Compartments.

Life, as rediscovered, is not made of separate, autonomous pieces. Life is an integrated existence of descernable aspects. Thanks to modernity, we have gone on thinking that life is safely compartmentalized; that our life is made up of vaccum-sealed, water-tight compartments we can attend to individually and that we control the flow between them.

Filed under: Integral, Interdisciplinary Action, Philosophical-Possibly Theological, Pomo, Postmodernism, Theology

The Measure of a Conference

How do you know if a conference was any good? That is, how do you quantify and crunch an experience into a stat in order to determine whether it was worth x amount of dollars to attend? Unknown. But my blogroll grew mightily upon my return from Catalyst and there were several more people that i wanted to add who don’t have blogs (yet?), like Francis Chan, whose session alone was worth a lot of cake. I think the blogroll/connection thing is a worthy indicator, though not very quantifiable.

Oh, and Ken Wilber wasn’t speaking at Catalyst, but i realised i hadn’t added his yet. What would happen if Ken spoke at Catalyst? Does anybody else read Ken Wilber? Really? He makes C.S. Lewis and Christopher Hitchins sound like little kids fighting over toys… though i enjoy both these guys very much. Reading Ken is like reading a Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters, Fight Club) hitter to your brain- and your brain likes it.

When i say cake, it means mental uranium… which, if harvested and sold would be worth a lot of jack.

Filed under: Blogging, Blogroll, Emergent Church, Integral, Interdisciplinary Action, Leadership, Pomo, Theology , , Catalyst Conference, Christopher Hitchins, Chuck Palahniuk, CS Lewis, Francis Chan, Integral, Ken Wilber

Catalyst Nitecap

If you’re going to talk about Catalyst, you have to talk about Andy Stanley- he opened and closed the conference with two incredible sessions. How do you talk about Catalyst? With passion, enthusiasm and shake-your-head amazement at what you learned. You tell people, “I feel like I just got kicked in the face by Jesus.” even though you have good reason to believe that Jesus does not kick people in the face, but you don’t know any better way to describe the loving correction that happens in the sessions.

Peter and I got in to the ATL about 11:30pm and went straight to our rooms- (sweet rooms, Sarah! thanks!) we met up with the Next Level team the next a.m. over breakfast; bleary-eyed and ready to rock.

Andy’s first talk was on power. He used the story from the gospels about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Matt taught on this two sundays ago in the context of service… I taught it last Sunday in the context of humility… Andy talked about it in the context of power and asked this question: What do you do when you realise you are the most powerful person in the room? Answer: you leverage your power for the sake of the people in the room. He mentioned that church leaders are more comfortable with the word ‘influence’ rather than ‘power’… but we mean the same thing, don’t we?
It obviously gets me thinking about what influence/power i have and whether in those given situations i am leveraging my influence for the sake of the other people in the room… or for myself? Where and how in a given day could i be influencing situations for Cara’s sake?

I think i’m probably in a lot of situations in the course of a day where i am both powerful and oblivious to that power- situations where i could be taking care of other people, giving them a chance, empowering them, freeing them up… instead, i act powerless and talk like Jesus isn’t present in the room, as if God wouldn’t want to do something for someone sitting next to me.

If Christ lives within the believer, then the power/influence of Christ is available to leverage for the sake of the people in the room. Maybe i’m not the most powerful peorson in the room, maybe i’m just His representative- what does that mean for the rest of the people in the room?

Geez. Anybody want to complain about xianese? I do. No pages were updated in the making of this post.

Filed under: Integral, Interdisciplinary Action, Leadership, Pomo, Recommends, Theology , Andy Stanley, Catalyst, Jesus, Matt Keller, Mike Ash, Next Level Church

Thursday

Updated the following pages:

1. the thing about metanarrative

2. the 70×7 thing

3. the part about this blog.

4. the cloning list

Some of these are worth checking out; some not. At least one of them is definitely worth checking out. Hype it up!

