The Corner

Prayers for Wild Goose Gaggle

One of the things that I find so stifling about modern churchianity is way in which it has attached itself to facts and models, setting itself in a mirror with science & reason.  Left out of this battle for the minds of people is  imagination - neither churchianity or ist twin, modernity, seems to care much for the arts, for things that animate the soul or captivate our bodies.  Religion has too often become a series of declarative sentences, a formula that can be easily used to put people in boxes.

The impact on people of faith has been fairly destructive, at least from my POV.  Successful pastors publish books that seem more like recipes, theologians seem to compete for who be the most disconnected from the practice of faith.  Left outside, on the margins, are people who create art - painters, sculptors, songwriters, film makers, game writers.  For me, this has rendered churchiniaty as somewhat akin to the world portrayed in Gary Ross's 1998 film Pleasantville:

I'll be spending the next few days in Kansas City, MO with a group of folks who yearn for the bright colors that following God in a Jesus way can bring.  This effort - currently called Wild Goose - is inspired by the Greenbelt festival,  which began in 1974.  These 4 days of the Greenbelt festival are a time of gathering & sharing for thousands of people who are engaged in music, art, activism and faith. 

Over the last 8-10 years, a number of groups have held the vision for a U.S. festival inspired by Greenbelt.  The group gathering Kansas City - which we are affectionally calling a Gaggle - represent a fairly broad spectrum of faith backgrounds, as well as organizational affiliations.  We'll spend time praying, listening, talking - even creating some art & worshipping together.

We hope to discern some critical decisions - whether, when, where - by the time we finish our meeting  Saturday afternoon.  If you are a person who prays, I ask you to hold us in prayer that we can listen for the still, small voice that God so often speaks in.

'No Values Voters' Looking To Support Most Evil Candidate

Heroes in a condition of doubt and uncertainty: Tara, WALL-E, The Dark Knight & Parker Palmer

This season in films is filled with heroes - a bright red one,  a uniquely American girl, someone who is not so smart,  a kick-ass panda and even a nasty, snarky superhero. 

image from Kate's Eye

I depend on heroes in my media diet, even pretend ones, to embody hope and to point out a path for slaying the dragons (real & imaginary) that arise in my journey.   Lisa, my wife, is a living, breathing hero of mine - she teaches me so many lessons about how dragons might not be so scary.  People who compete in the Olympics have always been heroes of mine, ever since my mom & I watched the '72 Games in Munich.  Artists are heroes of mine - the way they animate life and live in a rhythm that is their own.

Tara Hunt had a great post on what it means to be a hero, in which she lays out some of the attributes of heroes she groks:

#1, to be a hero is to be selfless
#2, to be a hero is to hold true to a code of ethics
#3, heroism requires action
#4 ability to be egolessness
#5, heroes don’t discriminate

That is a pretty high bar Tara sets - it is tempting to be cynical and not even try to meet that standard.  But more & more, I am reminded that cynicism is a spear with fear at the tip, looking to pierce creation in all it's beauty.   Even at age 44,  I need heroes to stave off that cynicism, to fend off the spears.

I really resonated with Tara's point about another aspect that makes heroes so captivating:

They falter. They have times where they don’t want to be heroes. They want to be “normal”.

This is not what we expect of people in our lives - we do not expect friends to falter, we are thrown off when "heroes" want some time off, when they hunger to be normal.

This is particularly the case when faith is part of the equation.  Pastors fall, soul friends are normal broken people, great artists or writers so often do not want to be great or heroic or ab-normal.

I thought of this again when I read Uncertainties About the Role of Doubt in Religion, in which Peter Steinfels asks a powerful question:

So what exactly does it mean that many contemporary believers will be living their faith “in a condition of doubt and uncertainty”?

So much of my cultural experience of faith is holding up the pretense of certainty, covering up the doubt.  Just like the superhero outfits that Peter Parker or Princess Diana of Themyscira dress up in, I think of my faith as some "outfit" that I needcto pt on when things get dangerous.

The summer 2008 film season started pretty cynically for me, with a hero from my younger trotted out in a film that was just beneath the talents of all involved.  But over the last few weeks, I have been lucky to sit in a dark room with hundreds of other people living in doubt & uncertainty, animated by the stories of two rogue robots and the narrative imagined by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finge.

