Does death become us?

I facilitated my first funeral this morning since moving to France to serve as pastor of a parish of the French Reformed Church.  Arriving and being unknown the mortuary staff was amazed when I shared where I came from.  What?  You'd leave California to come here?  There were nice, professional and competent.  It was like I was at one of the nicer mortuaries in my previous home of Oakland.  They played music before and after the brief service I led.  The room was without art, pale colored, neutral and calming in every aspect - including the idyllic pond scene complete with lillipads and light reflecting into the ceremony room.  It was all about being peaceful.  Yet I was struck by the way in which those professionals avoided "death."  They only referred to the man who had died as "he."  The casket was closed.  It was as if he was there without being there, without ever being referred to in the first person (except by me) and then conveniently and efficiently carted off to the music of Bach through a hidden door on the western wall of the room.

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Blogging Towards Sunday September 20

Mark 9:30-37

This is the second of three similarly constructed stories in Mark's

retelling of Jesus. Each time Jesus reveals or predicts that he will be killed. Each time a or the disciples reject his prediction, either pretending not to hear or not wanting to understand or even

taking Jesus on in order to set him straight. In this passage the disciples don't want to understand, they're too busy focusing on who's the greatest, thinking about what they're going to get - their name in spotlights on the marquee since they placed their bets with the 'best' teacher, the master that will take them all the way to the bank or make them famous.

It's not that being "big" or "great" is bad as much as that Jesus is trying to question what it is that makes us great. Rather than taking all the place available, it's about creating space for others. A probable word-play in the Greek and Aramaic words for "child" and "servant/slave" is Jesus' way of turning upside down the notion of greatness. The first shall be last and the last first. The child in the story was probably not as clean and perky as those in this photo. Kids were at the bottom of the social ladder. Unwanted babies would be left in the open to die (Greek Culture). Most died young. Why invest time in someone who wouldn't be around. So Jesus speaks with a paradox that's meant to challenge the way in which we see the world, each other and God.

How do we welcome others: the children, forgotten, marginalized, overlooked in our midst? The Bible often calls them the orphan, the widow and the foreigner, insisting that God is first and foremost their God. So ho are the orphans, widows and foreigners in our midst today, in our churches, in our societies? I can't help think about the ongoing debate and at-times verbally violent monologues about health care: who has it. who shouldn't. who is like Hitler. who is a liar. and who should shut up. How do we profess our discipleship in the way that we welcome others, with our words, in our dialogs, via the expression of our political convictions, with our time and resources? Often we're so busy trying to move to the head of the table and get a good spot that we don't realize we've taken up all the room.

I think of the global church - the global community of those who claim to be followers of Jesus and his teachings. How are we welcoming, including and following Jesus in the ways in which we are addressing the challenges before us: the use and place of technology, political division in our faith communities, confusion and lack of unity in terms of understanding the Bible and professing faith in an increasingly pluralistic society, the role of race and class in our communities. Jesus basically says that to follow him means to conform our lives to his, to walk after him....what does that look like for us, for you - for your church community today?

The Church: Freed by an Emerging Culture?

One of my first committee meetings at the church in France that I now serve lifted

up the challenging situation in which all of the church - at least in the Western Industrialized Church of the North - finds itself is the fact that we are a community of faith gathered by the common experience of a once spoken, long-time written Word yet we live in a world that is increasingly image-driven, decentralized and more SMS than manuscript. How do we navigate the challenging waters of emerging forms of communication, failing printing presses and transforming ways of inter- and intra-personal forms of dialog?

The church is based upon the written Word. We read the faith stories and testimonies that together compose what we call the Bible. We listen to a sermon. We sing songs that quote and reflect upon this Word. We experience God both in the natural world, yet in the Protestant culture we emphasize even further the way in which we experience God by hearing the word spoken, we are motivated and invited to action through sermons, homilies, newsletters, and tracts.

How does this work in a world in which classic "paper" newspapers are bleeding money and dying? In which their is no longer one principal authority, or metanarrative: master story, that binds o ur culture together, uniquely shapes our shared worldviews, and frames the way we make meaning in and through our lives? In the USA last year the average person supposedly read 4 books,

while 1 in 4 Americans read none at all. How does that translate to a church-culture based upon reading as the foundation for dialog, community action and faith experience? Sermons are the "main" way folks experience God. I like no more than 10 minutes (even though I usually do 15). Jean Calvinpreached for about 90 minutes. How does that translate in a world of Facebook, Twitter, blogs and SMS - where we're maintaining multiple conversations, that come and go in a more continuos organic way than a stop-everything-else-for-20-minutes way? Maybe it's the death of Christianity? Maybe it's the chance for a new birth, to rise like a pheonix from the ashes of the cultural trappings embraced in the Reformation (which maybe we're a tad too reactionary and extreme)?

