Urban Immersion: Homestead Heritage

"Having attained the age of sixteen years, I began to love wanton company, and though I was preserved from profane language or scandalous conduct, still I perceived a plant in me which produced much wild grapes."  Fitting words from John Woolman, the 18th-centuray Quaker spiritual mentor who spoke so highly of the necessity of pacifism, the care for nature, and the evil of slavery in regards to "walking in the light as [Christ] is in the light" (1 Jn 1.7).

The second stop on our Urban Immersion spring break journey was near Waco, Texas, at a simple agrarian Christian community of almost 1000 members called Homestead Heritage.  This community began with a small group of folks in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, in the 1970s.  They desired to create intentional Christian community there, and struggled for many years.  In their attempts to following the leading of God, they eventually came to know they needed to create a place away from the worldly forces of "the city" and live simply—a place they found in a few hundred acres outside of Waco.

They felt like Woolman (themselves being greatly influenced by the Friends and Mennonite traditions), being surrounded by a culture that grew "wild grapes" instead of the fruit of the Christian life as they knew it.

"It's hard to grow bananas in Alaska," a number of the members would keep telling us.

The simplicity of life at Homestead Heritage felt so comfortable and welcoming to me.  They use as little technology as they "discern" that they can—which, for now still includes cars, SUVs, and iPhones, due to the spread out nature of their land and members.  But their buildings are log cabins, or refurbished barns (from 1700s and earlier New England areas); they make their own dishes in their pottery mill, their own furniture in the woodshop, their own food with a sustainable rotation of crops, their own metal items in the blacksmith's forge.

Until you walk into their chapel and see a massive array of realistic grape clusters, vines, and leaves, all made of iron by hand, plus beautiful stained glass windows made by community members as well, you will not understand how excellent this community is at everything that they do.

Seeing all of this showed me the importance of teaching skills to people so that they might grow in independence, empowerment, character, perseverance, and temperament.  We live in a world of modernity in which masses of people are subject massive, national systems based on utilizing oil.  Homestead Heritage shows how civilization endures while living in as close harmony with nature as they can at the moment, and most especially how 1000 people can live in deep relationships (which they parallel with marriage) by "submitting to God and submitting to each other."

In my own ministry, I want to find ways in which to build Christian community in a place where people who do not have much personal power can gain it, through encouragement and through learning skills that allow folks to see the work of their hands, to take part in the collective effort of Christ's Body showing off the "multifaceted wisdom" (Eph. 3.10) inherent within it to sustain itself and feed those outside of it.

The greatest blessing they gave to me, however, was the conversation I had with Dan, one of their ministers.  I understand the logic of a climate determining what fruit grows there, but then I see so many people still left in "the city"—materially and esoterically—so what hope is there for those folks to see the fruit of simplicity and community which Homestead Heritage fosters?

It was Dan's own idea that it is possible to create a "greenhouse" even in Alaska to grow the specific fruit of life for which we aim.  I'll need to know what those glass walls (not literal) will look like, to know what kind of soil is fertile to the fruit of the Spirit (Matthew 13 & Mark 4 anyone?), and to have a group of people already experienced in tending that kind of garden before planting it in the cold, concrete plain to which God calls me.

What that exactly will look like, I don't know—but I'm thankful for Homestead Heritage planting a seed for my own dreams of life in the Kingdom of God.

Urban Immersion: CitySquare

"Cities are the way they are because somebody wants them to be."

Sittings around a conference table in the CitySquare offices in downtown Dallas, John's words made me begin to reassess how I view cities.  I used to think that cities and communities are only products of their own past—for example, many southern cities that once upheld slavery and later Jim Crow laws still have extreme geographical segregation of races and socioeconomic classes.

As it turns out, this is true—but the remnants and wounds left by old systems are perpetuated because actual people use them for their own gain.

As time goes by, wounds left on a communal scale by first explicit then hidden forms of racism have not healed wholly.  Reconciliation remains absent.  Subsequently, in the areas left poor from that abhorrent legacy, often an individual rises to such social power that they become functional mob bosses, expecting a payoff for any business or any social project trying to move into their neighborhood.  Without their approval, nothing happens.

This is the reality of working in a non-profit, John tells us.
And I think that is true:  Christians forming an organization with the targeted purpose of a non-profit are committing themselves to work within a particular system to bring not only services for the immediate needs of the disempowered but also to change the culture, to change the power structures, within the city for the benefit of those who cannot defend themselves.

