Youth worker and community leader Orland Bishop explains the meaning of the Zulu greeting Sawubona (“We see you”) as an invitation to a deep witnessing and presence. This greeting forms an agreement to affirm and investigate the mutual potential and obligation that is present in a given moment. At its deepest level, Orland explains, this “seeing” is essential to human freedom.

Via The Global Oneness Project.

This post starts a new series dedicated to the journey of cultivating and living in Intentional Communities (IC). The purpose of this series is to start a conversation as I share some of my experiences as life long practitioner and student of this way of life.  I hope to contribute to a deeper and practical understanding of the experience of living in community and to engage with the wisdom of the many of you whom are kindred spirit.

In the upcoming posts I’ll explore issues like:

• Spirituality
• Time management
• Reasons – communal & individual 
• Resources
• Conflict management
• Purpose 
• Sameness vs. Diversity
• Homogeneity vs. Unity
• $$
• Membership
• Decision making
• Kids
• Visitors
• Celebrations
• Sustainability
• Families in community
• Food and Justice
• Blessing and releasing
• IC as hinder of growth
• IC as greenhouse for transformation
• Radical Discipleship
• Locality – Urban, suburban, Rural
• Sacred Rhytyms
• models of leadership
• new monasticism
• Nocive ways of community relationships
• among others…

Send me your suggestions of topics you would like for us to explore together. 

According to the Alternative Mustard Seed Calendar, this week is Create your Community (Family, dorm, tent, church, workplace, etc…) Altar Week.

Create a personal/ community shrine in a week – A shrine is a piece of furniture with tangibles that serve us to remind us of intangibles-
Gather a piece of furniture (shelf, cabinet, cupboard, little table) and collect books, little items, photos, rocks, drawings, etc… that have a special meaning for you, your family or your community. use this shrine as a place to mark special events. This could help as a repository of collective memory.
Do not explain what you put in the shrine until the end of the week, when all of you gather together and share stories of the specific items.

Share your process, reflections and photos at the MSA Blog.

Progress, Shame, and Silencing the Margins – Panel discussion of the Film Up The Yangtze

Moderator: Dwight Freisen

Panelists: Cal Uamoto, Eliacin Rosario-Cruz, Chelle Stearns, Christopher L. Heuertz

The following panel discussion took place at the Film, Faith, and Justice forum in Seattle, Washington on October 23rd, 2008.

Film, Faith, and Justice is a forum exploring the relationship between theology and social justice. As host to the Human Rights Watch Traveling Film Festival, this forum uses films, keynote lectures, and discussion panels to engage modern issues of faith and social justice.

Here is a brief list of what have kept me occupied and present the last couple of weeks. (not in any order of importance, but in the random way the brain tent to remember things)

•  Africa: Cultural Studies/Awareness is part of our counter/curriculum in our home education project with Catie. One of the main reasons we are educating our kids at home is to be able to explore deeper the different cultural and ethnic groups that formed them. Last year we started our cultural studies with Catie by giving her the choice to focus for a time in one of the many ethnic groups which she belong to. The first group was the Pottwattamie People, on which she is part of via Ricci’s father lineage. Which she explored and learned of and from for about 5 months. Last August she decided she wanted to know more about her African heritage, which comes to her through me. So for the last couple months Catie and I have been touring the Africa, via the lives of 6 of it’s amazing royal women. The book we’ve been using to guide us through our exploration is  African Princess : The Amazing Lives of Africa’s Royal Women. Not only have Catie been learning about geography and African culture, this way of exposing her to some of her strong female ancestors is also her forming helping for in her a sense of pride and identity as a young woman.  

          Step aside Cinderella, here comes Tata Ajaché!

• A Growing family: Catie just turned 6 years old last week. Gabrielito will be 2 next month an we are expecting our third next March. We found out last week that we are having another boy. Catie was devastated to find that out because she really wanted a sister. But now she is excited to realize the power it will bring to be the older sister and the only daughter, only girl of 6 grandkids on my side of the family. I’m also the co-owner with Catie of a betta fish, which she got for her Birthday.

• 2009 Alternative Calendar: See more here

• Radical/Alternative/Counter/ Formation un/education project: Not much to say at this point yet, but several of us are schmeing, conspiring and dreaming on an alternative/collaborative way to engage in formation for communities of creativity and radical critique. More soon.

