The Complex Christ | Signs of Emergence

Goodbye, for now | New Book

I think the time is right to drop the curtain on ‘Signs of Emergence’  / ‘The Complex Christ’ / ‘Der Jesus Faktor’ and move on. The idea of this blog has been to give some space to extend the ideas presented in that book, and, personally, I feel that’s been successful.

But you shouldn’t keep flogging a dead horse. There have to be periodic moments of silence / jubilee / death / hidden-ness if the moments of speech / action / life are to have any meaning.

So I’m going to stop this blog, and spend some time working on a follow-up book.

The idea, as it stands in various sketches in my note books, is for an extended meditation on the idea of ‘the other,’ leaning left on the poetry/theology continuum, and hopefully drawing on the stories of some fantastic people I’ve met.

I’ve been pondering Jesus’ summary of the Law to ‘love God, and love your neighbour as yourself,’ and re-phrasing it as ‘love the other, love The Other.’ The other within the Self, the other within our communities, The Other that is immanent and beyond all… It strikes me as the core of everything we are about as people of faith. Indeed, since the birth of consciousness, it’s at the core of everything we are about as people.

And yet, with the continuing rise in anti-social behaviour, teenage stabbings in London, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, theological schism, global terror threats and clinical depression, it seems that in our fluid, multicultural, melting-pot, border-less, easyJet world, we are further from accepting the other than ever before.

Yet, despite all this. I think there are signs of hope. And we need to be those signs of hope. Personally, communally, locally, corporeally, we need to be communities that have this love for God and other at our core.

No, I haven’t got a publishing deal, or even spoken to anyone about one. I’m not sure how much that matters, to be honest. I’m just going to spend some time thinking and writing. And if you have any thoughts you’d like to throw in on the theme, any good books to read, do get in touch, come for a beer, leave a comment, or whatever.

Doubtless I’ll be around online again at some point… No idea when. But you’ll find out ;-)

Fare well, for now. And thanks. It’s been fun.

Two Shirts | Excess

It's probably just me, but you ever got all your laundry done, finally cleared out the utility room, got the whole lot ironed, and realised you don't actually have the cupboard space to put it all?

Dirt and excess.

I've often thought about a year's project based on Matthew 6 where I'd aim to give away half of my possessions. Half the number of shirts. Half the number of CDs. Half the number of Macs. But to be honest I just don't know where to start.

Technorati: Excess

Wikiklesia Paperback Available | A Tale of Two Publishers

I'm really pleased to see the Wikiklesia book published in physical form. Go get your copy here and support Not For Sale as you do. I contributed a chapter on the move between text, audio and video, which seems to have gone down well.

Wikiklesia is one of those great publishing projects you are happy to be a part of, with no thought of payment. Good people doing good things... the gifts have cycled well.

Unfortunately this isn't always the case. Many months ago now I was keenly asked to provide a couple of articles for a large and very well known US Christian publication. The deadlines were tight, the turnaround not easy with juggling other things, but hey - they seemed so keen and nice about it! My queries were answered by the editor within hours, they seemed really pleased with what I'd produced... And then it came to payment. I was patient, I can tell you - I don't like hassling people for cash - but suddenly, with the articles published, I couldn't get a squeak out of them.

Finally, after a number of unanswered emails, a cheque for one of the articles arrived, with a copy of the piece for my file, which I was more concerned about to be honest. I've since heard nothing about the other one, which was published months back, but for which I'm still owed.

Should I be bothered? I can take or leave the cash. Some can't, but I'm lucky enough to have income from my teaching. But I just feel that the principle is important. It's basically theft, right? Should writers have to hassle people for what their due, however small it might be? I know for a fact that this publication has treated others in a similar way. Is this the sort of way we'd want a Christian publication to run? I've no desire to write for them again, and if that means I'm shooting my US Christian publishing empire in the foot, well, so be it ;-) I'd rather spend the rest of my days pushing work out for free to projects like Wikiklesia than have the sour taste of having to chase poorly run, industrial-sized Christian publishing houses for cash.

Rant over.

Technorati: Christian | Publishing

The Human Dress | Signs Launch

Thanks to everyone who helped out to give Signs a fantastic launch last night. It was great to phrase it as a time of worship; the guys from the Bridge imagined different sections in terms of doing laundry. Out of that I wrote this piece, meditating on 'the human dress', beginning with a quote from Blake.

"Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress."

One piece of divine fabric,
Unblemished, woven without defect
Knit together in a girl’s womb,
Perfectly fitting this human frame,
Was stitched up, and stretched out
And torn.

Die! said the soldiers,
And they took one and rolled,

They were mistaken,
And we have bought into their mistake.
This cloth was not for sale,
But offered as a free gift.

Taut, pierced, this pelt collapsed around a broken frame,
Pinned out and exhausted, it’s colour drained,
While, in the Temple, another fabric tore top to bottom.
And the weaver escaped
With thoughts for a new design

Hued with mercy,
And lined with love,
Shrouded in mystery.

Technorati: Blake | Bridge | Human Dress

Mission as Entrepreneurial Activity?

Ben has an excellent and honest post here outlining his doubts about the 'missional entrepreneur' that is in popular parlance.

I've posted a comment outlining some thoughts on how the role of the artist might help us imagine this in a new way.

Technorati: Ben Edson | Mission | Entrepreneur

Keep Your Relationship Together: Remain in the Gift

My brother came back from visiting two friends (not pictured ;-) in France the other day. They had sold up, moved over there with their kids and bought a tiny run down farm in the countryside. They live on/off it at pretty subsistence level with a few cattle to fatten and growing their own veg.

