Fairly early on in my blogging career (such as it is), I stumbled across this little known blog called Present Matters. No one else that I knew followed this blog. I had a hard time finding the name of the person writing it. And for quite a long time I was convinced the author was a crusty old man. He sure sounded like it from his writing. He wrote dense, long posts about long dead monks and dusty old books that fascinated me for some reason. I would trudge through the posts which were always well written but sometimes I wondered why they were written. Certainly only a crusty old man would read such dusty old books alone as he was in the mountains of Southern California.

Then the author began to also post some photographs of his beautiful surroundings. I was further hooked. And I also began to post some comments here and there as I began to understand more and more of what he was posting about. I loved the photography and some of you may know that LightHusband is also a photographer (who supplies me with the photographs for this blog :D).

Pretty soon, though, I discovered that the author was NOT a crusty old man, but a lively young guy and younger than me! At first I was embarrassed. But then I realized that no one knew what I had been thinking all that time (until now of course). I was by this time really enjoying his writing and discovered that he was an author for real and not just a blog author. I tried to lure him out by linking to him in a couple of memes, but he was determined to remain quiet and in the backwater. I wanted more people to know about him and his writing because it is winsome and good, and above all I’ve learned so much from reading him.

Patrick draws from such a variety of sources when he writes that it is always refreshing and new. He uses modern (and by that I am referring to the era, not the method of thinking) writers, Reformation writers, Medieval writers and early Christian writers and he’ll use them all in the same piece. He is unafraid of history which makes for very holistic pieces.

So when Patrick announced that he had a book coming out this fall, I was thrilled. I was excited for him personally. After all, now I actually *know* an author. Someone who has a book which is published. That is thrilling in and of itself. I was excited for him because I know that it’s something he’s been working on. But I was selfishly glad for me too. A whole “Patrick Oden” book to read.

Here’s the thing … I know we’re not “supposed” to do this, but it seems that Patrick is drawn to many of the same spiritual streams that I am drawn to … Celtic Christianity, finding God in nature, reading about Him throughout history and the like. This is likely why I find Dual Ravens (as his blog is now known) so compelling. So when Patrick announced, “It’s A Dance: Moving With The Holy Spirit.” I was pretty thrilled and thought, “Dang. November 1 is a long way away.”

Then he invited me to read a pre-publication copy of the book. So I am one of the lucky few to be able to read this book *before* November 1. And, it is everything I hoped it would be. Tomorrow … a review of It’s A Dance, by Patrick Oden.

Our new bed arrived. It’s beautiful … as may be seen in the photo below. Of course, I think it’s enhanced by my “We Can Learn Alot From Geese” quilt that is gracing it. For those of you who like such things, that quilt is made with all pre-1900 reproduction fabrics. The greens are a so-called poison green which I love. The blocks came to me from a block exchange in the summer of 2005. I belong to a loosely defined group called the Historical Block Society. We make and exchange quilt blocks. That summer we made flying geese blocks that just about killed us. I asked for blocks that were set with poison greens. Others asked for blocks in blues, or reds, or yellows, etc. Everyone in the group looked askance when I asked for poison green. But now they all agree that I have the most striking quilt. Hah! It’s what you get for thinking outside the box.

So, Julie, I did clean our bathroom (before I read your comment and likely at a similar time as you 😉 ). It had also been … well … also a long, long time (I don’t want to think about how long). And it feels good to have a clean bedroom and bathroom again. Sherri, I think you’re right about being in the middle. I think I’m going to be in the middle for a long time … because now I/we are about to paint the bedroom and the family room (in no particular order) and I spent a good deal of yesterday ordering blinds for the masterbedroom, guestroom, and family room and fabric for new curtains in the family room. And Cindy, there must be something to your theory as well about home makeovers and grieving being similar. I wonder if we don’t grieve the old as we’re bringing about the new?

I did also get to spend a good deal of time yesterday with a good book … Patrick 😀

I’ve been honored to be a pre-publication recipient of Patrick Oden’s It’s A Dance. So I’ve been reading that lately. It’s really quite good … which is not a surprise to me, because I’m familiar with Patrick’s writing through his blog. Yet it is a surprise. It’s A Dance dips, sways and sashays through scripture and novel and textbook … not really one or the other and yet somehow all three. I’m not nearly finished yet, so I won’t do a proper review … but it’s quite good and I heartily suggest that you put in your pre-order now! I think it’s available here and here.

