felix hominum

sol cafe this week

is happening, but I don't know what we are doing, so I should find out  by asking people in the know.

and remember you have all summer to drop by the sculpture from Rob, Ryan,  and that other guy

it's up at the Royal Alberta Museum - a cohort from sol was there for the opening reception, and I think we need at least one more meander some afternoon.

and ps - leva was nuts during the Australia - Italy game.  Antonio & company were sweating...

Anthony Packwood music

Pre-script:  if you're looking the the DVCode discussion, it's actually over here.

Reminder for the locals:  Anthony Packwood & friends are doing some stuff at St Paul's church this Saturday at 7:30.  Drop by to catch some tunes.  Hang out.  Help babysit my kids. 

Anthony is a musician hailing from Calgary who is up here for the weekend.  He is also a blogger. 

sol cafe at the Stollery Kids' Hospital

A reminder from the sol cafe web guy:

On Sunday, April 30, the sol cafe will be "field tripping" to the Stollery Children's Hospital for a night of art and service.

We'll be meeting at 5 pm in the lobby at the bottom of the escalators (east side main doors, across the street from the Tim Horton's), then heading into the McMullen Gallery to check out "...a thousand words", an exhibition of photographs by medical photographers Pat Marston and Stephen Wreakes in celebration of the University of Alberta Hospital's 100th anniversary and the Stollery Children's Hospital's 5th birthday.

After that we'll be heading up into the Stollery Children's Hospital to help clean up one of their toy rooms, a chance to do a little something to help the young patients there as well as the remarkable staff who work with them. Our first service trip there a few months ago was much appreciated, so we're heading back to help out a little more.

We'll have the usual standby team at Cafe Dabar to pick up stragglers, but if you can let us know if you think you'll need a lift over, we'll know to watch for you!

Frederica Mathewes Greene on Living Tradition

Was tidying up the office a bit and came across a copy of something I am sure was dropped off by the Orthodox Christian Fellowship.

I have spent a lot of time in Protestant circles, and one thing they’re touchiest about is what they call “dead tradition.” They will quote the line from St. Paul, “See that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men.” (Col 2:8).

From that perspective, most of what we do looks like “empty tradition.” The Divine Liturgy we had this morning would be horrifying to them. All that pomp and circumstance, and surely it’s meaningless, right? We’re just going through the motions, hoping to buy God’s favor by repeating the correct formulas.

Our friends would also presume that this kind of worship has nothing to do with the early church. Before I became Orthodox, I imagined that the first century Christians sat around on the floor, probably in blue jeans, playing guitar and talking about how Jesus had touched their hearts that week.

read the rest.

tell me where you have laid him

"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not  know where they have laid him."

"Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking  for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have  carried him away, tell me where you have laid him...

So I ask the same question.  Where is He?  And this is the answer I get:

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom
and might and honour and glory and blessing.”

Just in case you haven't been to church since Christmas, let me tell you that a few things have happened in Jesus' life since he was a kid.  Christmas is bigger than Easter, at least in the Hallmark section.  It's easy to see why.  We can envision the baby Jesus, the Christ child, because we've all seen that sort of thing somewhere, at least the baby part.  We can identify with, perhaps even exercise a bit of control over, this image of the newborn King.  Babies are something we've run across before.

But this resurrection business, this Jesus, is beyond our experience.

I know that my redeemer lives.

In the meantime, if you want a variety of Easter-time reading, you might try this assortment of links.

