Our multi-ethnic, multi religious Christkuanznkkativusday Celebration

We have decided this year at the Shepherds Crook to have a multiethnic/racial/religious holiday gathering this year. We have encouraged everyone in the community to come and to take part, not only dressing in their traditional garb, but bringing a special symbol that reminds them of their special holiday celebrations that happen in December, whether they celebrate the birth of the king, a harvest celebration, or a festival of lights or even a birthday. We are excited to see what that all looks like, but we have named our celebration Christkuanznkkativusday, which includes religious and non religious holidays-even Festivus- in its name. Honestly, I cannot wait for the feats of strength right after the airing of grievences. I have a LOT of people that I need to complain about! (in the most Christ-like way of course)

What a GREAT idea!

I love this logo...and this idea!

Julie Jones puts a Mean Fundie in his place!

Another cool emergent type forum published this letter, then shut down comments. I want to hear what people have to say, so keep commenting people! And Julie,you go, girl!!!

Today Rev. Silva posted a letter set to him by Julie Jones, the wife of Tony Jones. In a wonderful letter Julie Jones stands by her man, and in doing so stands by her Lord. I am posting the letter here because I allow for comments here and I wanted to provide a forum for people to let her know they appreciate her letter.

To Whom it May Concern:

In the spirit of Christmas, I ask you to do the righteous thing and post this. Please post at once or don’t you all want anyone of your readers to think Tony Jones might be a regular nice Christian guy. You don’t have a place for people to comment on your web page. You do have a place to donate. How come? I think if you are going to slander my husband as a devil worshiper it would be prudent to provide an avenue for others to paint with a broader stroke.

Tony Jones, my husband of ten years, loves the Lord Jesus Christ Almighty. I am sorry that may be a bitter pill for your group to swallow but it is true. Our family aims to be the hands and feet of Jesus and strive daily to bring up our three children as disciples of Christ and we didn’t even have to “spank them hard” to do it as Dr. Dobson suggests. In fact, that is called child abuse.

Above our threshold before we leave the house is our family verse, “Be the light of the world.”

We both can love Jesus in different expressions and both work for good and to fulfill his kingdom here on earth. It can look very different and yet how dare you say you have the corner market on my Lord and Savior…No, we share Him. I can go to Ashtanga yoga, which I love and enjoy the benefits of the practice and at the same time can faithfully follow Jesus. I can walk a prayer labyrinth and have in my mind over and over, “Be still and know that I am.”

The sheer effrontery makes you look pretty ignorant, if you don’t mind me saying.

I usually don’t respond to such nonsense but this is the father of my children who I fell in love with as he was living amongst the poorest of the poor on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Tony so authentically lived and worked among them that they gave him the highest honor of an Indian name: “He who takes others into his heart.”

Have you ever even met Tony? Come to our house in Minneapolis and sit in our kitchen and let us agree to follow Christ perhaps differently with differing outward expressions but no less faithfully following and hopefully maturing to love all humankind more and more.

Groups like this just reek of fear. That must not be not at all liberating to be in such a tight box. Don’t you think our Lord is bigger than that? He loves gays; you bet he does! He wants a gifted woman up front or in our church in the middle and delivering the Good News. Humans have limited God to what she can and cannot do. Emergent tries to re imagine the essence of following Christ in its purest form. Free from all the trappings of human fear.

May the Lord Jesus Christ touch you mightily today.

Come on, be different than just one of the many Emergent opponents that never takes me up on the invitation for dinner and a shared love of Christ and never posts my posts and never has a function for comments.

Merry Christmas because I am sure I won’t hear from you but if I do…good for you.

Julie McMahon Jones

Emergent Conversation Points

I am working on my Christian conversation series, and I need some people involved in Christianity and Emergent to give me their points of view about these questions:

1. Why did Jesus come to this planet?
2. If everyone gets into the kingdom of God, why did Jesus have to die?
3. Is the kingdom of God the same as heaven? Is there a place called heaven?
4. Is there a place of punishment called Hell? Is hell a place, or a state we find ourselves in on earth?
5. Is there one source of truth regarding God, or can we find truth in all traditions regarding God?
6. Is the Bible the only relevant source of faith and doctrine in Christianity?

Please answer these in order. Thank you for your help.

