wedding

A real privilege yesterday to conduct the marriage of Martin and Juliet - two guys from hOME - at a little village just outside Oxford. It was a great day. Suzie took some great photos (as usual) - these are from her set. The full set is here.

Cranes

So - it occurred to me yesterday....how do you put a crane up? Not the smaller ones on the backs of lorries like this one on the left, but the tower kind, which are huge. More like this:
To get something that big and heavy into the air you'd need a crane wouldn't you? So do they use cranes to put up cranes? But then how did the first crane (the one they use to put the second one up) get put up?

It could be one of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe.

a bit of wisdom from Dallas Willard

I'm doing my usual annoying thing at the moment - reading about 5 books at once. I wish I didn't do that but I do. Anyway, just to add to the confusion this morning I picked up another book I've got lying around the house at the moment - 'The Spirit of the Disciplines' by Dallas Willard - and read the first chapter. It was one of those 'wow' moments you sometimes get when you're reading. Here's a little taster - it's a long quote but it's worth persevering with...

Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists of loving our enemies. going the second mile, turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully - while living the rest of our lives just as everyone around us does....it's a strategy that's bound to fail and to make the way of Christ 'difficult and left untried'. In truth it is not the way of Christ any more than striving to act in a certain manner in the heat of a game is the way of a champion athlete....

..It is part of the misguided and whimsical condition of humankind that we so devoutly believe in the power of effort-at-the-moment-of-action alone to accomplish what we want and completely ignore the need for character change in our lives as a whole. The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit ourselves to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it reality.

the great church merry-go-round...ouch

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

some people are just no good with change!

Birthday bonus

...And to top it off - Spurs won away AND it's the Inspector Morse weekend on ITV3 (sad I know but I'm a big fan)!
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Birthday

Well, today is my birthday. I'm 38 today. I'm writing this while sitting on the terrace overlooking the river at The Trout - a famous pub round these parts - whilst enjoying a pint in the late afternoon sun. I met with lovely friends for a posh breakfast at a hotel in town and then - after a pleasant bit of vinyl browsing the girls and I headed home for a spot of lunch before heading out again for a family swim - my first with Lily Anna. it's been a good day!
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Songs of Praise - with a twist

Oh this is good! Side-splittingly good! Thanks to Paul Roberts for the tip off.

Whatever happened to the resurrection in our missiology?

I love this Easter season in the lectionary - spending time in the post-resurrection narratives.

One thing I have noticed and been surprised by - particularly in the readings in Acts - is that the first generation of apostles/disciples understood themselves primarily to be witnesses to the resurrection rather than the cross (or more precisely, expounding a theology of the cross). Obviously the cross was important but the main emphasis is on witnessing to the fact that God raised Christ from the dead. That was what had changed everything. I have been reflecting on how different that is from our modern emphasis on the cross over the resurrection.

Giles Fraser in the Church Times a couple of weeks ago complained that evangelicals have a very under-developed theology of the resurrection. For them all the action happens on Good Friday and Easter Sunday is almost a bit of an afterthought.

What would it look like if in our mission we 'led' with the resurrection rather than the cross? Not that it would be right to play one off against the other but just in terms of regaining a balance. What would that look like?

Stations of the Cross Photos

Mel, from the the hOME community, who is a really good photographer, has some good photos of our Good Friday Stations of the Cross service here.

easter catch up

It was a good easter at hOME although I am still slightly bemused by the fact that easter seems to have ceased to be the time when we celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ in Christian community and instead has become a time to go away and visit family (definitely not a bad thing to do but where has this idea come from?!) because after all it's a bank holiday weekend. Consequently our Easter Sunday service is normally one of our lowest attended services instead of our highest attended one!

That said there were some special moments. Our Good Friday Stations of the Cross installation/eucharist was memorable. Really good to get people from beyond the hOME community involved and to have some 'special guests'.

On Holy Saturday we had our second annual Service of Vows at Dorchester Abbey with Bishop Colin Fletcher. We all renewed our baptismal vows and then some people who made 'monastic' vows a year ago were ending their time in Chapter, some - like myself- were renewing vows for the year to come, and some were making vows for the first time. Here's a pic of this year's Chapter -


On Easter Sunday we had our regular small gathering for breakfast at our house with a simple eucharist.

birthday wish list

my birthday's coming up in a couple of weeks and I guess everyone reading this will be anxious to get me a present (ahem...). With that in mind I point you in the direction of my amazon wish list which can be found here (best viewed in order of priority).

Alternatively, if someone wanted to get me a vintage Fender Rhodes stage piano (see pic below) go ahead and make my year! And there's one on ebay here (or if your dad has one under the stairs left over from the 1970's that he wants to find a good home for do let me know).

Can You Feel the Silence?

This was a question that Van Morrison asked us repeatedly in his 'mystical' phase. Well - I'm disappointed to have to tell you that I couldn't really feel it on Friday night. Don't get me wrong - a night out to a Van Morrison gig is, in my opinion, never a wasted evening. But I think the reason that is the case is almost because we see 'through' what is presented to our senses in the here and now back to the glory days of 25-30 years ago (and beyond - Astral Weeks was 1968). What we see now is a fat, grumpy man in a black coat, dark glasses and a trilby (delta bluesman stylee - that's how Van sees himself now) playing swing and skiffle, but in our minds we see the shamanic Van - the Van of 'Ballerina' or 'When the healing has begun' - who was able to take us on a mystical journey of musical ecstacy.