I'll be busy celebrating.

ps - sol cafe meets at 5 pm on easter sunday @dabar

Sally Ann Sunday

Reminder to the locals that this week sol cafe is heading to the Salvation Army downtown depot  at 5 pm, (9620-101A Ave) to do a little hands on work.

on church membership

As an afterthought to the last sol cafe gathering, I found myself wondering how we/I can help catch people who are falling through the cracks.   There is a balance between a report card on attendance and membership, and a carelessness if I don't see you ever again.   Neither extreme is helpful.   The first is about control, and the second is an abandonment of the fact that each person who walks through the door is of inestimable worth, and just may want and need our help and encouragement to continue being part of the community.

next l'arche worship night

Will be on Monday, March 20 @ 7pm  - - St Tomas D'Aquin parish.

sol cafe at the Stollery Kid's Hospital

for the locals:

This coming sunday evening we will be helping out at the Stollery Children's Hospital here at the U of A.  Meeting at 5 pm.

A children's hospital is a " " place.  I searched my mind for an adjective to put in that sentence, but couldn't quite come up with one.  Hopeful? Miserable?  All of the above?   Name the experience, emotion, question, struggle, and chances are we can find it for you there.

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Places evoke memories.   Sarah Joy and I have spent some time in that place.  We got to know a few corridors fairly well over the years.

I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life of the world to come.

a vision of humanity

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Following up on Sunday night's discussion at sol cafe, I think that part of our problem is that we don't grasp a clear vision of what a human being is supposed to be.   We tend to think of God as "fixing things" instead of forming people.   We lose sight of the true destination - which is to be a certain kind of creature in the presence of God and one another.

L'arche worship night

for the locals;
L'arche worship evening:   Monday Feb 6, at 7 pm; 
location:   St Thomas d'Aquin parish church, 8410 - 89 St.

One of the marvellous things about "leading" a worship service with L'arche is that I realize again that cleverness just doesn't cut it with Jesus, or some of His followers.

Completely unrelated:  now that Walker v. 4.0 is getting closer (due date end of March), we will soon be in the market for a (gasp) minivan that will seat 6 (or more...)   Any tips?

sol cafe update

Just passing along the tentative plans for the next few weeks of the sol cafe;

Jan 22nd - continuing on with the PBS film, plus Praise and Prayer time, at Cafe Dabar
Jan 29th - Salvation Army service night, followed by Chinese food somewhere to celebrate Chinese New Year
Feb 5th - Early start 4:30 pm Movie and Potluck, location to be determined
Feb 12th - You and God, plus the beginning of the annual sol cafe fast
Feb 19th - You and God

who gets there next?

Not the chief priests or the scribes of the people, but the Gentiles from outside. 
Outside the promised land,
outside the nation of Israel,
outside the covenant,
outside the law & the prophets.

But not, apparently, outside God's grace.

"Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?  For we have seen his star..."

...and they knelt down and paid him homage.

L'arche celebrations

There are a few celebrations coming up in the local L'arche community.   L'arche is an international community founded on the principles of the Beatitudes;  it is a home for adults with mental and often physical disabilities.

If you want to see a Christmas pageant with a difference, I really recommend the one put on by L'arche.

ps.  If you are still wondering what to do after graduation, L'arche Edmonton is looking for assistants:  persons who can spend a year living as part of the L'arche community in one of their local homes.   You may not get to bum around Europe for a year, but you'll see a world you never dreamed of.  Trust me on this one.

Our 33rd Anniversary Celebration
Friday, November 25, 2005 @ 7 PM
St. Thomas Aquinas Hall
8410 89 street

AND

Our Annual Christmas Pageant
Friday, December 16, 2005 @ 7 PM
St. Thomas Aquinas Church
8410 89 street

refreshments will follow both events

Sally Ann Sunday

This week the sol café group will be spending our “worship time” moving food and filling hampers at the local Salvation Army food depot.   It is a great organization, which does a lot of good work in our communities.  It also features a great local blogger, Ian's Messy Desk.

I can so easily pretend and fool myself that I am loving God.  I can not so easily fake loving my neighbour.  That’s why the two great commandments go hand in hand.  How can you love God whom you have not seen if you do not love your neighbor whom you do see?  It is also a reminder that love is not a feeling, but an act of will. 

