Daffodils in a Brown Betty Pot Make Me Happy

This pot with daffodils sits on my kitchen table right now.

Brown Betty teapots were some of the first teapots in Britain to be able to be purchased by the common public, and they helped bring tea to the common man. They can still be purchased by the Caledonia Pottery Co.

The daffodil is the national flower of Wales, and calls the mind back to Dewi San (or St. David) the patron St. of Wales, and a bettle in which he supposedly called the Cymry to put a leek in their hats. Okay, for now you'll have to read somewhere else for yourself, and just know that daffodil replaced the leek, simply because in Welsh it's name is St. Peter's Leek.

Religious Superstition Kills

Having been the victim of religious superstition from my own Pentecostal tradition, I am sensitive to the subject, and concerned when I see it arise in either mild or severe forms. This story of an illiterate Saudi woman sentenced to death for Witchcraft shows the severity to which superstition can grow.

Photo SynchroBlog - What Does this Say to You?

This month's SynchroBlog is a photo blog. Here is my photo. Does it speak to you? If so, what does it say?

SynchroBlog - PhotoBlogging this month

Tonight I will be posting my SynchroBlogfor this month. So, tonight and tomorrow check back. This month's topic is a photoblog. All the SynchroBloggers will be posting photos as this month's topic.

Here are others who have so far said that they would be joining this month's Photo-SynchroBlog: (some of them won't be active links until the Photo Blog is posted.)

Phil Wyman at Phil Wyman's Square No More
Jenelle D'Alessandro at Hello Said Jenelle
Billy Calderwood at Billy Calderwood
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Mike Bursell at Mike's Musings
Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
Sonja Andrews at Calacirian
David Fisher at Be the Revolution
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith
KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent
Paul Walker at Out of the Cocoon
Reba Baskett at In Reba's World

Brian McLaren, Simple Time and an Interactive Creation

“Many Christians seem to believe that God’s relationship with the universe is deterministic, that God has already filmed the future in his mind, and what we’re seeing unfold in history is the showing of a movie that’s already ‘in the can’ so to speak. I don’t believe that. I believe God’s relationship with creation—including us—is interactive. God gives us warnings, which are an invitation to change our ways. God gives us promises, which are an invitation to persevere when the going gets tough.” -Brian McLaren

I found this quote on my RSS feed to Emergent Village

I met Brian this last November, and have had a chance to speak with him on a few instances recently, - a ride in the car, eating breakfast together with others at a conference, and hobnobbing around Harvard Divinity and Gordon College students. I decidedly enjoyed being around him, but here I truly like his thinking!

I am surely showing my heretical bias. This flies in the face of the likes of Calvin, and Augustine, but who the heck really cares besides a few of you who have theological cramps. (smile, smile - avoiding emoticon use here for the sake of being hyper-cool)

A little reading up on the God and Time theories of William Lane Craig will give you a sense of where I am coming from. A little sense. Craig is still a devoted reformed theologian, and I am not coming from that perspective, but he outlines what I believe is an element of theology, which gives the kind of guidelines necessary for Brian to make his comments above.

Now I do not know if Brian believes in Simple or A Time, which states that the present is all that exists - the past and the future can not be accessed, because they are not real things. The past is gone, and the future does not exist because it has not yet come into being. Sorry if this messes up your time travel theory, and your belief that God dwells in both the past and the future as He dwells in the present.

I believe that an undetermined future in which God actively relates to us in the present necessitates Simple Time as it is so nicely outlined by William Lane Craig. I felt this way long before I read Craig's stuff, but he's got the pedigree and brains to really say it, so I'll let him speak more deeply on that subject for now. My point is I was really glad to see this quote - Go Brian!

Blood Ritual and TV Cameras

This last Saturday, I was asked to speak on camera about the subject of Salem's Witches for a show on Treasure HD, which is part of VOOM network. They came to Salem to do a show on Witchcraft highlighting Christian Day, Leanne Marrama, Sandra Power, and the rest of the gang.

I was not sure what the show was about, and did not have any talking points. I simply arrived at the shop Christian recently purchased, asked a few questions concerning context, and was placed in front of a camera.

Kevin, the director of the show "Magnificent Obsessions" asked a few questions: Who I was, and some basic info about the our church The Gathering. Our history of being excommunicated from our previous denomination, because they were afraid of Christians who were on friendly terms with Witches came up.

After a few questions Kevin mentioned that they just finished filming a ritual, and it included the use of blood. He wanted to know what "the church" thought of that.

Now I wasn't particularly prepared for that question, but I did a good job of hiding a moment of surprise. My eyebrows were raising on the inside, but on the outside I held a calm collected unsurprised expression.

You see, I was wondering how to respond to this one. I have many friends who are Witches, and many friends who are Christians. Typically they do not get along with one another, and so I figured this was a question which could leave me up a creek without a paddle with one camp or the other.

