where do you want to be?

i just now rediscovered a bottle cap i found when i was at Wild Goose fest earlier this year – not sure what bottle it is from but in the inside was written this phrase, “I’m exactly where I want to be.”

i brought it home with me cos i thort that was great and i wanted to write about it but then i misplaced it and so i did write a similar one titled be where you are which covers a lot of what i would have said with this, but now that i have found it i wanted to jump in with a quick share.

I’m exactly where I want to be.

does that mean i don’t want thing in my context to be different? not at all and in some cases exceedingly so altho recently God has lit a bit of a fire under us so that we can start pursuing some of the things we have til now been largely waiting to see happen.

does that mean it is all easy or comfortable and never frustrating? not at all and again often quite the opposite – but because i have a kingdom mindset as a Jesus follower it means that my life is not aimed at easy or comfortable or frustration-free – in fact the ‘Love God, love people’ summary of my faith means that, with people involved, it is going to likely have frustration, discomfort and unease along the way.

after a process of waiting on God to try and hear what the next thing was to be for us, we had a really strong sense that this was it and that belief that we are where God is presently calling us to be has been a source of much strength and perseverance and sometimes one of the few things keeping us here.

and it is an incredible place to be. and so where i need to be becomes where i want to be by default.

are you where you need and so want to be?
exactly?

simply cow

one of my first memories from arriving at the Simple Way last year within two weeks of setting foot in Potter street and then being dragged off to PAPA [People Against Poverty and Apathy altho in reality bearded tattoo hippy fest] and then to Wild Goose fest [or ticks in naughty places fest] and a Timoteo awards dinner supper was being dressed up as a cow and bundled into a van and taken to this delightful place called Chick – Fil – A for a free chicken meal [if you dressed up as a cow – cow parts downloadable and cutoutable from their website]… it was fun and crazy and Monkman and I went again later that night with some European girls who had stopped in to visit TSW and stocked up with chicken nuggets for potluck.

today is the anniversary of that day and so along with the beautiful Val dressed as a military cow, almost all the staff from the office so Coe and Sueihn and Beth and Janell and Christine, some friends and guests in the form of Daniel and Shane from the Hospitality House and Emily and then with our visiting photographer Travis we met up with the crazy decked out Lahr family [talking Chris in full body suit with dodgy udder and India with a cow hat face] and took over half of the local Chick – Fil – A and got free food [Travis bought his so we weren’t completely leechful] and took photos and then returned home – much fun and laughter and frivolity and spontaneity and it was so thoroughly needed on this day after a long and hard at times and busy week and will give us enough energy to at least make it to if not through a huge potluck happening tonite…

GOD,WHOISNOWHERE,IS,NOW,HERE

so i spoke a little bit about the GODISNOWHERE board from the wild goose fest and i showed a picture of it in my previous post and here are some words from one of the dudes, adam, who was involved in being a human billboard and some more of the meaning behind it which i really enjoyed:

‘Hey Brett – sorry for the slow reply. Been trying to catch up on email and everything after the festival.

I’m part of a group called VOID collective in Waco, TX. We did a sacred space event at Wild Goose exploring the notion of sacred space through the opposing ideas of “God is now here” and “God is nowhere.” The idea to do the signs and stickers was kind of a random thing but I’m really glad we did it. I think wearing the sign was one of my favorite things of the festival. It led to many good conversations with people. Apparently some people thought we were atheists protesting! But hopefully the word eventually got around as to what was really going on. I think so much of my life is lived in the space of GODISNOWHERE – the space between the absolute presence and/or absence of God. Things are usually more ambiguous than I would like. For me GODISNOWHERE speaks to the inability of any of us to capture God. The moment I say God is absolutely present, God seems to slip away. The moment I give up hope that God will ever return, God slips in the back door.

Thanks for the email back. I’m glad to hear our little bit of mischief led to some good conversations and reflection.

Peace to you.

Adam’

i need an eye op. urgently.

i probly have a good 30 or 40 more blogs i could write about the goose fest but i don’t know if i’m going to get to them – i don’t want the blog to become a sort of dairy [as i spell it] of events and lose the heart of what is happening here – i also don’t want to be caught up too much in blogging that like a person filming or photographing an event i spend so much time filming the event i wasn’t really part of… i still don’t know if the simple way folks may some day see this blog as part of my ‘online ministry’ and ask me to take a sabbattical from it too for 6 months… so i feel i should write this one at least before it happens…

after listening to shane again at the goose [by far my favourite talk or session and largely because it was the first time in three days i remembered hearing the name Jesus more than once and heard passages read from the bible] i was reminded or challenged by the fact that i need an eye operation. i need to start seeing people the way Jesus sees them – he retold this one story about this argument he had with a buddy of his who told him ‘Jesus never spoke to a prostitute’ – shane whips out his bible and is ready to argue and quote scripture and claim battle victory but his friend continued, “the reason Jesus never spoke to a prostitute is that He never saw a prostitute, He only saw a child’ and that hit me once again and i know it needs to do so much more than give me a moment of “oh yes, that” – it needs to become my dna.

i know with some of the kids on the street and some of the parents whose names i am already learning it already has, because they are not statistics or a demographic – they are now a name and a person and a personality and a story – i have not come close to connecting with people on our street like i want to but i have started connecting and at least that is something, but with them i already have a growing sense of how God sees them.

but i know with a lot of the people i don’t have those eyes and i certainly don’t have the heart of Jesus that is desperately needed in the community – those dealing with or doing drugs and those who look worn down with the ugliness of life and some of the barely dressed women we pass in the streets and so on – i judge and i think i am so better and my sin and uncleaness is forgotten in a horrible instant of somehow thinking i may have earned everything God has so freely given to me.

i need God to give me new eyes. and i need a new heart. to see as He sees. to love as He loves.

i have realised since being here how little i actually care about the poor in for-real terms – and that’s another blog – but if i really cared for the poor as much as i needed to then my life back home would have looked dramatically different from what it does now – i can’t change the past but i know i need to be changed so that i walk a different future. that excites me. i know it starts with personal connection with God as well and that needs my attention too.

the wild goose part guns

soooo i had a bit of an oops moment on the third morning of the fest… shane [anti-war, pacifist] was leading morning prayer from the main stage with another dude and a crowd of people were participating and someone asked me if i’d make him a coffee so i went to base camp and grabbed the blue thermos mug we had taken from the office to use at the fest – when i took the coffee he was busy leading the prayer and so i motioned to him and set the mug on the edge of the stage…

[time passes]

lying in E-beth’s hammock vibing a bit later and shane comes up to me – “do you know what this stands for?” and holds up the coffee mug with the letters NRA boldly on the side and i instantly have flashbacks to the michael moore ‘bowling for columbine’ documentary charlton heston interview and sheepishly answer “National Rifle Association?” and he responds with “yup, at first i thort you were playing a joke on me and then i figured you probly didn’t know what it had meant.”

i hadn’t. to me it was a cool blue mug with three letters on it. wow, spot the irony. cool that he thort it was quite funny though.

when he asked me where i got it and i said “our house” [which wasn’t true altho i thort it was, val reminded me later that we picked it up at the simple way office, much better] he responded with “someone must be trying to set me up” all still in a jokey vibey mood.

that was one of the moments of the festival, harr, and it’s great to have an ongoing private joke with shane…