Here is an inarticulate grasp for the ineffable in a weed and a delusional fellowship with a jogger. One holy man to another, as it were. And lest you think this is merely an elitist dismissal coming from an one reared on Longinus, Coleridge and Eliot, read the "lament" that follows. This "creative act" is his own personal (not to mention solipsistic) yelp at the world.

Sadly, its lousiness is apparent even to him.

dandelion

out of the chaos
the dissonance
the caucaphony all around
pushing, pulling, striving, yearning, milling
there is a resonance
a harmony

an eco-system
people inhale
trees exhale
people exhale
trees inhale
one great grand collective cooperative
will to live

walk down the hill
nod at the person
running up the hill
namaste:
the holy in me
honors the holy in you

U
down in to death
and back up to life

life
from the trammelled earth
emerge flowers
(or are they weeds?)
grand acts
of audacious creativity
scattered across the ground
hope giving life
life giving hope

a lament for creativity

creativity ought to be contagious
a spark that starts a blaze
not the privilege of a few
but the lifeblood of many
yet ours is a world
of museums and bookshelves
a wasteland of ideas
sterility, observation,
ascent, interest

inspiration is an invitation
to adventure
grab the rudder,
take the wave,
pick up a pen,
sing your song

we're starving out here
and you're hoarding
speak, share
lead, feed
unburden yourself

* * *

this poem is lousy, yes
but it is mine
my creative act
a yelp for the world to hear

by Mike Stavlund

And here we see the savage clutching at his enemy's spear as it protrudes from a sucking chest wound, and he exults, "Aha! I have deprived you of your weapon".

I recently had a conversation with someone who was really frustrated about the emerging church. He was really upset about what he saw as a consistent squishiness, which I completely understand. The emerging church conversation takes a little getting used to because it is such a radically different way of operating. He assumed all we were doing was sitting around talking. From his perspective, our pretension was so deep that we had been reduced to not just talking about the emerging church, but talking about talking about it.

Which brings up the joke:

Q - How many emerging church bloggers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A - 1 to change the bulb and post about it. 315 to lurk around and make no comment. 2 to propose that a flashing colored bulb would be more in keeping with the culture of the day. 34 to retort that all talk of ‘light' and ‘dark' is just relative, and purely down to the culture, context and personal experience. 18 to weigh in with quotes from Derrida, Baumann and McLuhan and discuss the essential duality of light.

There's this fascinating myth that all we do is talk, to which I would offer is one of the most basic forms of relating to each other. It is in communicating that we are learning to work out our own expressions of faith.

When I offered him my definition, or really my limited understanding of it in words - the emerging church is a collective search for a wholistic expression of following in the way of Jesus through love - he didn't like it. His first question was instantly, "What do you believe?" And when I said, "In Jesus," he responded with, "But what do you believe about Jesus?"

And then it hit me. In refusing to be defined by "traditional" methods of definitions, the emerging church has taken away the traditional means of arguing. And it pisses people off. I would offer that the emerging church absolutely believes in truth, but it doesn't go by traditional means. It's called love, which then defines everything.

My friend was looking for our differences. And in doing so was participating in a means that would eventually exclude. At some point our differences would emerge and a barrier to relationship would be created. When we begin with defining people by what they believe, as opposed to who they are, we create natural barriers that instinctively create exclusion even when we don't want to. And those barriers end up excluding US at some point. What we end up with is 27,000 different version of church. Our desire for unity becomes impossible because we are beginning with a method that is broken to begin with.

When we begin with love we create, what I think Jesus was really trying to get to, which is a circle of inclusion. Love begins with our similarities, not our differences. It draws people in as opposed to pushing people out. It looks past our brokenness to discover the best of who we are. It destroys barriers as opposed to creating them.

But when we begin with love, we step into a very different way of operating. We begin with the idea that we are each created in His image. Differences don't define us. They express the subtle facets of a different part of God's image working its way out. We can't control it. We can only participate in it. And when we do, we engage what Jesus said was the only true way to live. We create an unshakable foundation that fulfills what it means to be human: to love.

by Jonathan Brink