It was a packed out gig. My heart sank somewhat when his elderly band came on before him and did a track on their own - a really predictable, pedestrian blues song. But then Van came on and launched into 'Enlightenment' - not exactly a classic but certainly a song that is more representative of the mystic Van.

More blues followed (yawn) and then there was a lovely moment of confusion where there was some debate onstage as to what came next on the set-list. Seizing the opportunity the audience started shouting out all their favourite Van songs - and what was interesting was that they were all the old stuff - the stuff he doesn't play anymore. At this point Van spoke (a very rare occurrence) saying "that was fun - does anyone else have any suggestions" - before ignoring us all and plodding on with some more blues.

It left me wondering why he's walked away from what I would consider his best stuff. He hardly did any slow songs and even the classics that he did do he reworked to take the soul out of them (I mean he even took a song like 'Have I told you lately that I love you' and did it in a big band, swing style!). Pippa thinks he just can't handle the intensity of it anymore especially in front of big audiences - it's too intimate, too vulnerable.

Anyway, the 90 minute set ended with an encore (another rarity for Van) of 'Gloria' and he nailed it - spot on. He had the whole crowd on their feet (yes it was one of those grown-up, sit down gigs), clapping and punching the air and he did it like we knew it. He had us in the palm of his hand and he could have taken us on from there and probably really enjoyed it himself. But he exited stage left as the band played the outro.

Being the saddos that we are we went round the back of the theatre to the stage door to see him leave. We waited with about 20 or so others of the faithful and then out he came - wearing a woolly hat and scarf which was quite a contrast to his stage persona - had a bit of trouble opening the door of his BMW and then his driver whisked him away into the night.

So seeing Van these days is always a bittersweet experience. We reflected on this some more over a nightcap in the Randolph Hotel and then his band came in through the front door. We wondered whether they might be staying there. No sign of Van himself though.

Where has he gone?

Haircut

Van Morrison review to be posted when I get a few minutes to write it (tomorrow hopefully).

Meanwhile, in other news...My wife has had her haircut and I think it looks great!

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I'm still a believer

Been trying to take some time off this week after a busy easter.

Off to see Van Morrison in concert tonight at the New Theatre in Oxford. Can't wait. Of course, the big question is - which Van Morrison will turn up?


Van the mystic? (or 'The Mystic Fatty' as my friend Simon calls him)






or


Van the swing-band leader.










I've got to say that, unfortunately, the latter is more likely than the former. And he ain't what he was for sure. But I'm still a believer. We will see glimpses of the old mystic poking through I am sure of it.

A review of sorts tomorrow no doubt.

cold

sitting at home with a streaming cold. It had to happen this week - Holy Week - didn't it?! I haven't had a cold for a couple of years and it comes along when I'm up to my eyes in preparation for easter and business meetings to do with the cafe project. So thought I would use my blog to have a moan at the world!

Good endings - Chapter Year 1 draws to a close

We had our final Chapter meal of the first annual cycle last night.

That effectively brings to an end the first year of our Chapter - whose life cycle runs from easter to easter - though we will include some prayers in the Service of Vows on Holy Saturday to mark it more formally.

It felt like a good ending - there was much laughter and merriment - due at least in part to a large bottle of Montepulciano D'Abruzzo (one of my favourite Italian tipples) that the Morgans had just brought back from Italy.

We spent some time writing down the things we appreciated about each other and also the areas we hope to see each other grow in. We then said Compline together.

At the end they gave me a beautiful carved wooden St Francis cross (see photo) brought back from Assisi which is now hanging on the wall above my desk at home, and an icon of the last supper - it was our last supper together after all.

The new 'Chapter in waiting' has just been on retreat together and will make their vows on Holy Saturday in Dorchester Abbey.

"Only the Local is Universal" - James Attlee at QI

Really enjoyed hearing James Attlee at the QI building (see pic) in Oxford last night along with a few other hOMEies.

Attlee is the author of the book 'Isolarion' which is about the Cowley Road here in Oxford (I mentioned it yesterday).

It was fascinating to hear him talk so much about spirituality (for instance the idea of pilgrimage which he talked about at length) and then to claim that, although he has a religious background in terms of his upbringing, he now has no religious belief and that "all the overarching belief systems have failed". I guess it's a story that we're getting very used to hearing by now - religion bad/spirituality good.

And in a sense he's right - they have all failed, certainly in their current form. Christendom is crumbling around our ears and many inside the church don't think that's a bad thing. But I guess many of us would want to avoid throwing the (holy) baby out with the bathwater. Out of the ashes of Christendom comes new communities of Christian practice.

Attlee also talked about the 'fragments of global cultures that have washed up on the Cowley Road', his fight to prevent the local council from tidying the place up and prettifying it in a bland way ("why can't we just walk round the empty fruit cartons on the pavement? why are we all so obsessed with walking in straight lines in the city?"!!), and the importance of simply walking around (which I felt really challenged to make part of my practice).

But the moment I enjoyed most was when he was talking with passion about the annual Cowley Road Carnival (this year happening on Sunday 1st July). He talked about what a difference having no cars around made, but most tellingly he talked about the effect that the Carnival has on the local consciousness - it leaves a trace and opens up possibilities. It enables you to imagine the city differently.

