Knowtown…

“You have the right to remain silent.
What you lack is the capacity.”
–Shrek

Ouch! This shoe fits more than I am willing to admit.

In my day job I do computer support for my local school district. I have the opportunity to work with Windows and Macs. It is not to hard to see why each OS has its own faithful following. Recently, I have read two separate things that, for me, reinforce the idea that the OS dilemma makes an interesting parable. The first thing I read was a short confession from one of my favorite ecclesial dreamers, Jason Clark. Sounds like he is contemplating a genuine conversion experience. The other item was a short computer article, titled Ten axioms of computing? Call them Windows flaws.

Most of my vocational experience revolves around supporting PC’s and their networks so I am well aware of the many problems that windows computers have. In my new job I am being exposed to the wonderful world of Macs. I now have a Mac laptop and I really am beginning to love the stability/simplicity of it. The author of the article mentioned above makes the following observation:

bq. ”You can’t have power and simplicity in an operating system, despite what the advertisements say; the two are mutually exclusive. Your system can be either easy to use, or easy to modify its important components, but if you try to do both you have a recipe for disaster.”

There is a good reason that the Mac OS is so stable. It is highly proprietary. With the exception of a short period of time many years ago, there is only one company that makes Macs and they are responsible for the programing of the OS and all of the hardware. With only one company in control it is easy to regulate what gets in and what does not. The stability of the system is directly proportionate to the amount of control the manufacturer has over the development of the system. So while it is very reliable, you will not be able to get the latest high end graphics card and install it into your new G5. To have the flexibility to install new hardware or developing software you need to give up some of the control. The Windows OS has given up some of this control, allowing many companies to develop both hardware and software for their OS. Of course, some of these companies produce better products than others leading to a wide range of quality control issues. How can a company who wants to maintain complete control over the core over their OS while letting others develop hardware and software for it? The answer is that you must be willing to live with some instability.

But what if there was an OS that did not have the desire to maintain complete control over everything? What if they even opened up access to the source code itself? It would create a situation where stability and reliability of your OS would depend on the commitment and competency of the user. If you wanted your OS to be usable you would have to make a commitment to learn how it worked. You could not simply rely on the programmers to do everything for you. You would have to incorporate disciplines and practices that help you develop and mature as a computer user. Welcome to the world of Open Source Linux. May not be the most user-friendly out of the box, but it will create an opportunity to balance your power and simplicity in a way that meets the needs of your context without settling for the “one-size-fits-all” mentality of the big guns.

I wonder if sometimes we buy into these flawed closed source ideologies as ecclesial dreamers. In an attempt to create stability, we take complete control and don’t allow members to have any input at all. Or, we give input to everyone, regardless of their character or competency, and end up with one ecclesial crash after another. I still think we have a lot we can learn from the emerging open source philosophy. That is why I want to be part of an open source community of faith. In the end, I doubt it matters much which OS we choose to use for our computers, but our underlying thoughts on the balance between power, stability and simplicity will have impacts on how we, as contextual communities, embody the great commission. I vote for open source.

OOPS! I have updated the link…

Here is a great example of the type of constructive dialogue that can take place when great minds get together. This is one example why I am OK being an intellectual elitist.

I am not the most qualified person to comment on Kuhn’s book but there is a lot of stuff in it that makes my ecclesial dreaming wheels start turning. Consider this quote:

bq. ”No natural history can be interpreted in the absence of at least some implicit body of intertwined theoretical and methodological belief that permits selection, evaluation, and criticism. If that body of belief is not already implicit in the collection of facts—in which case more than ‘mere facts’ are at hand—it must be externally supplied, perhaps by current metaphysics, by another science, or by personal and historical accident. No wonder, then, that in the early stages of the development of any science different men confronting the same range of phenomena, but not usually all the same phenomena, describe and interpret them in different ways. What is surprising, and perhaps also unique in its degree to the fields we call science, is that such initial divergences should ever disappear.” (emphasis mine)

bq. “For they do disappear to a very considerable extent and then apparently once and for all. Furthermore, their disappearance is usually caused by the triumph of one of the pre-paradigm schools, which, because of its own characteristic beliefs and preconceptions, emphasized only some special part of the too sizable and inchoate pool of information.”

