imagine + holy week (sunday)

April 12, 2009 // No Comments »

Posted in livetheforty, spiritual practices

imagine + holy week (saturday)

April 11, 2009 // No Comments »

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imagine + holy week (friday)

April 10, 2009 // No Comments »

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imagine + holy week (thursday)

April 9, 2009 // No Comments »

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image + holy week (wednesday)

April 8, 2009 // No Comments »

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Shared - Stations of the Cross

April 7, 2009 // 2 Comments »

Posted in culture & life oklahoma city, livetheforty, the gathering

imagine + holy week (tues)

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imagine + holy week (monday)

April 6, 2009 // No Comments »

We invite you to prayerfully engage in the following passage from the Story of God (Scripture) by using the practices described earlier (in this blog) as “Imaginative Meditation” . . .

Online: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2012:1-11;&version=65;

PDF (pages 20ff): http://www.fusionokc.com/resources/livetheforty2009.pdf

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“seeing” as vital to TheForty

March 30, 2009 // No Comments »

last night we poured over the night encounter of Nicodemus & Jesus night.  we explored a reading of the passage where the words of Jesus were affirming to Nicodemus’ observations - that God was involved with all that Jesus was teaching and doing.  

standout for us was this phrase, from Jesus, “…unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (my emphasis)

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: Tim Lowly’s “Viewer”

What are we seeing?  The Kingdom of God (God’s restorative work & presence) is breaking through presently… this kingdom of God reality often so collides with our understanding of life - that it causes a backlash, a vertigo that is very much part of the process of entering and growth in life with God.  

is anyone there?

the process - is likened to being born again.  it’s the process of emerging into a new way of viewing life, living life, and encountering the One True God.  it’s a birth process going on - perpetually.  And God like a Laboring Mother of all of Creation of all of humanity . . . 

Debbie Blue, in Sensual Orthodoxy, helps us dive into this facet/image of God being the one who births (not us) . . . “Maybe we’re being born. Again.  Maybe the spirit really does move and blow.  Maybe it’s happening all around us all the time.  Maybe God is saving the world.  Maybe there’s groaning and blood and pain in the birthing process and maybe it doesn’t feel like being in the womb.  And maybe it isn’t always a nice warm breeze but thank God for breath and life and for enduring the pain . . .  - it’s part of God’s labor for us, with us, that God became human and lived and died on the cross, and through this process which involves God’s suffering, humiliation, and pain, humanity is born again.  And he invites us to believe in this.  It’s the labor process.  In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God brings life to the world.  God births children.”

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another quote . . . the backwards nature of God’s ways

March 23, 2009 // No Comments »

we didn’t get to this quote - but it was printed in the Element Guide.  i’m going to prep our conversation for the coming Sunday (Lent WK 5) with this quote.  But, it also has to do with the Rich Young Ruler conversation.

(The agenda of the Kingdom of God or ‘upside down kingdom’ is so otherworldy that) . . . “The kingdom is always in a head-on collision with the idols of contemporary life—the idols of economic power, political power, ethnic power, social power, even ecclesiastical power, to which men and women sell their souls.  This is not to mention the plausibility structures of the culture that dismiss the good news of Jesus with condescension and contempt.” Robert Thornton Henderson in Subversive Jesus, Radical Grace

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viewing scripture through the lens of grace . . . it’s VITAL

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i quoted Richard Rohr last night.  he’s done more to inform my view of the Narrative of God than anyone else at this stage of my journey.  Check this out - and let’s dialogue about it’s value (or lack of value) as a lens for scripture.

“(The Central Positive Theme of the Bible) is the Divine Unmerited Generosity (or grace) that is everywhere available, totally given, usually undetected as such, and often even undesired . . . people who have not experienced the radical character of grace will always misinterpret the meanings and the direction of the Bible.  The Bible will become a burden and obligation more than a gift.” Richard Rohr in Things Hidden

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image of the week (4)

March 22, 2009 // 2 Comments »

We began LENT “The Forty” pursuing the idea that the process of repentance (metanoia) is SMASHING OUR CURRENT CONCEPTIONS.  For me, this image, speaks to the process of God chunking bricks into the conceptions i live with—revealing their delusions.

So, how has the Lenten process been for you so far?

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40 days = a process toward hope

March 9, 2009 // No Comments »

from the Responsive Reading i wrote for last night . . . it’s been a part of my journey this Lent . . . 

Forty days of warning.  Forty nights of rain.  Forty days of fasting.  Forty years of wandering.  Forty, the amount of time a nation had to REORIENT their life in a posture of humility and embrace the conceptions of Yahweh. A new allegiance forged.  Forty, the amount of time given to purify the earth through the God rains that flooded the wicked.  An earth renewal springs forth.  Forty, the amount of time Jesus would expose Himself to hunger and thirst while making space for His Father–even in the midst of Satan’s attempts to fill the space. A new ministry is birthed.  Forty, the amount of time Israel wandered, exposed to the mirror of their own conceptions that had been rooted through years of slavery in a foreign land.  A  new generation emerged.  Out of the Forty comes hope and new life.

Forty days.  Once a year. 
That we might see the new orientation of our compass heading.  

Forty days.  Once a year. 
That we might expose and smash
the false conceptions that distort our view. 

Forty days.  Once a year. 
That we might truly see who we are,
what we are becoming as people and a community.

Forty days.  Once a year. 
That we might ready our hearts for an evolution - an incremental transformation - that ripples out from the Resurrected One.

Posted in livetheforty, the gathering

Resisting the Season of Lent (The Forty)

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Last night we poured through the life of Jonah.  He is the most prominant figure of Resistance i can think of in Scripture.  Throughout the story - Jonah’s either going the opposite direction or he has a fist toward God, angry about living in a world where God’s love knows no boundaries.  While we could have focused on many things - i chose for us to zero in on Jonah’s resistance to God-believing that is part of the ongoing message to us - Are we resisting God’s work?

This season of The Forty leads us to a place (initially) where none of us are probably thrilled about going.  Lent is a process of coming to our end - a process of becoming more desperate in our dependence upon God.  This may look different for each one of us - but it IS the process we undergo if we are to follow Christ and be utterly effected by the Resurrection.

TO AVOID THE CHANCE TO LIVETHEFORTY (process of repentance) IS TO TURN AND GO THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF OUR CALLING, JUST LIKE JONAH.

Any Thoughts?

Posted in livetheforty, the gathering

Image of the Week

March 2, 2009 // 2 Comments »

The Forty - Image of the Week . . . Tim Lowly “Listen”
Reminding us that the Lenten Season is a time when we leave out or take up practices that lead us to be more attentive to God, listening to the One who has drawn near.  How does this image help you carry the idea of been attentive to God?

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LIVETHEFORTY

February 27, 2009 // No Comments »

This past wednesday marked our entering into the Forty days of community reflection and examination known as Lent.  We’ll be encouraging you all to engage fully in Lent - to LIVETHEFORTY - through engaging Spiritual Practices and considering the significance of “metanoia”.  

Metanoia is the root word used for ‘repentance’ - meaning to change your mind, shift directions, change your course.  Repentance comes in the form of  fundamental shifts that we must undergo - these massive and ongoing reorientating “shifts” occur in our worldview, our economics, our sociology, our theology, essentially every aspect of our life. Where repentance is, we will find our lives nearer and more awake to God and others.

To LIVETHEFORTY is to repent as a community. 
To repent as a community is to see God bringing us to our “ends”. 
To come to our “ends”, leaves us to the work of smashing our current conceptions . . .
which leads to a whole new way of being.

Posted in livetheforty