Churning and Turning...discipleship...

Like a plough that's been churning up damp soil, my mind has been turning over the thoughts of discipleship, spiritual authority and church leaders. These themes may be unfamiliar to some of you, but if you grew up as I did in the Evangelical charismatic wing of the church, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Discipleship was seen (and still is by many) as those who have spiritual authority (basically the leaders of the local church) 'forming' those who are new in the faith. The leaders transmit 'orthodoxy' and his or her particular spin on the Christian faith. The new believer has to adhere to that which those in 'authority' tell him to adhere to. That being the rules and the dogmas of the leader's particular brand of Christianity.

Maybe, just maybe some people are comfortable with being told what to do. But I feel that there just  may be some real dangers in this form of 'discipleship'.
I've seen cases where people blindly follow the leader and this has led to dependence and also manipulation. So often, the person with spiritual authority has to play the 'I'm holier and more sanctified than you game' - this can lead to down right lying. The leader can not show his weaknesses and has to put on a show of being right in all things. i'm not exaggerating. I remember a distinct case where the leaders had to 'cover up' their weakness and  failings.

I believe that we are all messed up. In different degrees of course - but we are all basically in a mess. We all have times of doubt, anger, frustration and failure. We can put our foot in it. We can say hurtful words like knives that lacerate at the souls of the receivers.

I don't believe that discipleship is about the spiritual expert forming the novice. I see it as a mutual encouragement, setting our sights and our lives towards Jesus. I need the humility to be open to guidance and to advice from the unlikely even the stranger.
Discipleship is not about a course that we have to follow, and adhere to, and at the end signing the commitment card.

Discipleship is more about following a person, a living presence who's with us every day even if we fail to perceive her. Discipleship is about being open - allowing God to surprise us - and reveling in his love. In fact it's becoming aware that God loves us no matter what - even if we mess it up - He loves us.
So if we fall, we get up. Again and again. He takes our hand and picks us up ( often with a little help from our friends).

So all this has been turning in my mind, churning and turning...

Something before everything

What we’re doing in contemplation is learning, quite simply, how to be present. That is the only way to encounter any other presence, including God in prayer, Jesus in the Eucharist, and Jesus in others. The change is all and always on our side. God is present everywhere all the time. There really is not much point in arguing about IF and HOW Jesus is present in the bread and wine; simply be present yourself and you will know all that you need to know. It is an exercise in surrender and presence from your side alone.

We know that God is always given from God’s side, but we have to learn how to receive such total givenness, which is a very vulnerable position for humans. So Jesus said “Eat it” and did not say “think about it,” which is our defensive control tower. The Christian strategy seems to be this: struggle with divine presence in one focused, determined, and assured place (bread and wine, which is just about as universal a symbol as you can get)—and from that moment of space and time move to all space and all time. That is the final and full goal.

Richard Rohr

The Money Moguls

In the 1990s Mario Draghi was the director of the Italian Treasury where he worked with private investment banks to arrange derivative contracts designed to sneak Italy into the Eurozone. After lying about the magnitude of Italy's debt to the EU authorities, he obtained a position at Goldman Sachs in 2002. After three years there, he had a sure foot in any door. By 2006, Draghi was the governor of the Bank of Italy. In that position, he was the one responsible for the massive cover-up of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s loss of 367 million euros, a financial disaster that was fixed by a taxpayer-funded bailout. With all these experiences on his résumé, Draghi was the top choice for governor of the European Central Bank, a position he took up in 2011.

Draghi’s American correlate—Ben Bernanke,
the current chairman of the Federal Reserve—
is famous for bailing out Wall Street and, after the financial crash, which he failed to foresee, dumping a trillion dollars into a corrupt banking system. Before that he was a career academic with positions at Stanford, NYU and Princeton.

The trouble with these two guys is that all they ever talk about is interest rates, stimulus, quantitative easing and GDP growth, in other words money ... but at a time when ecosystems are crashing all around the world and climate change looms as the biggest market failure the world has ever seen,

we need people at the helm of the global economy who understand that the economy and ecology are inextricably intertwined and that it's crazy to keep pumping money into the capitalist corpse just to keep it twitching.

Tell President Obama to forget about Lawrence Summers, Janet Yellen and all the other Big Finance insiders, and appoint instead an economist with ecological tendencies as the next chairman of the Fed? Wouldn't that be something?

Taken from AdBusters Magazine

Walking the Earth

The miracle is not to walk on water but to walk on the earth.
- Thich Nhat Hanb

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
Like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
True from start to finish.
- St Jean (speaking about Jesus)

System Failure

We've fouled up our planetary nest and now we're saying, fuck it! I don't feel like cleaning up this mess. Let the oceans rise, the fish vanish, the glaciers melt

. . . I'm plunging into virtual reality where everything is just fine and rather exciting . . . hot new shit happening everyday!

But there's a price to pay. You feel

stressed and anxious a lot of the time, your moods sink and soar without warning and you wake up feeling lousy almost every day. And all the while you find yourself becoming more detached, less empathetic, emptied of joy and unable to decide upon anything . . . one way or another.

If a huge chunk of humanity suffers from mood disorders and constantly feels sad

. . . if a substantial percentage of us lose our collective zest and crispness of mind— then how will we ever be able to deal with climate change, collapsing ecosystems and all of the other social, political, military and financial crises looming on the horizon?

Strategic insight: Psycho collapse is a much more serious threat to our long term Survival than eco collapse . . . Without clarity of mind, nothing we do will ever work.

Kalle Lasn

TRICKY

Tricky the ex-member of Bristol based Massive Attack was in concert at Lille last night.
The venue, Le Spendid, was full. The crowd were a mixed age group, which is often the case at concerts in France (at least the ones that i go to.

Tricky, the Knowle Wester, gave a great 1 1/2 show. he was backed by a tight talented band.

see link to a live show (not Lille) with same band:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh8f4EH4DS4

His recent album - False Idols is worth a listen
:)

Prayer and the freedom of not knowing

Prayer is largely just being silent: holding the tension instead of even talking it through, offering the moment instead of fixing it by words and ideas, loving reality as it is instead of understanding it fully. Prayer is commonly a willingness to say “I don’t know.” We must not push the river, we must just trust that we are already in the river, and God is the certain flow and current.

That may be impractical, but the way of faith is not the way of efficiency. So much of life is just a matter of listening and waiting, and enjoying the expansiveness that comes from such willingness to hold. It is like carrying and growing a baby: women wait and trust and hopefully eat good food, and the baby is born.