We shared a lovely ‘Seeds Companions’ Day on Saturday hosted by Seeds Bendigo at St. Matthews in Long Gully. The day consisted of introductions, singing, prayer, a working bee in the ‘Hope… it Grow’s’ Community Garden, a fantastic ‘homemade from the garden’ soup lunch and a reflective time upon the Seeds Covenant and The Questions of Jesus.
My reflection was based upon the Foreword to John Dear’s “The Questions of Jesus” by Richard Rohr
…which I summarised with the following: Continue reading
I have been working on a prayer response to a session on ‘Questioning’ by Peter Chapman for young people at this coming weekend’s Common Rule Retreat . This theme is one close to my heart as one of the queries we embrace as part of the Seeds Covenant is:
“How do the questions from the gospel stories shape our understanding?”
At the Common Rule Retreat we will be creating a large walking spiral at night which will be filled with illuminated paper bags and glass jars.
as categorised by John Dear
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:
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Multi-Function
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Zones:
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Polyculture: Multi-Elements
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Relative Location & Guilds
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Yield:
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Rest:
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Increased Edges:
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Natural Succession:
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Question: Is our ultimate hope ‘Garden of Eden’ ala Anarcho-Primitivists OR is the ‘New Jerusalem’ a Post Carbon, Transition Town?
Manna for Mission:
"...through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life... and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." Revelation 22:2
The Tree at the Centre of the Universe
I used this as a prayer of confession for our Seeds Consecration Service in January. I chose it because one of our covenanting themes, ‘Grow Home’ asks us to re-imagine the vow of chastity in our exploration of community together. I won’t talk alot about what that means here, other than say it is not just about sex, or not having sex. Re-imagining chastity involves deepening our understanding of the connections between flesh and spirit and treating them as sacred. I often say to people that for most of the Seeds mobs chastity has had more to do with how we deal with food rather than sex… but i digress!
It was the vow of chastity, that I thought of when I came across this creative, ‘personal is political’ experiment with regards to fashion and how we clothe our bodies by Kristy Powell. Entitled “One Dress Protest” , it documents her journey and thoughts as she seek to wear one black dress for an entire calendar year. I discovered her blog through Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries.
Kristy’s reflections upon a JC Penny commercial formed the basis of our confession during the liturgy at our recent Seeds Consecration Service.
I played the 30 second video twice and voiced some of her words during the second running.
All the women in this commercial seem to be in the middle of their daily routine. They are sitting in coffee shops descending fire-escapes (seriously?), getting on the subway…
Yet something pulls them away. Almost in mid-stride all of their eyes glaze over (or, in the woman in the coffee shop’s case, in mid-sip) and they glide away from normalcy. Walking away from their already fashionable lives, it’s almost as if they are caught in the orbit of something more powerful than their own free will, like a modern-day pied piper:
In fact, they look eerily similar to lifeless zombies as they move through the streets.
Their numbers grow, but where are they going? Who cares, they don’t seem to mind their marionette-like existence. What has their attention? Surprisingly, the crowd gathers around a tree:
And finally, the payoff – an orange leaf falls to the ground, signifying autumn, which apparently means it’s time to go out and buy some clothes at JC Penney, “where fall fashion is beautiful and affordable.”
Because everyone knows that this time of year—when the leaves explode in color and catch our breath, when the air crisps in our lungs, and when pumpkins and squash abound—is really just a wondrous reminder of our need to go shopping.
God, we confess:
Toward a Seedy Advent Spirituality #3: Enough of Christmas or a Christmas of Enough!… On Gratitude and Giving (Part A.)
Among the queries of the Seeds Covenant we are asked, to whom are we offering and from whom are we receiving hospitality?
The spirituality of hospitality is based on the premise that, having being saved by the gracious hospitality of God we are invited and inspired to respond.
This is not just an abstract idea. Unexpected giving can be very powerful. I have felt and seen the fruit of extravagant giving in people’s lives. From the ratings grabbing, raw emotional power of a reality TV show conclusion such as Backyard Blitz, to some of the ways that people have blessed me at difficult times in my own life. Such moments of grace stand out to me as unforgettable and shape my consciousness about whether I live in a universe of scarcity or abundance.
The longer I have sought to give hospitality however the more I realise that it is never a given.
An extravagant one off gift made here and there is one thing, but maintaining hospitality in true solidarity, as basis for ones’ ongoing spirituality is not simple. Seeking to hold the tensions between scarcity and abundance, giving and receiving, unconditional love and justice, can be demanding and exhausting.
Hans Boersma challenges the notion that God is a tingling mass of open hospitality in his Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Re-appropriating the Atonement Tradition. He seeks to problemat-ise what we often see as hospitality and its limits in relation to the demands of justice. It’s a controversial and challenging read, the spirit of which is reviewed well here.
These issues are also touched on by Christine Pohl in her book Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition which has been a staple for Seeds communities. Whilst emphasizing the spiritual benefits of entertaining angels. http://www.amazon.com/Making-Room-Recovering-Hospitality-Christian/dp/0802844316
Pohl does not gloss over the human toll involved in providing hospitality, and the enormous burden it often places on a few. She discusses openly the painful question of boundaries and limits in the practice of hospitality, and the need to maintain identity as well as openness to others.
Hospitality is never just the giving. What and how we receive in return does matter for the deeper, mutuality of human relationship that we are often seeking in our gift giving. For every story around the Seeds Network of someone entertaining angels or being ministered to powerfully by those they have sought to serve, there is the shadow story of another who feels tired, let down, exploited and so spiritually dry they have had to say Enough!
Toward a Seedy Advent Spirituality #3: Enough of Christmas or a Christmas of Enough!… On Gratitude and Giving (Part B) Christmas Hospitality : On Giving and Receiving: Frankinsense, Foot Spas and Fridge Kids!
