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.”

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.

Right now I am overwhelmed with the daily neccesities of life. I had to set aside some of the more practical aspects of my life to concentrate on writing this past year, and right now I am feeling overwhelmed with what I need to catch up with: completing a remodel project on our kitchen and bathroom, assembling records for our tax person, spending quality time with my kids, and nurturing and developing the people I work with.

We had our weekly team meeting today for ReIMAGINE– and I was left feeling, again, like I have so much to learn about leading and serving a group of people on a journey together. I am manic about creative ideas, innovations and experiments, but  am somehow paralyzed when it comes to establishing systems of sustainability. I really need to be working with a team of people who know how to take vision and translate it into tangible goals, schedules and priorities. I hope I don’t wear out our team and want them to feel empowered in their gifts and important contributions to our common dreams.

Recently we’ve clarified that what we want to be about together is to be embodied advocates for the Way of Jesus. We see this flowing in three dimensions. We want to be about FORMATION: to be formed by the message of the kingdom and the example and teachings of Jesus. We want to be MISSIONALLY ENGAGED and in conversation with our cultural context, (which I would describe as the emerging, deep- ecology conscious, cultural creative and technically and globally connected leading edge of Western Society). We also want to see healthy TRANSFORMATION happen in the church and society.
So I have all kinds of ideas about how to do this. The challenge for our team is to settle on a tangible plan for how we will go about this together. I am eager to learn how to live and lead better.

This afternoon Craig Burnett stopped by to do an NPR style podcast interview with me about SOUL GRAFFITI. You can listen to or download our conversation here. Craig’s interview focused on aspects of the book that addresses our common desire for a more holistic understanding of “gospel,” acknowledging the essentially experiential nature of living spirituality. I hope someday to be less embarrassed when I hear myself speak on a recording– with less pauses and “um….ah.”

How long can we keep on running around
Spending time like paper dollars in a monopoly game?
I used to think that I could do it all,
when my ambitions were small,
and I wasn’t so strong.

In my mind, and with your words, we can create worlds
that come into being through the work of our hands
and the shear power of will.

Our dreams, they are bound, by the limits of time.
There are things that I do only for today,
eating, praying, exercise
Other things are done for next week or next month
appointments, planning, reservations for camping

But I wonder about the paths I might open for future generations
through the choices I make
Land bought for my grand-children
words written on a page that may only be understood by strangers in a future decade
I chafe at the reality that we are time bound– the pressure to make our lives count
when we don’t know which of the ways we spend our days will matter
in two years, twenty or two hundred.
In history, a whole life collapses into two or three events or artifacts
and the lives of entire peoples are reduced to the caricatures of a few great men.

We have such a small window into each other’s lives
Act with the future in mind
What can we leave behind to guide those who go on
after we have passed away?

Lisa and I just returned from a two-day trip to Napa Valley– a bit of an early get-away for our 16th wedding anniversary. We stayed at a great historic spa in Calistoga (thanks to a gift certificate from friends). We sampled some great food and wine, relaxed by a natural hot spring pool in the sun, and made mad love together at all hours of the day and night. I am more exacted about my wife right now than at any other moment in our twenty-one years together.
When we first arrived at the visitors center we were invited to a time-share schpeal at a new local resort– with promises of wine tasting vouchers, free lunch and a free two-night stay at the resort. It was the most painful 90 minutes of my life– in a brightly colored room with many large smiling people drinking soda out of styrofoam cups and celebrating the  salvation wonders of prepaid points based resort-style vacations.  We were not good candidates for the sales pitch– since we mostly stay with friends on vacation or $47 rooms in budget motels. The saleswomen seemed shocked by our frugality and extensive global community (and the truth that friends from Brazil were presently staying at our house). When she found out I am a writer and speaker, she gushed over her affections for a well-known television preacher from Houston.
I don’t spend much time in the America outside of San Francisco, but when I do, I’m reminded of the markers that identify our culture as being individualistic, consumptive and debt-based. I watched the vacation home sales people sweat as they tried to determine which of us would be likely candidates to help them pay their mortage or credit cards for the month.

There has to be a better way to live– one that is more communal, sustainable, thoughtful and content. And on days when I think that it is hard to pursue community rhythms and intentionality, all I have to do is remember the alternatives. We are going somewhere we have never been before, and sometimes we may think we’ve lost our way, but I believe the struggle to live into our dreams is worth it.

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.

The first two months of 2007 have been an incredibly productive and fruitful season for all of us working with ReIMAGINE. We’ve had the opportunity to interact with over 1,000 people through speaking engagements, training events and one-on-one appointments. In a small way we hope that our work imitates the pattern of Jesus and his earliest disciples. There was a broad continuum to their contact and impact with people– from large crowds in the daytime to intimate conversations at midnight. Jesus traveled and communicated his message in many different places. His disciples also made itenerant visits to various towns and villages. As Jesus traveled certain people responded strongly to his message and he spent time explaining further and training these disciples. Jesus also took the time to relate one-on-one when people had deeper questions or needs.