God does not usually give us visible and tangible reminders that we are not loving Him.  Our neighbours do.  The presence of those who have less than us, is in itself a visible witness of inequality, of our affluence, of our lack of passion for loving our neighbours as ourselves.

Is loving my neighbour a form of worship?

It's a start.

5-7 pm;  Sunday October 30;  9620-101 A ave

sculpture/sol cafe /synod

For the locals:

This Sunday at 3 we will be venturing out to an exhibit of the Edmonton Contemporary Artists' Society:  (Great West Saddlery Building - 10137 - 104 St). 

Rob Willms will be at the exhibit in the afternoon, and then we will head over to the regular sol cafe meeting place around 5ish.

There may be little blogging over the weekend, as I attend our anglican diocesan synod.  Then again, maybe there will be lots to say...

community of heart

This past monday was worship/prayer night for our local L'arche community.  It was a time of singing, of prayer, of thanking jesus for his presence in our lives, and for celebrating his love for us.  The worship probably did not look very much like what you would have in your home church, except for one part.  I am an anglican, and during our anglican "prayers of the people", the congregation is invited to voice their prayers for those in need.   We anglicans can be fairly reserved, so there is often a bit of what I call the "anglican murmur" - a slow chorus of low voices each saying something, and the whole thing being relatively inaudible and indecipherable to all but the most attentive hearer.   Sounds very much like the beginning of the Larche corporate prayer time.  But I digress.   

L'arche is a model of true inclusiveness of the Christian variety.  It is a community of the broken, who know themselves to be broken - there is no point in pretending otherwise - (those of us who have cleverness are really good at that pretending part), who gather around Jesus, and who are given their value by their Father and Redeemer.  It is also a most joyful community.  Prayers of thanksgiving were poured out in joy from those whom "we" tend to think of as less fortunate than ourselves.  And the modern stuff that passes for "liturgical dance" has nothing on a group of L'arche members celebrating God in whatever movement or motion they are capable of.  (At the risk of sounding unmerciful, some of what we do along those lines seems, well, a bit "contrived" compared to the dancing I've seen at L'arche events.)

I've said this a few times, but I think it bears repeating:  true Christian inclusiveness admits two things:  an acceptance and profound awareness that each human being bears the image of God, and an acceptance and awareness that each human being lives with a brokenness which can only be healed by the person of Jesus Christ.  If we take the first thing seriously, we cannot but offer that reassuring truth to each human being we meet.  To see another human being is to see that which is nearer to myself than anything else in creation.  A fellow human being is the most glorious thing I will encounter outside of God.  I have more in common with a fellow human being than with anything else in the universe.  I am kindred to every person.  That is the beauty of the faith community of L’arche.

ps, for those who are interested, there is a bit of a story now up about our journey with Sarah Joy over at BeNotAfraid

the sol cafe & Mattthew 25

Last night at the sol cafe we looked at some of Jesus' parables and teachings about judgment/ the end/ the final stuff.   On reading Matthew 25 (I was hungry and you either did or did not give me something to eat,..) several things strike me.   First there is the frightening thought that in this bit of "good news" from Jesus, I face the uncomfortable possibility that my actions on this earth have some impact on eternity.   At least that is what this particular thing seems to be teaching.

Let me digress.  I would probably be "classified" as coming from the more "evangelical" end of the spectrum - we are saved by grace/faith and all that good stuff that the Apostle reminds us of.    So of course my tendency is to really "re-interpret" this particular talk by Jesus into something else.  Perhaps it doesn't really mean what it says.  Perhaps it applies to other people, not Christians who are "saved by grace".   Or it is designed to urge me onward to love others (but in the back of my mind I am "saved", so really all this appeal to feeding my neighbour is just a bonus if I get around to it, because it doesn't affect "my salvation").   

