Ron Cole : off the map...navigating life.

Haiti...how you can help

As the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, Haiti has the highest rates of mortality for mothers, infants, and children under 5. Sixty percent of the population lacks access to basic health-care services. Most Haitians survive on less than $2 a day and depend on remittances from relatives in other countries to meet their basic needs -- remittances that have plummeted with remittances that have plummeted with the global recession. Even in the capital of Port-au-Prince, impoverished communities have few resources to cope with the acute impacts of this disaster.

With an estimated 3 million people affected by the quake, Haiti is in urgent need of immediate and ongoing assistance. The U.S. government is sending medical and disaster response teams, along with critically needed supplies. Catholic Relief Services has pledged $5 million for immediate relief efforts. World Vision, Oxfam, Lutheran World Relief, and many of our other partner organizations are preparing to meet the needs of all those displaced and wounded.

To support the work of these organizations and learn more about their programs, please visit:( here )

2010, Faith, Hope...and challenge

Well we've just ticked across the threshold of a new year, and a new decade in which I think of hope. Not just sentimental hope, but hope which requires faith...and which challenges me. It challenges me to live better, to live life that makes a difference. To realize that how I live has an impact, even if I can convince myself that I can't see it. That humanity and creation are woven into such an intimate fabric, that even the smallest tear effects us all. That we, all humanity, are brothers and sisters and need to live as a family. I need to live differently. I need to move from being a Christian, to being a radical disciple of Jesus. I need to move from believing the gospel, to living it fully no matter how difficult it might seem. That the more I live the gospel, the more the Kingdom comes into the world around me.

2010, Hope, Faith and challenge...to live life better.

Think of no one as " them"

Don't confuse your comfort with safety

Talk to strangers

Imagine other cultures through their art, poetry and novels

Read the sacred texts of other world religions

Have an inter-faith conversation

Get involved in inter-faith missional projects

Listen to music you don't understand

Dance to it

Think local and global...Act in both worlds

Notice the workings of power and privilege in your culture

Question consumption

Know where your lettuce and coffee are grown: wake up and smell the exploitation

Look for fair trade

Help build economies from the bottom up

Acquire few needs

Learn a second ( or a third ) language

Visit people, places and cultures...not tourist attractions

Watch films with subtitles

Learn people's history

Re-define progress

Know physical and political geography

Look at the moon and stars and imagine someone else, somewhere else, looking at it too

Read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Understand the global economy in terms of people, land and water

Know where your bank banks

Never believe you have a right to someone else's resourses

Refuse to wear corporate logos: defy corporate domination

Question military/corporate connections

don't confuse money with wealth, or time with money

Have a pen/e-mail pal

Honor indigenous cultures

Judge governance by how well it meets all peoples needs

Be skeptical about what you read

Eat adventurous

Choose curiosity over certainty

Know where your water comes from and where it goes

Pledge allegiance to the earth: question nationalism

Assume that many others share your dreams

Know that no one is silent though many are not heard: Work to change this

subverting Christ(mass) consumerism...

This image is from a news story from a couple of years ago of a local rural artist that wanted to say something graphically about the consumerism and over consumption of Christmas. So, he placed this piece of subversive art in his front yard. Over the head of the cross is written something to the effect, " King of the Empire; Sumptum Fac Donec Consumptus Sis." Which means " shop till you drop."

Some neighbors were outraged, local municipal politicians came to visit...and a local Anglican minister came to visit. But, the art stayed up.

My question to you is, is this subversive art ? Does it speak into the prevailing culture of rampant consumerism, and at the same time provide a revelation of an alternative. Or is it just tasteless and gruesome?

I couldn't find Canadian shopping stats for over the November/ December period, but this from USA Today, for expected American spending over those 2 months...

 

"U.S. consumers are expected to spend $437.6 billion in the November and December period, a 1% drop from $442 billion last year." This is one country, I suspect if we were to add all the rich nations spending to the tab...it would be mind boggling.

