Lunch was delicious! Chef Shack got their generator working, so we had pulled pork or bison burgers. I went and joined Shane Clairborne and his friend Dee Dee for a discussion of their new magazine Conspire. Got to meet some other attendees and had some great chat.
Now the next session should be starting, and it looks like Danielle Shroyer will be going first. I’m very, very excited for her presentation. Like I mentioned yesterday, her book The Boundary-Breaking God is excellent. It keeps the main thing the main thing and does so with beautiful and poetic writing.
She’s telling stories now of when she was a kid, and the imagination children have.
“Children know that the world is a wonderful place, full of magic and adventure.” – Danielle
“There’s something centrally human about the desire to live in a story that’s going somewhere.” -Danielle
“I fear we’ve taken magic out of our worlds, our jobs, our everyday conversations.” -Danielle
With all the crises in the world, we need a story that’s going somewhere else, and not just any story, but a story going somewhere wonderful.
“No one wants to ride a magic carpet if its going to a board meeting.” -Danielle
“We’ve forgotten that we live in a world that is primed for adventure.” -Danielle
“God’s story is a cosmic fireworks explosion … on an outward bound tragectory in every possible direction.” -Danielle
“The further we travel into the story of God, the more we see light expanding outward.” -Danielle
“We are ALWAYS a hoping people, because we are always hoping in the promise, and hoping in the one who promised it.” – Danielle
“We know who God is because of the promises God has made.” -Danielle
“Promises that are not only about you and not only about me but about everyone, everywhere.” – Danielle
“The further along the story goes, the more boundaries God seems to break.” -Danielle
“God will not stop until all of creation is made anew.” -Danielle
“We need the boundary-breaking God to help us push against the shrinking walls of fear and violence.” -Danielle
“Religious history draws inward. It’s constantly drawing lines, orthodox and heresy, in and out, saved and unsaved. Yet God is constantly moving outward to the day when God will be all in all. It’s worth thinking about which way we’re heading.” -Danielle
“I wonder what we would do if we didn’t think our hope would run out.” -Danielle
Danielle killed it! That was fantastic! God’s story is a story of hope, constantly breaking all our boundaries and walls. No boundary we set up for others or within ourselves is going to stop God.
Alyce is up again, on self-preservation or self-protection.
“Don’t stand out, don’t come out, don’t stand up, don’t speak out.” – Alyce
“Self-protection is making me numb.” -Alyce
She has courage symbolized with a mirror. “It might help you remember who you are.”
Sally Morgenthaler is on now, and has a bunch of folks with their cell phones playing their ringtones into the microphone. That was very fun, if random! I’m curious where she’s going with it.
“Like a strand of DNA, each part contains the whole. The whole is not the sum of its parts, but is reflected in the parts. The Creator infused every part, each part reflecting its creator. God as whole, in, through, under, around, everything, everywhere, all the time.” – Sally
“Jesus found God hitched to a leper, a tax con-man, a prostitute, a thief, a sick woman, a dead relative.” -Sally
“If God is with us, what is the kingdom? Is the kingdom everywhere God is? Or just select places, select situations. God saw everything he had made and it was very good. Everywhere, every part sacred. A God-saturated world. A God-connected world. Each part, presencing the whole. Each part, presencing God.”
“A cell that loses its sense of the whole organism forgets what its supposed to do and begins to divide blindly, threatening the life of the entire body, a state otherwise known as cancer.” -Sally
“Kingdom is not a membership, but a way of seeing. The recognition that each one of us is here to presence the whole. Like the mustart seed presences the entire tree. Remembering who are are and what we’re here to do, fully aware and available to do kingdom work.” -Sally
“Now imagine that born-again means seeing the whole and reflecting it, just so that those who think they are the kingdom don’t become a cancer.” -Sally
Sally was interesting! She said scales are like a world, and the way we sing reflects the scale, or the way we see the world. See yourself as a part presencing the whole, God.
Shauna’s going again! “Consider that your own silence may be part of the problem. If you’ve been longing to hear a new language for faith, may I suggest you start singing.”
“Only I can tell my story, and only you can tell yours. And your story must be told.” -Shauna
Jeanne Stevens is now going, talking about humility and ambition.
Can we find a way to combine the beauty of humility with ambition? Humbitious?
False ambition usually stems from an inner wound that gets overcompensated with a drive for success.
She’s telling a story of being kicked out of an expository preaching class because she was a women. She was told she could take “Message Prep for Women”. She became ambitious as a result, something which was harmful for me.
There’s false humility too, never speaking up, staying in the corner, not sure their opinion matters. People who give up their own dreams because they’re convinced other people’s dreams must come first.
“Jesus was humbitious in every way.” -Jeanne
We’re taking a quick 30 minute break now. Then we’ll be back for another session. There’s so much good stuff here; I’m loving it!
