Thursday, June 17, 2010

Probably all going to hell, sorry.

There is this singer song writer comedian traveling bagman with a world view askew whom we fell in love with in our time in Indy. Recently a friend sent us this link.
you'll either love it or be sure we're going to hell.


One of the links that comes up with this has more verses and has the heaven grading scale

enjoy?

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Buddhist Rituals

It's been a year since anyone posted on this blog. During our recent trip to Japan, we visited Buddhist temples.

Phil is pouring water over a small Buddha.
Ginger is offering a prayer with incense.

Did these rituals have meaning for us? Not really - we were being irreverent.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Let The Mystery Be



Chorus:
Everybody’s wondering what and where they all came from
Everybody’s worrying bout where they’re gonna go
When the whole things done
Nobody knows for certain,
And so it’s all the same to me
I think I’ll just let the mystery be

Some say once gone, you’re gone forever
Some say you’re gonna come back
Some say you rest in the arms of the savior
If in sinful ways you lack
Some say that they’re comin back in a garden
Bunch of carrots and little sweet peas
I think I’ll just let the mystery be

Some say they’re going to place called glory
And I aint sayin it aint a fact
But I’ve heard that I’m on the road to purgatory
And I don’t like the sound of that
I believe in love and I live my life accordingly
But I choose to let the mystery be

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Ikon

Here are some excerpts from a Christian Century interview with Ikon’s Peter Rollins.
(Peter Rollins is a prominent figure in the emergent church movement in the UK.)

I found both the similarities to and differences from IT to be quite interesting.


Seeds of Doubt

What does Ikon do beyond the performances at the pub?
We try to disrupt people’s understanding of Christianity and get them to think differently. For example, we take on atheism for Lent. We read all the great atheistic critiques of religion, such as those by Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud.
There’s a big thing in the UK called the Alpha Course – it’s a 12-week introduction to Christianity. Ikon offers the Omega Course – it’s about how to leave Christianity in 12 weeks.
We have a group called the Evangelism Project that goes out to be evangelized. We visit other religious traditions, both within Christianity and outside Christianity – Buddhism, humanism, Jewish traditions, Scientology. We go to listen and learn and to be transformed.
We also have a group called the Last Supper. Twelve of us meet in a supper room in a bar, and we invite public figures to come and talk to us about what they believe and why they believe it. If we don’t like what they say, it’s their last supper with us.

It appears that in some ways you are interested in sowing seeds of doubt.
When we come to doubt the interventionist God, as we all do when we encounter suffering and death, we generally go one of two ways. One way is to say, “I’m not sure there is a God, because of all of this suffering.” Or we say, “ I believe there is a God who got all of this started, the God of the philosophers, but I don’t think God intervenes.”
There’s a third way: to maintain one’s doubt about God, but also to believe in God’s intervention. That is, once can say, “ I don’t know who or what or if God is, but something happened in my life. I was reconfigured. I was rebooted. Something happened to transform me, and I want to live in fidelity to that.”

What kind of people make up Ikon?
Atheists and theists, liberals, and conservatives, Protestants and Catholics, gays and straights – the whole works.

Who are its leaders?
I like to think of Ikon as a donut with a hole in the middle. Usually a church is more like a Danish pasty: you’ve got the jammy center, which is your leadership. We try to have a hole in the center so that we are all on the edges.
…Some people think that Ikon is crypto-evangelistic or neo-evangelical. Other people think it is crypto-atheistic, trying to keep young people out of the church. Think of two people sitting over a beer and one of them is saying, “I’m going to convert you to Christianity,” and the other one is saying, “I’m going to get you out of Christianity.” I love that as long as neither one is colonizing the space.

