A Revolutionary ‘Hail Mary’

Given the sort of physical risk the Bible implies Mary had to survive in order to have a baby, I’ve always thought that these images of revolutionary women might be more appropriate for the mother of Christ rather than the domesticated, insipidly pale faced, blue veiled, watery eyed portraits we’re used to. If you consider that talk of a new Davidic line would have likely been considered seditious in the then occupied Palestine and consider the content of Mary’s Song in the next passage “The rich are sent, empty, away” (A passage that appears nowhere in the 3 year lectionary cycle!), it becomes clear that Mary stands in the radical prophetic tradition of her culture and knows just what’s at stake when one births a “Messiah”.

In this vein I put together my own ‘Hail Mary’ which uses some bits of the traditional Catholic Hail Mary Prayer and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.

‘That Was The Worst Christmas Ever’ Confession

PoC (Prayer of Confession) based on ‘Who is my Family…?’ in the Mark 3 Lectionary reading  (Ordinary 10B)

We reflected on the good and bad parts of our experience of family and the ways that we had succeeded and failed to be the ‘Family of God’ to each other.

For reflection we listened to the song “That was the Worst Christmas Ever” by Sufjan Stevens watching this beautiful filmclip made by John P. Gelety.

In time the snow will rise, in time the snow will rise

In time the Lord will rise, in time the Lord will rise 

Silent night, Holy night 

Silent night, nothing feels right

Newmarket Baptist Church, June 2012

Celtic Prayer Retreat: Praying with the Cornish Saints at the Kernewek Lowender

It was a significant and special time for me in May contributing to the ‘Praying with the Cornish Saints’ Retreat at the Kernewek Lowender Cornish Festival at Moonta on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula.

The Retreat had come about through discussions with Cowethas Peran Sans (The Fellowship of St. Piran) in Cornwall and after an initial workshop at the last Kernewek Lowender in 2009 had been well attended.

Personally I had always had a strong desire to present something more ‘ancient & earthy’ in a two day retreat format at the Kernewek Lowender.  For me it has felt like an important, gut response to what I consider the ‘Musty Methodism’ that gets a good run as an identity marker at the festival.

Whilst I strongly value the spiritual tradition of the Methodist movement and its historical, cultural and political significance for Cornish diaspora, its expression can at times seem to me to be ‘idealised & nostalgic,’ and at worst, a ‘defensive’ or ‘escapist’ response to post modern uncertainty.

Permaculture, Prayer & The Poor

Below is my ‘worksheet’ for a session I ran at God, Food, People in Long Gully, Bendigo with the Seeds Bendigo mob last week.  It was inspired in part by a workshop conducted by Earth Abbey at Greenbelt in 2009.  We started with an open sharing about how we understood permaculture which included a tour of the Hope… It Grows! Community Garden located around the old St. Matthews church property.

I then explained various thoughts about biblical ideas of prayer and  spirituality and  how such ideas may connect with the principles of perma-culture.  We then created space for people to think how using such principles may influence their own ‘spiritual ecology’.

Perma-culture, Prayer and The Poor

What is Perma-culture?

Some Key Principles:	My Prayer Ecology – Spirituality
Observation:  Watch and Pray Stay Awake Your Kingdom/ Economy Come… Patterns, Relationships & Connections
Multi-Function  Necessity & Satisfaction What is the ‘purpose’ of prayer, spiritual practises, religious observance, church attendance… Church and Economy: Church model as Corner Store vs. Mega Mall vs. Organic Vege Shop!
Zones:  Body, Home, Household, Parish, Cosmos Think Global/Cosmic , Act Local/Personal
Polyculture: Multi-Elements  Genesis 11, Acts 2: Babel & Ecstasis John 4 : Spirit and Truth Mystic vs Incarnational, Word vs. Spirit Continuum.
Relative Location & Guilds  Richard Fosters 6 Streams
Yield:  By their fruits you shall know them Food & Table spirituality Mark 9:  Impotence vs. Exorcising Therapy
Rest:   Manna:  Sabbath Memory and Bread of the Presence Give us this Day Our Daily Bread Forgive us our Debts
Increased Edges:  Matthew 25 Galilee vs. Jerusalem, Wilderness vs. Temple, Jesus at the Water’s Edge Wendell Berry Quote
Natural Succession:   Change and Impermanence Christian Spirituality & Apocalyptic Watch & Pray, Be not Afraid, Don’t Worry,  Pioneers and Settlers

Question: Is our ultimate hope ‘Garden of Eden’ ala Anarcho-Primitivists OR is the  ‘New Jerusalem’ a Post Carbon, Transition Town?

