San Francisco

The last leg of our trip - San Francisco - was, again like Vancouver and Seattle, fantastic. As previously mentioned (below) we had found a great hotel on the web - right in the heart of the city just off Market Street.
On our first day there we walked around Haight Ashbury which of course was the centre of the whole 60's hippie counterculture - nowadays more of a hippy museum than anything else but still worth a look anyway. We hired some bikes and cycled round Golden Gate park & saw the Japanese tea garden and De Young museum - well worth doing. We also sat and chilled out in the Panhandle - a smaller park nearby where Hendrix played in the Summer of Love in 1968.
It was great to connect with Mark Scandrette and his household and we had dinner at their place in the Mission District that night.
Day 2 was spent taking a look at Grace Cathedral, then lunch with Bob Carlton, Chinatown, and North Beach - particularly City Lights Bookstore owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the centre of the Beat scene in the 50's and early 60's. City Lights - the first bookstore to sell paperbacks in the States - was the epicentre of that whole scene, getting raided for selling banned books, Ginsberg and Kerouac hanging out etc. Here's a shot of me outside it:
So we rode up and down on the Cable Cars - went all the way down to Fisherman's Wharf and saw Alcatraz from a distance.
Day 3 we hired a car and drove out of the city - over Golden Gate Bridge (see pic above) and into Marin County. Stopped in Sausalito for lunch, found a great beach, drove for a while up Highway 1 before heading back over the bridge to the city where we found another great beach at the end of Golden Gate Park. had a quiet night as it was our last and we had to get up early to catch the plane to Vancouver for our connection back home.
San Francisco is a wonderful city - colourful and creative, great to look at, fascinating. I have wanted to go ever since seeing The Last Waltz (and by the way I saw THE guitar that Robbie Robertson played in TLW in The Experience Museum in Seattle - how excited was I!).
I was sad to leave and really hope to be able to go back.

Seattle

So - I finally get around to blogging the rest of the trip (now that we are back in the UK and we've got our jet-lag on). First up (following Vancouver (see post below)) - Seattle.
We had such a good time there. Very people intensive. Karen picked us up (we took the boat from Vancouver Island) and we headed straight to Brouer's Bar where they have the finest selection of Belgian ales known to man.
We were staying in the COTA Abbey (pictured) in the Fremont area (North Seattle), courtesy of our good friend Abbess karen. It was great to see how creatively they use the space and also to see their plans for the future of the building - transforming it into a totally multi-functional arts/community/worship/cafe space.
So we were there for the day conference on new-monasticism that COTA hosted, and it was great to connect with guys from the east coast - Shane Claiborne and Amber from The Simple Way in Philadelphia, and Chris and Cassie Haw from Camden House in Camden, New Jersey - and to hear about their communities, as well as hearing about the monastic element of COTA. I shared a little of our journey in the monastic tradition here in hOME, Oxford.

I think it's true to say that the East Coast guys represented one stream of new-monasticism (probably Franciscan - very involved in living amongst the poor as the primary expression of their faith (and it was amazing to hear the kind of radical lives they are living in community) - and COTA and hOME representing another stream of new-monasticism (probably Benedictine - more of an emphasis on prayer and spiritual practices). At some point I would like to develop further this idea of the different streams of new-monasticism as reflections of the different streams of classic monasticism - where are the new-Dominicans, the new-Jesuits etc.??

On the Thursday evening - after the new-monasticism day - we headed to the COTA Theology pub (in Ye Olde English authentic pub called 'The Reading Gaol' - v kitsch, especially with Pip actually coming from Reading) with Travis in the chair.

The Friday and Saturday were spent participating in Tom and Christine Sine's 'Church has Left the Building' conference along with Mark Pierson, the guys from Thursday, Rachelle Mee-Chapman, and plenty of others who I hadn't met before. It was a good time. Mark and I had a little freak out moment when we both thought we were covering the same material in our repsective seminars - both drawing from the 'slow food' movement - but as it turned out, he was taking it in a worship direction (local tastes and flavours etc) whereas I was talking about spiritual formation.

