The Complex Christ

One Day in History | "A Day of No Particular Significance"

History Matters, along with the National Trust and a bunch of other UK organizations have put together 'One Day in History'.

The idea is simple: on October 17th you log on to the History Matters Website and upload your 'blog' diary of that day. These mass entries will then be collated and kept as a permanent record in the British Library of a snap-shot of an ordinary day in the UK in 2006. Why Tuesday October 17th? For no reason. It is 'a day of no particular significance'. Why do it? Because history matters. And this is one way in which the distributed nature of the web can be harnessed, and it's temporal nature bypassed. These 'Mass Observations' have been collected in the UK since 1937 (and are currently archived at the University of Surrey) , but this is a unique way of taking them to a totally new dimension.

Pepys will be rejoicing...

Sign up now.

Technorati Tags: History Matters, London, Pepys

Backside Cache | Dirt and Computing

Great article in Wired at: http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71763-0.html?tw=rss.index

At first sight, a computer is a system that seems "clean." Early mainframes were housed in dust-free rooms bathed in unvarying white light. Nobody ever got physically dirty handling a laptop. The computer-using proverb "garbage in, garbage out" is just a metaphor; nothing physical goes into a computer, and nothing physical comes out of it.

Then again, why would a "clean" system require so many filters? Spam filters, search filters, surf filters? Why would stuff we encounter on a computer screen be capable of making us feel dirty, or "infecting" our clean machines with a virus?

Just as every animal has a mouth and an ass, with processing stuff in between, a computer operating system has inputs, processing and outputs. We input content through a keyboard, a modem, a drawing tablet, USB or Firewire ports. Useful stuff is output via screen, printer, speakers or over the internet. The useless stuff -- dirty old computer waste -- leaves the system via a little desktop metaphor called the Recycle or Trash bin.

It might be refreshing if, one day, the people who made your computer's OS would call a spade a spade. In a section of his conference talk titled "The Geometry of Filth," Adam Jasper Smith gets to the uncomfortable yet unavoidable nub of the matter. "Dirt radiates out from us," he says. "The primal form of this dirt -- the perfect dirt -- is shit."
 

Morning Rush | Art Therapy | Dirt Boundaries

On a school trip to the (excellent, and oft neglected) Museum of London a couple of months back I was struck in the foyer by an exhibition which included this work 'Morning Rush'. Having a while to look through their shop after the tour - a compulsory part of any trip with kids, I can tell you - I noticed (hot tip for interesting gifts) that the museum allows you to browse and order prints from their huge archive of London photography/print.

Not being able to find this particular work, I emailed the museum about the possibility of buying it and was put in touch with one of their external programmes staff. She told me it had been produced by one of the prisoners involved in their art programmes. I won't mention his name here, but it became clear through the negotiations about buying the piece that he was inside for some pretty terrible crimes. And that he was being moved to a high security, long term gaol with no art facilities what-so-ever. It ended up that we made a cheque out to the Governor of this place, and the purchase may go some way to resourcing the beginnings of an art department.

I don't want this to sound like some do-gooder story. And you may hate the piece anyway. But it is background to some difficult questions I was left with to do with beauty. Can hands that have done such violence create rich beauty? If we can agree they can in a physical, material sense, then we have to allow them to have 'beautiful minds' tucked away somewhere. Minds that were troubled into evil acts. Minds that can be renewed. Minds like ours.

So this piece now stands at the bottom of our stairs by the front door. And reminds me each time I step out of the house to try not to stand in judgement on this beautiful/ugly city that is just over the doorstep. But to try to encourage the beauty in each thing. Somehow.

It's not easy.

Technorati Tags: Art, London

Off to Greenbelt | Heretic's Guide to Eternity

I'm off towards Greenbelt tomorrow, via a stop with some friends in Devon, so probably won't be blogging. Before I go, I promised to post a review of Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor's book 'A Heretic's Guide to Eternity'.

First, an apparent paradox in the book, which I think helps unlock its position quite well. Spencer begins with a well written polemic about the state of religion: immovable, unchanging, unresponsive. Religion no longer works for him, but he remains hopeful that "faith can be practiced without the baggage of religion." Yet a chapter or two later, Spencer writes that "in religion, nothing ever stays the same. Our religions are practiced within our cultural horizons, not outside of them."

