Dog

It’s a little sentimental, but if you have a dog, you’ll understand. If you have a dog like Honey, you’ll really understand. Things in nature that make me believe in God: Essay 1 – The loyalty and love of a dog.

Why We Love Camp or Liminality in the Christian Experience

When I was in high school and college I worked most summers up at Northern Grace Youth Camp. I have often thought about this experience – the most rewarding experiences in my walk as a christian happened here. There are three reasons why:

1. We were trusted to be in charge. A bunch of 16 year-olds were the “middle managers” as camp counselors eating, sleeping and leading a cabin full of kids for a week. And the Program Staff? A bunch of 20 year-olds. But the camp experience (at least at NGYC) was not your standard TV summer camp fare. We were there to help the campers (and each other) experience God and we were improvising most of the time. We put ourselves into mentoring and leadership positions grappling with the toughest questions human beings ask themselves: who is God? how can I know God? why is my purpose? who am i?
2. We were separated from the rest of the world. No TV, no phones, no computers. Just a rustic camp in the middle of the woods near a small town with a laundry mat. Things have changed a lot since my time working there – the staff bring their laptops and their cellphones, but a lot of that physical separation remains in place. And for the campers it becomes an extremely rare moment of intimacy with other people without the trappings of the 21st century.
3. Movement and mission. Camp is all about action. Apart from the structure of a normal day you find that you are engaged in the sorts of meaningful activities that are a lot more difficult outside that setting. Playing, eating, talking… it’s all infused with an overarching Purpose: sharing God with each other. Sharing our knowledge and our experience and our frustrations and hopes.

Now that my camp days are, for the most part, behind me, I find myself thinking about that place and those times and why it worked then and how can it work here and now? As I’m reading The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch a concept really jumps out and hits me in the face: Liminality. The idea of the Outsider or the Threshold or the Fringe. Hirsch says this:

[the missional church calls people] out of a religion of quiet moments in quiet places or passive entertainment and into liminality and engagement.

Our faith, when practised on the Fringe of culture, becomes much more meaningful. If camp had cable TV and video games and internet stations where people could check their email… well that’s just like Here. We loved camp because it pushed us to the very boundaries of what we knew – and that’s where we engaged with God. When we’re pushed to the margins, when we live in liminal space, that’s when we really learn to rely on God. This is what missionaries all over the world experience and I believe this is the key to how we must practise our faith in America. But it’s also the thing I fear. I like being safe and comfortable. I like my regular paycheck, I even like McDonald’s every once in awhile. But how else can we shake off the albatross of christendom in a post-christian society? What else can spur the sleepy church into movement?

Echo Base Collective

We like the city – it’s a great place to ride your bike around. Unfortunately I do not have a bike, as it was stolen days after we moved into Walker’s Point. It was green with a speedometer. Sometimes I think I see my bike.

Enter Echo Base Collective, a Walker’s Point-based bike collective which was recently shut down by the city for various violations. It’s a nice idea, but the whole “neighbors complaining” thing could have been dealt with via a little guerrilla marketing and community PR – even just handing out fliers door-to-door. What is a Bike Collective? Well, generally a non-profit bike shop. Read more at bikecollectives.org!

Interactive Walmart Growth Map

The year was 1986. The place: Lake Geneva. Watch Walmart infest the U.S. with low prices!

[via lauren]

Riceboy Sleeps

Some cool art from Riceboy Sleeps. His (her? their?) official website. I like the rough, hand sketchy images paired with the weathered frames. A lot of visual texture.