They had told my brother how, about 18 months ago they were so strapped for cash that they took the decision to stop buying any gifts for birthdays or Christmases. They were reflecting now on how, with the hard work and tough life in a 'foreign' country, that financial decision pretty much led to their marriage breaking down. It destroyed any sense of celebration, removed any possibility for generosity, no matter how sacrificial that was.

They've re-instated the gift now, and are altogether a lot happier and healthier.

At Vaux we used to say about worship 'where there is no gift, there is no art.' I think one could also say 'where there is no gift, there is no relationship.' This is what a relationship is: the free exchange our ourselves with another. Not paid for, as in a work situation, not commodified, as in a shop or restaurant. Giving and receiving gifts is part of making this invisible 'gift' visible. Whether it be time taken out to be with someone, or unexpected flowers, or something more special, gift exchange increases the potentiality in any relationship.

Exploring this in one Vaux service, someone came up with the idea of 'Petrol Station Flowers': you're driving to someone's house empty-handed and run into the gas station to grab a limp bunch of cellophaned flowers... No real thought has gone into the gift, and that's reflected in the relationship.

We reflected on how often our worship is no more than 'petrol station flowers'. Running in at the last moment, giving something lame. The divine gifts we have received in grace are much more than this, and on all relational planes we move in we need to consider our own gift practice in response to this.

[Connected Post: 'Gift Exchange and Terror' - "violence only breaks out when the parity of [gift] exchanges is broken". Reflections on Bruce Chatwin and Konrad Lorenz discussing ritual gift exchanges and the roots of aggression and warfare.]

Technorati: Chatwin | Lorenz | Christmas Presents | Terrorism | Vaux

Signs Emerges... | Book Launch

So, Signs of Emergence finally hits the shops on 1st July... I'm really excited about the book coming out in the US and Canada, especially as so many of the ideas within it have sprung from great work done over there.

To all you people who've been queuing up for days outside stores to get hold of one... Oh, sorry, that was for the iPhone! Anyway, it's a book I'm really proud of, which a lot of people have been very kind about, and I hope people enjoy it and find some inspiration in it. I'll post some reviews  here as they come through; for now, thanks to everyone at Baker and Emersion for taking it on.

I'll be out in Ventura, CA at the Soliton gathering from 6th - 12th August, and there's going to be a launch party on the evening of the 10th, so if anyone from the LA area is around it'd be great to hook up with people while I'm over!

Technorati: iPhone | Emersion | Signs of Emergence | Soliton

Spring | The Compost Christ Flowers Again | SymbolLife™

Spent a glorious sunny Spring day on the allotment today. Jonny recently posted a photo celebrating the great weather we've had (on and off) recently. And today was another stunner.

Having oh-so-mocked, it's good to see Grace have an allotment now too... In fact there are record waiting lists at most plots across London. I'm not surprised. In a time when leisure has been sold up and marketed in malls as mass entertainment, genuine re-creation is hard to come by.

The photo tells a lot about why I'm such a fan. The paving slabs were from Freecycle, picked up yesterday. The onions I'd just planted a gift from our neighbour who'd had a double order delivered. The tools shared in a shed we bought for £20 from someone else on the plots. Allotments are all about these simple gift exchanges, and the relationships to others and the earth that they bring. A borrowed wheelbarrow, a helping hand lifting stones, a gift of food, a word of advice.

Of course, we have no need to grow our own food. But doing so is a small part of the attempt we are making to 'live symbolically'. These little acts do not themselves change much, but point to something bigger, and thus perhaps add to a building resonance of hope for a better future. There is actually a long history of the socio-political in allotment gardening, and there are strong connections to parts of the anarchist movement insomuch as it is about taking back under your own control something that corporations have ruled. There are myriad other benefits: good exercise, reduction in food miles... and the simple pleasure of getting 'sur les pavés' and back to the earth. But, most importantly, it's about entering a cycle of gift; if you read Lewis Hyde, you can't help feel the soil pushing through his soul.

Technorati: Allotment | Christ | Compost | Grace | Hyde | Anarchy

Comic Relief | It's [not] All For Charity

Some time ago I wrote a piece on Art vs Justice, which threw about some arguments as to whether art is ethical when people are still dying of hunger. More recently some discussion around that issue came up over on Jonny's blog as to whether art is 'vital' in itself or not.

Tonight my niece came over and insisted on watching Comic Relief Fame Academy, where a bunch of people with perhaps 16 minutes of fame between them sing songs badly and get the public to phone into premium rate numbers to vote for them. Most of the money goes to charity. What riled was that these people - all of whom clearly do well out of their careers -  were accommodated in the 'Fame Academy' and showered with champagne and fine foods... Cut then to a short film interlude about starving children in Africa.

Pete Rollins has written a little about Derrida and his ideas about what the perfect 'gift' would be. He concludes that there is never any gift we give that doesn't bring with it some strings attached. In this case, we seem happy to give to charity as long as we get some sloppy singing or second rate comedy. Without the telethon bit, we're less prepared to simply give.

Connectedly, a report today (not in a paper I like, I must say) suggested that Bono's Brand Red idea (see original debate on this blog) for raising money has pulled in £9m. Great. But on an advertising spend of £52m, completely shameful.

Poverty has been commodified. We can handle the short interlude films, but only if we have fat sections of people making fools of themselves. Perhaps the phone lines ring because people just want to pay to see the images go away. Either way, I for one am sick of celebrities being wheeled out to try to get us to give.

Technorati: Brand Red | Celebrity | Comic Relief | Poverty | Claudia Shieffer

Welcome to the World...

Iris Frankie Brewin, born 27th Feb.

7lb 8oz.
At home.
All well.
Could be quiet around this blog.
It sure isn't at home ;-)