Granted we have to make sure that all people have access to new forms of communication. Money, class, education, age - they can't be characteristics that determine one's participation or inclusion in a faith community and its ensuing and ongoing dialog. Yet the church seems all too often to let one sub-population, which doesn't or can't embrace an emerging change, hold everyone else back from addressing and assuming it.

In any case the church in Europe is in the same challenging situation as that in America. There isn't one authoritative models to lift up and emulate. There is no purpose-driven e-culture church communication model. Rather there are multiple models, diverse attempts at experimenting where our cultural paradigm shifts, faith experience and congregational traditions\history intersect. Maybe this is the exodus moment the struggling historic church has been waiting for. How do we as an institution empower such experimenting, experience and emergence, when it may seem as if doing so is merely pulling the plug on the life-support system enabling our continuing ecclesiastical institution?

September 11th - are we moving forward or in circles?

Last week was the 8th anniversary of the tragic events and senseless deaths of September 11th, 2001. Living out of the country now it was interesting to hear about the events and to be in a context where it was referred to but didn't consume the national/media attention. What's interesting about the day was the recreation of the event, displays and representations of the airplanes hitting the tower amidst the moments of silence, reverence and remembering.

I'm all for that and yet I found myself wondering, why do we insist on remembering where we were at that moment, or rewatching in a near addiction-to-pornographic-like-violence of that terrible day. Why is it that we are so quick and eager to remember and yet I find it nearly impossible online to read or hear of people's analysis of where we've gone and been since that day? How is it that we've gone from a moment of near universal unity in the face of such horrific and inhuman terrorism to a world splintered by politics, torn by war and now consumed by the complications of global economic re/dep-ression? How is it that we can't seem to learn more than how to remember from an event that should be forcing us to (more than) annually ask ourselves how have we gotten to this point? Why did this happen? How can we stop such terrorism from happening again, besides merely by invading and attacking far away lands in order to get the terrorists before they can get us?

Granted I live in France, the land of un-freedom fries, so others here asked similar politically/nationalistically challenging questions. So maybe I'm a traitor. Maybe I'm a patriot. In any case I find it ironic that the only analysis-like clip I encountered online was this funny and thoughtful bit using stormtroopers reflecting on the destruction of the death star posted on collegehumor.com.

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Where Does It All End?

As followers of Jesus are we supposed to be part of the solution

or just identify the problems?

My first pastoral visit today was spent talking about President Obama and what's happening in the USA now. As the older French couple and I shared, we dialoged about the similarity between France and the USA, between Presidents Obama and Sarkosy, about the shared need to move forward, to recognize that yesterday is over, that tomorrow is ours to build - and that today is the day to do it. So much is broken: social security, our notions of capitalism, our safety-nets, our vision of solidarity and citizenship, and the involvement of the general population in politics and policy -making - AND in the life of the church. In the end we often don't make the changes we all agree are necessary because any change requires sacrifice. I think we're all down with that existential and pragmatic truth, as long as we don't have to be the ones to sacrifice. And so nothing changes. We don't want to lose our health insurance, our 401k, our mortgage, or the church that we know so well.

We're stuck between two chairs (as the French say) and not willing to recognize that you have to make a choice and follow-through. Instead we seem to allow those that bitch, complain and moan the loudest to dominate the public arena, shape our policy and determine our actions. Isn't that true in a church? It's usually the loudest, grumpiest, most passive-agressive that end up shaping the policy of action because others just want them to be quiet. It sure seems to be the case this summer with certain folks lamenting public health options as "socialism" "fascism" and "obamacare" when they sure don't have to ever worry about if they can afford to take their kid to the doctor (I think of Mrs. Palin and Mr. Limbaugh). It seems that our modern political spectrum is more about identifying problems and assigning blame than about identifying, discerning and articulating potential solutions.

