There has been a ton of great new music recently (Josh Ritter, Band of Horses, Everest) including the new album High Violet from the National. On this album there is a song called “Runaway” that has captured my spiritual side for the last week and won’t let it go. The song plays out as an internal conversation happening within someone who realizes their limitations in the face of what looks to be a lengthy struggle. But even though he knows what is coming there is still a sense of commitment and hope that gives him the strength to go through with it. The music itself is one long build… there is no chorus or “hook” that you would expect from a pop song, but instead a landscape the mirrors the repetitive and meditative sentiments of the singer. There is no resolution offered musically or lyrically just the lingering feelings of this doubtful yet hopeful person about to start a troubled journey.
As I begin to wrap my head around the transitions facing my life, this song has captured a glimpse of where I stand spiritually. Though I have my doubts about myself and all the uncertainty that swirls around me, I am still ready to go through with it because I have faith in what is to come. Here is a video of the band performing the song, I hope it means something to you:
Dear god, I’m trying hard to reach you
Dear god, I see your face in all I do
Sometimes it’s so hard to believe in
Good god I know you have your reasons
Dear god, I wish that I could touch you
How strange sometimes I feel I almost do
And then I’m back behind the glass again
Oh god what keeps you out it keeps me in
There was a conference a couple weeks ago down in Claremont entitled “Theology after Google” where people got together to discuss the influence of technology on religion/theology and how new technologies and networks can be used for transformational ministry. If you want to know more about the conference, google it! My friend Barry gave a lecture on what it means to be human in our techno-driven culture and how that influences how we approach and interact with the sacred. I’ve included the video of his talk if you are interested (If you have an extra 20 minutes I would highly recommend watching it because it touches on a lot of really interesting issues facing spirituality). There are a couple things he mentions that really got me thinking:
The Techno-Self: The way we define and create the self is constantly being reformed and shaped by the tools we use. The technologies that we employ on a daily basis change the way we are in the world and thus change who we are. As we find more and more identity through our technologies (not just computers and cell phones but social networking, media consumption, transportation, work habits, etc.) it changes how we approach the sacred and demands a rethinking of our relationship to the divine. I’m not saying the new way to God is through blogging our prayers, but I think he raises a great question about how we are expected to function in one paradigm in our daily lives and then switch to another, more structured, paradigm in our spiritual life. One of the challenges (if not the biggest challenge) facing the church is how to embrace network thinking and the thechnologized self of contemporary culture. I believe one of the starting points is to let go of our desire to master a knowledge of the sacred and begin to live into the stories of the divine that are happening through us and around us.
My favorite line of Barry’s talk is how we need to “give up the struggle for mastery and enter into the sheer delight of living.” For too long I think the church has been focused on authority issues regarding God/God’s will and apologetics instead of participating in the life of God. If we can give up the notion that God fits into our enlightenment thinking and instead embrace the mystery of God we might be able to find new ways of sacred expression and spirituality.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these issues as well as anything else that may come to mind after hearing what Barry has to say.
Hey everyone, this Sunday after church we are going to continue our Lenten movie series with “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” . Afterwards I’m leading the discussion on the symbolism (particularly baptism) in the film as well as how it wrestles with the idea of redemption. I hope you can join us.
I’m all about the twitter references these last couple posts aren’t I? While I was doing my internet rotation this morning I noticed that one of the trending topics on twitter was #Godis. It’s nice to see that other people are thinking about and expressing their feelings about god and it’s even funnier that the subject is sandwitched between Justin Bieber and #iheardyousay. Here are some of my favorite answers that I saw
God is…
waiting for you.
& always will be a trending topic in my life
gonna get me to my destination despite all the tomfoolery that has taken place thus far
reading this trending topic
teaching me something new everyday
trying to tell you something…listen
There were also a lot of one word answers like “Great”, “Awesome”, “Strong”. “Love”, “Everything” and “Busy.” How would you answer? Here’s your chance: God is…
In my last post I mentioned that my friend Barry is exploring how we can incorporate spiritual practices through the use of twitter and it got me wondering; where are the best “spiritual places” on twitter? Here are a couple of my favorite twitter users that provoke spiritual thought as well as some of my favorite of their tweets. Enjoy!
@SoulPancake
“List 3 things in our current society that would surprise future anthropologists”
“What experience completely changed your belief system?”
“How do you make sure that you’re constantly ‘growing’?”
@CSLewisDaily
“Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is-C.S.Lewis”
“We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it’s there for emergencies but he hopes he’ll never have to use it.”
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less”
@HolyGod
“I love you all”
“Reviewing extinct species.”
“Me: Knock, knock. You: Who’s there? Me: God. Let Me in.”
@joyfrequencies
“The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind. – John Burroughs ”
“Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. -Anne Lamott ”
“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen. Robert Bresson ”
Are there any other spiritual places on twitter that I should know about? Hope this was helpful to you as we continue to find ways at exploring a holistic spiritual life.
Hey everyone, sorry I have been MIA from the blogosphere for a while. Here is what has been capturing my attention:
Great new music: Peter Gabriel, Broken Bells and Gorillaz. The Peter Gabriel cover album “Scratch My Back” finally came out in the US and is absolutely wonderful. Really good music to meditate with… it has helped me relax and decompress these last few weeks. Broken Bells is the funky and folky colaboration between Danger Mouse (from Gnarles Barkley) and James Mercer (from the Shins). I can already tell that this is going to be one of my favorite driving albums of the summer. The Gorillaz have come back after 5 years with their album “Plastic Beach” which features some of my favorite hip-hop artists and beat makers. I haven’t really dug into it yet but there are some really great grooves and lyrics to keep you interested.
