Mark Scandrette

I am an extrovert, addicted to people 24/7. But once a month and several times a year I sneak away to be alone to listen and pray. Last year we did our first silent retreat collectively and it was great to practice silence and solitude in community over 3 days. We are inviting people to join us again this year. Details below.

*Guided Silent Retreat*
*Hosted by ReIMAGINE
Friday March 23rd 5pm to Sunday March 25th 1pm
Cost: $85
Email peeps(AT)reimagine(DOT)org to register *

/Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are,
not for what they say./
-Thomas Merton

/But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed./
Luke 5:16

Silence and solitude are the gateway to communion with God. In our
first world, over scheduled, media blitzed lives, these virtues often
get pushed out. This retreat will allow us to practice these
disciplines as well as examine how we might incorporate them into our
daily lives. The primary focus of the retreat will be to practice
silence and become aware of the voice and presence of God. To that
end, participants are asked to leave all distractions at home. No
music players. No cell phones. No computers. No books. Bring yourself,
a journal and a pen. There will be a welcome dinner and session Friday
night where we will cover the ethos of the retreat and go over the
exercises that will be handed out. All scripture and guidance will be
contained in the packet and therefore no reason to bring your own.
During the day Saturday there will be a check in and each participant,
if they so desire, can meet with a director to discuss what they’re
learning or struggling with through the exercises. All meals will be
provided for and each person will be asked to help out in some way
during each meal. The retreat will conclude with closing session
during Sunday’s lunch.

The retreat will be held at Kirkwood, CA. Kirkwood is a small
mountain community 3 hours northeast of San Francisco off highway 88.
All participants will be staying in large house located just off a
meadow and will have either a bed or air mattress to sleep on. Being
that space is somewhat limited and to keep with ethos of the retreat
we are limiting it to 20 participants.

The retreat will be led by Adam Klein, Nate Millheim and Mark
Scandrette.

Adam Klein is the Director for Collaboration for ReIMAGINE and is a
founding member of SEVEN. A teacher, poet, Ironman triathlete,
engineer and debutante chef he has experience in multiple
environments. Adam spent the last 8 years as co-director of high
school ministry at Willow Glen Baptist and worked as a computer
consultant. Currently you can find him leading workshops, speaking and
offering generative spiritual friendship. He lives in the Mission
District of San Francisco.

Nate Millheim is the Director of Training Initiatives at ReIMAGINE
and is a founding member of SEVEN. Nate is an ordained minister and
previously served as Pastor of Student Ministries at Creekside
Community Church. He frequently speaks for churches, classes, retreats
and camps. Nate enjoys hosting groups from all over the country for
the “Jesus Dojo”, training groups to live and love in the way of
Jesus. He and his wife Andrea reside in San Francisco with their two
children, Kayla and Chase.

Mark Scandrette is the executive director and cofounder of ReIMAGINE,
and a founding member of SEVEN. With extensive experience providing
leadership in churches and community based organizations, Mark has a
B.S. in Applied Psychology, studied theology at Bethel Seminary in St.
Paul, MN and has been a minister, writer and spiritual teacher for 15
years. Mark is the author of SOUL GRAFFITI: Making a Life in the Way
of Jesus (Jossey-Bass Wiley 2007) and contributor to several other
books including: AN EMERGENT MANIFESTO OF HOPE (Baker 2007) THE
RELEVANT CHURCH: A Vision for Communities of Faith (Relevant Media
2004), and COMMUNITY OF KINDNESS (Regal 2003). Mark is also a senior
fellow with Emergent, (www.emergentvillage.com) a growing generative
friendship among missional Christian leaders. He lectures frequently
with the U.S. Center for World Missions, leads retreats and workshops
and provides life coaching and spiritual direction. He is married to
Lisa Scandrette, the educator and textile artist. They have three
children and live in an old victorian in San Francisco’s Mission
District.

Last week SOUL GRAFFITI received a favorable review in Publisher’s Weekly. Though my editor suggested that the reviewer didn’t seem to quite “get” the nuances of the books message, it is still good news to get a favorable review. I’m told that distributors rely on reviews in Publisher’s Weekly to decide whether to promote a particular title. I’m discovering the long and complex journey a book goes through from conception to birth in the public market.

As many of you know, my book SOUL GRAFFITI is being published by Jossey-Bass Wiley and is due to be released in mid April.

