Jurgen Moltmann once wrote … that in Latin there are two words for the future.
One is futurum. Futurum, he said, is the future we see stretching out in front us by our brainstorming, trend spotting, number crunching etc. It comes from our wrestling. He calls this the Future of Social Calculation.
But, he says, there’s another future that comes towards us from beyond us, over which we have no control. We can’t fashion its outline or calculate it. We grapple with this future by asking a question. “What kind of X (parish, diocese, state, country, family, etc., etc.) would we like to have in (fill in a date)?” In other words we in a sense “dream” this future. Moltmann says that this dreaming can be very powerful.
When a society starts dreaming of a different future to what it now has, it can produce tremendous energy. Sometimes all the tanks in the world can’t stop it. Walls can tumble. He calls this future the Future of Ethical Anticipation.
He then says that each is incomplete with out the other. Both are needed for future planning.
(Herbert O’Driscoll, email to Fr. John 11/23/09)
+
Showing posts with label futuring the parish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label futuring the parish. Show all posts
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Sacred Garden
For the Gospel Grapevine (May 2010) the parish newsletter of St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Edmonds, Washington.
There is an Australian phrase, "beyond the black stump", meaning "far away". I learned it from Christine Sine: she and her husband Tom were presenters at the Black Stump Festival last October in the Sydney area. The festival is part of the 'emerging church' movement. They were able to give their global-view insights into what is moving and changing in the church and Christian community throughout the world. Here in the parish we've invited everyone in the congregation to imagine what lies "beyond the black stump". Imagine coming back to this spot at Easter 2022. Who do you see? What are they doing? Where is the church in all this?
And we have begun to see people sketch their visions. Surprisingly enough among the common themes that are emerging - a gathering, a eucharist, a table of sharing - there is the image of the garden, both real and metaphorical, physical and spiritual. Appropriately enough: for the garden may be a 'thin place' where the membrane between this world (material) and the next (spiritual) may be especially permeable - or where the truth of the barrier's non-existence might become real to us.
In his classes as well as perhaps in his books, Donald Nicholl used to say that he would build his ideal community of friends seeking truth around three common elements: a pilgrimage to the site where they would work together, a bell which would draw them together by its sound, and a garden in which they could get in touch with the earth.
As we began envisioning 'the future of social anticipation' at St Albans, Christine Sine encouraged us to think of more than just another community garden - for the church the garden should have a spiritual element, as sometimes a monastic garden has a tree at its center, an apple tree, as a focal point.
(The apples here are just beginning budding, following a late frost.)
What I would like to do now is invite you to look at the church as a sacred garden.
Image: garden.
In the garden are many people digging, loitering, enjoying the sun, awaiting the fruits of their common labors.
In the garden are people praying, as well as people spreading manure, double-digging raised beds, spreading seeds, tending crops, pulling (or hoeing) weeds, ...
And in the garden in the cool of the day walks our Lord, as he walked of old, seeking out the new (renewed) humankind he has brought into being, called by his Word.
+
There is an Australian phrase, "beyond the black stump", meaning "far away". I learned it from Christine Sine: she and her husband Tom were presenters at the Black Stump Festival last October in the Sydney area. The festival is part of the 'emerging church' movement. They were able to give their global-view insights into what is moving and changing in the church and Christian community throughout the world. Here in the parish we've invited everyone in the congregation to imagine what lies "beyond the black stump". Imagine coming back to this spot at Easter 2022. Who do you see? What are they doing? Where is the church in all this?
And we have begun to see people sketch their visions. Surprisingly enough among the common themes that are emerging - a gathering, a eucharist, a table of sharing - there is the image of the garden, both real and metaphorical, physical and spiritual. Appropriately enough: for the garden may be a 'thin place' where the membrane between this world (material) and the next (spiritual) may be especially permeable - or where the truth of the barrier's non-existence might become real to us.
In his classes as well as perhaps in his books, Donald Nicholl used to say that he would build his ideal community of friends seeking truth around three common elements: a pilgrimage to the site where they would work together, a bell which would draw them together by its sound, and a garden in which they could get in touch with the earth.
As we began envisioning 'the future of social anticipation' at St Albans, Christine Sine encouraged us to think of more than just another community garden - for the church the garden should have a spiritual element, as sometimes a monastic garden has a tree at its center, an apple tree, as a focal point.
(The apples here are just beginning budding, following a late frost.)
What I would like to do now is invite you to look at the church as a sacred garden.
Image: garden.
In the garden are many people digging, loitering, enjoying the sun, awaiting the fruits of their common labors.
In the garden are people praying, as well as people spreading manure, double-digging raised beds, spreading seeds, tending crops, pulling (or hoeing) weeds, ...
And in the garden in the cool of the day walks our Lord, as he walked of old, seeking out the new (renewed) humankind he has brought into being, called by his Word.
