* when gathered, explain interactive component before each reading – have people perform the asterisked ritual before, during, or after the reading
* afterwards, invite people to share how they heard God speaking to them in the text

I SoS 1:12-17 (from bible or TJS translation below)

* SMELL – cedar balls and spices

Where you recline in light of noon
I’ll fly to lie beside you soon
With Spices, wine and ripest fruit
Have my desire in finest bloom
Baptized in your divine perfume
The time is right, we’re wise but new
The time is right, desire consumes

Our couch is green, our rafters pine
Our house is cedar beams and grafted vines
The clouds our canopy on high
Our town this Eden ‘neath the sky

Feel your left arm beneath my head
Your right my sheet, your side my bed
But I won’t sleep for love is ready
And I won’t rest till love is dead

II SoS 2:8-13

* VISUALIZE – close your eyes, listen, and see the scene in your mind’s eye

III Song of Songs 4:9-16

* SMELL – light incense

IV SoS 5:10-16

* TOUCH – pass around bowl of shells, rocks, crystals, and other hard objects

V SoS 7:1-9

* EAT – apples, figs, grapes, pomegranates, with honey and spices

VI SoS 7:9-13

* LOOK – pass around images and art of the Song of Songs
We looked at Renaissance and modern images of Mary w’ baby Jesus & pomegranate, e.g. da Vinci, Botticelli, Rafael, and Cherubini Rossi.

VII SoS 8:6-7

* FIRE & WATER – everyone lights a match, then puts it out in a glass of water

VIII SoS Conclusion (TJS verse)

* DRINK – pass around a cup of wine

Let society in all their high piety
Slant their eyes and quietly revile me
Think I’ll die of chastisement? Try me
I’ll smile though all mankind may despise me
Long as you lie beside me Рdon’t deny me
United we’ll defy them mightily, nightly

“Arise at last my fairest one
The winter’s past, the rain is gone
The vines wear blossoms for the sun
Our time for wine and song’s begun
It’s time we sing the song of songs”

SOME LOVE SONG LYRIC PRAYERS

The moment I wake up. Before I put on my make up, I say a little prayer for you. While combing my hair now And wond’ring what dress to wear now – I say a little prayer for you. Forever, and ever you’ll stay in my heart And I will love you. Forever, and ever we never will part. And, how I love you. Together, forever, that’s how it must be. To live without you would only mean heartbreak for me
* Hal David – I Say a Little Prayer

I love you baby like a flower loves the spring. And I love you baby like a robin loves to sing. And I love you baby like a schoolboy loves his [pride]. And I love you baby river deep mountain high.
* Barry, Greenwich, Spector – River Deep, Mountain High

Oh, even if the mountain tumbles, If this whole world crumbles, By her side I’ll still be standing there. ‘Cause I was made to love her, I was made to live for her. Yeah, yeah yeah.
* Stevie Wonder – I Was made to Love Her

Take me now baby here as I am. Pull me close, try and understand.
Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe. Love is a banquet on which we feed. Love is an angel disguised as lust. Here in our bed until the morning comes
* Patti Smith & Bruce Springsteen – Because the Night

Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone – I hear you call my name. And it feels like home. I hear your voice, its like an angel sighing. I have no choice, I hear your voice. Feels like flying. I close my eyes, oh God I think I’m falling. Out of the sky, I close my eyes. Heaven help me.
* Madonna – Like a Prayer

That’s all I wanted, something special, Something sacred in your eyes. For just one moment, to be bold and naked at your side. I will be your father figure, Put your tiny hand in mine. I will be your preacher teacher, Anything you have in mind. I will be your father figure, I have had enough of crime, so I will be the one who loves you until the end of time.
* George Michael – Father Figure

No need 2 worry, No need 2 cry, I’m your messiah and you’re the reason why cuz u – I would die 4 u, yeah, Darling if u want me 2. U ‚Äì I would die 4 u. I’m not a human I am a dove. I’m your conscious I am love. All I really need is 2 know that U believe
* Prince – I Would Die 4 U

See the stone set in your eyes. See the thorn twist in your side. I wait for you. Sleight of hand and twist of fate. On a bed of nails she makes me wait. And I wait without you. My hands are tied. My body bruised, she’s got me with nothing to win and nothing left to lose
* U2 – With or Without You

totally missing imho is some Bon Jovi… anyone have any other ideas? please share your lyric selections below!

* Readings from Song of Songs
w/ pomegranates, figs, apricots, honey & wine
* Body Prayer
* Dancing
* Dinner, dessert & more

~ feel free to bring chocolates, wine, flowers and friends

LINKS
St. Valentine
Romantic Love
The Song of Songs
Bowie’s column on the S o S
Sexy Jesus (track 9) by Wayne & Wax

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