I’ve very excited about this project and its potential to connect with an audience that may be skeptical about Christianity and organized religion, yet curious about the message of Jesus– or longing for a way of life that is more holistic and integrative.

What is the book about? Soul Graffiti explores the message of Jesus as an invitation to embrace life as a sacred journey— learning to collaborate with our Maker’s intentions to bring healing and greater wholeness to our world. Through stories and reflections, Soul Graffiti addresses the questions, “What was the essential message of Jesus and how can we inhabit that message as a way of life?” What if everything matters? Soul Graffiti, is an invitation to explore the life and teachings of Jesus as a pattern for pursuing a spiritual path that is fueled by compassion, creativity, community and connection.

I’m inviting friends and acquaintances to help create some buzz about SOUL GRAFFITI. Book stores and distributors pay attention to consumer interest. One of the best indicators of this is prerelease orders on Amazon. COM. Amazon is offering the book at a rate that is substantially lower than the cover price. See http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Graffiti-Making-Life-Jesus/dp/078798437X

I’m convinced that if we want to see a different and better tomorrow, change often begins with new ideas and stories that inspire new action— and this is the kind of public conversation I hope to create through the release of SOUL GRAFFITI.

Over the next two months I plan to send out occasional excerpts from the book to give you a sneak preview. Below you will see what people are saying who have had a chance to read the manuscript.

Thanks for your interest in my life and this project!

–mark

EARLY PRAISE FOR SOUL GRAFFITI:

“Mark Scandrette guides us in this beautifully written and brilliantly illustrated book along a path towards actualized spirituality in a postmodern world. The book provides new avenues to ancient truths.”

—Tony Campolo, professor of sociology, Eastern University

“Through Mark’s rich insights and reflections, and especially through his stories … about Jack, Richard, Gary, Caroline, Emperor Arcadia (you’ll never forget him!), Michelle, Beryl, and many others, you’ll get an honest and inspiring view of what ‘the emergent conversation’ is really about, and what it’s for.”

—Brian McLaren, author/activist (brianmclaren.net)

“Soul Graffiti is not so much a book as it is an encounter—a deadly serious encounter—with a Christianity that is urban, American, un-institutionalized, and now. If you truly like your own Christian walk just the way it is, you definitely should not read this book.”

—Phyllis Tickle, religion analyst and compiler, The Divine Hours

“Scandrette guides us down a winding, beautiful path through an urban park of whole-life Jesus-y spirituality. It’s a story-weaver’s bountiful spread - filled with chocolate and wine and artisan bread—of the present Kingdom of God. See that the Lord is good, indeed.”

—Mark Oestreicher, president, Youth Specialties

“Soul Graffiti chronicles Mark Scandrette’s brave exploration into an intentional, lived Christianity. In a world numb to religion, inhabiting the way of love may be the only apologetic left.”

—Sally Morgenthaler, www.trueconversations.com

“In Soul Graffiti, Mark Scandrette strips away the religious traditions that cloud our view of Jesus and gives us the courage to investigate the transformational message. If the challenge for churches and for individual followers of Christ is to live out the gospel, this is the help we need.”

—Nancy Ortberg, Founding Partner, Teamworx2

“Soul Graffiti is creative, inspiring and challenging in equal measure. Mark has a wonderful way with language weaving together stories, metaphors, and insights that combine into a poetic call to take seriously the radical nature of Christ’s life and teaching and live it out in our own communities.”

—Jonny Baker, Church Mission Society, London, UK



This weekend I spent time with my friend Nathan George would is working on a project called TRADE AS ONE. Nathan has a prophetic voice and passion to connect first world wealth with global needs. I invited him to share in a class I’m teaching called Rhythms in the Life of the Master. These statistics that Nathan shared on Sunday have been raddling through my head and heart this week:

• 1/6th of the 6 Billion people live on less than $1 per day and cannot satisfy the most basic human needs
• Aids has already killed 10s of million of Africans & projected to kill 25 million more in the next decade
• The richest 1/5th consume 16 times more meat, 17 times more energy than the poorest 1/5th
• If every person in the world had the lifestyle of the average American, we would at present population rates need anywhere from 2.5 to 4.5planet Earths to sustain us.
• Among the 4.5Bn inhabitants of developing countries, 3 in 5 lack access to basic infrastructure, 1/3rd have no drinkable water, ¼ live in substandard accommodation, and1/5th have no sanitary or medical services
• Americans spend more on cosmetics and Europeans more on ice cream than it would cost to provide schooling and sanitation for the 2Bn people who go without both.
• Worldwide, the top 20% of high income earners a/c for 86% of all private consumption. The poorest 20% a/c for only 1.3%
So in an ironic turn, after talking about the disparity between wealth and poverty in the world, I spent the afternoon at a mansion in Atherton, the home of my son Isaiah’s buddy, whose father helps lead apple. Very nice people who long for a healthy sustainable world.