Sound familiar?! I think it's a great image of the task of local Christian community.

new blog - The hOME Cafe

I mentioned yesterday that we are looking into the possibility of opening a cafe/arts space/spirituality centre on the Cowley Road.

For people who want to track the development of this project more closely I've started a separate blog - The hOME Cafe (what it's called for now) - here.
I'm sure if there are any big developments I will blog about them here too.

mission focus : geographic or demographic?

We have been talking quite a lot about mission around these parts recently.

For quite a long time I think it would be true to say that we have conceived of our mission in demographic rather than geographic terms i.e. we are trying to focus on a people group (the postmoderns for want of a better word) rather than a particular geographical area.

I sense that is beginning to change for us.

We are hearing God's call to become a sign and symbol of the kingdom of God (and to seek the kingdom of God) in a more geographically focused way. That for us means the Cowley Road area of Oxford (see photo above).

I said to someone the other day that we want to see people who live, work and play in the Cowley Road area come to faith.

At the moment - although we gather there (in the local community centre) on Sunday nights for worship, no one locally would really know we were there. Our presence is very light - we kind of parachute in and then out again.

So - we are investigating the possibility of opening a cafe on the Cowley Road which will give us a greater ability to be present to those who live, work and play there. I will blog about this separately as things develop. We have an important meeting tomorrow about it.

On another - related note - a fascinating book has recently come out: 'Isolarion' by James Attlee is his pilgrimage (his word) or travelogue up the Cowley Road. It's had some great reviews and some of us in hOME have started reading it.
He is speaking about it tonight in Oxford at the QI building (it would have seemed more appropriate for him to speak about it somewhere on the Cowley Road but there you are!). It's free and it's at 7.30pm if you're local and you fancy it.

planning ahead - can you help?!

We're about to book our Greenbelt tickets while they're still cheaper (before end of March). Chas and Dave are playing - it'd be crazy not to go!
Anyway, it's going to be an interesting experience this year - what with having Lily-Anna with us for the first time.
Ideally what we'd love is for someone to loan us a camper van.
It's a big ask but if there's anyone out there who reads this blog, has a Camper van, isn't going to Greenbelt themselves or anywhere else on the August bank holiday weekend, and would be prepared to loan theirs to us (phew! that's a long list of qualifications!).....then we'd love to hear from you!!

"I'm a Christ-follower, and I'm a Christian" (PC/Mac parody alert)

O lordy! Here is a take on the "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" adverts from Apple but this time it's "I'm a Christ-follower, and I'm a Christian" from GodTube.com. I've embedded this one (there are 4) cos it was the only one which I thought had a good line in it ("think I got a loose fire-wire"). The other three are here, here and here. What's great is that it really emphasises the really important things - like how being a Christ-follower means that you can wear jeans to church (unlike boring normal Christians). Cool!

Chapter Retreat

8 of us are off toBurford Priory today for a weekend's retreat in preparation for the second hOME Service of Vows on Holy Saturday, Easter weekend. Looking forward to it.

another chance to see a great film

just discovered that they're putting on an additional screening of 'Into Great Silence' at the Phoenix in Oxford this coming Sunday at 12.30pm. regular readers will know I was blown away by this film and highly recommend you seeing it if you live in the Oxford area. You can book online here.

Good Friday - hOME Stations of the Cross

Mother's Day

So last Sunday in the UK was Mother's Day - or Mothering Sunday to give it it's proper title. It was a special day for us as it was obviously Pippa's first Mother's Day and our incredibly talented 10 week old daughter somehow managed to make sure Pip got a bunch of flowers and a card.

Anyway, I led the intercessions in church on Sunday night and I enjoyed preparing them. We had 4 prayer stations:

1. giving thanks and praying for our mothers. object: a glass of milk to sip from.
2. praying for women who had lost children. object: a flower with a separated petal.
3. praying for children who had lost mothers. particularly for aids orphans. object: a solitary teddy bear.
4. praying for those who have experienced the pain of childlessness. object: a pregnancy test.

didn't see that one coming..

All too predictably Spurs (my team) crashed out of the FA Cup last night to Chelsea, losing 2-1.
But I think we lost it when we took Berbatov off and conceded a second goal in the first game. It was all over from then on I thought....
I even hoped Robbie Keane didn't score the penalty as I thought it was just delaying the inevitable - we never looked likely last night.

The Prodigal Son - but what about when the memory has gone?

Yesterday's lectionary gospel was Luke 15 - the parable of the Prodigal Son.
This story works out on a number of levels - Israel's return from exile etc.
But one of the most fascinating points to come out of our community discussion last night was how pivotal the role of memory was in the story.
It was when the son, who was living in a far off land, remembered the goodness of his Father that he decided to come home.
Now if we're talking about Israel's return from exile - then no problem. The memory was kept alive in the continuous retelling of the story.

But when we use this story to speak of people coming home to God - and I think it's appropriate for us to employ the story in this way - then how does it work if there is no memory of being at home with God in the first place to draw upon?

This is a very important story for us - our little community is called 'home' because that sense of home-coming, which is portrayed so beautifully in this story, is what we're all about. We want to embody God's call to come home. This is what mission is all about for us.

