Saturday, April 29

Canadian Ooze Get-Together

Galadriel (aka me :) ), drewcosten, a268chic and TheRussian met up for a night on the town a week or so ago. Drew chose to remain behind the camera. ;)


posted by Lydia | 4:40 PM | |


Friday, April 28



I read this today from my friend and fellow-communitarian, who works as a groundsman at a local school:

Just an Ordinary Day

Today, the Messiah is at work with me. As He was yesterday....and so was the Father of All.

Pretty remarkable huh?

It's a normal day. Nothing particulary glorious going on...except for the Christ living in and around me.

I had to dump some garbage. I fixed a cabinet door...trimmed up some grass.

Yeshua is with me.

I got bored.
In Christ.

I am so greatly blessed with divine Life...and it's a very nice day out today!!

Stopped to eat lunch. Nothing good in the cafeteria...but the salad.

Surfed the web. Posted a blog...which you are reading....

I'm one with God.

Gotta get back to work.

Read more at Holy Mendicant

posted by Mike Morrell | 8:37 PM | |


Wednesday, April 19

Panentheism & Interspirituality--What's Jesus Got to do With It?

This is my response and interaction to wonderful and incisive questions raised by my friend Carl McColmnan's post, Notes on Manifesting a Truly Interfaith Spirituality. (You should probably read it first...I'm going to be primarily addressing his online community here, but I thought Ooze-ians would benefit as well) I hope that I can respond as an "interfaith-friendly post-evangelical." In Carl and I's correspondence, he mentions that "a core issue for me personally is the ongoing question of where the balance point is between the old-Pagan-me, the new-Catholic-me, and the overall-Christian-me…and I suppose it is very much the question of where does pantheism stop and panentheism begin--a core dilemma of Christian mysticism."

It is indeed a core dilemma! I think of myself as a panentheist, and probably have for the past half-decade or so. I first encountered the notion through the post-denominational contemporary Christian mystic, Norman Grubb. If you've never read Grubb you really should; he's fascinating. He began his life as a missionary, biographer and publisher. He never really left these passions, but lived them all out from a Center of what he would call "fixed awareness of union with Christ." In the last several decades of his life he was a wanderer. He'd go anywhere and life for awhile, with anyone who would have him--he spent years with house churches, Messianic Jewish synagogues, all-summer camp retreats, and I learned a few years back that he spent several years at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Rome, Georgia where I went to school! His life belied his conviction that God was truly present in all things as the All in all.

I have more recently encountered the panentheist message in the writings of Marcus Borg and others, such as in books like The God We Never Knew. And I appreciate these writings, I truly do. But I suppose a significant difference between the vision of panentheism that lives in my heart and the interspiritual vision that informs Marcus, Matthew Fox and others is that I believe that the Divine which permeates all reality is the God revealed in Jesus Christ.

Like a good post-evangelical (Over the cultural and political commitments of this particular epoch but cherishing Scripture and good news nonetheless) my panentheism is biblically informed. I see unmistakable cadences of the all-inclusive Christ in such passages as (you'll forgive me for not citing precisely)

"I am God, there is no other,"
"God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust alike"
"There is a Light which enlightens everyone"
"God is the all in all"
"Christ will be the all in all"

…and of course that pagan poem that Paul quotes to pagan friends at Mars Hill in Acts, appropriating for Jesus Christ--"In Him we live, move, and have our being."

This break with functional Deism came to me liberation--very good news indeed! Not only did Christ’s spirit indwell me (a message which was good news enough after hearing from Calvinists that God only "positionally" indwelt a regenerate person--whatever that meant--and the Pentecostals who seemed to treat the Spirit like a rather elusive guest), but God was in everything in some sort of real and compassionate way. I like panentheism because it emphasizes immanence while still preserving transcendence and awe. Certainly many of my conservative Christian brethren squirm at such an understanding but I have to to go with what I've discovered.