Manna for Mission:

• Missionary Grow Home:  Replacing Mission in Bio-regions. Parish or Perish!
• Lessons for Mission and Spirituality within the limits of the earth from the experience of  Indigenous Australians.

Surrender11 Conference: Final Grace/ Eucharist Prayer

Honoured to meet (and dance!) with Uncle Rex Japanangka Granites

I was keen to post my highlights of “Surrender11: Prayer that Changes the World” but most of them are ditto with Christop who, as ever, is right on to it here.

A number of people have asked about our final responsive prayer of the conference which was used as both a benediction and a grace before our final celebration meal.

The prayer is based on Ched Myers’ sermon for the Communion Service at Greenbelt in 2005 which was entitled “Freedom Bound” and it is well worth a click and download from the link here at www.chedmyers.org

We have prayed it often among our Seeds Network mobs and at Urban Seed…at times as a grace before meals and at times as a prayer before sharing communion.  It has become part of our Seeds Table: Mealtime Liturgy for Seedy Mobs.

Freedom Bound:  A Table Prayer for Ordinary Radicals

As we eat this day we remember Passover and Eucharist.

The foundational meals that gave birth to our people.

Meals that commemorate the journey of faith. “Which make a way out of no way.”

The exodus march and the discipleship path.

Last meals of memory for communities on the run, hunted by the powers of empire.

Meals that acknowledge the blood (of the Lamb), as the power of life over death.

Meals for a people “Freedom bound.”

Where the Exodus reminds us we are “Bound for Freedom”; Eucharist reminds us we are bound to the freedom struggle and its cost.

That God’s freedom calls us to self- restraint, servanthood and justice for all.

It reminds us that the “first supper” for a free people was wilderness manna where we are reminded our freedom is contingent upon gathering only enough and sharing the gifts of creation.

Jesus re-enacted this story when, surrounded by hungry masses, he “took bread, blessed it, broke it and distributed it” among the people.

Using the same ritual words at his Last Supper he made the feeding of the multitudes the bridge that connects these two meals

Standing ever between Exodus and Eucharist are poor folks hungering for bread and for the Bread of Life.

And Jesus’ word to disciples remains: “You feed them!”

The tale of these two meals is God’s extraordinary invitation to turn the world right side up, coming in the form of the most ordinary thing we do: sharing food together around a table.

Let us not imagine these meals as a religious entitle-ment, or empty ritual, or for a simply privatised spirituality.

Rather, when we take this Bread and lift this Cup, let us understand that we are part of a legacy that invites our embrace.

For we, too, are part of the ongoing struggle to take back the Freedom story from empire-builders and profiteers, and to restore it among Kingdom-seekers and prophets.

Upon these two memorial feasts, we can confidently stake our lives, our aspirations, our vocations.

On a faithful practice of meal and memory we can rebuild a church that will truly be Freedom Bound, so that this history of liberation may also be our future.

Amen

Prayers for Christchurch: Seeds Prayer

The Seeds Footscray mob kicked off our ‘@SeedsPrayer in the Pergola’ at our house last night.  Our hearts had been heavy during the week thinking about the earthquake in Christchurch. Talitha is Kiwi and Gregg and Bron and Phil from the Cave mob in Ascot Vale were in Wellington when the quake hit as part of the Praxis movement that has been so important in building good community work connections across the Pacific.  Such connections matter so much in times like this.

Our thoughts were also for the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church where Christop, Mehrin and I led worship in the middle of last year as part of the Mark Pierson led Just Worship Seminar for World Vision.  I feel numb when I see the photos.

 

The Ox 2010: pic Christop Booth

The Ox 2011: pic Mike Crudge

Framing her experience with ‘sometimes words cant cut it,’ Bron Morris led a simple Tazie chant at morning worship at Footscray Baptist Church which was very powerful.  I have found the resource for prayers and sermons around natural disasters at textweek really helpful since the Asian Tsunami.  Sadly it seems I’m clicking back there way to often at present!

One of the suggestions was using Springsteen’s song “My City of Ruins” written in light of the 9/11 tragedy in New York.  We played it at the end of our prayers before our benediction.  As I listened I found my thoughts and prayers also going out to Libya, the Middle East and Alice Springs from where I have recently returned.  The Boss can pray for me anytime…

“With these hands, we pray for the strength Lord…C’mon Rise Up!”

