“Whatever your political views, let’s not sacrifice care of creation on the altar of ideology.”

This was accompanied by a link to this article:  Santorum Obliquely Suggests Obama Worships Earth, Not God 

29 comments later….

Now, my point in this post isn’t to address the comments made thusly.  Nor do I really want to wade into the point the article was making.  Rather, I wanted to, in a sense, (a) set the record straight about what I meant and (b) why it matters.  In other words, why I’m “Green.”  Likewise, (c) I want to make a comment or two about the heretical nature of taking an alternative view, and why that’s a very good (and Jesus-like) think to do.  Yes, you read that right, Jesus was a heretic and we love him for it.

(a)  What I Meant

I meant that my fervent desire was to see care of creation, environmental stewardship, ecological mindfulness – whatever you want to call it – transcend the “he said, she said”, argumentativeness of partisan politics.  Now, perhaps that is a naive desire and unrealistic.  Creation, and the resources we gain from it, will always be political.  It will always be something that the body politic must wrestle with.  Somehow we have to debate, negotiate, and even argue our way to a common understanding of what resource gets used by what community or individual.  That’s fine and to be expected.  But using creation as a bludgeoning weapon to hit one another over the head with is just wrong.  We can have fervent disagreement over the role of government to regulate (or not), use (or not), manage (or not) a given resource from the earth, but can we agree that we have one planet that we live on and we need to respect that fact.

In other words, one political party shouldn’t be the environmental party and the other the non-environmental party.  One party, or leader, ought not lambaste another for being concerned about the environment.  Again, it’s fine to have a fierce debate about how we engage the environment.  But using the environment as a litmus test for whether you are in or out of our group is pathetic.

(b)  Why I’m Green

I’m Green, because God is Green.  God made and loves and cares for creation.  And by creation I mean the whole kit and kaboodle, the cosmos, you, me, and everything we see.  He called it very good – not just humanity, the whole shootin match, all things made that were made.  Check the tape.

Here’s a couple of examples, key texts if you will:

• Genesis 1-2 – God hovers over waters, makes humanity in His image, calls it all very good, makes a dude out of mud, gives the dude mouth-to-mouth, plants a garden, gives us a job to do, takes a walk, talks with His creation – all in the first 2 chapters.
• John 3:16 – You’ve heard this one, right?  “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Well, “world” there is κόσμον or κόσμος.  That’s right, the cosmos.  The whole ordered creation.  God loves it all and Jesus came for the whole thing.  Not just us humans.  He incarnated, lived, died, resurrected and redeems you and me and earthworms and dalmatians and ficus trees and orchards and microbes and molecules.  Paul has a bit to say about this too, but that’s for another time.

Which leads us, of coure, to Global Warming.  Er… wait.  It does?  Really?  No, actually it doesn’t.  There is good debate about Global Warming – is it happening? is it real? do humans cause it? can we stop it? does driving a Prius really help? will I get beach front property in Ohio?  I think it is fair to say that the mainstream of the scientific community is persuaded that it is real and we are causing and we may or may not be able to do anything about it.  That, of course, doesn’t make them right.  And frankly, for the purpose of this discussion at the moment, I don’t care.

Being Green for me has very little, maybe nothing, to do with Global Warming, Climate Change, or Saving the World.  It has everything to do with my heart being captured by the Creator who loves and cares and sacrifices for His creation.  I am persuaded to live as gently as possible on the earth because I respect it.  I respect it because the God who made me made it.  And more!  I’m made out of it – dust to dust.  I care about the earth because I’m embedded in it and connected to it – because that’s how it was ordered or designed to be.

(c)  and other heresies

Ok, I’ve gone on long enough for now.  This point briefly.  I recognize that what I’m suggesting is not in keeping with the status quo.  It is an alternative view.  Probably one that wouldn’t play well in a political campaign, dinner party, or even some (maybe most!?) churches.  You might even say that what I’m suggesting is heretical.  That’s fine.

Methinks I’m in good company.  Jesus was a heretic too.  Status quo was for him to be a good Jew.  Maybe bitch and moan about the Roman occupation.  Maybe train with the Zealots to beef up on his hand to hand combat.  Maybe retreat to the desert for a holy huddle with the Essenes.  Or maybe just capitulate with the powers that be, keep his head down, obey the Torah, marry a nice girl, have a few kids and, you know, settle down.

Except he didn’t.

He went around talking about the Kingdom coming on earth as in heaven.  He touched untouchables.  And he loved the unlovable.  I mean really!  Crazy heretic!

Why am I fed up? There are three basic reasons.

1. Too distracting!

2. Too polemical!

3. Too consuming!

So what am I going to do about it? I’m going to spend the month of December pondering the place of social media in my life. The specific proposition that I’m considering is something of a social experiment.

What would my life and ministry look like if I abstained from social media (specifically Facebook & Twitter) for one year? The WF has a wonderful new intern (Bethany Daniel) who will become queen of WF social media communications, so that arena will still function in my absence.

I’m hoping I will be able to write more (blogs, articles, book?). I’m hoping to be less distracted, more present, less polemical, more nuanced, less consumed, more discerning.

Can I do it? Is it even possible to function in 21st century society without accessing Facebook? Sure, I could do away with all digital media, like I do for one month a year. But can I still email, text, and blog without utilizing explicit social software? How will it effect our ministry with college students?

I’ll be considering all that and my reasons for quitting during this month. I’d love feedback too, because while I question the veracity of social media I still value being social.

