California Cricket

After living 37 years in California never once seeing cricket, hearing about it, or in fact even knowing it existed, I have within one week of being back played a match! A couple of days after arriving here in SoCal, I went to the Indian store to get some spices for dinner. Knowing that cricket is a very popular sport in India I asked the owners if they knew anywhere I could find out about cricket leagues. They took my phone number and a guy called me that evening. Awesome.

Two days later I am at Starbucks getting a horrible cup of coffee, and I see two guys that appear ready to go to some athletic event or another and read USA Cricket on one of the guys jumper. I asked the two of them about cricket and got another number.

The first gentleman I talked to said they had a game on Sunday (today) and that I could probably play, woo hoo. So this morning after considerable hassle I wound up in Fontana, the last place you would expect cricket to be played, and played my first game of cricket in America. The ground was one of the best grounds I have played on, it was a turf wicket, with short boundries square of the wicket, but the pitch was great. The ground was owned by a doctor that bought the property and mantained the ground as a way to teach cricket to his sons and a host of other young people in the area. It was a great day.

I batted at number six, and was part of a good partnership. I turned over the strike but didn't score that many runs. When we were told to pick up the pace I played and missed a few times to some pretty good balls. Then I walked down the pitch and launched the bowler way way over mid on for the first six of my life. It was awesome.

When I bowled I took the wickets of their two best batsman in consecutive balls, and was feeling pretty special looking at a hat trick. The hat trick ball turned nicely and missed the edge by a few centimetres. But all in all it was a great day. Our side won, but it was a fun game. How great it was to get to play cricket. I might stay in the country for a while :)

rev

Three meetings

About a week before I left Melbourne I had three meetings in the same day. The three people that I met with were all on different parts of their journey towards the kingdom, and it was really quite inspiring to get to see them in such close proximity.

The first was a young lady who is in a very transitional phase of her life. She had begun to question things in her life, and in looking for some spiritual truth had found Jesus' teachings really resonated with her. But she couldn't really reconcile the radical love and subversive message of Jesus with the churches she had seen. But for some reason she had seen my blog and thought I seemed to be wrestling with these inconsistancies myself and got in touch. We talked about things for a couple of hours. I have introduced her to our community and it looks like she might be dipping her toe into some of the practices of the group.

The second was a good friend from way back, who is very insightful, but doesn't see anything very particularly inspiring in the Christendom camp. But we talked about him realizing that consumerism just keeps growing and mutating into a beast that we have long since lost control of, and he expressed his desire to try and walk free from this. I shared with him some of my own issues with this, and my understanding of Jesus' teachings on money and the kingdom. It was a great time.

The third was a regular appointment with one of my dear friends that has been walking out this journey for a number of years now. He is completely committed to living in a prophetic community, rejecting the consumerist ethic. He is part of a community deeply committed to social justice, housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, advocating for the stranger. He is learning to be disciplined in worship, and deepening his spiritual practice. And he is still very keen and excited about the kingdom.

I am grateful to be in someway part of these conversations. I believe the kingdom of God that Jesus lived, taught, and handed to His disciples is not only where we find our salvation, but where we find the salvation of the entire earth. I am learning more and more that the prayer I want to live out is: May your kingdom come, and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

rev

back in the USA

We arrived back in the states yesterday morning, a full three hours before we left Melbourne. The international date line sure can make everything weird. The flight was good for me, which is unusual, I got some sleep and didn't feel that bad when I got home. But the girls really didn't sleep much on the plane at all. After a very long process of getting our dog winston we went to Raquel's biological fathers house where we will be staying the next week or so. We didn't think we could get through the day without a little nap so we layed down, wound up sleeping for two hours. Then we all went to bed around 10:30 when we were all tired again. And I slept til 9:30 which is unheard of for me, but the girls had to woken up at 11. We went to bed this second day at around 11 hoping to get back on a regular schedule I fell asleep but here I am awake at 2:30 in the morning with no real sign of sleeping again. Isn't jet lag wonderful.

I would just like to say to all of our Australian friends and supporters that the last four years have been the most rewarding and fruitful times of our life. I feel like I have learned heaps, and have grown in many ways, and this is all a result of the amazing people we have been privlidged to journey with the last few years.

It was wonderful to see so many people gather to wish us a farewell. Saturday evening was so special.

The last day with our church communitites was as you would expect all too emotional. There was much weeping, and I literally sobbed when leaving the Cave. But this was just a warm up. A number of the wonderful people from the Cave came to help us finish all of our clean up so we could get our rental bond back, and afterwards the red West crew sat and had a time of sharing, it ended with a whole room full of sobbing the "man sized" tissues Chris purchased came in handy.

The trip to the airport was a bit stressful as it usually is, but in the end we got there on time, all of our luggage was right on the proper weight, and we had an hour to have breakfast with those you accompanied us to the airport. Man, things got really messy when we said goodbye at the airport. This community thing is really hard when you have to leave.