My seminar seemed to go well (you can never really tell - Christians are always so nice!) but, rather ironically as I was talking about slow-church, I seriously struggled to keep to time and had to rush through some of the interactive stuff that I had planned to linger longer on.
Perhaps I shouldn't have spent the first 5 mins talking about The Waltons but I couldn't resist it after I found a great rocking chair which I decided to sit and rock on whilst doing the talk (see pic - I know, it looks like I've rocked myself to sleep!).
Pip was worried that my Bristish humour (and that of Eddie Izzard of whom I showed a couple of clips) wouldn't translate. But people seemed to laugh in the right places. Again, perhaps they were just being kind!
Anyway, the material was a kind of theological reflection on mine/our journey over the last number of years from what I would call a 'fast-church' model (un-reconstructed charismatic-evangelical) - using phrases like 'revival fatigue' and 'spiritual viagra' - to a more blended-spirituality that I was calling 'slow-church'. This isn't the place to unpack all the points I was making. Another time maybe.
So it was fun to connect with people from Evergreen church in Portland, and also Nadia from Colorado (who I had met previously when she and her husband Matthew had visited the UK recently) - all of whom were also staying in the Abbey.

Anyway, we finished the conference with a meal at the Sine's house along with the other participants. And then on Sunday we took a look around the Fremont area (including the famous 'Fremont Troll' - thanks for the tip Sue!) before the COTA Taize service.

Then after a fantastic meal out on Sunday night with Karen and Travis (see photo), on Monday morning Travis took us to the airport for our flight to San Francisco.
At some point I'll put a flickr album up. Well done for reading such a long post!

San Francisco update

I'm going to blog about the last week which we've spent in Seattle - which was great - in the next post but just wanted to do a quick update on where we're at now.
We flew into San Francisco this lunch-time and headed downtown to find our hotel. Having found it you can only imagine my joy when I discovered that it was literally spitting distance from the main Apple store in town (Market Street) - the mother ship - or as Karen called it last night - The Vatican (see picture). I write this entry from there. So if any of you emerging church mac addict types are planning to visit San Francisco may I recommend our hotel : The Mosser - a funky little boutique hotel that even has a built in recording studio for some reason.
So - thanks to Karen (our fantastic introductions agent!) - we are hoping to hook up with Mark Scandrette (dinner at his place tomorrow night) and Bob Carlton while we're in town. It's great to be part of the global emerging church family - friends in every town!
Anyway, when I get a chance I'll blog Seattle.

Vancouver

I'm posting this from a coffee shop in Seattle - opposite Fremont Abbey (see next post) but I thought I'd take the opportunity to update my blog with news of our trip so far. This is my first time to N America and also the longest flight I've ever done, so the jet lag was a bit of a nightmare but it was good to be in a hotel with a pool etc. for very early morning swims when I couldn't sleep etc. This image is the view from our hotel room overlooking the harbour in downtown Vancouver. We could watch the sea-planes take off and land and see the mountains to the north.
We loved Vancouver - it's such a great city. We hired bikes one day and cycled round Stanley Park - fantastic - round the shoreline to Yaletown (a very funky area). There is literally a Starbucks on almost every corner in Vancouver and as breakfast in our hotel was very expensive (we found out on the first morning) we had breakfast in the Starbucks round the corner from our hotel each morning.
On our last night we had dinner in the revolving restaurant at the top of our hotel which gave us a great 360 degree view of the city. On our last day we went to the aquarium and saw the dolphins, the biggest sea-lion known to man (chernobyl sea-lion I called it), balooga's, sea-otters etc.
Then we took the boat to Vancouver Island where we were staying with an old college friend of Pip's - Maila - and her family: husband Rob and little daughter Teija (+ dog and 2 cats). They live in a classic N American house with a porch etc. - just like in the Waltons! Here's a pic:

We had a great time with them - spent two afternoons on the beach, went to the iMax cinema one night, out for dinner etc.. Vancouver Island is actually the same size as England+Scotland - not the small island I was imagining.
I've put a set of photos on flickr here.
We then took the boat from Victoria down to Seattle - where we are now - for the next leg of the trip which I'll blog about in the next entry. Tomorrow we go to San Francisco for the last leg of the trip.

Holy Saturday Service of Vows + Easter Sunday

Those who track this blog will know that yesterday was a very significant day in the life of the hOME community here in Oxford. We had a 'Service of Vows' at Dorchester Abbey (a very old monastic site just outside Oxford). We had Bishop Colin with us and many renewed their baptismal vows and 8 of us made monastic vows of simplicity, purity, accountability and presence (our versions of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability) for the year to come. These 8 form the first ever hOME Chapter and I am thankful to God for my brothers and sisters who form the stable core at the heart of hOME in what is a very transitory culture. I have uploaded a flickr set of photos (taken by Jim) here.
This morning (Easter) we had a really great, mellow, Resurrection Breakfast - fruit, pastries, coffee etc. by the river at the end of our garden, and then an easter egg hunt, followed by a service of prayer and meditations in our house. We had a long length of muslin - representing the grave clothes - that we laid over each of us where we sat, and then we went through the service - prayers, the lectionary texts, a visual meditation using a great video (from highwayvideo.com) + the track 'early' by Chicane, a reading from Tom Wright, and a meditation using the questions : 'where do we need to see resurrection in our lives/world?' and 'where can we already see signs of resurrection?', and then we finished with a eucharist. tops.
This afternoon I'm trying to put the finishing touches on my seminar 'slow church' for the conference in Seattle - tomorrow we fly to Vancouver. phew!

