This is my friend April and her family band:

And this is where they are playing this weekend, Saturday at 7:40p at the Center House:

And this is what people like Cleave are saying about them:

Last night ended on a perfect note. Harp 46 (April, Nuc and Posido) put together a beautiful multi-media music performance. They made all the videos and played their music, while Brian McLaren read along some readings about the “story” (Creation, Crisis, Calling, Conversation, etc…). It was absolutely gorgeous - they had a great turn out, and it was a very peaceful, reflective time. THAT is the type of worship we need in the General … {read more…}

I am the pastor of Room 203. It’s my job to bring these kids the love of Jesus. These are my stories. (You should all make the two-toned sound from Law and Order in your head now: domp-domp)

Lex Rox!

This is me. And this is a mountain and sea of love over me. And I’m thinking that this is what I bring to Room 203. ‘Cuz, you know, incarnation… Jesus… love..I’ve got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart…all that stuff.

Lex painted this for me and it pretty much broke my heart. Lex is my favorite kid in Room 203. I call him Lexi-Loo, which he hates, so I’m trying really hard to stop. Lex has a headful of black curls that are perpetually too long, too tousled, and too tangled. Lex has the soul of an artist and green eyes that could see through your skull. (Don’t bother trying to BS this kid)

Lex is also in trouble a lot.

I’ve made it my duty to touch base with Lex every single day. Sometimes, I commiserate with him when he’s in the Uncooperative Chair (which is often). I was playing with my hot wheel (sniffling) and it was my dad’s hot wheel (a bit hysterical now, because dad doesn’t live at home) and it went in the 176 box!(wailing) (The 176 box is the place where things go and you can’t have them back until the last day of school–day 176.) Sometimes I intercede for him with another kid. Natalie, you say Lex stepped on your toes and he says he didn’t step on your toes. Since its morning and we’re starting fresh let’s just dust our hands off and start fresh okay? No one needs to talk to Mr. C. It’s all good right? Sometimes I try to cut him off at the pass before he gets busted. Lex, karate chopping hands are not for the classroom, right kiddo? But mostly I just tousle his hair and smile at him.

Then one day, he made me this picture and my heart melted.

Later that day I called his Mom and Lex’s voice was on the answering machine. So instead of leaving a message for Mom, I just told Lex how I’d had a great day with him and that I thought he was a great kid. His mom, who I’ve never met, called me back to thank me. I was afraid she would think I was a total weirdo kid-stalker, but instead she said that Lex really needs that right now and that he looked really proud when he heard the message. Then she and I had a great talk. I like her. She’s got spunk. Must be where Lex gets those eyes. That kid slays me. I love him so much!

The Quiet Corner

There is a child curled in the Quite Corner behind the folding screen. She is sobbing, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. I know this child is perky and bright, bilingual but doing better than the other bilingual kids and eager to help them along, a natural leader. I also know her home is very fractured. A step mom and infant brother in another country with grandma. A step dad and birth mom expecting and other baby here soon. Free breakfast, free lunch. Thing are complicated. Today she is crying because last night she broke something of her older sisters: a ceramic ring that sits on top of a light bulb and spreads scent through the room. My mom yelled at me. And she sayed a bad word at me. And she kept saying the bad word at me. And my Dad was watching TV and he just keeped watching the TV. And when we went to bed I sayed to my sister ‘I’m sorry,’ and she wouldn’t say nothing. The heartbreak, betrayal and abandonment in that short paragraph were so big. It floored me, frankly. So I prayed silently. I prayed the same thing I pray often for my own children, “Lord, heal the hurts of this day.” And we talked about how hard it is when a family member isn’t ready to forgive you. I and finally I said, I know someone who helps people forgive one another, and I’m going to ask him to help your sister forgive you and for you to be friends again, okay? I’m going to ask my friend to carry some of the hurt and sadness you are feeling so it won’t feel so heavy to you. I’m going to do that all day, and then you can tell me about it later. The little girl just nodded and held my hand and I patted her back until she calmed down.
About a month later I was in the classroom, roaming around talking to this kid and that kid, when the little girl came up to me and said, Remember when my sister was mad at me? Well we’re friends now! I’m sure they had reconciled long ago, but she suddenly remembered and wanted me to know. It reminded me again about how ministry works. We think we are serving “the world” and “the world” is really blessing us.

Mr. C’s Cheerleader

Room 203 has a male teacher. This is pretty rare, a male kindergarten teacher. Rarer still that this successful MBA would decide to go back to school to learn how to teach five year olds
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What if the women had been able to tell the story? What if Eve had been the one to describe God, to give the divine a name? What would have rolled off her tongue, what would my mothers have inscribed if their hands have been taught to write?

