.... in San Francisco!
...and, yes, we will leave our hearts here!
(cheese, anyone?)
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
a new video- take a minute and check us out!
We have an amazing intern with techie video making talents! Check out our new Flats video....
Thursday, July 15, 2010
thoughts from afar ...
This post is written from the faraway land of San Francisco. (not San Fran or Frisco; SF is the common abbreviation among locals!) We're loving it out here! And although we didn't take the photo above, we've been taking tons of photos of the local urban landscape.
It's a lot like Vancouver in that the neighborhoods are so inviting, so comprehensive, and so unique. Both Bren and I love the lifestyle afforded by these cities. Where we live, its hard to envsion not owning a car, and the big box store is almost unavoidable, at least some of the time. Particularly in our own neighborhood, there simply isn't anywhere to walk for groceries or fresh produce.
To make the most of the nearby shops, we picked up fruit and veggies from one, cheese and bread from others, and are packing snacks to reduce the cost of eating out. (one restaurant meal per day!) But actually, its not as much about the budget as about being a great way to snack! Yesterday, we ate our little picnic in the Panhandle near Haight and Ashbury. It was quite lovely - we spent the entire day on foot. It was great until the 30 minute trek home - one of our kids looked up the steep hill we had to climb and said 'can't we just take a bus the rest of the way?' .. but the homemade borscht and fresh bread that we knew were waiting kept us moving! (Our hosts are AMAZING - we'll miss them when we check into a hotel in a couple of days!)
Here are a couple of early holiday shots - maybe some SF pics soon....
We travelled part of the way to Calgary (where we flew from) with my good friend pictured here. She'd been in Manitoba racing in a Triathlon with another friend. I am so proud of her and inspired! It was great to visit -even if too brief!
When we arrived in Swift Current after the first leg of our journey, I was full of energy! I invited the kids to explore, go for a walk, go for a swim, take in the sites...
they stayed in these positions and just grunted in my direction :)
But their dad was adventurous enough to go searching for a Shoppers Drug Mart, where we picked up yogurt and cereal for our supper (staying on the meal budget!) and a couple of forgotten travel items. And later we did swim in the hotel pool! (Our super-secret mystery hotel booked on Travelocity was the ThriftLodge!)
Thursday, July 8, 2010
culture making - more of this, less of that...
It's awkward to call the discussions we've been having around Flatlanders lately 'forming' ones, since the community has been around for a while. Yet, the leadership group that are moving in this fall is untested together, and so we are forming. We are sorting out how to get what we believe in our head to make sense on our doorstep and in our relationships.
We recognize that we want to be intentional about creating a certain culture... here are some snippets of Monday night conversations in the last few months.
- a culture of participation/engagement - it might seem like a no brainer - people choosing to live in community are generally participators - but still, we know that we need to focus on this. Sometimes it seems like sustainability is at odds with engagement.
- a culture of teachability and learning, vulnerability - If you've already got it all figured out and you just want to convert everyone to your ideas, its bad news for life together! Its amazing to learn from each other, to take situations apart together and wonder 'what can we learn?'
- a culture of sustainable ministry - A decade of inner city experience has taught me that there is a lot of come and go in this work. I've seen intense passion replaced by intense resignation over the course of one summer - often! We expect change and are discouraged and frustrated when it looks like nothing is any different. For our team to be able to make a long term commitment requires a really good, hard look at what we believe about our purpose here, and a lot of honesty about expectations. Working that out is a long, long process - at least it has been for me.
- a culture of extravagant love and acceptance. - Unconditional love is always our aim. We don't assume that people should change - we love folks right where they are at. The difficulty we often wrestle with is that living at Flatlanders is conditional - and sometimes our friends get mixed up between unconditional love and conditional residency. That is really hard. Really, really hard.
- a culture of joy and celebration- Our wednesday night potluck has a birthday, sendoff, or other celebration about once/month. These are times to honor, encourage, and acknowledge one another. They are beautiful and usually full of stories and laughter.
