Reproduction III

Part I
Part II
Part III

I used to hate Phil Collins' In the air tonight. I don't know why, no real reason, it just didn't appeal to my musical palate. Flash forward about, oh, 27 or so years. I'm listening to an online radio station, when this song comes on. And I cry. I listen to it on repeat for hours and try to suck the life out of it so I can be set free into the new thing.

There is a lot of urban legend surrounding this song, but all I can hear reverberating my head is the heartcry of the chorus:

"I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord
Ive been waiting for this moment, all my life, oh lord
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord, oh lord"

It echoes endlessly in my mind, waking something that was once dead and creating in me a new hope.

A group of us have begun talking about something else (here and here and here, for starters). We don't know what else, but something other. A grassroots, kind of subversive thing. A new thing. We don't yet know what this is, but we each feel it. It is strange; in fact I initially thought the whole idea was batshit crazy. But I can't deny that I'm only one of many who have some crazy in their hearts, and it sank into my soul, where it germinated and sprang up out of the dark and dirty place in me where church once held my spirit hostage.

One thing I have learned in this last altogether tumultuous year is that blogging is not a solitary venture. Let me clarify, for I realize most of us know it's not a solitary venture...we need others to read and interact on our blogs in order to be "successful" at it. However, most of us go into it with a certain self-centeredness; this is not wrong, because the motives that get us in the door are not important. But we must remain open to what happens once we are there. And what we find, if we look closely with an open heart, is something we might not expect. The level of community I have found continues to deepen as time goes by, as shared dreams are discussed and as the future is considered. Today, the spiritually free place I live is mostly attributed to the people I have met along the way; not to my own wisdom, but to the collective wisdom that is shared in this place. Suddenly my blog isn't my blog anymore, it's a gathering place...this is how I see it anyhow. It's not my place where I brag about what wonderful things I know or how much wisdom I possess, but a place where I am acutely aware that I only own a small piece of a puzzle, and as others bring their pieces, we will begin to form a picture. And I don't just mean here, again here is just a piece of it. As we have begun to congregate in places like Rahab's Kitchen...something has changed in me. It's no longer about me and what I know or don't know, experience or complain about. I see a place to begin to fertilize this batshit-crazy thing.

I see Jesus' mission to be like a virus rather than a meeting or a building or a service. It's not something we give to other people, it's something they catch from us. It's not a place we invite people to, it's something we become. It's not something we give to, it's something we give from. So much of Christianity, churchianity, is inward focused...we give of our time and money and love and relationships back into the church....and it is there we lose Jesus' vision. For he was outward-bound.

So often we talk about how Christianity is really about relationships. I agree, to some extent. However, I have one big disagreement with that train of thought, because so often what I hear from that is that our reason to be in relationships with people is so eventually they will become Christians. Not so, in my mind.

But then here is where I go off on my tangent. Christianity isn't something we are or somewhere we go or even who we worship. Being a little Christ is something we give to others, because of an example that was set for us...something we bless people out of. Whether or not they ever embrace Jesus is of little concern to me; for it's not up to me. I want to be a blessing because I can, not because of what someone will give back to me by their conversion. So beat me with a flannelgraph, because, yes, I just said it doesn't matter to me if they ever embrace Jesus.

However, any new thing is going to have pitfalls and snags, especially if it is bound and determined to replicate or reproduce something that already exists. Newer Better Faster. Improved. What I'm thinking about today is how to avoid the pitfalls...certainly not all the pitfalls can be avoided, but I believe the pitfalls of reproduction can. I do think in this new connected world, more fascinating things are possible than ever conceived of before.

So how do we start from the beginning, to truly build something from the ground up, without taking the shortcuts of reproduction, without utilizing the skeleton of the old thing? We have this new vision, and this new sense of this faith we hold and this new sense of smallness in the world. How do we run with it and create something tangible without drawing on things that seem to have worked in the past? It's so easy to fall back into the knowns instead of forging ahead into the unknown.

More to come.