by tashmcgill | Apr 4, 2005 | Uncategorized
There’s Forever One Day Left
I usually write with a certain amount of obscurity about the deeply interpersonal things in my life. It’s usually because I’m all at once paradoxically shy and trying to be respectful of the fact that just because I live my life in this parallel window; not everyone else involved in my life wants to. Normally, I write just enough so that the people who know, know.
So I have this friend, whom I adore. Unashamedly and unabashedly. I see no reason to not be honest about this. Intellectually stimulating, he makes me laugh and sometimes cry. I find him all at once encouraging, comforting and challenging. His companionship pushes me to pursue greater heights and deeper depths. It’s not always been a relationship in healthy balance though. For a while, I lost it in fact. And whilst it was a good, health-restoring, perspective bringing 6 months; something in me sparked to life again when over the Easter weekend.. things almost went back to normal.
The sad thing is that I’m scared that I’ve lost the art of conversation with him. Where once I could communicate every thought with clarity, now I’m cautious about honesty, for fear that things will be misunderstood and the distance will be put back in place. Not altogether dissimilar from my youthful intermittent intimacy with God. All I am asking is that God will show me the way to honour this fragile gift that inspires me and grows me.. in a way that it will not again be allowed to hamper or restrain me.
My instinct still tells me that a platonic partnership with this follower of Jesus would only give birth to greatness; both in character deepening struggle and achievement. But I am not an easy person, methinks. Too intense, too demanding, too focused, too needy for intimate and intelligent connection. God, shine a light again, where once you showed the way so clearly. There is no path where you do not go ahead of me.
Song Of The Moment : When She Believes
Ben Harper
The good Lord is such a good Lord
With such a good mother too
They have blessed me
In the good graces of you
I have heard a hundred violins crying
And I have seen a hundred white doves flying
But nothing is as beautiful
As when she believes in me
How good it must feel
To be so young and free
And a song that pleases a queen
Will always please me
I have heard the wisest of wisdom
And I have dined in palaces and kingdoms
But nothing is as beautiful
As when she believes in me
Now, all of life
Is just passing the time
Until once again
Your eyes look into mine
I have been adored by a stranger
And I have heard the whispering angel
But nothing is as beautiful
As when she believes in me
by tashmcgill | Feb 25, 2005 | Spirituality
You Are Home To Me…It’s You That I’m Running To Lately
We create these sacred spaces. We call them colours and songs, poems and places.
They are hiding places, and celebration halls. Sometimes they are covered in flesh and speak in soft voices, when we need to hear something in the quiet.
Some nights, I put my sacred spaces in the CD player. Some nights I close my eyes and take myself on the road.. through windy northern bushlands, long sundrenched straights out of Waipu.
Sometimes the sacred spaces put skin on, and come to find you.
Tonight I spent the day harried and harrased, feeling every inch of my age and gravity. Questioning and doubting my instincts, my provocations. Thinking too big and wide for my own head to contain.. and so I felt myself cast out across the universe as if the one continous train of thought in my mind has exploded into infintismally small pieces. So small that all my intelligence has been lost and I was scrambling to put it back together.
Then I got home, and went online to find an email from a dear friend who I haven’t seen much of lately, simply brief greetings at church as we have meandered on our paths.
But he sent me some words, and created a sacred space for me, just a few moments worth, but enough to revitalise, reenergise and to bring back together some of the pieces of scattered self that have emerged in recent days. Thank you dear sweet friend. You are too wonderful, to have paid such attention to the small things that were missing.
by tashmcgill | Jan 6, 2005 | Culture & Ideas
A Lesson In Jazz
YOGI BERRA EXPLAINS JAZZ
Interviewer:“What do expect is in store for the future of jazz guitar?”
Yogi:“I’m thinkin’ there’ll be a group of guys who’ve never met talkin’about it all the time.”
Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?
Yogi: I can’t, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, it’s right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it’s wrong.
Interviewer: I don’t understand.
Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what¹s so simple about it.
Interviewer: Do you understand it?
Yogi: No. That’s why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn’t know anything about it.
Interviewer: Are there any great jazz players alive today?
Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.
Interviewer: What is syncopation?
Yogi: That’s when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don’t hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they’re the same as something different from those other kinds.
Interviewer: Now I really don’t understand.