Bartolomé de las Casas, a 16th-century Dominican Catholic cleric in South America, provides an excellent example here.  He was complicit for a good portion of his early life in the buying, selling, and exploiting of Native American slaves, even as a member of the clergy.  After a while, however, he came to see the system as one completely without God.

"I have seen with my own eyes, not read in accounts that could be unreliable, I have felt, as if with my own hands, the cruelties committed there against those gentle, peaceful people, cruelties of a kind so great, so beastly, nothing like them was ever done in the past by harsh men or mindless barbarians.  These cruelties had no rhyme or reason other than greed, the insatiable hunger and thirst for gold in our people."

And later, "Unclean is the offering sacrificed by an oppressor."  He told his own king that the entire people were oppressing the Indians—and therefore their offerings to God were unclean.

Giving up his slaves, he used every ounce of social and political power within the Catholic world to fight for the freeing of all Native American slaves, using the argument that Christ "fashioned a way of attracting people to Himself, to a moral life, by attachment to Him, compliance with his laws.  The was was respectful, attractive, altruistic, germane to human kind."

I, for one, have no real belief that political structures, at least in the U.S., can be redeemed in such a way that government will actually operate on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves.  I especially do not trust Evangelical Christians here to be able to operate within that system in a way that advocates for anyone but themselves.

Yet Bartolomé gives me a bit of hope.  He did not propose to deconstruct the government perpetuating the evil, but he did spend all his time trying to change that government and to destroy a particular social project—the "encomiendas."  He further shows that the Christian tradition has the resources for turning its own evil systems upon their head (if and when they exist), plus he explains that if we imitate Jesus, then the nations will flock to the "mountain of God"—whether we use words or arguments or not.

"Many peoples shall come and say, 'Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways..." - Isaiah 2.3

Urban Immersion: Detox - Jumping Out of the Boat

My intentional community learning/practicing cohort, MRNA (Missional Residency in North America), travelled to Dallas, Waco, and Austin, covering over 750 miles on the road and experiencing nine different contexts or communities related to Christian communal life in or near these cities from March 14 to 17.

I've entitled this post "Detox" because that's what I feel is happening.  I saw so many different contexts, which aroused just as manny reactions within me, then I heard so many things worth writing down yet many of which seem to contradict each other, that I almost feel my mind has become toxic holding it all simultaneously.

So I will be posting about a different community, context, or quote each of the next few days—partly to allow the sand swirling in the pool of my mind to settle, and partly because these things incited the passion that seeks the practical, tangible forms of Christian love, community, or responsibility with which this blog began.

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Jumping Out of the Boat

Things got real in the back of the MRNA Urban Immersion van before the sun even rose Thursday morning.  My friend, we'll call him "Marty," began explaining his desire to write a letter to his heritage—a veritable wake-up call directed at ruts the likes of which all traditions tend to find.  As he was thinking about that, and about an upcoming speaking engagement, he told me how a passage from Matthew 14 grabbed him and held him against his will.

"Immediately [Jesus] made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.  And after he dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.  When evening came he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.  And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.  But when the disciples saw him, they were terrified saying 'It is a ghost!'  And the cried out in fear.  But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, 'Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.'

"Peter answered him, 'Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.' He said, 'Come.' So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and come toward Jesus.  But when we noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink he cried out, 'Lord, save me!'  Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, 'You of little faith, why did you doubt?'  When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.  And those in the boat worshipped him saying, 'Truly you are the Son of God.'" - Matthew 14.22-33

"Marty" spoke of the courage it must have taken Peter to step out of the boat.  The synchronistic thing about this is that this exact passage is one over which I wrote a paper in undergrad—totally on my own, not for class, not for church, and only because I had this unyielding desire to write on it.

How often did I hear growing up of Peter's "little faith"!  How often did I ridicule him because he fell into the water—something the laws of nature already tell me would happen!  When we think like that, we assume the point is to ignore "the world;" we don't realize that the way we've chosen to do that is to stay in the boat and ignore the danger.

But here's the trick:  Peter knew all too well what was happening.  He and his fellow life-long fishermen knew the water, knew the boat, knew that they were in a storm that should terrify them because it could claim there lives.

And he didn't ask Jesus to come to his boat and calm the storm.

Instead, Peter told Jesus to call him onto the water.

Peter told Jesus to call him out of the world he knew, out of security, out of his best statistical chance for safety, into the waves, into the land of breaking the laws of nature.

