My beautiful wife has begun blogging again. Her new site is called Kiss My Closet.

Here is a description.

Have you ever been around someone who just inspires you to be unique and yourself? You may watch this person with an awareness of what they wear, what they like, what they eat, etc. You’d die to see into their closet or borrow their life for the day, a week, maybe longer. “Kiss My Closet” is a call for you to be this person. To live life unapologetically and inspire people through your uniqueness.

Our closets are a good metaphor for the things we wear, hide, collect, save, etc. If someone were to look in your closet what would they find? Would they find inspiring pieces that show off the real you or would they see someone who hasn’t yet shown the world who they are?

This blog will feature inspiring art, places, clothes, ideas that I love in hopes to encourage you towards showing the world who you are. Please share the things you come across with me, I’d love to feature them here.

Should be a fun adventure!

Then after swimming with sharks with NT Wright and Richard Rohr (although richard really just watched from the sidelines), we had a break and returned to here Rohr teach on the contemplative life.

Richard Rohr gave us a handout that i don’t have in from of me that outlined the journey from information to transformation. These are also thoughts that impacted me, so please leave a message if you would like me to expand.

He said we need to move from teaching people what to see, to how to see. Inner experience needs to be emphasized over belief and belonging structures and communities so that we can say “I know” versus “I believe.”

He taught us to see things all the way through. We need to meet reality rather than measure our reality. And in order to move in maturity we need to either take the path of prayer or of suffering.

He also took some time to get into spiritual development and said that if you are unable to transform your history, you will transmit it to others.

maturity = out of control.

again, it was amazing, lots to think through, can’t do Rohr justice here. jordon has some thoughts here.

some final thoughts of the conference to come.

I think if it wasn’t for Manning and Rohr I would have gained a tonne of new friends, and information but never moved further in my maturity as a Christian. This is a universal thank you to both of you.

I didn’t take a lot of notes from Manning because I was in awe of his connection to God but here are a couple.

He began by telling a funny yetish joke and then began teaching Luke 11 where Jesus teaches disciples to pray. Our Father was revolutionary because Jewish prayer was always Holy Holy Holy understanding of God, but my adding Father this would cause a huge crises of faith for Jews.

He then worked this into where Jesus teaches as to cry abba father. These were the first words of a baby. we can connect with God with baby talk. a posture of prayer is being on fathers lap.

He then taught us a prayer. That can only be read. If you were there, you would have felt the power of it.

abba i belong to you.

Jesus life was abba centred and connects to how he said it is revealed to little children.

your primary identity is Abba’s child

Amazing. Inspiring. Can’t do it justice here.

OK so the internet was a little fanatic while at the conference making it hard to blog what i wanted to blog. so here are a few thoughts from the last day.

We started the morning with workshops. NT Wright, Rita Brock, Richard Rohr and Brennan Manning who to choose from? So as per usual i stuck with the safe choice of NT, and Anna and Deric went to listen to Richard Rohr.

NT was awesome as usual. He spoke on the Kingdom of God and salvation. Huge topics of course, but he really added some insight to these concepts. Here are a few thoughts:

Salvation: meaning rescue, not from one place to another, more about corruption: destruction, decay, death. Involves renewal of space, time, matter world and raising of his people to this new life. good works are signs of God saving people in the present in anticipation of the future and Romans 8 is one of the most important chapters in the bible.

Kingdom of God (Heaven in Matthew): reign and rule of God in Heaven and on Earth. many western christians see the gospels as short how-tos instead as the launched hope of the Kingdom of God and its eventual completion at the last things as renewed creation and the ruling and reigning of Jesus. (Is 11, Ha 2).

Easter proclaims that Jesus has been raised from the dead, therefore he is really the lord of the world and the messiah and new creation has begun and therefore we have work to do.

The gospel is a kingdom project of God purposes going forward. We are building for the kingdom.

After being blown away by Bishop Tom in this worshop we spent the afternoon swimming with sharks. pictures to come on this.

Firstly, let me say that Rita Brock was awesome and i will not do her talk justice. She talked a lot of church history, and she spent time interpreting art pieces in relation to how we view “Paradise.” I quote it because some have viewed it as where we go when we die, but she shared how it is a present reality that we must look for.

She spoke on the early church quite a bit and mentioned how there is no artwork on a dead Jesus, only a resurrected Jesus. it is not until 954 AD that we get a dead Jesus piece of art.

She then interpreted pieces of early church art and how they depict paradise as a present day possibility and what that might look like. One of the pieces spoke of Baptism and how in the early church going through baptism was like applying for, taking and graduating from university, while training for the Olympics and undergoing group therapy. That is quite the commitment.

We also looked at high Christology and how Jesus is above the rulers of this world, not equal to. Jesus is a model of humanity and paradise is this life at its best. The church should work toward this end. The struggle with evil exists in paradise.

Lastly (of what i recorded), she shared on the movement toward atonement in the church, which all revolves around the “dead” Jesus. Very cool…but no notes on this one.

try to follow my random thoughts.

A picture of paul engaging with hellenistic culture. judiasm, helenism and roman empire.