So which is right? Is religion over, or is it still evolving? Is Spencer leaving religion behind, or practicing it in a new way? The book appears to affirm that it's both/and. And this is the unique place of the heretic: one who stands both within and without, who "pushes past and beyond the conventional wisdom of the dominant group and pulls us across sacred fences that hold us back... Heretics either burn in flames, or light the way for a new generation."

In other words, this is heretic as Trickster. And for that alone, the book deserves to be read. It will challenge and frustrate and stir up and question. And we absolutely need that to happen. In a great section on the prodigal son, Spencer asks us to reflect on ourselves not as the tragic/heroic younger son who gets so marvelously saved, but on the hard, cold, elder son who equally needs saving. Perhaps the younger son's heresy will save them both, for what the story tells us is that grace is something they both needed.

So what's the central heresy here? For Spencer, this grace is an 'opt out' issue, not an 'opt in' one, and this sails him mighty close to Universalism. In fact, he calls it 'Universalism with hell attached' - hell being the place where people who consciously opt out go. Personally, I think there needs to be a lot more careful thinking here. In fact, my reading of the prodigal son story is precisely that grace is an opt-in issue: the elder son hadn't 'opted out' - he'd hung around and done his duty - but neither had he yet opted in, which the younger son did do.

Either way, one of the other key undertones of the book is the centrality of gift - and it is this line of thought about the nature of the 'transaction' of grace that I would have liked to see pursued more rigorously to push beyond the simplicity of opting in or out. But in a sense, that's the beauty of the work: like a good heretic or trickster should, it demands a response from the reader. What is important now is for those theologians who vigorously deny their ivory tower status to come and get their hands dirty with some of this stuff.

Spencer explores a variety of meanings of the word religion, but doesn't mention the latin verb 'religare' - 'to bind'. He is fighting those bindings, and wrestling to be free of them. But we never will be. We are bound and obligated to live inside some plausibility structure: atheistic, Islamic, hedonistic, universalist, Christian. And bound by culture and place within them. The answer is not that these double binds don't exist, but how we negotiate these boundaries and learn from each other about 'the other'. What is perhaps unique about Christ is this: here was a God prepared to be bound, become human and nailed down. And, accepting these limits, forged a freedom for us.

Technorati Tags: Grace, Spencer Burke, Religion, Salvation, TheOoze

Two Links

Gareth Higgins has started blogging. Working at the front line of Northern Irish peace with Zero28, film critic, author, PhD and lecturer... This is going to be someone worth book-marking.

CoComment is a great site I've started using, having seen Andrew Jones doing so. It allows you to track blog comments / conversations really easily - something that is going to be very useful.

Soliton | The Gospel of Welcome

Just at LAX now on my way back from Solition. What with the security alerts in the UK, my flights home have been changed, cancelled and delayed... and changed again to suit me much better than the original plan. At one time I thought I'd have no hand baggage allowed, but they've relaxed that just today. Thank goodness. Seems flying will soon be exactly as Stelios wants it: naked cattle with passports tatooed to our necks. So much easier to transport...

Soliton itself has just been absolutely amazing. The theme was 'the gospel of welcome', and the hospitality has been just incredible. This is no convention centre meeting: it's meeting in homes, in parks, in bars. Conversing, not preaching. Flexible programming and a great relaxed attitude with some brilliant and inspiring people.

The picture is of me and Si Johnston with the little car we were given to get us from the place we were staying one day. It's bigger than my house. And if the flying hadn't already done so, entirely ruined any environmental credentials I may have had. It was a lot of fun though ;-) 3.5 litres of it.

It's going to be a pleasure to have Shane over at Greenbelt. It was really great to meet him. He had to drive an M3 BMW while he was there too, so we all got a little compromised. Greg Russinger - who puts Soliton together - is going to be over too. Just an amazing guy. Do your best to hook up with him while you're there. You don't need a picture. He IS Jack Nicholson in the days of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Here's to getting back home to London. Can't wait.

Technorati Tags: Los Angeles, Greenbelt, Terrorism

Should Mission be about Funding? | Small is Beautiful

Over at TallSkinnyKiwi Andrew has posted some thoughts on How To Ask Foundations For Money.

This isn't the first time Andrew's posts have made me feel a little uncomfortable. And it won't be the last. And I'm glad about that. He's a guy who keeps me itching. But, I have to say, the post did flag some questions for me about some of the foundations of the emerging movement.