To make matters worse (as if they could get there) we have folks speaking - supposedly on

behalf of all those that share their basic religious convictions - in radically violent and destructive ways. I read of one such man, baptist preacher Steven L. Anderson, [on the thoughtful blog Religion Dispatches] preaching that "he prays for Barack Obama to die and go to hell." Trained in several Bible Schools, he boasts online of having no college degree and having half the New Testament memorized. As one friend emailed recently, he seems to be perfectly able to memorize and quote the Bible, but not do much else." I admit I'm incapable of scriptural memorization and also more interested in applying the scriptures to life, seeing how the fundamental teachings of Jesus lead to an ongoing and emerging transformation of the broken system/world we live in than in reciting a litany of evils identified by prophets and political gurus and masters of modern media. Since when did the teachings of Jesus justify having the right to carry a concealed gun?

Why is he is helping to shape our national policy discussion? In particular when it's done primarily through his ranting and ravings, claiming that gays, lesbians, illegals and our president are undermining everything that's holy (such as Social Security as we know it, the Patriot Act, our interventions in the Middle East, and general societal problems) without noticing that most of the problems exist in large part not because of those sub-groups but quite possibly because of red-neck warmongers and overly-greedy WASPy and sacrifice-free-optimist Wall Street and 5th Avenue capitalists.

What good does it do to point fingers really? Doesn't that just trivialize the problems we face by working to place blame instead of find solutions? I just got worked up by doing so in the last paragraph. It may make my blood boil, but it sure didn't help anything. [Newsweek recently had a good editorial on this line of thought: Hitler and Health Care Don't Mix]. I blogged recently, and talk endlessly these days, about why it is that we're quick to complain, compete and attack those with whom we disagree with as opposed to working towards resolution, pragmatic solutions, and the cooperation which historically is the only way that things get accomplished? Why is it that we in the church community - in all our maginficent and muddled diversity - fail to offer up voices besides reactionary ones of radical violence, hatred and intolerant-of-difference-finger-pointing that are lifted up in the public arena? Is it the subjective choices made by the medias? Or is it that we seem unable to articulate how the faith that defines us shapes our thinking? What was remarkable about Jesus is that he went beyond mere finger-pointing and blame-laying, to radically inclusive community-building, strategic action and holistic speaking. Isn't that the kind of leadership that we need now both within and alongside the church community?

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Photographed in the foodie-friendly, East Bay - it'd be appropriate and popular here in Ile de France too.

Blogging Towards Sunday, September 6

Psalm 146

Isaiah 35:4-7

Mark 7:24-37

At first glance, even the second, I'm struggling to see what these passages, proposed for this week, have in common. God who saves everyone, in particular the poor and excluded. The same God, seen as the God of Israel that will take vengeance upon the enemies of Israel (basically everyone else) in a salvation that looks like deaf suddenly hearing, blind seeing, and muet speaking. A salvation that doesn't promise life eternal in the here-after as much as it's transforms brokeness into wholeness and vibrancy here and now. Then stories of Jesus healing: at first not wanting to heal a non-Jew/Gentile woman's daughter, then giving in - or being negotiated into acting. And the healing of a Gentile deaf-muet man, leading to the proclamation of Jesus' goodness in words taken from the Greek version celebrating the goodness of God's creation in Genesis 1.

Maybe the challenge for us in these living words is to recognize that life is indeed a gift: that we haven't earned, worked for or inherited, but merely been given. Life that doesn't come at the expense of those different from us racially/culturally, socially or class-wise. Life that isn't just in the not-yet-far-off-pie-in-the-sky-riding-on-a-cloud-future, but here and now in what we do, the meaning we make of our lives and the footprints we leave in the lives of other we know and are known by. Psalm 146 lifts us an impartial, benevolent "good" God - like the wise-old guy in the clouds. Then Isaiah seems to lift up a God of vengeance, throwing down lighting-bolts on the Gentiles, all the enemies that made Israel suffer during the Exile in Babylon. Yet Jesus, in the way Mark tells these stories, tweaks the language re-taken from Isaiah 35 to tell a different story. God - through the person and actions of Jesus - opens the ears, eyes and loosens the tongues, not just of the Israelites, or of a specific "chosen" people - but of all people.

Maybe that's the word for us in this time of economic crisis, increasingly violent rhetoric regarding morality/faith in terms of support or death-threats against President Obama, or dialog about Gay Marriage, in action to heal our environment, or in the national debate about health care and the need for it to change. Rather than pointing fingers, giving the finger, or making a fist - maybe we need to open our hands to recognize that we are all God's children, all called to be 'new creations', to live life fully - here and now, not after death - with each other, as opposed to against each other. I feel as if I sound like I should go hug a tree or am advocating that. Yet isn't that too the image the prophets give us of the "new day" dawning in the event, purpose and passion of the Messiah to come: life is so good - community so deep - life-meaning so relevant -that even the trees of the field shall clap their hands and join into the song of salvation.