• Community life at the Mustard Seed House: Living in community is exciting, but not in the adrenaline rush kind of way. It is not for thrill seekers, which I guess is a good thing. The element of triviality and mundane life is what make most of community life. The key is to realize that the trivial is where incarnation happens. (Advent is coming, so I’ll keep my thoughts on incarnational living for an Advent post.)  Most people go through their daily activities as if cruise control, with no clue of what really motivates them and move them forward. The reality of our assumptions and values is express when we act them out. They are performative. To question them when we are in a reflective mood, or in a conversation with others in easy. Hardly any one would confess that they live greedy, selfish lives, control by desire for attention and in obedience to the Empire. But it is in the way we live our everyday, mundane acts that we embrace and perform who we really are. Here is where community come to hold us accountable to our desire for transformation. Community serve as a safe space to become whom we are called to be. Also as midwife of a new way of living in the midst of the negative space of the Empire.  A space to experiement with a different kind of life, which  we will not have the guts to try on our own. Community also hold us lightly in love when we judge ourselves to harsh. For me is more about decolonizing the occupied places of the Empire in us, than moving into the abandoned places. We can move into a new place and still bring the occupied heart and mind with us. 

• The Blues: Not the beautiful generative music, but the mood. I’ve been feeling down lately. I’m not sure if what I am feeling are the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder or signs of depression. Depression runs in my family (via my dad’s side of the family), so I am considering talking to my doctor about it. We’ll see.

• Reading: Here is a brief list of a couple books I’ve read recently.

The Becoming of G-d by Ian Mobsby

How (Not) to Speak of God, The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief by Pete Rollins

Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World Is Possible, John Cavanaugh, Editor

Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography By John Dominic Crossan

Post-Scarcity Anarchism (Working Classics) by Murray Bookchin

Consuming Religion: Christian Faith And Practice in a Consumer Culture by Vince Miller

Engaging Politics: The Tensions of Christian Political Involvement by Nigel Oakley

 

 

 

 

Time Banking – Creating Social Change by Weaving Community

At its most basic level, Time banking is simply about spending an hour doing something for somebody in your community. That hour goes into the Time Bank as a Time Dollar. Then you have a Time dollar to spend on having someone doing something for you. It’s a simple idea, but it has powerful ripple effects in building community connections.

Each Time Bank has a website where you list what you would like to do for other members. You look up Time Bank services online or call a community coordinator to do it for you. You earn Time Dollars after each service you perform and then you get to spend it on whatever you want from the listings.

With Time Banking, you will be working with a small group of committed individuals who are joined together for a common good. It connects you to the best in people because it creates a system that connects unmet needs with untapped resources. To see what happens each week when you are part of Time Bank is deeply fulfilling, especially if you are helping to make it run.

We at Mustard Seed Associates want to invite you to join this important conversation. Read the summary of the ideas generated by our brainstorming groups and the other articles. Then please feel free to share your responses to these preparedness ideas, and send us your ideas as well.

• What are ways that followers of Jesus and our churches could reduce our vulnerability and increase their capability of being the compassion of God to those in need during a time of growing economic crisis?

• What are other organizations, books or websites that can help us all increase our capacity for compassionate response in times of economic crisis?

Imagine the difference followers of Jesus could make if we creating ways to be the compassion of God to those that are being hammered by the hurricane force winds of this global recession.

When we started planning this issue of the Seed Sampler, the near meltdown on Wall Street was still a few weeks away. We had no idea how pertinent this information would be become. In light of recent events, recession preparedness (and response) plans in churches and communities are going to be vital to the well-being of countless families and neighborhoods.

On September 7th, we gathered a group of church leaders to discuss methods of preparation and response for likely disaster. Tom Sine gives a fuller description of the event in the Seed Story, and the first Seed Share is a report of the ideas generated there. Read articles from Eileen Hanson and Rick Reynolds for new ideas and programs already in the works. Penny Carothers’ article documents the similarities between established disaster response plans and possible recession plans. And to keep a global perspective, Samantha Baker-Evans shares what the current crisis looks like in Cambodia.

You might notice that this issue of the Seed Sampler is coming a little later than it usually would. That is mostly because we wanted to include the most up-to-date information on the bailout plan and the likely future of our struggling economy, so that we can help you prepare. We hope that you will take these ideas to heart and reach out to the vulnerable in your neighborhoods.