 

As for Santa, I guess it's not really fair to nail him to the cross, he is only the messenger...so to speak. But, I don't think we can avoid the cross in the face of Christmas, it truly is a revelation of an alternative way...of profound sacrifice. It seems at Christmas we don't sacrifice much.

This image is from a news story from a couple of years ago of a local rural artist that wanted to say something graphically about the consumerism and over consumption of Christmas. So, he placed this piece of subversive art in his front yard. Over the head of the cross is written something to the effect, " King of the Empire; Sumptum Fac Donec Consumptus Sis." Which means " shop till you drop."

Some neighbors were outraged, local municipal politicians came to visit...and a local Anglican minister came to visit. But, the art stayed up.

My question to you is, is this subversive art ? Does it speak into the prevailing culture of rampant consumerism, and at the same time provide a revelation of an alternative. Or is it just tasteless and gruesome?

I couldn't find Canadian shopping stats for over the November/ December period, but this from USA Today, for expected American spending over those 2 months...

 

"U.S. consumers are expected to spend $437.6 billion in the November and December period, a 1% drop from $442 billion last year." This is one country, I suspect if we were to add all the rich nations spending to the tab...it would be mind boggling.

 

As for Santa, I guess it's not really fair to nail him to the cross, he is only the messenger...so to speak. But, I don't think we can avoid the cross in the face of Christmas, it truly is a revelation of an alternative way...of profound sacrifice. It seems at Christmas we don't sacrifice much.

(Hope)nhagen...a Genesis Accord, or exit theology

The original aim was to find a successor deal to Kyoto, which expires at the end of 2012. The international community had set a December deadline to make it happen.

However, a rift between developed and developing nations over emissions — who should cut, how much, and who should pay for it — has dampened expectations for what will come out of Copenhagen.

The words of yet to be Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2002 when he was leader of the now-defunct Canadian Alliance party, "Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations." His rationale may have shifted slightly since then, but, Canada is still more of an obstacle to see constructive action in the Global Warming/ Climate Change Crisis. And with the down turn in the economy globally, the huge loss of jobs in the global work force, the continual shifting sands in the Stock Markets and national debts that are entering the realm of infinite...the reality to do something about Global Warming effects the climate of many many factors. Global warming is an insidious self inflicted disease that not only destroys life, but also spreads injustice especially in the poor marginalized spaces on the planet.

It is surely not a socialist scheme, I would like to coin the term a " Genesis Accord ". Above any thing it is about " All " creation, every speck...every race and language of people; beyond borders and boundaries; all land, all waters, all the landscape, the air in which we all breathe communally with each other. Without a an accord in which all inhabitants of creation take seriously as individuals and as countries...we can without a doubt say creation is coming to an end. It's Over!

Sadly a lot of the worlds faiths are not engaging their communities in the importance of this crisis. There are pockets of conversation and action, but not what you would expect. Especially when all faiths theologically are woven into the very fabric of creation.

Since the last reformation  " Christianity's theology of redemption and salvation have been pretty myoptic in terms of vision...saving the individual soul. One of the biggest challenges for the emerging/ missional church will be to develope a theology that is cosmic where redemption is about " ALL " of creation, and how that will play out interms of the church's missiology.

We need to re-read the creation story of Genesis...waking up to the reality that we're not outside of it, innocent by-standers...we're actaully in the midst of it.

26-28 God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them
      reflecting our nature
   So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
      the birds in the air, the cattle,
   And, yes, Earth itself,
      and every animal that moves on the face of Earth."
   God created human beings;
      he created them godlike,
   Reflecting God's nature.
      He created them male and female.
   God blessed them:
      "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
   Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
      for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."

29-30 Then God said, "I've given you
      every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth
   And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,
      given them to you for food.
   To all animals and all birds,
      everything that moves and breathes,
   I give whatever grows out of the ground for food."
      And there it was.

31 God looked over everything he had made;
      it was so good, so very good!
   It was evening, it was morning—

The above from Eugene Peterson's Message in Genesis chapter one. Another piece of scripture that I have often sited for a more cosmic approach to redemption is Colossians 1:15-18

15-18We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

18-20He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross .

Emphasis mine of course, but in the context of above, people of faith can not ignore any part of creation. Lay hold of this thought...if Christ spoke all creation into existence, is in and holds it all together...on that cross it wasn't just your redemption and salvation that hung in balance...it was " all " of creation. So...the resurrection, the new creation...has to be about redeeming " all " of creation. This is the Missio Dei for people of faith.

I'm not a theologian...more of a dreamer, that prays that the same Spirit that filled Jesus would fill me with the imagination of Christ. The thought that Jesus spoke " absolutely everything " into existence, seen and unseen...and that when the Father saw it, he said it was good...very good. And, that even at this moment...He is in, and of all things...and holds it all together.

If I make " the theology of redemption " about " All " of creation, instead of just you and me...and people...am I diluting, watering down what the cross is about. And if the " new creation " in to which Jesus calls as as partners, to co-create to build the new creation " the Kingdom "...is about everything. Everything...from people, to the environment, to social justice, global equality, poverty, politics, wealth, ...what does that mean for the Missio Dei of the church, for your faith community and for you as an individual. Could it be our view of redemption is so incredibly shallow...compared to the imagination of Christ. The challenge for the missional/emerging church will be to write and live a theology...that captures the imagination of the Kingdom Jesus wants to live.

Despite protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly religion of the state and economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into heaven, it has been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for most part, stood silently by while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flags and chanted the slogans of the empire. It has assumed with the economists that the " economic forces " automatically work for the good and assumed with the industrialists and the militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that " progress " is good...It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and faults. But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation.

Wendall Berry: Christianity and the Survival of Creation

We can do nothing, justified by our faith alone and wait for the mass exit at the bus stop to Eternity...or we can act as partners, as brothers and sisters, as all God's children and redeem, restore creation...building a new creation.

Update from Mike Todd over @ Waving or Drowning...

Mike has a video posted of activist, writer and author Naomi Klein in a hard hitting, sobering and brutally honest video around the conversations, and dealings of striking an accord with substance. She mentions the Convergence of Movements, Mike asks, as I have, " Where is the Jesus Movement ", or broader, " Where is the voice and presence of faiths from around the globe."

Despite protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly religion of the state and economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into heaven, it has been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for most part, stood silently by while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flags and chanted the slogans of the empire. It has assumed with the economists that the " economic forces " automatically work for the good and assumed with the industrialists and the militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that " progress " is good...It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and faults. But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation.

Wendall Berry: Christianity and the Survival of Creation

We can do nothing, justified by our faith alone and wait for the mass exit at the bus stop to Eternity...or we can act as partners, as brothers and sisters, as all God's children and redeem, restore creation...building a new creation.

Update from Mike Todd over @ Waving or Drowning...

Mike has a video posted of activist, writer and author Naomi Klein in a hard hitting, sobering and brutally honest video around the conversations, and dealings of striking an accord with substance. She mentions the Convergence of Movements, Mike asks, as I have, " Where is the Jesus Movement ", or broader, " Where is the voice and presence of faiths from around the globe."

thoughts half baked Oct.03...dinner in God's Kingdom

( image courtesy of the incredible creative mind of David LaChapelle )

That triggered a response from one of the guests: "How fortunate the one who gets to eat dinner in God's kingdom!"

 Jesus followed up. "Yes. For there was once a man who threw a great dinner party and invited many. When it was time for dinner, he sent out his servant to the suburbs, the burbs with invitations, saying, 'Come on in; the food's on the table.'

"Then they all began to beg off, one after another making excuses. The first said, 'I bought a piece of investment property and need to look it over. Send my regrets.'

"Another said, 'I just made some plans for dinner with my friends, and I really like them . Send my regrets.'

"And yet another said, 'I don't know who your master is, and I'm not comfortable eating with a table full of strangers.' Send my regrets."

 "The servant went back with invitations still in hand and told the master what had happened. He was outraged and told the servant, 'Quickly, get out into the city streets, back alleys, skid row hotels, under bridges, crack houses, ditches and gutters. Collect all who look like they need a square meal, all the misfits and homeless and wretched you can lay your hands on, and bring them here.'

