Waving or Drowning?

A Brief WorD: Stanley Hauerwas Speaks Out

The good folks over at Read the Spirit have a great four-part interview with Stanley Hauerwas. Here's the link to Part 1, and you can go from there.

Ending Eras

(Image source)

I read with interest, and a little sadness, of Desmond Tutu's plans to "quit public life" following his 79th birthday on October 7.

What do you say about a life so well lived? I'm not qualified to speak of Tutu's many accomplishments, other than to say that simply to see his face is to smile yourself. How many people can you say that about? We could turn this into a conversation about human icons, their importance, etc.--and we can do that in the comments if you like--but I want to share a moment with you.

Selfishly, I'm glad I had a chance to cross the Archbishop's path, ever so briefly. before he enters into a well-deserved retirement.

On May 1 of this year, I had the immense privilege of attending a mass celebrating the 20th anniversary of Father Michael Lapsley SSM's amazing survival of an assassination attempt via letter bomb. Father Michael's story is incredible, but I was also excited to see that Desmond Tutu was to be the presiding celebrant.

This was my second visit to St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa. As I sat in that gloriously beautiful building I found myself thinking of Glenn Beck of all people, and wishing that he could be there. Social gospel? I wonder where a Kiwi priest, losing his arms to a government-sponsored bomb for the crime of serving as a chaplain for the ANC in the apartheid era would fit into Glen's worldview.

The service was amazing. Father Michael spoke eloquently, and that patented "Tutu laugh" was heard often. The current Archbishop Thabo Makgoba sat beside him and smiled, obviously realizing that he was not the ranking personality in the building.

As I said, it was simply a privilege to be there and to celebrate Father Michael, his life and his work. To be honest though, the highlight for me was a personal one. When the time came to celebrate the Peace of Christ, Archbishop Tutu fairly dove into the crowd, and I was on the aisle, five or six rows from the front. He was three rows ahead of me as I greeted those around me, then two, then one. He grabbed both my hands, looked me in the eye, and simply said those beautiful words, "the Peace of Christ." I responded, and he moved on. That was it.

I have a practice I engage in to help place, or root myself in important moments. I look around, perhaps take special note of smells or sounds, and commit to remember that time and place. This is helpful for me when I get to that inevitable place where I question whether the moment really happened, whether I was really there. It's a practice I use a lot in Africa. This is a moment I have burned into my mind, and my heart, and it's one that I will always remember.

A Brief WorD: Roots x Douglas Coupland

A short series of brief videos documenting the collaboration of artist (and one of my favorite authors) Doug Coupland (@dougcoupland) and Roots. Here's a link to Part 1:

Link to Doug Coupland's YouTube Channel

A Brief WorD*: Crude Greed

Our friend and travel-through-the-West-Bank-bus-mate David Wilcox tells it like it is.

(via Brian McLaren... who was also on the bus.)
YouTube link

(*A Brief WorD, where I give you a link or something else brief, with little editorializing.)

Love Your Enemies? Really?

I'm up at Linwood House this weekend for meetings, but this piece from Father Richard jumped out at me as I was checking email last night. Read through it, then I have a couple of questions for you if you're willing:

The greatest and the summit of Jesus' commandments and the most radical of all of his teachings is, “You must love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). How many of us love other people who kick us around or those who make it hard for us? Do we even know how to do this? Is it something we desire to do? Let’s admit that our culture sees this as weak, capitulating, soft, dangerous, and “effeminate” for men—and is even seen this way by many women. Christian countries have never been known for obeying this commandment, to my knowledge. In fact, you would never be elected or admired if you even talked this way. We have a problem here.

We do not really like or understand love as Jesus teaches it. As Fr. Zossima says in Dostoevsky’s, The Brothers Karamazov: “Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams. It may very well kill you.”

~Richard Rohr, June 2010

This is the big one. I really crave your feedback, so here are some questions for your consideration:

• Do you consider yourself a Christian/follower of Jesus?
• Do you believe Jesus actually said this (or something similar)?
• What does it mean?
• How do we do it?

I think this is a passage we generally manage to avoid. But let's not avoid it... let's confront it. Your thoughts?