In what sense do the people around us have that memory of being at home with God? Is it like a primeval thing? You know - collectively as a human race we have a deep rooted sense of our homeland even if we don't have that memory on an individual conscious level?

Is that the best way to understand it?

The Spirit is the Front Man now

I'm probably being a bit theologically slow off the mark here but it occurred to me this morning that as we look back over human history - or at least to the point of early Jewish history in the Old Testament - that we have seen three 'epochs' which largely correspond to the three members of the Trinity:

The era of the Father - the prime mover and character in the foreground in the Old Testament
The era of the Son - through the incarnation in Jesus Christ
The era of the Spirit - after the ascension of Christ and the day of Pentecost, the Spirit poured out.

Of course - it's not a science! Because we are talking about interdependent, perichoretic Trinity here then there is beautiful interplay throughout the three eras (e.g. the Father and the Spirit were obviously involved in the incarnation of the Son, and in this present era the Spirit points towards the Son and the Father) but it's like there is a different 'front-man' at each point.

Spring is the new Summer!

We've had absolutely beautiful weather for about the last 10 days in a row now - warm and sunny. Kinda like the summer used to be in England!

Into Great Silence

The waiting was over and I finally got to see this film last night.

It was stunning.
There were people for whom it was a bit soporific (quite a few tired eyes and heavy eyelids) but I was totally gripped throughout.

There was an amazing amount of energy for a two and half hour film with no soundtrack, no narration and very little speaking.

A number of things came through for me:

- the spirituality of small things. The most mundane of tasks being done with love, care and attentiveness. This really does transform the mundanity of life into an exercise in spirituality and worship.

- the importance of rhythm.

- the freedom that is to be found within limitations. We've really got to get hold of this one and it applies on many levels e.g. liturgy. Sometimes we think things limit us but they actually enable us to be truly free.

The cinematography was exquisite. It was kinda like going to the Tate and watching a video installation. It could just as easily have been screened in a gallery as in a cinema.

And it was really interesting that so many people came out on a Tuesday evening (the cinema was three quarters full) to see a film like this.

My fellow nu-monastic abbot Ian from mayBe has blogged about it here.

If you get the chance to see this film take it.

what does it mean to be a witness? (or - it's not enough to just not be weird)

As readers of this blog will know - I have been thinking a lot about evangelism recently.
I was thinking about it again last night when I was out for a drink with the guys from our ante-natal class.
I wonder whether to a certain extent we have defaulted to a kind of negative definition of what it means to be a witness.

i.e. we think it's enough to not be weird.

We know that everyone thinks that Christians are boring and weird. We imagine people discovering that we are Christians and then saying something like - "You can't be a Christian - you're not weird, you're normal". And that has become how we imagine ourselves to be a witness.

But it's not really enough is it? It's a kind of inversion - communicating what we're not (weird) instead of what we are (fill in blanks yourself).

How are our lives really different from those people around us (apart from stuff in our heads about what we believe)? In other words, what positive statements can we make to point people towards the life of God lived out?

Poor Conversationalist

I have been very poor at responding to people's comments on my blog. It's bad form. So I want to try harder to respond, even if it's only to say a thankyou to those who have taken the time and trouble to post a comment.
Apologies for my poor conversation skills and be assured that I really appreciate your comments.

from the sublime to the possibly ridiculous

Following my last post on the theology of mission it seems only appropriate to follow it up with this post about some trainers with wheels in them.

I heard about these - 'Heeleys' to give them their proper title - via Bob Hyatt in Portland whose blog I lurk on. He's got a great YouTube video showing people using them.

They look like too much fun - especially for grown up kids like me (who said you have to stop playing when you grow up?!) - so I think I might need to ask for some for my birthday next month. They are available in the UK here.

why are we so bad at evangelism (or - time to get cookin')

Yesterday morning, fellow hOMEie Jim and myself did a team-preach/discussion facilitation at St Clement's Parish Church - the Parish that most of hOME's activity takes place within (so we are there with their kind permission etc.)

The Lectionary gospel passage for the day was Luke 13: 1-9 which is a strange passage in many ways. We decided to focus on the second part in which Jesus tells a story about a tree that has been planted but has borne no fruit for three years. It was a challenging passage for us as we have been going about three and a half years now, so the passage begged a difficult question for us i.e. what does it mean to be fruitful, and have we been?

The New Testament describes fruitfulness in different ways (fruit of the Spirit etc.) but there's also no getting away from the fact that it also envisages fruitfulness to mean the growth of the Christian community. We might want to term that evangelism.

Evangelism has got a lot of bad press in recent years, a lot of which has been justifiable. And I have spoken many times about the need to see evangelism as an aspect of mission (which is rightly understood to be God's activity in the world to restore the whole of his creation).

But what about this pesky evangelism business. Why are we who are exploring new forms of church seemingly so poor at seeing people come to faith (this seems to be quite a common experience in emerging communities).

In the passage - Jesus talks about the manure that the gardener wants to put around the tree to encourage it to be fruitful. What might that compost/manure be?

We suggested it could be many things (and there were some fantastic contributions from the congregation to the discussion at this point) but some fresh thinking might be part of it.

Then we developed a germ of idea that was suggested in Pete Rollins' book - How (Not) to Speak of God.

