When we talk about peacemaking and the ‘third way of Jesus,’ people inevitably ask bizarre situational questions like, ‘If someone broke into your house and was raping your grandmother, what would you do?’

The thing is, I don’t hear the Source of Love calling me to adopt a non-violent strategy for getting by in the world. The call I hear is way simpler, and, in some ways, harder. It’s a call to drop my agenda, to surrender, all the way, to love.

I don’t get to decide whether to get in an airplane and fire a missile intended to destroy people and property in Libya. I don’t get to decide whether to walk with my family to the town square in Benghazi to protest. I don’t get to decide what anybody else should do, only what I will do. And what I will do, when and as I can, is to love.

Sometimes, that love involves action, and sometimes it involves sitting with pain, tears streaming down my face. Sometimes it involves getting in the way of someone who would cause harm, and sometimes it involves not getting in the way. I’m never sure I have found the most loving path. But once each moment passes, I find myself in a new moment, with a new opportunity to love.

Wish the atheists would notice that we don’t believe in that God, either.

Several folks retweeted that, but a few atheists replied, suggesting that it didn’t matter which god I don’t believe in. What matters is that I believe in some god, and so I’m silly. (That’s my approximation of what they were telling me.)

I had pretty long twitter conversation with one person, @straggleyway, who wanted to understand what I meant when I tried to say I really don’t have a definition of God that I believe in. So, I’ve been thinking about it…

I’m really moved by this quote from Temporary Autonomous Zones by Hakim Bey. As weird as it is, this is the kind of Christian I am.

Everything in nature is perfectly real including consciousness, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Not only have the chains of the Law been broken, they never existed; demons never guarded the stars, the Empire never got started, Eros never grew a beard.

No, listen, what happened was this: they lied to you, sold you ideas of good & evil, gave you distrust of your body & shame for your prophethood of chaos, invented words of disgust for your molecular love, mesmerized you with inattention, bored you with civilization & all its usurious emotions.

There is no becoming, no revolution, no struggle, no path; already you’re the monarch of your own skin—your inviolable freedom waits to be completed only by the love of other monarchs: a politics of dream, urgent as the blueness of sky.

Actually, I left off a part that came right before this one, because in the first sentence, he uses the word “god,” which might make it read a little differently… Here’s the earlier bit:

Chaos comes before all principles of order & entropy, it’s neither a god nor a maggot, its idiotic desires encompass & define every possible choreography, all meaningless aethers & phlogistons: its masks are crystallizations of its own facelessness, like clouds.

Chaos. That’s the thing that I call “God”. And when Bey says “it’s neither a god nor a maggot,” that makes perfect sense to me. What I call God is something much bigger than any “god”.

It’s a word I have very mixed feelings about, because of that. We—humans—have used the word “god” (or “God”) for limited beings for as long as we’ve been around. And a few mystics all along have insisted that God isn’t limited…

So, while there’s tension there, I do use the word God for something Bey calls Chaos, something I once called “the Universe” (before that started seeming too small, and words like “omniverse” started seeming more appropriate, and then words seemed to fail completely, leading me back to “God”).

It kinda looks to me like ideas of godness improve when they’re criticized. That is, we come up wtih ideas we like better. That’s really all I got. No certainty, no propositions, no definition. Just the smell of grace around me, an awareness of love, and how it draws me.

Whether you consider yourself a person of faith, a “believer”, an atheist, or whatever, I’m curious. What’s “God” mean to you?

Other people wanted me to understand why they think the creed is a beautiful thing. “It’s poetry,” they told me. “It’s a symbol of our unity.” And “It ties us together through space and time as one body.”

That idea has been snagging for me for a long time. Today, I got clear on why. And as I got clearer, I felt the knot in my throat that forms around it grow harder. I felt the tears it provokes coming closer to the surface.

I am no longer so attached to my beliefs, so I’m not so worried about whether I “believe” it, or whether it’s true in either a literal or a metaphorical sense. I’m not looking for a creed I can recite because it contains my ideas about how God works. That’s not the problem. The problem is that the Nicene Creed is about authoritarian smackdown.

It doesn’t give me a sense of unity nearly as much as it gives me a sense of division. No, to be honest, more like a sense of horror. By reciting that creed, I’d be saying that I stand with the victors of history. What?! That’s not me. That’s not where I stand at all.

I stand, instead, with the folks who were killed for thinking something different. I stand with the unitarians, for whom the idea of a trinity smelled of idolatry. I stand with the folks who said Jesus was a human being, the “adopted” Son of God. I stand with the ones who interpreted talk of “hell” differently from how the powers wanted them to see it.

I stand with the voices who wrestled with this Kingdom that Jesus taught them about. I stand with the ones who wrote the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, of Mary Magdalene, of Judas. I stand with the ones whose writings we will never see, because they were destroyed by the authorities who created the Creed.