Over the past two months our team has traveled extensively throughout Northern California teaching and speaking to groups (prespectives courses, training classes in churches, group retreats and public discussions). We also facilitated several local workshops and events, (previously named the Jesus Dojo and now called Learning Labs). Our travels and networking have helped bring energy to our local SEVEN community. It has been exciting to meet new people every week visiting our SEVEN gathering on Sunday nights. We are literally busting at the seams, averaging 30 people a week, and are searching diligently for a larger meeting space. Yet for all of us, the most rewarding part of our work is the time that we get to spend with individuals over a meal or coffee, hearing life stories, and helping guide people in their next steps through spiritual friendship, mentoring and service.

I’ve had the privledge this month to begin meeting with Jason who has recently begun seeking the way of Jesus. Six years ago no one would have expected Jason to be interested in Jesus as he traveled to our neighborhood to buy a daily dose of heroin. During a process of drug recovery Jason slowly began noticing that many of the people surrounding him were Christians– not the kind he anticipated from the steorotypes, but people who lived with a great deal of integrity and compassion. Jason started asking questions and out of curiousity began reading the scriptures. Gradually he came to see himself as a disciple of Jesus and is eager to discover how to rethink or reimagine his life to pursue the greater wholeness we are invited into. Together we’ve been exploring what it might mean for him to reimagine specific dimensions of his life: his time, money, relationships, mental space, goals and vocation. Its been fun for me to see Jason making new choices that are opening up new possibilities.

CREATIVITY is one of the seven vows we have taken as a community based on the example and teaching of Jesus. Jesus communicated his message using poetry, stories and provocative performance art. When Jesus announced, “The kingdom of God is at hand” he invited us to repent, reimagine or rethink our thinking about life. Awakening and renewing the imagination is an essential step toward returning to the Maker’s vision for our lives. And because we were made in the image of a Creator, exercising freedom and creativity is an important response to the sacrifice of Jesus. The apostle Paul described the fruitfulness we were made for when he wrote: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10).

Although some people may fear the concept of imagination, (as though it is synonomous with myth or fantasy), as a culture I believe we suffer, not from too much imagination, but a lack of redemptive imagination. In our work with ReIMAGINE we try to help people awaken their imaginations for what it might mean for them to live more fully in God’s dream for our lives. We think this is one of the essential goals of reading scripture and doing theology– learning to connect our individual stories with the larger story revealed through scripture and in history. So, if you ever visit our community in San Francisco, you will meet people using the arts to connect their story to God’s story through painting, poetry, song-writing and other creative endeavors. Not all of us are professional artists, but we encourage each other to find ways to explore and express the story of God and humanity in artful ways. We hope that through the freedom and creativity found in person of Jesus we can be apart of awakening the imagination of our society to “a new way of life.”

In recent years I’ve steered away from what I consider an over emphasis on “prayer” as the default solution to personal issues. I’ve met so many people who use prayer as a band-aid to cover self- inflicted wounds that stem from a lack of personal discipline or moral failure. We live in the messes we have created ourselves– and sometimes the solutions are not magical– but very practical– accountability, self-control and new patterns of behavior. I’ve noticed that alot of issues come down to learning to how handle stress, emotional discipline, financial management, time allocation, care of the body, sexual ethics and relational integrity. We should do all we can to move ourselves toward greater wholeness– and then call on a power greater than ourselves.

My week has been full of appointments and conversations with friends who are truly sufffering: couples struggling to stay married, friends managing their depression and anger, people grieving losses or living with a profound sense of failure. And I’m reminded of so many friends who long to find love and marriage– who struggle with a profound sense of loneliness. When we have done all we can to manage our lives and choose what is best, we are invited to call upon the power of our Maker for the “magic” that we don’t have within ourselves. There are certain situations where only a miracle will bring change. One thinks of, for instance, of the friend who wrestles with a serious addiction or progressive mental illness. With these situations in our community we have begun saying, “What we need here is some Holy Ghost Power!” The phrase makes us smile because it is so different than the language we normally use– but is also a deadly serious acknowledgement that in many situations what is needed can only come from a power beyond ourselves.

I’ve also noticed the important role community plays in personal health. Often when someone is not doing well mentally, emotionally, spiritually or relationally, they withdraw from the relationships that could give them the most encouragement and accountability. I think you would find, for instance, that long before a couple divorces, they often divorce themselves from the communities that could provide the best support. I’ve wondered if we should more agressively pursue those who withdraw from relationships– since withdrawal is so often a sign of unhealth– even when maintaining such relationships requires conflict.

In any case, I feel that the burdens I am sharing with friends right now gives me a sense of sobriety that is good grounding for my soul. And I’m begging for “Holy Ghost power” to know how to be a caring friend.

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.