Lost in Translation

I've been trying to figure out these past 2+ weeks what shape Monteskewed will take for both me and reader-participants.  Maybe part of the journey is translating/relating the life-changing experience I find living abroad to be.

One of the ironies | pleasant surprises | emerging daily routines, since we've been here is our nightly facebook blasts....catching up with California as our day in Paris ends and life is picking up on the far West Coast.  It's been fun to see how many folks are following us, eager to see how life unfolds and emerges between the dust bunnies of the manse, the travails with paper-work and French beauracracy, the cultural adaptation of our kids to life here and the cheese! (can't forget that).  One of the interesting things is to see how the internet/facebook and social networking technology empowers us to be in contact with so many that are both so far and so near to us.  Calls from California pick up from where we left off online, today we had a visit from a Poissy friend which picked up from the point of departure of Kristy's facebook post last night.

Google and Facebook also offer interesting translation quandries, as different folks, speaking different languages work towards communicating towards - if not with - each other.  This leads to "global understanding" and more often some laughs.  Here's a funny experience from my wife's facbook page today regarding a conversation detailing the emerging details of our youngest daughter's school enrollment here:

Kristy Parsons-Mcclain nervous about the first day of school tomorrow.

11 hours ago · Comment · Like

Schrumpf Caroline

finalement élodie va à quelle école ? courage ! ce qui est super chouette c'est que tu peux aller prendre le gouter dans le parc le soir après l'école ou pique niquer à midi ! tu n'avais pas ça à oakland... j'espère que votre installation est en bonne voie. ils ont refait les peintures ? et le jardin ? bises

10 hours ago

Kristy Parsons-Mcclain

Le maire va trouver une place pour Elodie à l'école de l'Abbaye, mais il faudra attendre la semaine prochaine. On a fait peut-etre la moitié des peintures et pas encore le jardin. Il y a tjs beaucoup à faire. L'installation est long, quand-même.

9 hours ago

Karl Shadley

OK Kristy. This is what Google translate does with your post..
"The mayor will find a place to Elodie at school of the Abbey, but not until next week. It was perhaps half the paintings and yet the garden. There tjs much to do. The facility is long, anyway."

5 hours ago

Kristy Parsons-Mcclain

This is what I said: "The mayor will find a place for Elodie at the Abbey school, but until next week. They did maybe half of the painting and not the garden yet. There is still a lot to do. Moving in takes a long time, after all. " Google, I give you 75%, room for improvement.

2 hours ago

Maybe facebook translation merely lifts up the fact that we don't always understand each other, even when we speak the same language.  A wise, and crusty, old friend used to always tell me, "communication is God's greatest miracle."  I think she may have been onto something, even if not a lot of people listened to her.

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Life in the 78300

That's the postal code for our new home, Poissy in France.  Home to an ancient royal abbey that was destroyed in the Revolution, to a famous (and unfortunately failed) religious colloquy between Catholics and Protestants aiming to empower religious multiculturalism in 1561, the painter Ernest Meissonier (our street is named after him [link to his works]), Cristine de Pisan: an Italian nun who lived here in the 1400s and was the first woman in France to make a living from her poetry writing and now US the American Parsons-McClain clan come to pastor and journey with the Eglise Réformée de France parish here [site].

Today marks two weeks that we've been here in France after leaving Oakland and life in California.  Some have asked why?  Others commented "why not?"  In the past few days we've wondered ourselves, "what that hell have we done?"  Something funny happens to us:  I'd call it God, or a God-moment, others might call it chance, synchronicity, karma, or luck.  We keep getting pulled back here: to this place, this country, these people.  I've been going back and forth between Northern California and France since 1992.  Feeling pulled | attracted | called to the two places and all that they represent in terms of people, faith-communities and culture in that time.  We had a day of depression and questioning this past week, wondering why we gave up so much to come here to start over in terms of finances, friends, "stuff" and community.  In reading the book I'm working through these days [My Jesus Year] that day I fell upon a quotation of the defining Bible story I identify with and that seems to give meaning to my life: the story of Abraham and Sarah being called to leave what they have/know to discover/receive something new: 