Would you call Ikon a community?
No, because as soon as you say that word all of the people who need community come out – the group turns incredibly needy, and suddenly the whole thing is on its way to vanishing. The best way to forge community is not to call it a community. We call Ikon a collective, a gathering or a crowd. People naturally make connections, and community happens.
….The most important part of our gatherings are pre-Ikon and post-Ikon, but you can't have either of those without Ikon itself. We have about 45 minutes before an Ikon meeting starts where people just have a drink and chat, and the same for a couple of hours afterward.
Paradoxically, I say, "Ikon doesn't care about you. Ikon doesn't give a crap if you are going through a divorce. The only person who cares is the person sitting beside you, and if that person doesn't care, you're stuffed." People will say, "I left the church because they didn't phone me when my dad died, and that was really hurtful." But the problem is not that the church didn't phone but that it promised to phone. I say, "Ikon ain't ever gonna phone ya." Pete Rollins might. But if he does, it will be as Pete Rollins and not as a representative of Ikon. Ikon will never notice if you don't come. But if you've made a connection with the person sitting next to you, that person might.

What is Ikon’s relationship to the church?
Ikon is like the warning on the side of a package of medicine tablets. Yu can’t have the tablets without the warning, but the warning without the tablets is nonsense.
Often I say the Ikon works only if you are rooted in a religious tradition. Ikon doesn’t make sense if you are not located somewhere, because it is fundamentally a rupture and a provocation. We have to have something to deconstruct. Ikon has led some people to church, and it had led some people out of church.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

road trip


where and when will the next IT road trip be?


1. a wine tasting trip in S AZ or Jerome area?

2. Camping in Mogillon Rim area?

3. weekend retreat at a monastery?

4. Durango, CO?

5. Sturgis

6. Burning Man festival (hosting an IT tent)

7. Sedona Jazz festival


or


???

Friday, December 12, 2008

religulous

Read the at least one of the links first.
http://www.foxnews.com/video-search/m/21619563/religious_overtones.htm?pageid=31927
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/4109048/

And there were reindeer herders in the hills, And low pixies in the sky dropped magic corn kernels which the reindeer ate because face it they were in the desert a kernel of corn was much better than manna, suddenly reindeer were able to fly. Now the herders had been drinking pretty heavily so at first they thought they had just gotten another bad batch of Joshiah's infamous clay vessel Gin and were seeing things, but then the reindeer landed and the pixies told the herders to climb aboard and ride them down to the village to visit the local free stalls. The ride, flight, caused enough vertigo and nausea that by the time they landed the herders were almost sober. So they cleaned up and visited the stalls, found Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. Most of the rest of story you know from here. The three wise men from the east, Abominable, Santa and Frosty. The three of them and most of the herders hit it off quite well and hung out for quite a while getting to know the whole holy family. Then Jack "the scrooge" Frost-Herod, got jealous and you know the things he did, just a horrible man, but the whole party flew the reindeer down to Egypt to save baby Jesus and his parents. That kind of sobered up the party and thinking it was best they split up for all of their safety. Some went north, some went east, a lot of them went west, in fact those who were the most vocal story tellers and marketing geniuses are the ones that went west.
So you see, that's why the story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is a religious story. Its a story of redemption of the misfits and the learning of Grace for the occupants of Santa's villiage. Forgiveness of the bumble (they called him Abominable because the original Abo was a big guy with lots of hair), and of course they learned that if you are good enough, and have a bright enough nose you can get through any storm.
er......
Goes to show....

Sunday, November 30, 2008

How to Create a New Post

    • Log in with your email address and password.
    • Click on “New Post” on the upper right.

    • Enter a title in the “Title” bar.
    • Click in the big white box below and start entering the text of your post.
    • To upload a picture, click on the picture icon (3rd icon from the right in editing strip above white box). Follow the buttons on the screen to browse your hard drive for the picture.It’s better if you don’t load a 3MB picture, shrink it with Picasa (photo software from Google – oh, maybe that needs it’s own tutorial…). Decide they layout of the photo (none, left, right, center). I usually leave it as none.Choose image size – medium is good. Then click orange “Upload Image” box. Wait until the image uploads. You’ll see it in a pop up window. Click “Done.”
    • Videos are too advanced for you. Venture there at your own risk (2nd icon from the right in editing strip above white box).
    • When finished, click “Publish Post” orange box on bottom left.
    • Admire your post by clicking on "View Blog."