Chronic during Communal Gathering

We were having a conversation during our Friday night gathering. As usual, we had incense burning and people pretty much chilling out all around our basement sanctuary. But I smelled something that I hadn't smelled for a long time: Mary-jane, the Chronic.

I have a real hard time being judgmental, but there is a law about smoking inside, and I assumed that also meant the Chronic. So I asked the young man to put the dutchee out. He freaked out, calling me a fascist, and explained to me that this is how he worships through mind expansion.

What should I do? I mean, he has a point. Should we be emerging from this society that places these rules on us that tell us how we must live? As christians, shouldn't we be non-judgmental and allow freedom to worship in the way that we please? How can one who likes weed be expected to engage in true conversation without it. After all, the holy books including the Bible don't prohibit marijuana, do they?

Tatoos in a gathering

As I stated on my previous post, when we gather in community to have a conversation, people all worship in different ways. Well, we were sharing a story of communion, contemplating going back to the ancient tradition of worshipping the host and practicing transubstantiation, our friend Z-man was over in the corner doing his interpretation of this conversation in art. Isn't this cool?

What our communal gathering is like

People have wondered how we fellowship at the Shepherds Crook. Let me try and give you a picture:

It is Tuesday, maybe Friday, or even Sunday Night. People are gathered around, some standing, others at easels, some prone on the ground. Many sit in overstuffed easy chairs. Some prefer the sitting like the Buddha, while others choose a favorite yoga position. Some are drinking Chai, others Coffee. The room is dark and fragrant, except for a few candles and some nag champa incense burning. I sit in the middle, and I pose a few questions, attempting to start a conversation, while sipping some green tea. Some may not ant to engage in a conversation. Their worship involves playing a guitar or producing art in some other form. We have several fine musicians, some classical and modernist artists. We even have a young man who does tatoos in the corner.

Our service is not so much about finding a new set of answers, a new way of looking at the Bible, really a new way of being Christians. We really live in a post-Christian world, so our fellowship is an ecclectic blend of Christianity, Buddhism, Wicca, Islam, Hinduism. We have a banner that says COEXIST across the front of our place of fellowship:



We understand that we are part of a global community. We are required to live our local expressions of Christianity in harmony with those around the world. The beliefs and practices of our western church must never override or negate the equally valid and righteous expressions of faith lived by christians around the world. It is essential that we recognize our own cultural version of Christianity, and make ourselves open to the work of God's hand in the global community of faith.

At the Shepherds crook, sermons or messages are not so much about my extracting truth from a text like the Bible to apply to people's lives. In many ways, my sermon or message is less a lecture or motivational speech, rather, it is like free flow poetry. It is putting words around people's experiences to allow them to find deeper meanings in their lives. This is why we contextualize the Bible, because this is a way of doing theology in which we can take into account the spirit as well as the message of the gospel, then we can mix into it tradition, and we add to it our culture and experiences. It is then that we are truly able to understand what it says to us today as opposed to what it said yesterday to someone else.

It is our goal to create a community that looks less like an organized menu and more like a potluck. People eat, and they bring something for others. Our belief is built when all of us engage our hopes, dreams, ideas, and understandings with the story of God as it unfolds through History and through us. We hope that you will join us on our path, engaging in conversation with us.

Why I practice Christian Laughing Yoga

I believe that Yoga is Christian, because all truth is God's truth, and I believe that God can speak to all cultures so I believe that Yoga, in its mind emptying and use of poses or positions can enhance my daily worship experience. I believe that I become a part of the hereandnow, and engage God in the forevermore when my mind is empty. God can speak to me so that I can contextualize whatever the Bible says into the here and now so that I can engage it better for my own life.

Here is a great example. As I was in the lotus position, and my mind was empty, the red words of the great teacher came to me:"it is easier to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven" I began to contextualize this, because I am rich compared to the rest of the world because I have free-range meat, organically grown vegetables and fruit, and steroid-free meat, milk, and butter. I get fresh tap water from my faucet. So I began to weep, because I realized that the kingdom was not for me, unless I give it all away. So I went down the street, because I live in the warehouse district and gave my food to some guys that look like they needed it. They threw it at me, screaming that they didn't want my food, they wanted drugs and alcohol. I went away feeling better, because I was no longer rich, and I had been persecuted Just as the guy who spoke the red words. I also went away hungry and bruised, because I had given away my food and those guys beat me up. But, I engaged in the laughter of God, and felt his joy when I got back to my basement ashram.