"The servant reported back, 'Master, I did what you asked— and there's still room.'

 "The master said, 'Then go to the country roads, scour the ditches, vacant lots and prisons. Whoever you find, drag them in. I want my house full! Let me tell you, not one of those originally invited is going to get so much as a bite at my dinner party.'"( Luke 14: 15-24 paraphrased )

Download 06 In My Father's House ( studio recording Dr Bones Blues Project )

From the beginnings of the Blues Project we always thought we'd find our niche' on the margins of society. " the house band for the homeless ", as one of our friends at The Mustard Seed Street Church and Food Bank called us. We also play the prison, more marginalization, chain link fence and barbed wire, them one side us on the other. Marginalization has the power to change your identity. Your worthless. You don't fit. You don't belong. In a sense, there is not much difference between the homeless person in abject poverty, the addict on the street, the mentally afflicted on the street and the inmate behind bars. There all prisoners to a false identity.

Some would frown upon my paraphrasing of scripture, that somehow I'm diluting the message reducing it's potency. Jesus told stories. I'm telling a story, that I believe is revealing the same underlying truth. All I'm trying to do is land the story in the context, into the lives of the people who are hearing it; people who are extremely marginalized, and excluded...those with no sense of belonging.

The thing that is challenging about the story is, that if you read it from one angle as already being invited, it's a nice warm fuzzy story that just makes you want to curl up in your church pew and wait for dinner to be served. But, can we see ourselves as the servant with invitations in hand. Or can we see ourselves as being invited, and filled with excuses as to why we can't go. Can we see ourselves as the extremely marginalized, the homeless, the addicted, mentally afflicted, and the inmates.

Reading the story from every angle should challenge everything about us. Just as the Kingdom of God is near, it's present; it is also coming a future reality. This story is a present truth, and a future truth. The challenge is, HOW DO WE LIVE THE STORY OUT FROM EVERY ANGLE, TODAY?

But what I love most about the story is that the marginalized are not on the fringe anymore, the excluded are included...they now have a new identity.

Dinner in God's Kingdom might be a real surprise. It is a dinner filled with the redemptive imagination of Jesus.

looking back...shades of blues

Download 01 Runaway Soul

... Back to the Gospel Blues Festival, Chilliwack August 2009

From the beginnings of this band ( Dr. Bones Blues Project ), it has pretty much been a God thing. So many things have just happened, the idea of God some how going before you, sort of already there and you walk face first in to it. I hadn't seen John for almost 15 years. We did a lot of competitive running, and race organizing in the early days of the Prairie Inn Harriers. But on a sunny November day two years ago, I found my self bumping into John on a church pew. Both at the same wedding and not really sure why we were there.

After the wedding as we headed out the back door, John stated to talk about music, blues...gospel blues. He and his wife Gail had just been to " Back to the Gospel Blues " festival in Chilliwack earlier that summer. I love the blues. Guys like Muddy Waters, John Mayal, Little Walter, Son House, BB King, Willie Nixon, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Robert Johnson, Etta James had a great influence on the music I played growing up. So when John mentioned the idea of a band I was hooked.

This band has been very different from other bands I've played in. From the first practice the focus of our music has been the gospel. And the challenge has been to remain true to that initial seed of inspiration that was planted.

Initially, once we had some skill, and a few songs tucked into our pockets, we did a bi-monthly thing at Saanichton Bible Fellowship called " Bread and Jam ." But like many things, it was a season...there was growth in us as a group, but it died. But as in nature, when things die, it's not the end. There are still seeds, new life to be planted.

Honestly...we new this band and what we did was never going to be a church thing. We've played in churches...but, I don't think they get us, or the music. And that's ok. The church is a culture with it's own music, worship...and our music is foreign.

Who couldn't find solace in a song like “Lost Ship,’” “In my Father's House,” or “Workin' on a Building”? The blues can also articulate our deepest suffering as broken humans in need of redemption. What’s missing is the full picture of life—even the full picture of Christ. That’s what blues music contributes. It helps us not just dwell on life in the minor key, but at least to acknowledge and recognize it. In the recognizing of it we have a more holistic, true, and authentic sense of who we are as human beings, the human condition, and even life.