I just finished up helping with a class at Fuller on theology and media culture that turned me on to the HBO series True Blood. While it certainly has it’s fair share of explicit scenes and over the top violence, the show deals with much more than modern day vampires. The show deals with the cultural themes of “otherness” and plurality facing us and how we are able to accpet the radically different and create new ethical paradigms in the face of such challenges. The class has been a helpful challenge in understanding how we are (and I am) changing with the influence of new technologies and media outlets and how we are to understand each other in the face of these new tools.
For Lent my friend Barry has started a twitter campaign called SP140… spiritual practices in 140 characters or less. It has been a really cool way of exploring how something like twitter can help shape my spiritual life and provide a focus durring this season. Some of the cool practices have been: “Dont use sarcasm or cynicism today”, “Make a list of your doubts about god Your fears about life and your worries about yourself Then burn it” and “Don’t text today just make calls.”
So there you go… that’s what has been up with me these past few weeks. We have some cool things comming up at church that I will post about in a bit. Until then, enjoy life and continue to pursue God in new ways.
Hey everyone, here are the things we used in our discussion last Sunday. These next 8 weeks leading up to Easter we are going to be walking through the Gospel of Mark, inspired by Nick Cave and his unique take on how we can come to know Jesus through his humanity. If you want to read the intro he wrote for the Gospel of Mark you can find it here… this is my favorite little bit of it:
“The Christ that emerges from Mark, tramping through the haphazard events of His life, had a ringing intensity about him that I could not resist. Christ spoke to me through His isolation, through the burden of His death, through His rage at the mundane, through His sorrow. Christ, it seemed to me was the victim of humanity’s lack of imagination, was hammered to the cross with the nails of creative vapidity.”
Have you ever wondered about how much you actually consume? What if you took the time and analyzed everything that you have bought in the past month… what would it say about you? This is artist Simon Evans’ meditation on consumer influence. He’s taking a step back from all of his “stuff” to see how his consumption has shaped his life and identity. I think that we gain a lot of self identity through what we consume… our decisions about what clothes, music, tv shows, books, food, hygiene products, transportation, websites, etc. we use goes a long way in showing the world who we are… or at least who we want them to think we are. How does all of this affect our spiritual identity? Does wearing a cross around our neck prove we love Jesus? Do we gain our spiritual identity through which church we do (or consciously don’t) attend? Where does your spiritual identity come from? Mine has come through my faith community, study and an openness to God’s posibilites. That being said I’m still a tremendous work in progress. What about you, where does your spiritual identity come from?
There has been a ton of great new music recently (Josh Ritter, Band of Horses, Everest) including the new album High Violet from the National. On this album there is a song called “Runaway” that has captured my spiritual side for the last week and won’t let it go. The song plays out as an internal conversation happening within someone who realizes their limitations in the face of what looks to be a lengthy struggle. But even though he knows what is coming there is still a sense of commitment and hope that gives him the strength to go through with it. The music itself is one long build… there is no chorus or “hook” that you would expect from a pop song, but instead a landscape the mirrors the repetitive and meditative sentiments of the singer. There is no resolution offered musically or lyrically just the lingering feelings of this doubtful yet hopeful person about to start a troubled journey.
There was a conference a couple weeks ago down in Claremont entitled “Theology after Google” where people got together to discuss the influence of technology on religion/theology and how new technologies and networks can be used for transformational ministry. If you want to know more about the conference, google it! My friend Barry gave a lecture on what it means to be human in our techno-driven culture and how that influences how we approach and interact with the sacred. I’ve included the video of his talk if you are interested (If you have an extra 20 minutes I would highly recommend watching it because it touches on a lot of really interesting issues facing spirituality). There are a couple things he mentions that really got me thinking:
Hey everyone, this Sunday after church we are going to continue our Lenten movie series with “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” . Afterwards I’m leading the discussion on the symbolism (particularly baptism) in the film as well as how it wrestles with the idea of redemption. I hope you can join us.
For Lent my friend Barry has started a twitter campaign called SP140… spiritual practices in 140 characters or less. It has been a really cool way of exploring how something like twitter can help shape my spiritual life and provide a focus durring this season. Some of the cool practices have been: “Dont use sarcasm or cynicism today”, “Make a list of your doubts about god Your fears about life and your worries about yourself Then burn it” and “Don’t text today just make calls.” 
Have you ever wondered about how much you actually consume? What if you took the time and analyzed everything that you have bought in the past month… what would it say about you? This is artist Simon Evans’ meditation on consumer influence. He’s taking a step back from all of his “stuff” to see how his consumption has shaped his life and identity. I think that we gain a lot of self identity through what we consume… our decisions about what clothes, music, tv shows, books, food, hygiene products, transportation, websites, etc. we use goes a long way in showing the world who we are… or at least who we want them to think we are. How does all of this affect our spiritual identity? Does wearing a cross around our neck prove we love Jesus? Do we gain our spiritual identity through which church we do (or consciously don’t) attend? Where does your spiritual identity come from? Mine has come through my faith community, study and an openness to God’s posibilites. That being said I’m still a tremendous work in progress. What about you, where does your spiritual identity come from?