Sanctuary – Making it happen.

September 22, 2008 at 3:47 pm | In Afrika Burn, community | 1 Comment

Some items for consideration:

Lil Black was enthused at our idea of Sanctuary, especially that we were going to be having kids along. She has promised to give us a “quiet” spot.

- Tickets
Remember, you can buy online. They are R350 each. Also available at 2 oulets in Joburg and CT. See http://www.afrikaburns.com/

- Food
If you’d like to join us for communal meals, please let us know. I suggest we do 2 semi-formal meals (buy/prepare/wash) cook, Friday and Saturday evening, and all others self-cater.

- Fire
If we want to do a fire, baking or braai, we will need wood. I suppose 5 or 6 big braai wood bags will give us a reasonable small fire each night.

- Shelter
We plan to hire a bedouin shelter (approx 9 X 12 M). This will be costing about R2000, which I will contribute. We will need groundsheets for perhaps half that area. On top of that we need soft stuff – matresses, rugs, picnic blankets, cusions, pouffes. I think we might be able to sleep 5 or 6 people there.

We have 2 tents – a 2 person and a 5-8 person. Main concern is the rocky ground – you will need strong steel pegs and heavy hammers. The Bedouin should come with sturdy pegs that might provide some support for smaller tents. Vehicles can also be used fo tethering.

- Washing
It would be great to have a pouron shower with privacy wrap – anyone have one? Will need to consider how to attach it. I think its possible to use less than 2 litres for a shower.

- Toys
Please bring all sorts of toys. We are taking 4 bikes, 2 adult and 2 kids, which can be used for fun or utility runs.

- Lighting / Power
We will need gas / battery lamps generally. Any further ideas for the shared space lighting? What do we think about a generator?

- Sanctury space
We will discuss what this might mean, but it’s purposely left open ended and inclusive, so that while some of us might have liturgical, artistic, hedonistic or theraputic aspirations, others might not.

I propose that the ethos, in addition to the 10 principles, is hospitable, creative, playful, chill. We are not planning to go hi tech, but some music would be good, and Andy’s Landy seems to be able to provide this. We will bring percussion for ongoing drum circle.

Anyone wishing to do a yoga session, kids theatre, storytelling, performance, readings, liturgy, or choral – let us know and we can expect some times of planned entertainment / group work.

It would be good to have a banner – any ideas? Also, Tibetan prayer flags would do well in the wind. And what about a shrine of some sort. Anyone got a hookah?

- Broader involvement
I envision us getting generally involved, attending a few parties, meeting others – there are a few camps I know you need to hang out in – Partycipation (hippy, trancy, drummy), the Hitech Family Camp – 4 families (complete with DVD tent, 1100 l water, range of whiskeys, L shaped kitchen and domestic help).

My idea would be to be involved in the Temple and its Burn (if there is a temple) because its a radical, ecumenical space with sacred potential (if you can tune the rugby element down a bit).

By and large, involvement is spontaneous, rhizomic, osmotic, so things WILL happen, regardless of preparing or not.

Intimacy with Godde: Session 3

September 18, 2008 at 9:00 am | In emergent spirituality, emerging church | 3 Comments

This past week we did our second session focusing on intimacy with Godde. Though Godde meets with us in a variety of ways we’re spending some time exploring the immediacy of Godde and what that looks like and means for us as a community.

We put forward a central question wrapped up in generalisations:

  • Put a room full of non-Christians together. Tell them that Godde speaks and acts in the present. Share some stories. More likely than not they’ll be very keen to experience Godde.
  • Put a room full of Christians together. Tell them the same thing and share some stories. More likely than not they’ll get defensive, argue that “Of course we all experience Godde in our own way”. More often than not they won’t be interested in experiencing Godde.

I’ve often found this to be rather odd behaviour.

We spent a bit of time unpacking this – not in the abstract but personally as people involved in a conversation around that topic.

  • The first time someone experiences Godde starkly contrasts to what came before. A more integrated life with Godde makes for less significant constrasts.
  • We can’t go back to our “first love”. There’s no going back in life.
  • A long-term relationship makes for ups and downs, seasons of being close and seasons of being distant, times of good communication and times where we’re wrapped up in ourselves.
  • As time goes on we realise that Godde remains a mystery, remains distinct, and remains unknown.
  • We experience Godde generally and specifically, Godde being around and Godde communicating directly with us.

Pushing the point a bit I suggested that those who self-identify as not knowing Godde clearly push forward toward knowing Godde. Those who self-identify themselves with knowing Godde happily push forward toward not knowing Godde. I put forward the following question, “Are we happy and content with Godde being generally present or are we keen on experiencing Godde as direct, immediate participant in our activities.”