We tend to gloss over the place of sorrow in Jesus own life and his seeming abandonment by God. You write that Jesus cry, " My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", is probably the greatest blues line of all time.

That’s the most poignant moment in all of scripture. Jesus is suspended between heaven and earth at that moment. He’s been rejected by humanity and is abandoned by God, and so he has this ultimate cry of desperation. That’s something listening and being engaged in the blues helped me connect with. You see it in other places in scripture, too. Bono has referred to David as a “blues man,” and of course the Psalms have that minor key.

There is a sense in which the Kingdom is in the future when the realities of the kingdom are fully known, but we don’t have to sit on this side of Jordan’s shores and wait for the other side. We can seek God to be at work now, and we can even seek to be instruments of bringing that future kingdom life into the world as we know it, into our own experience.

So our initial seed of inspiration, was still filled with a life beyond us, the gospel, the very life of Jesus. Our prayer was that it would be carried by the wind of God's spirit in places where his Kingdom would grow and be revealed. I think God's prayer was, that we would be bold enough to chase the wind and seed.

And we have chased. The Mustard Seed has become home, it's community, filled with friends. We also found our way out to William Head Penitentiary in the summer, Back to the Gospel Blues Festival, Saanich Fair, and next month visit the penitentiary over in Mission.

This band has been a God thing, we really believe that he does go before us. We have learned patience, that we truly do only see through cloudy glass, that when the wind blows...it's time to move. We've grown as friends, as musicians...and we grow to see that the gospel, all that Jesus is can re-create a new world...his Kingdom.

the whole gospel...a revelation of The Kingdom

" So words without deeds are empty, but deeds without words are dumb. It is stupid to set them against each other. It is, for example, stupid to say: “The one thing that matters is to go everywhere and preach the gospel; all other activities such as schools and hospitals and programs for social action are at best merely auxiliary and at worst irrelevant.” Why should people believe our preaching that the kingdom of God has come near in Jesus if they see no evidence that disease and ignorance and cruelty and injustice are being challenged and overcome? Why should they believe our words if there is nothing happening to authenticate them?

On the other hand, it is equally stupid to say: ” Preaching is a waste of time. Forget it and get on with tackling the real human problems of poverty, injustice and oppression.” That is to repeat the folly of the people who are fed in the desert. It is to confuse the sign with the thing it points to. Our best programs are not the kingdom of God; they are full of our pride and ambition – as the world easily sees. But apart from these obvious inconsistencies, we surely know that human beings have a greater and more glorious destiny than even the best of our programs can offer. To a hungry man a good meal looks like heaven; when he has eaten it he knows that it is not. We know that our true life is beyond our grasp, and we are deceived when we invest all our hopes, and encourage others to invest all their hopes, in programs that do not reach beyond the horizon of this present age.

I know that some will denounce this language as escapist, but in fact it is simply realist. The best of our programs are still full of the seeds of their own corruption. We do not establish God’s kingdom. That kingdom, that kingly rule, has been given to us in the form of the suffering servant, the wounded healer, the crucified liberator. God’s kingdom is a given fact, and our actions for justice and compassion are at the very best only signs, pointers to help men and women to turn round so that it becomes possible for them also to believe in the reality of that kingdom, to have a foretaste of its liberating power, to follow in the way of the cross and to find in it life – a life that death cannot threaten.

Our preaching is mere empty words if it does not have behind it a costly engagement with the powers of evil, with the powers that rob men and women of their humanity, and if it does not call men and women to share in the same costly engagement…“

Mission in Christ’s Way by Lesslie Newbigin, and to Tony Stiff who has had some great posts on Lesslie Newbigin's thoughts on mission.

Jordon Cooper...Mustard Seed Sized Solutions

                                       

Jordon Cooper has a recent article, " Mustard Seed Sized Solutions ",  in Next Wave e-Zine about the complexities of homelessness, and social services, and the disconnect churches have in understanding, and engaging them. He says churches are outside of the system for the following reasons.

