Wednesday, May 14, 2008 The Becoming of G-d: What the Trinitarian nature of God has to do with Church and a deep Spirituality for the Twenty First Century

I am pleased to say, that at last, the book is available for purchase at £9.95 through YTC Press. This, my second book, seeks to explore the theology behind groups like Moot, Emerging & Fresh Expressions of Church. It looks at the whole issue of knowing G-d through experience, and that the concept of the Trinity, formulated through the Cappadocian Mothers & Fathers, is a best guess understanding of the nature of God, which though partially revealed in Christ, remains mystically out of reach. However, the Western church, through the differences of latin and greek texts, never fully understood the concept of the Trinity, which has distorted its theology and practice.

I explore the importance of this understanding of God in the context of our postmodern culture driven under the logic of consumption and information technology, which drives a new form of cultural mysticism. In this brave new world, the importance of church reflecting the Trinitarian nature of God as 'mystical communion or community' becomes an imperative. Finally, I explore the difficult challenge of building community in a culture which is loosing its interpersonal skills to the cult of the individual.

So it should be a good read!!

To Order A Copy
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Christian Spirituality, belief & Madness

Last night, I watched a really interesting programme on the whole issue of Christian Spirituality, belief & Madness led by a Clinical Psychologist. It was very good, to hear it listen here

Prayer Development Day | 25th October | St Saviours Priory

Pleased to say we have finally got our act together regarding a prayer development day. So on Sat 25th October Ian Adams will lead an experiential prayer development day at the beautiful surroundings of St Saviour's Priory to explore contemplative approaches to prayer to enrich our own spiritual life. For more information or to book places, click here.

It is a common problem for us all to struggle with a personal spiritual life. Many of us struggle to find approaches to personal prayer that feel authentic and resourcing. The resulting danger is then created, where we carry a faith in our head with an inner desert in our heart. In our Rhythm of Life, we acknowledge the need for a sustaining spiritual rhythm that seeks God to resource us, over and above an approach to faith which is dependent on theories, theology and the stuff in our head. This is the great impoverishment of a an overly rational or postmodern approach to spirituality.

It is a great pleasure to have Ian Adams facilitate this day, who is an incredible resource in this who area. See event pages for more information.

God & our Work - Gareth Powell

Last night was a bit of a little reunion. Gareth Powell came back to the Moot Eucharist to give the homily addressing the issue of God and Work. It was extremely good, and has been made available for podcast. If you have not subscribed to moot podcasts and want to hear it, click here
If you want to subscribe to Moot podcasts and hear it, then click here.
Personally I was challenged by Gareth's thoughts about vocation and work, and then thinking about work in the context of our Rhythm of Life. At last we have started to have live music, Dorethe and Trine led some Taize chants using the new piano - horraahh. Now we just need to sort out visuals! Good to see you Gareth, don't leave it too long before we see you again.

Speaking Tour 2008 in US & Canada

Pleased to say that the Speaking Tour is coming together, with stops now in New York, Montreal, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Vancouver and Seattle, with the possibility of a few others. So check out my blog of information for what and where here.

The second book is coming out very soon, so will post information on how to order it if you are interested. In my second book, I go into a lot more of own personal reflection regarding the implications of a Trinitarian God, and what it has to say about out Ancient:Future focus. The Second book is being published by YTC Press.

Poem - The Godhead by Peter Thomas

There’s no triumvirate, nor trinity
No triune divinity
(No spirit, father, son all three)
In me, that oversee, that hold sway;
That prick delay and harness haste
And govern all my ways
From morose to delirious
Not three, but two:
Doctrine and experience.

These bedfellows with twin thrones
In my head and heart and bones
Are rulers over me
And when there’s peace
There’s sobriety
When they agree
There’s harmony
When they make love
They begat bliss
No matter how painful
The issue is.

But when they’re at odds
Like feuding gods
When they’re unstable
A Cain and Abel
Fisticuffs
Hostility
O when they both do disagree, they thrash and cut and shout
And when they bleed they both bleed doubt.

Thus one must have the final say
Yes one must oversee , hold sway
So at twenty paces on a misty dawn
They turn and fire so that decision’s born.

Experience and doctrine thus settle the matter
And mostly it’s the former, not the latter
That emerges intact
And that my friend is that.

For as I’m told someone once said
That put the thought first in my head
(So that my heart O damn near burst)
“I’ll toast the pope, but conscience first”

Peter Thomas

Visit to St Andrew's Holborn Circus & The Archdeacon of Hackney

To remind the community, we are planning to go to St Andrew's Church Holborn Circus in the City, at 6.45pm on Weds 14th May. If you plan on coming and have not told us, then please add your name on the link below:

Attending/Not Attending

Map

We will be attending an alternative worship service followed by food and chat.

