Mark Scandrette

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.

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.

My friend Nathan George has developed a very practical approach to addressing human trafficking and global poverty. Nathan is one of the most articulate, devout, hard-working and earnest people I have ever met. The work of TRADE AS ONE is worth your attention and patronage.

In a conversation at the book party for SOUL GRAFFITI on Saturday night I tried to explain my general approach to spirituality by suggesting that we try to live into our questions– about God and ourselves. The important thing is that we keep asking, searching and seeking. In previous generations people tended to rely more on external authorities and institutions for their religious answers. The remix of spiritual authority in our culture provides us with the opportunity to be more engaged in wrestling with our questions about how to love God and one another. The story of an authentic search and the conversation carries increasing authority in our society. I would even suggest that this is what Augustine is most remembered for (His Confessions more than his theology). And the warrior/poet/king David of Israel is the quenticential example of one who lived in the questions.

My friend Ryan Sharp is a contemporary example of one who bravely wrestles with the larger questions in a way that is soulful, honest and articulate. He teamed up this time with his wife, Holly Sharp and friend Dan Dixon to produce a wonderful new album called “In Search of a Unified Theory.” Less angry and more constructive than his previous Cobalt Season albums birthed out of an era of deconstruction, “In Search of a Unified Theory” is, I believe, a coming of age album for Ryan, in which he settles into a more mature voice musically and spiritually. The addition of Dan Dixon’s Eno-esque arrangements and instrumentation add sonic complexity,nuance and added intrique to Ryan’s singer-song writing and near tearful croonings. It is also more of a piano album than previous releases– with banjo and chimes added by Dixon. “In Search of a Unified Theory” is a hopeful audio companion for anyone striving to live with greater intentionality, conscience courage within the ambiguities of human fraility.

You can hear The Cobalt Season perform live at Goat Hall at the end of May. See details below. I will also be doing a reading from SOUL GRAFFITI as part of the festivities. (Ryan and I will be doing several dates together over the next few months).

My friend Tony Jones emailed me from Washington, D.C. and two other friends called to relish the brief moments when my book, SOUL GRAFFITI was in the top 1,000 on Amazon and in the top 100 for Religion & Spirituality books. Tonight its back down in the 1,700’s, but it was fun to have a few moments when it seemed like there was a spike in popularity.
This past weekend Luis and Heloize visited us from Sao Paulo, Brazil. I met Luis through my friend Sandro Baggio and they stayed with us for four days. Heloize doesn’t speak much English so she was very relieved and elated when we took her to have dinner with friends who speak Portugese on Saturday night. Luis and Heloize are part of what seems to be the Emerging Church conversation in Brazil– people searching for an authentic and missional path of faith beyond the crazy consumer hype of the health and wealth mega churches in South America.

This afternoon a group of us from SEVEN went to Garfield Park to play games– and hoping to connect with neighbors. We played Frisbee Football along with a new friend who was at the park. We are trying to be more intentional about being involved in our neighborhood together. We plan to hang out in the park every Thursday afternoon.

Tonight I took Isaiah out for a dad & kid date and suprized him by taking him to see Spiderman 3, which he is very crazy about. Then we went to a comic book store and out to Vietnamese at Tulan for dinner. Isaiah and I are good movie watching buddies– and he can talk for hours about movies he’s seen. I like watching Isaiah watch movies even more than watching the movie myself. He really lives in the action, characters and drama of the story, (except for the mushy parts where they kiss).

Ryan Sharp, a friend from our community wrote this simple mantra to help us remember what we are running toward together. We’ve been saying it at our gatherings the past couple of weeks– and I think it is an elegant summary of our SEVEN vows, and a reminder that its all about LOVE.
To Creator, obedience
To creation, service
To each other, community

In all things, love
In all things, love

For life, prayer
With possessions, simplicity
In our world, creativity

In all things, love
In all things, love

Help me create some buzz. I have free galley copies of SOUL GRAFFITI for the first 10 bloggers who email me with their mailing address. (Of course I would love it if you read the book and post review comments on your blog). Please contact me at mark AT reimagine DOT org. Thanks!

For Ella Elizabeth Stavlund, daughter of our friends Mike and Stacy, read by the waters and flower petals of her baptism on April 15, 2007.

