Tag: unity

Home Somewhere: Howard Thurman on Human Dignity [SSL 312]

Dr Howard Thurman spoke of prayer as the hunger of the heart and the way we lay claim to our identity

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Downright Awestruck [SSL 301]

Today we are probing our sense of mystery and wonder.
Have you encountered AWE lately?
The people, book, and article mentioned, and more info and photos can be found at PART II: https://sparkmymuse.substack.com/publish/post/142762862

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To get the spiritual formation book I wrote (The Wild Land Within)… 🎁 ❤️ 
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• You can find out about my publisher Broadleaf Books here

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Feature photo is from NASA. The first is MSH 11-52, a supernova remnant blowing a spectacular cloud of energized particles resembling the shape of a human hand, seen in data from Chandra, NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), and ground-based optical data.

Drum Circles with Gene Anderson

The Gene Anderson joins us today. Gene is a supportive friend, pastor, poet, and percussionist who blogs as he wanders along the Way at Rucksack Revolution and today is enjoying his 49 birthday at the beach with friends. Happy Birthday, Gene.

 

 What if churches were more like drum circles?

 

What if churches were more like drum circles? What if the Spirit of Liturgy came from within the common heartbeat of those present, what if dancing and community became the norm, what if diversity became the rule and not the exception, what if there were a…

If churches were more like drum circles, an organic ritual of worship, a natural liturgy would arise from the hearts of those participating, rather than imposing a liturgy on those present.

One love, a common beat composed of individual rhythms, a truly organic worship of unity in diversity would rule the day and rock the house with the Holy Spirit dancing to the sound of heartbeats musically expressed.

Together, individual breath and pulse become common, coming together with the vibration of God’s good creation, culminating in koinonia, communitas, and the sacred meal of God’s encircling love.

What if churches were more like drum circles?

What if, because the spirit of liturgy and action came from within the hearts and souls of those gathered, actualizing community became present? Imagine a church where worship became dance, a dance of the body, mind, and spirit, a circle dance like the mystical Trinity of Three-in-One and One-in-Three.

Consider “as above, so below”.

Contemplate the holy sound and actions of deep bass and strong rimshot combining into wholeness, atonement, shalom, and God’s mission to the world through the healing hands of God and the caring human disciples of The Way.

Creation of rhythm as motion and motion as community, community in motion, ordinary radicals, resident aliens of the Kingdom-Life seeking a “better country”.

What if churches were more like drum circles?

Imagine a place where diversity is the norm and not the exception.

Conceive community and not corruption.

Give birth to a world of movement through the hands and feet of all people.

Realize the moment of worship and service to God and others.

Heartbeats together in Holy Rhythm.

Play your drum.

– Gene Anderson

“You teach best what you most need to learn.” – Richard Bach


Oneness/Unity (Flow Chart)

I snapped this photo of a white board at Evangelical Seminary on Tuesday. I think a Marriage and Family Therapy class was in before I got there.

The word unity can be used for oneness here.

Really absorb the elements of this visual. What do you notice?

It seems the path diverges at choice. Reflection and Confession can be chosen over blame. The result is restoration and forgiveness instead of isolation and brokeness.

It’s a lesson I need. It’s a lesson I have to impart to my kids.

What are Your thoughts?

Christian Therapeutic Misogyny

Logical argument?

Given that masculine and feminine are opposite, or counterparts.

Given that a more masculine man is more manly.

Given that a more manly man is movement toward the optimum.

Then, a feminine man is the least optimum.

Then, male is good, and female is bad.

Then, one must reject what is feminine as a disadvantage, and outrightly negative, to move toward the good.

I have a 75% + male readership, and I know most, if not all the males who hear hyper-masculine rhetoric get, at least, a bit nauseated, or frustrated by the vitriol.

“Most [church] dudes are sort of chicks.” -Mark Driscoll (see video)


Please tell me how promoting hyper-masculinity is not also misogyny?

I think this is a situation of a leader being allowed to run amuck with therapeutic misogyny that comes under the guise of Scriptural authority. This is a perversion of leadership.

Is the movement toward masculinizing the church a seductive trap? What about gender is so super important to spreading God’s love and the message of the gospel? How can men be best mentored/discipled?

What should be done?

If you would like to read about this topic from a man’s perspective: both a theologian and former Mixed Martial Artist (a.k.a. “cage fighter”) I recommend this poignant and potent article: THE CONFESSIONS OF A CAGE FIGHTER: MASCULINITY, MISOGYNY, AND THE FEAR OF LOSING CONTROL -by Matt Morin (Matt is a man anyone can respect, but for none of the reasons that Mark Driscoll cherishes.)

Kudos to Matt. I dub you “awesome”.

In the next post, I’ll explore Christian therapeutic, misandry. It’s real, and it doesn’t happen as overtly aggressively as its male counterpart, but it’s just as destructive to the ministry, message, and sacrifice of Christ, our Savior.

So that we may be one in Christ, we must abandon our old, worn out ways that secular culture has blanketed us with. Men and women are not stereotypes. They are not caricatures of the masculine and the feminine, unless those people are spiritually under-developed and unhealthy emotionally. They are instead God’s image bearers, and God’s vehicle to put the world to rights.