This summer's gift from the folks at Pixar is WALL-E,  conceptualized, written & directed by Andrew Stanton.  A commentor I adore - Rod Dreher - has described this film as a "postmodern masterpiece ....one of the most        subversive films I've ever seen", even going so far as to describe it as what would happen if "Wendell Berry made a sci-fi movie for kids".  As proof of what a truly extraordinary work this is, a writter on the other end of the political spectrum - Frank Rich - writes in glowing terms about a movies that clings to "the fleeting green memory of the extinct miracle of photosynthesis is as dazzling and elusive as the emerald city of Oz."

In this interview, Stanton, a self-described Christian, unpacks some of the heroism that this work of art captures:

Well, what really interested me was the idea of the most human thing in the universe being a machine because it has more interest in finding out what the point of living is than actual people. The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love, but that's not always our priority. So I came up with this premise that could demonstrate what I was trying to say--that irrational love defeats the world's programming. You've got these two robots that are trying to go above their basest directives, literally their programming, to experience love.

With the human characters I wanted to show that our programming is the routines and habits that distract us to the point that we're not really making connections to the people next to us. We're not engaging in relationships, which are the point of living--relationship with God and relationship with other people.

 

As my buddy rick writes, The Dark Knight is not "just" a comic book story - it is much more than that - it is:

a crime drama, a jarring and frightening suspense movie, a meditation on good and evil, a challenge to beliefs and assumptions about order and chaos and human nature; it's a collection of psychological studies, a descent into despair, a call for hope, a horror movie with a mass murderer stalking citizens, a story of love and loyalty. and it's got kickass action. and brilliant, subtle, serious acting.

I was most struck by the tension between anarchy & order that Joker & Batman embody.  The Joker challenges the conventions of a villain in that he has no inhibitions and refuses to adhere even to the ultra-basic moral code of criminal.  The Joker traffics in terror, plays with the very nature of what being a hero means, makes a joke of the idea of good existing or triumphing.  The climatic boat scene will no doubt be shown countless times as a sort of social experiment to test heroism among common folk.

I must say I have been somewhat haunted by how the film ends.  Batman takes on a mantle of darkness, some we must hunt & attempt to capture.  The community is now part of this heroism - it is no longer a single figure who holds hope.

Paul Fromont blogged recently about a book we both recently read - The Promise of Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life.  Parker Palmer is a hero of mine - an author, educator, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change.  He lives & writes in the world that Peter Steinfels captures - he also reaches for the type of hero that Tara Hunt captures.  But his heroism, at least for me, comes in the way he talks openly about how he falters, his struggles with depression & pride, his very normal-ness.

Paul points to a section of Palmer's re-released book, which for me could easily fit into the stories of rogue robots and a dark knight:

“ …The capacity to embrace true paradoxes is more than an intellectual skill for holding complex thoughts. It is a life skill for holding complex experiences. Take for example our encounter with “the other,” with the person who sees a different reality from ours because he or she stands in a different place. To some extent, the other contradicts not only our thoughts but also our lives, and that can be threatening. If we lack the capacity to allow this to segue into a paradox – a both-and that has the potential to open our minds and hearts to something new – we will most likely fall back on our hard-wired “fight or flight” response. But if we understand the promise of paradox, our encounters with “the other” have the potential to make our world larger, more generous and more helpful…

If we are willing to “hang in there” with a country, a colleague… a child [or a fellow Christian with a different understanding of Biblical interpretation, sexual ethics, truth, and orthodoxy] – holding the unresolved tension between reality and possibility and inviting something new into being – we have a chance to participate in the evolution of a better reality..

 

What is faith ?

Bricks or a trampoline ?

Matthew 25 Network: Don't just stand on the sidelines complaining this election season

Brian McLaren with an invitation to join the Matthew 25 Network, to to step off the sidelines as an observer or critic:

For nearly 2000 years, followers of Christ have sought to live out             their faith in the real world – under a variety of political             systems: empires, feudal systems, tribal systems, monarchies, totalitarian             regimes, anarchy, and democracy. In our American democracy, we have             struggled, stumbled, fallen, and gotten up again, and again, learning             each time as we moved forward. We have grappled with how our faith             related to declaring independence, opposing slavery, confronting child             labor and economic depression, embracing the dream of overcoming racism,             and so much more.