Much evangelism to date could be characterised as being akin to going up to people in the street with a plate of food and trying to convince them (a) that they are hungry (they mostly don't think they are) and (b) they should take some of our food. We then develop ever more elaborate ways of trying to get them to take the food or convince them that it makes rational sense to take the food.

Pete suggests a different approach. What if we understood ourselves to be the 'aroma of Christ'. I guess we've all had the experience of walking down the street and catching a whiff of some fantastic food, which instantly makes us feel hungry. Could this be a more helpful way of understanding the task of evangelism?

What would we need to see this happen. We suggested 7 things:

1. chefs i.e. people of faith
2. a kitchen i.e. a context for the chefs to be together - church
3. ingredients i.e. good smelling stuff - mercy, compassion, reconciliation, justice, forgiveness
4. a cooker i.e. the life of the Spirit in us and between us/around us
5. some open windows i.e. to let the good smells out - relationships, honesty etc.
6. proximity i.e. to be cooking near to where people might be
7. a spirit of inclusion i.e. the ability and willingness to offer people a seat at the table once they take the initiative and get in touch with their own hunger.

Traditionally we have jumped straight to point 7 without thinking about how we can help people to figure out for themselves that they are hungry.

Anyway - thought there might be somebody out there who might be interested in this!

the joy of new music

One of the best things in life as far as I'm concerned is the discovery of new music. Sometimes I like to just pick something up something I've never heard before up at random in my quest for continual musical refreshment. There are two or three facilities that make this easier - especially for those of us without lots of cash:

1. Fopp Records - a great independent chain of small stores which operate a 'suck it and see' policy. They are quite happy for you to buy a CD and take it back for an exchange or refund if you don't like it.

2. The public library - ours here in Oxford has a great selection of CD's and they are normally £1 for one week. Of course there is a moral dilemma involved here: if you've borrowed an album and loaded it on to your iPod to listen to, and you decide you really like it, are you disciplined enough to go out and buy the CD. Or alternatively, delete it from iTunes?

3. iTunes - I love their 30 second previews, and it's a good way to get a sense of the kind of thing a new artist does, but there's no beating taking in a whole album to get a proper sense of the music.

My discovery this week is Matisyahu (see pic above) - a Jewish reggae artist. Loving it. It's so refreshing to hear a different cultural voice - I don't think I've listened to any Jewish music before. This album came out last year and it's fascinating to listen to him rap about the Temple and Jerusalem etc. His site is here and you can listen to tracks on it. Anyone else discovered any great new music they want to share with us?

more on processing stuff in community

I blogged a few days ago on whether we should be more accepting of some people's desire to gain some space away from community to process their stuff - and whether or not people are just wired in different ways: some to work through things in community and some needing to take a step back.
With that in mind it was interesting to read some of Mark Scandrette's thoughts today:

I’ve also noticed the important role community plays in personal health. Often when someone is not doing well mentally, emotionally, spiritually or relationally, they withdraw from the relationships that could give them the most encouragement and accountability. I think you would find, for instance, that long before a couple divorces, they often divorce themselves from the communities that could provide the best support. I’ve wondered if we should more agressively pursue those who withdraw from relationships– since withdrawal is so often a sign of unhealth– even when maintaining such relationships requires conflict.

Read the whole of Mark's post here.

I still don't think I've nailed this one. My natural inclination is to say that, from a point of trinitarian theology, relationships are intrinsic to what it means to be fully human, and to say that sometimes people need to isolate themselves in order to work through difficult times just doesn't ring true. But at the same time we can't force people to open up and share in the context of community. Maybe, Emma and Trefor are right in their comments on my original post - it kinda all depends on what you mean by being in community. Some people can still be connected to and held by the community in some way even if they are not actively opening up and sharing their stuff in that context. But what about when people just 'disappear' for a while?

We Will Not Be Silenced

fantastic video here from a guy who calls himself DJ Paul Edge - amazing combination of visuals and text. Stick with it cos it takes a little while to get going (and the music is pretty forgettable).

Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama

Ok - some of you will be way ahead of me on this one - but this week I got hold of a fantastic record by Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama - 'There will be a light'. Fantastic stuff - great mixture of gospel, country, bluegrass.

Community - where you process your stuff???

As Abbot of our little community I always find it a little sad when people who are going through a tough time withdraw from community to deal with their stuff until they feel they are in a better place and can come back.
I've always thought this was an unhealthy way of doing things, but then in a conversation with one of our Chapter members yesterday the possibility emerged that perhaps some people are just wired that way, and that that's ok. i.e. some people work through tough stuff with others and others prefer to go out into the desert on their own and work it out.
This has confused me a little. what do any of my readers think? Should we be encouraging people not to retreat from community during tough times, or should we be recognising that some people do things that way and be reassuring them that we are here and waiting for them when they are ready to come back?
Your thoughts are appreciated!

Mobile blogging

So - I'm trying out the mobile blogging feature of the new Blogger Beta system from my BlackBerry. If you can read this it's working!

I'm sitting in the biography section of Blackwells bookshop in Oxford - by far and away the best bookshop in town. If you're wondering why I'm in the biography section it's cos it has some comfy armchairs and I needed somewhere to sit for a while in between meetings.