A week ago Saturday we celebrated Hailey’s good friend’s Bat Mitzvah. It was quite a moving experience for me. Bat Mitzvah literally means “daughter of the commands” and Hailey’s 13 year old friend led the entire two hour Shabbat service, including singing the liturgy, reading Torah and giving a sermon. She had studied since she was nine for this day, that culminated in a lox and bagels lunch followed by an extravagant feast with wine, cake and dancing in the evening.

I was moved by the reverence this tradition has for the revelation of scripture, the seriousnessness of the shema, and how it plays itself out in family life through daily and weekly rituals, meals and prayers. It is quite something to participate in a tradition that is so ancient. I was also struck by the similarity between the shabbat service and the Christian liturgical tradition. I want to do some research into this, but my assumption is that in the first century the disciples of Jesus simply incorporated new meaning into the common rituals and gathering rites of the synogogue. At the shabbat service there was even a breaking of bread and sharing of wine (Kiddush) that resembles Eucharist.

I later talked with some Jewish friends about how moved Lisa and I were by the Shabbat service– and their reaction was interesting. For them the rituals seemed tired and rather empty of true integrative spirituality– more a tradition preserved rather than a living faith. I’ve begun wondering if all religious traditions are akin to museums of spiritual experience. We go to these museums to remember or learn about the history of how people have sought to live life with God and one another. The best use of a museum, in my mind, is a place that inspires you to make your own art or your own history– and it seems that as people seeking to live life with God and in community with one another, we recognize those who have taken this journey before us and then improvise to create a way of life together to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

I’m not much of an institutional ritualist, but with this analogy to the museum I’m trying to recognize the connection between creating community and local culture and appreciating the historical traditions that also shape our journey with God and one another. I’ve wondered, for example, if it would be helpful to tap into the historical movements that have shaped the landscape for my own spiritual journey (Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist and Weslyan) and share the best of these traditions with my children– even though we primarily see our task as negotiating how to live in reverence today with the people that make up the tapestry of our lives.

Yesterday I finished reviewing the page proofs for SOUL GRAFFITI. Its hard to tell when this project will finally be complete. I’m waiting to celebrate until I am holding the finished product in my hand. When I got the copy for the jacket cover this week it was fun to see kind words from several other endorsers.

“Soul Graffiti is not so much a book as it is an encounter—a deadly serious encounter—with a Christianity that is urban, American, un-institutionalized, and now. If you truly like your own Christian walk just the way it is, you definitely should not read this book.”

“Mark Scandrette guides us in this beautifully written and brilliantly illustrated book along a path towards actualized spirituality in a postmodern world. The book provides new avenues to ancient truths.”

“Soul Graffiti is creative, inspiring and challenging in equal measure. Mark has a wonderful way with language weaving together stories, metaphors, and insights that combine into a poetic call to take seriously the radical nature of Christ’s life and teaching and live it out in our own communities.”

Its been just over two years since my grandfather, Dr. Onas Cudley Scandrette died at 91 years old. My cousin, Chunky Blood, has written me recently inquiring about things I might remember about grandpa. Sometime knowing more about where we come from helps us makes sense of who we are becoming. I still think of my grandfather alot– as a signpost fading into the past about where I come from and where my destiny lies. I remember being at the hospital just after he died. I was sitting in a chair beside the bed where his body was beginning to stiffen– his mouth still open. Next to him was my dad on the phone making funeral arrangements. I could hear my sons running around out in the hall. That moment gave me an enduring picture of the cycle of life– where I have been– the child out in the hall, where I am, and where I am headed: middle age, older adulthood and mortality.
I found a place to write offer a tribute to him in SOUL GRAFFITI:

