“If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life.  See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.  In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”  -Frederick Buechner from Now and Then

I read this in the beginning of one of the chapters in Tim Keel’s book Intuitive Leadership several weeks ago, and it has been a mantra reverberating in my mind and in my soul ever since.  It’s like a tune that gets stuck in my head and I can’t let it go.  If you haven’t bought Tim’s book yet, please do, because it’s good and you will be glad you did, but if not then I hope this quote resonates with you as well.

I am blogging again…kind of. There is an option in my Theology II class for doing our reading responses via blog. So, to be my eco-friendly self, I went that route, as did the rest of my reading group. So I decided to put my responses up on my sister blog, which I haven’t yet found a purpose for…until now. So if you want to read any of my thoughts on our reading, you are welcome to. I will try to keep in mind that there are people out there who have not read what I am responding to, but I will like fail in that regard. So if you want, head on over to http://jonathanemyers.wordpress.com/

marie and i left the confines of urban seattle this morning for a few days to get away.  often we will do this instead of taking one big vacation a year, and we love to find quaint little towns.  marie is taking the time to attend an addictions seminar on a native american reservation outside of la conner, wa.  i am spending the day in la conner reading, writing, and just generally relaxing.  so we’ll be at a b&b and then on friday we’ll head to the hills for some hiking and then head back to seattle friday night.  la conner seems to have a great feel to it with a lot of small shops, restaraunts, museums, and antique shops.

i am writing from a coffee shop/bookstore that i found called the next chapter.  as i walked in around 9am a group of old men were sitting around a fire and pulling out articles and talking about consciousness and subconsciousness.  i wanted to join them, but it was clear that i was vastly out of my league with these brilliant men.  i ordered my americano and sat in another corner to continue my reading of god is not great and working on my review of hitchen’s work.  it was hard to read as i was also dropping eaves on the group of old men listening in to their rich conversation.  after they left i took a short reading break and went about browsing the books near the comfortable chairs where they were sitting.  i was noticing books by caputo, tillich, derrida, and kierkegaard in the philosophy section.  i began thinking that i should grab a couple of these since i was here.  but i continued to move down the wall and noticed a section with mclaren and the typical list of emerging church type books.  as i’m reading the titles by claibourn, scandrette, pagitt and others i am seeing my own bookshelf at home was well as my amazon wishlist.  it was clear that i couldn’t just pick one or two books when i could have walked with an entire box full of works that i’ve been wanting to get and read for some time.  then as i moved into the spirituality section i recognized my set of phyliss tickle’s divine hours and a lot of henri nowen, as well as one of my professor’s books paths to prayer by dr. patricia brown.  what i did not notice however was the kinds of books that i would have found in the family christian store or lifeway.  curious about this i engaged in dialogue with one of the owners about how it is that they came carry only these kinds of christian books, how long the store has been open, what that group of old men was about, etc.  it turns out the owners described themselves as emergent postmodern christians, one of them graduating with an m.div from trinity in chicago and also hosts of a small christian community that meets in their store on a regular basis.  they hope to be a resource for the kinds of pastors that are in the area and they also seem to host a lot of students from regent, who like to get off campus up in vancouver and come to la conner to stay, research, write, etc.

all this to say that it was great to find a place that felt so warm, welcoming, and inviting to spend my day of reading and writing.  i think that when people think of opening a coffee shop as a space for conversation, this place is the ideal image of what that might look like.  it was a joy to find kindred spirits in a quaint little town an hour north of our home in seattle.

I think the Western Church has become something even worse than the “buddy of Christ” I think we’ve become the no-longer-interested-spouse of Christ. The partner who is so disengaged in the relationship that they are dissolved in apathy and not even interested in divorce but have resigned themselves to a love-less, passion-less living out the rest of their days. I don’t mean to be a doomsayer but I must say that is what strikes me when I interact with most people in normal American churches, not to mention the feeling that I get when I have to sit in a service.

This quote, from Kester Brewin’s blog really disturbed and resonated with me. Kester had a previous post about what he was calling the “buddy Christ” of Western Christianity relating it to social networking in the vein of MySpace and Facebook. His musings were about the nature of friendship and how that context works its way in ideas of faith and Christian community. I love Kester’s blog, and I just recently bought his book ‘Signs of Emergence’ which is the U.S. version of Complex Christ. I’ll probably have to wait until the holiday break in December/January to read it, but I am looking forward to reading it. In general I am finding much more affinity with the U.K. stream of emerging church than I am with what I am encountering here in the U.S. I wonder what the reasons for that are though. Certainly being at Church of the Apostles and working with Karen Ward plays a big role in that, since she also finds herself much more at home with the Brits. I also wonder if it has to do with my own angst and frustration with America and our version of Christianity.

The woman who said the quote above (I wish I knew her name or was able to link to her) is really on to something methinks. It would be easy to pick apart the quote and analyze, especially the phrase ‘normal American church’ but I am more concerned with the overall feeling that is being expressed. As someone who works hard to become and remain detached in my relationships, I am both relieved and troubled by this sense that Americans are disengaged spouses of Christ. I think she is right though. I am relieved that I am not the only one who thinks this, but yet troubled by the truth of it. I think of my family, who all attend church and believe in God. Both of those ideas are very detached though. Church is something to go to, kind of like dinner with the family. Growing up though, I got the sense much of the time that it was simply a necessary break from T.V. or some project, because if you didn’t eat and spend time with the spouse and kids, then you weren’t a real family. Belief in the Western world, we all know is almost exclusively cognitive in nature. I do believe work is being to done to reverse this, but I can’t get over this feeling that is articulated so well. Psychologically speaking, am I resonating with this because of my own fears about my own marriage and then projecting that onto the church of America? I don’t deny that I have at times been disengaged from my wife, but I am very interested and deeply in love with her, so maybe I just know what it feels like.

I am also currently reading ‘God is Not Great‘ by a journalist who, through the first few chapters, outlines why Religion Poisons Everything. He is not talking about a detached religious experience, but just the opposite. People who are so passionate about their religion that they do insidious things in the name of God. Of course for the author, Christopher Hitchens, this is the very reason why we need to get rid of God altogether along with all of our religious ideologies. Maybe I’ll go into more detail about his book in a later post, but suffice it to say having that in my head while reading the quote has really gotten my mind working.

It seems to me that amidst all of the evil that has been done in the name of God, apathy and disengagement is actually worse. How could I possibly say that apathy is worse than rape, murder, oppression, and enslavement? Maybe that is over the top. Maybe it isn’t worse. Maybe it is just a different thing altogether. It seems that when apathy arises, humanity gets stuck. Nothing moves. I think of a stail pond that just smells bad during the summer. No life to it. If this is where the church in America is headed, then what are we to do? I think this is the very question many mainliners are asking themselves and have been for the past few decades. Evangelical and Charismatic churches may not be at this place, but it is not out of the question that they will be at some point in the not too distant future. So, while I don’t know what to do with the quote above, it will sit in the pit of my soul for some time as I attempt to process it and struggle with it.

the vacation kind of tailed off toward the end of the week which means that we did a lot of sitting around watching movies and shows.  we also finished up some of the landscaping work around the house, but there is of course always more to do.  sadly enough, i have to say the best part of our vacation was a gift we received from our neighbors (who also happen to be the parents of our good friends gwen and gary).  they had a nice tv that had a red line down the left side of the screen and had already upgraded their own tv so they wanted to get rid of this broken tv.  turns out the red line is only noticable on a black screen, so viewing isn’t effected at all.  so we had a new toy to play with which is always nice.  i don’t know if that actually beat the rest and relaxation that we gained from the week.  i feel ready to head into the new week and new trimester at school.

here’s my obligatory gitty post about the upcoming football seasons for my two teams. ohio state and cincinnati bengals. i remember watching this buckeye’s game last season at my buddy gary’s house and we looked at each other with a “did you just see that!” look on both of our faces after this play…

ohio state will struggle this year, but probably not until the end of year when they’re schedule gets tough. cincy on the other hand choked last year big time, but i’m hoping that this year we live up to our potential and talent. the video and song are really funny to me, but that’s just because last year was so frustrating watching my team lose in so many creative ways.

so hears to a good year of football to all fans everywhere!

well for those of you follow this blog, i’m obviously working through my fear of the internet by blogging more. but i am still working on developing some kind of rule of blogging for myself, that i may post at some point. until then, my posts will be quite shallow and more informative about life that is happening. for now that is about all i’m comfortable with at this point.

with that said, this week marie and i are on vacation. we didn’t go anywhere, but have decided to stay in seattle and just spend time relaxing and enjoying our city. we’ve gotten lucky so far, since the weather has been beyond gorgeous. on monday we went with one of our housemates down to somewhat new sculpture park in seattle down by the water front. it was my first time walking through the whole thing, and it is quite nice even though it is a little on the small side. i hope to be able to spend some more time with the exhibits next time and do some more reflection on them. my favorite piece is the one in the picture. it spells out “love & loss” and the ‘&’ spins with the breeze. we followed that up by going to pike’s market and eating at beechers, which is an incredible local cheese place. they make and sell their own cheeses on the spot, along with panini sandwiches and soup. on tuesday we went over to lake washington and spent a couple of hours canoeing on the lake and later in the afternoon we went for a bike ride and a walk through the veterns seminary. today we spent the day doing landscaping around the house and are waiting for our pizza to arrive. so far the movies we’ve watched are ’school ties,’ ‘crash,’ and tonight we got ‘labyrinth’ through nextflix.

