Blogging Towards Sunday October 3, 2010

Luke 17:1-10

This week's passage is the ongoing continuation of what Jesus has been teaching since chapter 13 about discipleship and life of leadership based on following someone beyond ourselves, the tyranny of the urgent and our cultural context.  Leadership implies responsibility.  It doesn't equate earn entitlement.  Rather that in leadership, following the One from Nazareth we are changed as we change the world.  We are held responsible for our actions, not in a subservient, ego-crushing way; but rather in a life-affirming, leadership-maturing and earth-community-awareness-transforming way.  What we say and do and our relationships matter.

Back into the blog and a new work gig

This week I started a new job, serving as pastor with the faith community of College Avenue Presbyterian Church in the Rockridge District of Oakland.  A congregation faithfully serving the city of Oakland for over 100 years, which began in the countryside and now is in the mix of the urban context of Oakland, and is seeking to articulate and facilitate the living out of faith in what is emerging as our 21st century context and culture.

I'm reconnecting with my Monteskewed blog which had been dormant for a while as I lived in France and blogged primarily in French at ckoilafoi.wordpress.com.  I'm planning to reestablish the blog, doing what I did before - some writing on the practice of Christian faith and urban life, crazy city images, rantings and ravings and the expression of my sarcastic humor; as well as some soon to emerge new things, in particular aspects of life in and around Oakland.  If you have ideas or suggestions please be sure to share them with me through a comment.

The effects of Proposition 8 on Community
What is sanctity anyway?

In the past week I've been told that I'm a misogynist, a heretic and that it's too bad I'm no longer a Christian. These three affirmations about my personhood were made by people who had directly, or indirectly, encountered my rantings, ravings and sharings about my view of Proposition 8 as a Christian and as a Pastor, and regarding my vehement support of Obama for President with those same viewpoints. What's interesting is that there was no invitation to dialogue in the (re)definitions that were shared with me of who and how I live by faith. Maybe I thought I'd invited folks to discuss and had merely lauched a mono-logal diatribe. Yet my point was always to enter a discussion, to recognize and affirm (even with my dark humor) that we are community, that we are called to live in community, that such life requires and demands mutual-respect, self-respect, a refusal to embrace verbal violence and degradation, and a commitment to relationship.

I've seen and experienced this online, in the communities in which I live, even in my own family. There are consequences for every action that we take. We can say that something isn't personal, or that we weren't meaning for it to be personal in terms of hurting someone else. But everything is personal to someone.

Yesterday while the worship gathering was finishing at the church I serve the Mormon Temple of Oakland, which is about 10 blocks away, was being besieged by No On 8 Protestors who had gone to put a face on the consequences of the proposition, to forces those that were at the Temple that day to have to encounter those that are no longer legally married, or can't be married, because of Prop 8, which had been in large part (at least in the beginning stages) funded by the Mormon Community. I'm not against Mormons, or do I hold anything against them. Merely it's a story of my context. Here's a news video of the protest, and here's an online article about it.

I heard someone this week advocate stoning (not with joints, but with rocks) all gays and lesbians. Because that's what the Bible (in some parts) says we should do. This person was invoking the sanctity of marraige, while denying or forgetting about what I'd have to call the sanctity of life. My own nuclear family is torn among gay family members who are legally married and those that voted to overturn their marriage in the name of sanctity. That word has been thrown around so much lately, that I'm not sure what we do, or claim, to hold sacred and saintly? We forget that everything and every-issue has a face, a personal narrative, and consequences. I'm not advocating nihilism. Rather it seems that we in our culture completely disconnect. We place blame when we don't want to be connected. Just look at Governor Palin who today blamed George Bush for McCain's defeat, and Yes on 8 forces that blamed Obama (and his large people-of-color turn-out-the-vote apparatus) for the passage of 8. At the root of it all it seems that we - out of fear or something - don't want to recognize the other as subject, and not just object - in our society, in our communities, even in our families.

I got this sarcastic (and what I consider cleverly funny) Funny-or-Die video from someone today talking about Prop 8 and pushing it to the extreme. It seems over the top. Yet is it really that different than what we tend to do on most issues when we neglect the dominant grey reality of life, place blame elsewhere, or judge others in order to make oursevles feel better. Watch it. Then share a comment if any of this has struck you.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Monte's Skew on Blogging
blogging 101

In the past weeks I've had several questions and conversations about my blog Monteskewed, the purpose, the format and the frankness with which I speak, or write. I thought I'd take a post to talk about what it means for me and my hopes for what it can birth.

The wording alongside my glasses says it all. The photo gives you a snapshot of how I see the Bay Area (my context for life and ministry) through my glasses. It's a great visible metaphor for why I blog. My header disclaimer states "I'm seeking to skew you to my worldview." That's it in a nut shell. Of course my thoughts on being a follower of Jesus who enjoys Oakland and loves to garden, eat, parent, live faith and life in community, to talk about politics, culture, music and books....is not meant so much to tell you how to live, as it is to share some of my thoughts, with an emerging cynicsm and my dark (kept in the closet too often) humor AND to invite you to a dialogue, a give and take, a listen and speak, about different issues, topics and emerging events here in Oakland. I write as a pastor because that's my life. I don't write as a pastor of a given church or the one I work with. I don't speak for or on behalf of that church community of faith on my blog, which is often my role in my daily life. It's a fine line. When you read Monteskewed, remember what the title is, that should help keep things clear.

I try to write quickly, honestly, organically and with humor. I try not to proof-read. Rather I think, letting my thoughts stew in my head...then I whip them out onto the screen via the keyboard. For me it's a fun way to share my thoughts, a sort of spiritual discipline in terms of thinking about faith and theology and how they interact with culture, politics and daily life ethics. It's also a way I seek to expand my work and ministry as pastor, recognizing that technology plays a crucial part in our relationships, communication and experience of faith community.

You can make a comment, and enter into a dialogue - or start one - for every post. Simply scroll down to the word "comments" at the bottom of the post. Click it and you'll be linked to a form through which you can enter and share a comment (or more) in the emerging discussion.

I have a two rules for my blog, that you can't get around.

1. It's about discussion to build community, not to convict or convert anyone to one particular view (except mine!) So you have to identify yourself on the form. You can use a code or nick name. But there are no anonymous postings aloud. Being in a real dialogue necessitates that we know who we're talking with, to and who is talking to us. We're all subjects, not objects.

2. I reserve the right to erase comments that are violently racist, sexist, homophobic or just plain destructive in terms of my goal to build community in person and online.

I hope you'll join the conversation. If you want to learn more about blogging, how it started and what the general consensus about blogging is try this [link].

How Voting Today Skewed Me

millenial meaning-making, technology & community organizing

We went as a family this morning to vote shortly after the polls opened at 7:00am.Once there we encountered a line of maybe 50 people, snaking it's way through the school hallway. Of the 50 people, probably 6-9 children were also there: playing in the Obama Baby T-shirts, coming to watch their parents vote, participating in order to learn about democracy in action. While there I was struck by several things that point to some of the deep (and already made) transformations of our society, culture and means of communication/organization:

1. Our kids played video games on our phones while they waited.

2. Half a dozen people were doing what I was doing while waiting in line: updating their facebook pages, and twittering.

3. Three people were taking pictures (along with me) of the line - to blog with, or something else.

4. The woman behind me kept calling friends of hers on her cell phone. Each person she called seemed to have a background in a particular area of expertise (Water District, Schools, etc.) She would ask them how to vote. Talk about swaying last minutes deciders in an election.

5. Folks were all excited, talkative, happy to be waiting in a long line so early in the morning.

6. No one checked ids of those that are voting (I think it's because our precinct workers know everyone personally).

7. I had to park far away (ok 2 blocks - super far for our precinct!) in order to vote because so many people were there.

8. We celebrated our post-voting with a family breakfast at Peet's in the Dimond and La Farine. About 30 other people had the same idea with about 10 kids there, wearing "I Voted" stickers, and obviously going to school late.

I'm stuck by something I heard on Talk of the Nation yesterday [listen to the podcast here of A Grown Up Digital Generation] featuring Don Tapscott writer of Grown Up Digital. He pointed to the revolutionary ways that technology, online social networking, blogging, etc. have already transformed the way we talk, communicate, think and organize/relate to one another. Our entire society (economy, educational insitutions, political system and faith communities) have to adjust, adapt, and transform to this new way of thinking, speaking, organizing and relating that is potentially predominant in the Millennial Generation (those under 30) and also beyond.

