From the funk to the funk

Cornel West is featured a few times in the Call and Response rockumentary - which you really ought to check out and ask your local theatre to host a screening and invite some friends - it has the potential to help change the world and empower a generation. Cornel explains that the black artists that emerged out of slavery in and morphed into blues and have so influenced and shaped the rock n roll genre were a people who understood about 'the funk'. What is the funk? Cornel suggests it's the muck and the mire of life... we are born in a mess and we go to a mess when we die... that's the 'funk' - but the real gift of the African American experience is that instead of avoiding the funk and never talking about it and pretending not to know about it etc... there is an embracing of the beauty within the funk... that in the muck and the mire or hardship, struggle and injustice is a glimpse of beauty, truth and justice. I think I get it. I'd like to get it more - I'd like to (like Mother Theresa) be able to spot God and His grace in even disturbing disguises... to get to the funk in order to emerge dirty but broken and changed. To find the beauty in the broken (also a solid worship song by Starfield).
Anyway, if you haven't checked out Call and response - do it... it's a great tool for urging people forward to change the circumstances of the current slave trade... why not check out the website and then PRAY this weekend for the abolition of sex-trafficking - then be the answer to the prayer... you may just find beauty in the funk.

START FREEDOM Trailer

check it out and get involved...

Start Freedom

Take Part in START FREEDOM
A campaign for young people
A global campaign for schools and young people who will become aware of the issues surrounding human trafficking and realise the power to make a difference.

SHALOM, Peace and the everday

I was with someone who got a tattoo of SHALOM (like the picture above) on their lower back. SHALOM is the hebrew word for PEACE... as I've been praying this morning with the rest of the Army world... I've been thinking about that tattoo... I mean - imagine that our whole lives were rooted in shalom - which is more than the absence of conflict but the presence of the fullness of God in all things... we'd be so full we wouldn't have room for violence. Fullness is what Peace looks like in the end... violence comes through war and through inaction, poverty - it looks like assault and withdrawal.. we can perpetuate violence by doing nothing at all... I'd like to live a life marked by SHALOM... not just in ink (although that does cross my mind!) but on my heart, on my actions, in my everyday. SHALOM for everyday.
Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers... that is an action term (ironically we understand it better when we say troublemakers)... makers of peace are those who actively pursuing bringing peace to the world. Jesus would know - that was the announcement of His coming - the good news that Christ was born was deeply connected to Peace On Earth. I want to see the fullness of that angelic proclamation. He is the prince of Peace... peace with God, peace with others - the recipe for peace making is found in the greatest commandments.. to love God and to love others... that recipe is peace in the making.
Today, as you join us in personal and corporate prayer - perhaps that's a decent question: are you a peace maker?
SHALOM.

Peace on earth

Today is the day that the General of The Salvation Army has declared a global day of prayer for peace. War is a major cause of global poverty and it's effects are felt most intensely by women and children. Jesus had a bunch of stuff to say and social reformers through-out history have also stood for radical change.
One of those reformers is young but has a great take on the early church's resistance to fight for the state, in honor of a much higher goal (allegiance to Christ). It's worth checking out Jesus for President (has a strong American perspective - but is still important).
Another brand new book - a study on Gandhi's methods regarding non-violence and the effectiveness of that route of change in the world is also worth a peek. Gandhi and Beyond

SONG: Jesus Christ is Waiting

Jesus Christ is waiting, waiting in the streets;
no one is his neighbour, all alone he eats.
Listen, Lord Jesus, I am lonely too.
Make me, friend or stranger,
fit to wait on you.

Jesus Christ is raging, raging in the streets,
where injustice spirals
and real hope retreats.
Listen, Lord Jesus, I am angry too.
In the Kingdom’s causes
Let me rage with you.

Jesus Christ is healing,
healing in the streets;
Curing those who suffer,
touching those he greets.
Listen, Lord Jesus, I have passion too.
Let my care be active, healing just like you.

Jesus Christ is dancing, dancing in the streets,
where each sign of hatred
He, with love, defeats.
Listen, Lord Jesus, we should triumph too.
On suspicion’s graveyard
let us dance with you.

Jesus Christ is calling, calling in the streets,
‘Who will join my journey?
I will guide their feet.’
Listen, Lord Jesus, let my fears be few.
Walk one step before me; I will follow you.
(Text: John Bell, alt. Tune: Now the Green Blade Rises
Iona Community, Scotland GIA publications)

Prayer for the Peace:
One: We have chosen to be here, forming one body out of many.
All: We are one in the Spirit; we are one in Christ.
One: With us are those we see and those who share our vision
but are scattered across creation.
All: We are one in the Spirit; we are one in Christ.
One: We share a vision arising from differing experiences—men and women, gay and straight, rich and poor, of many races, creeds and cultures that are one with us in this moment.
All: We are one in the Spirit; we are one in Christ.

One: We have chosen to be here in a time of war when we have called for peace.
All: We have chosen to be here in a time of injustice when we have called for liberation.
One: We have chosen to be here in a time of fear when we have called for hope.
All: We have chosen to be here in a time of action as a sign of faith.

One: We have chosen to be here in a time of darkness as a sign of light.

All: We are one in the Spirit; we are one in Christ.

One: Creating and healing and transforming God,
God who makes one of all those
sharing in the hope of faith,
remind us that we are more
than the people in this room
and more than the present time
that we may be your instrument
for peace and justice
in the present time and for all time.
All: Amen.

"Does God exist?" -- Social campaign on education (TV commerc

hattip - pw!

Inclusive Love

I've recently read the old book (last published in 1940's) Social Evils The Army has Challenged... each chapter has a specific story and strategy around some campaigns that changed the world. It's incredible. STAY TUNED FOR A REPUBLISHED VERSION!!
The story that has captured me (all of them are challenging) is the Japanese Brothel Invasions (early 1900's). Basically, short story version is that the army organised in 'bands' of Salvationists would burst through the doors of brothels where women were kept involuntarily (debt bondage) and they would make an announcement that any woman who wanted to leave could enter the center of the circle of Salvationists. Women who wanted out would get in the centre of the circle and the salvationists would leave... on their way out of course they would be attacked and beaten by the brothel owners and hired goons. Because the women were in the centre of the circle - the 'bad guys' had to get through all the Salvationists first - in order to get to them. They rescued 70 women in the space of a few months in that fashion... a few months later they changed the laws and 15,000 women walked out themselves. In the first week of the campaign business dropped by estimates of 2000 less 'sex buyers' a night... truly we delivered a blow to the darkness.
This inclusive circle of aggressive love is still the way of rescue, support and sacrificial love that represents God so well... it's still the way that God works on the earth - who have you invited into your sphere of protection lately? What blows have you taken for those who have already had far to many to bear themselves? How 'bout a new venture of light invading dark places this week?