Ella Elizabeth
Who through force of Will
Now graces us
With her presence

May you grow in wisdom
And in stature
And in favor
With God and people

May the seed of the Maker’s good dreams
Leap and sprout inside of you
Nurturing you to become
The woman you were made to be

Last Friday night while Lisa and I were dining at the bar in our favorite Italian restaurant, a young man sat down next to us and promptly initiated a conversation,
“So, what do the two of you do for a living?,” he asks. I explain that I am a writer and teacher with an organization working to help people integrate the message of Jesus into their everyday lives, and then add:
“We are fascinated with what Jesus and his message can offer—as distinct from what many people expect through their experience with organized religion.”
I hope to say more, but he quickly interjects:
“I grew up Catholic and I have no respect for the church. When I was seventeen a priest paid me six hundred dollars to [perform oral sex on him].”

He goes on to tell about a conversation he had in a London hotel with some Christian college students:
“I found them to be very close-minded and judgmental,.” he says. I reply,
“Their intentions were likely noble–they probably just had limited life experience and would become more generous and understanding with age and maturity. In my experience, people who are the most judgmental often struggle with the same issues they condemn in others.”

Then he launches into a sordid tale about his time at prestigious Christian college–where he was on a four-year scholarship. The bar tender leans in to listen.

“So, my freshman year at this college I worked as a male stripper at a gay club. I wasn’t gay—just crazy rebellious. Well, fast-forward three years. I met this girl who was a senior and we started having sex in her dorm room. Her roommates secretly reported this to the administration and we were separately called into a review by the adminis-tration. She had her meeting first and they expelled her from the school. It was against school policy for students to have sex on campus. I was freaking out! I started calling friends all over the country trying to figure out how to get into another school to graduate my senior year. So when I walked into the meeting with the administration and a peer review board the school official behind the desk saw me was suddenly startled. He nervously rechecked the incident report and asked, ‘So, you’re Daniel Flannagan?’ It turned out that the guy was a frequent patron of the strip club where I had worked– and regularly shoved dollar bills down my shorts. He quickly dismissed the charges and reinstated my girlfriend as a student so she could graduate. The students on the peer review board had to have been so confused— no one ever brought up the incident again.”

“What did this experience make you think about faith?” I ask. He replies, “People can talk all they want about morality and ethics, but it’s how you really live that matters.”

“That’s exactly what our organization tries to help people do,” I say. Changing the subject I ask, “How do you spend your time?”
“Well, to be quite frank, the past seven months I’ve been nursing quite a drinking problem. That’s why I’m starting with beer and Sprite tonight. I work as a bartender at an upscale restaurant and get hammered every night.

“Is this something you hope to change?,” I ask.

“My girlfriend is a radiologist and the other day she did a sonogram of my liver. She thought it would be trashed– but was shocked that it appears to be fine. It must be my Irish blood. I can pass out drinking every night and still get up and go running or work-out the next morning.”

I respond with a story: “I have a friend who is a recovering alcoholic and he says that for him it was never about the drinking– the addiction was just a way he chose to mask to deeper problems. Do you find that to be true for you?”

He answers: “It is definitely deeper than the drinking. It used to be worse when it was about sex. Sometimes I would leave my friends at a social event just because I had to go have sex.”
“How serious are you about dealing with these issues?, I asked.

“My drinking is definitely beginning to affect my relationship with my girlfriend—and she and her kids mean a lot to me. I need to find a day job that doesn’t involve serving alcohol. The sex thing is getting better—I’ve stayed with one person for nearly a year now—that is a major achievement for me.”

He offers to buy us each a drink and we politely decline. Lisa has been nudging my knee for some time to remind me that we are out on a date. We exchange contact information and wish each other well and I settle our bill. When we walk outside the air is dusky warm—and I feel energized by this serendipitous and feel the lingering surprise of this intense conversation. When we got home I typed a quick note:

Daniel, You were pretty honest and vulnerable about issues in your life—including alcohol dependency. If I wasn’t on a date with my wife, I would have loved to have stayed to talk longer. One of the things I do is spiritual direction and life coaching for friends and clients. If you ever need someone to talk to about changes you are hoping to make in your life, I’d be glad to listen and offer support—not for pay, just as a friend.”

