Aug 15th for Jesus’ Mama
August 14, 2007
Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth - Tapesetry, originally uploaded by Edith OSB.
It’s the middle of August, so we’re keeping it low-key and simple. Come join us on the funky benches behind Grant’s Tomb for a bag dinner picnic and Bible Study.
Since August 15th just happens to be the Feast of Saint Mary, Mother of Jesus for Anglicans and Lutherans, the Assumption for Roman Catholics, and the Dormition of the Theotokos for the Eastern Orthodox, so we’ll be celebrating Jesus’ Ma Protestant-style, with a Bible Study! (No previous knowledge about Madonna necessary!)
About ‘African Bible Study’
Luke 1:39-56 - King James Version - The Message - NIV
GRANT’S TOMB is at 122nd and Riverside Drive. The 1 train stops at 116th on Broadway. Walk 6 blocks north, and 2 blocks west. Call 646 245-7346 if you can’t find us.
FOOD To keep this mid-August meeting simple, we’re asking people to bring food for themselves, plus a little extra to share (e.g. some chips, cookies, drinks, salad, small dish, an extra sandwich). Hopefully, there will be enough extra for those of you who don’t have time or extra cash to pick something up.
If you can, please bring a MARY piece to share –
A cappella or acoustic versions of the Magnificat welcome!
A visual representation of Mary (e.g. image, statue, jewelry) for “show & tell”
If you speak another language, bring a translation of Luke 1:39-56 to read to the group
Isaac & the “musicianhood of all believers”
August 7, 2007
There’s a great interview with Isaac by Becky Garrison on emergingchurch.info.
Definitely worth checking out…
I like his bit about a “musicianhood of all believers”
Martin Luther talked about the “priesthood of all believers” and the broad, folky appeal of his hymns suggest that he believed in the “musicianhood of all believers” as well. The job of professional ministers and musicians should not be to direct liturgical and musical activity, but rather to facilitate them. A liturgical leader’s job is not merely to pray and to worship, but to get the entire congregation praying and worshiping. Similarly, my job is not just to play well, but also to get everyone in the room participating in the music; my job is to help everyone find an entry point into the ritual activity.
buy or borrow Kester Brewin’s new book
July 23, 2007
signs of Emergence:
A Vision for Church That Is Organic / Networked / Decentralized / Bottom-up / Communal / Flexible
{Always Evolving}
I’m just about to start Part 2, but wanted to share some snippets from the first 100+ pages while they’re freshly percolating in my imagination…
With our eyes suckling from cathode-ray nipples feeding us a skimmed diet of soap opera and home improvements, we have lost the ability and mental space to simply talk and share thoughts and receive wisdom… Part of the prophetic role of the Emergent Church will be to encourage society to recover its memory and have a healthy balance between past, present, and future:
Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again. (108)Our problem today: the space for imagination to expand and take shape is inversely proportional to the speed at which we live. Yet if we stop and wait, and close our eyes to the “buy now, take me now” images, and rest our weary retinas, we will begin to remember, new worlds will form, new exits will become apparent. (57)
Christ’s incarnation in a specific time and a specific place demands of us, the body of Christ, that we too undergo incarnation and are born somewhere specific, committing to it and putting roots down. We cannot be reborn in first-century Palestine; we need to be incarnate to the place where we are and the place that needs us most. We must learn how to incarnate the church in the city. (73)
This is the extraordinarily consistent truth about our cities, our brains, our ecosystems, and, I am suggesting, our churches: somewhere between these two poles of anarchy and rigidity - a spectrum with death at each end - there exists a place where a system begins to live, to self-organize, to become more than a sum of its parts, to develop a character, a culture, a soul, if you will- as if some breath has entered it and commanded it to live. (82)
stitch-by-stitch snippets of internet inspiration
July 9, 2007
new membership, originally uploaded by Princess Valium.
If a ritual is performed more than once, it becomes “official,” or there is a greater sense of permanency, just as the more stitches you use to fasten a button to a shirt, the more tightly it will stay attached.
May we, a little band of love,
We sinners, saved by grace,
From glory unto glory changed,
Behold thee face to face.
from Hymns for the Circle #12 , collected writings that came out of a sewing circle
Her project in the hotel lobby consists of the screening of two video’s and a ‘sewing circle’. The public will be invited to join the making of semi high fashion items for which all materials will be provided. The sewing circle blurs the boundary between public and private space. Historically a very private, exclusively female ritual, the sewing circle as ‘performance’ in a public space addresses an entirely new set of questions and interpersonal connections. Tracey Prehay thus contributes to a complex debate on cultural encounters, the market place and the notion of mimicry.
Sabbath Poem (Bozarth)
July 5, 2007
The small plot of ground
by Alla Renee Bozarth
The small plot of ground
on which you were born
cannot be expected
to stay forever
the same.
Earth changes,
and home becomes different
places.
You took flesh
from clay
but the clay
did not come
from just one place.
To feel alive,
important, and safe,
know your own waters
and hills, but know
more
You have stars in your bones
and oceans
in blood.
You have opposing
terrain in each eye
you belong to the land
and sky of your first cry,
you belong to infinity.
* from Earth Prayers, Edited by Elizabeth Roberts
* We had this book when I was growing up and I read this poem at a DEC hearing in Farmersville, New York (40 miles from where I grew up) regarding the proposed largest landfill in the Northeast. That hearing happened in March 1994. The has fight continued for more than ten years and now the dump is all but defeated!
* I saw this poem quoted today and googled the author, only to realize that she is an Episcopal priest who was part of the Philadelphia Eleven, the first crop of women “irregularly” ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1974, inlcuding Carter Hayard and Jeanette Piccard, whom we discussed at Transmission last night.