The LightKids have been on their own this week and it hasn’t been good. We need to get back into a learning routine, which will involve they and me cleaning out the school room. On the other hand, some learning takes place even when school is not in session … for instance:

Science sometimes happens out on the deck … when nature shows up.  In this case a praying mantis came calling.  LightBoy obliged and explored.  He tried eating and feeding the praying mantis.  I’ll leave you to determine which was more successful.

I’ve read two books this month. Well … I’ve completed two books this month. One was HP and the Deathly Hallows and I’m re-reading parts of that and talking about it and absorbing it. What a fabulous book. As Julie Clawson says, it belongs on the shelf next to Middle Earth and Narnia. And all the conservative Christians out there tarring and feathering Rowling for magic and the occult, owe her a very large apology. If you want more than that, you’ll have to read the book. Or trust me.

The other other book I completed this month is titled, Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect by Joseph R. Myers. I read it while on vacation in Vermont. I approached it sideways at first because I’m tempted to be very critical of the notion that one can artificially “create” a place where people can “naturally” connect. The notion seems disingenuous at worst and contrived at best. So, the kindest thing I can say about myself is that my mind was not terribly open as I opened the book. I did not approach this book expecting great things.

I was surprised.

It is a treasure of a little book. Myers writes in a very unassuming style and is very understated. In so doing he allows the reader plenty of time and space to imagine for themselves how they might use this information in their own lives. He gives them gift of place. Instead of giving the reader a paint-by-number kit at the end, throughout the book he points you to the brushes, paint pots and easel in the room and encourages you to pick them up yourself. It’s as if he said, “Here, all of us have been given this gift. Now you paint too. Create a painting that will bless your place.”

If I had a quibble with the author it would be that I think his thinking is perhaps too binary. He sets out his argument in terms of either/or. There is “master plan” thinking OR “organic order” thinking. One must be one OR the other and behavior falls into one category or the other. My feeling is that most behavior in human groups probably falls in a spectrum with master plan thinking on one end and organic order on the other. And behavior can be classified on that spectrum as being more or less in one direction or another. My guess is that if I were to meet him and have a cup of coffee with him, I would discover that he feels this way too, but expressed his views in this binary manner in order to make his point.

A secondary quibble, pointed out by Alan Hirsch in his review here, is that Myers does not specifically address missional issues. I’d agree with Alan, but for the fact that my guess is that Myers might say that missional issues are larger than this book. I think that people who engage in community within the organic order and a Christian viewpoint will also, organically, follow a missional lifestyle. It will be a part of who they are, rather than a part of their plan for living.

Myers defines “master plan” thinking as that which we see all around us everyday in the military, in business, in government. It is that zero-sum game which demands that we all compete for resources, power, time, etc., that we “learn the ropes,” that we paint-by-someone-else’s-numbers that will guarantee a successful outcome, that we measure success in numbers. He begins defining “organic order” thinking by defining an artist as “… someone who enables art to emerge from a canvas …” and then goes on to say this:

“Shaping an environment where people naturally connect is more like creating art than manufacturing a product. It marks a major shift: from programming a community (i.e., following a master plan) to using principals of organic order to develop an environment where community can emerge.” pp. 26-27 italics in the original

Perhaps my favorite principal in this book is the idea that organic may be equated to order. In this post-industrial, fully mechanical age we have a strong tendency to view those things that are organic and natural as being chaotic and out of control. Organic, natural things have a definite order and system to them. While that order is not always under our control, we may be able to embrace it and dance with it to live a healthy life. So I was very grateful to read a book that encouraged us to consider that organic and order are not mutually exclusive terms.

Scot McKnight did a review on Jesus Creed last month and summarized the two models nicely as follows:

If you are seeking to avoid the Master Plan programming model and, instead, want to create an organic environment, this is a good book for lots of ideas. Here’s a summary of the Master Plan programming model and the Organic Order model:

Patterns: prescriptive vs. descriptive.
Participation: representative vs. individual.
Coordination: cooperation vs. collaboration.
Growth: bankruptcy vs. sustainability
Measurement: bottom line vs. story.
Power: positional vs. revolving.
Partners: accountability vs. edit-ability.
Language: noun-centric vs. verb-centric.
Resources: scarcity vs. abundancy.

