[We were up fairly early and had the fruit we'd packed for breakfast, before heading to the main festival area for the various talks and presentations. Walking along the path from the camping area to the main area, we ran into Carl almost immediately, who right away put us in a good mood with his cheerfulness and optimism. After exchanging a few words, Jeff and I headed over to a talk on our own, agreeing to meet up again with Carl later.]
9 AM | Christine Sine | Spirituality & Gardening
- cooks like to compete, gardeners like to share
- generosity of God ["God" - Earth?] so much that we have to share
- perishable produce
- reaching out to neighbors - scarcity transformed into abundance
- the garden as a church [this is a very familiar concept in Paganism, that nature is our "church" and we learn the lessons of the Earth as Mother and teacher; in fact, much of this talk could have been pulled straight from a Pagan festival presentation, with a few vocabulary changes]
- health and spiritual benefits of time spent outside in creation ["creation"? why not just say "nature" or "natural world" as the actual scientific research does? is "man-made" not part of creation? is indoors not as much "creation" as outdoors?]
- garden in monastic community represents Garden of Eden (apple or other fruit tree in center as Tree of Life)
- using plants to tell stories, as mnemonic device
- the passion flower
- the three-leaf clover - rhythms and cycles of the garden
- liturgical year of the church (Easter as spring time, rebirth, f'ex)
[the speaker herself was from Australia and spoke about how the story of Easter and its timing in the liturgical year never made much sense to her, living as she did in a place where in March and April everything is dying and preparing for winter - only when she moved to the northern hemisphere did the story suddenly make sense; isn't this one example of the limits of universal tradition?]
- putting down roots at the "beginning" of the liturgical year, in winter
- pruning in winter because no sap, easier to see deadwood among the bare branches and to see what needs to be pruned
- why do we prune? to increase yield, be more fruitful/productive later on - summer flourishing - effortless, natural, God doing the work [Earth doing the work of self-giving and natural fecundity]
- organic gardening
- all about soil, the story of the seeds falling on rock, soil, etc. to take root (or not)
- not enough focus on the soil in Christianity [duh! not enough focus on the Earth and earth mysteries]
- speaker says it's "a shame that the fall harvest festivals aren't really celebrated or popular anymore" and thinks they should be brought back [Jeff comments: they're not celebrated anymore because they were stamped out for being "too pagan"]
[a lot of her language involves this idea of being a better/more productive Christian, which prompted Jeff to ask, "what does it actually mean to be a 'productive Christian'?" is this the same as being a productive or a good person, or is there some other criteria? nurturing members of the church to do what, exactly?] [another assertion the speaker makes is that there's a disconnect between what we can learn in the garden, and what Christians are often taught in church/community about who/what to focus on - this prompts me to ask, slightly ironically, why is there a disconnect between the garden and theology? does it have something to do with the story of the Fall and human beings forced to leave the garden behind? also, what is the role of wilderness and the wild natural world? interacting with the relatively safe, human-cultivated space of a garden to grow food mostly as a hobby - when you don't have to rely on it for your very life if something goes wrong - is a very different approach to nature than the one that acknowledges its power and destruction, as well as its capriciousness]
- composting - the transformative work that God does, "we're full of garbage" that God changes into "black gold" of rich soil [after the talk, Jeff points out that compost isn't just some mysterious-magical process of transformation, but involves a million million tiny beings each on their own working to break down the "garbage" and changing it into something we can use - these beings deserve acknowledgement and respect as well, and they provide us with perspective, our "garbage" is, to them, the stuff of life - I add, what looks like decay is just another kind of life]
11 AM | Margot Starbuck | Shame-Based Advertising: Faith and Justice Transforming Women's Body Image Obsessions
[we were a bit late to this talk because we were trying to find our way around and we went back to our campsite to grab our chairs]
- marketing based on the idea that something is wrong with you - this is not true, you are loved just as you are, already [umm - Christianity? hello? didn't we just finish hearing someone speaking about how we're "full of garbage" and in need of transformation? what is the role of salvation in Christianity, and how does this relate to this idea?]
- always apologizing for our appearance anxieties
-> we're not being present
-> we're still turned inward and focused on ourselves
-> we're communicating to others what we most value not just about ourselves but about them - "that's what bodies are for" - the idea that our body is for others, to be used in service to them [frankly, this idea makes me a bit uncomfortable, overly self-abnegating]
- humility - genuine interest in others, escaping interiority
- stop at enough
- stewardship - when you stop at enough, whatever you have beyond enough is your gift to others, a call to stewardship
[beauty - what about art? can the body be viewed as art, as a kind of self-expression or aesthetic expression? the speaker told a story of her daughter wanting to dye her hair - is this because she didn't like herself as she was, or because she wanted to experiment with her own style? is there a message of ascetic simplicity hidden in this?] [liturgical dress and ritual dress - the speaker seemed to suggest that wearing fine clothes to worship service was mostly a conceit and/or an invitation to be judged shallowly - but this leaves me wondering what is the role of aesthetics in ritual when it comes to dress and appearance of ritual participants? this seems to reflect a generally Protestant distaste for ritual]
12 PM | Richard Rohr | Falling Upward
- Two Halves of Life
- "What is healthy in the first half of life becomes neurosis in the second half." - Jung - 1st Half of Life - developing ego structure [individuation?]
- creating the "container"
- can get stuck defending boundaries and entrenched in establishing identity - 2nd Half of Life - "contents"
- Plotkin's terms:
- Survival Dance
- Sacred Dance - Hindu four stages of life:
- student
- householder
- forest dweller
- sage
[here we see this return to the cycles of life again as a way of expanding the Christian context] - Rohr says you'd think that Christianity [or I guess religion in general?] would be right out in front leading this process of growth from 1st half to 2nd half of life, then asks why aren't Christian traditions out in front leading the way?
- duality - paradox
- for Catholics - the Pascal Mystery: "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again" is not just a statement about Jesus, but a statement about the self - "The cleverest way to avoid following Jesus is to worship Jesus." [got lots of laughs]
- "your game must fail you" - powerlessness, weakness, otherwise you cannot move on
- necessary suffering
- grace is punishment for the ego
- there's nothing the ego hates more than this freely given love/forgiveness, because the ego likes things balanced, tit for tat, etc. - permission to trust the movement into the 2nd half of life
- as a speaker/teacher/writer - not saying anything new
- the role of the writer/teacher is to forward conversation by articulating certain ideas in helpful ways
- recognition, not cognition (the reader/student says, "oh, this is something like what I've thought before" [but hopefully is also challenged?])
- spiritual guidance - the story of Odysseus - the second journey after the journey home
- walk inland carrying an oar from your ship, until you come across someone who mistakes your oar for a winnowing fan, then plant the winnowing fan in the ground, make offerings to Poseidon, and return home
- the winnowing fan - symbol of maturity, the ability of proper discernment - reevaluating the Survival Dance
- flesh = ego (in Acts and Paul's letters)
- the overly-defended self - going from Ego-Driven to Soul-Drawn
- Spiral Dynamics
- 9 levels
- transcend and include (-> forgiveness)
[Conversation over lunch with Carl about the discipline of writing and the difficult of networking and publicity. Had a chance to meet Mike Morrell, as well as Pete Rollins briefly.]
3 PM | Phyllis Tickle | What In This World Is Going On?
- every 500 years - a reformation / rummage sale / "hoopla" of some kind - everything changes
(for cultures stemming from, influenced by or colonized under latinized Christianity - i.e. "First World")
- 33(ish) AD - Jesus, Christianity out of Judaism
- 500(ish) AD - Fall of Roman Empire
- 1000(ish) AD - Great Schism between Catholic and Orthodox Churches
- 1500(ish) AD - Great Reformation, birth of Protestantism
- 2000(ish) AD - "Great Emergence"? Emergent Christianity - no more experts - culture too saturated, too much info to process [does knowing that we're in a recurring reformation change how we react? is this similar to the self-conscious evolution where culture comes to take the place of natural selection forces?]
- 12 distinct forms of Emergent Christianity (also, distinct from "progressive Christianity")
- very diverse, but share some common traits:
- nonhierarchical
- no institution or formal organization
- concern very much with social justice
- reject any kind of arrogance in claiming to know "what God thinks"
[these are traits that tend to be shared with the Pagan movement, though the emphasis on social justice has been subverted somewhat in recent years; and the rejection of arrogance extends to actually rejecting a monotheistic God itself, though a new arrogance is cropping up in claiming to know what the many polytheistic gods think or want from us]
- things different about the current "hoopla" going on:
- the knowledge and historical perspective afforded means we can address this current reformation with tranquility and calm, take it in stride
- 65+ demographic is more involved, not just young folks
- important to realize that U.S. and Canada are late to the game, this has been going on in Europe and other places for a while
- b/c of internet, globalization, there's no physical location where this is happening - this means we need to focus on ways of cultivating personal contact among members of the movement (we need to get together every once in a while to "smell each other") - the key question for the reformation/emergence is: Where now is your authority? or, How now shall we live?