The LORD had said to Abram [and Sarah], Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you" Genesis 12:1-8

I'd forgotten about that.  I'd also forgotten about the Monday afternoon about 16 months ago when my wife I and were onboard a plane taxiing at Chalres De Gaulle airport for takeoff to return to SFO following a week of interviews here.  We looked at each other, having not yet had the time or mental energy to talk together about all that we'd experienced in those brief and full days, and we in near synchronistic unison uttered in a clearly un-Shakespearean way "Shit!  I think we need to move back to France." And so here we are.  Either we're prophetically bold to step out, leave everything behind and drag/invite our 4 & 7 year old children to discover an abrahamic way of life; or we're radically naive and foolish, chasing after a France-lifestyle dream that Peter Mayle has already written and rewritten so much that he had to move to Manhattan.

Maybe there is more to life than what meets the eye?  Friends that picked us up at the airport, and who serve as some life-models for us (as they choose to move to Africa for a while with their children) commented on the fact that many people expressed solidarity, wishing that they too could move their families abroad for a while to experience the world | something bigger | more.  Her response was, "Sure they want to.  But you had the courage to do it!"  Courage.  Naieveté.  Blind Faith.  Prophetic Call.  Dream-Chasing.  Whatever it is that's brought us here we now how to assume.

So I'm changing my blog a bit.  Working out how to include this emerging story within the folds of the larger unfolding story of our life, ministry and my whacky thoughts.  I hope to blog on faith in a post-modern world, life in France, gardening, and parenthood here.  I'm also blogging on our family adventures in a more "journal" way on our family blog at parsonsmcclainfamily.wordpress.com.

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Montana Slim String Band

I've written in the past about my brother's band: Montana Slim String Band. They're on a national tour this summer and just released this fun acoustic video.

Liberal Left-out in the Outfield

I went to worship today at a Northern California PC(USA) church. Downtown, the historic congregation advertises 2 services online (as well as their 2008 Christmas Eve Service). As I arrived late (I am on vacation - one of my joys "going to church late since I'm not in charge") I discovered that the service was actually a small circle of a dozen folks gathered around the pastor. The sermon was on the text Exodus 20:1-17 (the giving of the 10 commandments), supposedly addressing the them of Sabbath Rest. What I heard of the sermon was actually a droning on about the foolishness of those that advocate creationism and the evils of their stupidity. The handful of faithful huddled around the pastor resembled a half-time gathering around the coach, seeking to reboot the team with verbose and borderline-violent comments about the "other team." I didn't stay. I found myself wanting more than a polarizing speech motivating me to stand tough against the other guys.

I thought about my recent past experiences in church, most notably one that was on the other side of the political spectrum, at which I heard a sermon about the evils of homosexuality and the liberal agenda in the PC(USA), which was supposedly to address prayer. Maybe our church traditions are bankrupt - on both sides of the spectrum? We don't seem to be able to say much besides "the other team is bad", "we've got to stick together," "the church is declining because of those that don't think like us." It sure seems that such half-time huddle talk is easier to reproduce than to dialog about what Jesus taught and how to live it today. (Jesus, who in my reading never actually blamed or simply attacked the other side, but rather invited all participants in the dialog to a new way of being and looking at the world. Those that rejected his inversion of the polarizing fight simply judged themselves.)

I left the church and walked downtown passing cafes filled with people reading the paper, talking about each others' dogs and living in the moment. I passed numerous walkers: out savoring the early morning air and calm with an urban stroll. They all seemed to be more in the moment, addressing the life that they're living, than getting angry about things that happened in the past or were done by the other team. The liberal, as well as the conservative evangelical churches I visited, both seemed to be left out, like a kid playing in the outfield grass while the game is happening in the infield. Maybe that's why our church attendance is actually in decline today? We seem to be much better at preaching politics and/or prosperity than we do participation.

Market Rearch

I recently worshipped at the San Rafael Sunday Farmer's Market.  It was an experience that brought some reflections on Church faith community worship.

At the market diverse people gathered together to search for fantastically fresh food that they hungered for.  The stalls were lined together with a tidal wave splash of multiple-colors, textures, shapes and sizes.  The seating area (pictured above) and located next to a quality espresso-making coffee stand was filled to capacity at 9am.  There wasn't any magical formula per say that maxed out the parking lot at a time when it's becoming increasingly easier to find a spot in most church parking lots.  The merchants offered what people wanted and repeatedly want.  Maybe the market has a lot to teach those of us wanting to help the church to change, to better address the context we live in today.