Anyway, I can't help but notice that some very unlikely people have biographies out. I mean, who in the world wants to read a biography of the following:

Damien Duff
Billie Piper (ok - Jim might want to read this!)
Kerry Katona
Chris Moyles
Neil Lennon
Gordon Ramsay

I mean - how many people are that interested in these people to want to read a whole hard backed book about them?!!

Seems like anyone can write a biography these days. Mind you I guess it's not a million miles away from the self publishing phenomena that is blogging.

______________________________
Matt Rees
home
- slowly learning to be with God and each other for the sake of the world

www.home-online.org

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(e) matt@home-online.org
(blog) www.lostempireslivingtribes.blogspot.com

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panentheism in action

So - without wanting to sound like an obsessed super-fan - I have been completely blown away by the Van Morrison DVD that Pip bought me for Valentine's Day...particularly by the first couple of minutes!
As the gig starts, and even before Van takes the stage, the band start playing and it builds and it builds, into the most intense, mystical, beautiful, soundscape. And that's before the first song has even started. It's so intense the first time I watched it I started giggling.
A couple of days later I sat down to pray and all I could hear in my head was this amazing music. And I found myself saying to myself, "stop thinking about Van Morrison and start thinking about God", and as quick as flash I heard the Spirit say to me something like - 'what you are responding to in that music, the thing that makes your heart and spirit soar, is God. what you are encountering is God - that is why it has the effect on you that it has'.

Now of course I am not saying that Van Morrison is God, but neither am I merely saying that beautiful, creative music is a reflection of the creativity of God (though that is undoubtedly true - and I have said it/preached it a thousand times).

I am trying to say something much deeper than that - something about actually encountering God in things - which the religious philosophers call panentheism. This is not to be confused with pantheism - which says that everything IS God. Panentheism says that God is IN all things but not synonymous with all things. Wikipedia's definition is here if you're interested.

So what I'm saying is that sometimes when we encounter beauty we are somehow encountering God himself not just a reflection of the beauty or creativity of God. I know some of you reading this will be saying "um, yeah, of course" - but for me, even though I thought I knew this - and maybe I did on a conceptual level - I think this was the first time it really hit home.

child o mine

Our friend and fellow hOMEie Melody came over the day and took some photos of Lily-Anna. She's very talented. This one is my favourite but there are some other good ones here for those who like to coo.

Tanzania Responses

A very helpful response to the Primates meeting by Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, Primate of the American Episcopal church, can be found here. I like the grace and balance of this woman. I think she is wise and we should listen to her.

ash wednesday

Great hOME service for Ash Wednesday last night. Some of us had to go home and sleep it off as you can see from the picture above!

We've done the whole imposition of ashes thing for the last three years but last night it seemed to be particularly powerful for me.
When Andy, who was standing next to me, 'ashed' me and said the traditional words over me - "remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return" - I found it very moving. Those words can seem quite depressing but last night they were words of real freedom for me.
In a world where there is enormous pressure to make something of ourselves, to be significant...where we so often have over-inflated ideas about our own importance - there is tremendous freedom to be found in being reminded that we are but dust and to dust we shall return.
It's all radically okay - as Richard Rohr reminds us. We are not the saviour of the world, it doesn't all depend on us, and our lives are not more important or more significant than anyone else's.
For me - to be reminded of that - particularly having just returned from a Diocesan thing where there was a certain expectation for us to paint a pretty picture of what we're doing and in a sense justify our existence - was enormously liberating.

Kinda takes the pressure off don't you think?

can we get a witness?

"..the church's credibility is being increasingly undermined in a world that is looking for strong witness from its international religious leaders".

It comes to something when you read something like that on the front page of today's Times.

one I love from the one I love

So it was Valentine's day the other day. I tried to be romantic - the dozen red roses went down well - after all, Pip's been through a hell of a lot on our behalf recently!
In return Pip bought me a Van Morrison live DVD. It's his first official DVD release (if you don't count his appearance in the awesome Scorcese 1976 concert film 'The Last Waltz').

What's fantastic about this is that it's from his 'golden' era - when he was at the absolute top of his game. Most Van fans would say this was between about 1974 and 1980. It's a double DVD set - both from the Montreux festival - one set from 1974 and one from 1980. I've only watched the 1980 set so far but it is absolutely red hot. His band are amazing and the sound quality is superb.

Anyone who knows me well knows that Van is probably my all time favourite artist.
In fact I used to have a 'Van Morrison' test when it came to women! If a girl didn't like Van Morrison I reckoned that said a lot about the kind of person she was and the chances were we weren't going to make it. I'm happy to say that Pip passed the test with flying colours. Before we were even going out with each other she got us a couple of tickets to go and see him. That would have been about 1998.

And, yesterday, I managed to get a couple of returns for his sold-out Oxford show this April a couple of weeks before my birthday. It'll be the 5th time I've seen him. He's way past his best now - he's old and even more grumpy and never performs without his dark glasses and old bluesman style hat. And he never talks to the audience. But he's still a living legend if you ask me.

update: it occurred to me that some of you may have been persuaded by my glowing praise to check Van Morrison out. And perhaps you need a pointer as to where to begin. In my opinion 'Into the Music' (1979) is his finest album (side 2 particularly) but you may also want to check out the classic 'Astral Weeks' (1968) when he was probably at his most mystical. Or there's 'Moondance' (1970) which was the first Van album I bought and contains some classic tracks. And there all cheap these days too! Enjoy.