I stand with those who question, and I will not recite a creed that’s a monument to violence in the name of God.

I have become attached to my ideas. I have divided people into categories of friend and enemy based on their beliefs. Thinking of the times I’ve placed ideas over people, I notice and reconsider, I turn toward wholeness. Thinking of the times that I have used human power against beautiful, marvelous human beings, I notice and reconsider, and I turn toward light. God of love, hear my prayer.

we add a thread
to the tapestry of reality

what if all those threads of love and grace
become the substance
that makes up
the universe?

What if they become
god?

What if we
are creating
god?

And what if time isn’t linear?
What if we created god
by the choices we made
tomorrow?

What if the god
of our creation
is empowered
by our love
to be more than we can imagine?

What if that
(non-linear)
god
can swoop back around
and scoop us up
and hold us
and teach us
love
and grace?

I’m putting this p.s. at the top… it’s something I forgot to mention when I posted this.

Someone told me recently that he was not doing well, that he was addicted and actively using. He said to me that he wished he were surrounded by the kind of radical acceptance (love) that Tracy & I offer, and that if he were, he knew things would be different. This is one of the things that pushed us toward what you see here.

This is a post about how we are definitely not starting a community church. We are definitely not. More below…

Tracy & I have been away from church for a long time. We have a beautiful little group of friends, a cohort, that meets every week and goes a long way toward keeping us sane. This group is as close to a real church community as Tracy and I have gotten, and we’re grateful. But something’s been nagging at us. We’re finding ourselves pulled toward creating a space — what Anthony Smith has called “kingdom space” — where followers of Christ can…

… encourage each other
… share food with each other
… celebrate the kingdom together, share joy, peace & gratitude
… listen to each other with love
… support each other & share sorrows as well

In other words, to dwell in the kingdom together.

We want a place where we experience the kingdom of God, where we participate in the incarnation of that kingdom. We want a place where we “catch hold of God.”

I want to “see and enter the kingdom of God. I want to be genetically predisposed to lovingkindness. I want to be a beacon of peace to my neighbors.” [Still quoting Anthony Smith. More starting at 40 minute in, in his video from TransForm.]

This started to get scary

So we have been talking and praying and talking and praying, and finally have acknowledged that this pull toward Kingdom Space is real, is a “calling”, and we are gonna have to deal with it. And then we get paniky.

“Where will we find people to help?” and “Where will we meet?” and “What about money?!” No way. Can’t deal with money…

But scary is usually, for me, a sign that I’m not doing the work. Not looking inside for the quiet place, not flowing with the Way of peace.

So Tracy and I talked about it, and we realized that if it’s about pressure, or fear, or even ambition or a desire for more, it’s not what we actually want. So nevermind…

We aren’t going to start a church

Take a mixed up glass jar of muddy water — when you shake it up, it’s swirly, murky, dark. Let it sit for a while, quiet, and it becomes clear. I feel like that jar a lot of times. Like I need to sit until things stop swirling.

So we did that… and guess what? We decided not to start a church.

Starting a church made it seem like our living room wasn’t enough — we’d need to find a space. Starting a church meant that even if we didn’t need music, we really wanted music, and where would we get it? Starting a church meant we needed more than just us, or we’d get burned out.

So we’ve decided not to start a church. Instead, we’re gonna start a church-starting group. Or maybe it’ll be called something else. Maybe a house church.

But whatever it is, our living room is enough. We are enough. And we’ll grow gently, without ambition or worry, as God leads and people show up to do the work.

Our kind of un-church

So here’s the deal. For now, we’re opening up our house for a weekly celebration & gathering. There will be free food and there will be radical love & acceptance and there will be exploration of the kingdom together.

And you are welcome to join us! :)

We haven’t picked a time yet, but are considering Saturday evenings around dinner time. If you want to come, tell us when the best times are for you.

You have probably heard by now that the Radical Love Project isn’t just about service. At the core, it’s about following love wherever it leads us. It’s about holding on for life, even when it’s whipping us around corners or dangling us above deep canyons. It’s about searching, relentlessly examining, to discover how love is possible in every moment, and to find out what it will take, what needs to change inside me for me to be able to choose love. It’s a spiritual practice based on our understanding of the gospel taught by Jesus Christ, and informed by Zen Buddhism and other spiritual discoveries.

We are in the beginning stages of planning a contemplative workshop retreat for September 17-19, 2010. We’ve found a beautiful lodge and nature center in Southern Ohio with room for a dozen participants, and it’s less than two hours’ drive from either Columbus or Cincinnati. Tentatively, we’re calling it “Discovering Love in Your Neighbor and Yourself.”

