Mark Scandrette

In a recent conversation, a local friend of mine on a spiritual quest referred to several of the historic Christian mystics as people he deeply admired for being “tuned in.” His comment renewed my interest in studying the lives of various mystics and theologians. Yesterday I picked up a compilation of 52 well regarded figures from various ages. Today I read about Gregory of Nyssa (331-396 AD) whose greatest contribution seemed to come from his emphasis on continually striving after virtue. His emphasis on leaning into what is beyond agrees with my current thoughts about the message of Jesus being an invitation into the impossible. Or perhaps Gregory’s focus on straining toward what can be is a helpful defense of my relentless idealism and disatisfaction with what is.  Below is a quote from his work, THE LIFE OF MOSES, that struck me:

““For in the case of those things which are good by nature, even if [people] of understanding were not able to attain everything, by attaining even a part they could yet gain a great deal.”

In the past several weeks as our team has sought to clarify the goal of our work I have found myself reiterating my personal ambition to discover a way of faith in the emerging culture. I don’t talk this way much anymore– having overdosed on talk of cultural shifts and postmodernism 7 or 8 years ago. But lately we have found it helpful to consider the role one’s host culture takes in setting up questions of faith. In my opinion, the emerging world is way beyond new urbanism or a critique of modernist philosophy or theology. The emerging world is a way of seeing our rapidly changing reality– and this includes global economics, communication and technology. I think it is really exciting to be working out faith and life on the edge of the future– and I believe we are invited to push into our questions and experiments about what it means to be faithful to the Way of Jesus in these changing times.

Last week was a whirlwind of travel, speaking, hosting events and people and spending more time in front of the camera than I ever have before. A film crew took over the lower flat of our building on Saturday night to get some footage for a documentary they hope will explain the emerging faith expressions to more traditional church folks. The same crew came to The Spiritual Ecology Project on Tuesday to do more interviews. At the end of the week my publisher had me do an hour long interview with a film crew on the deck of a hotel penthouse downtown San Francisco. Working the camera and speaking in soundbites takes some getting used to–but by the interview I felt sheepishly like Tony Robins or other motivational speakers pitching their wares.

I downloaded the new Arcade Fire album, NEON BIBLE, from itunes this afternoon. I know some people have said that there isn’t anything new on this album, but after 4 listenings I like it even better than FUNERAL.