worlds with words

"The sense of this utterance, in which we are participants, we preachers, is that an alternative world is possible. The old world is not a given; it is a fraud. Another world is possible-in our imagination. We listen and imagine differently. In our liberation, we entertain different realities not yet given hardware, so far only in very-soft-ware, carried only by narrative and song and poem and oracle, said bfore being embodied, but said and we listen. As we listen, we push out to the possibility and are held by it like a visioning child with a dream"
-Walter Brueggemann (The Word Miltant: preaching a decentering word, Preaching a Sub-Version-165)

He goes on to say that another world is possible in our practice and policy. Brueggemann seems to ground the idea that a word would be worth speaking in a remembrance of the divine word that was spoken at the beginning. The refrain "And God said" remind us that another world is not only possible by it has hit the ground a long time ago. The preaching of the kingdom of God is grounded in an announcement, "it is at hand" and therefore possible. The announcement seems as important as its enactment but I do not know if I am willing to say that. The other day I was sitting in on a Hebrew Writings class with John Goldinday and he brought up St. Francis of Assisi and mentioned a quote attributed to him: "Preach the gospel, if nesscary use word." John said and I quote, "Well that is rubbish." He certainly brought up this well known and powerful quote in order to make a powerful statement as he moved to a concrete example. The thing that God was doing with he and his wife needed explaining otherwise people would leave thinking he was just a good guy for taking care of her. He shared in powerful witness to us students and so I believe words are not just important they are nessecary more they are required of us through a commission at the end of Matthew but also in the commission to be image bearers. They seem to hum with a kind of holiness when offered well and have the power to create worlds not yet realized.

guilted

if guilt is the medium what is the message
we're takin showers to go stand in the rain
getting high runnin form the pain...

count me guilted
better quilted and covered by
love love love

so give me a buck or case you luck
with the lucky ones
who give with there lives

Let the preachers preach on
about somethin they found
that will never sound like their words

count me giulted
better quilted and covered by
love love love

blue parakeets

Scot Mcknight has been one of those voices for me that inspires, encourages and challenges the categories that I often default to through simply living without awareness and openness to the idea that discipleship doesn't happen without asking questions and pursuing those questions to their end only to find new beginning points to connect with the world, ourselves, others and Jesus. That ran on, no apologies. His writing, specifically his new book 'The Blue Parakeet' has me excited about teaching and learning and walking in the story of God. I also enjoy when he quotes a beloved old testament professor to whom I owe much for his guidance in formulating and activating this story in my life.

The fact that we tend to avoid the passages of the scriptures that by their nature challenge our world into a reshaping that is often painful could be a clue to the kind of story God has written in history as represented in the authorship of the Bible. This story reshapes the tired old structures that frame reality, at least my perception of it, and invites us to a big, unfolding, more-truth-than-ever, paradoxically loaded narrative with a climax focused on Jesus and a rewriting that the wise Author is honing through the recreation of our lives together in Jesus.