But now I'm afraid that some of my progressive Christian and interspiritual brethren and friends might likewise squirm at my working understanding of "panentheism." I know how much well-intentioned people wish to see panentheism as the vehicle for all interfaith dialogue and even interfaith worship, as some Great Core Spirit that, when you get right down to it, is shared by all the great faiths of life-paths. But I think this is more of a deus ex machina than it might at first appear, and I hope that I can respectfully explain why I feel this way.

I think that dialogue, learning, and appreciation among faiths, spiritualities and religions is crucially needed in our day and age--I will elaborate more in a moment. I am significantly less comfortable, however, with co-worship and integration as it seems to transgress something, and disrespect all faiths involved. Further, syncretism of this sort seems as if it would have the fruit of only further dividing people, giving them yet another religious option (interspirituality) to embrace or reject.

Does this make sense? You get a bunch of nice, open-minded progressives together to share their hearts considering their journeys as Pagan, Christian, Sufi, Unitarian, Buddhist, or Snake-handling sex cultist. Wonderful. But then if someone says, "These are all vital emanations from the same Source," many in the room nod solemnly, but a few people look up like "Wait." Then what? A new multifaith dogma has just formed in the room, and everyone has to either accept or reject it. Call it the curse of Martin Luther…endless fragmentation. :)

Education and mutual understanding through interfaith dialogue might seem a whole lot more modest (read: lame) than constructing a bold new interspiritual outlook, but I think its small gains can do much to build mutual esteem and trust in our shakily pluralistic world…all without going the "all roads lead to the same path" route.

Getting back to the internal integrity of one’s faith, and speaking from my "Jesus-y" (as Anne Lamott puts it) perspective, where does fidelity to God come in? I consider myself thoroughly postmodern, but do postmodern people of faith always need to put ironic, self-effacing quotation marks around everything they "believe" to be "true"? I am personally struggling to live life through the Jesus Way--not the pop culture, American Jesus, but the Jesus I see in the Gospels and New Testament and mystics and marginalized church history through the ages. One thing I've come to discover is that Jesus loves everyone but he does not agree with everyone. He embraces and forgives the Woman at the Well but--before acknowledging the universality of the coming eschaton where God can be known everywhere, in Sprit and Realit--he engages her in a little Jewish versus Samaritan debate about the appropriate place for Temple worship!

My friend Brian McLaren says something like this: "Jesus is the Way to God and abundant life, it doesnt mean he stands in the way to divine access!" I believe that Jesus is the savior of the world—whatever that ultimately means, I can only speculate and hope. I cannot limit the meaning of this to a particular model of atonement, or a particular scope of redemption. All I know, based on Jesus’ revelation of God's character and intention, is that the Godhead loves his enemies, forgives those who persecute, and practices restorative justice. I have every confidence, with Julian of Norwich, that "all will be well." Please keep this in mind as you read, knowing that I’m not coming at this to Bible-beat dissenters into submission or condemn anyone to eternal flames! I'm simply talking about faithfulness to the light we've been given, and how that light might be unintentionally dimmed or blurred.

Clearly Carl feels more free than I do to “to play with the poetry of an interfaith spirituality," no doubt owing to your diverse background. On an intrafaith scale I am similar--I grew up equal parts Baptist, Pentecostal, and Presbyterian, and was always more willing to integrate the best of each of these denominational traditions. What was effortless to me in this regard always seemed like a huge sticking point to some of my friends, who grew up in a particular denomination. Perhaps because of this, there are ways that I can appreciate a "humble model" of interfaith interaction:

I value interfaith dialogue because it's educational. So many people of all faiths are fearful of "the other." We have no idea what our neighbors hope for, believe, or practice, and we tend to draw the worst possible conclusions because they’re not following Jeee-suz (or the Prophet—be it Mohammed, Joseph, or Elizabeth Clare). In an integrated society with a pluralist public square, this simply will not do. I love to participating in interfaith sharing times--whether formal sessions or conversations with friends and neighbors--to gain understanding about the diverse religions of the world.