I love all of you who have become a part of our kingdom family, you are all welcome to visit, and we will hopefully be back to visit as well.

rev

Art exhibition

Artists including
John Jensen
will be exhibiting and
selling selected works.
redEMPTION
saturday
march 15th
2008
@ ‘red east'
878 whitehorse
road, box hill
open
5pm to 10pm
official reception
8pm

Wow, lots to talk about

Been a lot of water under the bridge in the last month or so. Will try and share a few stories with you all.

We tried a new thing for Christmas this year, a buy nothing CHristmas. The idea was we would make some stuff for people, but not buy anything from a store. It worked out pretty well, though we did spend a bit anyways.

We made Tamale's for some of our neighbors. This is a Mexican Christmas tradition, and we were missing getting all of those wonderful tamale's from friends back home, we thought we'd try to make our own, and share them. So I made some shredded beef, and some black bean and corn tamales. We had trouble getting the corn leaves so I wrapped them in banana leaves. Well, they turned out great, tasted the way they were supposed to and only took about four times as long to make as I expected and we wound up giving two or three to our friends. :(

But it really helped us to focus on Christmas as a way of sharing our hearts, and lifes and natural rhythm with our friends.

On Christmas day we joined some friend and hosted a lunch at the Cave for those who didn't have someplace else to go. There were about fifty people there. Fifty people that didn't have family to share the holiday with. Again, felt like the right way to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

The radical man who crossed social barriers, ate with whomever he liked, confronted the traditions of the day, and located himself in the margins. It was a beautiful Christmas, and I am very very proud of the team at the Cave that continues to grow in love and care for those society has forgot.

rev

Mr. Wino, and friends

I was sitting in our community gathering this morning, having just finished a wonderful breakfast of toast, eggs, bacon and mushrooms, and as we do each Sunday we began to discuss things that may have had a spiritual impact on our lives the previous week. A young man began to relate to the group an encounter he had with a wino, and the security staff at a night club.

The wino is a well known homeless man in the Melbourne CBD. He has been fall down drunk for most of the time for the last ten or twenty years. He often smells bad, gets in fights, and is always very drunk. My friend from church know him from a few of the social services in town. My friend who we can call Norm, said hello, and a conversation began. One of the bouncers from the club they just happened to be standing in front of walked up, addressed the wino by name, and told him he wasn't allowed to drink around there anymore. Norm's friend began to protest and ask why and apparently mr. wino had caused some problems and tried to assault one of the security staff last week.

So Norm lead mr. wino down a few meters till they were not in front of the venue any longer, and along with his friend, and Norm's girlfriend, continued their conversation. The bouncer came over and started telling them to get the hell out of there, and Norm and his friend started to arch up. Things started to get heated, and it looked like there were going to be blows thrown. Norm's girlfriend, as girlfriends often do, cooled things down and got the boys to take mr. wino down the street.

As they were walking down the street the wino said, "Jesus used to party, we're just having a party just like Jesus" And apparently having been stood up for, cared for, and also being drunk, made mr. wino very emotional, and he asked the guys if they could pray. And so Norm, his girlfriend, another friend and mr wino stood praying in the street. The security and everyone else on the street witnessed three young, apparently normal people group hugging a smelly drunk who had shit his pants. Norm realized something about the kingdom of God there.

Jesus tells this story:

The Sheep and the Goats 31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Now, I am not naive (unless you think all Christians are) I understand that this is a very complex issue. Here is a guy that is socially inappropriate, sometimes dangerous, and will scare off customers. The owner of the establishment can be very clearly concerned about this man's presence. He also basically caused his own state, he did not suffer some horrible tragedy, but drank himself into addiction, and homelessness. Many in Western society would call people like mr wino, the undeserving poor. Most Americans or Aussies actually have some compassion for people that have fallen through the cracks in the system and need some help, but guys like mr wino, deserve to be where they are, because they caused it. Believe me I understand these things, and thoughts.

Alain de Botton points out in status anxiety that we now live in what can be called a meritocracy. You have what you have, or don't have what you don't have because of your merit. For the most part if you are poor it is because you are too lazy, too stupid, or too busy blaming others to really take control of your life. Which makes being in these situations even more shameful than in the past.

But we must remember in Jesus time, and in His audiences culture, they had a similar idea. Only instead of a meritocracy, they had a moralocracy. They believe that you got what you deserved but based on your standing with God, and your righteousness. To this audience, the poor were not poor because they were lazy, they were poor because God did not love them as they were obviously sinners. At one point Jesus' own disciples ask him, why is this man blind, is it because he sinned or his parents sinned?

My point is simple, Jesus words were just as radical in his day as they would seem here. Jesus is saying that The Son of Man, the Messiah, is each one of these people. Is in fact mr. wino. Not the deserving poor, not the noble poor, not the romanticized movie version of the honest hard working poor that had just fallen on hard times, but the cursed of God, sinner, degenerate deserves his or her fate, poor, and imprisoned.

Jesus seems to often explain that it is easy to love the lovable, but we need to love even our enemies. How can we love those that are so far from our natural love? Perhaps it is seeing the almost gone, slowly flickering image of humanity (the echo of God's image) deep in the heart of each and every person, and seeing in that almost quenched flame, the actual fullness of the divine. Norm, was experiencing God's kingdom come, and so was mr. wino! What will you experience over the next few weeks?

rev

Long time no Post (big news!!!)