I'm not advocating that the church such do whatever our cultural context dictates, yet it does provide some avenues for action.  In the market aesthetics were important.  They didn't replace the quality of the goods for sale.  Yet they enticed people to leave the school-like stream of market shoppers swimming through the isles to pause and linger at a given stall and potentially make a purchase.  It was the same thing, nearly a ritual, that occurs every Sunday - yet an attention to aesthetics: appearance, color, space, smell, light made a difference.  I mean how much can you doll up a tomato?  And yet I was taken aback by the colors and shapes that were present.  Maybe that in part is something we're lacking, maybe through our deeply grounded and vital roots in the reformation traditions of our ancestors we through the baby out with the bath water.  We do need aesthetics to fathom and contemplate the divine.  We do want quality, to not just be told what to buy - or do - but to discover for ourselves, to be empowered to become full participants.  In the market that might be a seller sharing a recipe, or giving tips on what to do with food that's bought.  Maybe in the church we need to do more teaching, or empowering in terms of spiritual disciplines: ways in which the common person can be involved, creatively responding by faith to the world as opposed to passively listening to a sermon.  At this fish stand I heard such conversations emerging while I lingered for a few minutes.  Unfortunately my last Sunday worship experiences haven't included any sort of similar dialogs.

There were so many young families at the Market.  None seemed to be rushing off for church.  Maybe that's Southern Marin for you.  And maybe it's a lesson for the church: a school room for us to attend to in view of catching a glimpse of how the church might re-become more relevant for our culture and context.

Moving to Poissy

A week from today we'll be arriving in our new home, Poissy, France 

(located about 15 miles from the center of Paris).  We've been working towards this for about 2 years, and concretely for the past 4 months: moving, shipping, cleaning, chucking and renting.  Our children have alternated from crying when tired about "wanting to return to our old house in Oakland" to "I'm excited to move.  Can we do it today?"  So now the time is finally coming.  I think we're all a bit fearful and also excited to finally make the move after so many goodbyes and transitions.

Poissy is a town outside of Paris, known historically for a failed attempt of reconciliation between French Catholics and Protestants in 1561, a Peugeit car factory and (new to me) a liquor  made from distilled apricot pits (Noyau de Poissy) - I must try!  Poissy's 36,000 inhabitants are similar in make up to Oakland: diverse in culture, racial background, social class and wealth.

We go there because I've accepted a call to serve as pastor of the Poissy parish of the Eglise Reformée de France (the historic, native protestant church of France: the church of the Reformation and Jean Calvin: who was actually French not Swiss).  This community has diverse ages, enough children and youth for them to take on a building project for more room, and a multicultural perspective in membership and leadership. Although I have a vague idea of what I'll be doing, I don't really know until we go.

In thinking about blogging and exploring the use of technology and online social networking in this next season I'm not committing to any strategies until we assume our new context, and I am anticipating to:

1.  start a new blog in French

2.  continue Montewskewed, but with some tweaking: I want to focus it more, turning to the theme "thoughts on Fatherhood, food, faith and life in France."  Not sure about the bumper stickers, as they don't really do that in France....I might need to stock up before leaving.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Summer Camp Memories

Now that I've stopped working I finally have the time to finish some past work projects. I guess that's the irony of work. We came with the youth of our church to Central Camp week 2 at Westminster Woods earlier this summer. It was great fun and here's a quick video that highlights some of what we experienced together.

Untitled from Monte McClain on Vimeo.

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Ode to Oakland 12 | the YMCA

Of everything I've experienced in Oakland I think that the Downtown Oakland YMCA on Broadway is perhaps the best image and metaphor of Oakland. Diverse people gathered

together to work out and seek greater health, have fun, build community and invest in the community of Oakland. You see every body type from overly thick to marathon-runner thin, every shade of skin color, babies to octogenarians, yoga disciples to body builders to swim lesson kids to those wanting to soak in a jacuzzi. Activities range from spin classes to dance classes, from groups meeting for dinner to night-out kid-friendly activities for parents desperate to have a night off. And the membership costs are on a sliding scale, ensuring that everyone has access that they can afford and then those that can financially empower others to be a part of the community can do so too. It's Oakland at its best.