I felt like I experienced a lot of what was lifted up in that radio discussion while voting this morning. The church I serve and work with is not functioning in this way. Most communities of faith I know aren't either. Yet our children, colleagues and neighbors are functioning and thriving as grown up digital-folks. Is this a world-view shift? Is this the end of an era in our culture and maybe in the world? Is this an apocalyptic foretaste of the end of days? Is this the dawn of a new chance to live, work and thrive together? Obviously the Obama efforts taped into this more than McCain in the amazing ways that his website empowered not just voting, but organizing via the website. Bruce Reyes-Chow is a pastor of the Presbyterian Church to which I belong as pastor. He too has plugged into this monumental cultural shift [Bruce's Blog]. It's not something that may happen. It already has. How are the communities you're a part of responding to it? Are they even responding?

New Blog on the Near East School of Theology

in Beirut, Lebanon

Friend Carol, who works for NEST, has begun a blog about the Near East School of Theology. She's currently spending several weeks on site in Beirut blogging about happenings, relationships and personal stories.

neareastschooloftheology.blogspot.com

6 uninteresting things about me
blog meme

i was tagged this week in an online blog meme game by leslie. it's an online game for bloggers where you pose some sort of a question, tagging other bloggers who link back to you to get the discussion going.

here's the meme terms and conditions
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. List six unspectacular things about you.
4. Tag six other bloggers by linking to them.

so here's my answers:
1. i always put my pants on right leg first.
2. i love nutter butters, and tend to eat the entire package in one sitting.
3. i always played first base in little league as a kid.
4. when i enter a room with lot's of chairs for a meeting or group discussion i always sit far away from the door.
5. i love to iron and vacuum.
6. i write out (or think out) most of my sermons listening to thumping techno-styled music (some of my favorites include music by madonna, breathe, and listening to 92.7 fm from 12-1pm).

and i tag:
susannah, ladyburg, sharyl, matt, sarah, steve. & elena. (ok i know that's 7 can't stop - i don't like rules)

New Blogs - More than Read-worthy

A friend Elena has started a new blog. She's a slow-fooder, a lover of the forest (my favorite one) and also a supporter of Obama.

She's posting at  simplyelena.blogspot.com

Another friend Susannah has come out of the blog closet with a great one about art, parenting a deaf child and thoughts on modern living.  She's posting at  goodbuthard.blogspot.com

Why I'm A Blogger

Friend and PC(UCA) Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow asked several folks to blog on why blog (See his entry Three Ways to Stay Connected). So thinking about it here's why I blog and what I get out of it and how I enjoy it.

1. I originally started blogging, following some discussions in a learning group with Bruce, to for two principal reasons: First) to try to foster relationships and empower new forms of discussion in and for the Christian Faith Community that I serve as pastor, and Two) to share my cynically dark sense of humor on current events. I started doing posts on "Blogging Towards Sunday" seeking to involve church community folks in a conversation around the scripture passages I'd preach on the following Sunday. My friend Marshallite did some things like this with the youth group communities she pastored. I quickly discovered that very few, if any, members of my church actually ever read my blog. I did quickly find that many neighborhood folks who call our church their "church" even if they don't ever come enjoyed my comments and snarkily expressed views of what is happening and and around Oakland and the neighborhoods of the city that I consider my parish context.

2. My most viewed entries have either presented funny home-made videos of my kids performing HSM songs, or focused around school issues, in particular the season I wrote about trying to get my daughter into a not-failing public school and the middle-class angst/guilt I felt for only being able to provide a public school in the area of our $400,000+ mortgaged-house and not in the areas of the $1,000,000+ mortgages in Oakland. I think it struck a nerve. My other highly visited and commented areas also include articles written about the emerging/gentrifying aspects of the parts of Oakland in which I move, work and live - it's my amateur way of doing investigative journalism that encourages local heroes and shopping. (I only wish I was as on the ball as the blogger at A Better Oakland). I also have had a lot of visits and conversation when I've done a Read The Bible Every Day Challenge (each year during Lent). It seems to have involved new and old-hat readers of the Bible in a quick way to experiment with this spiritual practice. The other largely viewed spirituality-related postings came from a series and class I taught at our church entitled R U A Heretic? It seems like the shorter and sweeter the faith-related postings are, the more likely folks will read and interact with them.