Seed Story | Recession Is Looming: How Can We Prepare? by Tom Sine, MSA team

Liturgy | Prayer in the Face of Economic Downturn by Christine Sine, MSA team

Reflection | Abundance For Sharing by Christine Sine, MSA team

Seed Share | What Recession Looks Like In Cambodia by Samantha Baker-Evans, InnerCHANGE Cambodia

Seed Share | Report From the Brainstorming Session

Seed Share | Lessons Learned From Church Disaster Plans by Penny Carothers

Seed Share | How to Help the Most Vulnerable by Rick Reynolds, Operation Night Watch

Seed Share | Rediscovering the Domestic Lost Arts by Eileen Hanson, Trinity Lutheran Church, Lynnwood, WA

Resources | click here

Via Godspace

Sunday night we started a series of discernment sessions with the Mustard Seed House community to work out how we can put our MSA rule of life into practice.  Over the next few months we plan to use this process to flesh out the shape of not just our community life but our personal disciplines too.  The idea is not  to dictate how each person practices their faith but to provide a framework of accountability for the practices that each person wants to commit to.  I am a great fan of British theologian John Stott.  One of his great comments from a lecture of his is

“The answers we get depend on the questions we ask.  Our job is not to give people answers but to help them ask the right questions

Part of what we are discovering is that this discernment process enables us to ask the right questions that move us towards a more intimate walk with God and a life in which God’s presence is more deeply connected to everything that we do.

The first half hour of our meeting was spent checking in – reflecting on what we are looking forward to and what we have experienced in the last week.  This provided a wonderful foundation for our discussions.  We then asked other the question:

What personal prayer and Bible study practices would you like others to hold you accountable for?

As we shared we realized that we are all had very different ideas of how much time we should spend in prayer and Bible study.  Some of us were struggling with the very idea of daily prayer times because these had become rote routines that seemed to do little to strengthen our faith.  After a very open time of sharing we started to grapple with what is probably a much more important question for us.

What makes us feel closest to God?

As we discussed this question we realized that most of us draw closer to God through a variety of avenues that often have very little to do with Bible study and traditional forms of prayer.  However these practices often then draw us into prayer and Bible study as a way to go deeper into the revelation of God that we are already experiencing.  Some of us connected to God through nature, another person through walking on the beach or reading and yet another through encountering the divine presence of God in the mundane everyday things of life. Someone else encountered God through talking to friends and strangers.

Out of this discussion we have shaped our question for next week

Out of knowing how we experience God, what practices should we encourage in each other in order to help us experience God more deeply?

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Last week, thecommonroot.org was launched. The Common Root is a network for communities committed to Jesus’ radical way of shalom. This network used to be called “Submergent,” but we changed the name for a couple reasons. First, folks kept assuming that we were a sub-group of Emergent for Anabaptists. Secondly, the name didn’t convey the “vibe” we were looking for.

We are called “Common Root” because, together, we are rooted in the life of Christ. The word “radical” comes from the Latin word “radix” which means “root.” A radical movement is one that seeks to challenge the status quo by seeking change by getting to the root of the issue. This movement is made up of denominational Anabaptists (like Mennonites, Brethren in Christ, and Church of the Brethren), neo-Anabaptists, peace-minded liberationists, Catholic Workers, and other theological exiles and refugees. We aim to be a diverse mix of people whose common “root” is the radical way of Jesus Christ lived out in a post-Christian, post-colonial world where the Church is slipping into the margins and is, we hope, able to regain its prophetic voice.

These our our convictions:

1. The way of Jesus is nonviolent at its core.
2. Jesus calls communities to continue in the way of life he set for us.
3. The way of Jesus is prophetic, creative, and dynamic.
4. The Spirit of Jesus is stirring a creative, prophetic church that resists Empire wherever it is found.
5. Repenting of our desire for power and control, our movement embraces the diverse groups of people that share in these convictions.

In these violent days, the Spirit is stirring a prophetic, nonviolent movement of communities committed to embracing the way of Jesus in creative and sustainable ways. In light of this, these are our current aims:

• Connecting communities committed to our convictions.
• Providing resources for peacemaking, hospitality, simplicity, prayer, and mission.
• Fostering new communities that creatively embody Christ in their context. In particular, we want to foster new intentional communities, neighborhood-based communities, and other alternative church expressions.
• We want to tell the stories of faithful individuals and communities that exemplify the way of Jesus in the shadow of empire.

If the Common Root seems like something you want to be a part of, consider yourself invited.

If you are interested in starting a new community (church, intentional community, etc.) that shares in the convictions outlined above, please go here and make contact. We’re currently working on a gathering in February for those interested in being a part of a new planting initiative being supported by the Mennonites (which doesn’t require you to become Mennonite).