If I asked you: “what do you want?” – how would you answer? How would I answer?
To get to know someone we will assume we need to know various things , “what do you know?”, “what do you believe?”, “what’s your job?”. We do this to investigate and evaluate people, socially, religiously and morally. But, what if the key question is “what do you want?” James K A Smith elaborates here:
I’m not sure what an arts pastor is, but David Taylor is apparently one. I really like him, and not just for his great sideburns. This video will make it all clear. The subject is close to my heart — art — but the implications are wide ranging.
I know only one place and group of people doing what David describes in this video — a café-bar in the center of our city, run by friends of mine — local hero’s who get no fanfare or round of applause, and often misunderstood by many well intentioned believers. But, they are living ordinary lives of creative goodness for the sake of others, particularly the creative community.
I found this video encouraging, stimulating and provoking. Now, I must go now and do some drawing.
There is a great deal to lament as we look around the world, with conflicts all around: from the small places with in ourselves and the communities around us to the more tragic and dramatic unrest in the middle east and further to Sudan, the Congo and Zimbabwe. It can leave us feeling overwhelmed and unsure on how to respond.
Seeing this video [below] gave me hope today. There’s something about the beauty of the music and particularly watching the dexterity of the musician that speaks of the goodness of God, and holds out for a future where God puts the world to rights. Beauty in truth and truth in beauty. “Let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream” [Amos].
I keep coming back to missional thinking again and again, and some of that thinking has been recorded on this site. By ‘mission’ I mean, to embody/announce/demonstrate/enact the Kingdom of God.
Mission isn’t just another word for an ‘outreach program’ (which tends to have the mind set of reaching out to grab and pull people in), but rather seeing what God is doing in a place and acting accordingly. It comes from an imagination that is caught up with a conviction that ‘the earth is the Lord’s’ and ‘the Kingdom of God’ is happening (come/coming/now/not-yet). It’s emphasis is less ‘come and see’, but more of a ‘go and be’ attitude. Again we embody, announce and demonstrate, and this links back to the last two posts on Energizing Visions and the Prophetic Imagination. For a follower of Jesus, this is something that becomes part of our everyday lives, not adding more things to do to already busy lives, but being fully present to every moment, and cultivating an attentiveness to the Kingdom in that space.
Thanks to Rose Swetman I found these talks from the 2008 Northwest Leaders Gathering in the US. [And thanks to my friend Nick I discovered Rose's blog]. A wonderful collection of talks, I was naturally drawn to Todd Hunter’s talks – but they’re all great, and makes me happy to be part of that extended family.
[note: after hearing the talks you'll notice where I've taken a lot of ideas for this post]
In the last post I wrote about “adding to the stock of available reality” this fits in with the idea promoted by Walter Brueggemann of “The Prophetic Imagination” [a book I cannot recommend highly enough]. Taking a route through the biblical narrative from Moses to Jesus, Brueggemann recasts the role of the prophet as more than just a ‘predictor’ but as one who engages the imagination in ways that moves beyond the dominant mentality [the 'managed data' of the prevailing culture] and gives freedom for the life of God to be revealed.
“The prophet engages in future fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented… The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing… Every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep conjuring and proposing alternative futures.” [Brueggemann]
I wrote to a friend today (concerning a particular piece of writing) saying:
‘all i want to do is “add to the stock of available reality” – i think personal stories and dreams are a perfect way of doing this. As we hear each others stories and dreams it releases us to dream also.’
“Adding to the stock of available reality” is a phase I picked up from the Image Journal — there Gregory Wolfe writes about how good art gives us fresh idioms, through new juxtapositions and new forms that spark our imaginations. I’ve been thinking how here the stories of others, their successes and failures work in a similar way. As a result I’m trying to encourage others to write and report on their stories, and dreams. Watch this space.
Listening to Steve Chalke talk on the Mars Hill podcast helped me today. I highly recommend a listen it. Look for: ‘Stop the Traffik’ by Steve Chalke over at Mars Hill – he tells his own story there on how and why he ended up doing what he’s doing. Let your imagination be ignited.
There’s a lot of nice viral video’s out now, tackfully ending with a logo that apparently endorses of funded ‘the viral’ – I guess its a new sort of art commissioning, particularly beneficial for graphic artists and film makers. This one is particularly good, and deserves a mention here on Disruptive Grace.
There’s a lot I could write about it, but I think I’ll let it speak to your imaginations by itself. So here we go: “Masks”
With only 3 minutes how do explain why you traveled 6,000 miles to a city on the other side of the globe. Here’s my attempt [ok so I went over by a minute].
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