Book plug & a word on the use of Liturgy

One of the things I am most thankful for in terms of my spiritual formation over the last 5 years is the discovery of liturgy - both the liturgy of our gathered times (for those of us in hOME this means our weekly Eucharist) and also the daily rhythm of fixed hour prayer throughout the week.

For those of us who have grown up in the evangelical world it kinda feels like there was a big family argument before we were born and we grew up being told that our great uncle was a really bad man and we shouldn't have anything to do with him. Then as we got older we found out for ourselves that actually he wasn't a bad man at all, in fact he had a lot of wisdom.

Man, am I glad we are learning to be post-protestant!

Anyway, there are loads of great resources out there. The hOME Chapter has midday prayer as part of it's Rule of Life, and each member of Chapter receives the Church of England's slimline 'Time to Pray' which is helpful. I also find Phyllis Tickle's 3 volume set (above) - The Divine Hours - to be fantastic (the Prayers for Springtime volume has just started at the beginning of Feb). She has 4 forms of prayer for each day - Morning, Midday, Vespers, and Compline. And what's really great is that all the text is printed out in each form so there's no flipping from one page to another.

Vaux in London have also started an online resource for the sharing of new liturgy . It's called The Open Office. Check it out.

And for those of you who've never seen the appeal or benefit of liturgy I would say this: it takes time...time to get used to it, time to allow the rhythm of it to seep into your bones, time to get past feeling like it's just reading words off a page. Like some of the most exquisite things - it can be an acquired taste. But 4000+ years of Judaeo-Christian practice can't be wrong surely?

I always found it intriguing that some really low church, charismatic, house-church types, who bemoaned the use of liturgy (some of them left our little church largely because of it) because it apparently wasn't spontaneous enough would quite happily sing the same songs, with the same set words, week after week. Never did understand that!

another anglican political blog post!

This blog is not known for it's comments on the political machinations of the Anglican church - but all of that's about to change...well at least for today. And I might even throw in a bit of theology too!
The Primates meeting - i.e. the global gathering of the leaders/archbishops of each province - has been going on the last few days in Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania (on the left is a pic of Rowan - our beloved archbish and Peter Akinola - archbishop of Nigeria and one of the leading conservative voices in global anglicanism).
As you might have expected, the big topic of conversation was 'the gay issue' - and particularly whether or not the American church should get kicked out of the anglican communion for not towing the party line.

Now - my thought it this: why can't we just simply agree to disagree on this subject? Why do we have to do the typical protestant thing and walk away from each other if we don't agree? Monty Python fans out there will remember the famous scene - "splitters!" - from the Life of Brian which seems relevant at this point (an excerpt from the script is about a third of the way down this page if you need to refresh your memory!).


Some people in the anglican communion want to give full blessing to homosexuals - including same sex blessings and ordination of gay priests/bishops. Some don't. Why can't we agree to differ and preserve our unity?

I think the answer lies in the difference between first order and second order issues. If, for instance, you don't think this is a first order issue, you can probably find it within yourself to say, 'ok - we see this one differently, but let's keep the main thing the main thing and get on with the job'.

If, however, you do see it as a first order issue - alongside things like the divinity of Christ, the doctrine of the trinity etc., you will probably want to say something like 'it's impossible for us to maintain our unity because the whole basis of our unity is threatened'.

For the conservatives, it seems that it's not so much a case of the issue itself - i.e. is it 'ok to be gay' - that makes it a first order issue, it has more to do with what the issue reveals about how we handle scripture that is at stake i.e. 'the bible says quite clearly that it is not ok to be gay so those of you who say that it is do not give the bible it's proper authoritative place and therefore we have no basis for unity'.

But - to these conservatives (Akinola et al) who are pushing for a split - I would ask: are we sure that it's that simple? I mean, doesn't our progressive hermeneutic on issues like the bible's position on slavery or the place of women open up the possibility (I'm just saying possibility) that a similarly progressive hermeneutic on homosexuality is a possibility?

That, for me, firmly places the issue in the second order category, rather than the first, and enables me to adopt an 'it's possible to agree to disagree' position which also enables us to preserve our common bond.

you say potato, I say potato...er...

...um...that phrase doesn't really work in text form does it?!

Anyway, just wanted to have a little rant about the use of certain phrases I'm hearing more and more around the church - particularly the Church of England - at the moment.

The first one, is 'biblical orthodoxy'. As in: 'those of us who are committed to biblical orthodoxy' etc. etc. Ok, right, so what you're saying is that some people are going out of their way to be biblically heretical? No - what you mean, is something along the lines of 'those who are committed to interpreting the bible like we do'.

Is it possible - just an outside chance maybe - that people who have different views to us when it comes to theology and biblical interpretation, hold those views out of fidelity to Christ? i.e. they love God and they're trying to be faithful. Why do we just assume that we love God more and take the bible more seriously and are more faithful than those who disagree with us.

The second phrase that's getting up my nose at the moment is 'gospel ministry'. As in, 'we want our church to be known for it's gospel ministry'. Really this phrase is code used by conservatives meaning that they do a lot of expository preaching in their services. So, are those of us who don't have a 45 minute expository sermon each week on one of the vowels in a verse from one of Paul's epistles, not engaged in 'gospel ministry'?