Now we face unprecedented global crises: caring for our fragile and             wounded planet, building a just peace in situations of conflict and             fear, and eliminating extreme poverty. Electing the wrong president             will set us back even further in these crises – something we             cannot afford to do. Electing the better president will not solve             everything; it will only be a first step in the next chapter of our             history, but it is an important step.

         

Fascinating analysis from Frank Newport at the Gallup Guru Blog:

Younger Americans have always (well, at least back through the 1970s at any rate) been less likely to identify with a religion than those who are older.  But it appears that the percent who say "no religion" has been significantly increasing among the youngest Americans today compared to its increase among older Americans.  So older Americans are relatively more religious than younger Americans because they are old -- a standard pattern, but also it appears because the young people of today are particularly less likely to be religious than was the case for the young people of yesterday. 

How Am I Living - Biblically, Oprah, Cost Benefit

One of the things that has gnawed at me as a person who calls himself a Christian is how my beliefs impact my acts, how my practices are faithed (as Brian McLaren has said).  This gnawing has made me fascinated with faith memoirs, stories like Sara Miles or countless other fellow followers of Jesus tell.  I gain a lot more insight into how to faith my practices from these personal stories than I do from the churchianity "cookbooks" that are too filled with 7 step plans or cartoonish models for my soul's taste.

I really, really enjoyed A.J. Jacob's The Year of Living Biblically , the quest of a self-described secular guy's attempt to live the ultimate biblical life in the 21st century.  To get a sense of this, go here to
Watch A.J. Jacobs's 2007 talk from the EG conference .

From radiant guy

Along the same lines, I was intrigued to hear on NPR the story of  Robyn Okrant, an actress working and living in Chicago, who is spending a year following the advice Oprah Winfrey dispenses on television, her magazine and her radio show. She is blogging this experience at Living Oprah - so far, she's spent $2000, her life isn't significantly better, and she's really tired.

In her blog header, Okrant writes:

"I am performing an experiment: for one year, I will live as Oprah advises on her television show, on her website and in the pages of her magazines. The tagline to her website is "Live Your Best Life" and I wonder, will I truly find bliss if I commit wholeheartedly to her lifestyle suggestions?  Additionally, I'll be charting the cost of living as Oprah prescribes.  Will the costs - financial, time spent energy expended - be worth the result?"

That last line is where my mind & soul fight - I so often want the results to outweigh the costs.  My business experience trains me to look at the effectivess of investments, the cost benefit of commitment & energy.  More & more, I sense this is a hurdle to living a life following Jesus, in community with God's creation & in God's beloved community.

Changing from I have been to what I am called to be

For the past several years, I have really struggled with giving myself over to a deeper sense of what my work might be about.   I derive a great deal of my definition of self from the income I make and the success I have in my work.

I tend to be a person spring loaded for action, so listening does not come naturally.   For the past few weeks, I've been much more conscious of being shaped by a greater force:

image from IIIrd Eye

In my daily devotional, this week has included this quote from Ignatius of Loyola:

"There are very few people who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves into God's hands, and let themselves be formed by God's grace."

Greg Garrett is a writer who I admire a great deal - his recent post Patience and Hope is along much of the same lines:
 

In that tension, we will find ourselves—and God will find us—in a place where weeds can become wheat, in a place where evil will be condemned, in a place where someday God’s people will shine like the sun.

But until that time—grow. Change the world around you. Welcome people into and beneath your branches.

And pray that all of us will know the One who changes us from what we have been to what we are called to be.

Radiohead - House of Cards

my lord they are geniuses - here is the making of video

my vaca media diet: one little piggy went running, one little piggy....

one of the many things that was just glorious about our vacation was time - wide open spaces, to lose myself in Lisa or sleeping or reading something longer than a magazine or newspaper

here is my media diet from last week

image from mostlysunny1

I am the 7th from the last person I know who had not read The Shack by William P. Young.  It is a yarn, a human-sized story about all of God.  I give it a smiley pig:

I turned from Mac in the shack to Entertainment Theology: New-Edge Spirituality in a Digital Democracy by Barry Taylor .  This is a dense & powerful engagement with the implosion of churchianity and a lot of what may come next.  It was a powerful conversation partner for me, so I'll give it a genius pig:

I was a bit disappointed by the new book from Tom Wright.  He is a rock star in some circles, but I was pushed & pulled by too many lists & too much head-stuff.  i give it bacon mints:

ethan canin's america, america is a power house of a novel - canin is a gifted writertelling a story that pulled me in & took me away.  I give it a whole suckling pig, with all the trimmings:

a few friends had suggested praying in color by sybil macbeth - i loved her approach so much, I sat down Sunday when we got back and drew a prayer from my being about my next steps vocationally.  I give it a colorful pig:

we watched all of season 2 of weeds,  the hilarious satire of suburbia starring one of my fav actors Mary-Louise Parker.  i still feel a bit drink from 6 hours of the show, so I'll give it a pickled pig:

 

 

Happy Anniversary Journey !