Just because Jesus was there.

My friend, "Marty" seeks that courage.  Seeks the guts to be like Peter, stepping out of the safety of his heritage's traditions, because he sees Jesus in the dangerous, chaotic waves.  

Because Jesus, surrounded by danger and impossibility, is better than the boat.

So ask yourself: "Is it worth the fear, the humiliation, the danger, and the ridicule of falling, to step out of the boat, just to walk a few steps on the water with Jesus?"

Law of Love

The Body of Christ has rightly understood that Christ defeated sin and has ultimately won the victory of salvation from sin for humanity.  Yet in seeing Christ already ultimately victorious, as fulfilling the Law, and "that works of the Law cannot justify anyone before God" (Hans Denck, "Concerning True Love,' 114-5), many of the "body parts" have lost the connection between the perfect love and mercy and grace given to them through Christ and the holiness that should of necessity spring from it.

In a recent post on AtheismForLent.net, a contributor says:  "What if the resurrection was up to us?  How differently and passionately would we live if it was upon our shoulders to bring a resurrected Jesus to the lost, and without us God was dead?  Because I would argue [that] without a church willing to live as though this is true, we'll continue to live in a world that views God as nothing more than an antique."

That post is following the topic of Nietzsche's often-misunderstood "God is dead" quote, and I am not wishing to engage that nor to imply that I think we have anything to do with Christ's own resurrection.  However, I do resonate with this poster's statement that it is "upon our shoulders to bring a resurrected Jesus to the lost," to be "a church willing to live as though this is true."

Because of the social orders, the actions and the ways of living that the Church has professed and carried out in the past two millennia, God truly does look dead to many of the world—or at least an antique with no real impact in our present world but sentimental value.

Into this space Hans Denck describes our salvation as one that should make God very much alive to the world.  He contends that "only to the extent that one beholds [or holds in front of them, in their vision] the perfection of the Spirit is one saved" (114).  He explains that Moses, acting righteously on behalf of justice, killed an Egyptian to protect an Israelite brother—but perfect love would have moved him to die for that brother instead (114).

"We can see then why it is written that works of the Law cannot justify anyone before God.  The justification by faith which is worthy before God far surpasses the works of the Law.  For perfection forsakes the concessions contained in the Law...  Now one might object that nothing can be added to or taken away from the Law... Yet to this one must reply that love is the very essence of the Law, which nobody can practice too perfectly or understand too profoundly" (114-5).

If "love is the very essence of the Law," echoing Jesus' own words in Matthew 22, then Denck's conclusion absorbs the tension often felt in Matthew 5.17-8: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.  For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished."

The law is fulfilled in Christ's perfection.  Yet, Christ's perfection does not abolish the law:  Perfection actually extends the law—as the rest of Matt. 5 shows Jesus extended common teachings, even some directly quoting the Torah ("You have heard it said... but I tell you...").  Gerhard Lohfink, in Jesus and Community, explains how this move by Jesus "makes clear that in Matt. 7.24-7 the teaching of Jesus takes the place of the Torah. Now the Torah was Israel's order of life, its social order... For the people of God to exist as a community, its social order has to be put into practice" (Kindle location 725).

Anyone who claims to follow Christ does not merely follow cognitive propositions about our present state or eternal destination(s):  Instead, we must continuously be the Body of Christ by holding Christ—his teachings and perfection—ever before us, so that love might rule us as law.

Bartolomé de las Casas concludes that "what Christ does teaches us, because the Father gave Him to us as a witness, a leader, a teacher... That means obey Him, imitate Him. He teaches not just by words but by deeds as well what one must do to imitate Him" (The Only Way, 80).  This same Jesus also speaks of the fundamental nature of the works he does.  In his own words, "If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me.  But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father" (John 10.37-8); therefore, our life (and particularly our evangelizing) should be founded on living out the love which naturally perfects us first, then allow our words to rest upon that tangible reflection of Christ.

If the church, both institutionalized and not, should come to live this out, then even the world that doesn't know Christ would be hard pressed to deny the existence of Christ's perfect love.

The Follower

I'm not one for astrology, for fate, or spiritualizing every little thing that happens... But tonight, I saw a sign in the stars.

My Zodiac sign is Taurus, my sign the Bull.  We "Taureans" are supposed to be known as lovers of beauty, primarily, among other things like comfort and love and pleasure.  So, it would be fitting that I find the stars beautiful, and that I find comfort among them as well.

