Meanwhile, back on the farm. . .

i spent the day riding a ROTO-HOE 990-5. For those of you not familiar with cool vintage gardening gear, it is a tiller that i am certain they stopped manufacturing in 1823. It was old, cool, but old - and it made a 2 hour job last all day, and even now the ground isn't where i want it to be. But it is better than nothing. i will finish off the last of it the old fashioned way. Regardless of it's completion, the garden is starting to look like a garden again and i am chomping at the bit to get the veggies in.
i am relatively certain that we have condemned the rooster to death. James (the poultry guy) Russell and i talked about the benefits and negatives about keeping the rooster. We just introduced the new hens into the roost tonight, and he immediately took to tormenting them, so he was separated from the flock. He has a history of domestic violence that goes beyond the simple pecking order - so the long and short of it is that it is time to go. Whether the foxes get him or he goes in the freezer . . .well. . .that is yet to be decided.
Turkeys come next week, and so i have quite a bit of work between now and then between the garden and building the new paddock for the turkeys. . . . jinkies!!

Return to civilization. . .

Another woooooooooonderful weekend at Bellvale with Georg and Maida. . . and the slough of others.
Our trip this time was more relaxed. We still did, but didn't have nearly the social calendar that we did in our autumn visit. We were "hosted" by Georg and Maida, but had the opportunity to sup with the Mercer family again, and connect with Clem and Hummer (Nahum) and Frank, and so many others. The hardest part of going is coming back. We are never really there for the "real work" so i guess that i will at least for the time only have a superficial sense of life but we do get to delve into some good conversation. i do very much enjoy the silly times we have with the bigger groups and chuckling about silliness, but i long for the deeper conversations that i have with Georg and Maida, and even now with Dave Mercer. i am starting to feel really close to them now as well. One thing that i really enjoy about talking with Georg specifically is his innate ability to sense when we are becoming too cynical or too judgemental, or critical, and to steer the conversation back to the positive.
Saturday night there was a special dinner as Shawn had announced his engagement to Naomi and she arrived at Bellvale. What a treat it was. Following that we had a big bonfire and Clem thought it was fitting that we learn some new songs. Others shared songs they had learned, but it wasn't till just before supper that i found out that i got to teach some songs from up here. It made me feel at home, not to get "stage time", but because it reflected true Hof life. Sometimes you get only a moments notice before things happen. So that was cool.

In other news, Amy, who has been suffering from some pretty bad abdominal pains, is going in for more tests and an ultra sound tomorrow. We spent Thursday at the hospital (again!) having her tested and getting a C.T. scan. She was adamant that we would not be cancelling the trip, and once she had been informed that it wasn't appendicitis, she was raring to go. She made it through the weekend well, and seemed to be doing well right up until yesterday morning. She still looks better than she did last week, but i worry about her.

The garden is coming! Bigger, better, more full. The tiller is in the garage, the starts are in the green house and the soil turns in the morning! i love the spring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The kingdom of God is like. . . .the Elks club?

i am thankful for the moments when out of no where someone appears to spell out precisely the way i think about things, but am so mentally handicapped as to not be able to put them into words.

If i had a penny for the number of times that i had the conversation about what the Church is, or what it should look like i imagine that i could have retired years ago - if that were right thinking. Funny how the more conversations about the essence of the Church i get to participate in, the more the Church (in my mind) DE-evolves - starting with all of the structure and regiment that religion mandates from my earliest experience to the nearly organized chaos that i think about it today.

Most recently i have been thinking about how the Church is always happening. The Church is the people, not the building or the meetings that we attend. Jesus said, "Where two three come together in my name. . ."

Websters defines communion as: "1 : an act or instance of sharing. 3: intimate fellowship or rapport : COMMUNICATION. 4 : a body of Christians having a common faith and discipline."
i intentionally left out the second definition because it is what we have made communion into. . . the ceremony of eating wafers and sipping grape juice.
Why would i have left that out? Because it's not really communion. It's reflection. Communion involves interaction. The apostle Paul in a letter to the church in Corinth described communion very differently. There was eating and sharing and drinking and people coming together. Granted his letter was a bit of a reprimand because people were coming together without thinking of each other. . . but that is the point. We come together to love one another and God. We see how God is working in each others lives and we are encouraged by it, learn by it, grow by it, etc.

So the Church is always happening. Communion is when people devoted to following Jesus teachings and loving God come together to eat, to pray, to share in labor, to love one another.

i think that i would like us to change the calendar system and remove Sundays altogether. The Church is healthiest when things are happening spontaneously and often. We talk about "Sunday Christians" and how we should be more, but we stick to and encourage our "Sunday Christianity".