Today is the 4 year anniversary for the faith community we live as a part of here in Austin - Journey Imperfect Faith Community.

It has been such a gift for us to be a part of this rag-tag group of Jesus followers this past year.  I have been moved by their embrace of our family, their grace under pressure and the enduring wisdom that they have shared with us.  Among faith communities that can be described as emerging, Journey is one of many who are living a Ἔξοδος story, following in the exodus from organized religion that can so often stifle the soul.

Etiquette experts tell us that the proper gift for a 4th anniversary is fresh cut flowers.  Journey is more of a wildflower place:

image from Mommyof4Ruggies

 

What We Brought Home From Our Vaca

 

Bought this painting by Br Cletus at a great gallery in Waring,Tx - we call her

Sophia of Sisterdale.

Off on A Digital Detox

We are dropping off Katie for camp at Laity Lodge , then spending a week in the Hill Country. 

I'll be back in a week....

Sea Don't by TheGWT

The Most Patriotic Thing An American Can Do

James Taylor - 'On The 4th of July (Live)'

A July 4th Playlist

SeeqPod - Playable Search

I just love Chris Corrigan's blog - he points to a credo that is powerful:

First is G*d. All flows from here. That is saying something, since it could be viewed the other way: that G*d arises from the human. G*d is in the human to be sure, and the divine and the human inter-exist. Yet the divine is larger, has leakier edges.

G*d is relevant because we are of this community. We are seeking to grow this community, make it whole and healthy, and this entails embrace and confirmation. The dialogical is of G*d. G*d is the conversation: G*d converses and is this flow between.

We are nothing alone. We cannot exist without reference points. We cannot know ourselves until another knows us. This is why we seek love—not just something to hold, but someone to know us and hold us as just us. Neither can we be together if we do not exist as individuals. Both are needed.

Dialogue is both our existence and what we do. We are beings in our doings.

Our purpose is to stir things up. The stirrings are the living edge of us. Where we leak into others, there we create new life. This is the work of conversation: to create new life.

Dialogue then is not a mere tool, but the fountain of life. Drink from each other’s mouths and ears the stuff of life.

The between is life. The between throws off life. The between lives. The between gives life. We meet in the between. We live in the between. What we do separately is done only to serve the between. The between is life.

RELEVANT Magazine Q&A With Barack Obama

Cameron Strang's Q&A with Obama has some insights into his faith-based initiatives:

We also want to train more sophisticated groups—the big megachurch or Catholic Charities—to work with the small storefronts, or the synagogue or mosque that doesn’t have as much know-how, in applying for federal funds to be able to participate. So I think that if we make it broad, if we have clear standards and clear principles governing the program, if it’s not perceived as being an extension of politics but rather a way to ensure services get to the people who need them, then I think we can generate support from Congress.

into his stance on decreasing the number of abortions in the U.S.:

I think we know that abortions rise when unwanted pregnancies rise. So, if we are continuing what has been a promising trend in the reduction of teen pregnancies, through education and abstinence education giving good information to teenagers. That is important—emphasizing the sacredness of sexual behavior to our children. I think that’s something that we can encourage. I think encouraging adoptions in a significant way. I think the proper role of government. So there are ways that we can make a difference, and those are going to be things I focus on when I am president.

great quote about tools & teaching/learning

LParisi   Tools don't teach but they can change the way we teach & learn. - Chris Lehmann

For This Reason Alone, Please Vote for Obama

Obama: We need all hands on deck

image from Scorrigan...

These past few days have shown 2 examples of why I think Barack Obama is a politician who can have a positive impact on the U.S.:

Over the weekend, Obama announced he would oppose the California ballot proposition seeking a ban against same-sex nuptials.  It is a bold move, but one that makes sense for a person who has spent a lot of his life as "the Other", the person who is an exception to the majority.