Yogi: I haven’t taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.
by tashmcgill | Dec 30, 2004 | Church, emerging church, god ideas, Prayers, Spirituality, worship, youth ministry, Youth Work
A Dangerously Long Comment on Fallout from the “Emerging Church”…
Here is the genesis of my dialogue, plus some. From Steve’s site. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that I don’t think Steve himself is actually being attacked. And I think that Lynne’s fruit counts, and is valid.
The danger is.. that people get all caught up in it being one way or the other. There are a couple of very ‘Modern’ pastors at my church, who have read the Emerging books and now think that’s how we should do church.
Some thoughts on to Emerge or not Emerge.
Exegete the culture of your community. Who are the not-yet followers? Tell the story in their language, and celebrate the story in the language of your community. That’s what our explorations should be based upon.
We are storytellers. Employ whatever means you like to tell the story, there is no set way.. jsut know that for some people they will like to skip to the end, some like to read for themselves, some like the same story told the same way over and over. We have the freedom to do that, so long as we tell the right story, it doens’t have to be about telling the story right.
Well, doesn’t this one come close to home?
I think, read and observe, that proponents of the Emerging Church do carry this ideology close to their hearts. So it’s almost understandable how things quickly seem to become viscious and snide. It’s why the blogosphere is a great place to air ideas, but only if you have a thick hide. Much like print media, you have to accept that someone will always read and interpret in a contrary tone. So the suggestion of coffee is a good one, but the suggestion of an open forum is also excellent.. and inevitably the kind of exercise that will hopefully bring widespread productivity to these discussions.
As a relative new kid on the block in terms of ministry, theology and experience, it’s easy to feel like you don’t have anything relevant to add, but.. I am living and breathing in the generation that is meant to be delighting in their ’emerging’ nature, and I don’t really see a lot of it. My peers can talk about the ideology, but their practice of worship, community etc, remains unchanged. And I am a proponent of the Gospel, so I shall endeavour not to focus my energy on changing the way we do church, but working to ensure that however we do church, it’s relevant to our immediate context.
We are storytellers. Employ whatever means you like to tell the story, there is no set way.. jsut know that for some people they will like to skip to the end, some like to read for themselves, some like the same story told the same way over and over. We have the freedom to do that, so long as we tell the right story, it doens’t have to be about telling the story right.
In a congregation that does experiment from time to time, I count more failures in our experiments than successes. That is a lot to do with my weaknesses, for sure. But I also think it has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of so-called ’emerging’ practice isn’t simply not relevant or connective with the people I am ministering too. It’s relevant to me. But then, so is a major rock’n’roll concert. Here am I, caught in a parallel. Sometimes I like church to be like a rock’n’roll show too.
I work as part of the team organising a youth gathering that’s highly evangelical. Here’s what I’ve learned that’s still true about youth culture..
- big is beautiful, in fact sometimes size really does count.
- sometimes celebrating small is easier in the context of a large gathering.
- hype is sometimes just fun, and that’s ok.
- stages that look great don’t have to dominate the landscape of the message.
- Stages that look great make sense to kids.
- it’s an uplifting experience for kids to see a God who is working, real and relevant in the lives of their peers across the country.
- Arty kids and sporty kids, extroverts and introverts can all find expression and a sense of belonging in a big kick-ass event.
In the five years between adolescence and young adulthood.. what are we really expecting to change?
My environment is a challenging one, because things are openly critiqued, vigorously so. Not much is done just for the sake of it. But it’s an open critique that has a good motive underneath it. We are responsible for ministering to, leading and opening up doors for longtime, middle-aged, newbie and no-yet followers of Jesus, and the way we tell the story must bear all of those things in mind. So we experiment, but we try and do it with wisdom.
I, for my part, respect the fact and the manner with which our national leader is engaging and endeavoring to dialogue on these issues. It seems wiser and safer to me than others who seem to delight in picking up the books, and immediately wanting to leap into implementing new worship styles. It speaks to me of being all things to all men, and a willingness to put the needs of others ahead of self. After all… there are many ways in which I can connect with God, but I care much more about how my sisters, my neighbour and my friends will connect with His Story. That is the overwhelming, pressing urge on my heart.
When emerging fits for them, that’s great. And when they go to Hillsong and love it, that’s great. And wherever they find the truth of the Gospel, that’s the answer to my prayers and the cry of the Kingdom.
For the sake of the Kingdom, we need to, and I implore all.. to humble ourselves enough to admit, we all need God to lead us and speak to us through one another.
