Mark Scandrette

Next Sunday, June 3, I will be speaking on SOUL GRAFFITI, along with THE COBALT SEASON playing songs from their new album, IN SEARCH OF A UNIFIED THEORY at FLOOD, Sacramento. If you live in the area, come out and see us– maybe we can have dinner after the event (5-7 P.M.)

I don’t believe I have ever met Bill Dahl, author of the Porpoise Diving Life, but he seems like an interesting and soulful character, who has made his book available for free online. Bill represents what I believe is a growing constituency of people of faith who search for God and for a path of faith, with a sense of realism about the messiness and ambiguities we face in our daily lives.

ReIMAGINE presentsa Learning Lab on COMMUNITY
Sundays June 3, 10 and 24 at 5-7 PM
(optional) Community Retreat June 31- July1

During the month of June ReIMAGINE will host a Learning Lab on the theme of community. These labs, formerly called the Jesus Dojo, serve as a project based learning experience designed to help people integrate the teachings of Jesus into real life.

This Community Learning Lab will focus on reconciliation. We will help one another take personal risks to be reconciled wherever needed, with friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and anyone else. We will divide into teams to host parties of hospitality and visit local communities of faith with the intention of pursuing unity. We will pursue reconciliation where necessary while training ourselves to develop an attitude of love and appreciation that will keep us from drifting into judgment or fear in the future.

We hope that acting together will spur us on towards a life of unity and reconciliation flowing from our love for the Creator and creation. As much as possible it will help the flow of the Learning Lab if people attend all three sessions. Know that everyone who attends will have the opportunity to form this experience together and take it to a meaningful level for all of us.

Details of the Community Retreat will be shared during the Learning Lab.

Details:
When? June 3, 10 and 24 from 5-7 PM
Where? 3166 25th Street in the Mission District
Registration? Please email nateATreimagineDOTorg to register or ask questions
How much? Please bring $3-5 per night to help pay for dinner and printing costs

SAVE THE DATE: Tuesday June 12, 9 a.m.-??

The stars have aligned and a critical mass of emerging church leaders happen to be in the Bay Area on the same date. We thought this convergence a good reason to host a day of conversation and friendship building among missional leaders and seekers.

The Spiritual Ecology Project. A day of conversation about the emerging church and God’s mission in our world., featuring Karen Sloan, Ian Mobsby, Doug Pagitt, Nathan George, Mark Scandrette, Tony Jones and Bob Carlton.

9 A.M. – 12 P.M. Introductions & Break Out conversations
12 P.M. – ???? Lunch and continuing open source conversation

Come for all or a portion of the days festivities.

LOCATION: San Francisco, TBA.

Please R.S.V.P. to Amy Ross. Limited Space available.

Details to follow shortly shortly.

There are many, many layers to becoming whole
and learning to flow
with the force of love

Partly, it is how we think about ourselves
and the world that surrounds us.

And partly, it is what we choose to do
with our bodies, our time and our resources.

“How do I love?” Is the question I keep asking myself.

The bottom feeders, small time crooks and thieves,
those of us who are more unstable or crazy
keep getting moved around by external forces;
loss of jobs, housing, spouses.

Those of us with more svelte skills
move ourselves around through constant career changes
or the restless desire to try another city
like a fantasy of making love to another woman or man
Somewhere or someone else might be better.

We ache for what we do not have:
money, beauty, time, a cause, a family, love
We envy those whose pools of emptiness
are different than our own.

I’m staying in the same house, in the same city with the same woman
learning these streets, these creaking walls, and the curves of this lady
like they are part of the chemistry and rhythms of my own body.

Growth comes through change
and the changes, they can be external or interior
When there is not enough stability
it is hard to tell the difference between growth and entropy.

It is easier to follow messiahs from town to town
than to settle down
to the true work of becoming
the question, “How do I love?”

The prophet, hero or saint
awakens our imaginations to the real work of change–
which, is an inside job, an unglamorous daily chore
like brushing your teeth or taking out the garbage.

I want a love that is alive
an ice chest full of cool drinks on a warm summer day.

I want a love that is full of hope
chasing shadows away with its light

I want a love that is bold
leaving a clear and distinctive taste when swallowed.

I want a love that is enduring
a pair of shoes well worn and well made.

I want a love that is skillful
like good diction, neat handwriting
or the poetic motions of an artisan plying their trade.

Let me step with beauty through this scene
in the ongoing drama of loves triumph over greed.