He quickly replied to my note, “Great to meet you as well. Nice to bump into people that see a different, maybe bigger inter-connected picture than most. I appreciate the life- coaching offer. I can never have too many friends, especially smart ones. I’ll stay in touch and am sure to see you guys again.

I can only imagine how God may be orchestrating a series of chance encounters in Daniel’s life with a chorus of characters who can help him along in his journey toward grace.

In the mail I recently received a couple of copies of An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, a book that I contributed to and edited by my friends Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt. I think it is the best and most diverse compilation of writings by people considered to be part of the emerging church. Tony and Doug introduce the chapter sections in a helpful and friendly way. The articles contributed by 25 emerging church voices provide cautions, encouragements and challenges to us as we imagine and work toward a different and better future. Here’s an excerpt from my chapter entitled: The Messy and Fertile Process of Becoming:

Some among us, like the animals of the forest, have sensed a storm on the horizon, an intuition and murmuring of the torrent of change affecting the general culture and the church–shifts in social consciousness, globlization, economics, increasing mobility, plurality and societal fragmentation. These are examples of the many changes that determine the landscape of our journey to navigate faithfulness in the way of Jesus in the world we live in–changes that are coming and have now come.

People seem to be affected by these shifts in varying intensity dependent on region, personality and social location. A common result is a great desire for conversation with people who are also struggling to make sense of things. The emerging church is a place where people have felt the freedom to explore questions and experiment with new forms of lifestyle and corporate practice. Often these questions have been about the essence of the Christ-message, vocation, the nature and form of the church, cultural and philosophical analysis and the present agenda of God in the world.

We resonate with the story of two friends walking along the road to Emmaus, discussing the significance of the life and teachings of Jesus. During their conversation they were met by a stranger, and in the presence of a stranger their hearts were strangely warmed. Many of us have felt the presence of Jesus in the midst of our conversations with one another. For people in our time, conversation may be the first step toward entering the way. Conversation is also a path towards a greater sense of authentic relationship than some have experienced in more formal structures. Whatever the emerging church becomes, it began as a generative friendship among younger entrepreneurial leaders and seekers—an improvised support system for people desperate for connections with others experimenting with new ideas on faith and community.
We should acknowledge that for many of us the door was opened to reimagine faith and the church through pain, disappointment, failure, fatique, burn-out, public or private humiliation, or a sense of personal alienation. It can be argued that any social movement attracts anomalies, extremists and crazies— and the emergent phenomenon is no exception. We have brought along our peculiarities, unhealthy pathologies and shadow sides. Explorations into emerging faith have caused conflict in marriages. In isolated cases the emerging church community has been the stage on which people have played out their personal disintegration.

At times I’m fearful that permission to be deconstructive has attracted personalities that are prone to criticism, angst and melancholy. Some of us seem to avoid our unresolved personality issues, organic depressive tendencies and relational difficulties by transference to a perceived “spiritual crisis.” Some among us need encouragement and support to face our personal difficulties more directly rather than attributing so much of our struggles to ecclesiological or philosophical issues.

Even healthy rethinking of faith can still produce a profound sense of disequilibrium. My friend Craig Burnett suggests that deconstruction and reconstruction are regular rhythms in a life of apprenticeship to Jesus. We should not be too quick to dismiss or expect people to just “get over” their deconstruction– as if to graduate sequentially onto reconstruction. But concurrently we should encourage one another to imagine and enact proactive communal solutions and reconstructions.

Evan Howard suggests that spiritual conversion, rather than being a singular event is more accurately a series of distinctive epiphanies (ie. a conversion to the role of the Spirit, a conversion to social justice, a conversion to contemplative practices, etc). These are not conversions from one system to another, but represent the gradual complimentary and holistic renewal of the soul. These progressive awakenings can sometimes create a sense of grief and regret. For anyone not in a space of liminality, criticism, doubt and risky exploration may seem pessimistic and deconstructive. When we experience the deconstruction of our faith we are in good company with many of the characters of ancient scripture, whose expectations of what it meant to follow God were constantly being challenged and subverted. Our constructions of faith and practice are dismantled and at times, destroyed, so that we can approximate a more coherent and integrative orthopraxis.