Filed under: Blogging, Pomo, Theology

Philadelphia

We had friends in from PhillyCheeseSteak this weekend… it was like a slumber party, in a good way. Mike and Grace are amazing, artistic people. We talked about lots of stuff for hours on end, what sticks in my mind was the “editor vs. artist” debate and the role of the critic in artistic development. This is where i would link you to their site, but they don’t have one. They claim to not have the time for that sort of thing. Mike and I (just Mike) drew spectacles on the stone lion in our backyard as an homage to our (my) favourite wise-guy, Edmund- Ya! Silly old lion! (9.20, Cara points out she wanted to do this from the day we moved into the house with the stone lion and that i didn’t give her any props for the idea. Well, i did when talking with Mike about it. Just not in this post.)

I hear the sound of someone whetting a knife in the next room as we (i) speak. How appropriate!

Saw Bourne Ultimatum just a couple hours ago-0 sorry if you wanted to come, it was kind of last minute. We thought it was pretty great, a fitting wrap-up to the trilogy if they stop with just the three movies, though there’s talk of at least one more. Highly recommending the Bourne movies to all; we are in the midst of the emergence of a pomo spy franchise, the likes of which only Bondologists can speak with any authority.

Speaking of semi-colons… i use them alot because i read that only college-educated people use semi-colons. Since i don’t actually have such an education, i like to give the impression that i do; have one, that is.

Filed under: Interdisciplinary Action, Pomo, Recommends

Wookin’ Pa Nub

Hey. Thanks for faithfully checking in on my blog while i am decidedly unfaithful about posting. May you find nub here. You need to check this out: A Foothill in the Mouth by Stuart Davis. Apparently, he has several episodes out- i haven’t seen the others, but if there as funny and poignant as this, i need to see the rest. BTW, I found this via tooling around on kenwilber.com – this site will not blow your mind, you will only wish it did.

Lastly, if you have a band all set to go and are just waiting for aliens on a magic carpet to arrive and tell you what to name your band, please consider Disheveled Malice. That name is just an invitation to do sweet guitar riffs with your  mouth.

Filed under: Interdisciplinary Action, Philosophical-Possibly Theological, Pomo, Recommends

Metanarrative

Most every critique of postmodernism i read includes a statement about how postmoderns reject ideas of absolute truth and metanarrative. These critiques are generally not written by a pomo-minded individual, but by modern observers. Given the chance, i think a postmodern would say something quite different.

I think postmodernism does not reject absolute truth, but is rather weary of shams and playacting that tries to pass itself off as truth (nevermind absolute or all-encompassing and complete-can’t-be-added-to truth). I think the pomo rejection of truth has more to do with a rejection of tactics of individuals and groups who co-opt truth to further an agenda, political or otherwise.

This trickles into metanarrative and the attempt to stretch a viewpoint (mini-narrative) into an all-encompassing explanation for why the world is the way it is (which are two different concepts, by the way). This stretching looks a lot like trying to stretch one’s lower lip over one’s head; the observer can’t help but be awed by the dedication and effort put into the action, but does wonder about the ultimate value of the benefits, if any.

What i’d really like to say is: Salvation is limited to Christ, but not to our understanding of Christ. One’s understanding of Christ does not a metanarrative make.

It’s awfully easy to confuse meta and mini narratives. It’s easy to think that what i think about Christ is all there is to know as regards salvation, the kingdom, loving people… but what i think about Christ represents only a very small percentile of who Christ actually is- in reality, what i think about Christ does not really represent Christ one bit- but i act like it does, and that’s dangerous.

So, despite the accusation that postmoderns reject absolutes, i would argue it’s not the case. Modern critiques of postmodernism delight in pointing out the self-stultifying nature (thanks for the link, andrew!) of the “no absolutes” claim, but i think a postmodern would reject the “no absolutes” stuff as silly and say simply, “we ought to be more careful with what we call ‘absolute’”.

This post is in development. Caffeine will likely be required to bring it home.

Filed under: Interdisciplinary Action, Philosophical-Possibly Theological, Pomo, Theology