Why do we know so little of our mothers? Why were they silenced and by whom – and how different is that really from the way women’s stories are silenced now because they are different than the rest? Is it so different now, when these new sung tales are feared and quieted because they are something other (in manner if not in substance) than what heretofore had been told? (It makes me … {read more…}

A year ago I was having my house painted by this really neat guy named Jim Henderson. He used to be a pastor at a mega church. Now he runs Off the Map (very incarnational evangelism/missional living stuff). His day job is painting houses. (Email me if you live in Seattle and have a painting project to hire out — I’ll hook you up!) Anyway, last Summer I had just started out on the adventure that is ThPM, and frankly, I was splashing around a lot. My coworker, Bill, had already advised me to attach myself to Jim’s hip at the earliest possible moment. So one day, I stood on my front lawn and looked up and Jim on his ladder and asked him if he wanted to go to lunch.

“Are you asking me to lunch?” he said.

Uh oh. Had I crossed some sort of gender boundary or something? Yikes!

“Yeah. I’m asking you to lunch.” I replied.

“‘Cuz ten years ago no pastor would invite me, a housepainter, out to lunch to talk about church planting stuff.”

(laughing) “Well, Jim, I’m pretty sure ten years ago no pastor would have invited me, a woman, out to lunch to talk about church planting stuff either.”

So. We two misfits, we went to lunch. And that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Jim spent the whole summer painting the house. We stretched it out as long as possible because I liked having him around for counsel and conversation, and it worked out well for him because he had to “push pause” (as Cate would say) on painting in order to travel for OTM conferences. Cate was only 2 at the time and couldn’t say Jim’s name right so he became Missser Geeem — a much beloved jack-in-the-box appear in windows in paint spotted overalls. We instantly fell in love with his wife Barb as well and now we feel weird if we don’t have some sort of contact with one or the other of them every week or so.

This morning, the girls and I were doing encircling prayer. We make a circle with our hands and imagine that some part of our world is inside the circle. Today we were imagining our neighborhood inside the circle. Then we pray, “Encircle us Lord with your love, keep….within, keep….without. For you are love and within your love we stand.” The girl take turns pretending to pick things up and put them inside or outside of the circle. (Keep making friends inside, keep fights outside. Keep playdates inside, keep robbers outside.) After we’d done that for awhile, Eden asked to email this to Mr. Jim:
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I spent the morning on my knees. Nope, I wasn’t praying, at least not in the typical sense of the word. I was on my front sidewalk with a package of egg-shaped colored chalk marking out these messages in opposite directions from my front door.

It’s Eastertide, Solstice, a season of light. The light in me greets the light in you.

May the blessing of light be on you, may the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great fire.

In the middle there’s a big, poorly drawn sun with the world ‘elohim’ under it in little tiny letters. Some would say that I should have just skipped the ‘elohim’ all together, but some are not me; and me, I’m Jesus-y (as Anne Lamott would say) so the ‘elohim’ stays.

Here’s a little aside for you: I read somewhere recently that ‘elohim’ is term used to represent the feminine side of God’s nature and that it fell out of favor for the more masculine “yahweh.” (I really really hope that this was not in the DaVinci Code, because it would be really lame to quote that particular piece of fiction as though it were a textbook. Please please let me be thinking of Susan Monk Kidd or something.) I wonder if that’s true, about ‘elohim’. And if it is true, why did we abandon one for the other? Probably because of whom the story tellers have been in the past. But now women are starting to be story tellers again, in the public realm, so maybe the stories will change. Maybe we could start telling elohim stories. We were standing on the sidewalk, admiring my handiwork when I said this to my housemate, and then I added, “Or we could just be pissed off.” And Sharon, who is the gentlest person I know, said, steadily, “Yeeeees, but sometimes you have to be a little pissed off so that you get to the point where you are telling the stories.” As the Brits would say, “Right.”

Anyway, I am totally obsessed with all things light related. …
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…in which we flounder around trying to figure out how the Bible is authoritative in a postmodern world. There is a disclaimer about postmodern theology if you want to read it here.

Here’s another thing that makes me feel schizo right now. It has to do with this part of the verse from Mark 5:

If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.

In the world of postmodernism — which are the cats eye’s glasses most of the world now wears and which I’ve suddenly found myself wearing–one of the things that is valued is a multiplicity of expressions. Sometimes people define this as relativism, although I don’t think it has to be that extreme. I think it has more to do with story, and honoring each other’s stories and understanding how truth flows with the telling of a tale. At any rate I’m finding more and more lately that as a postmodern person I am veering away from debate, which I find mostly non-relational and contrary to story-hearing and story-telling. This means that when conflict arises, I ask one or two questions, and then if the heat just gets turned up, I often shrug my shoulders and be on my way. I say to myself, “Self, you have to do what you see the Father doing. God is vast. Maybe they are seeing something he’s doing that you’re just not privvy to. Your sibling is never your enemy. This is not a teachable moment for either of you.” Then I move on.