Further, I believe that I can truly learn, spiritually, from the world's religious traditions--things that Zeus or the Vishnu decreed can give me an altogether fresh perspective on an obscure passage of Scripture or way that I reach God. But this is a qualified learning. I was talking about this with my friend Frank Viola, who's an author and house church planter. Frank is definitely a conservative evangelical theologically, though he's a pretty open guy considering these caveats--he has a special love for church mystics in particular. Right now he’s reading Cynthia Borgeault’s Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening. Because she's coming from an "apophatic" contemplative perspective, she quotes freely from what she’s gained from her Buddhist background. As I was talking to Frank, I said:

"I'm curious: Do you, personally, feel put off by Borgeault's references to Eastern spiritual practice? I personally feel like she's simply giving credit where credit is due: she has a background in these practices and she feels like they have wisdom to illuminate the Scripture and our own tradition. I don't feel like she ever says "Buddha is just as important/relevant as Jesus Christ," or any such thing. It's fascinating that, as people of different faiths began getting to know each other, you see this "borrowing of wisdom" take place. You see it all over Merton as well. It seems like there are several different ways professing followers of Christ have related to those of other faiths…

Way One: All other religions are simply false. (Their "gods" or philosophies are nonexistent and irrelevant.)

Way Two: All other religions are demonic. (Their gods or philosophies are real and dangerous to body and soul)

Way Three: All religions contain shades and gradations of the Truth. (Their gods or philosophies are incomplete revelations, tainted by the humanity’s fallen and fractured state, that nonetheless contain glimmers of the story of Christ)

Way Four: All religions lead to a singular (or at least similar) path. (There is a beneficent Force governing the cosmos that none of us can quite grasp; this Force communicates to people in different times and cultures in different ways, but there's no significant qualitative difference between them)"

I then continued, "As for my .02, the First and Fourth Ways seem too black and white and simplistic, though they stand on opposite poles. Even though later Judaism seemed to view all gods who weren't YHWH as nonexistent, Jesus makes much of genuine spiritual forces who were nonetheless malevolent. And of course in Daniel you have the angels doing battle with the Prince of Persia, etc... The Third Way, advocated most notably by CS Lewis, is the one I want to believe most--that God has not just communicated in symbols and shadows not just to the Hebrew people, but to all times and cultures (See, for instance, the contemporary East Orthodox book Christ the Eternal Tao by Hieromonk Damascene.

Common sense and experience, though, suggests to me that Way Two is frequently the case-- humanity being what it is sometimes, faith becomes so twisted as to be demonic and dangerous, as is the case with televangelists and Vodou and fundamentalist Islam."

So, to recap: I think that I can learn about communion with God from a Buddhist or a Sufi, but I inevitably see God's clearest speaking in Jesus Christ. Jesus does not always negate the spiritual experience of other faiths, but--and this seems unkind and un-PC for interfaith dialogue--he sometimes does. When Christ calls us to conversion, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "He bids a man come and die." We're called to die to different things--different ingrained mindsets, different patterns of being, different destructive religious and cultural beliefs. I am not comfortable dictating what beliefs and practices are to be abrogated by people whose cultures I do not belong to--that is between them, God, and their Christian community.

For this reason I don’t have any beef with Carl engaging in "folkloric Irish practices (that have been practiced by Irish Catholics for centuries) that are clearly Pagan in origin." I believe that when the Holy Spirit came to Ireland, God wasn’t pissed at the Irish for being who they were. Since I believe that Jesus' call to make apprentices of the Kingdom of God applies to all people and cultures, and don’t think any culture has imperialist preference in YHWH's book. God’s great transition was from one chosen people to "every tribe, tongue and nation," and so when the Spirit brooded over Ireland, God lovingly extricated the Irish people from harm and embraced, and transformed everything else. God loves the beauty of worship from every tribe, people group and culture. This is, though, a break with a certain pluralistic orthodoxy that insists that every region will have their own inherent cultural religious expression, and that expression should never be tampered with. At this point any attempt at sharing another point of view becomes verboten from the start; I simply don't think this is fair.