Here’s my contention.  We don’t know squat about Community.  We just don’t.  We are, myself certainly included, dumb when it comes to Community.  Not only is our Civic Community in disarray, but we have almost no idea what it means to live in Christian Community.  Those two, Civic and Christian Community, by the way, aren’t the same, but overlap like a good Venndiagram.  We live as Technomadic Monads, but are designed to live as Pneumasomatic Triads.  Let’s unpack that shall we…

Even as a self-professed technophile I find it disconcerting and frustrating the emotional and spiritual distance created by the 24/7, always connected, digital world.  That’s the “tech” part of the phrase.  The constant barrage of technology streaming and screaming all around us effects us, even if we don’t think we’re paying attention to it.  At the minimum it changes our perception of life.  When I ride my bike I notice things that I would never even see if I were driving.  Likewise, we’re nomadic.  We flit from this to that like bees in a clover field.  We trick ourselves into believing that proximity or placefulness doesn’t really matter.  We assume that social media connection is qualitatively the same as a meal together.  I’m not saying that a social media connection has no value, just not the same as a slow meal together with friends and family.

We’re also monads.  A monad, of course, is a single, solitary, isolated, unconnected unit.  It is, by definition, not in relationship to something else.  It is the cult of the individual.  It is me, myself, and I and the rest of the world goes blind – or might as well, since we don’t really notice one another whilst we text in the car at 60 miles an hour.  Again, I’m not saying that individuals or individuality doesn’t matter.  It does.  It just isn’t the end all, be all of my existence.

I’m convinced that we’re really supposed to be living as Pneumasomatic Triads.  A pneumatic drill is a drill powered by air.  We are designed to be powered by the Spirit.  We are spirit-ual beings, but we are not disembodied spirits.  We have a “soma,” a body.  Psychosomatic disorders are a

bodily ailment or symptom, caused by mental or emotional disturbance, in which psychological stresses adversely affect physiological (somatic) functioning to the point of distress.

Conversely, a Pneumasomatic person is a healthy, holistic Spirit-embedded, flesh and blood, human.  But we’re not health, holistic (or maybe even Spirit-embedded) if we aren’t in relationship with one another.  That’s the Triad part – We are in a divine dance with God, one another, and even ourselves.  Much like the Perichoretic nature of the Trinity itself, we hold life in a common connection with God’s self and the other.

So, instead of mediating our lives in isolated cubicles massaging our eyelids with “screens of distraction” (to use Wendell Berry’s phrase), we are meant to live in dynamic and creative tension with our sisters and brothers and God.  We are meant to be Spirit-embodied Communal creatures – Pneumasomatic Triads – instead of Technomadic Monads.

Instead I’m going to attempt a play on Follow Friday.  Each Friday I will pick 5 Twitters that I follow and tweet them under the #FollowFriday meme.  Additionally, I’ll follow them via mobile updates to my phone.  I’ll just follow those 5 for one week on my phone, then pick 5 others.

My hope is that 5 Twitterers to my phone won’t be too overwhelming (kinda like mini-meme management).  Additionally, this could serve up interesting or unexpected creative occurrences – stuff I would miss otherwise and may lead to new relationships, connections, or Spirit-induced goodness.

This week my 5 are:

• Kevin Savage
• Kevin Burney
• DG Hollums
• Kevin Rains
• Kieth Daniel

- Ryan Koch (at Third Street Stuff, favorite coffeeshop in Lex) – he’s the Executive Director of SeedLeaf – “The purpose of Seedleaf is to increase the amount, affordability, nutritional value, and sustainability of food available to people at risk of hunger in central Kentucky.”  And he’s part of the Communality community.

- Will & Lisa Samson – also part of Communality and both authors.  They co-wrote Justice in the Burbs (could be good book study in PRidge, NKU, or Asbury Church) and Will just came out with Enough: Contentment in an Age of Excess.

- Nancy & Matthew Sleeth – authors and Wilmorians.  Matthew wrote Serve God, Save the Planet and is a former ER chief of staff from New England.  They got all Jesusy, downsized to Wilmore, and are Green advocates for the Church.  Nancy has a new book coming out Go Green, Save Green.  I’m pretty excited that we get to have dinner at their house and see how they live green in Wilmore.

Later this week I’m looking forward to meeting with Devin Schenk and Chris Curran, both faculty at NKU and involved with living ecologically sound lives and environmental sustainability and preservation.  Likewise, I’m eager to meet Edward Goode, new pastor here in Cincy with Presbyterian Church of Wyoming (suburb of Cincy).  I’m headed downtown in few minutes (noon on Monday) to have lunch with a couple prophets….

Actually, this exciting week started yesterday.  I had the honor and privelege to speaking at Asbury Church in Northern Kentucky.  We talked about Matthew 13 and some of the seed parables there.  The mp3 will be up on here soon (I’ll post it on this blog and Facebook when it is).

Here are a few links, including the videos I used, from the sermonizing that may be helpful for those who heard/hear it:

Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living, by Rueben Job – book

1. Do No Harm
2. Do Good
3. Stay in Love with God

Swarm Theory, article in National Geographic by Peter Miller

“how swarm intelligence works: simple creatures following simple rules, each one acting on local information. No ant sees the big picture. No ant tells any other ant what to do. Some ant species may go about this with more sophistication than others. (Temnothorax albipennis, for example, can rate the quality of a potential nest site using multiple criteria.) But the bottom line, says Iain Couzin, a biologist at Oxford and Princeton Universities, is that no leadership is required. “Even complex behavior may be coordinated by relatively simple interactions,” he says.”

YouTube – 300,000 Starlings in motion

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIzlcH2q6Vo]

YouTube – Timelapse film of growing cress

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky1kBLwCBHg]

Scriptures:

Matthew 13:3-9

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Mark 4:26-29

John 12:20-26

and, for those who were there, don’t forget to plant those wildflowers!

Want to understand your teen? Look online – Opinion – USATODAY.com

I’m also wondering what are some good (actual, not theoretical) uses of social networking tools for church planting and discipleship.