Why is it that people who believe that hierarchical paradigms of leadership are not valid are said to be “anti-leadership”? Ever notice that this accusation primarilay comes from people who are in hierarchical structures? I have a hunch that people who believe that the sermon should not be the centeral focus of the communal gathering of believers are not “anti-preaching”. Over the past two years I have met many people who have divergent views on these topics as well as many others including, women in leadership positions, ordination of homosexuals, paid pastoral staff vs. non-paid pastoral staff, etc… If you get two or more people together who have different opinions on these issues you will begin to feel a subtle—or not so subtle—pressure to relieve this tension. We do not like divergences in matters this important. We would rather come to some form of concensus through conflict. We preffer a clear cut triumph of one idea above the others.

I believe this need for one absolute winner of ideology is the reigning paradigm of our day and needs to be challenged. I already know that there are many out there who will accuse me of being “relativistic” and thus on the slippery slope to Hell. But that is certainly a straw man argument designed to allow those with the power to not address the legitimate questions that stand outside of and challenge their own paradigm. How can any one belief system account for all of the “too sizable and inchoate pool of information?” I don’t think it can. Which means we are in need of more than a generous orthodoxy. We need a will to embrace the truly other. We need to learn to practice grace towards one another rather than profess a mere belief in grace for us alone.

My experience tells me that there are more people in my ecclesial tradition that disagree with me than agree with me and I am beginning to be OK with that. I also know that there are many people out there who have defined “church” in such a way that if there is no paid pastor, building, and people listening to a sermon there is no church. But I also know that there are many others who are already embodying this ecclesial divergence in healthy and productive ways. I am very encouraged by the language coming out of the Emergent conversation in recent days. Some may say there is nothing new under the sun. While I don’t disagree, I think it is equally true that there is a whole lot under the sun that is yet to be discovered by people with the courage to challenge the current paradigm of power. It wasn’t long ago that people knew beyond doubt that it was not possible to operate on the human heart. I refuse to bow to the fragility of knowledge. I choose to keep dreaming.

If I have said it once I will say it a million times, “Scott is trying to ruin my life!!” Last month we had a short get together at his house to talk about where we are on our ecclesial journey. It was a great time of refreshing and sparked some stuff in me that I have been reluctant to write about. But we had some good follow up conversations and I told him that I was in need of a good book to keep the creative ecclesial dreaming juices flowing. Of course, he was happy to oblige.

We met a week or so later for some lively conversation at a local bar with some of my friends, a local ex-worship leader who recently began his own ecclesial-detox, an excomunicated Jehovah’s Witness and his girlfriend. That night Scott handed me a copy of Thomas S. Huhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. This book is just what the doctor ordered and has me dreaming big dreams once again. I think this book should be required reading for all emerging ecclesial dreamers and I hope to write some reflections about it here in the near future.

Tonight I watched the HBO film, Something the Lord Made that illustrates one of the central themes of the book. The film is about Dr. Alfred Blalock, the surgeon who performed the first heart surgerey and his assistant, Vivien Thomas.

bq. “It’s a relationship that starts out as master and servant, in a way. And then it becomes teacher and pupil. And then they’re pretty much joined at the hip on a practical level - the one can’t move without the other.” (from the HBO website)

Before this surgery took place it was common knowledge that you could not perform surgery on the human heart. Long story short. by working outside the accepted paradigm (in more ways than one) Dr. Blalock changed the course of accepted medical science. But he could not have done it without the assistance of Mr. Vivien Thomas. Unfortunately, Mr. Thomas was never recognized for his involvement because he was not a doctor, and he was an African-American. So even though the surgery would not have happened without his invaluable contribution, he was not recognized for his work until much later in his life.

