On Thursday, we decided it would be best to leave the Twin Cities. But before we took off, it was time for one more emergent excursion. We headed down to Solomon's Porch for a "cohort." These are the daily breaths of the whole emergent movement. It's basically a semi-informal gathering of "friends of emergent" to discuss life and faith. This particular week, Mark Scandrette, author of Soul Grafitti was in town from San Fran. Mark is the founder of a community known as Seven. Mark was introduced as the creator of a community that was one splash SoCal, one splash emergent, one splash neo-monastic. He was also called the "Shane Claiborne of San Francisco." He was there promoting his book and sharing what was going on with Seven. He shared some interesting ideas about orthodoxy and orthopraxy. For Mark, there is an imposed distinction between the two, when really orthopraxy is an expression of an orthodox faith. I enjoyed entering this conversation. It tied in very well with our discussion of James here in Warrensburg.
Spending time in the midst of emergent, I found it interesting how little I tended to disagree. I had feared that "heresy" might run rampant in these men's lives. After all, the "orthodox," "authoritative" and "biblically-based" branches of Christianity tend to condemn these guys straight to hell. It was shocking how, though I'm sure there were aspects of their faith I disagree with, their beliefs (and by their own understandings)and their entire lives were defined by their faith in Christ and their hope in the coming of the Kingdom, the "good dreams of the Creator." These men lived in ways that were undeniably marked by a faith in Jesus and a genuine love for all people.
In fact, the only "heretical" thing I heard wasn't even from these men. At the cohort, one guy suggested that Jesus and Buddha are both ways to the same place. I'm not entirely sure whether some of the emergents agreed or disagreed with this guy's logic, but it did seem to me like the air was sucked out of the room. No one attacked the man for saying so, and no one blatantly agreed. While this might signal something bad about emergent as a movement, I think it also signified a refusal to dictate and debate what is "right" and the "only appropriate" way to believe in God. Some might say that this is a weakness of the movement, to not stand up for orthodoxy, and maybe it is. But I know I could stand to learn something about tolerance from these men.
After the cohort, we headed back for Kansas City. We made it back safely after about 7 hours. We stayed the night with Hilary's folks, and on Saturday, I got my taxes filed. Then, on our way back to the 'Burg, we picked up the guinea pigs. It was wonderful to have them back, and Stephanie did a fantastic job of taking care of them. However, she told us that Darbi was eating Obi's hair, and after referencing the book, we discovered that such behavior is very bad. It means they are too crowded and Darbi is essentially beating Obi into submission. So, tomorrow, we'll be getting another cage and unfortunately housing them separately from now on. Hilary was very sad to face these facts, but we just want healthy, happy goonies.
Today, we almost finished the guest list for the wedding. I'll be glad when all this planning stuff is over. Good golly. It's booooring. But hey, it won't be any fun if nobody shows up. What are you gonna do, right?
Well, Hilary and I are watching Hannibal, so I better go.
Peace.
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