Talking about it, Tracy and I realized that it’s important to us that this experience be available to all, so we’ve decided to offer the retreat at no charge. We trust that we’ll raise enough money to pay for the space and the food, but there will be room at the table for all comers. (Up to 12, that is.)

Here’s the “paper napkin” description that we’ve come up with, so far, after some dinner discussions and long walks.

Discovering Love in Your Neighbor and Yourself

Is it really possible to love your neighbor as yourself? For that matter, what does it mean to love yourself? What does it mean, “the kingdom of God is within you”?

Using a mixture of meditation, communion, and some short teachings sprinkled in, we’ll explore and experience breathing, listening to ourselves and each other, and finding connections. It’s a weekend to take care of yourself and to be taken care of. To nourish yourself with grace & peace, making space for you to discover a love that’s as powerful as you’ve always dreamed love could be.

Ack! Does that sound like hype? It’s hard to know how talk about something I treasure as much as this, without sounding like I’m making it up.

As it comes together, we’ll create a website with details, our bios and experience, information about the practice of Compassionate Attention, and a page about what it means to offer the retreat at no cost, knowing that our needs will be met by donations freely given. Oh, and a donate button. Definitely. Heh.

“I’m doing what you, I suppose, would call ‘gedo Zen.’”

“Very good! Very good! Many Christians do that. But what precisely do you mean by ‘gedo Zen’?”

“I mean that I am sitting silently in the presence of God without words or thoughts or images or ideas.”

“Your God is everywhere?”
“Yes”

“And you are wrapped around in God?”
“Yes”

“And you experience this?”
“Yes”

“Very good! Very good! Continue this way. Just keep on. And eventually you will find that God will disappear and only Johnston San will remain.”

This remark shocked me. It sounded like a denial of all that I considered sacred, of all that lay at the very center of my so-called Zen. One should not, I suppose, contradict the roshi, but nevertheless I did so. Recalling the teaching of The Cloud that there are mystical moments when self totally disappears and only God remains, I said with a smile, “God will not disappear. But Johnston might well disappear and only God be left.”

“Yes, yes,” he answered smilingly. “It’s the same thing. That is what I mean.”

I thought of this story when someone asked if you had to be atheist to be Zen Buddhist. Instead, I want to let go of theist/atheist, and instead be awake in this reality/world/field-of-love-energy.

After reading Keith DeRose’s post on hell (a guest post on Tony Jones’ BeliefNet blog), I couldn’t stop thinking about Richard Dawkins. Talking with my husband later, I realized why, and how it’s intimately related to the post I wrote recently on not being “post evangelical.”

After reading Keith’s post, I realized that I just had no clue how much healing is involved in being post-evangelical. To grow up really believing that somebody could burn in hell for all eternity because they didn’t jump through the right hoops… ouch.

So I got to be a little less sanctimonious about being a freethinker. That was an improvement. A little healthy remorse.

But then it hit me that there’s more. I got a glimpse into what it must be like for my emergent friends to see old-time Christians bible-thumping. Because when I see Richard Dawkins’ book (The God Delusion), my stomach knots up and I want to vomit, or scream. (I feel like screaming right this moment, as I write this.)

See, he’s my people. I’m way into philosophy and science, and he has written some beautiful things on those topics. He’s popular with my circle, at least the rationalist parts of it. He’s *supposed* to be a good guy.

Let me digress. When I was a little girl, I was completely freaked out by the scientistic worldview, that the universe is a cold, dark place, with no God-love holding it together. Determinism was a literal nightmare. I found the idea of hell silly, but the idea of a god-less, cold universe seemed very plausible, and I was terrified of it. I thought if that were true, I should kill myself. Life became a quest for a reason to live.

Since I know that rationalistic “post-atheists” like me are rare in these circles, I want to be especially clear: I am in tears writing this. I was truly traumatized by this “cold-universe” theory. I spent nights sobbing about it, and years battling depression. I sought after God all along, but sometimes lost hope, especially when all the “smart” people (like Penn Jillette and Richard Dawkins) seemed so sure.

So, while I can work up empathy for almost anyone, I haven’t got there yet with Richard Dawkins. He published a book intended to destroy people’s faith, get people to teach their children about the hell he thinks the universe is. I am so angry. So damned angry.

I write this partly as an apology for not getting how much it sucks to be post-evangelical. And partly, I write it because I know there have to be at least a few people who suffered this other kind of hell as a kid. And I want to say it’s ok, it’s not true, there is a loving force in the universe–a loving God–and you are safe in God’s arms.

I never lied to my kids about Santa. They asked me if Santa was real, and I said Yes! They asked who he was, and I said he was a pretend guy, an idea that inspires us to be kind and generous and give people presents on Christmas. Those kids are grown now, so the subject hasn’t come up for a while.