- a culture of generosity - if we got it, we share it! Bread, eggs, meals, resources, cars, rides, smokes, spare change, bus tickets... all are regularly shared around here!
- a culture of discerning, not defaulting - you know the familiar patterns ... defend, self protect, blame, shift priority, (known to Bowenian therapists as triangling...) we really want to hold eachother accountable to this practice of figuring out our ruts and learning our way to better, discerning habits.
- Faithfulness over effectiveness - have you noticed how committed to SUCCESS our society is? I have been a victim and practitioner of the effective, efficient, goal focused model most of my life. I doubt I'll ever be totally free of it... BUT - I am (finally?) learning that faithfulness is what we're called to - not effectiveness. And an extreme commitment to effectiveness compromises faithfulness. (I think this is an idea I started to think about from Stanley Hauerwas)
- Hospitality over charity - North Americans are known as the most charitable people in the world. Hooray for us! But hold up - if we really evaluate 'charity', can we admit that its often a substitute for engagement? Can we observe that we have lost a lot of face to face caring, a lot of relational possibilities? That we've become charitable at the expense of hospitality? Can we look really close up and see that often we're paying people (or the government is using our tax dollars) to do what should just be inherent in community? Can we commit to spending the time and investing the energy to be part of lives instead of expecting the system to solve people problems?
- Genuine community over pseudo community - pseudo community is so easy. Its nicey, nicey. It would be so great if it weren't so empty. This new team seems really committed to doing the hard and beautiful work of genuine community making.
We recognize that we want to be intentional about creating a certain culture... here are some snippets of Monday night conversations in the last few months.
- a culture of participation/engagement - it might seem like a no brainer - people choosing to live in community are generally participators - but still, we know that we need to focus on this. Sometimes it seems like sustainability is at odds with engagement.
- a culture of teachability and learning, vulnerability - If you've already got it all figured out and you just want to convert everyone to your ideas, its bad news for life together! Its amazing to learn from each other, to take situations apart together and wonder 'what can we learn?'
- a culture of sustainable ministry - A decade of inner city experience has taught me that there is a lot of come and go in this work. I've seen intense passion replaced by intense resignation over the course of one summer - often! We expect change and are discouraged and frustrated when it looks like nothing is any different. For our team to be able to make a long term commitment requires a really good, hard look at what we believe about our purpose here, and a lot of honesty about expectations. Working that out is a long, long process - at least it has been for me.
- a culture of extravagant love and acceptance. - Unconditional love is always our aim. We don't assume that people should change - we love folks right where they are at. The difficulty we often wrestle with is that living at Flatlanders is conditional - and sometimes our friends get mixed up between unconditional love and conditional residency. That is really hard. Really, really hard.
- a culture of joy and celebration- Our wednesday night potluck has a birthday, sendoff, or other celebration about once/month. These are times to honor, encourage, and acknowledge one another. They are beautiful and usually full of stories and laughter.
- a culture of generosity - if we got it, we share it! Bread, eggs, meals, resources, cars, rides, smokes, spare change, bus tickets... all are regularly shared around here!
- a culture of discerning, not defaulting - you know the familiar patterns ... defend, self protect, blame, shift priority, (known to Bowenian therapists as triangling...) we really want to hold eachother accountable to this practice of figuring out our ruts and learning our way to better, discerning habits.
- Faithfulness over effectiveness - have you noticed how committed to SUCCESS our society is? I have been a victim and practitioner of the effective, efficient, goal focused model most of my life. I doubt I'll ever be totally free of it... BUT - I am (finally?) learning that faithfulness is what we're called to - not effectiveness. And an extreme commitment to effectiveness compromises faithfulness. (I think this is an idea I started to think about from Stanley Hauerwas)
- Hospitality over charity - North Americans are known as the most charitable people in the world. Hooray for us! But hold up - if we really evaluate 'charity', can we admit that its often a substitute for engagement? Can we observe that we have lost a lot of face to face caring, a lot of relational possibilities? That we've become charitable at the expense of hospitality? Can we look really close up and see that often we're paying people (or the government is using our tax dollars) to do what should just be inherent in community? Can we commit to spending the time and investing the energy to be part of lives instead of expecting the system to solve people problems?