Wandering through the history of Israel, we find the followers of God suddenly spewing out in song or praise or poem to God. We find people praying at all times of the day and in life and out loud (genuine prayer doesn't suffer the deficiencies that Jesus addresses in the sermon on the mount). Prophecy happened at times when God revealed things, not when the people scheduled a meeting with God. What has happened to that? What has happened to the days when people were referred to as "God's friends"? i have to wonder if part of the reason that we don't see God they way they did is because we don't have time to see God, nor frankly do we care at times because it crimps our already demanding schedules.

The Homechurchhelp.com link has some of the most concise writing (i think) that i have read in a long time on matters of the church. i am super glad that someone was able to put it into such a straight forward easy to read way.

All in all the best thing for the Church in America today i think is to forget we are Americans. Not that living here isn't great but it would seem that we view God through the beer goggles of our own ideals and expectations. We seem to be willing to serve God so long as he works within our parameters and within our comfortable system of living. We can't be a me-centered comfortable disciple of Jesus knowing that others are starving and being oppressed. It can't be devotion if we aren't totally devoted. So i guess the question is what are we devoted too?

Forgive my ramblings. . .

Even the most power song lyrics or poems on paper are nothing more than a matter of ink stains or graphite dust on compressed plant fibers. The words themselves bear no great significance. i had this revelation while singing (or making some sort of feeble attempt to) along with one of my favorite Conspiracy of Thought songs. A powerful and moving song, but without the vocals, just music and graphite dust on a page.
Even music, as moving and powerful as it is, is empty without the lyrics sung deep from within the human soul.
It made me think about a passage out of the Bible when God was creating people. . .

"The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

God made mankind and we are because of that breath of life. Somehow i like to think that it is that breath of life that gives power and motion and. . . well. . .life to songs, to poetry, to conversation.
i guess i don't really know where i am going with this other than to say that if we carry the breath of life in us, and with it we speak, then we should be mindful of the power of words. They can be used to build others up and perform powerful healing for the soul, or they can wage war on our spirits.

Ha! The irony here is that these are nothing more than points of light on a screen unless you read them out loud. . . or maybe in your head counts too. i will have to think more about that. . .

. . .And become a duck!

Anyone who willfully fights the temptation to go to this website:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama.php
needs to have their grip on reality checked.

Today was the follow up appointment for my hernia operation. Aside from the pure joy (please note the tones of sarcasm here) of having the opportunity to defrock in the presence of a virtual stranger it was an interesting morning. i am not so sure that i should call this man a stranger, after all, he has seen more of my inner workings than i have. He was kind enough to bring very clear color photos of my insides with him, and a great picture of the chicken mesh that they installed after its placement. It's a strange thing for me to imagine that i have a piece of a trolling net inside my abdomen helping to hold me together.

Have i mentioned that i like llamas? Well, i don't actually like them, but they provide for an endless source of entertainment. If the link above isn't enough, run down to your local video store and rent Monty Pythons Quest for the Holy Grail. You don't even have to watch the movie - just the opening credits! How great is that?!?!?!?

They say laughter is the best medicine. . . .it certains hurts less than having chicken mesh installed in your belly.

The uncertainty of the freedom of thought. . .

i read the constitution of the United States of America today, and about the history of some of those who signed it. Fascinating! Perhaps i need a hobby or something.
This being Monday i am just days away from losing my Internet connection, or at least so i have been led to believe. The closer the date comes, the less consistent the answers that i hear from the various supervisors regarding the implementation on the "new" Internet policy. i say "new" because it is the same Internet policy that has always existed, they have just opted to enforce it. . . or so i have been led to believe. There are other policies that i have been told are going to be "gray areas", meaning they exist, but are not going to be enforced. Strange really.

In all i am both amused and saddened. . . or so i have been led to believe. The existence of an Internet policy forbidding its use means that again i will have total freedom from all but the "basic" technologies. It will amount to something like living in the seventies. On the other hand i have thoroughly enjoyed this forum for allowing thoughts to incompletely unravel.

All that aside it was another amazing thought filled weekend. i have come to cherish the weekends. The humdrum monotony of the week seems to drain the ecstasy out of life, but the weekends, in all of their emotional variety make life fun again. Not so much because i am free from work, but because i am challenged by the folks that i am with to think, and rethink.
One of this weekends thoughts as i explored the kind of love that Jesus taught, was how many kinds of love are there? When i tell my wife that i love her, do i say it with any sense of meaning behind it? Is it a different love than i hope to show those around me? It would seem that the answer is yes. It has become a thoughtless love (if there is such a thing), an easy love. When i say, that i love my wife do i mean the love that is patient, and kind. Love that does not envy, does not boast, is not proud. Love that is not rude, not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love that always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
Or do i mean a love that gets by another day, that co-habitates, and survives for no other purpose than because it has to?
If i can not love my wife with the fullness that love has to offer, how can i expect to love those around me with the same?

Life is short. . . Love obnoxiously!