Many of you already know this I am sure, but for those of you that don't:

We are moving back to the States in April.

I am going to tell you the longer version, in case you want to know what happened, or you can just stop reading now if you get bored easily.

About five months ago I had a dream that our stuff was packed and we were going home. It was very vivid and disturbed me a lot because I did not want to leave, I love it here, and feel things are going very well. This happened during a time when our community was having a few dreams that seemed meaningful for us. The next day my neighbor had the same exact dream, only he was the subject (I don't think he would have told me otherwise). That same day I was told be FORGE that I needed to have a new sponsor for my visa (which we had already talked about and it was a good thing, just weird timing). That same day I found out that we were ineligible to apply for a permanent resident visa. This was a hard day for me, and I cried a lot. The wife and I talked about what that would mean for our girls, and we were not happy. We talked to the girls about it, and they were a bit upset too. The next day some dear friends sat down with me and I shared everything with them. They said this a good question, when are you going home, just don't be in a rush to answer it, let God reveal it to you. I realized I was planning on being here much longer, and had stopped living with my bags packed.

Well we turned in our new application for visa and waited, and waited, and waited. In the meant time we figured out that Adriahna would not be able to go to uni here because we just can't afford over seas student fees. She began making plans to go back to the states and start Uni there, that made us feel a bit icky. We still have not got an answer from the visa office. This made us begin to be very stressed. My wife and a good friend both had the idea that we should not let the government make this decision for us, but should make that decision ourselves. We took a few weeks of holiday time, and on the first day of this time I remembered a scripture verse out of no where.

Genesis 40:32 The reason the dream was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God will do it soon.

So we talked about it a lot, and ultimately decided that we were not really ready to live 6,000 miles away from our daughter, especially when we can't afford to fly there if needed. We also understand that our communities here are very capable, and will continue without us. We also see some opportunities for ministry back home, especially in light of the connections we have made recently. After trying on the decision and feeling it was right, and speaking with our community and some mentors and friends, we have made this our decision. We believe this is the right path, but as usual hold the reigns lightly.

We were also counseled by a good friend that it was time for us to take a sabbatical. After 22 years of ministry, we believe that was also good counsel, so when we arrive in America we will take four months to "sharpen the saw" I will most likely be doing some theological study, and maybe writing a book.

We will struggle deeply with this move, we love our communities here, and we absolutely love this city. We have made many wonderful friends and pray many of you will come visit us. Thanks for your prayers and support over this time.

john

World Car Free Day, please support

http://adbusters.org/blogs/World_Carfree_Day_2007.html

I will not drive, nor ride in an automobile this entire Saturday, but will walk or take the train. Please pass this around and support.

rev

Burma needs your support

Dear friends,

We need your help. Please sign the petition and forward the link to your friends.

Aye Min

http://www.ipetitio ns.com/petition/ CMPP/index. html

rev

Been a lot happening

Well hello friends, it has been a very busy month or so. Just thought I would give you a very brief synopsis:

Ciaron O'Reilly was great, I really enjoyed his time with us. I was quite impressed with his ability to make complex theories very simple, and his working class personality and ethic really was enjoyable. He said a few things that really challenged me, thought I would share them

1. The nature of war now days requires that we show our dissent in different ways. In the very recent past war took an entire nation, with the requirement of large numbers of troops, and therefore a huge base of support also needed back at home. Industry was rejigged, women knitted socks, the population went on rations ect. So if we simply refused to take part in the war, it was actually a very strong dissent. But the way war is waged now a days, the government doesn't need us to help, they just need us to keep living our lives and stay silent. If we just continue to spend and earn, our tax dollars will support the war that is waged with fewer and fewer people, and most horrifically effects a higher and higher percentage of non combatants.

2. The political ethics of the early church were pacifism and anarchy. These are both expressed negatively, one as refusal to use violence, and the other as refusal to oppress or have power over others. Since these are both negatives, rather than positives, they can only be understood practically as questions. In other words, "how do we live non violently, and how do we live without oppressing others?"

I really like that. What I loved the most about Ciaron was his humour and down to earth nature. He did not seem so caught up in the "issues" that he was not in touch with his humanity. We truly enjoyed hanging out, telling stories, and unfortunately mourning a friends passing. Was great to have him with us.

We have also started meeting regularly on Wednesday mornings to network with other radicals in Footscray about ways we can help each other live out this kingdom of God stuff. We also put out a newsletter each week to let people know whats going on. This can be giving away food, organizing for political protest, or finding housing for homeless people. We have had studies on ethical shopping, bible studies on the book of acts and studies on activism and anarchy. This has been a huge source of encouragement for me, and it is great to see so many wonderful people in Footscray trying to live out a world redeemed, and doing it together.

I have been struggling with some health issues, and could use your prayers on that.

Hopefully I will post a bit more, and if any of these subjects particularly interest you, let me know.

rev