Last week was a week that exemplified what we are here for.  By we I mean many things from a broad understanding of humanity to a narrower understanding for Marie and I.   We have felt for a long time that we are meant for hospitality and community.  For the first five years of our marriage we have lived by ourselves, only occasionally creating space for others in our home.  Living in apartment complexes doesn’t help, but eventually we got to the place where we were tired of being isolated and decided to make the jump to community living.  So in May we launched on an adventure with our church that has been aptly named ikon house.  Since we’ve lived in the house, new community members have been moving in, and the house will be full by the end of August.  In this time we’ve also had the opportunity to invite many people over for meals and conversations.  Our priest has been over often to watch the first two seasons of the Wire, and life is finally feeling like it was mean to be lived.  But last week was  especially exciting as we hosted a new friend, Catherine, who is from London.  She got connected to us because she is from our sister church Moot headed up by Ian Mobsby.  She is spending her vacation traveling, mostly in Australia, but stopped off in Seattle for four days.   So we got to talk life, emerging church, and hear of her adventures in Seattle.  During her time in Seattle, we also got to host another family from Vancouver, B.C. at the house for a dinner and conversation.  Santosh and Felisha are in the midst of planting a church in Vancouver and we were able to create space for them to have conversation with some of our COTA community.   Life is best lived in community and we are thankful to be living that out after years of isolation and loneliness.

Today marks the anniversery of the first atomic bomb ever dropped.   On this day 72 years ago the United States dropped the “Little Man” on Hiroshima, killing nearly 70,000 people instantly.   Though we are the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon, we seem to be good at trying to police other countries whom we think are in the process of moving on one.  Does anyone out there know if we ever officially apologized to Japan for what we did, or do we still think it was our only and thus best measure of action?  Here’s a Wired article for more info and background.

For about the past 8 months or so, I’ve had an increased fear of being on the internet, namely in terms of social networking sites and blogging. Recently I’ve been expanding that fear into services such as Amazon and Google. This video summarizes some of what I am talking about, so if you’ve got about 10 minutes go for it, and hopefully there can be some generative commenting based on the video and further explanation.

I was just introduced to this video in a class this summer on media and relational theology. But like I mentioned earlier my fear stems back into the end of 2006. I posted a couple of journal entries that were intended to be private on a private blog that I made for myself. Long story short, the wrong person saw it, since I didn’t have all my settings correct and it led a lot of confusion and grief for myself and a small group of people. In a sense I became afraid of the media of blogging, and no longer trusted my intuition and have slowly tried to take myself off the internet. This is an impossible task of course, and ultimately is probably not the correct reaction, but I’m working through it.

The things that really creep me out in my conversations of the past couple of months are that nothing is really private that’s on the web and things that are ‘deleted’ are still kept somewhere. The only information that is private is what is communicated over a well encrypted connection, and most people who are common users don’t really have the capability of doing. More people have access to my communication through Gmail than I want to even think about. Don’t get me wrong, I love Gmail and all things on the Google grid so to speak, but sometimes I feel a little uneasy. I have deleted a MySpace account in the past couple of months, and have resisted opening a Facebook page. I have old blogs that have been deleted, but the reality is that my information is out there, and my deleted musings are not really gone. If somebody wants it bad enough, they can get what they want. If I apply for a job, my writing from years ago could potentially pose a problem.

An example of this would be a series of posts I did on UMC reform or about the problems inherent within the denominational structure I grew up in. Let’s say I move forward with trying to get ordained as a United Methodist and they choose to ’search’ me. If I say the wrong thing, that could have an impact. I do believe that blogging and public posting does allow for greater transparency and the potential for collaborative thinking that can be helpful, but there is this other side of the coin.

This week in a philosophy class with Carl Raschke, he made a comment as we were talking about Heidegger, Kant, and Descartes around the concept of doubt and questioning our thinking. When I wondered out loud how far that line of thought can go until we no longer act, he called me out on what called a ‘cop out.’ Of course I wasn’t copping out, but the point that he wanted to get to was when he eventually said, “A thought that causes paralyses isn’t really a thought,” and then went on to talk about Tillich’s idea of courage in philosophical inquiry. I think the same idea might apply here, in that I can’t allow my fear of saying something wrong to be the reason why I don’t post my thoughts, questions, musings, etc online.

I believe a correct response is to develop a kind of rubric that I need to follow in terms of how want to exist online. But what does that rubric look like? What kinds of rules and regulations should we impose on ourselves in order have the possible presence online while still protecting ourselves from potential abuses? Sure we can’t always see all the consequences that are around the bend, but the attempt should help us to see more than we would have had we not gone through the process. So who has any thoughts on the story of my own struggle or on the musings of one man’s interpretation of the future?

Note: As my wife is reading over my should she likens this problem to the plight of celebrities, political figures, and pop artists. The difference being all they have to do is make a speech or walk down the street and people take advantage of them. What I’m talking about is something that we can probably avoid to some degree, but maybe I do know a little bit about what so and so popular person goes through when they’re face dons the front page of the fake news paper staring at me in the checkout line.