No Peace

"No peace among the nations without peace among the religions; no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions"

Hans Kung, via Ekklesia

Not Everyone

From Hugh McLeod. And it's as true of the "Gospel world" as any other part. (Reference my earlier thoughts on heresy vs blasphemy as one example):

Even Though I'm Lost on the North Shore, I Shall Not Walk Alone

Last Monday night we ended up having dinner at Haleiwa Joe's on the North Shore of Oahu. We'd spent the day driving most of the island and visiting several beaches, and picked the restaurant out of our Lonely Planet guide.

Some of us are Lost fans at Delta House, so as we drove we talked about how the show was filmed at Ka'ena Point, and joked about bumping into some of the cast, unlikely as that might be as the show has finally "left the island".

Well, guess who came in to the restaurant and sat down with his wife 2 tables from us?

That's right. Terry O'Quinn.

Partly in honour of our close encounter with The Smoke Monster Formerly Known as John Locke (and partly because we'd already planned it) we're revisiting Season 1 of Lost. I know what you're saying. "That's all very interesting Mike, but... so what?"

Well, last night I rediscovered a gem that I'm passing on to you.

At the end of the 8th episode, The Confidence Man, you'll find an achingly beautiful, haunting song. It's The Blind Boys of Alabama covering Ben Harper's I Shall Not Walk Alone. (For some crazy reason it's not available in the Canadian iTunes store. The link will take you to the US store. More info here as well.)

Here's a fan video that will let you hear the entire song. Lyrics below:

I Shall Not Walk Alone
Ben Harper

Battered and torn
Still I can see the light
Tattered and worn
But I must kneel to fight

Friend of mine
What can you spare
I know some times
It gets cold in there

When my legs no longer carry
And the warm wind chills my bones
I just reach for Mother Mary
And I shall not walk alone

Hope is alive
While we're apart
Only tears
Speak from my heart
Break the chains
That hold us down
And we shall be
Forever bound

And When I'm tired and weary
And a long long way from home
I just reach for Mother Mary
And I shall not walk alone

Beauty that
We left behind
How shall we
Forever find
Set aside
Our weight in sin
So that we
Can live again

When my legs no longer carry
and the warm wind chills my bones
I just reach for Mother Mary
and I shall not walk alone

Enjoy.

25 Years Ago Today... Live Aid (UPDATED)

Time for a stroll down memory lane, and through music history.

I remember July 13, 1985 like, well, like it was 25 years ago. I was glued to my TV set like 2 billion other people watching Live Aid. What an incredible event. (And on Christmas Day 2004 I remember being glued to the TV again after Sue gave me the DVD box set.)

Here's the performance of Bad by U2 which, more than anything else I'd say, launched them into the stratosphere and established their reputation as a super group, particularly live. Bono's vocal chords, young and perfect. The dance with the young lady, who was actually being crushed by the crowd and only Bono could see it. The quality of the video is suspect, but there's all sorts of goodness here.

Even I have to admit though that this wasn't the performance of the day. I've got one word for you:

Queen

Fronted by the late, great, incredibly charismatic, beautifully flawed and outrageously flamboyant Freddie Mercury, it's no wonder their appearance at Live Aid has been referred to as the Greatest Live Gig of All Time. Absolutely incredible.

You can find all of their numbers that day on YouTube, but you might be surprised at my favorite. To me, Radio Ga Ga was the ultimate. The shots from the back of the stage looking past Freddie over the crowd are particularly amazing. I can't imagine what it must be like to have 77,000 people (at Wembly, and another 100,000 at JFK) watching your every move, and singing along with you. I think Freddie can be forgiven if it went to his head a little. The bit at the end of the song is what really blows me away. The crowd would have done anything Freddy asked of them. I think he knew it.

25 years ago today.

UPDATE: From the comments, just so you don't miss it. Check out our friend Peter Banks post Remembering Live Aid. There's a great video clip that adds to the story, and a link to Peter's story of working with Freddie Mercury! Fantastic.

Conscience or Apologist?

My sister Lynne sent this along to me a while back, and I just came across it in my inbox again this morning. It bites, and it reminds me of Kierkegaard's Woodcutter bit...

Now, for all its failings and its perversions over the last 2,000 years--and as much as every exponent of this faith has attempted to dodge this idea--it is unarguably the central tenet of Christianity: that everybody is equal in God's eyes.... What's on trial here is Christianity itself. You cannot walk away from this and call yourself a Christian and sit in power. Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world--and stop being its apologist.

Bono: Beliefnet, 2001

(Watch this space for a vaguely Bono-related post tomorrow.)