[ hold :: this space ]

like abraham and sarah
i also heard the promise of god on the way
to this new land

but while they tell their story
with words of faithfulness
gift
life
laughter -
you need to know that for me,
those words have become the language of heartbreak;
fleeting,
fickle,
and taunting.

i have been cursed by their blessing.

and in the end
when the plans change,
the promise is withdrawn
and the future rewritten

my dreams have become abraham’s litter,
and i am left on the side of faith’s road.

from an article by David Brooks in the NY Times:

… [M]y guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going end up challenging faith in the Bible…

In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day…

the cyclone in burma is catastrophic, terrifying
yet - confession - i hardly seem moved at all

and i can’t decide if it’s because i have no words to say,
if i’m in denial,
if i just don’t have the energy to be moved

or if it’s indelicate to look face on
at those who have spent lifetimes
in search of dignity and wholeness
and who have been stripped of it again.

so if i were to go to church on sunday
[which i won't]
and if i were to pray
[which, sadly, i don't]

it would be to find the passion to care…
to move beyond the figures that my mind
can’t comprehend
[22 000... 50 000... 100 000...]

and to recognise
that each one of those people
is someone
the world
couldn’t do
without.

and then, in the writing of that, comes this…

how can i honour those who died
who have no-one left alive
to grieve them
miss them
remember them…

We were talking this morning in a breakfast meeting about alternative communities - why the ongoing regular community stuff doesn’t seem to fit too easily into what we’re doing in this project… and why what we’re doing fits awkwardly into the church… this is where the conversation went… [it's a thought in progress, bear that in mind!]

Most conversations about new forms of church or christian community are about rethinking the table at which the disciples sit. True confession… this project doesn’t emerge from any interest in that table, or even really in the disciples. i think the really interesting stuff of the gospels is the other stories - the tables Jesus went to where the disciples weren’t invited, or where they were so absent no-one thought to mention their presence - the afternoons at Mary and Martha’s, the nameless person’s house where Jesus met the syro-phonoecian woman, dinner at Levi’s house, dinner with Peter’s mother, the ‘water into wine’ wedding table… i think they’re the fun tables.

Interestingly, there’s not a lot of evidence in the gospels that the people around those tables wanted a seat at the disciples’ table - the main event, as such. Which makes it interesting, then, that most conversation about inclusion [and about new forms of Christian community] involves making sure there’s space for everyone at the disciples’ table - the presupposition being that there is only the one table around which everyone should sit. It gives those around the table an enormous amount of power. Perhaps that’s a myth perpetuated by them – because we have been taught to look at things from the disciples’ perspective we think there’s only one table - but the disciples were never as good as Jesus at recognising the other tables.

Perhaps another way of understanding inclusion and generosity is recognising that Jesus doesn’t sit at just one table, and that the disciples don’t host the other tables, or get to decide what happens there. Often they don’t even get invited. Those other tables are out of their control… and will mostly exist out of their line of vision.

If that’s the case, the ultimate act of inclusion for Christian communities is to encourage the possibility there might be other tables [fun tables, with good food - just as good as the church's table] where God might just turn up, because the story of God is not about inclusion into the Church’s table, but inclusion into a story of life. Because as we know, you don’t have to be a disciple for god to seek you out, and just because you’re a disciple doesn’t mean you get the very best of who God is, and turning into a disciple isn’t the anticipated, or even desired, outcome of every encounter with the story of life…

Which is why we don’t believe that every act of worship, every sacred space should emanate from, or be directed back towards the church’s table. And why we have to look much broader than the disciples for our models of community.

All that, over fruit toast.

[update: i still can't leave comments on the site! but keep chatting amongst yourselves... i'm reading them all... and i need to think more about it - especially Adam's question about what the other spaces look like. Perhaps for me the question is who I am in the other spaces, because i'm not sure they can be spaces of our making... Or maybe they can be, but I'm really interested in sitting at the tables where we aren't the hosts.]

off to speak to prison chaplains this morning. these two quotes are rolling around in my head. as all other words seem to have disappeared from my mind today, we might just meditate on each of them for the three hours.

No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. That kind of symbol sticks out like raisins in raisin bread. Raisin bread is all right, but plain bread is better.

I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things. The hardest thing is to make something really true and sometimes truer than true.

- Ernest Hemingway [via kottke]

If the face of the Beloved
does not make you gasp in wonder
and laugh ecstatically with joy
then you must be like a stone
good only for building prison walls.

- Rumi

i’ve been asked a number of times recently what my process is for writing liturgy - and i’ve been trying to find ways of articulating it for a workshop i’m leading on wednesday.

in writing liturgies for prison, i try to find words to name where we are, and to name what it is we wait for - what the ancient stories of faith tell us god does. it’s not that we have any confidence it’s going to happen again, but we know [from those ancient stories of faith] that this is the only way it can happen again.

the act of faith that is the foundation of the liturgies is not believing in god, or the actions of god, rather it’s that the telling and the asking will not break us. or that the breaking will not be the end.

i’m really hopeless at writing hope. i know people do write fabulous liturgies from a perspective of faith - of the wondrous things god does and will do. i don’t.  i write best from a perspective of faithlessness. i honestly don’t know if god - whatever / whoever god is - will do what god does again. when i’m most honest to that,  people tell me they see themselves in what i write.

unfortunately, due to circumstances out of my control, i’ve had to pull out of the CFM evangelism forum next Tuesday. I was going to be part of the presenting panel.