Andrew notes:

This kind of thing really wears me out but its a necessary part of mission work and getting the job done. My previous mode of working was to ignore the Foundations and do everything without money as much as I could. But Donors also want to play a part in the Great Commission. Especially the more exciting stuff that I have been involved in this past decade -the mission of God in the global emerging culture - and I have a responsibility to make space in the playground for them also.

It seems trite these days to go back to asking what Jesus would have done, but I think it's a serious point. The gospels suggest that the merry band shared a common purse, and that they probably welcomed gifts. But did they go out fundraising? I wonder if it's a point about gift theory. If you put together a Christmas present funding proposal to your parents about how exactly they are going to get that great gift you so want, and what a boon it would be to your life, is that present still 'gift'? I think something of the gift is destroyed by the proposal.

Vaux was a very small project. I remember going to see the Bishop of London at the House of Lords and him sitting down saying 'So what do you want to see me for? Do you need some money?' His jaw almost hit the floor when we said we didn't. We accepted gifts, sure. But we never went out fundraising. Why? Because it seemed right to live within our means.

I love Schumacher's principle of Small is Beautiful and sometimes wonder if much of the industrial mission machine has moved away from this. The subtitle of his work is 'A Study of Economics As If People Mattered', and it is of course the relational that is central to all we do. How much funding should we need for that?

If these donors want to 'get in' on the global emerging culture, why not just give freely? Oh - because they want to make sure their money is being used wisely. How can they do that? As Andrew hints, they need to get relational. But much more so than they might already be doing. Forget the funding forms and spin culture.

I recently went to speak at a large, modern, beautiful church and was speaking to one of the congregation about the building. 'It's horrendous!' they moaned. 'It's costing us so much to keep up'. So sell it. Live within your means. Accept gifts. And if that means scaling back some big projects, fine. The Church™ will survive.

Technorati Tags: Consumption, Mission

Glass Works

Just wanted to flag up Saga Arpino's site cataloguing and promoting her work. A recent post-grad of the Royal College of Art, Saga is fine artist, a Vaux accomplice, and her award-winning work in glass is fantastic. Order some for your space now.

Technorati Tags: Architecture, Art, Glass, London

Noise Mapping | Sound Pollution | Aural vs Visual

Via TimeOut, the London Noise Map.

It's a pretty sophisticated resource, with maps produced by postcode, time of day, major roads excluded or included etc.

What's interesting about the article that accompanied the piece in TimeOut is that it showed that Londoners find road noise to be their great source of irritation. In a world obsessed by anti-social behaviour laws and apparently over-run by block-parties and noisy-neighbours, it's actually traffic that is the most anti-social beast in town. I doubt I'd get very far trying to put in an ASBO on cars and scooters, but research like the London Noise project - funded by DEFRA - does give designers and architects the tools to try to reduce the impact road noise has on our lives.

On another point, I think it's also fascinating that even though we have become such visual beasts - spending so much of our time staring at screens - anti-social behaviour is still essentially a majority aural problem. It's very easy to close your eyes. It's bloody hard to close your ears. One feels that there perhaps needs to be a rebalancing of effort here. So much time and money is spent improving the 'look' of our cities - the visual environment - but given this fact that it's the aural that affects our perception of calm and peace, perhaps more ought to be spent on the 'sound' of our cities too.

Technorati Tags: Antisocial Behaviour, Architecture, London, Noise, Science, Technology

Contemplative Youth Ministry | Being Present to 'The Other'

I volunteered to be part of the 'grid blog' flagging up Mark Yaconelli's book 'Contemplative Youth Ministry', and duly received a copy to read from the publisher.

It's very good. We were traveling up to Iona with some friends, one of whom was also reading it, and she was also very positive.

A quote I'd like to pull out is on page 101, where Mark is reflecting on the practice of contemplative prayer with young adults, as opposed to a 'doing' style:

"Sadly for many of us there are few precious moments among our many human interactions when we feel someone is fully present to us... If you look back over your life, you may find that the moments that had the greatest impact on you were moments when you were in the presence of someone who was fully present to you."

This is the true essence of contemplation - not that we find ourselves, but that we engage with 'the other'; not that we become centred, but that we find space for 'the other' within our centre, and thus become fully present to them.

And if we can help people to begin this journey when they're young - then all the better.

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Next post due tomorrow [ here ]

Technorati Tags: Contemplative Youth Ministry Grid Blog, Youth Ministry