Obama, who got his political start as an organizer in Chicago's black churches, called for an expansion of President Bush's initiative distributing federal aid to church-based groups that provide community services.  He promised the faith-based initiative would be "central" to his administration if he is elected.

In his speech today in Ohio, Obama spoke about what seems like a foundation of his campaign:

As I've said many times, I believe that change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up, and few are closer to the people than our churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques.

That's why Washington needs to draw on them. The fact is, the challenges we face today – from saving our planet to ending poverty – are simply too big for government to solve alone. We need all hands on deck.

The sense of all hand on deck, that the beloved community is the whole bird - right wing & left wing - strikes at the core of why I am so hopeful for what is happening in the world around us.

Richard Lainhart: drift

drift from Richard Lainhart on Vimeo.

so relaxing & hypnotic

Faithing Our Lives In the Petabyte Age

image from @LO

In a cover article in the July Wired, Chris Anderson explores what he calls The End of Theory, the idea that we may be approaching a time at which science may take place without having theories.  Anderson terms this The Petabyte Age, a time when

where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.

Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired & a great futurist, wades in, shifting some of Anderson's concept to suggest that we are entering a new type of science,  Corrolative Analysis.  Kelly also points to George Dyson, who suggets that this new method of doing science -- gathering a zillion data points and then having the OneMachine calculate a correlative answer  -- can also be thought of as a method of communicating with a new kind of scientist, one who can create models at levels of abstraction (in the zillionics realm) beyond our own powers.

Kelly ends his piece with this observation about the future:

good answers will become a commodity. The real value of the rest of science then becomes asking good questions.

I have been musing a bunch on the quotes that Anderson uses as stakes in the ground:

"All models are wrong, but some are useful."  George Box

"All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them."  Peter Norvig

I don't know much about science, but I do realize more & more how following Jesus in modern churchianity is deeply rooted in models.  We have faith, we can make a case for Christ, we have exchanged the mystery of the ages for a set of statements we are certain of.  As wonderful as any theologian is, they traffic in theories and in models, in ansers that increasingly strike me as commodities.  Go to any bookstore, find the faith or religion section - then prepare to be overwhelmed by the number of models, of pre-chewed answers that can be found in those books.  Their vast number may be overwhelming, but in terms of making meaning, they underwhelm.

Life, as I have experienced it, is not so big on answers, not so strong in making sense.  Life is a tangle of questions,  a mess of connections and dead ends that animate in ways marketable answers never can even approach.  I sense some of this sense of questioning this this great post from Pete Rollins Toward Religionless Christianity - I was particularly grabbed by this quote from Bonhoeffer:

“And we cannot be honest unless we recognise that we have to live in the world etsi deus non daretur [even if there were no God]. And this is just what we do recognise - before God! God himself compels us to recognise it. So our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8.17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering”.

We can, as Bonhoeffer notes, "manage our lives without him (God)".  But the beauty is in faithing our life, absent a working hypothesis, holding the fragile question of meaning found not in omnipotence, but in weakness & suffering.  If we are entering an age of cheap & easy answers, of models that are distractions or even destructive -  a Petabyte Age - then it will be this type of faithing, this holding of slippery & transforming questions that is at the heart of "a true recognition of our situation before God".

Ron Rosenbaum: 4 Stages of Catchphrases

Notes on Catch  via

Stage 1, when you first hear a phrase and take pleasure in its imaginative use of language on the literal and metaphorical level. This may not be the most beguiling example, but consider "throw up a little in my mouth." I'm still kind of attached to it.

Stage 2, when you use it to establish "street cred" (time to throw "street cred" under the catchphrase bus?) or convey a sense of being au courant.

Stage 3, when the user acknowledges a phrase's over-ness and tries to extract some final mileage out of it by gently mocking it, usually by using ironic quotes, or adding "as they say" to the end.

Stage 4: terminal obsolence, dead phrase walking. Take "at the end of the day." It kind of stuns me whenever I find someone still saying "at the end of the day" with a straight face. What are they, stuck on stupid, as they say?