i thought it was quite lovely - and a little bemusing - that i was invited. i was a bit nervous that people would leave wanting to evangelise me, but i was looking forward to the conversation.

these are the things that i’ve been thinking about in anticipation…

- the story i keep hearing from people who have intentionally and deliberately not chosen Christianity is that they are treated with disdain by some who have, being spouted lines like ‘you just haven’t heard about the christianity / god / faith that i know’. some people actually know about christianity and choose not to go there. how arrogant and smug of christians to assume that they know better…

- i’ve said this before here, but my primary contact is with people who have been part of the church and have now left christianity. not because they’re pissed off with it, or they disagree with it, but they’ve gone another step on from it, to a place that the church can’t follow. they’re not in a bad place there, and don’t want to be talked into going back [squeezing who they are now back into a place they have chosen to leave]… but they wouldn’t mind some company where they are now.

- the only faith that makes sense to many people is one that offers a story to resonate with. belonging to a community, and any promise of life after death [or even of a god who loves even you, you dirty rotten scoundrel], are no longer drawcards.

- i work with a tiny subsection of the community, and these things may not be true in general…

there’s much more too, but i need to get back to the basement.

update: someone reminded me of another favourite line: ‘we’re all searching for the same thing, i’m just a little further along the way / it’s just that i have a roadmap for the search’. [well, actually, no.]

[i still can't leave comments on the site, apologies...]

it hasn’t slipped my attention that a quarter of the year has passed before I’m putting this up… there barely seems time at the moment to take a breath.

Easter: we’re not doing anything, for many reasons… but the Urban Seed guys let me know about a Stations of the Cross which will be happening at Mission to the Seafarers. Via Crucis @ Docklands 2008 will include art and multi-sensory, interactive worship stations based upon the Easter stories. The space will be open for personal reflection from midday on Maundy Thursday, 18th March. The exhibit will close on the evening of Good Friday, 19th March with a Reflective Worship Service commencing at 8pm.

The next public thing we’re working on is a basement space for the Forge Grassroots conference. After that we move into communal justice workshops, then a workshop in May for the Progressive Christian Network… At the end of May Jonny Baker arrives in melbourne to speak at the Urban Ministry Conference, and he’s also participating in the Alternative Worship Nosh [registrations are coming in for that - we've got limited places, so sign up soon if you plan to come].

Some of you will have heard that Pete Rollins was coming out in September - we’ve changed that date to February / March next year, in order to not clash with everything else that’s happening in September [and to be able to take a breath, post-greenbelt], and because we’re planning some fabulous things for Lent next year, which will be topped off with Pete’s visit.

The Docklands space is back on the agenda, the communal justice project is ramping up, i’m working with a new school development which is designing a ‘ministry centre’ / sacred space from scratch, and i’ve got an idea for next year’s holy week and this year’s christmas…

Today I’m working on worship / reflection spaces at the UnitingCare national conference in a couple of weeks - UnitingCare is the umbrella for the various agencies that are part of the uniting church [the uniting church is the largest non-government provider of welfare in australia]. this is my favourite kind of ‘audience’ - a large number of them wouldn’t define themselves as christian. i love having to look for new language…

welcome to this space

maybe you are here because you recognise in your own story
a greater story
one spoken since the beginning of time
by prophets, preachers and peacemakers
of God who calls all humankind to
liberation and wholeness.

if so, welcome to this space.

maybe you are here, not defined by a relationship with god
but nonetheless as someone with a deep conviction
that there is no inevitable unfolding to anyone’s life
but that our futures are yet to be written
and can be shaped by justice and compassion.

if so, welcome to this space.

maybe you are here because you have glimpsed
a moment of love that is beyond human reach
the grace that lies just beyond our finger tips
unexpected and beautiful
that transforms the ugly into breathtaking
the impossible into the real

if so, welcome to this space.

maybe you are here tired
no longer sure whether you belong
or how any of this makes a difference
struggling to remember the vision that inspired you
and to find the passion that eludes you

you too are welcome to this space…

things were so busy yesterday that the only possible thing to do was to take off and go and wander around the NGV for a couple of hours. thanks to sue for pointing me in the direction of a new installation… can’t wait to use this somewhere… it was a ladder made out of tubes of LED lights, hanging between two mirrors, one placed on the floor, one on the ceiling [about 3 m apart]. if you stand over the mirror, the ladder reaches up or down forever. it sounds mundane, it’s actually quite amazing.

and thanks to Kathy for pointing me towards Proyecto para un memorial (Project for a Memorial) - five video projections, each of a different face being painted with water on concrete, slowing disappearing in heat. the idea ties in beautifully with ecclesiastes ‘vanity, all is vanity’, which i’m using for the Uniting Care conference…

it is a luxury to lose ourselves
in the drama of a holy week
to place ourselves in the ancient story
that unfolds with political intrigue and theological mystery

it is a luxury to be trawling for video clips and music,
to be contemplating the quirky moment that will make this week’s worship memorable,
scratching out drafts and final scripts in the search
for just the right poetic words.

it is a luxury
because we can speak of life and death
without it being our life and death.

so today
stop speaking
and listen to those who are living holy week
right now,
like we can never presume to,
who are facing crucifixion with no certainty of resurrection.

listen to those who do not know if they will survive this week
but who are choosing only and always
right at this moment
to live with faith and courage,
walking the path of love,
all the way to death.

i wish i were holding holy week services this week, so i could ditch them and instead lead something to honour those who are living their own version of holy week today…