+
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Highway and the Future
Herbert O'Driscoll sent me a couple of email messages last winter that are very relevant to this Easter Season:
THE HIGHWAY OF CHRISTIAN TIME
We Christians of the late 20th and early 21st century have not only begun to go on many pilgrimages. We have also begun to travel a great deal in time. Past chapters of Christian spirituality fascinate us. One of these chapters - or ways - of Christian experience is what we have come to call Celtic Christianity.
It is always important to ask why a period of the past begins to haunt us in the present. To ask that question is to realize that it is because in some sense, unrealized until now, that past period speaks to our present experience.
Frederick Turner on the Faculty of the University of Texas said something I believe to be deeply true. "Sometimes", he said, "the present can free us from the shackles of the past and help us to build the future. But it is equally true that sometimes the past can free us from the shackles of the present and help us to form the future".
This is the reason for us spending some time together exploring the past, but doing so to open for ourselves some gates to the future. To stand at any point on the great highway of Christian experience is to see it emerge from the mists of the past and to disappear into the mists of the future. The point at which we ourselves stand on this highway is the place of our vocation.
(4 DEC 2009)
TWO WORDS FOR THE FUTURE
Jurgen Moltmann once wrote something I never forgot. He said that we have almost forgotten that in Latin there are two words for the future. One is Futurum. Futurum, he said, is the future we see stretching out in front us by our brainstorming, trend spotting, number crunching etc. It comes from OUR wrestling, He calls this the FUTURE OF SOCIAL CALCULATION.
But, he says, there's another future that comes towards us from beyond us, over which we have no control. We can't fashion its outline or calculate it. We grapple with this future by asking a question. "What kind of X (parish...diocese...state...country...family etc etc) would we like to have in (fill in a date). In other words we in a sense "dream" this future.
Moltmann says that this dreaming can be very powerful. When a society starts dreaming of a different future to what it now has, it can produce tremendous energy. Sometimes all the tanks in the world can't stop it. Walls can tumble. He calls this future THE FUTURE OF ETHICAL ANTICIPATION.
He then says that each is incomplete with out the other. Both are needed for future planning.
Cheers
H.
(23 NOV 2009)
+
THE HIGHWAY OF CHRISTIAN TIME
We Christians of the late 20th and early 21st century have not only begun to go on many pilgrimages. We have also begun to travel a great deal in time. Past chapters of Christian spirituality fascinate us. One of these chapters - or ways - of Christian experience is what we have come to call Celtic Christianity.
It is always important to ask why a period of the past begins to haunt us in the present. To ask that question is to realize that it is because in some sense, unrealized until now, that past period speaks to our present experience.
Frederick Turner on the Faculty of the University of Texas said something I believe to be deeply true. "Sometimes", he said, "the present can free us from the shackles of the past and help us to build the future. But it is equally true that sometimes the past can free us from the shackles of the present and help us to form the future".
This is the reason for us spending some time together exploring the past, but doing so to open for ourselves some gates to the future. To stand at any point on the great highway of Christian experience is to see it emerge from the mists of the past and to disappear into the mists of the future. The point at which we ourselves stand on this highway is the place of our vocation.
(4 DEC 2009)
TWO WORDS FOR THE FUTURE
Jurgen Moltmann once wrote something I never forgot. He said that we have almost forgotten that in Latin there are two words for the future. One is Futurum. Futurum, he said, is the future we see stretching out in front us by our brainstorming, trend spotting, number crunching etc. It comes from OUR wrestling, He calls this the FUTURE OF SOCIAL CALCULATION.
But, he says, there's another future that comes towards us from beyond us, over which we have no control. We can't fashion its outline or calculate it. We grapple with this future by asking a question. "What kind of X (parish...diocese...state...country...family etc etc) would we like to have in (fill in a date). In other words we in a sense "dream" this future.
Moltmann says that this dreaming can be very powerful. When a society starts dreaming of a different future to what it now has, it can produce tremendous energy. Sometimes all the tanks in the world can't stop it. Walls can tumble. He calls this future THE FUTURE OF ETHICAL ANTICIPATION.
He then says that each is incomplete with out the other. Both are needed for future planning.
Cheers
H.
(23 NOV 2009)
+
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
children of the day
O GOD,
who has made us the creatures of time,
so that every tomorrow is an unknown country,
and every decision a venture of faith,
Grant us,
frail children of the day,
who are blind to the future,
to move toward it with a sure confidence
in your love,
from which neither life nor death can separate us.
Reinhold Niebuhr.
+
who has made us the creatures of time,
so that every tomorrow is an unknown country,
and every decision a venture of faith,
Grant us,
frail children of the day,
who are blind to the future,
to move toward it with a sure confidence
in your love,
from which neither life nor death can separate us.
Reinhold Niebuhr.
+
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)