Myers devoted a chapter to each subject above and does a fairly thorough job of comparing and contrasting with examples the differences in each. He draws on from many different disciplines and across many fields of study for his examples. He also draws on his direct personal experience with the company that he and his wife started some years ago. It is fairly successful even by so-called master plan standards and is thriving. But they operate using organic order principals and it sounds like a wonderful place to work.

It struck me, as I read through the book, that I recently had the privilege of working in a group that operated with organic order principals for a short time. It was a joy to work in that group and we did some marvelous things. We had a difficult time explaining how we operated and I found myself wishing I’d had this book “back then” so I could have explained us better to those who were wondering how we managed to “get things done.”

For instance, I loved this definition of decision making (it’s from the chapter on participation):

People want their contribution to be part of the contribution of the entire group. They want to know that their individual participation will accumulated with all the other members’ contributions to provide something more robust than they could give by themselves. Is there some organic mechanism–a person or a descriptive system–that turns individuals’ thoughts and judgments into a collective thought, decision or action?

Finding the aggregate is the taking of everyone’s stories and using them to build a whole new story–one that makes sense to the whole group. This takes considerable wisdom. It allows groups to move forward. Finding the aggregate is not the same as reaching consensus. Consensus, when achieved, is little more than taking raw data and totaling it. Consensus, when not reached, translates to frustration and inaction.

Finding the aggregate … I loved reading that. It takes into account everyone in a group and mixes it up and creates a new story that is somehow larger than the sum of all the parts. Like when you’re cooking and you have to use 50 year old curry powder … or something. Or just cooking in general. The final product of any recipe is the aggregate of all the bits the cook has put in.

Then there was this from the chapter on power:

We concluded that power was not something that the three of us would possess just because we held the position of “owner.” We recognized that each of us would carry different roles and responsibilities, but these roles and responsibilities were not assigned because of position. Rather, they were matched to our strengths. No position anywhere in the company would hold power merely because of the post itself.

As our company has grown, “the project holds the power” has become one of our guiding phrases. When new employees are added, they are amazed at being given power by the project and that we, the owners, don’t stand in the way.

…

Does this mean that we are a “flat” organization, where everyone has the same degree of power at the same time? I’m not sure that a flat organization can truly exist and move foward. A project is always inviting a person to step forward and steward the power. And just as no one person holds positional power, neither do projects hold positional power. … Among people and among projects, the spirit is “revolving,” not “flat.”

As we discovered in my group, this requires both humility and trust on the part of the participants. It also requires buy in from everyone. But … if everyone will concede, leave their ego at the door and throw in with this, your group is then able to do remarkable things that no one would be able to do on their own … or even as a group with traditional positional power structures in place.

I think the finest chapter in the book is the chapter on Partners. Myers hits on the desire in the secular and faith cultures for holding each other accountable and shows how we so often miss the mark by driving people away instead of creating intimate atmospheres where vulnerability and encouragement are developed. He does this by developing the picture of accountants (accountability) vs. editors (edit-ability) and sums it up by saying this: “Accountants keep records. Editors wipe away errors while keeping the voice of the author.” (p. 140) Which would you want helping you follow Christ more closely? An accountant or an editor? Which kind of friend would you like helping you mirror Jesus more clearly … an accountant or an editor? Based on the scripture which tells us how he views our sin after Christ’s death and resurrection, which do we think God is?

In all, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is engaging with other people in thinking of new ways of “doing” church. It is extremely helpful for for verbalizing some of the ideas that don’t have form yet. Or giving the right words to the things that are working, but perhaps you’re using the wrong words over and over again. Or maybe you just want to see a new way of doing things because the old ways just aren’t working anymore.