It would seem that we are keen to pursue Godde, to hear and experience Godde directly and to integrate this into our activities.

AW Tozer said the following:

We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by anotehr cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilties of both can be explored… God is a Person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may. In making Himself known to us He stays by the familiar pattern of personality. He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills and our emotions…

How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of ‘accepting’ Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the BIble) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no BIble-taught Christian ever believed otherwise… In the mids of this chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, ‘O God, show me your glory.‘ They want to tast, to touch with hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.

May we grow in our appetite and desire for Godde. I don’t say “hunger” for that would imply that Godde does not meet us. May our emerging spirituality be characterised by a rediscovery of Godde’s Person.

We all long to be a community committed to intimacy with Godde. We want to be free to express our desire for Godde. We want to be participate in the creative sharing our love for each other and Godde. We want to be the kind of community where Godde, in turn, unashamedly saturates us in His love and affection. A community where Godde speaks and is an direct and active participant in all our activities.

We drew the session to a close spending some time waiting on Godde to speak to us – and S/He did. It was great having Godde contributing more directly.

Intimacy with Godde: summary session 1 & 2

September 11, 2008 at 4:07 pm | In community, emergent spirituality, spirituality, worship | 1 Comment
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We are presently exploring the notion of intimacy with Godde. The past two sessions have been conversational and controversial as well as inspiring and informative. The next two session are going to be exploratory and experiential.

Just as we can understand how two people are communicating so too can we model the communication of groups. We live in a culture of attendence. A small group of professionals produce events that we attend. Whether we’re going to the movies or going to a lecture we’re participating in something that others make happen. We’re on the receiving end; the organisers are on the delivery end. There is often little desire on the part of attendees to participate.

The dynamics are as follows:

stage => audience

In everything in life, however, we evaluate the outcome based on the stated goal. Just as we evaluate our entertainment life based on what we want so too can we evaluate our spiritual life.

If I want to see a good movie. I go to see a movie. I am able, afterwards, to distinguish between the objective and subjective aspects of the movie. Was it technically good? Did I personally enjoy it? What was the story? What did it mean to me?

The stated goal of church may likewise be summarised and evaluated. It varies from congregation to congregation. In some, it is good worship while in others good teaching. We are faced with the desire for intimacy with Godde and with the question of what that looks like in our context. What does intimacy with Godde look like? What does it mean for us to experience Godde? How can we evaluate our dynamics, as facilitators and as a community, in order to determine whether and how we’re meeting with Godde?

Session One & Two

We distinguished between a generalised experience of Godde based on what we take out of our congregational experiences versus the explicit, direct, distinct and personal encounters with Godde that are recognisably so. We recognised that we all have different personalities, different ways of relating to others. The way we relate to people is often the way that we relate to Godde.

We briefly considered two processes mystics speak about – the via negativa and the via positiva. The via negativa (apophatic tradition, negative theology) is based around getting to know who and what Godde is through arguments of denial and deconstructive logic. The via positiva (kataphatic tradition, positive theology) is about trying to get to know who and what Godde is through the use of positive arguments and constructive logic. The balanced use of both processes is important. Firstly, each of us needs to deconstruct what we bring to the notion of intimacy with Godde; secondly, each of us has to reconstruct the notion of intimacy with Godde. Like most things involving personal and emotional growth this will be a simultaneous rather than sequential process.

We also considered three senses in which the presence of Godde is used. There is the omnipresence, personal and manifest presence of Godde.

By omnipresence we mean that Godde is present in all places at all times and in all things. Finding Godde in this sense is kind of like seeing the glass as half empty or half full. Where one person considers Godde present another may not and they are both equally correct.

When speaking about the personal or personalised presence of Godde we are talking about private spirituality, about your personal spiritual life and how you connect with Godde there. Whether you generally experience Godde when you’re out walking in nature, helping those in need, participating in worship, reading scripture, etc. is going to depend largely upon who you are, what you are like, and how you engage Godde in the privacy of your inner self.

The manifest presence of Godde is distinct from, though intrinsically interrelated to, the above. As the people of Godde, S/He promises to be known to us, to be present with us not just in the general, abstract senses in which we find Godde through activities or others but also directly and personally. Some limit their experience of Godde to reading from the Bible, others to listening to sermons, and yet others to doing other spiritual things. This is kind of like limiting your restaraunt meals to reading the menu alone, your fashion to watching fashion alone, your education to attending lectures alone. The experiences of people we read about in Scripture are what Godde promises to us – that just as they received direction in dreams and visions as well as by hearing Godde’s “voice” so too can we.

All three senses of Godde’s presence is important and just as we value creativity so too ought we to value intimacy with Godde.

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