In the States recently, I saw a lot of creativity for creativity’s sake that was more about artisitic expression, than about relevant spiritual engagement. It was as off-putting, stale and inauthentic as some of the more theologically inaccurate mega-congregations I could attend in Auckland or Sydney. And it was at one of the flagship Emerging Churches. Which throws up lots of questions for me in regards to what Emerging Church really does look like, feel like, sound like. In terms of production values, and performance intensity, speaking with some of the practitioners there revealed remarkably similar values to a Hillsong, or large-scale ‘Modernist Icon’ church.
Some of the congregations that we read about, happily denote that the success story of what they are doing is the numbers of faithful who are retaining ther faith, staying in Christian community, being discipled. But Both-And tension is so vital here, because as a youth worker I have a responsibility to communicate the importance and relevance of the Gospel for us and others, and if we do not value the numerical growth as well as spiritual growth of our ministries we are in trouble. In the ministries I have participated in, people leaving, or people sitting and not participating or engaging with the mission are signs of trouble. Celebrate the raspberries, and remember to plant lots of them.
I am in a ministry context that is experimenting with some different approaches to worship, communication and community. Some things work well and become meaningful, many do not. I am a keen experimenter, but I count more failures than successes with my work. Why? Because I read and think and talk.. and it suggests that there are ways my congregation ought to be engaging, or would like to engage.. the reality is that they don’t. When we create and invite them into those spaces and experiences.. more often than not, it doesn’t carry meaning when part of our services. It’s the same over a small but significant number of congregations that I have participated in and/or observed on a micro-level.
But we have some great sports teams. Touch teams that participate in community tournaments, smaller community groups going to the beach together, adventure sports together and more recently.. lawn bowls for young adults. It has all the elements we emerging ones love.. embracing nature, community, participation, the old and the new, it’s embracing and inviting, it’s evangelical by way of relationship.
So whilst church with candles, symbols, prayers, words, images, darkness and light works really well for me, I also have to accept that the majority of these supposedly ‘post-modern’ young adults who all connect really well with the ideology in their heads.. actually prefer the practice of community that looks more like Hillsong, or CLC or CCC. It’s simple, and understandable. It’s accessible to the masses.
Swing to the other side of the pendulum. So much of our emerging energy seems to get spent up on healing and restoring those who didn’t do mainstream church well, those who didn’t fit. Read the blogs, the books, listen to the seminars. There are a lot of church folk out there who just are looking for a way of doing church that suits them. It will always be that way, but I don’t think we will ever have an entire generation that will pick up the post-modern flag and wave it on a hilltop. And there are some people who need to stop preaching that message. And it shouldn’t ever be that way, because all of this debate comes dangerously close to pulling us away from the task at hand..
Lord, hear the cry of your Children
We are weak, we are limited in understanding
Grant us your eyes to see and ears to hear
For the sake of the Kingdom, may we strip ourselves away
For the sake of Your name, may there be nothing left
For the sake of those who do not yet know Your Love
Make us humble at the feet of our brothers and sisters
Teach us to learn from those around us
Teach us to walk in Your ways
Refocus our eyes, change our lens
Cleanse from us the sin of pride
In a world where there are many Right Ways
Simply help us to avoid the Wrong Ways.
In a world where there are many Voices
Help us to listen wisely, and to speak more so.
For the sake of the long-time, middle-aged, newbie and not-yet
For the sake of Us, the Followers
Tell us again the Story of finding and feeding sheep.
Find us, feed us again.
by tashmcgill | Dec 29, 2004 | Poems, Prose & Poetry
There Are Some Dark Clouds Hanging Heavy Over This City
I was hunting through the depths of my handbag, cleaning up and out in the buildup to New Year, potentially also because I am bored to death.
I found this, that I wrote on a Starbucks napkin on the Upper West Side in New York.
Starbucks Napkin
You better watch
out for the Man in
unexpected places & stay
mind full of your
own dark tendency to
rise & fall like the stock market
on waves of pop culturity.
No, your compass has lost it’s
northward point to authenticity
and this franchise has
won your over with a
pretence to your beatnik heroes
fools you with it’s fair trade
beans still harvested
by those hands scarred and
weathered, that never held a pen
or wrote a poem.
the heartbeat of this city
has moved SoHo art from SoHo to
Westside and pretty soon
you’ll find yourself lost
in the Grid because the new
arists & poets write
beats in Starbucks.