Affluenza & Addicted to Love

Without deliberately wanting to embarrass Mike & Clare, I just wanted to point out that I think Moot is entering a new phase when we again consider the question "How should we live?" which we entered when we created our Rhythm of Life drawing on the wisdom of the Monastics. This requires us to consider how we live in contemporary culture but not of the darker sides of culture. Or put another way, where are we called to affirm the good things within culture and where are we called to be counter-cultural about the things that impair healthy living and being.

One of the important areas of being counter-cultural - is the whole issue of naming addiction that arises out of a life strategy dependent on consumption and the desire for affluence. Both Clare's book, and the book Mike has recommended us to read as a community in June, not only name these addictions, but taken together, challenge us to face our Rhythm of Life elements of Balance and Presence for a start, and then into all the other elements. Clare's book 'Addicted to Love' tells her story, and the place of Moot within it. She names the patterns of addiction she has experienced alongside God's grace in loving her and not shaming her towards her own human becoming. Affluenza, the book Mike has suggested, takes this further, and re-evaluates the pressures on us in Western postmodern culture, and names how affluence when gained, does little more than create more stress and unhappiness.

So if you are in Moot, do consider getting both these books, and we will be reading Affluenza together for June. If you have not got a copy yet, click here and Moot get's some money against every sale. Personally, I am very grateful for the input Mike & Clare bring to our community, which is at one level very challenging and at another, incredibly encouraging and loving - with a sense of humour!! Our community would be severely impoverished without either of them.

So we will be discussing this together in the new term, and the implications not only for ourselves, but for the health of our community. See the website for the term May to Aug 08.

Animat rescores The Straight Story

Some of you may have heard about Animat rescoring the soundtrack of Belleville Rendez-vous and playing it live at the Big Chill and touring cinemas across the UK. Well they're back again but this time they've rescored the Straight Story. Which is interestingly about a man's journey across America on a lawnmower!

I'm heading to a performance of it in York tomorrow night but it's touring right round the country and is in Civilisation aka London on the 15th May at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton and Notting Hill Gate Picturehouse on the 18th May.

Well worth checking out if you're into your ambient down tempo etc

Animat

Picturehouse Cinemas

Spirituality for the Twenty First Century

I had the good fortune to catch up with my good friend Barry Taylor today in London as he passed through. He has always inspired me, ever since we met at an event at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena. This time in our explorations over a coffee, we explored the issue of spirituality coming out of a digital and technological age. Some know that I am considering starting a PhD in this area, and I was really encouraged to hear that others are pashed up about it as well. In fact, Barry, who is always miles ahead of my thinking, has already written a book on it, which I have ordered - which looks at the whole issue of spirituality being driven by deep things within contemporary culture. It is called Entertainment Theology. I am still reflecting on the conversation, how spirituality has become the new religion, and yet, we don't really know yet what people mean by spirituality. It is still emerging.

I am hoping that in my book tour of the States and Canada in June, that I will be dropping in to LA to do some work with Barry, as it is always a pleasure

Helping an old frien

This blog is a rather unusual one from me: I'm posting it to help out a very old friend.

Jane's story has appeared in the local newspaper near were I grew up. Please take the time to read the full story here. It's a sad tale of neglect, bad funding and downright abuse that could really do with the oxygen of publicity.

I'm posting it because I hope that it will shame people responsible into doing something about it - it may be that some mental health professional, politician or bureaucrat reading this may be in a position to help sort things out.

If you can digg/stumble upon/delicious the article for me, that would be really helpful. The article can be found here.

technorati tags:social justice, tabi, jane cockerton, dissociative identity disorder, lilacs, south west london and st.george's mental health trust, lilacs, swlsg, did, tolworth hospital

Lot's Wife

I've been meaning to blog this poem for a while.

I came across it in The Times newspaper in London, as they have a regular Monday poem slot, and it struck me (and continues to strike me) as a curious poem that has given me plenty to think about. I was also very struck by the commentary that was written by Frieda Hughes, which I would urge you to read here.

by Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) (Akhmatova, translated by D.M. Thomas, Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)





And the just man trailed God's messenger,
His huge, light shape devoured the black hill.
But uneasiness shadowed his wife and spoke to her:
“It's not too late, you can look back still

At the red towers of Sodom, the place that bore you,
The square in which you sang, the spinning-shed,
At the empty windows of that upper storey
Where children blessed your happy marriage-bed.”

Her eyes that were still turning when a bolt
Of pain shot through them, were instantly blind;
Her body turned into transparent salt,
And her swift legs were rooted to the ground.

Who mourns one woman in a holocaust?
Surely her death has no significance?
Yet in my heart she never will be lost,
She who gave up her life to steal one glance.

technorati tags:pome, poem, poetry, anna akhmatova, poet, frieda hughes, lot's wife, salt, lot