One of my favorite pastimes is to sit and watch the stars, with a pipe over which to mull if I can; with fire and friends, even better.  The brightest star in my sign, Alpha Tauri, is known by the name "Aldebaran"—taken from the Arabic al-dabaran, "the follower," because it is said to follow the Pleiades or "Seven Sisters" through the sky.  It's also depicted as the "eye" of the Bull.  When I don't know where else to look in the sky, when my thoughts are scattered and I just need a point of direction, Aldebaran is the point to which my eyes always return.

We need these points, do we not?  These familiars, these friends, who we know will always be where we can find them.  One point of consistency helping us see the greater picture set before us.

Maybe it's silly, maybe it's sad, maybe it's me just wishing I could be like one of the great mystics, but I have come to identify a bit with this star, Aldebaran.  Perhaps because I'm trying to be a follower myself.  Perhaps because I feel I've been chasing the Pleiades through the sky, and that the chase seems to have no end.

Tonight, if you looked up at the sky around 10 or 11 p.m. Central time, you would have seen one bright star shining right next to the Moon.  Yep, it was my star.  It was almost, but not quite, eclipsed by the bright Moon.  And from my house in the middle of Abilene, the Moon made it almost impossible to even see the Pleiades at all.  It was like the Follower's chase was over.  The Pleiades would never have let themselves be caught, but the Moon—the bigger, brighter, more luminous and brilliant and beautiful Moon—came right to him.  And in fact, the light of the Sisters could barely even be found anymore.

It made me think of what I had read earlier today from Gregory of Nyssa, in his The Life of Moses:
     "Such an experience seems to me to belong to the soul which loves what is beautiful.  Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived.  Therefore, the ardent lover of beauty, although receiving what is always visible as an image of what he desires, yet longs to be filled with the very stamp of the archetype.
     "And the bold request which goes up the mountains of desire asks this: to enjoy the Beauty not in mirrors and reflections, but face-to-face."

The Follower had been chasing many luminaries, which even together were not bright enough to match his own brightness.  But when Luna herself came to him, it seemed the old lights had dimmed, and the brightest star in Taurus had been met by a luminary more bright and beautiful than any he thought it possible to pursue.

Let's be clear—I'm not saying I've met a Moon for my Aldebaran.
Not even sure that's what I think it means anyway, if it means anything at all.
But I saw a sign.  One that made me stop and stare.  One that made me smile, and feel a little hope that might just draw me into something beautiful, as Greg mentioned above.

And that's the kind of beauty that this Taurean wants in his world—the hopeful kind.

The kind that tells me that I should seek after my own Luna, whose brightness comes not from herself but the one she reflects.

The kind that makes me want to see that Light face-to-face, as Moses did, and that gives me the courage to follow it.

The kind that makes me feel free in singing a song to whoever may one day be by my own side, even though I have no idea who she is.  Synchronistically, tonight it just happened to be a song by "The Lumineers"...

"Be in my eyes; be in my heart.
Be in my eyes, aye aye aye; be in my heart.
So now I think that I could love you back,
And I hope it's not too late 'cause you're so attractive;
And the way you move,
I won't close my eyes...
Be in my eyes; be in my heart.
Be in my eyes, aye aye aye; be in my heart."

One Full Week

Beware low expectations—you just might feel foolish for having them.

Last Monday I began my spring semester with a five-day short course studying and practicing a system of governance called "Dynamic Governance" or "sociocracy."  I've had quite a bit of first-hand experience in it since April 2012, so I really only took the class to get 3 credit hours out of the way.  In fact, I expected to be doing more explaining to peers than learning anything new.

All that to say, I entered the week expecting to be bored.

I came out of it with gifts from God, a new desire to follow up some career leads, and excitement about summer opportunities.

I have two years left in seminary and no desire to make ministry my paycheck.  So I need some guidance, and God, being God's paradoxical Self, simultaneously gave me just that while not speaking to me at all.  I'll save the details, but God basically gave me a gift that I opened to find empty—which was exactly what I needed.  By not giving me anything, God gave me rest, guidance, and told me that I was trusted (metaphorically, to fill the empty container; literally, to make a choice).

And that's where it begins:  God tells me that I am trusted, that I am trustworthy, empowered to choose.  Which beings me to some choices to make.

First, I have desired to speak to some local experts in journalism about places to begin discerning whether I want to write for a career or not.  And due to a serendipitous e-mail, I had dinner with one of those people on Friday!  I came out with sage advice, encouragement to practice copy editing or find a freelance niche, and an established freelance writer to use as a resource.

Can I say how encouraged I am by that?  I've already signed up as a peer reviewer for ACU's Graduate School Journal and would love to try my hand as a General Editor next year.  Plus, if I had a dream for writing at all, it would be to have the freedom to travel, to find the stories I desired, and have someone pay me for them—freelance journalism at its finest.  Of course, that takes a lot of networking and other work on the front end.  So I have to choose whether or not to start that work now.

Now, remember that class by which I expected to be so bored?  Turns out even those low expectations became a smothering ruin under the fire of my own excitement.

Learning about this governance system, this style of (communal) leadership I might say, caused the old, dust-covered shelves of my Leadership Development and Theory undergrad education to begin to creak and groan.  I've been inspired, perhaps in the biblical sense even, to investigate those old niches of learning, the old papers and notes, because I intend to use this as part of my Field Education component this summer.  One idea for a vocational that I have had is to be a sort of bridge-builder or mediator within a network of faith-based organizations and house churches, and learning about this type of governance has made that very idea seem possible.

Now here's the poetical portion:  I started this blog solely because it was required for a LD&T class on volunteer (nonprofit) leadership; I intend to spend part of my summer in Los Angeles volunteering, observing, and researching a faith-based nonprofit there.

It's like I'm going in circles... and I think I like circles!  *shudder at the thought I might actually like NASCAR*

I would do this volunteer/observation time at HomeBoy Industries, a nonprofit that has services including a bakery, a diner, a coffee shop, embroidery, a farmer's market, legal and education services, and they seek to employ former convicts, school dropouts, and unemployed persons.  It seems they seek to heal the social wounds that trap many people in poor, gang-controlled environments.  It seems they also seek to heal the wounds keeping people from knowing God.

Holistic healing.
Holistic empowerment.
Holistic liberation.
Yeah, I could definitely be a part of that.

Now I just have to choose to make the necessary phone calls.

You've been too good to me this week, God.  Too good.
It certainly has been a full week.

Watch Night

You think tonight is New Year's Eve?  Think again.

Tonight is Watch Night.

In point of fact, it is actually the 150th anniversary of the first Watch Night.  On December 31, 1862, free African-Americans and abolitionists gathered in their local churches, waiting for the midnight hour to strike—the hour that the Emancipation Proclamation took effect.  When January 1, 1863, began, slavery in America was pronounced dead.

Since that time, many in the Christian tradition have remembered this event, not ignoring the evil that came before and being thankful for the good that came after.  And so they should!—for it was a little over two millennia ago that the Christ himself proclaimed, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor and has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4.18-19).

What beautiful news!  What a great charge by which humans could live! If only...

Yet, there is a catch.  The Emancipation Proclamation did not make the slaves free, but only changed the tenor of the war from unification to liberation; the 13th Amendment ensured the right of freedom for them.  And even though followers of Christ have spread throughout the world, supposedly carrying Jesus' proclamation of freedom with them, the International Justice Mission estimates that at least 27 million people are held in some form of slavery worldwide—many of whom are in the sex trade, in places as far as India and as close as Houston, Texas.  Do you see the connection?

I see a need to make a proclamation into something concrete.  I see a need to bring the "law of Christ"(i.e. Gal. 5.6: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love") into power so that the proclamation of Christ will be realized.

"The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Rom 8.19-21).

And, praise God, those who belong to the Way that Christ immortalized are "all children of God through faith" (Gal. 3.26)—they are the ones upon whose revealing creation has been waiting.

So here, a week after remembering the "midnight hour" of all creation's healing in Christ's birth, we find ourselves again on the cliff of a new year.

The proclamation has been made, signed in the blood of the King.

The war continues, "nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom... This is but the beginning of the birth pangs;" yet, the war has been changed.

Slaves are called free, and now are charged by the King to spread that freedom.

So in this night in which so many celebrate beginning anew, let us watch closely.  Let us remember freedom proclaimed, and receive that freedom given in love.  It will honor pain, praise virtue, encourage a heart in despair, remember the forgotten, sit with the lonely, laugh in mirth, and meet the unforeseen future with courage; and, if you have it, then share it with those around you—it's meant for all people, everywhere.

"For in hope we were saved..."