Okay. Now I’m just having fun. For all my fellow contrastlings who know the joys of color deficiency, this one’s for you (and a few others).
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Colorblind: “Oo, oo, what color is my shirt?
Earth Day: Lights Out, 8-9pm
Saturday March 29th 2008, 8:34 pm
Filed under: EmergingChurch, FullyAlive, Brainwaves, Creational Theology
Filed under: EmergingChurch, FullyAlive, Brainwaves, Creational Theology
Earth Day. Lights out. 8-9 pm.
My children are lighting candles everywhere. Very nice.
Wild Pear Creative: New Products That Celebrate The Beauty Of Life
I’ve just launched the beginnings of a full product gallery for Wild Pear Creative. The goal is simple - to create products that celebrate themes of hope, love and beauty among human beings.
WILD PEAR CREATIVE product lines:
Three Words To Live By. Simple, 3 word, text-based clean design that grabs the eye and awakens the heart. T-shirts and mugs. Ex. “See Beauty Everywhere.”
The Color Of Eden. Original poetry to stir the soul, emblazoned on t-shirts made by edun LIVE, an ethical t-shirt company launched in 2005 by Ali Hewson and Bono with a mission to drive sustainable employment in sub-Saharan Africa.
Brainwaves. Silly storms going on in the noggin, justa weepin’ for some air time.
If you have the time to browse, make a comment, or buy a product or gift certificate for the birthday of someone you love, I can promise that the proceeds will be handled with care and gratefulness!
If you’re up for promoting the gallery on your blog, Facebook, site or by email, just copy and paste this in: http://www.zazzle.com/danwilt
Zazzle And The World Of User Creativity
One of the central values in the world of emerging churches is that of creativity, and especially that of “user creativity” - i.e. taking the creativity out of the hands of a few and putting it into the hands of the many (we, of course, see the gift of both).
So, welcome to the hip, hot, rich new world of user creativity on the web.
According to Wired magazine, this instapreneurs are guiding us into the next phase of the internet.
I’m always amazed at how intriguing these things are to me personally, though one shouldn’t be amazed. We are children of our age, engaging its joys and seeking to challenge its idolatries.
Zazzle custom t-shirts and more, create or shop for unique designs shipped in 24 hours
See my Wild Pear Creative gallery at Zazzle
EasterTide: The Joy Continues
In the church calendar, Easter is the first celebration of many weeks of Eastertide, for 50 days until the celebration of Pentecost.
The themes of new creation, resurrection, and the corresponding lives of people of the new creation and resurrection, should continue to fill our thoughts, worship expressions and teaching.
The implications of resurrection and the new creation are vast, all-encompassing, and central to the human story.
Let’s not leave them with the chocolate this past Sunday.
Easter Reading: Whispers Of New Creation
Thursday March 20th 2008, 12:10 pm
Filed under: EmergingChurch, FullyAlive, Brainwaves, FutureDay, Creational Theology
Filed under: EmergingChurch, FullyAlive, Brainwaves, FutureDay, Creational Theology
Along with the Good Friday responsive reading in the previous post, I want to add (in the spirit of mentor George Herbert), a new reading I’ve written for Easter.
WHISPERS OF NEW CREATION
Dan Wilt
We hear a voice, now sweet, now strong,
Now fading into days to come
Compelling us to listen.
It lingers in the fragrant flow’r
It solos in the songs of wind
Restraining us from movement.
It writhes and twists within our souls
And groans for freedom’s everlife
To dance with new creation.
It whispers from an age ahead
It stirs our hopes and haunts our dreams
Inviting us to listen.
It speaks of death and hate and harm
Confronted by a love more firm
A life more everlasting
It speaks of veils now torn in two
No separations yet to come
No walls to keep us distant
It speaks of life beyond our times
It sings that we will live beyond
And wake to see perfection
It speaks of peace between us all
It speaks of eden’s garden walk
In everlasting union
We hear a voice, now sweet, now strong,
Now fading into days to come
Compelling us to listen.
(c) 2008 The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies
St. Stephen’s University
www.theworshipartisan.com
Good Friday Reading: In Your Cross
This Good Friday responsive reading is meant to embody a number of different biblical approaches to the work of the cross, namely the work of the cross related to love, redemption, sacrifice and victory.
It also seeks to affirm the apostle Paul’s perspective, that the work of the cross is incomplete without the resurrection.
It’s my prayer that, if you choose to use it, it serves you and/or your community well in your Good Friday worship experience.
GOOD FRIDAY READING: IN YOUR CROSS
All: In Your cross, we truly see
Celebrant: The God who suffers,
Community: To show us the magnificence of love.
Celebrant: The God who offers,
Community: To purchase those He made by love.
Celebrant: The God who chooses,
Community: To sacrifice His greatest love.
Celebrant: The God who conquers,
Community: The pow’rs of ages by force of love.
Women: In Your cross, we see the God who nurtures, shares and gives.
Men: In Your cross, we see the God who suffers, dies, then lives.