- changing location of authority as Christianity evolved in history
- pope -> scripture (during Protestant reformation, introducing the idea of Protestant inerrancy)
- changing focus on Persons of the Trinity:
- some Christians very comfortable with God-the-Father but not as comfortable with Jesus Christ (e.g. Catholics and mainline Protestants?)
- some Christians all about Jesus Christ but shy away from God-the-Father aspect (e.g. Evangelicals)
- very few Christians comfortable with the role of Holy Spirit
- recent shift towards role of Holy Spirit and direct experience of God (e.g. Pentecostals) - Big Questions coming up for Christians:
- What is our theology of religion? (i.e. how do "we as Christians" interface with and live in a multicultral, multifaith world?)
- What is the nature of atonement?
- What is a human being? - "Most world religions agree in their wisdom and their morality. It is in their Mysteries that they differ."
- newest discoveries in modern physics are driving this current reformation, bringing up big questions about ontology and the nature of human existence and meaning
- science and knowledge changing culture, these changes come last to religion (where we do the hard work of integrating ideas and understanding their implications)
[will this be reflected in where the next source of authority is located? in charismatic leadership, for instance? does this reflect somewhat the direction the general culture is headed, towards effective mass-marketing and emotionalism/sensationalism? also, what makes Phyllis Tickle think this will be "the last reformation" once Christians have "completed the Trinity" so to speak? evidence for this? naive, considering the evidence of history? would approaching this from the perspective of the cyclical nature of time change our view of things?]
[Conversation over dinner with Carl and his friend, Pat, who was a practicing Pagan back in the 80s (?) but now considers herself the Pagan version of "spiritual but not religious." We talked about issues of social justice and environmentalism, and the tendency for Pagans to be too insular and prone to in-fighting, rather than focusing on larger social issues. I had a chance to brag a bit about the PNC and the No Unsacred Place blog project as examples of how social media is helping Pagans build the necessary community infrastructure to expand the conversation and participate more effectively in national conversations over important issues.]
8 PM | Doug Pagitt | The Inventive Age
- institutions are cultural artifacts (including churches)
- Four Aspects of Culture:
- thinking (head)
- values (heart)
- aesthetics (gut)
- tools (hands) - Four Ages:
- Agrarian Age (farming)
- Industirial Age (industrial revolution)
- Information Age (science and technology)
- Inventive Age (current age, creativity and innovation, social media, etc.) - Churches in the 4 Ages have had a shifting focus:
- Agrian Age (rural) had the "parish church", all about location
- Industrial Age (urban) had competing "brands"/denominations
- Information Age (suburban) all about learning, education
- Inventive Age (global) all about creativity and meaning-making (?) - role of books is to help further conversation that is already going on
- What Defines the Inventive Age:
- the need to make meaning
- the need to make beauty
[not sure how these are different from any other age, or if this is just the natural focus of any transitional period of time when everything seems to be in flux; is meaning-making and beauty-making a sustainable cultural model? what are some of the pitfalls of the Inventive Age - perhaps that mirror the pitfalls of the previous Ages - again, focus on marketing and cult of personality (in contrast to, f'ex, consumerism and capitalism getting going in the Industrial Age, or the emphasis on knowledge = power in the Information Age?)]
- Bounded Set Systems v. Center Set Systems v. Relational Set Systems
- Bounded Set: a playground with a fence around it to keep kids inside and safe, clear lines between who's in and who's out, concern with identity markers and community boundaries
- Center Set: playground with really interesting, fun stuff in the center, no boundaries or fuzzy boundaries, the "main attraction" in the center gathers interested participants, who are free to come and go as they choose
- Relational Set: no playground, each kid brings their own toys and no one knows what games will be played until everyone shows up and you see what you have [this could be understood as "emergent community"? also, if there's "no playground" - how do you know where and when to go to meet up with others? how do you mobilize and connect? festivals and temporary meeting spaces becoming increasingly important?]