So that is why I practice Laughing Christian Yoga. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Crystals and Light

As part of my homeopathic therapy for my hypothermia (see snow angel post), I was given some crystals and prayer beads by the local holistic healer. She explained that by praying contemplative prayers while emptying my mind would allow the light of the crystals to be effective in healing my inner darkness.

A great teacher named Jesus once said that he was the light of the world. It makes me wonder that if the source of the light in the crystals was the same source of the light in Jesus. It made me further wonder in Jesus used crystals to do healing as he was walking on this planet. Was Jesus a holistic healer? Did He us crystals when he healed inner darkness?

It was then that I saw the colors of the rainbow eminating from the crystals. This reminded me of the story of Noah's ark, and the rainbow. Does God use crystals in producing a rainbow also? Doe the fact that we can use crystals and make rainbows make us little gods and goddesses? Is the promise of the rainbow of diversity something that we should eminate while using crystals to eminate light? I think this conversation will be a good starting point at the Shepherds Crook this Sunday night. We will focus on the healing crystals of Christ.

Snow Angel

I thought it would be cool to experience God in creation by making a snow angel. So, while I was making a snow angel I was praying to the Father, God, Allah, or whatever you choose to call Him or Her. It was then I saw a vision of Jesus, Ghandi, Muhammad, Abraham, Moses, The Buddah, the Dalai Lama, and Pope John Paul II, all sitting at the same table breaking bread together and eating together. It was amazing and clear and wonderful. It was then that I woke up in the hospital.

The details are sketchy, but this is what they told me. They found me frozen, Birkenstocks and all, in the midst of a snow angel. I had apparently been flailing about so much that I melted the snow, which froze underneath me when I began to contract hypothermia and ceased moving. Apparently I tried to get up in my altered state, but was unsuccessful. My friends found me two hours later and called the ambulance. I am glad I at least had my prayer robe on, or else I might have frozen to death in the natural if you know what I mean.

Its very unclear when I saw this vision, but it is comforting, no? I think I can take it to mean that Jesus agrees with all these other methods and that they will all wind up in the kingdom of God. After all, that is what brother Brian McClaren is beginning to articulate in his books, isn't it? I think it is pretty exciting to see a vision of the kingdom, even if it was in the throes of hypothermia. I might try it again to get a clearer picture of what God was trying to communicate.

Brien McLaren interview on the atonement (Transcript)

Hansen: Now, is that going to be—You know, I remember one of our emails, I had asked if you were going to bring that up in The Last Word, and it looks like you—as far as an alternative view of the cross, had got a little bit. My hunch is, I am wondering, is your new book about Jesus going to get into that alternative view of the cross? Or, I might say, an earlier historical view of the cross?

McLaren: Well, yes. It does. But not through sort of direct attack. The book is called The Secret Message of Jesus and it’s about the message of the kingdom. I really like—Marcus Borg and John Dominic are you know, crossing, have a new book coming out called The Last Week. And it follows the week of what we call passion week, or holy week. It is really a great book. And you know, evangelicals tend to think that they’re the only people who take the Bible seriously. I am so impressed with how seriously these guys take the Gospel of Mark, really the last week of Jesus. It's really stunning. But one of the things they point out is that Mel Gibson’s film, you know, called the crucifixion, the passion of the Christ. But Jesus’ passion, the thing He was most passionate about was the kingdom. And the message of the kingdom is what I really try to explore in this book.

And that’s why, if we look at the cross as something that becomes almost the ultimate demonstration or the ultimate exclamation point about the message of the kingdom, it looks very different than if we throw the message of the kingdom away or make the message of the kingdom about something in the future and marginalize it for Jesus’ whole life. Boy, everything looks different.

Hansen: Now, I agree with you and I am starting to come to an understanding of the cross. And I have a hunch that it’s probably pretty similar to your understanding of the cross and the kingdom. But one of the places we might differ—I don’t even want to say that because I am just really exploring right now—is, weren’t there people before Jesus and since Jesus, some inspired by Him, some Christian, some martyrs, and wasn’t God, in a sense, demonstrating self sacrificial love since the beginning of time? Since God created beings other than Himself? So, I guess the reason I ask that question is two-fold. One, it has to do with this question of world religions and Christian exclusivism. Some might say, well yes, we also believe that at the heart and center of God and of reality is self-sacrificial love. But we don’t think that Jesus was the only one to teach about that and to demonstrate that in His life. Now, a more—what’s the word to use?—a more conservative Christian, whatever—someone who believes in the literal ontological divinity of Christ would have an argument and say, well yes, but this was, this was more central because it was actually God, literally, demonstrating that kind of love. However, someone, a more liberal Christian, who might think that Jesus was perfectly imaging God’s love, or totally inspired by God’s love but not literally God—To be honest, that’s the direction I am leaning more myself these days. We would have a hard time saying what makes Jesus’ life and example and living love to the death more unique than any other.

McLaren: Right. If I understand what you’re saying. These are important subjects. I understand you’re saying: Look, we could look at Ghandi’s live as an example of self sacrificial love or Martin Luther King Junior’s life. There would be a lot of people we could look at. And so wouldn’t it be better to just talk about Jesus as one among many, rather than lift Him up as some extraordinary example. Because by doing that we create, we perpetuate this Christian elitism and exclusivism, et cetera, et cetera. Is that what you’re saying?

Hansen: Bingo! Yeah, that’s really right on.

McLaren: Well, this is a subject that I am really interested in. And in fact, it’s going to be part of the book I am going to write this year that is, kind of will be sequel to this book of The Kingdom Seeker Messages of Jesus [NOT SURE IF THAT’S WHAT HE SAID] And it’s tentatively, right now, going to be titled Jesus and the Suicide Machine. And what’s it’s going to be is talking about how the message of the kingdom speaks to our contemporary situations. And to cut to the chase, I think what you’re reacting to is not, ultimately, the uniqueness of Jesus, but it is how the uniqueness of Jesus is used by a colonial, Roman Christianity.

Wow, this is a really interesting interview. Jesus as one among many, the cross not for atonement, the idea of Hell picturing God as an unforgiving entity. I am so amazed that Brien McLaren still calls himself a Christian! This is so cool that he is affirming that It can be Jesus and or not Jesus so exclusively! This really speaks to me! I am going to run and tell my Hindu friends that they can believe in Ghandi for entrance into the kingdom and that the kingdom is more important than atonement! He will be so happy!

A Course in Miracles

I was centering this morning on my porcelin throne, practicing heavy breathing and meditation while reading my one of my favorite authors. This is what she said in A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A COURSE IN MIRACLES
‘our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond all measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us the most.’ We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, famous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just some of us; it’s in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. And as we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (190,191, ) (Marianne Williamson)

And then I realized: I heard something similar in my I-pod earlier when taking a reflective walk from a Rob Bell podcast:

There is a greatness [in mankind]. The writer here [of Psalm 8] uses the word “glory and honor” that resides in every single human being. Fragile and yet filled with the potential for glory and honor. I love how Nelson Mandela puts it in one of his writings. He says, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”
And then he concludes by saying, “Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. We were born to manifest the glory—put on display, to show—the glory of God that is within us.” He says, “you may be a dirt clod, but there is greatness and power and glory that resides in every single human being.”

I am confused, did Marianne Williamson write this and then Nelson Mandela Plagerized it before Rob Bell quoted it? Regardless, it all sounds so cool and so biblical that greatness and honor reside in me. I can't wait to have the glory of the holy one reside in me. Until then, I guess it is okay to have my own light shine in me. I don't want to play small at the shepherds crook!
What do you think?

During my yoga session

I was doing yoga in my downstairs ashram today, with my mind empty and in contemplative prayer, when I felt the holy presence tell me to study the red words in John 3 where a nobody in particular was talking to the great teacher who people in my culture believe spoke the red words, and the great teacher told the nobody in particular that he must be born again. This really disturbed my sensibilities, so I emptied my mind to deconstruct this passage

You- I believe the great teacher was speaking to this man in particular, for he was old and in the old ways. He was telling him to emerge from those old ways and find his way into the kingdom of no particular location.

must- this word means something other than a demand that says that he must choose one or the other option

be- we all are, and can 'be'. We are called to just be.

born-we must emerge in this new birth that is by water and by spirit that will birth us into a new view of reality and help us to find ourselves removed from a Platonic dichotomy of opinion.

again- each day we must be reborn into the reality of the wheveritis and hereafter so we can engage the forevermore.

The speaker of the red words is wise. I am going downstairs to contemplate some more. Share your views, whatever they are can be right. The beauty of the hereandnow is that we all can be right in the moment.