An awkward relationship with the social gospel. Fundamentalists equate it with liberalism, while many evangelicals see it as secondary mission.

Despite humble roots on the fringe of society, evangelicals have become upper and middle class over time. Part of it is most larger churches are upper middle class and full of people who choose to live in the suburbs to get away from the social problems of the core neighborhoods. It isn't just a quality of housing and financial differences, but a difference in values.

While much of the discussion on poverty and homelessness deals with financial issues, this is often a superficial treatment. It isn't just financial problems that lead people to the streets. There are complex mental health issues that haven't always been addressed and in some cases, the people refuse to address them. Those issues take a lot of time, training, resources and physical presence to overcome and in case you haven't noticed, in times of tough economy, coming up with the money to have a long term presence if you are all not committed to the cause, is a tough, tough sell.

FINALLY TO MANY CHURCHES SEE THE PROBLEM AND SEE THEMSELVES AS THE SOLUTION AS OPPOSED TO BEING A SMALL BUT AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE SOLUTION.

Please read Jordon's article in full...there is much wisdom to be gained for churches that are seriously thinking of how to engage in local social justice issues.

This sounds harsh, but for much of my church experience we deal with the social issues of the inner city with not more than saying, " the cheque is in the mail." We try to treat it rather sterile, from a distance so we don't get infected. I'm not going to name the church, but a friend and I tried to get the church to partner with a small local food bank. What we thought would be an easy sell, turned out to a saga of committee and endless excuses. There was the issue of ownership, the church was insistent that it's banner be flown. The issue that the partner was a non-christian organization. The reality was the church was not big enough by itself, nor had the facilities, nor the experience and expertise to pull it off alone...the existing food bank, needed some resources, staff, and a cash influx. A merger made logical sense. Sadly religious politics won out in the end, a partnership never happened. " The cheque is in the mail."

Again, the church could have been the " light " in that situation without waving a Bible, or denominational flag...just by being a mere faithful servant and presence. It would have had a tangible connection with poverty, would have been able to connect with other agencies involved working with poverty and other social issues. I believe it would have learned more than years of sermons, the depth of the Gospels, and the redemptive imagination of the Kingdom that Jesus revealed through word and action.

Working with the First Nations people on a local reserve north of Victoria what used to make my blood boil was the comment by my evangelical friends, " have you saved anyone yet." I know that Jesus can perform miracles, but if there is some realm out side the box of miracles that would be it. To think that confessing Jesus as your personal savior is going to end instantaneously years of dysfunctional community and family, poverty, illiteracy, health issues, addictions brings your faith into the realm of delusion.

We've been there for just over three years. Most people would look to see what we've accomplished and think nothing. We haven't built a church, or got them into a church. It took almost three years before we could talk about faith. The process is pain staking  slow.

For almost 3 years we listened to stories about the community, their culture, and their history. We played with the youth, they take their sports seriously...broken toe, broken finger and bruised ribs. We met parents, grandparents, the band council and elders, and the health unit on the reserve. We ate meals together.

For 3 years we listened, and built a relationship...we became friends. Their came a point where we didn't have to push, it just evolved to the place where our actions of faith and the Kingdom...became words also. Nothing of this process has been dictated by us, it's more through relationship that they led us to places where we could talk about the issues, and build bridges to connect them with various social agencies to help.

Beware, that this is a long term commitment. I see myself being their for a long time. They are wary of what I call, " looky loo " ministry. Where you drop of a food hamper, maybe stay for an afternoon. They are suspicious of all that. They are looking for relationship, someone who's going to be there through the good, bad and the ugly. 

Another thing that really challenged me over the years was the responsibility of the pastor and the church. I would see a social justice issue in the community and bring it to the attention of the Pastor, or the church and expect action. After awhile it became a cop out...if the church didn't do anything...then I didn't do anything. If the Pastor didn't do anything, well, then I didn't have to do anything.

Yes, social justice is a church issue but "it" can't do everything. But it is my, and your responsibility...it's everyone's. So you yourself, get involved. Or get a few friends and partner with an agency or a church that is tackling the issues of poverty, homelessness, addiction...