Fire at Simple Way: Please Pray and Donate
June 20, 2007
The Simple Way is a New Monastic Community in Philly, PA, founded by Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistable Revolution. Isaac and I both heard Shane speak at Greenbelt last summer and were floored (I cried, maybe we both did). Various Transmissioners have also been deeply moved by his book and by the basic tenents (12 Marks) of New Monasticism presented online.
Please keep this community in your prayers and consider making a cash donation. Transmission does not ask it’s members to pledge, but many of us give generously to Transmission and do other spiritual giving as part of our tithe or giving back to God.
Official Fire Update from The Simple Way in Philly, PA
This morning, a 7-alarm fire consumed an abandoned warehouse in our Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia. The Simple Way Community Center at 3200 Potter Street was destroyed as well as at least eight of our neighbors’ homes. Over 100 people were evacuated from their homes, and 400 families are currently without power. Despite this developing tragedy, we are incredibly thankful to share that all of our community members and every one of our neighbors is safely out of harm’s way.
This fire will forever change the fabric of our community. Eight families are currently homeless, and in many cases have lost their vehicles as well as their homes. One of our neighbors, the Mahaias Family, lost their three cars as well as the equipment one family member uses for her massage therapy business. Teenager Brian Mahaias is devastated not because he has lost his belongings, but because he fears that this fire will force him to move away from this neighborhood that is his family as well as his home.
The Simple Way has lost a community center that was home to our Yes! And… afterschool program, community arts center, and Cottage Printworks t-shirt micro-business as well as to two of our community members. Community members Shane Claiborne and Jesce Walz have lost all of their belongings, Yes!And…’s after school studio and library were ruined, and community member Justin Donner’s Cottage Printworks equipment and t-shirts were destroyed.
We are thankful that we are able to help each other during this time of need, and we will continue to keep your informed about today’s events.
We have established funds to support the families who have lost their homes, the Yes! And… afterschool program, and the Simple Way community.
A fund to support the families has been established through a partner organization, EAPE. Tax-deductible donations can be made online here. Please make sure to put “Kensington Families Fund” in the memo section.
Donations to the Rebuilding Fund can be made via PayPal to contribute@awip.us.
-The Simple Way Community
Naboth’s Vineyard
June 18, 2007
So one of our Transmissioners, j. Snodgrass, wrote a play for a service at Sanctuary, an Episcopal church over on the east side. I’m a big fan of using arts in worship, yet I don’t know much about drama and rarely think to include it in a ritual. Kudos to Sanctuary. It’s an entertaining read - go read it on their site.
Also, in the spirit of Elijah, enjoy this song written by j. Snodgrass and myself (Isaac Everett). The extended intro features my friend, Yoel Ben Simhon, and the english-language singer is RC Laird.
[audio:misconception.mp3]
resistance: fall of man
June 11, 2007
If you haven’t heard, the Church of England is considering suing SONY because it reproduced Manchester cathedral in last year’s premier first-person-shooter for the Play Station 3. Needless to say, this is not being received well within the gamer community, which has responded with a great deal of polemic about Christianity’s inability to differentiate fantasy from reality. Hmm.
It seems to me that the real issue is not whether a violent, bloody action game like Resistance falls in line with the church’s values. Rather, the real issue is about intellectual property: if the Church of England owns the interior design of a space, does someone else have to get their permission to reproduce that design the way they would for a photograph or a poem? I don’t know anything about British IP laws, but it seems a reasonable question to me.
Unfortunately, however, everyone is treating the church’s complaint as if it’s a battle over values, and therefor the church is again coming off like a tired old man shaking his fist at a bunch of kids smoking on a street corner. How could we react to this sort of thing in a positive way? I applaud the fact that they’re trying to get Sony to fund anti-gun crime groups in Manchester - how could this sort of activity be brought into the foreground?
Double Header! Drastic Monastics & Ian Mobsby
June 4, 2007
WED, June 6th
John, who is planning the ritual says, “At the half-way point of 2007, this Wednesday’s ritual will involve resolutions - whether adjusting the ones we made on New Year’s Eve (pesky reality, always getting in the way of our best intentions!) or making new ones. We’ll also be contemplating affiliations with some comical stories about over-zealous monks, and an original song by Everett & Snodgrass celebrating Saint Francis’ ‘Canticle to Brother Sun and Sister Moon.’”
We’ll be back at Bowie’s place after a long hiatus (please email if you need directions). There will be yummy food and some celebration for John (5/28), Isaac (6/4), and Bowie’s (6/6) birthdays. Please let us know if you are a gemini too!
Plus, Ian Mobsby, who hosted Bowie and Isaac at Greenbelt last year, will be coming from the airport to join us on Wednesday night - so get ready for a double-header because the next night…
THUR, June 7th
Hear an amazing and long-time Emerging leader in the UK, Ian Mobsby, talk about “Trinitarian Mysticism and Mission” at Trinity Wall Street. Just how can Rublev’s Icon and a Trinitarian ecclesiology enable us to be emerging, experimental, and do mission?
Ian is a founding member of Moot, an emerging church community in London, UK and has been doing emerging church stuff in the UK for the last 14 years, is sweet, and totally rad. Also, here’s an interview between Johnny Baker and Ian about his new book.
Refreshments and fellowship begin at 6:30 pm; the workshop begins at 7 pm – FREE – To sign up, please email us, Ali Lutz at alutz@trinitywallstreet.org or call 212-602-0800.
Flickr Photo of Skellig Michael, originally uploaded by Mixmaster.
War Tapes and Veteran Saints
June 1, 2007
After Wednesday night’s showing of The War Tapes at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (see 2 posts down), I wrote an article that includes some questions I’ve been bouncing around for a while… about finding religious responses to this war, perhaps even from soldier saints of the past. It’s been posted to Episcopal Life Online as an Opinion piece.