Simplify and distractions. . .

Ups and downs. . . every feel like you are the roller coaster car, carrying the masses of joyriders. The number of people that fill the cars affects the ride. There are days when i really wonder what normal, or perhaps stable is a better word feels like.
The benefit of all of the chaos is that the bad is balanced by the good.

In spite of my weakness, good things can happen, even if those good things are little they are still good. The church met at our house this weekend. i really haven't felt all that inspired to teach, in fact i don't believe that i do teach. i lack the focus to sit down and really study a topic from its many angles to put a lesson together, and the wisdom and education to teach my elders. Fact of the matter is i am not sure that my attitude has been in the right spot. There are days when i have emotionally, or through human logic resigned myself to the idea that i deserve hell, and that it is my destiny. Tell me that's not a shallow understanding of grace!

A week ago the men got together and one of our number shared that he felt that our time together had become too lackadaisical. That we were lacking in a sincere sense of reverence for God. By and large i agreed with him at the time, but the response was to become more "structured" more "scheduled". This bucks at everything that i know and love. What stings all the more is knowing that (and i can say this in love) some of my friends are time Nazis. i have always drawn from the wisdom of the movie "Thunderheart". In it one of the older, wiser characters says, "White man's time will give you stomach cancer".
More to my thinking though is how can we schedule our feelings? It is one thing to set aside a time for something occasionally, but how can you say, "i will really feel like singing worship to God at this same time every week" or, "i will really be in a place where i can humbly and without distraction talk to God every week at this time"?
i guess perhaps you can. As i said before, you can at least set the time aside, but to go into something like prayer with the wrong attitude, or distracted, or to sing songs of thankfulness to God while harboring an angry heart . . . is that worth it? Is it even sincere? To me it cheapens the whole experience. It's like saying, "Here is my half hearted effort God. It's really all your worth."

So how does last weeks rant, tie into this weeks events. . .
Let's just say that i went home, um, flustered. The conversation that morning and the responses to it and the way it governed the morning hampered my mood. i don't think that i could tell you what we talked about after that, and i really felt like i had to flee the area so as not to hamper the moods of others. During the following week though some of us talked about it, and i stewed on it. It lead me to the conclusion that perhaps some structure is a good thing. As i said, i agreed with my friend. Then came this last Sunday morning. We were few. Many were away or sick, which was fine. When it came to the "lesson", which in my house is little more than the "conversation" as i am trying to learn more than teach. i made a few errors in translation, and a few presumptions (that while i was certain they were correct, i was not prepared to back up my arguments) that showed my true weakness in this area. We did however stick pretty close to "the schedule". But it was all in the hindsight that i made some observations about my own ability to apply myself during the week to pull a study together, and how much more i need to read, and pray and be solid. All of this realization happening in a good way. . .

And so another week begins. Today is my wife's birthday. . .if it wasn't three in the morning i would call her to wish her a happy birthday!

Leadership, independence and unity. . .

i have to confess a bit of jealousy. As i float around the world wide web (which wont be for much longer if the boss has his way) i see a number of small fellowships that are bonded together with this intense sense (that sorta rhymed) of singularity of purpose. It exists in different degrees in different groups. Some sacrifice all ties to individuality for the sake of the group and the others in the group. Other fellowships maintain some small amount of independence, but sacrifice almost all else for the common cause of their community. The New England area is staunchly independent and "traditional" for lack of a better term. i am jealous because i would like to see our fellowship working toward a stronger sense of community, but the group is not at a place where they are willing to sacrifice much of themselves. . . and apparently neither am i willing to budge on my ideals. This of course is just an observation and not a bitter critique.
After having read The Way of Jesus (Campbell and Campbell) i am left thinking that there is something important about all of us disciples acting as independent sojourners in life that come together occasionally for the purpose of building one another up, then moving on. The other extreme, the one i covet, walks on the fringe of becoming more organized to the point of loosing it's identity and becoming just another "organized church".

Perhaps i am just co-dependant, but still i would like to see a fellowship in the southern Maine area that is striving for community together with the intention of living out the Kingdom of God on earth (as much as that is possible). Working together so that we can pool our resources and pour ourselves out for the homeless, the widows, the orphans, the elderly and the oppressed. The last couple of weeks our Sunday fellowship has been talking about structure, and from that leadership has been a reoccurring topic.
The old Chinese proverb says, "When the people are ready the master will come."
My question is . . .without the master will the people ever be ready? i guess it is the proverbial chicken and egg. Can the leader inspire the people toward a new way of thinking/living or do the people have to be ready to move forward before the leader can be effective?
This is not an easy thing to know. Less easy is really letting go and shifting the way we think about life and living, and our expectations for the quality of life. After all, life is eternal, not limited to the here and now. Sometimes i don't wonder if we just lack the proper motivation.
What would it take to motivate us?