I Am, Because You Are

I've just continued to read and read as I pursue understanding about the Emergent movement and what this might mean for me. Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle was so significant and I appreciate her style so much that I have picked up some of her early titles. It's always interesting to go backward in an author's canon, seeing the seeds of ideas that will be fully articulated later.

Anyway, I'm reading her Prayer is a Place right now. This book is more biographical in addition to her "observations" of American religion during her time as the religion editor at PW (Publisher's Weekly). But it is here that she asks many of the questions that she answers more fully in Great Emergence.

Among those questions is "what makes us human?" Historically, it has been based on Descartes aphorism, "I think, therefore I am." But as our world and culture have changed around us, as more difficult questions are examined, like abortion, euthanasia, robotics, and more, there must be further examinations to this "human-ness" question.

I was astounded as she shared her discovery of ubuntu, an African theological/philosophical term that she learned from Desmond Tutu. In essence, it means, "I am, because you are." When I read this last night, I thoroughly arrested. This is a mind-boggling concept and must be pondered (both in the heart and soul). She illustrated the idea with Quantum physics where "without the observer, the observed is not, because it is indeterminate. Once observed, it is determinate and therefore is as it has been observed."

My first thought went to Second Life, a virtual community that I participate in sporadically now. But when you visit there in your avatar form, you can only "see" the parts of the community within your "virtual perception." If you fly about (yes, that's the most popular mode of travel), the canvas unfolds (or "rezzes") as you enter the area. It unfolds. It is always there and others are rezzing their areas, but for you, what you see and interact with... that's what is real for that moment. This was my first construct.

My second thought goes back to the work I have been doing, as a result of a study of Philippians, about koinonia (or community) and the sacred other. Our human-ness is directly related to our relationships. It requires more mindfulness then, our contact with others. Community and connection then is an essential to human-ness. Isolation places tremendous stress on a person and may, actually, sap their soul.

More to think about... more to consider.

Studying All Things Emergent

Well, I've started doing what I love to do: reading everything I can get my hands on that will catch me up to what is happening in this "Emergent" & "Emerging" "postmodern" Christian movement. I am so enjoying this process. Of course, I'm always so envious as I roam the web finding blogs and websites and lists of places where Emergent worship is already happening: cities pretty much but not all. And so, there's hope for this little Maryland town too. :-)

So, here's what I've read or I'm reading (also can see my list of want to reads on Facebook's Virtual Bookshelf app):

• The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle (perfect introduction to the movement along with overview of the great cataclysms in our church past)
• The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier by Tony Jones (Emergent Village head honcho - a loose cohort of emergent communities around the country ... and a few out of the country)
• Reading now ... an older title of Tickle's called Prayer is a Place. I love her writing style/voice. She speaks directly to me.
  
• Waiting in the wings: It: How Church Leaders Can Get It and Keep It by Greg Groeschel. I'm not sure where he fits into all this yet. I'm pretty sure he's not "emergent" but I think he's worth reading.
  
• And then I think I'm ready to go back to McLaren... whose books I bought 2 years ago, but I wasn't ready ... or didn't have the framework I have now to read them. So, I have Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope; and A Generous Orthodoxy
• Also, on my bookshelf, two titles by Erwin Raphael McManus: The Barbarian Way and The Unstoppable Force... but I'm not sure how he fits into this framework yet either.
  

And then I wonder about other voices out there ... Dan Allender at Mars Hill Graduate School (for it was Allender who introduced me to "Story" some five years ago) and The Shack guys who intrigued me, not so much by the book itself but the process by which the book evolved and how their questions about "what is church?" have become their own type of phenomenon. Do they all interweave somewhere out in the ether? I really don't know.

Since I'm not able to have a conversation with any of these folks in person, I'll be satisfied for now with the books and the Word and my time with the Lord Himself. And maybe after I get the lay of the land, I'll enter some virtual conversations. We'll see.

I just know I want something more from my worship experience. I want to be free in my "church community." I want to be myself ... who reads all kinds of books and watches all kinds of movies and sometimes even blows it in a big way language-wise. I want to ask hard questions of myself and others. I only want one litmus test for my faith: knowing Jesus and Him crucified & resurrected for me. I want a place ... a fellowship... a desire for a true koinonia has been birthed in me through my study of Philippians.... where we can follow the "way of Jesus" together in love and humility and trust.