I am finished. I began at approximately 8 p.m. last night and just finished. I slept for about 6 hours between 2:30 and 8:30 a.m. …

I set a new record even for myself. But I’m finished. As of 12:30 this afternoon.
And if any of you want to read a great story that tells the big story … the story of love and redemption that includes a lot of the great themes that God has told throughout time, then read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It just might take you a little longer than it did me. I tend to read in great big gulps.  And here’s a fine review with no spoilers …

The seventh and last Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) is coming out on Saturday. We’ve preordered a copy from amazon.com. LightGirl was also invited to a book party at an independent book store in Arlington with a friend on Friday night … she’ll get a copy then. We’ll have TWO copies in our house. This will be good since three of us will be vying for reading rights at once. Questions abound … is Snape really evil? Who will die … Voldemort? Harry? Neville? Someone we’ve not thought of yet? Is Dumbledore really dead?

There is a piece of me which doesn’t want to read the last book. A part of me which doesn’t want the story to end. I’m not entirely certain I want the answers to those questions. I like living with the not knowing. Come what may, Saturday is very likely to come and with it a special delivery of our book. I will read the book and thus, the mystery and the story will come to an end. It will be sad in a way.

In anticipation of the day, I found this on-line quiz … thanks to Sally at Eternal Echoes. It came as no surprise at all that I’m Hermione, since that’s who I’ve always felt the most resonance with.

Which HP Kid Are You?

Grace tagged those of us who read her blog (so now it’s dangerous 😉 ) to tell the world what books we’re reading … just so that she can get a sneak peek into our libraries. Well … since she kindly gave us a sneak peek into her reading list, I thought it only just that I comply.

Drumroll, please … here are seven books that I am currently wending my way through (in no particular order):

>> Cry Of The Soul (How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God), by Dr. Dan Allender & Dr. Tremper Longman III – an excellent book about emotions that our culture has deemed negative but that can bring us closer to the heart of God if we will embrace them with a heart that is seeking after Him.

>> The Artists Way, by Julia Cameron – for anyone seeking to find their inner artist, or give it a nudge. A really wonderful book.

>> The Places In Between, by Rory Stewart – a great book about a historian walking across Afghanistan during the current war. But it’s also about how we humans view one another and get along.

>> Healthy Congregations (a systems approach), by Peter L. Steinke – a good solid piece on how people in churches actually work together in healthy ways, and how to build on that.

>> Desire of the Everlasting Hills (The World Before and After Jesus), by Thomas Cahill – the third in his “Hinges of History” series (the first two were How the Irish Saved Civilization and The Gifts of the Jews). I’ve read the first two and am now thoroughly hooked. Cahill has a fascinating perspective on history and is a great story teller.

>> Exiles (Living Missionally In a Post-Christian Culture), by Michael Frost – required reading for those in the emerging conversation and I’m behind.

>> On Writing Well (The Classic Guide to Writing Non-Fiction), by William K. Zinsser – LightMom gave me this book recently and I’m really enjoying it. It’s helping me to think about how I write, and why. Perhaps you, dear reader, will even see a difference here and there as a result of this book.

Bonus … arrived yesterday and I can hardly wait – Organic Community (creating a place where people naturally connect), by joseph r. myers.  I often just throw books in our familial shopping cart on amazon.com, sometimes LightHusband places an order, then I get a surprise.  Yesterday was such a day.  I think I’ll be reading this while we’re in Vermont.

As far as tagging people … if you read this and feel inspired, please let me know in the comments. I’d love to see what books you’re reading.

We went to Costco the other day. We approached mecca withOUT a list. It was wrong, oh so very wrong. It was bad for our budget and broke our bank. It was a needful shopping trip and we have not been in a very long time. Here’s the thing about Costco: Never. Go. Without. A List. Ever.

I have to say though we did find a couple of fantastic buys on books. Some really spectacular books on the deep ocean and deep space for only $15 each. The really big coffee table kind of books with fabulous photographs in them. I perused the book table at length. I was tempted by only a few books. Really had to counsel myself over the book on Mid-Atlantic gardening. But one book in particular caught my eye and left me filled with … hmmm … not sure what the word is … dismay, perhaps. The book was entitled, Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To, by Anthony Destefano.

I flipped through it briefly.  It didn’t seem to threatening.  But I have to say that the title seems arrogant.  I read the description on Amazon.  Apparently the prayers are for some generic things such as courage, forgiveness and the like.  But here’s the thing … I’ve prayed for those things before.  While God hasn’t said no, trust me, I’ve gotten no answer for a while.  I’ve been left hanging.  Or gotten the equivalent of what LightGirl calls “the dark look.”