Celebrant: In Your cross, we see the pathway,
Community: In Your cross, we see the fullness,
All: In Your cross, we see the supremacy of love that suffers, redeems, sacrifices and rises in victory.
Celebrant: In Your cross we see humanity freed from powers unseen, within and without. In Your cross, we see the way to life marked by love that faces death, surrenders it’s will, gives without limit, and lives to serve another.
Community: Your life-giving Spirit begins this work of love in us. Your resurrection life seals this work of love for us. Your transforming hope draws this love from us, to be dispensed into our world.
Celebrant: We welcome today Your gifts of new creation,
Community: In our lives and in our world.
All: Your love has won the day. Amen and amen.
written by Dan Wilt
The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies
St. Stephen’s University
www.ssu.ca/theinstitute
A Liminal Locus: On Threshold Places
I’m working right now on a piece entitled Liminal Locus: On Threshold Places, (liminal = liminus = threshold; local = locus = place) that addresses the reality that while all space can become a threshold of encounter with God, there is a reality evident in all spiritual history that places carry history, significance and even theological importance.
For now, I believe in spaces that are “set apart” for certain activities, one of which is the intentional expression of worship through symbolic action, shared encounter and community engagement. However, I do not believe in the concept that all “sacred spaces” and “non-sacred spaces” should be utterly disconnected.
Platonic dualism in Western civilization (and theology) has corrupted our ability to see all of life, and human activity, as a forum for sacred activity. I.e. The ground underneath our feet is holy as we walk with God - but some ground is designated specifically for encounter with God (i.e. Jesus and the Temple - “My house shall be called a house of prayer….”).
Just seeding the thought, for input as I move ahead with the idea.
The I, The We And The Child
This is my narrative submission to Emergent’s Atonement Metaphor Contest.
In spirit, it is meant to elevate a more relational, love-focused (possibly more eastern Orthodox approach) to the community of God, and theories of the work of the cross. I see it as a child/adult book concept, in the multi-tiered spirit of Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.
THE I, THE WE, AND THE CHILD
In the beginning was the I.
I was the only Individual, the only personality, the only one.
In the beginning.
The I was somehow more than one, more than only one.
The great I, was really a great We.
The We was a community, within the I. The I was a We. The We was an I.
In the beginning.
The We formed a circle, and the We danced a dance of mutual love and joy.
The We wanted to share the dance.
The We wanted to extend the circle of mutual love and joy.
The We made Children.
The We opened the circle, and the We invited the Children into the dance.
The Children joined in.
The Children were each an i. Each, an i - an individual with individuality.
Each Child, each i, made for a we with the other Children.
Each i, each we, made to share love and joy with the I, made to share love and joy with the We.
In the dance, the We and the Children shared mutual love and joy.
The We and the Children danced in the warm, white light of love.
Then, a whisper came from the cold dark beyond the dance, to a Child.
“You could be an I,” said the voice. A Child listened. Then, another Child.
“You could be more than and individual with individuality.
You could be like the I.”
An Individual. As great as the We.
The Children wanted to be an I, even the only Individual.
A Child’s desire moved from the We. The We was no longer the Child’s dream.
A Child’s individuality became individualism.
A Child stepped away from the dance.
The We reached out. The Child stepped back.
The We reached out again. The Child stepped away.
The Child turned.
The Child walked into the cold dark, desiring to become an I.
Then the We did something the We had never done before.
The We opened up. The I, the We, reached toward the Child.
An I of the We, carrying the hot, red love of the We, ran to the Child’s side.
The I walked with the Child.
The I talked with the Child.
The I cried with the Child.
The I hoped with the Child.
The I explained to the Child, that a Child is an i.
An i is made to dance with a we, and an i is made to dance with an I, and an i is made to dance with a We.
The Child was not made to become an I.
The Child was made to share mutual love and joy with the we, and with the We.
The I wrapped the cold Child in its hot, red light of love, lifted the Child, and began the journey back to the We.
The hot, red light of love moved through the Child, in the Child, for the Child - to heal the Child.
The cold had reached within; the I would do its work.
The Child and the I are still on that journey.
Back to the We.
Back to the warm, white light.
Back to the dance of love.
Surprised By Hope: N.T. Wright’s New Book On New Creation
Monday March 03rd 2008, 1:08 pm
Filed under: EmergingChurch, FullyAlive, Brainwaves, Creational Theology
Filed under: EmergingChurch, FullyAlive, Brainwaves, Creational Theology
The essential ideas it seems that Wright is covering in his new book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church have been central to much of our thinking here at the Institute. Tom Wright has been a good friend of the Institute over the past few years, welcoming our interviews, magazine solicitations and more.
His exploration of these ideas, biblically, seem to be creating a fresh groundswell of scholarly and intellectually credible thinking related to the redemptive cord that the Scriptures weave into the human story.
I’m delighted this book is out, and even without having read it in specific, can recommend it based on his other writings on the topic. It’s a privilege to recommend this book to worship thinkers around the world as a necessary part of one’s library.
Introducing: Max and his Hammered Dulcimer
Thanks, Max.
And… a sweet percussion vid from the days of yore: