The Story of Stuff

Tis the season to be a consumer:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

A Reflection Upon our Season of Fall

:::::  A Reflection from the Youth Director  :::::

Can you feel the earth tilt?  I write within Tuesday, November 18, 2008.  The sun set today at 4.45pm.  How many falls and winters have you crossed into, and through? 

 

This tilt and seasonal transition always beckons to me – it allows me to pause and deeply feel that I am alive today – right now.  I feel the earth tilt – I see it dim into beautiful fields of golden brown.  Does this season touch you to?  Does it draw you inward?  Quiet you?   I want to feel earthy!  I want to find the curve of earth within the arch of my foot.

 

Does this time of year awaken your senses?  How can we embrace this season as a church community?  This tilt, this transition, this dying – paradoxically they awaken our senses to look beyond ourselves to our natural surroundings, yet close us in to our inward sense of being.  What do we, as an intentional community (the church; Koinonia, Ecclesia), do with these themes?  Can we incorporate these moments of pause into our lives right here at Our Saviors?  A word that helps me understand all this is:

:::::    **WONDER**    :::::

 “We forget that both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge are deeply rooted in the soil of mystery.  The most incomprehensible fact is the fact that we comprehend at all.” (Coffin.)

              :::::    Why wonder?    :::::    Why am I talking about this?    :::::

 “Wonder” and Christ share commonalities.  If digested correctly they both have the same effect on us – they both grant us eyes to see outside and beyond ourselves – forming communities and individuals defined by an “otherness”.  This otherness in turn gives birth to a new kind of life that doesn’t necessarily find security and answers, but rather wildness, love, mystery, and justice…a kind of raw desire for more days, more tilts, more love, more justice…the greatest of course being love. (1 Cor 13;13)

This season, this reflection, this kind of Christ also brings real sorrow – it guides us deep, where both our lovely connectedness and our deathly disconnect sit as equal, share a bed, seek a love affair.

The next season contains the possibility of “God with Us”…Emmanuel.  Now there is a dose of wonder! The God of the Cosmos fully revealed in a baby out in the back-house, out of sight and mind  - this life that we know births God from a womb.  Flesh and blood here and now  - incarnate. Rev. William Sloan Coffin writes, “wonder has an ethical dimension, it leads to reverence…wonder/reverence and knowledge must find each other, re-wed, and stay married.”  (p4)

 Where does this all lead us as a Youth Group and a Church?

:::::    **SEXUALITY**    :::::

This big scary word is our theme at Youth Group for the month of November. Our conversation will specifically include our gay and lesbian friends.  We are also looking at homosexuality as a Justice issue throughout the lenses of Proposition 8 and the documentary “For the Bible Tells Me So”.

 So, why am I talking about this?  Why wonder?  I hope we digest it and become full of reverence for life, and active in a Christ-type of Justice. Wonder and Christ will be hitching posts throughout the sex/god conversation. The story of the Good Samaritan is a good focusing point.  Through this teaching we learn that ,

 “…it was the heretic, the enemy, the man of the wrong faith who did the right thing while the two men of the right faith flunked.” 

 - Casey Bailey

---

 Quotes from: Coffin, William Sloan.  “The Heart is a Little to the Left: Essays on Public Morality.”   

“Pages” in Right Column – Pictures

Click on the link under pages entitled “Food Awareness Event Pictures” – there is a gallery of the pictures taken by Maggie Caffyn.  The event was a success.

“Building Bridges of Understanding” the gay christian network

Building Bridges Of Understanding: Tony And Peggy Campolo On Homosexuality

http://www.gaychristian.net/campolos.php

Please click on the link – read the page of introduction and take time to listen to the Part 1-4 at the bottom.  I listened to the first part and think it is a great addition to our conversation.  It comes from a Baptist Evangelical!  Oh my!  Please email the address above with response or comment directly on the blog.  Here are a few quotes from the first audio presentation…

We need dialogue…

“each has to say there is something to be learned from the other side…maybe someone on the other side of the argument has some truth to impart to me that will help my understanding – this is essential for people on both sides of the discussion.”

must agree on one thing:

“…no matter which side of the argument you are…the gay and lesbian people are entitled to all the rights that heterosexual people are entitled to, including church membership – that they are entitled to an end of all forms of discrimination – that there should be no legal system that gives rights to heterosexual couples that it does not make available to homosexual couples…at that point we have to agree…that is simply a call for justice.”

“…If you go to the scriptures you will find the Bible uses the word justice and many times as it uses the word love…justice is nothing more than love translated into social policy.”

Four Posts:

Below are 4 posts that have to do with Sexuality.  I hope to incorporate the realities that each offer into the Our Saviors Lutheran Church Community.  We will be taking a closer look during our Wednesday Night Youth Group.  

The first two are films by Rob Bell, a Wheaton College and then Fuller Seminary grad.  I like Bell’s work for it’s parable-like quality.  It helps us feel and think for ourselves – it guides us into a deeper place.  Rather than limit us, it opens us up.

The next film is from MSNBC.  A commentary on Proposition 8.  We are going to approach the “hot button issue” of homosexuality.  This is very sensitive and is happening right now.  The newscaster’s name is Keith Olbermann.  

The 4th and final films are 2 snippets from the documentary “For the Bible Tells Me So”.  It is very well done and should help us get to the roots of this conflict and become an informed community that doesn’t ride the waves of hatred and popular demagogy. Here is the official website for more information:

http://www.forthebibletellsmeso.org/index2.htm

the she-ness of god

 

“god is womb-like. this is a feminine image for god.”

womb:    a. A place where something is generated.   b. An encompassing, protective hollow or space.

(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/womb-like)

“In 1971, in my second year as assistant minister in The Memorial Church, I drew duty on the October Sunday when the first woman invited to preach in the church’s pulpit was due to appear.  That woman was Professor Mary Daly, a Roman Catholic theologian from neighboring Boston College…  Her sermon was titled ‘Beyond God the Father,’ which would also become the title of one of her most influential books; the essence of her message on that autumn morning was that women had outlived patriarchy and the need of a patriarchal church.”   (Peter J. Gomes.  ”The Good Book.”  Ch. 7, “The Bible and Women: The Conflicts of Inclusion”)

3 hebrew words::: Companionship. Love. Sex.

‘raya’

‘ahava’

‘dod’

“True Sexuality is vast and mysterious.  It involves all of you.” (Rob Bell)

November 10, 2008 ::: media

commentary on propostion 8. 

Proposition 8 is a California State ballot proposition that would amend the state Constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman. It would overturn a recent California Supreme Court decision that had recognized same-sex marriage in California as a fundamental right. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008))

“For the Bible Tells Me So” ::: a documentary

gays. lesbians. scriptures.

we will view this documentary over the next 4 weeks.  it should be seen in full.  here are a few segments that I found on line.  It documents four families and their journey with a gay or lesbian child.  one of the kids is Gene Robinson who grows up to be the first gay Bishop of the Episcopal Church – Reverend Gene Robinson. 

 

Camping Trip

Yeah, weThe Bob Marshall and Lindsay and Jim

The Bob Marshall and Lindsay and Jim