I still can't figure out the "read more" thing - as my last post shows. Help!
READ MORE HERETuesday, February 26, 2008
Thoughts on "Everything Must Change"
Hey all,
I've got just a 30 minute pit stop while I pick up some family members in Greenville, before heading down to Atlanta for my great-aunt Kitty's funeral tomorrow - visitation tonight.
Anyway, my friends Heather and Jeff updated their blog with, among other things, some of their thoughts about the Charlotte Everything Must Change event. Serendipitously (this, as a friend points out to me, is a great word!), I also found some of my missing notes from the conference last night. I think these are from session 3 - of which I only caught the last half, after closing up at the registration table.
There's a thread over at the EmergentColumbia site about the "words we wrote on our hands at the Everything Must Change tour!" I couldn't remember much about what my words were, or why we wrote them, until finding these notes. (I have the world's worst long-term memory. Have you ever seen the movie Memento? I'm really almost that bad.)
I'm embarrassed to note that I hadn't made the connection between writing words on our hands and the hand on the cover of Brian McLaren's book! But yeah, as was pointed out to me over at EmergentColumbia, that's why we were writing words on our hands. It's associated with action, as you might expect. The hand, Brian McLaren said, is the symbol of the ability to act. This was during a part of the conference where he talked about the need for sustained action to 'change everything' on 4 levels:
1. Personal action (a "deep shift" for your life) - maybe recycling, or gardening, or turning your
yard into a bird haven, etc.
2. Community Action - finding local projects and friends to associate with. Maybe study groups, service projects, etc. He also noted that if your church doesn't want to change and be involved, let them be - find other ways and other people to help nurture this in your community. Go where the energy is, don't waste energy trying to make others change.
3. Public Action - he called this "Spirit-Guided Movements," by which he meant actions of God across the larger culture, actions going on "which I don't want to miss." As an example he cited the Civil Rights movement - people chose which side of that to be on, and some therefore missed out on being part of what God was doing. He also cited contemporary movements towards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR - which he said could also stand for Church Social Responsibility).
4. Global Action - "global awakenings". He told a story about a corporate VP who's reacted to the news that he has an inoperable brain tumor by trying to find ways to make a positive impact in the world. Supposedly he's building a website to recruit others - but if Brian said his name, I missed it.
He also talked about how to share this stuff with others. He recommended against talking about "this book I read" or "this author/preacher guy I read." Rather he suggested connecting personally - talk about what's going on with us. Share by saying "I'm going through something. I'm thinking things I can't help but talk about." (This is some of the stuff I wanted to talk about - and will have to wait until I have time.)
As Brian started closing out this section, he said "we make the way by living it." I take that to mean that as we feel lost about what to do and where to start to make a difference, we just have to stop feeling overwhelmed and start acting - personally, locally, publicly, globally - to make a difference. Little by little, each change we make begins to make the way to a world where everything has changed. Pie-in-the-sky kind of stuff, almost - so my cynical mind says. But Brian ended this session by talking about Jesus' comments on faith - "if you have faith the size of a mustard seed," you can say to this mountain, move, and it will move.
Now, in my overly literal mind, I've always thought of this verse in terms of supernatural kinds of miraculous stuff - praying for healing and things like that. As a result I've always cringed at this verse - guilty over my lack of faith healings to my name, and the like. Brian tied it in to these overwhelming problems in the world - crises of prosperity, equity, security - as mountains which seem too big to ever be brought low. (Isaiah - every valley will be filled and every mountain and hill made low.) So he reminded us of our faith - that we need not be overwhelmed by the scope of the problems. He reminded us that Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed..." etc.
I wrote "My take-away from this: 'I tell you the truth. This mountain will move." So the hand thing: if I now recall correctly, we were writing an action to take or a mountain that would be moved. Which reminds me that I'd completely forgotten what I wrote (which is why I write - I have practically no long-term memory!). My word was "epiphany", because I had a few that weekend. Mostly, an epiphany related to two things - doubt and fear. These are things that keep me from stepping out in faith - the things that keep me from making the difference I could. They feel like mountains blocking me from a life of meaning and purpose, filled with love for God and neighbor.
I tell you the truth - this mountain will move. May you have faith to sing your song in the dark, and to see mountains fall as God works in your life and our world.
Monday, February 25, 2008
In memoriam
Preached a funeral Saturday - probably the last of my old hospice patients that will ask me to do the funeral. She asked me more than a year ago - her husband's funeral, in May of 05, was the first I preached for (rather than doing music), just about 3 weeks after my ordination. It went pretty well, as such things go. The family behaved - which they probably won't keep doing much longer, as it was the deceased who held them together. She was a wonderful old lady - in her 80s, she'd been married 66 years when her husband died, and loved her family and loved God. But a lot of her kids, even though individually they seem to be good people, they just don't get on with one another. It's very sad. I preached about how she was a person of forgiveness and turning the other cheek, and that's what she wanted her children to do - this is what she told me a year ago. But human nature being what it is, I doubt they really heard me.
Still, the funeral itself was a fitting tribute for her, and I was honored to be with the family at this event. I won't forget her. I may post some thoughts from the sermon in the next day or two - or not, we'll see.
My great-aunt Kitty died over the weekend, too. I didn't know her well at all, but liked her from the handful of times we met. I'm driving up to Greenville in the morning so I can ride down with Mom and my grandmother to the funeral in Atlanta - mostly because Mom doesn't like Atlanta traffic.
I thought I was done with hospice?
Boy I'm smart (but didn't I finish grad school...?)
Hah! Fencerscott posted a link for this over on his blog. But my blog beats his blog! Hah! Take that, Fencerscott! Oh, yes...soon, I will be invincible.
Of course, this might also explain why most of my friends think the blog is too dry and time-consuming. Well, so what! It's probably because you're not smart enough! Go to college! Get a job!
Oh, wait, that last part was for me. Well, nevertheless - I'm still going to take over the world, so there. And you'll have to read my blog, and your little dog, too!
...
I think I just lowered the reading level. READ MORE HERE
Blogger Need Help!
So, all you bloggers out there...my takeover of the blogosphere is really being stalled by my singular inability to do one simple thing: insert a "read more" tag in my posts.
I do, as is readily seen, like to run off at the mouth quite often. It would help if folks (including me) didn't have to scroll through the entire body of a post, but could click on it if they want to read the whole thing. Simple enough, yes?
Er...no. Not simple to me. I've done a search under the help feature and found the info that I need - just insert some conditional tags in the HTML of my style sheet. Problem is, where the devil is my style sheet??!??!
Little help, here, folks?
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