- Genuine community over pseudo community - pseudo community is so easy. Its nicey, nicey. It would be so great if it weren't so empty. This new team seems really committed to doing the hard and beautiful work of genuine community making.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
the sacred fire still burns
I had some really neat experiences, because I attended both days with different Residential School survivors. Some walked down to the Statement Gathering location and made statements. I was blown away by the sensitivity and priority that was shown to the survivors throughout the whole event. As the emotional support staff were leading one of my friends to the room with the audio recording equipment, he pointed to me and said 'Her - she can come. She knows me better.' What an honor! Over the course of time, my friend and I have had many conversations about his experiences in residential school, and then experiences at all the other institutions that followed.... A certain residential school story about two siblings (a boy and a girl) who came to his school is so revealing. The pair knew that they were not allowed to speak or interact, but they were seen whispering on the play ground. They were strapped and then not seen for days. After a while, they were found in the woods, dead from wounds received at the hands of overzealous disciplinarians.Stories like this are horrible enough when they are removed and impersonal - somehow its different when your friend is telling you about his experience of it. Yes, this all really happened in Canada. This particular story was right in Manitoba. And it happened sometime in the early 1970's. For real.
I was shocked to learn during the event that the mortality rate at residential schools was 24% overall. One BC school I read about had a 50% mortality rate. Half the kids who attended that school died. Brings new meaning to the term 'survivor', doesn't it? We are accustomed to those kind of third world stats, but these things happened right in our homeland .. you know, the True North - Strong and Free.
I have always been angry about the apathy and complacency of many in the Canadian church about our history. Now, I feel ready to be more ACTIVE. Of course, I want to remember that most of all, I am a worshipper and follower of Jesus - not an activist. Somewhere, I saw these piercing words - 'there is no one so blind as the one who REFUSES to see.' Sounds like something Jesus would say - it was certainly revealed through stories about his life.
During the TRC event, I was part of another event with some leaders from a Vineyard church in South Africa .. in Soweto, to be exact. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission originated in South Africa - Canada is following in their footsteps in this pursuit of genuine restoration. It was interesting to hear our South African guests talk about the unbelieving and indignant responses of Canadian visitors when confronted with past and present Apartheid realities, while not paying any attention to the First Nations situation 'back home'. They revealed that they had no qualms about pointing out the inconsistency, fairly begging Canadians to open their eyes.
We went to a rainy early morning ceremony one day. I was moved by the drummers from the four corners of the earth standing together - Red, Yellow, Black, and White - playing first in turn and then in unison.
I see the legacy of Canada's Residential School policy outside my door each and every day. Today, I walked down Main St. and saw one of our friends standing in the middle of the busy street, with traffic passing by and honking on each side of him. Drivers were yelling, swearing. He just refused to move. He just stubbornly stood there, solvent rag in hand. In light of my reflections on the TRC, I read his posture and expression to be saying.. 'Notice me. See me. STOP. THINK. Pay attention, I'm angry, hurting, and not going away.' I wished I wasn't the only person on the curb shouting above the traffic for him to get off the road and care about himself. Later that day, he stopped by and gave me a funny little gift. I hung it on my wall to help me remember to pray for him.
Last night, our doorbell rang. A young street worker was there, I hadn't met her before. She had heard that we have beds here, and wondered if she could stay the night. When we asked how long she wanted to stay, she drunkenly said .. 'forever'. Instead, we took her down to a shelter, but invited her to get to know us and come by for visits and coffee. I got to hear some of her story - starting to use crack at age 11, being in care all her life, not knowing how to stop using and start facing.... two days, two tragic stories. There are resilience stories too - I pray for more and more of those.