Ode to Oakland 11 | The Views

I was at the Oakland Zoo yesterday and reminded of the amazing views of Oakland that I take for granted every day. Where else can you drive through an inner-city context and then be in a Redwood forest within 15 minutes without taking a freeway or leaving the city? I love the diversity of Oakland: people, food, shopping, body types, music, art...and the topography, geography and views. Here are my top 8:

1. Inner-city to Redwood Forest back to the Urban Jungle: Start at 880 & 35th Avenue. Drive up 35th over and past the 580 as it becomes Redwood Road. At the top of the hill, turn left on Skyline, stay left at the fork onto Joaquin Miller Road and continue down. At 580 it becomes Lincoln Ave., later it's Champion Street (at MacArthur) there turn right onto MacArthur then left onto Fruitvale and follow it back to the 880. Great driving view of the city.

2. View of the Hills and the whole bay are from the Sky Ride at Oakland Zoo (worth the $2.50 on a clear day).

3. View of the city from the rooftop of the Oakland Kaiser Parking Lot (free if you leave within 30 minutes)

4. View of it all while circling Lake Merritt

5. View of the rooftops of the urban jungle, including church spires, looking towards the hills from the Elliptical Machine Room at the YMCA on Broadway

6. View anywhere within Middle Harbor Shoreline Park

7. From the Mormon Temple parking lot (both SF and Oakland downtowns line up together)

8. At the top of Hiller Drive above the Claremont

Ode to Oakland 10 | Lake Merritt

Oakland wouldn't be Oakland without Lake Merritt. It stinks and still we go. It's been covered with signs, walls, construction stuff for months yet still the sidewalks and lake banks are filled with frolickers, runners, walker-pushers and tai chi doers. Located in the middle of the city it's a perfect living metaphor for the beautiful complexity that Oakland is: crime, skylines, the hills, parks, the new cathedral, urban decay that shows us not so much that beauty is in the beholder, but that each thing is beautiful.

Each day begins with numerous boot campers working out around the lake at the east end (pictured) and on the stairs as the sun rises, and ends with folks enjoying breath-taking views of the city at sunset (usually admiring the fog located across the bay in our more famous sister city). Is it any wonder that the take has been taken over by the immigrant Canadian Geese and their excrement? Maybe that too is an appropriate metaphor for the challenges that face our city: beauty that invites and in the invitation creates the problems that keep the city from becoming the beauty its destined to be.

Religion: appealing to the faithful or faithless?

I've been thinking all week about a recent church experience and the division that is so dominant in our church system. A friend was interviewed for a pastor job and recently asked can you work with both "pro-gay and anti-gay" people. Hmmm. What a question? And maybe it's actually going in the direction we most often avoid. We tend to always polarize, preaching to our choir: those that support our views, as opposed to dialoging with the larger community. When I encounter Jesus of Nazareth in the gospels he seems to be more about the larger inviting dialog to a new counter-cultural life-transforming community than recementing existing divisions and lines in the sand.

Newsweek ran an article entitled "losing their religion" this past week talking about the challenges of portraying faith on tv. Executives feel the pressure to either create entertainment that appeals to the faithful by maintaining some sort of orthodox context and lose the faithless, or work towards the faithless in creative new stories and incur the wrath of the fearful faithful. Maybe that's the tension the church should be in more. Maybe if we were in our leadership, teaching and community hospitality Christian worship could become more of a crossroads of beliefs and growth than an impasse of doctrine rigidity and moral certainty, all while professing and deepening faith. I know that's the sort of church/faith community I'd want to be part of.

My favorite show these days (The Wire) has a church character [the Deacon] addressing the problems of inner city Baltimore that recently summoned his vocation in a conversation with an inner city cop: "Church folks got to be all up in everybody's shit." The Deacon meant that it's his duty to be involved in other lives, knowing what's going on in order to empower collaboration through invitation to working together in integrative contexts. Maybe that's gospel for us today: living out a call to be with other (and maybe even everyone), rather than merely defining ourselves by what we're against.

Ode to Oakland 9 |

Community Educators & Educating Communities

When it comes to Oakland there's a lot of talk about education. The power of Oakland Unified School District was just returned to the city after exiting receivership and a take over (sometimes hostile) by the State of California. When you talk with people leaving Oakland, or thinking about making that choice, it's almost always around schools and/or crime. I've blogged a lot on it, torn from the challenges of education our children in public schools in the city, excited and at times overwhelmed by the inequity and systemic stuck-ness. And it's not just OUSD that educates our children.