The Great Triduum (or 'the great 3 days')

Next year I want Holy Week to be more Holy rather than the week I run around like a headless chicken trying to get lots of services prepared!
However, really looking forward to:
Good Friday Prayer Gathering this afternoon including Stations of the Cross Meditation.
Holy Saturday Service of the Vows : tomorrow afternoon in Dorchester Abbey with the Bishop -
people renewing baptismal vows with some of us making year long new-monastic vows (with the
hope being that these will be renewed each Easter, but this is the first time).
Resurrection Breakfast on Sunday morning with a service of prayer and meditation following.
Then, the day after, i.e. Easter Monday, Pip and I are heading off for 3 weeks to Vancouver (week 1), Seattle (week 2, where we will be hooking up with Karen and the COTA crew, staying at their Abbey, and participating in their new monasticism conference and I'll be doing a workshop ('Slow Church') at the Tom and Christine Sine 'The Church Has Left the Building' conference), and then on to San Francisco (week 3), before flying back to the UK.
It was nuts to think about doing this trip the day after Easter (won't do that again) - but really looking forward to it all the same.

p.s. apologies to all who have been waiting with bated breath for my next thrilling blog post - our 'upgraded' broadband line at home has been down for around 6 weeks now! Good old British Telecom.

hOME Chapter Retreat at Burford Priory

I have been a very poor blogger recently due to ongoing broadband issues at our house (my advice - don't ask for a line speed upgrade unless you really need one as it might take a month to put right).
Anyway, just had a fantastic weekend at Burford Priory Some of you will know that in hOME we have a special service coming up on Holy Saturday (the day between Good Friday and Easter Monday) at Dorchester Abbey where some will be renewing baptismal vows and, in addition, others will be making a form of Monastic Vows for the year to come - vows of simplicity, purity, accountability, and presence (our versions of the traditional monastic vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability). The idea is that we will renew the vows each year at Easter. Those making the vows will be given a cross to wear by the Bishop with 4 knots on the cord representing the 4 vows.
Those who take the vows will form the Chapter within hOME to serve and bless the wider community. Membership of the Chapter has been open to anyone who feels called by God to explore this path, and the provisional Chapter has been gathering through Lent to write the Vows and the Rule that we will all hold in common. Once formed the Chapter will elect an Abbot.
Part of this Chapter formation process has been the weekend just gone in Burford Priory - a wonderful Benedictine Monastery where we stayed for 2 nights, prayed with Brothers and Sisters 5 times a day, ate meals with the community in silence whilst being read to (so not technically silence then!) and had some group time with the Abbot there - Brother Stuart.
Your prayers are apprciated - particularly for the one or two who are still wrestling with whether or not to go ahead and make the vows for the year to come.

Sigur Ros tonight

off to see Sigur Ros at the Hammersmith Apollo in London tonight. Can't wait. Also can't wait for the ADSL to get fixed on our landline. Sort it out BT! Can't take much more of dial-up. If I'd have known getting a speed upgrade on our line would cause this much grief I'm not sure if I would have bothered. Remember kids - faster ain't always better.

Pray as you Go

I am very disappointed with Simon Kirby who I saw yesterday for not tipping us all off earlier to Pray as You Go which is a 10 minute daily podcast for lent produced by the Jesuits in the UK. I haven't listened in yet but apparently each day there is some prayers, music, meditation suggestions etc. It lasts about 10 minutes and a new one is produced each day. So I guess I will just pick up from today's podcast rather than try to work through the backlog.