CNN: Evangelical movement touts 'Jesus for president'

image from indycoach

The Jesus for President roadshow is on the move - this segment is really great

"We've profaned the blood at the foot of the cross and turned it into Kool-Aid and marketed it all over the world. We'll make an art and a business out of taking the Lord's name in vain," Claiborne says as images of Christ on the cross and the American flag flash behind him.

They endorse no candidate and make no effort to sway the voters for one party or another.

After the speech in an interview with CNN, Claiborne said, "This is not about going left or right, this is about going deeper and trying to understand together. Rather than endorse candidates, we ask them to endorse what is at the heart of Jesus and that is the poor or the peacemakers and when we see that then we'll get behind them."

Claiborne says the movement of younger evangelicals is growing and looking at the Bible in more holistic terms. He is quick to say the call of Christ has more to do with how people live their lives on November 3 and 5 than how they vote on November 4.

"It's certainly easy to walk into a voting booth every four years and feel like you're going to change the world but that's not going to do it."

Biofuels pushing 30 million into poverty

The human cost of the global biofuel switch was put in stark terms today by international advocacy group Oxfam, which released a report saying biofuels are responsible for pushing 30 million people into poverty (International Herald Tribune &  BBC coverage).

I am at EduBloggerCon at -NECC - you can follow the Twitter feed here.

great quotes so far:

"How do we become digital bridges?"

"Web 2.0 pulls away from standardization, towards personalization"

"Are we just struggling with the same questions in new clothes ?"

                                                   

                                                

Family Legend

web2.0 apps new to me

• poll everywhere  embeddable polls, voting via cell phones
• ChaCha. Good Answer Ask any question in conversational English from a cell phone. Call 800-2ChaCha or text 242242 and get the answer as a text message in a few minutes.
• dipity timeline metaphor for organizing online media  - as an example  most influential americans
• FlickrStorm - Collect CC pics from flickr quickly for students to use.

Webkinz in Elementary Schools

                   

               

Gebara: We dream of a tender justice

Ivone Gebara is a Brazilian Sister of Our Lady (Canoneses of St. Augustine) and one of Latin America’s leading theologians.   She writes grounded in her context in Brazil, focussing on women's struggle in poverty & patriarchy.

I got the chance to read her some while I was in seminary - a quote of hers has really been in my soul as I have watched the struggles around faith & politics play out again & again in the U.S.:

We dream of a tender justice; we yearn for democracy and respect for the res publica. ... Ivone Gebara, Out of the Depths

image from jayjuice...

Tender justice - that is an idea that challenges the posture of righteous anger, that calls into question the use of power as a weapon to define who is in charge & who is dominated.  Tender is a word that is so outside of the megaphone culture that surrounds most of the West - a sense that something is so delicate, so fragile, so fine as to be scarcely perceptible.

Res publica is a Latin phrase, literally meaning "public thing" or "public matter". Res publica is the origin of the word 'Republic'.    It is an idea that is very foreign from what the U.S. experiences, with our emphasis on what we own & consume.  Having respect for what is held in common by many people - that is the very essence of living in a community.  No matter if that community is our neighborhood, our faith community, our state or our country.

As I have meditated some on Gebara's quote, I've wondered what the power of God & the vision of God might mean in a world so often feels so opposite to tender, so foreign to public matters.  The power of God is the hope to survive another day when all the odds are against life. God is the vision of alternatives to suffering, a vision that sustains hope and life, even if it is experienced in a fragile and temporary way.

A Very Now Version of Pete Seeger and Lee Hays's Classic

Click To Play

Mary Hodder and Joshua Levy close out the Personal Democracy Forum in NYC with "The Twitter Song."  The song "If I had a hammer" was a Civil Rights anthem of the American Civil Rights movement and covered by dozens of major artists, including Sam Cooke, who recorded the song in concert.

You Ought To Be Listening To Sam Phillips

I still have Dancing with Danger as an album, somewhere in the boxes of stuff we drag from place to place.  Leslie Phillips was quite different from the CCM artists I listened to at that point - there was a sense of ache, a complexity that made her stories stand out.

Over the past 25 years, I have listened to Leslie - now recording as Sam Phillips - as she has created art & story with words & sounds.  It is telling to me that she describes her fav hobby as:

Trying to make order out of chaos.  Most of the time, it doesn’t work.

You can hear that in her songs, the effort to make order & disorder that often accompanies that effort.

Listen to this Tiny Desk Concert she did at NPR - and just enjoy !