But we have a new kid now, who’s just four this year. When he announced to me that Santa would be bringing presents and putting them under our tree, I was a bit surprised. (Turns out he learned this from the internet.) Once I recovered from the shock, though, I said “Ok, but since Santa’s pretend, Mama and Papa will have to help.”

You might be noticing here that there’s a similarity between Santa and Jesus. We are his hands and his feet. We are inspired by his model, and his love flows through us. That might be because when I came up with this story, my heart was longing to see Jesus, and couldn’t.

In fact, the other day that same kid asked me “What’s Jesus Christ?” I said he’s my invisible friend. “You know how you have Cubix? Jesus is like that, except I think Jesus is real, and not pretend like Cubix.”

But really, I don’t have a clear idea that Jesus is “real” and Cubix–let alone Santa–is “pretend”. In a sense, they’re all pretend, and in another sense, they’re all real. Each of them has various factors on both sides.

And I enjoy spending hours in contemplation, reading complex theological stuff. But he doesn’t have that to lean on. He just wants a straight answer from me. So the best I could come up with is that Jesus is my real, invisible friend and brother, who I love very much, and he loves me in a way that no other invisible friend does.

The Stories

So here I am, a post-secular-humanist, post-modern follower of Christ, trying to decide what to tell the kids.

Last night (Christmas Eve), the kids stayed at home while we attended a beautiful service. We listened to stories about how Jesus was born in Bethlehem (which I understand is almost certainly not true) of a virgin (questionable) under a moving star (nonsensical!). We talked about the old-fashioned (that is, “modern”) stories instead of talking about the real beauty, from my perspective, which is God’s light coming into the world to heal us.

I don’t oppose myth and metaphor; I just don’t find the old ones encouraging anymore. They don’t help me connect to God.

I know this sounds crazy. Maybe unchristian. This is part of what I meant when I talked recently about what it’s like to be coming to Christianity from the outside. It makes sense to me that someone who grew up with these myths might want to relive them, and squeeze out every drop of metaphor. But the stories don’t speak to me, and they don’t speak to my kids.

The older ones are simply uninterested in Christian mythology, and can’t see what looks to me like the truth of Jesus Christ because of that. The younger one? Well, I could bring him to Sunday school, but I won’t lie to him about Jesus any more than I will lie to him about Santa. He lived, he brought us love, he was killed for his beautiful message. He lives today, in our hearts, and God is with us always. Where can I find a Sunday school that will teach him that?

Emergent Christianity is amazing and wonderful–it allowed me to come in. I was a non-Christian for my whole life, doing my best to follow God without Jesus’ help. Why? Because Christianity appeared completely insane. (I won’t specify… I assume you know what I mean by “insane.”)

So I’m a very happy “emergent” but I’m not emerging from anything remotely fundamentalist or evangelical. I think there might be other folks like me who are “emerging” from

• atheism
• paganism
• agnosticism
• spiritual-but-not-religious-ism
• humanism
• buddhism (which I still dearly love)
• anything-but-Christianity

… not from evangelicalism.

From here, the emerging conversation is looking like a private party where folks talk about where they are coming from. It’s like I’m hanging out with people who all used to live in the mountains, and they say, “Oh, remember how in the mountains it was so cold?” and “I am beginning to think it might be safe to wear shorts.” To tell you the truth, it’s getting kind of boring. I’m tired of hearing about how somebody used to think this or that, but now they are beginning to wonder…

I am much more interested in talking about the experience of God, about theology as Rob Bell paints it, about what it means to love my neighbor and how are the “least of these” than I am about who used to think what, and which church they’ve left, and why.

But the real reason I bring it up isn’t to complain. It’s to explore whether there really are people like me out there, and how best to meet them where they are.

I was at dinner recently with a bunch of pagans, and confessed that I have a found a way to reach for God by following Jesus Christ. What happened next amazed me. One woman said, “Oh yes, I love Jesus.” She said that she felt very close to Jesus, but didn’t like Christians. She said that she communicates with him all the time. “He holds me.”

A man at table said he thought Jesus was amazing, “hard-wired” with awareness of God. “He really got it. I could spend the rest of my life on a mountaintop,” he told me, “and never get it like he did, never accomplish what he could do naturally.”

These are people who had described themselves as *pagans*. Amazing, huh?

But while post-evangelicals are standing around talking to each other, people like that are not being invited in to experience this beautiful thing that is Jesus Christ. And *I’m* not (though I’m stubborn enough to be here anyway). I’m bored with the emergent blogosphere, and hungry for getting into the meat of this path. I don’t want to talk about how Christianity is changing, and who is happy about it and who is not. I want to sing about how wonderful he is, how grace is the most amazing thing, how following him is what life is all about.