I think to when we see these buzz words like Missional Church, we tend to get over whelmed. I love Jordon's idea of Mustard Sized Solutions...think small, think local...planting your one small seed of faith will pay big dividends. Might not increase the size of your church, or add coins to the church offering...but it will vastly increase the size of the Kingdom.

street poet... ( Mustard Seed...more than a food bank, this Sunday )

Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough.

And more!

It turns denial into acceptance.

Chaos into order.

Confusion into clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast.

A stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past.

It brings peace for today,

and creates a vision,

For a better tomorrow.

by Al Kirkwood...poet, dumpster diver, Victoria BC.

Most will not even heard of the name Al Kirkwood, let alone even seen his face. Like his poetry, Al is unrefined, rough around the edges. The lines in his face look like they have been etched with a chisel, a road map revealing the many years of living rough on the street. Rough on the street, is an alley way, a storefront door way, under the blue bridge...your bag of earthly belongings your pillow, the sidewalk your bed mat. Al does have a routine to his life, he dumpster dives, recycles, sells what he finds and unbelievable, manages to even give some away to those in worse shape.

Al's a saint, with a love for Jesus...and alcohol. He does walk a narrow path, with deep ditches on each side that he tends to fall into from time to time. He is one of the most spiritual people I've met, he practices a kind of monasticism that baffles me.

The first time I met Al was down at The Seed. As our conversation unraveled, Al talked about writing and pulled open his back pack. It was filled with his life, not things...but words. There were note pads of all sizes, scraps of paper, napkins, pencils and pens. They were filled words, the mind, the heart and spirit of Al Kirkwood. Al spends literally most of his day writing poetry and short stories about life on the street, Jesus, God...alcohol, drugs, poverty...very raw. You might even call them, the Street Psalms, as there is dispair, sin, betrayal, pain, suffering, but there is also grace, redemption and hope.

Over the past year, with the help of friends, they've been typing out Al's words, trying to leave them as close to his as possible, with the hope they might be published.

Anyways we're hoping ( fingers crossed ) that Al will come to read his poetry for the benefit Sunday evening for the Mustard Seed. I say, fingers crossed because, remember the path with big ditches on each side...one never knows. Anyways, if Al doesn't show the honor falls upon me to read his words, and I don't say that lightly. To read the words of a poet, is read something that is deeply apart of them...most of Al's words come from a place I've never been.

So as I said above, there is a Mustard Seed benefit fundraiser this Sunday...here's the details.

The Mustard Seed...more than a food bank

Sunday February 22nd from 6:30pm til 8:30pm

Saanichton Bible Fellowship

( church ph.#- (250)-652-6311 or 652-6344 )

2159 Mt. Newton X-Rd.

Saanichton, BC

( Map )

For contact info: John and Gail Bones (250)-652-4002

The Mustard Seed...more than a Food Bank " An evening on awareness of what the Mustard Seed is all about. Stories, faces and places around the many diverse ministries of The Mustard Seed Church, an inner city church in the heart of Victoria. Into the evening we’ll weave the blues, alternative folk, poetry and more.

Cost: donation, all proceeds to the Mustard Seed Ministries

the glory of the Kingdom...

It is the duty of Christians to create the kingdom of God on Earth among our brothers. This kingdom will exist only when we all have enough to eat, when our children, brothers, parents don’t have to die from hunger and malnutrition. That will be the ‘Glory,’ a Kingdom for we who have never known it.

              Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala

As children of God, who are our brothers and sisters. Interesting, on the cross as Jesus dies bringing to life the redemptive imagination of his Father's Kingdom. He says to his Beloved disciple John to take Mary to be his mother, and for John to be her son.( John 19: 24-27 ) To be a child of God is to know that we are all created in his image, to know ultimately we are are mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. That all humanity incredibly exists within the boundaries of this family...there are no outsiders. In the Kingdom there is no gap, justice, grace, mercy fill that space...we become one and live as one. There His glory shines forever.