Is it possible - just an outside chance maybe - that people not in conservative evangelical churches are also concerned to announce the gospel of God's love and desire for restoration for the whole of his creation?

ok - rant over! Maybe I should stop reading the Church Times!

Wolfgang's Vault

If, like me, you happen to be a fan of 70's music (Dylan, The Band, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Young etc.) when you discover Wolfgang's Vault you will feel like you've been locked in the proverbial sweet shop. It is the most amazing collection of live recordings - mostly from that era - imaginable.
The story goes that legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, (definitely not to be confused with Billy Graham!) made live recordings off the mixing desk of many of the concerts at his venues (such as the Filmore East in New York, the Filmore West and Winterland (venue of the Last Waltz) in San Francisco, all in all some of the most important concerts in rock history).
After a long legal wrangle over the rights of these recordings they are now available to stream for free from a very high quality site. It's called Wolfgang's Vault because Bill Graham's original name was Wolfgang Grajonca.
Anyway, I've just listened to an amazing Van Morrison set from New York in 1978 while I've been working this afternoon. Get on over there and register for free if you too feel like someone born at the wrong time!

Into Great Silence

I've been waiting for the opportunity to see this film - which looks more like a 2 and a half hour meditation on the monastic life to me....(no soundtrack, no voiceover) - and I was half thinking that I might need to go down to London to see it. But I'm pleased to say that there is now going to be a one-off screening in Oxford on Sunday March 11th at 3.30pm at the Phoenix. I'm hoping a load of us from hOME will go together.
See the trailer here. It looks stunning.

time to start blogging again!

it's been a long time I know, but I know you'll understand. We've been slowly settling into family life and it's great - highly recommended (although don't quote me on that at 4am!). They say that it takes a community to raise a child and we've been really blessed by our little community here - with people bringing meals round and that sort of thing.
More domestic updates to come no doubt.

coming home

Pippa and Lily-Anna are coming home today. Very excited about this and both Pip and I are slightly apprehensive. So far there have been people down the hall (i.e. the midwives at the hospital) anytime we have wanted to check anything etc. Now it's just going to be the two of us sharing our ignorance. Please remember the three of us in your prayers!

iPhone or iFlop

I've just finished watching Steve Job's keynote address at Macworld, San Francisco (had to watch it in 3 goes cos it was sooo long). And there was at least one moment where it's similarity to a Benny Hinn crusade was quite freaky (the moment where Jobs announced the iPhone - there was whooping and hollering, hands in the air and Jobs on the stage had them eating out of the palm of his hand...I'm sure if he'd have done an altar call then people would have signed up to whatever he wanted them to!)

Anyway, here's a few thoughts on the products:
I'm slightly disappointed with Apple TV (or iTV as it was previously known) - it seems like it's just a box to enable you to watch your iTunes content on your TV instead of on your computer. Which is fine - and it's got a nice user interface as you would expect from an Apple product - but if it had also incorporated a genuine PVR hard disk recorder (like TiVo or Sky+) then it would really have been something. Apple TV has just 40GB of hard disk space - used to store movies and other content which you have sent to it. I've just bought a hard disk PVR with 160GB of disk space on it, and it can record 2 channels at once while you are watching playback of another recording as well as a whole host of other features, and it cost considerably less than what I imagine Apple TV will sell for.

Secondly, the iPhone. Now this does look good, really good. And I'm sure it's going to give my Blackberry a real run for it's money. A couple of questions though:
1. I'm not sure about the touch screen when it comes to inputting text. One of the reasons I switched to Blackberry was that I really went off my last smartphone because it only had a touch screen. Over time the screen became increasingly unresponsive and letter recognition became more and more inaccurate. I really like the 'plasticky little keys' on my Blackberry that Steve Jobs was ridiculing and have found them to be a much faster way of typing than the touch screen.
2. The memory size. 4GB or 8GB are the iPhone options. When it was first announced I seriously thought it would mean I could upgrade both my phone and my iPod at the same time (I have an 'old' black and white, non-photo, non-video iPod). But if the maximum memory I can get on it is 8GB then I'm not sure it will work for me as an iPod. I would have hoped they could have found a way to fit 30GB of memory in but they are using flash memory so perhaps it's just impossible to offer that much space with flash.
I still want one though!!!

Lily-Anna Rees

I am very proud to announce the birth of our daughter Lily-Anna, born Sunday evening at 7.50pm weighing 8lb 7oz. Mother and baby are both doing really well. Here are a few photos from when she was about 17 hours old courtesy of Suzie who came to visit yesterday (I'm not as freaked out as I look, honest!). She has posted a whole set on flickr for all those who are interested here.

the waiting game

our baby is now 4 days overdue and we are getting pretty bored waiting around for it to make an appearance. we have used the time constructively though - we've managed to get through a whole season of 24 (season 5) which was great quality and utterly addictive as usual.

so the race to get the house finished before the baby arrived was not as much of a race as we thought it was! but it's pretty much done now.

apparently there are some fabled suggestions as to how to encourage the onset of labour - curry and sex being two of them. Although, as comedian Jeff Green pointed out, having to make a choice between those two might be the reason you got yourself into this situation in the first place!