But then I get to things like this in Amos:

I want justice – oceans of it. Fairness—rivers of it.

How does this jive with, “Shrug your shoulders, walk away?”

For instance, recently I got an email in which a guy told me I sounded like a female chauvinist in my comments on The Ooze. Since I’d never commented on The Ooze, I tried to find out what the hell he was talking about. The website is huge, and I’m a technophobe but Jen helped me find out that an article I had written for Next Wave on women in ministry had been posted on The Ooze along with a discussion forum. One of the guys in the discussion is a deacon in his church. He said the article was “one big whine” and that ministry is not about “career advancement”, but “dying to self.” I wrote him back and asked him how obeying one’s call is suddenly “career advancement” (and therefore naughty) and not “ministry.” (At least, if you don’t have a penis. If you have penis and you follow your calling, even doing so aggressively, then hey, you’re a leader and everyone should follow you. But if you want to do what your heart is screaming at you to do and you don’t have a penis, people tend to accuse you of not being humble and wanting power and stuff. Am I ranting? I think that’s ranting. Okay, back to the topic at hand.) He said that in many churches the community determines the call, and that if you think you have a call and the community disagrees then you should just acquiesce. You should stop “whining” and go serve God elsewhere, otherwise you are just being self gratifying. (And did I mention how belitting it is to use the term “whinning” as though you were speaking to a child? Wait…ranting again..defintely schizo.)

Now, let’s just set aside for now the fact that when the “community” is dominate by an archaic patriarchal system only the men have any real voice, any real power and it’s not really the “community” making a call, it’s the well-hung members of the “community” that are making the call. What I am really asking myself here is, what do I do here? Do I shrug my shoulders and move on? Or do I seek justice – oceans of it. Fairness – rivers of it?
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…in which the little voices and I pontificate on pneumatology related stuff like healing and the theory of “how people get saved” which must have a ‘ology’ word but I’ve forgotten it. (Yes I went to seminary but I’ve never claimed I was very good at it.)

Warning: My theology is organic so it grows and dies back a lot and it is nearly always rooted in story. I think a lot of my theology is a part of a bigger thing called emerging theology, but this is a pretty big bush so you should really read this disclaimer here.

Jesus called the Twelve to him, and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority and power to deal with evil opposition. He sent them off with these instructions: “Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. you are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple. And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave. If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.” Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different; right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, healing their spirits.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with this story from Mark. Mostly love. I love that they are in pairs, that no one is alone. The social activist in me loves it that they are told to live simply. (Don’t ask me how I ended up in a six bedroom house in the Wallingford district in Seattle. It remains a mystery to my minimalist soul. Maybe I should have seen it as the first sign of the impending schizophrenia.) The peacekeeper in me loves it that they are told not to pick a fight. The Jesus Freak in me loves the radically-different joyful-urgency bit.

I get frustrated though, that’s I’m not Eowyn slaying demons and casting out evil spirits. I’ve only been a part of that once or twice, and frankly it’s scary and exhausting and most the time I didn’t know what the samhill I was doing. I’m sad too, that I’m not a healer. Some of my favorite books are the Nicolas Darrow series by Susan Howatch in which an Anglican priest with psychic/healing powers battles good and evil in his inner city parish. Except for his major issues with women and the whole borderline mental illness thing, I want to be Nicolas Darrow. I dig healing. In fact just last week I had this whole ridiculous healing fantasy which popped into my head I while I was walking around Greenlake.
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I’ve been going through my office today, clearing out in boxes and file folders. I’ve found some notes that I don’t know what to do with, but I don’t exactly want to throw them away either. Since I’m using my blog as an archive or sorts – I thought I’d just type some of them up and post them. Then, they aren’t floating around my office and I can still find them if I need them. And maybe they’ll even spark some interesting discussion.

These are notes I made about potential workshops I’d like to lead at conferences or gatherings. I think I made these notes in the last six months or so…maybe when I was at Mayhem in … {read more…}

May the blessing of light be on you - light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it.
And may light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the window of a house, bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the rain be on you, may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star.
And may the blessing of the earth be on you, soft under your feet as … {read more…}

Why don’t I ever find any great things like this on the internet. It’s a hilarious funky tune about stress. Thanks Jen for the heads up — and for the great little entry on stress and the pogo stick.