If anyone has read this book and wants to disagree with me, please do.  I’d love to know that there are prayers out there guaranteed to get God’s assurance.  But the God I’ve interacted with is not a push-button God who can be made to perform at my command (in prayer).  I’m glad because I know very, very little about how things work and I think He knows a very great deal.

I’ve been reading a book on parenting called Parenting Teens with Love and Logic. Actually, I’m pretty much finished with it now. It’s quite good. It’s really a guide to help parents understand how they can gradually put more and more responsibility for a teen’s behavior onto that teen. It’s a delicate balance and more difficult to achieve than you might think. It is difficult to love someone and yet allow them to accept painful consequences for bad decisions. This is difficult to even think about. But it’s been on my mind lately as I’ve had some conversations with LightGirl about issues like drinking and sex outside of marriage. These are issues that I have choices to make as I talk to her about them. I can make rules and forbid her from doing them. Of course, drinking alcohol is also illegal until she is a certain age. The problem is that when I make those rules, I put both of us in a really bad place. I put her in a place where she feels as though she must test the water and the boundaries I have set. I put myself in a place where I must eternally police those boundaries and that water. It’s bad for both of us. And it does nothing to nurture or grow our relationship.

In the last day or so, John Smulo posted about a recent Resolution passed by the Southern Baptist Convention concerning the use of alcohol by their members. I got to thinking about the resolution in light of the book I’ve just read on parenting. There are many styles of parenting. And there are many styles of living in community together. And there are many styles of relating to God. But somehow I think these are all intertwined with one another. I am coming to believe that the way we parent and look to parents is a reflection of how we interact with God and how we look to God.

For me, I believe that whether or not one drinks alcohol is a matter of personal preference. The consequences will be born by that person. God is going to love me no matter what, but it’s going to be painful for him to watch me go through that hangover. In the same way, if LightGirl chooses to drink when it’s not in her best interests, it’s going to make me very sad. It will be painful for me to watch her bear whatever the consequences are of that choice, but I will still love her. I’m going to give her lots of information, tools, and support to make good decisions. But they are ultimately her decisions … because it is ultimately her life, not mine. But she and I are in loving community with one another. We talk, we wrestle with these decisions. She knows I love her and have her best interests at heart and she has mine.

So, I wonder sometimes, about institutions and entities who feel that more rules will help these sorts of issues. I’ve come to believe that rules are put in place when community is lacking. Rules must be established when people feel they can no longer speak to one another face to face. Regulations and resolutions must be passed because it is no longer individuals who count but standards which must be upheld. Where there are laws, there does not need to be community, there only needs to be a police force … and life becomes more and more stark.

Not too long ago a book made its appearance in our home. It arrived with the LightMom; a gift from the GrandPea to his oldest grandson (LightBoy). It’s called the Dangerous Book for Boys.  At about the same time, Julie Clawson wrote about some serious misgivings she has about the book.  She makes some points that I’ve given some thought to.  But I’m not terribly concerned about them.  We’ve all been reading the book, including LightMom, who wished that the book had been around when she was a girl.  I want to build the crystal radio with the LightChildren, and I’m teaching LightBoy to quilt, LightGirl plays ice hockey, it would be fair to say that LightHusband does more cooking than I do.  So we tend to be fairly gender neutral in our house.  I worry about those books in terms of our culture, but also know that on a case by case basis I have more control over how my children perceive them than I previously recognized.

Then I took LightGirl and one of her friends to play hockey one afternoon and the friend (nicknamed the Beast by her team) told a story about her middle school softball team.  It seems that the girls softball team and the boys baseball team share equipment room space and practice time.  They do not, however, share a liking for each other.  So they have taken to playing somewhat mean jokes on one another.  This is not done in a spirit of fraternity, but in getting even, and ill will.  The latest prank was that  the girls broke into the equipment room and tied tampons and pads all over the boys equipment.  They thought this was hilarious.  I guess if you’re 13 it is.  What was disturbing to me is that the girls coach aided and abetted them in this endeavor.  LightGirl brought the incident up with me this morning.  We talked about it.  I told her I found it somewhat disturbing that the coach assisted in this.  I also told her that my biggest problem was that for centuries men have found women’s menstrual blood and the products they use to deal with it unclean and the butt of jokes.  So the girls were just perpetuating that myth and denigrating themselves by playing that joke.  They were, in a sense, further putting themselves down.

