A Short One

I’m working on something longer, but I couldn’t finish it this week, so a quick entry with some great links. And of course, Happy Mother’s Day to anyone doing any mothering out there.

I got these links via yoga class, a good place to get a spiritual injection. The yoga teacher is always supplying me with good stuff, and one is from another student. I guess we’re teacher and students, but it feels more like participants, anyway, the first is a book that is now on my list, I’ll let you know when I finish it:

Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World

From there, I followed links and ended up finding this guy

Tony Jones

I haven’t completely figured him out yet. Hard to tell if he is just new packaging, or really something new. “New” in this case can mean something old that has been pushed aside for several hundred years. He calls his church Solomon’s Porch, a reference to the idea of a house church. The idea is to have everyone bring something, maybe food, maybe a sermon, maybe a reading, maybe a song, maybe some insight, maybe some aid for a friend.

It’s not really new, it’s what was going on in Colossae and Ephesus in the first century. Then Kings got involved and wanted to nail down some dogma. It has continued to bubble up again and again throughout history, such as the reformation, but then it hardens and the church becomes bureaucratic again. In recent past it happened at the church that I walked in to 16 years ago, Walker Community in Minneapolis. They had gone through their phase of house church in the 70’s, now they continue similar discussions in meetings rooms in the church, or at the homes’ of the members. They have a book on their history, although I’m not sure how you would find a copy.

If you live in the Minneapolis area, you can participate in either of these. Solomon’s Porch also has an active music community that meets regularly and creates original compositions. They are putting on an event, sort of a gathering of voices, this October. If you are in the Moose Lake area, I’d like to get a group together who would consider attending. Something to do anyway.

Oh yeah, then there this one that a friend pointed me to. It’s sort of about climate change and what you can do, but more about what anybody could be doing about anything. Since I started this blog I keep finding the sorts of things that I wish I could write. I guess that fits in to my thoughts on a participatory discussion. I’ll bring some perspectives, and I’ll point you to some others.