Fasting and Feasting (or - what having a beer can teach you about the kingdom of God)

As those of us from the more liturgical end of the church know, we are in the middle of the season of Lent. And, of course, with Lent being a penitential season it is customary to fast.
This Lent I am fasting alcohol. For me this fast is a good balance between being something genuinely sacrificial - I enjoy a drink and the two times so far this lent I have been out for a curry it's been murder not to have the customary pint of beer with it (I mean, curry without lager is like Morecombe without Wise, Torvill without Dean or Tom without Jerry - you get the idea!)...Jim (who is also fasting alcohol) and I tried Kaliber (a non-alcoholic beer) with our curry the other week but it was disgusting) - but on the other hand it's not so debilitating that the fast becomes the focus of everything (like it can do when you are fasting food etc.)
Lent is 40 days long and runs from Ash Wednesday to Maundy Thursday - but it doesn't include the Sundays in between: those are feast days.
So we don't fast on Sundays because on those days (even in the penitential season of Lent) we remember the resurrection.
So I have a beer or two on Sundays.
At first I just thought - "great, a day off!" but the deeper we get into this season I have started to appreciate the rich theological resonance created by Sundays being a feast day not a fast day.
Not that I get drunk on Sundays or anything like that! But enjoying a beer or two on Sundays in contrast to the rest of the week when I am tee-total really speaks to me about the celebrative dimension of the Kingdom of God and the 'age to come' (which of course is breaking into this present age). When I have a beer on a Sunday night (I would be worried if I reached over for a beer when the alarm went off on Sunday morning - just cos it was Sunday and I could!) I am reminded of the new, resurrection life of the Kingdom - and I give thanks.

if microsoft re-packaged the iPod

here.

Spiritual Direction

Recently I have felt led by God to offer spiritual direction to anyone who would find it helpful. Yesterday I had my first session with a person who asked me about it. I felt it was a really good beginning and a real privilege to come alongside and begin to listen to the movement of God in this persons life. I tried to make it clear that our time together wouldn't necessarily be about me dispensing spiritual wisdom but more to do with me joining this person in a very intentional way for the next part of their journey as a human being and helping to discern what God is doing in their life.
If there is anyone else in the Oxford area who reads this blog and who would find this useful to them then do get in touch - matt@home-online.org

Album Leaf videos

readers of this blog will know that I am a huge fan of the beautiful atmospheric ambience of The Album Leaf (aka Jimmy Lavalle). There are videos of a couple of tracks - 'Malmo' and 'Another Day'- available here (along with clips from a whole load of other peeps that I've never heard of!)

Oscars Party

today I am desperately trying to avoid hearing any news on the Oscars last night (so I am not reading any blogs just in case) as tonight Jim is hosting an Oscars party. He recorded the awards ceremony last night and a bunch of us are getting together to watch the highlights (i.e. skipping the ads and the awards for 'best sound recording in a nature documentary' - that sort of thing). Perhaps there should have been a dress code and jim should have required us to come dressed as if we were receiving an award (cos Jim does look great in a dress).

Pop Music Profundity

The Arctic Monkeys - hottest new brit band - explore the eastern apophatic theological tradition with their debut album 'Whatever People Say I Am, that's What I'm Not". Seeing that people are saying that they are fantastic perhaps they would like the chance to rename their album.
More pop profundity in evidence this week with Beyonce releasing a single ('Check Up On It') which seems to be an entire song dedicated to her ass.

good day/bad day

I read an interview with Douglas Coupland recently where he said that every morning he goes out and buys lots of newspapers - if they all have the same headline we're in trouble, if they have different headlines he knows we'll be ok for another day.

good night and good luck

Went to see this last night and was surprised at how little I enjoyed it. I thought Mark Kermode- may he live forever - made a good point (in his review of The Constant Gardener) when he said that sometimes if a film carries a worthy or important message we can feel compelled to say that it is a good film. That's how I felt about Good Night and Good Luck : loved the message (how important the freedom to dissent is in a society) but the film-making choices didn't work for me at all - not a single exterior shot, hardly any wide shots, no soundtrack (apart from the few Jazz songs that were used to break up the monotonous pace) - and by the way, isn't it interesting to see how much we have come to rely on soundtracks in films to dictate the pace and the mood...to tell us how we are supposed to be feeling - all these things added up to a not particularly enjoyable filmgoing experience for me.
But then again, what do we go to the movies for? to be entertained (which I wasn't) or to be informed (which I guess I was).
I am surprised, though, that this film has made it into the nominations for the Oscar for best film. I can only think (as Chris pointed out in the pub afterwards) that perhaps that is because of the parallels with the possible current erosion of civil liberties under Bush and Blair in their war on terror and the thinking that whoever is not for us is against us - which is very McCarthy-ite.

I hate.....

....finishing a season of 24!!!

ash wednesday

video funny

If you are easily offended by 'toilet humour' this may not be the one for you (also avoid if you don't think Christians should poke fun at the church)...but this video (of 'the farting preacher') is hilarious. Thanks to Chris for the tip off. (Mac users will need Windows Media Player for Mac)