Without menstrual blood, we would not have the human race for much longer.  It is that monthly cleansing of the womb that allows pregnancy and prolonging our species.  It’s high time we acknowledged that far from being unclean and a joke, it is what allows us to be and continue being.  It is what makes us intensely feminine, female and other and beautiful.  And I am far more concerned about those underlying centuries old issues that women and girls continue to perpetuate as well as men.  May we learn to find beauty in these things as well.

We’ve been without service for three days now.  Since LightHusband works from home, we pay for a business account at $150 per month.  Supposedly this ensures rapid response when we go down.  Not so.  It simply means we pay more money per month to hope for rapid response when our service goes down.  Oh.  And we get to speak to someone who speaks English as a native language when we call for service.  That’s not particularly appealing to me since I have no problems listening to a heavy accent.

My biggest pet peeve is not being what one appears to be.  Or pretending to be something that one is not.  Essentially lying about one’s being.  So … Comcast stinks.  They are liars and cheats.  We’ve been waiting all day long while one customer service rep after another has lied and bs’ed to us.  We’ll be without the internet all weekend now.

In other news, I’ve been getting a lot of reading and quilting done.  I’m reading four books right now.  On the way out to Colorado, I picked up The Places In Between (you may recall that LightHusband read this awhile ago and I quoted from it).  I’m enjoying it too.  I came across this description of the British soldiers stationed at a crossroads town and thought it quite telling.  The Afghani men were describing the soldiers to Rory.  They thought very highly of the Brits, but were curious about some of their habits which did not make any sense at all to the wiry, desert-wise Afghani mountain men:

“British soldiers have chests as broad as horses.  We wish there were more of them to keep the peace.  Every morning they hook their feet over the bumper of their jeep, put their hands on the ground and push themselves up and down on their hands two hundred times without stopping.  I don’t know why.”

I thought about how strength has different requirements for different circumstances and different environments.  The wiry, small Afghani men are perfectly built for their environment.  They are strong and built for endurance in the arid, high altitude and high temperatures of the high desert.  The British soldiers, on the other hand, were building solid muscle mass which requires a lot of protein intake and water to maintain.  This is not easily accomplished in the terrain they were protecting.  So while they are large and strong by Western standards, they might not last so long in the wilds of Afghanistan.

I’ve also picked up Exiles:  Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture by Michael Frost.  I’m only one chapter into it yet, but it’s an excellent companion to Colossians Remixed.  I’d almost say it’s part 2, even though it’s written by a whole other person.

Then there is Parenting Teens with Love and Logic, by Foster Cline and Jim Fay.  Just opening this book in front of LightGirl is guaranteed to raise her hair and howls of rage.  She is determined to infer that this is about “bad” teens not all teens.  The authors have also written a general parenting book.  If it’s as good as this one, I’d highly recommend it.  They say there are several parenting methods. There’s the “helicopter” approach … where the parents hover and protect the children from everything bad, the children are never allowed to grow or own their own victories or defeats.  There’s the drill-sergeant approach where the parents bark out orders and the children are expected to obey them without question … again, children don’t learn how to listen to their own voice, they end up listening to an external voice.  There are laissez-faire parents who just let whatever happen and this also has fairly disastrous results.  Then there is the method which they recommend, the consultant approach.  In this approach, the parents ask questions about how the child will handle given situations and let them own their own victories and distasters (within reason).  It’s very good and has given me a lot of language to use that takes the heat out of aruguments and bickering with the LightChildren.

Last is a re-read of a book I read almost 20 years ago.  The Crone:  Woman of Age, Wisdom and Power, by Barbara G. Walker.  It’s fairly over the top feminist reading about Goddess worship.  But it is interesting from an anthropological and theological perspective to read about how the Trinity has been reflected in many different traditions from way before Christ (for example).  It’s also sad to read about how abuse of power and the patriarchal misuse of Church traditions took women out of their place of wisdom and healing in European villages and towns during the onslaught of the Roman Empire.  The unification of church and state under Constantine was more damaging than we can ever imagine.

So not having internet access is frustrating, but I’m getting alot of reading done!