3. I love to blog because in a sense it's my journal, one of the primary ways in which I make meaning of my life of faith by following Jesus in an urban context, raising children in public school, working as a pastor and trying to make a difference in the universe by my presence all while trying to laugh at myself. I do edit things a bit. Not everything needs to be out there. And I find that I have many deep conversations, both in monologues, and in dialogues (Corn Dog is my biggest online discussion partner), that help me work out what I think, what I'm feeling and what I'm sensing as going on around me. I've learned much more about what it means to be present as pastor, or as "El jefe of our hood", through dialogue online with people who call the church I serve spiritual home, the church or their membership, or just that church on the corner. It's Buechner who wrote (my paraphrase), where the deepest desires of our hearts and the deepest needs of the world meet is where God calls us to be actively present. In the end, the blogging I started ended up being more about me, and inviting others to participate in my working out of that mystery of the will of God online, than it was about my original intention to involve others in discussions about faith. Yet maybe they're actually the same. I just had viewed and planned it in a backwards upside down way.

Here's some other Presbyterian Folks answering this Why Blog Question (Carol, Jan and Bruce)

FACEBOOK 101
Why I'm an Abusive Junkie

I was at a preschool gathering today and in the context of 50 minutes heard 4 different people say to others, "You're not on facebook? You've got to do it!" Now it sounds like a peer pressure sort of thing that you got to do to fit in like smoking something behind the backstop. But here's why I've become an addict and also some easy to follow steps should my example (and peer pressure perspective) encourage you to sign up. I write this realizing the serendipity of PC(USA) Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow asking a few folks to share why they facebook on the morning before I went to the preschool gathering. Bruce responded with Three Ways to Stay Connected and also a past post on His 3 Favs of Facebook)

1. I initially joined facebook and created discussion groups etc. in order to facilitate relationships and networking between members of the church community I serve. As of today (nearly 2 years later) there are 4 other people than myself (of our 65 members) on facebook. No one visits our church group or responds to discussion questions. So that was a bust.

2. Since facebooking I've reconnected with numerous folks (some I'm still actively in relationship with others who I'd lost track of):
*High School Friends from School and Church Youth Group Acitivities
*College Friends
*Friends from the faith communities I participated with in France
*Current Friends from Preschool and Elementary (not mine - my childrens!) Communities
*Adults who I knew as children in youth groups/summer camps that I helped lead as a young adult
*Work Colleagues
*Family Relatives (I have over 40 first cousins)

3. I actively communicate with between 10-30 of these people each day through conversation, jokes, and pictures. I work alone. Facebooking helps me to feel that I actually work with a group of friends.

4. I find it a great avenue for me to try to be funny with cynical status updates, photos and comments. It feeds my needy narcisism.

5. My wife thought it was a waste of time. So to retaliate I signed her up one night while she slept, creating a profile for her, finding friends and then gave it to her in the morning to run with. Within 48 hours she too was an addict reconnecting with a college friend who now lives in the South Pacific.

6. Another friend had his wife do the same thing for him. He refused to do anything with facebook until he had 100 friends. He's now well above that line and recently asked me if facebook is modern or post-modern friendship. I'm not sure what to answer. But I do know that it doesn't replace, but rathers empowers my existing and emerging relationships.

HOW DO YOU JOIN FACEBOOK?

*Go to www.facebook.com.
*Sign-up with your email and a self-created password.
*You can then create, tweak and re-tweak your profile page with pictures, background information (schooling, work, tastes in music, quotes, books, tv, etc.)
*You can upload pictures of yourself, and or other people and "tag" them to share the fun.
*One of the best aspects is that when you sign-up your email server may be connected to facebook and if so can nearly instantly inform you who of your existing email contacts is on facebook and ask you if you would like to "friend" (create an online network relationship with) them.
*My other favorite thing is to find old friends through existing friends list of friends.
*Plus you can make it as private and protected as much or as little as you like.

If you facebook what do you like about it? Why is it worth your time?

How Do You Make A Comment on Monteskewed?