I am sure it is simple to figure out and live out, but I am dull, and so I struggle.  Perhaps the evangelical fear of being saved by anything other than the grace of Christ makes us wary of placing such emphasis on "good deeds".   But really, I can only wish that such was my temptation.   I only wish that my life was so full of such actions of love to my neighbour that it could be a temptation to think that I am saved by anything other than grace.  But alas, it is not.

I am hoping that we will learn more deeply what it is to love our neighbours - to see Christ in them.  And I believe (wrongly or not) that one of the ways we do this is to come face to face with those who are "the least of my brethren".  I don't know, there is something about looking another human being in the eye which is different from giving money to world vision, or donating to the local food bank.  Not that those things are unimportant, or that they are not means of love, but I really need to learn to see Jesus in the faces of real people.   

heirlooms and hand-me-downs

Last night Matt  & I were chatting a bit.  He told me he had been in touch with a DC  blogger (I'll find out who & give the props) who talked about spiritual "hand me downs".  You know, the stuff that was new for your older brother and made him look and feel great, but by the time it got to you, well, it just wasn't the same.  It's economical to use hand me downs.  They might get a little thread bare, but hey - they'll do for the time being.   And they are cheaper than getting new stuff.  Problem is, they don't exactly fit.  You know, they were tried on by someone else, and that's who they were meant to fit.

How much of our life, our worship, our way of trying to live out the Christian life is spiritual "hand-me-downs"?  Stuff that someone just put on us at the time because it was the nearest thing on the coat hanger?  Eventually, you find out that it's just not the same as having your own...   You want something that is yours, something that fits you, that was made for you.   And so we can decide to throw out the spiritual hand-me-downs.

Mixed in with the hand-me-downs are the heirlooms.  The things that are there because they have meaning, they have stories behind them, they are worth something.  Heirlooms connect us to generations gone by, and we ourselves leave some for the generations yet to come.  Things which, if they were were lost, would leave us poorer spiritually.

How do we know the difference between the heirloom and the hand-me-down?

call & echo

Call

So Rob dropped off two of his sculptures for us.   One is a bust in fired clay - a head in repose.  Looks rather good at the corner of the garden underneath one of the lilacs.  It is instantly recognizable  - a human head & shoulders - the head leaning to one side and resting on a soft surface.   It's there, it's familiar - I know what to "name it", how to "see it",  I "know what it is".

The other piece is not so easy.... it is piece (or several pieces?) of rusting metal, welded together.   Looks a bit odd I suppose;  what some might call "abstract".

What's it supposed to be?
"Art"

It looks a bit different from what perhaps I am used to calling "art".
Things are arranged differently - gotta look at it from a few different angles, and in the end maybe I'm not supposed to "get it" or "figure it out." 

But somehow it is the expression of a creator.

Echo

This coming monday is a prayer & worship evening at L'Arche - a community of persons who are mentally & often  physically disabled.

What's it supposed to be?
"Worship"

It looks a bit different from what perhaps I am used to calling "worship."   
Things are arranged differently - gotta look at it from a few different angles, and in the end maybe I'm not supposed to "get it" or "figure it out."

But somehow it is the expression of a Creator.

sol cafe Easter

Just another note for the locals:  this sunday @ 5 pm we're doing a sort of pot luck kind of thing for anyone who is here over the weekend.  Starving students welcome. 

the sol cafe this week...

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

So what are we doing this week at sol café?  We are going to start by talking about the thoughts in the last post:  how does a person reveal the truth about themselves?  How do we reveal who we are to others, and how does Jesus reveal himself to us?   Following up on the last post, we will be looking at some of the beatitudes as ‘revelation” – revealing who Jesus is, and revealing who we are.  What does Jesus reveal about himself in these words?  What do they reveal about us?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Can we build a community based on these words? 

What is a human being?

That’s a start for now.  See you at the sol café.

the future of the sol cafe

Part one.

A friend of mine from Vancouver is an artist.  He told me many years ago that “the problem with the church is that it’s full of engineers”.  I have no idea what that means.  Maybe I’m an engineer.