We've been part of a cooperative preschool community for several years. As we leave that space and community I'm reminded that it does take "a village to raise a child." That we've been blessed to have our two children loved and known by other kids and families, and for our family to love and know other children and families. The diversity (cultural, class, financial, educational) of our city is amazing and shows up in our kids. It's also a huge challenge to those that work in education. How to you meet, respond to, let alone simply articulate the myriad needs that exist.

I've been repeatedly amazed by the passion of those who work in education in Oakland, life-long commitments (in many cases to the city that they grew up in) of educators to empowering the citizens of Oakland. Heroes for me, who recognize the sickness and stuck-ness of the system yet refuse to be complacent, hopeless or apathetic. They form a great cloud of witnesses I think of when I lose hope. Their example lifts me up to push on to finish the race we all are running together as a city community: Gary and Caroline Yee, Di-Di, Gail Murphy, Brook Pessin, Mel Stenger, Misato Araki. We should be hearing more about such heroes as a city. Katy Murphy at the Oakland Tribune does this to some extent on her blog: The Education Report

Ode to Oakland 8 | Oaklandish

Founded in 2000, this community of artists | renegades | organizers has got to

be one of the most under-noticed political gathering powers of Oakland. Their t-shirts are everywhere, worn with great pride.

Their great website says it all, in particular with the home page that directs you to shopping and/or community. [www.oaklandish.org] I believe that Oaklandish does more than our Mayor and City Council to increase civic pride, empower civic activism, and generate good energy for our always-struggling city.

Here's a blurb from their site that spells out the Oaklandish vision and purpose for both artistic creation and community organizing. (there's also a glimpse of their newest t-shirt)

Representing the strange luster & oddball spirit that is East Bay Life.

It appears that Oakland pride is quite contagious! It's nice to see the proliferation of different Oakland T-shirt designs currently hitting the racks. But as you know, our roots run way deeper than any screen-print could ever convey. The true purpose here is to creatively promote our enduring love for "original Oakland charm" in the face of a constantly mutating culture, population and landscape. When you rock the roots, you evoke all the hidden history & rebel spirit of The Town, in its many incarnations. This way successive generations of young Oaklanders can gain a deeper understanding of the place they call home. Thanks for helping to spread the local love.

Ode to Oakland 7 | Big Longs

Big Longs would have to be on this list. An Oakland institution, that supposedly is moving and/or becoming another store after a recent buy out, it's not called Longs Drugs. It is the place to purchase anything under the sun. From fresh fruit, to beer, to toothpaste, to nice Buddha statutes, to the fantastic (best one in Oakland) nursery, to the best place for ethnic/cultured fabrics, to multiple types of garden manure, to my favorite watch repair guy: this store has it all. [previous Monteskewed blog post]

It has my favorite parking lot to troll in search of good bumper stickers: I always find a gem there each time I come.

It often served as my "therapy" place of choice as I'd take a break and cruise the nursery section coveting the plants for sale (a licensed counselor probably would have been cheaper for me in the end).

It's also great because it's Oakland: the mix of people shopping and working there from all slices of life, class sub-categories, cultural backgrounds - shopping together and so often giving and getting good gardening tips while waiting in line.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Ode to Oakland 6 | The Food

My wife and I went to breakfasts (yes plural, we did several places) Thursday with some good friends who are some of the most experienced East Bay foodies I know. Munching donuts with lattes at Pizzaola and talking about food I was reminded of how many great places for food there are in Oakland from expensive to cheap as in nationally known Taco Trucks.

It's not just about the food - which is great in so many places. It's also about the experience, from the decor to the space, to the location to the smells. For me one of the great images of this foodie creativity in Oakland is the ironing-board laden sidewalks in front of Bakesale Betty. (I think they look as fun and good as those fried chicken sandwiches taste).

So many places to experience good food from around the world: from Ethiopian lined Telegraph to the Central American experience of the Fruitvale District, from the places emerging in Uptown to the sit-down beauties of Rockridge and College Ave.

Some of my absolute favorites, that I'll miss in moving, including drinks on the terrace at Cesar's on Piedmont Ave., the pommes frites at A Cote, the pizza at Zachary's, the samosas at Shaan, and the chocolatines at La Farine. So much food. So many restaurants. Never enough money!!!

These foodie friends might start at blog on the 100 best food things in Oakland at www.oaklandeats.blogspot.com. I hope that they do !