Of course I realize that missionary history has a definite dark side, where financial opportunism and cultural imperialism can run rampant. But what many of my non-Christian friends (and even some Christians) might not know is that missional or apostolic work among indigenous people can and does take place with care and respect to the cultures involved. I'd recommend reading Roland Allen, Leslie Newbingin, or even my own church's planter Gene Edwards' The Americanization of Christianity to see how Christ can authentically incarnate into a culture in an authentic way.

Anyway, at this point your many readers of other faiths are reading all this talk about conversion and Jesus coming into other cultures and you’re either offended or colossally disinterested. "When will this exclusivist bigot be finished?" you tire. Okay, well let me see if I can bring this to a close and earn just a bit of your continued interest. Carl asks, "What are workable, creative boundaries for interfaith spirituality?" Can a "druid with a rosary" really work? How can we all be "friendly" to faiths with which we might (and indeed must at some point) disagree? And, "Where is my ultimate loyalty?"

I resonate with shunning the "smarmy sales job" of snake-oil evangelists out to sell a quick conversion. And yet...I’m not averse to sharing Good News, or the conversion of heart and priority that may result. I suppose, working with my appreciation of interfaith dialogue, I always respect the space that I’m in. To me (like a good Calvinist) conversion is God's job, and being open and engaged with others is my job. Because of the love of Christ within me, I'm naturally drawn to hang out with people and spend time with them, with no particular agenda. But the Spirit being who s/he is, I am "always ready to give an answer when someone asks you about your hope," as the first-century church planter Peter encourages (in 1 Peter 3:15). I don't necessarily think I've earned the right to knock and a stranger's door and bombard them with a plastic gospel. As my favorite faith-sharing group, Off-the-Map, says, Christians should "count conversations, not conversions."

I agree whole-heartedly with what Carl says about not selling people with chaos and fear. And yet! I affirm this even as the purifying fires of hell could be relevant, and God just might care about how we relate to others with our genitals. I like living in this tension. In another paradox that I'm going to have to chew on and digest, Carl says:

"As a Christian, I am in fact called to be an evangelist; but I understand that to mean that I am called to spread good news. And in today's world, and especially among Neopagans, talking about the Christian religion is the quickest way to subvert "good news," instead sounding like a tired old purveyor of religious negativity."

I think you're absolutely right, and I think that Jesus would agree with this completely. In fact, in one popular translation of scripture, Jesus says:

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message)

When you talk about being faithful to your values, I feel you...obviously you don't want to embrace so-called "spiritualities" that are hurtful, selfish, or unloving. I feel like a lot of Christians don't understand that God doesn't care about "Jesus" as some sort of abstract cosmological category; Father is in love with his Son because of his beauty and character. Jesus said "Whoever is not against me is for me." When some people at the end of their lives stand confidently before the Big J and read off their religious resume, he tells them "I never knew you." I think the Christian family’s views on "who's in" and "who's out" are out of sync with an intimate knowing of the risen Christ.

I like what Carl said about cultivating the positive and embracing the contributions of other faiths. Forgive me for pushing back a little, though: is there ever a place in interfaith dialogue to loathe aspects of faith--starting with your home faith to be sure--and repent, or turn from these patterns of being? I mean, in the physical realm most of us have no problem telling a friend they're engaging in destructive and life-threatening habits, from "You should really quit smoking" to "self-immolation is not the way!" Yet if the realm of spirit is at least as real as the material realm, couldn't certain cosmological choices have dire consequences?

Carl closes his reflection with the statement "I am free to love." It echoes my interview with Anne Rice a few months back, a gothic horror writer-turned eclectic Catholic. When I asked her what she'd like to share with fellow Christians, she told me:

"We need to stop being so afraid that the devil is winning. The devil's not winning--we are winning. Jesus is winning. God is winning. We have the strength and the time to open our arms to absolutely everyone. Rushing to judgment, condemning whole classes and groups of people--that is not in the spirit of Christ that I see in the Gospel. I can't find that spirit. I see the spirit of love, taking the message to absolutely everyone."