Someone recently told me that they read the blog, but haven't left any comments because they didn't get how to. So here's some steps to empower you to leave a comment or participate in an online dialog with your thoughts:

1. To make a comment:
Click on the line below the entry in the middle that has a number followed by comments.
This will shoot you to the comment page, you type it in and select enter on the bar below the blank page.

2. You can't make an anonymous comment:
I changed the blog format after some nasty comments and anonymous criticism last year following some blogging about the events around Farmer Joe's. It's my way to ensure that we don't simply badmouth or shamelessly attack others who are courageous enough to voice their thoughts.

3. You can also email a post to a friend:
To do this you simply click on the icon that looks like an envelope on the right below the article. It will shoot you to another page, on which you fill out email information and then the post is emailed away.

4. A comment doesn't have to be some sort of discourse between 3 and 30 points long. It can be anything. Short. Sweet. Confused. Chaotic. It's all about us talking in community.

Hope this helps and empowers you to join the dialog!
Looking forward to hearing from you.

A Presbyterian Meme

I was tagged by Aric Clark in an online game for bloggers. The game was started by Bruce Reyes-Chow across the Bay (at least for me!) at Mission Bay Community Church seeking to be elected as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Here's the rules (I received):
The rules are pretty basic In about 25 words each, answer the following five questions; tag five presbyterian bloggers and send them a note to let them know they were tagged; be sure to link or send a trackback to this post;

1. What's your earliest memory of being distinctly Presbyterian?
I grew up in a church know as ______ Baptist-erian Church in our Presbytery. Never knew what that meant until attending a Vineyard Church during the1st Iraq war and hearing the Pastor go off each Sunday about Sadam Hussein as the Antichrist and the end of days coming at any given time in the next week. (This went on - at least for me - for 5 months until I left.) It was then that I began to understand reformed theology and presbyterian structure of democracy all created to combat abuse, patriarchy and twisted preaching.

2. On what issue should the Presbyterian Church spend LESS time and energy?
Sexuality issues. Split already. G-6. I'm so tired of hearing letters and numbers mixed together to avoid talking about real people with real names and real lives. Let those that want to include do so, and those that want to exclude do so. Let us discover in our follow-through what righteousness means for all of us today. BUT - let's leave the door open to get together to dialogue, discern and maybe even rejoin later down the road.

3. On what issue should the Presbyterian Church spend MORE time and energy?
Serving the poor - in action in our increasingly polarized economy between the uber-rich and the urban poor - and in word in our increasingly secularized and bankrupt culture in which the gospel - if articulated in our cultural vernacular is better than Gatorade.

4. If you could have the PC(USA) focus on one passage of scripture for an entire year, what would it be?
"Jesus wept." John 11:35

5. If the PC(USA) were an animal what would it be and why?
No idea on this one. I'd say a chicken (since I raise them). They travel in groups, plagued by fear of being alone, stepping out, risking to go it alone - or to stand out - or to speak out in a definitive way.

EXTRA CREDIT: Jesus shows up at the General Assembly this year, what does he say to the Presbyterian Church (USA)?
- I'd have to go with my favorite quote from the Peter Parker narrative (the other one I base my life upon) - "With great power comes great responsibility!" Then I think Jesus would look at the crowd and say "pull your head out already would you!"

Here's who I tag in the game:
Karl Shadley, Matt Gough, Sarah Reyes, Sharyl Marshall, Matt Edminster, Steve Whitney and Corn Dog.

Blogging in Oakland

Chip Johnson had a great article in the SF Chronicle on Oakland and the state of blogging in our city today. "Small band of bloggers keeps eye on Oakland." Turns out the blosophere - at least the political one regarding our city - is quite small in Oakland. The local paper is stretched to cover the whole East Bay...and so much goes unnoticed, un-debated, and un-questionned. The article ordained "www.abetteroakland.com" as the number 1 blog of Oakland (political) and included an interesting quote:

"When I [Chip Johnson] called her [blogger at www.abetteroakland .com] Wednesday, she reluctantly accepted a compliment as the city's No. 1 blog site, then complained about Oakland's lack of news coverage - and a smaller blogosphere than Great Falls, Mont., whose population of 56,000 compares with nearly 400,000 in Oakland."

What does that say about Oakland? I'm not sure, but it makes me wonder when we live in such a technologically advanced and politically motivated area why are there so few bloggers out there addressing the emerging needs, vision and tension in our city?