Genuine reconciliation requires that we face our denial, and that we do away with the blame game. It requires participation from those who have been offended and those who have offended. It requires eyes that see.
That fire pictured at the top of this post burned day and night throughout the entire Winnipeg TRC event. My prayer is that a sacred flame will stay lit as Canadians and Jesus followers recognize their role in genuine reconciliation. My prayer is that it will burn strong and bright as we all realize its not too late. May we realize that Aboriginal leaders are our nations most important 'natural resource'.
* my lovely friend Jess, whose sensitivity I have experienced first-hand, reflects with great insight here
* I introduced myself to Dora Dueck at the event. She did quite a lot of reflecting on her experience there, too. Read one of her posts here.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
more valid ...
Do you ever feel totally 'invalid' as a person? Like you mess up more than you contribute, like you're always having things to apologize for and you're always dropping the ball somewhere?
I feel like that alot!
I had one of those mornings where you wake up and just know in your gut that your alarm hasn't gone off and you're late. I teach aerobics on Tuesdays at 6:15am and my last task last night was to double check the alarm, but for whatever reason it didn't ring today. I opened my eyes and thought ... 'its way too light to be earlier than 5:15!'.. then the mad scramble to get in touch with someone and tell them the 'leader' is not going to make it. Not the greatest start to the day!
i chatted with a beautiful friend yesterday, and she was talking about how church sermons so often leave us feeling like Losers - we should be doing more, we should be more mature, we're not using our gifts... blah blah blah. I don't know if I've heard a lot of sermons like that lately, but I do know that I don't need a sermon to feel like that. It's my default mode. it's ever present. I don't need an external voice saying those things; my inner dialogue says them all the time.
The two of us wished for more 'celebratory' conversations and messages. Not an absence of challenge, but an increase of joy and rejoicing over the great things that happen in daily life and relationship.
(Incidentally, I stumbled upon a new blog recently. The author has a campaign called I AM ENOUGH. It's pretty cool.)
I did haul my sorry self out of bed shortly after I realized that I wasn't going to get where I was supposed to be. I decided to go for a walk - not a run like I often do, but a nice, leisurely, prayer-y WALK. I was gone for over an hour! As soon as I stepped out, I knew I made the right choice.
I cleared my head of all the noise. I heard the traffic, smelled the morning, felt the green of summer, and tasted broken but beautiful joy. Somewhere on a walking path in Point Douglas, I stopped feeling like a loser and started to feel celebratory and blessed. As I was 'rounding the corner to our building, one of our neighbors came out. Our chat went like this...
him - 'What are you doing out alone?!'
me - 'walking.'
him - 'I've told you before - I don't like you going for your walks/runs alone all the time. You could get hurt'
me - 'thanks for caring.'
him - 'We got some extra food from the food bank over at our place. No one can use it. You guys want it?'
me - 'sure.'
him - 'k, see ya later, I'll bring it to the drop in.'
a pretty simple exchange. But one that reminded me that I'm known in my neighborhood. And the caring for and supporting is not only going from me/us to them.. It's two way. Thats is a beautiful ... maybe even VALID - thing in my book.
thanks for reading.
Here is a photo I took today - I came upstairs to find one of our 'roomies' napping on the couch. I couldn't resist the opportunity...
I feel like that alot!
I had one of those mornings where you wake up and just know in your gut that your alarm hasn't gone off and you're late. I teach aerobics on Tuesdays at 6:15am and my last task last night was to double check the alarm, but for whatever reason it didn't ring today. I opened my eyes and thought ... 'its way too light to be earlier than 5:15!'.. then the mad scramble to get in touch with someone and tell them the 'leader' is not going to make it. Not the greatest start to the day!
i chatted with a beautiful friend yesterday, and she was talking about how church sermons so often leave us feeling like Losers - we should be doing more, we should be more mature, we're not using our gifts... blah blah blah. I don't know if I've heard a lot of sermons like that lately, but I do know that I don't need a sermon to feel like that. It's my default mode. it's ever present. I don't need an external voice saying those things; my inner dialogue says them all the time.
The two of us wished for more 'celebratory' conversations and messages. Not an absence of challenge, but an increase of joy and rejoicing over the great things that happen in daily life and relationship.
(Incidentally, I stumbled upon a new blog recently. The author has a campaign called I AM ENOUGH. It's pretty cool.)
I did haul my sorry self out of bed shortly after I realized that I wasn't going to get where I was supposed to be. I decided to go for a walk - not a run like I often do, but a nice, leisurely, prayer-y WALK. I was gone for over an hour! As soon as I stepped out, I knew I made the right choice.
I cleared my head of all the noise. I heard the traffic, smelled the morning, felt the green of summer, and tasted broken but beautiful joy. Somewhere on a walking path in Point Douglas, I stopped feeling like a loser and started to feel celebratory and blessed. As I was 'rounding the corner to our building, one of our neighbors came out. Our chat went like this...
him - 'What are you doing out alone?!'
me - 'walking.'
him - 'I've told you before - I don't like you going for your walks/runs alone all the time. You could get hurt'
me - 'thanks for caring.'
him - 'We got some extra food from the food bank over at our place. No one can use it. You guys want it?'
me - 'sure.'
him - 'k, see ya later, I'll bring it to the drop in.'
a pretty simple exchange. But one that reminded me that I'm known in my neighborhood. And the caring for and supporting is not only going from me/us to them.. It's two way. Thats is a beautiful ... maybe even VALID - thing in my book.
thanks for reading.
Here is a photo I took today - I came upstairs to find one of our 'roomies' napping on the couch. I couldn't resist the opportunity...
Saturday, June 12, 2010
If you live in Winnipeg...
You need to check out the forks later this week! The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is putting on their first event in our city. There is much to absorb and learn, and the fact that this event crisscrosses the 'Forgiven' Summit that I posted about yesterday is meaningful.. things are happening in our country! It's exciting. It seems to me like an answer to many prayers, much weeping, and a lot of desperate crying out to God.
There will be events, storytellers, powwows, music, listening, and lots more from Wed-Sat. Check out the website here.
i've just printed off the daily programs and highlighted the things I don't want to miss. I have the advantage of being a 10 minute bike ride away, so hopefully I can take in lots of things. No one in the Winnipeg area should miss the opportuntiy to engage at least once over the 4 days!
On Wed. night, the music lineup includes Blue Rodeo - hopefully we'll be heading over there after the Bean Gallery Coffee House/House Concert!
I'm going to try and be there each day for the 9am drumming - I have come to adore ceremonial drumming since WCV's What Love Does conference in October. Also, at 2pm each day, there is a 'releasing tears prayer' in the Oodena Circle. I'm hoping to make it at least a couple of times. There is an academic conference on Thursday; Prairie Perspectives on Residential Schools. The interfaith tent has a discussion about Traditional Spiritualities in conversation with Christianity on Thursday at 10:45.
Maybe I'll even take in a sash making workshop one afternoon!
There will be events, storytellers, powwows, music, listening, and lots more from Wed-Sat. Check out the website here.
i've just printed off the daily programs and highlighted the things I don't want to miss. I have the advantage of being a 10 minute bike ride away, so hopefully I can take in lots of things. No one in the Winnipeg area should miss the opportuntiy to engage at least once over the 4 days!
On Wed. night, the music lineup includes Blue Rodeo - hopefully we'll be heading over there after the Bean Gallery Coffee House/House Concert!
I'm going to try and be there each day for the 9am drumming - I have come to adore ceremonial drumming since WCV's What Love Does conference in October. Also, at 2pm each day, there is a 'releasing tears prayer' in the Oodena Circle. I'm hoping to make it at least a couple of times. There is an academic conference on Thursday; Prairie Perspectives on Residential Schools. The interfaith tent has a discussion about Traditional Spiritualities in conversation with Christianity on Thursday at 10:45.
Maybe I'll even take in a sash making workshop one afternoon!
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