Link

posted by Mike Morrell | 9:33 AM | |


Friday, April 7

Via Crucis Grid Blog: His Body is Laid in the Tomb - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00081
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#14 - Stations of The Cross, His Body taken Down from the Cross. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 1:34 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: His Body taken Down from the Cross - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00083
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#13 - Stations of The Cross, His Body taken Down from the Cross. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 1:28 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: His Death on the Cross - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00002
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#12 - Stations of The Cross, His Death on the Cross. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 1:18 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: His Crucifixion - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00005
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#11 - Stations of The Cross, His Crucifixion. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 1:11 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: He is Stripped of His Garments - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00085
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#10 - Stations of The Cross, He is Stripped of His Garments. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 1:07 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: His Third Fall - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00027
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#9 - Stations of The Cross, His Third Fall. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 1:01 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: He Meets the Women of Jerusalem - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00033
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#8 - Stations of The Cross, He Meets the Women of Jerusalem. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 12:53 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: His Second Fall - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00067
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#7 - Stations of The Cross, His Second Fall. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 12:43 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: Christ's Face is Wiped by Veronica - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00029
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#6 - Stations of The Cross, Christ's Face is Wiped by Veronica. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 12:36 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: Simon of Cyrene is Made to Bear the Cross - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00006
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#5 - Stations of The Cross, Simon of Cyrene is Made to Bear the Cross. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 12:30 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: He meets His Blessed Mother - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00073
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#4 - Stations of The Cross, He meets His Blessed Mother. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 12:25 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: His First Fall - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00088
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#3 - Stations of The Cross, His First Fall . Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 12:18 AM | |

Via Crucis Grid Blog: The Cross is Laid upon Him - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00089
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#2 - Stations of The Cross, The Cross is Laid upon Him. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 12:06 AM | |


Thursday, April 6

Via Crucis Grid Blog: Christ is Condemned to Death - SB Image


Spencer_Burke_Graphitti_00070
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

#1 - Stations of The Cross, Christ is Condemned to Death. Graffiti photographed by Spencer Burke

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posted by spencer | 11:47 PM | |

Join The Via Crucis Grid Blog

next week is holy week and a friend of mine asked the blog community to consider group blogging on the stations of the cross. here is my stab at my interpretation from my graffiti series.

if it helps you in your reflection feel free to use these - just link back if you would.

spencer
_________________________________

The Corner: Join The Via Crucis Grid Blog: "The Christian tradition of Holy Week, which this year begins a week from today, originated in Jerusalem in the earliest days of the Church, when devout people traveled to Jerusalem at Passover to reenact the events of the week, leading up to what we now know as the Resurrection. I'd like to invite you to be part of an intentionally mixed-faith tradition, global gridblog conversation during this year's Holy Week, using our blogs to reenact, relive, and participate in the steps of Jesus Christ through what our many traditions have come to call the Via Crucis - the Stations of the Cross. "

Link

posted by spencer | 11:29 PM | |


Wednesday, April 5

Book review: 'The Secret Message of Jesus'

The latest edition of Next Wave features my review of the latest Brian McLaren book, The Secret Message of Jesus.
Anyone who enjoys a good spiritual conspiracy theory ought to be interested in Brian D. McLaren’s new book, The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth That Could Change Everything(W Publishing Group, $19.99). The title itself – and that “secret message” phrase, so pregnant with hidden intrigue – will no doubt pique the curiosity of conspiracy theorists, modern-day gnostics, and fans of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. (Or, if not Da Vinci Code readers, then those faithful evangelicals who have read any of the dozens of Christian “responses” to it.)
Continue...

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posted by Andrew | 2:57 PM | |


Monday, April 3

Spencer's Photo of the Day - 4/3


Spencer_Burke_CamPhone_00043
Originally uploaded by cavepaint.

in a coffee shop


posted by spencer | 2:00 PM | |