So what does all this have to do with ecclesial dreaming? In my opinion, a lot. Over the past two years of my journey I have sensed things that are standing in the way of me embodying my ecclesial dream but I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what it was. But Kuhn’s book and this HBO film is beginning to give me a vocabulary to begin putting words to some of my thoughts. The concept of paradigms in the context of science has some startling corelations to the emerging ecclesial scene. I think if we can begin to dialogue across paradigms we can begin to do some creative destruction. I am pretty excited about how all of this can play out in the near future. I am beginning to sense again that we are part of something the Lord is making. But as I usually do, I am getting ahead of myself.

I know there are a lot of people who have been waiting for a particular CD to be released. Well, IT is finally here!!!

After you get How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
and Genius Loves Company, the next CD on your list should be Love.45 Be listening for their newest single “Way Down” (FREE download here) on your local stations (or on the United Airlines in flight radio) and if you don’t hear it call up and request it. These boys from Denver are great to listen to and even better to see live so be on the lookout for that, too. They should be starting their tour soon. Read more about the band here. Did I mention this CD makes a great Christmas gift…

This past weekend we got a little bit of snow. It wasn’t much but it was enough to get my son’s creative juices flowing. He found a box and decided that he wanted to build something. He recruited my help and we decided to build a small sled.

After pushing him down the small incline in our front yard and realizing that it worked well, we suckered our faithful friend, Sedona, into providing some dogpower.

We had a great time. I cannot remember the last time me and my middle son laughed so much together. We put the sled in drydock to make sure it is ready for the next snow storm which is forcasted for either tonight or tomorrow. I normally don’t like dealing with snow but I am hopeful that we get some to ride out the long weekend. Of course, if we want Sedona’s help we may need to buy some more cheese.

Hope everyone has a very happy Thanksgiving! I will be thankful for some great time together with my family, snow, good food, great friends… What are you thankful for?

Speaking of geniuses loving company, here is todays quote from the Bruderhof’s daily dig:

bq. Free Yourself
Albert Einstein

bq. A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest–a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.

I liked this quote when I read it because it resonates with the ideas in Volf’s great book. Exclusion and Embrace. Good stuff.

I have been loving the new U2 song, All Because of You. It is a great high-energy song with the great lyrical content you would expect from these rockers:

bq. “I’m not broke, but you can see the cracks
You can make me perfect again…
All because of you
All because of you
All because of you
I am”

From a slightly different genre, the song, Sinner’s Prayer, from the new Ray Charles CD, Genius Loves Company is a typical blues number performed with B.B. King. It is outstanding. B.B. and Ray go together like bread and butter. It is a song that cries out for much needed grace:

bq. “Lord, have mercy
Lord, please have mercy on me
Well, if I’ve done somebody wrong
Lord, please have mercy on me”

Amen and amen.

Both of these songs are getting a lot of air time on a local radio station here and that makes me happy.

If you have been watching LOST on Wednesday nights, you will recognize this picture as one of the main characters named Locke. I really like the way they are developing his character. I still think this show is a great metaphore for the journey of emerging ecclesial dreamers. I like the tension that is being created in the story line between the group who is acting out of hope for a rescue and the group who is acting out of a desire to survive on the island. These two groups are in exactly the same situation but their different perspectives are creating conflict. It illustrates nicely that context and circumstances are not the decisive issue. Telos is the unifying factor.

Locke is the one character who’s aim is not rescue or survival, but living in the moment. He is the one character who (because of a miraculous experience) has come to be at peace living on the island. He is not lost, he is a resident alien of the island. He is not trying to convince people to seek rescue or survival but is trying to help the others seek a new telos.

I see a lot of parallels in the whole emerging church conversation. There are some great emerging ecclesial dreamers who share similar contexts and situations but until they share a common telos there will be a wide range of conflict. I have more thoughts on this and how I see it playing out but I am not sure if I can articulate it very clearly. At any rate, I would love to hear if any other LOST viewers are seeing any relation between the show and ecclesial dreaming.