What a GREAT idea!

I love this logo...and this idea!

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.

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?