So last night there was a meeting of the sol café to try to discern, to listen, to tell stories, to learn to love God and neighbour.  I suppose I could try to drive up my hit meter by typing words like “emerging church”, “emergent”, “post modern paradigms”, “alternative worship” and the like.  There, I’ve gotten that out of the way, so I’ll see how many visitors Google sends my way.

As an open letter to the sol café, let me offer the following.  There were many good points raised at the family meeting.  The thing that strikes me the most is the sense that there are some unused gifts in the sol café.  I came away from last night’s meeting thinking that there are a number of people with gifts to share, and the community needs to see those gifts in action.  I believe the combination of diverse gifts is the great strength of this group.

A while ago I was the priest of a church community north of Edmonton.  In the process of moving from that community, I had a chance to hear some feedback from people who had experienced God in that setting.  One comment struck me more than others.  People were at one point relating what they appreciated about my ministry there.  I wasn’t present for this conversation, but heard bits of it afterward. 

What did I think was my greatest contribution to that community?  My preaching?  My music? My humility,  all round great personality, being a snappy dresser?     I heard afterward what members of the congregation thought was most important.  “Everyone's gifts were being used”.  That’s it.  That’s the key.  It was not about my gifts or my skills, it was about helping other people discover and use their gifts.  It was not about what I had to offer, it was about what the people of God had to offer. (I still think I’m one of the better preachers and music leaders around…ha!).  So as a starting point, let me focus today on the gifts of others.  To help them, encourage them, see them used for the glory of God and the building up of the Church. 

Leadership needs to focus on helping people discover and use and enjoy their gifts.

sloth

So in 2 weeks I'm gonna be preaching about "sloth", for which you can even now get a great wall calendar .  Sloth is kinda like laziness, only different.  If I had the willpower to look it up, I could tell you more.  But that would mean getting up from my chair and going across the room.  Or I could just google it, but that would mean opening a new window in my browser.  I might not even have to write a new sermon...maybe there is an online sermon I could download...can somebody get the door?

seasonal colours

Had some friends who wondered if I knew anything about "liturgical colors for the Church year", so for them I present a selection of "Epiphany Green" on the site for a few weeks, until Lent...

is this seat taken?

I sometimes hear various opinions as to why people leave "church".  This article has a few interesting things to say on who is leaving and why...

Why do you stay, or why did you leave?

cliche quotes & the sol cafe

"I will take the ring, though I do not know the way."

So spoke Frodo at the council of Elrond, ending (for the moment) the questions of leadership and direction.  It seems no two at the council came to an agreement about anything until Frodo uttered those words.  Out of that statement came the fellowship - with a variety of characters providing "leadership" at different times.  Yet the direction of the ring was clear when Frodo made his declaration.

The time has come for the sol cafe to hold council.  A direction is needed (though hopefully not straight into the heart of Mordor).  I noticed today that there are no "up coming events" on the side menu of the website.  Is that an empty future or a clean slate?  I prefer to think of it as the second.   I have written a few times about the sol cafe, and it is an idea (more than an idea, it's people) that I believe God is using, and desires to use more. 

At some point, the ring must move on, or simply fall back into the Enemy's hands.

I hope a fellowship is formed.

going, going, gone...

Last week Rob announced officially that he is resigning from leadership at the Sol Cafe effective January 16. He and Deb are being led on to other things, and so his time in leadership with this group/project/community has come to an end.

While people who have journeyed with Rob from the outset and have seen this transformation of stuff at the Sol Cafe over the last few years are of course going to miss him, I'm just going to add to a few of the things I shared on Sunday evening.

First that I think few people understand how difficult and heart wrenching it is to "give over" a ministry. I think the decision Rob made shows a tremendous amount of courage. It takes courage because he loves the people there, and he wants to see them flourish as Christians.

Thank you Rob.

It will also take courage for those who are there to continue, and I have no idea what the future will look like.

"be of good courage"