“My other grandfather, Onas Cudley Scandrette, could not have been more different than Grandpa Ray Clow. He and my grandmother Mary lived in a college town near Chicago where my grandfather was a professor of psychology. Their home, instead of being decorated with church craft bazaar knick-knacks, knitted Kleenex box cozies, and dinosaur bones, was furnished with 1950s modern furniture, shelves of art and psychology books, and walls hung with black and white art prints and paintings—including signed lithographs by Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, and Thomas Hart Benton.
Grandpa Onas looked the part of an eccentric college professor, wearing thick glasses, suit jackets, and a derby hat as he drove his red MG convertible through campus. He dabbled in mountaineering, experimented with Pop Art, and was an accomplished photographer who corresponded with Ansel Adams. In his basement there was a dark room where he perfected experimental print techniques that he documented for publication in photographic society journals. I rarely saw my grandfather without an SLR camera around his neck.
He also wrote down and told stories about his childhood experiences and wrote romantic and philosophical poetry exploring the human psyche. Academically and personally Grandpa Onas was interested in the intersection of faith and humanity—particularly the psychological dimensions of human spirituality. He was a lifelong fan of the Hebrew Psalms because of their resonance with subjective human moods and motivations. Raised in a religious tradition that regarded the arts and culture as “worldly” and the cravings of the body as shameful, he sought to find God in the pleasures of human creativity.
Always a bit of a hipster, Grandpa Onas wore the latest running shoes, was the first person I knew to own a personal computer, and gave me recommendations about his favorite rock music. For birthdays and Christmas he and my grandmother gave me art supplies and books. They took me to museums and galleries where I recall seeing Andy Warhol’s car crash sculptures, the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, and the assemblage sculptures of horses by Deborah Butterfield. From Grandpa Onas I learned to explore the goodness and beauty of God revealed in humanity—through the arts, philosophy, literature, history, and the study of cultures.

The summer and fall were marked by violence in our neighborhood. In mid August Adam and Dan, two of our housemates, were the first on the scene of a homicide across the street in Garfield Park. A group of kids from the projects were taunting people in the park. A man stepped in to deescalate the situation. Two boys, approximately 10 and 12 years old went home and got a gun and came back and shot the man in the head. This incident prompted a group of us to initiate Barrio Libre: a grass roots neighborhood advocacy project aimed at curbing violence by addressing blight and encouraging neighbors to take greater ownership for the conditions in our community. OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: What we do matters has been the tag line for this project, which included a poster campaign, neighborhood trash pick-up, attendance at police meetings, and graffiti removal. One night a group of us went out to pick up trash and to pray for peace, and I wrote the following poem:

25th and Shotwell
25th and Treat
25th and Portrero
24th and Mission, Capp, Shotwell, Folsom, Harrison, York
Harrison and 24th
Treat and 25th
Around the corner, down the street, outside my door
These are the places
I can remember off the top of my head
Where brothers, sons, daughters sisters
Were found dead
Shot down in retaliation drive bys
While wearing blue or red

We hear the sirens
and we turn our heads
When the gunshots wake us
And We rise from our beds

A mother weeps
His sister cries
as the mass is sung
Before the blood has dried
In the cracks along these sidewalks

They say He was a street soldier
But why couldn’t he have been older?
What revolution, good cause or war did he loose his life for?

We hear the sirens
and we turn our heads
When the gunshots wake us
And We rise from our beds

After the candles and trinkets have been swept way
We try to forget about the violence which overshadows this day
But tonight, under the street lights, I will remember and pray

Peace to the immigrant child
Hope to all those in exile
Love to fatherless children
Waiting to born into the family of the kingdom of love

Our friend Ryan Sharp turned 30 this week– an important milestone moment that we were honored to share with him.

Ryan, I pray that your thirtieth year is full of hope and greater wholeness
That you will embrace your identity more fully
That you will find joy in your work and family
That you will discover a deeper well from which to draw balance, inspiration and daily strength to walk out the dreams that were set inside of you before the world began.

Ryan
Roaring Lion
Tender wounded poet
Raging against a world gone mad
Reaching for the hand
That brings peace
Out of chaos
Dreaming
Of what
Could
be

On Thursday afternoons Lisa leads “knitting club” at our house with about 10 kids. Last week our kids and their friends finished knitting an afghan to send to Afghanistan.