Paul is in the Aeropagus – (like that of theSupreme Court) –> claiming foreign Deities ( a criminal offense). He is on trial. (Socrates had been tried on this and killed).

22-23
- Paul speaking into an open doory a possibility, unknown god. it is risky in case God is not anything like their god.
- telling a pagan audience about a jewish God

24-25
Paul was looking out at the Parthenon. Pagan temple. Paul says it’s a waste of space. high confrontation. God feeds us, we don’t feed God.

26-28
- Paul quotes poets. to show that some people were on to something

29
- Paul reverts back to confrontation. images are not made. humans are the image. we shouldn’t downgrade our humanity, by creating images. our image is powerful.

Paul has connected and confronted. navigates three religions (verse 18) in his speech.

18
epicurean and stoics. 3 mainline religious options: academic (not enough evidence, keep the old religion going), stoic (divine present in everything, form of pantheism), epicurean (gods are far away, separate, but are not looking to get involved, we should then minimize our struggle, and live presently).

Paul responds to all three:
28 – epicurean
30 – academic
25-26 – stoic

Questions Nt proposed:

1. Where are the points of contact? altars to an unknown god?
2. how do we use the altars?
3. what are the big narratives?

The first Session begun with Spencer Burke, opening up the night with a few ground rules. Mainly how this is a conversation and people are coming at this material from many different view points.

We then heard from some musicians, poets and artists which was stimulating.

Then NT took the stage and told us that he was going to walk us through Acts. Since our community has been studying this material I was stoked and here are some RANDOM thoughts from NT Wright‘s walk through through on Acts.

He began by saying how we need to read through Acts in large sections and not so much verses. It is a narrative and must be read that way to understand the whole.

He spoke about the nature of acts being another day another riot and how the Kingdom of God is the overlying theme of Acts. It begins in Acts 1 and extends after the 28th chapter. Acts is the story of the kingdom of God breaking into the world…living this Kingdom life will cause riots.

Acts 1-11 says nothing about going to heaven when you die. It is about the restoration of Israel but it looks different than the Jews thought. The kingdom of God looks like a community living out this way of life. The K of G looks like a community hanging with people from all worlds, with God living out his promises, as God claims the world as his own.

Wright then spoke on the ascension. to many its confusing because we think of a literal ascension upward. Instead it is the place where heaven and earth intersect/overlap/interlock. Jesus didn’t go up, he went into God’s space. Jesus is at home in the interlock called heaven and is in charge. Jesus was already transformed and this ascension leads the charge through acts.

To the Jew the temple was this overlap (inside the temple was heaven, and the temple was on earth). But Jesus was a human not a building and its for the whole world. the temple was a signpost for the ultimate overlap…Jesus.

The 2nd coming is Jesus coming to earth to rule and reign and to ultimately renew it. Not us being taken away to heaven.

Acts 1-13 has a Jewish focus where we have Jesus community lived out in the temple in the outer courts attracting Jews. Jesus is announced as the messiah. there is conflict between religious authorities and against the temple (the signpost).

Acts 13-28 Jesus is announced as the Lord of the world and Caesar is not. the message upstages pagan temples, gods and Caesar.

The early Christian community is the church the place where heaven and earth collide. he mentioned 1 kings 8 and Isaiah 6 = connected to Acts 2. It is the place where the spirit comes alive and the community is equipped to share to everyone in the culture and provided opportunities. the name of Jesus carries power.

Acts 7 has Steven sharing the temple is the signpost to Jesus and gets him killed. Acts 4-5 leads into this by sharing how we must obey God rather than men, not looking for trouble but allegiance brings trouble at times. Saul is introduced. While praying a common prayer Paul is struck with blindness in connection with his vision.

Jews see water, sea as dark and evil. Look at noah, jonah, moses and the sea as the dark chaos of creation. In order to bring the message Paul must go through sea. Wright connects Luke to Acts through the crucifixion and the shipwreck Paul goes through. Jesus going to jerusalem, paul to rome; climax of cross and shipwreck for the ultimate message to be declared. Luke’s theology is woven into narrative.

People must go through fire and water (cross) in order to show Jesus as lord which happens over and over to Paul. example Paul heals slave girl (ruins someone’s business).

Paul utilizes roman citizenship and political powers. It is not our job to get the right people in, it is to keep accountable the people in positions of power. Acts has been thought of as a document to help Paul on his trial at end of Acts.

Wright then finishes with thoughts on Luke having justification as a woven theology in his narrative. One day God will sort it out, and we should live in anticipation in the present for the the future. To be saved is to live out the Jesus way of life as heaven and earth intersecting. Jesus is powerfully present in Acts through faithful battered followers – acts 2:42.

Jesus is the King of the Jews and the Lord of the World, without hindrance.

I just drank from a fire hose.

time to rest and then i will post my notes on NT Wright tonight…tomorrow morning.

cheers

I am currently sitting across from infamous Nick from the Nick and Josh podcast. Maybe I can convince him to do an interview of me and our community in Vancouver.

more to come…

Originally uploaded by urbanplanter.

Derek and I begun our journey with a number of people on a private island called Rose island.

We snorkeled, ate, conversed, and met a tonne of cool people at the first part of the event. It was a great way to meet a lot of people before the big conversations begin.