Epiphany Prayer for Others: Wise Men, Fire & Water

Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar, behütet uns auch für dieses Jahr, vor Feuer und vor Wassergefahr.

“…protect us again this year from the dangers of fire and water.”

– prayer uttered during the traditional German feast of the Three Kings

Ched Myers blogs here about an old German practice of ritually purifying the household on the Twelfth Day, the “eve of Epiphany.”  Herbs were burned and  the symbol +C+B+M+ with two numbers before and two numbers after (for example, 20+C+B+M+10) were sometimes seen written in chalk above the doorway of Christian homes. The letters are the initials of the traditional names of the Three Magi: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. These letters also abbreviate the Latin phrase Christus mansionem benedicat, “May Christ bless the house.” The beginning and ending numbers are the year, 2010 in the example above. The crosses represent Christ.

Marking the lintels of doorways is an old European practice that originally had overtones of magic (protection of the house). However, the symbols are now used throughout the world and usually represent a traditional Epiphany prayer and blessing.

I used the traditional prayer asking for protection in the coming year from the ravages of fire and water as the basis for my Prayer for Others at Footscray Baptist Church this morning:

Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar, protect us again this year from the dangers of fire and water.”

We pray for those who know the ravages of fire…

For those whom the public announcement of the first Extreme Bushfire Rish day of our Victorian summer in this last week brings back traumatic memories the Black Saturday fires.

For families celebrating a second Christmas without precious family, remembering loved ones lost.

For our own preparations and awareness of bushfire during this holiday period.

Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar, protect us again this year from the dangers of fire and water.

We pray for those who know the ravages of water…

For our brothers and sisters in Queensland who have lost everything and who still await the peak of flood waters this coming week.

For those of poor nations who have experienced natural disasters in the last year.  Places such as Haiti and Pakistan, long forgotten by our news cycle, who face the prospect of ongoing economic ruin and the threat of cholera and waterbourne diseases.

For our leaders struggling to come to terms with the impact of our lifestyles upon climate change and the ever increasingly extreme weather events and their impact upon the poorest of the poor in our world.

Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar, protect us again this year from the dangers of fire and water.

We pray for those who know the ravages of fire…

Of the victims of violence cause by our seeming policy of ‘permanent war ‘.

For those in Afghanistan and Iraq.

For those in places of previous conflict who face the fire of forgotten land mines, depleted uranium munitions and “smart-bombs.”

Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar, protect us again this year from the dangers of fire and water.

We pray for those who know the ravages of water...

For those drowning in debt after another Christmas they could not afford.

For those saturated with the delusions and distractions of our culture of conspicuous consumption in the flood of post Christmas sales.

Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar, protect us again this year from the dangers of fire and water.

We pray for those who know the ravages of fire…

For those of other faiths, cultures, places not of our own who experience the fire of racial prejudice and hatred.

For the ‘innocents’ of our day.  The children of asylum seekers whose mental wellbeing in ‘burned’ by our government policies of incarceration.

We pray for those who know the ravages of water...

For the families and friends of those who recently lost their lives in the tragic sinking of the refugee boat off Christmas Island.

For those who, like you, are compelled to undertake dangerous and risky journeys across social, cultural and political divides in the hope of a new kingdom and freedom.

Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar, protect us again this year from the dangers of fire and water.

Amen.

My Top 3 Ideas for ‘Knowing the Word’ this Christmas : Toward a Seedy Advent Spirituality

At a time of significant change in my life I have decided to post some ideas that are significant for me re Christmas and the Seeds Covenant.   Advent is a time of review at the end of a year.  It is also a time when people consider covenanting to Seeds for the coming year.  As they are considering, people often ask me about Know, Grow, Go and what these ‘buzz words’ mean. I confess that whilst I like words that rhyme, the fuzziness of the communal discernment and the power of questions I also value when things are made clear.  As a way of helping my own and others discernment, I have been challenging myself to be as clear as I can about the ideas behind ‘Knowing the Word’, the spirituality part of the Seeds Covenant.

So My Top 3 ideas for Knowing the Word this Christmas:  Toward a Seedy Advent Spirituality are…

1: The Word is in the Stories on the Street:  On Being a Sucker for Fairy Lights…

2. Pray to the Baby Jesus?: On Truth, Troth and Talladega Nights…

3. Gracious Giving: On whether we will have Enough of Christmas or a Christmas of Enough?…

I will be posting on each leading up to Christmas… in the meantime…

What words/ image/ ideas or experience are most striking/important for your spirituality over the Advent/ Christmas period ?