If I said that blood ritual is satanic I would alienate many of my Pagan friends. If I said it was acceptable to practice blood ritual I would alienate all my Christian friends. Yet most importantly I had to say what I believe is true, and not play some kind of popularity game.

So, what was I to do?

First of all I did condemn the practice of animal and human sacrifice, but quickly added that this was not what my Neo-Pagan friends were practicing.

Christianity, and its mother religion Judaism have their own connection to blood ritual. We are by our own admittance, and with great pride bloody religions. Sacrifices and war fill the scriptures from Genesis to Malachi. The sacrifice of Christ with an emphasis upon His blood becomes the central point of the Gospel in the New Testament. We sing hymns and choruses about the "Power in the Blood,"

Does the pricking of a finger and the drop of blood in chalice, or the more peculiar use of menstrual blood in spell casting post-figuratively speak to the power of the blood of which I have joyously sung in the comparatively tame church services of my Pentecostal tradition?

As I responded to this question from the producer of the show, and since then have pondered it further it causes to me consider the issue of blood in the religion I practice, and causes me to place it in a position which makes sense both of the power aspect, and of the lack of actual blood in today's Christian services.

Yes, blood has power. As Moses reminds us, "the life is in the blood." Christ's blood has the power of forgiveness, cleansing, and healing in it, and even though we celebrate the Lord's Cup regularly, we look back to the sacrifice which was "once and for all."

As Christians we primarily look back to the blood (even though Orthodox and Catholic Communions may beg to differ here). The blood of Christ was shed two millenia ago, and it has become the focal point of our religious experience. We pursue becoming "peacemakers" to evidence our identification with Christ, and reject the idea that the shedding of blood in war has any eternally effective power in the solving the problems of this world. In terms of identifying power in blood we look back.

As the Mosaic laws of sacrifice prefigured the power in Christ's blood, it may be that blood ritual of the Neo-Paganism post-figuratively speaks in the same manner - There is power in the blood.

HERETIC OR HEALER? - The Salem Gazette

So, we're in the paper again. The front page of the Salem Gazette has the above photo and an article which iss entitiled, "HERETIC OR HEALER?" Jeepers, who came up with that polarizing line - oh well, it is generally a good article, which is also followed by a short article about the person who challenges our way of doing things. He is fighting off police charges for causing a ruckus with his bullhorn over Halloween. Okay now that's a bit funny.

If you don't live in Salem, and don't get the Gazette, the story is here. If you want to respond you can write the editor at 72 Cherry Hill Drive, Beverly, MA 01915; or you can join the online discussion on the website. The online version does not have the print version title "HERETIC OR HEALER?" That was saved for the local people I guess.

The Holy Fool - January 2008 SynchroBlog

Father Michael joined us for a few weeks. He stayed on our couch most evenings, and some nights stayed with another couple in the church. He still wore his black Orthodox robes, and carried a backpack filled with a few things he owned, which included some relics, and a thurible.
I jokingly referred to him as our episcopi vagantes, and I suppose the reference wasn't too far off. He had been an Orthodox monk for 14 years, and was recently asked to leave the monastery, because he had a strong fundamentalist pentecostal streak which wanted to get out on the streets preaching. He felt that not doing so was somehow missing the Gospel purpose.
Father Michael had devoted everything to the service to God. All his possessions were given to the Order when he entered in his early twenties. He helped make wine in one monastery, and did carpenter work in another. He rose early to pray. He kept the strict schedule of the monastic life with long work days, regular prayer and meditation hours throughout the day - even waking at midnight each day to keep the prayer hours of his Orthodox order.

When he was asked to leave the order he owned nothing but his backpack of belongings. He had no money. He had only one change of clothes apart from his robes, and he decided to travel over 500 miles to Salem, because he thought he might be of service to the Pagan community by meeting the people, and preaching the Gospel there.

Father Michael came to Salem and found us. For almost a month he fellowshiped and lived with The Gathering. He kept the hours of prayer, and shared his beliefs and experiences with us.

Father Michael had been stabbed multiple times while preaching on the street during his younger years before entering the monastic life. He had been kicked out of cities, and asked not to return. Eventually he found a place to rest his head, and express his passion for God in Orthodox Monasticism.

Michael and I discussed St. Basil of Moscow who was known as one of God's Holy Fools. St. Basil of Moscow is one of Russian Orthodoxy's most revered saints. He not only gave up his possessions, but also his reputation to behave in peculiar ways which appeared foolish, but revealed the gracious goodness of God.

Is there a place in our society for the Holy Fool? Or was there ever a place for Holy Fools in our world? Are they the so other-worldly saints who are willing to sacrifice reputation for the sake of the Gospel, and in doing so model living the Kingdom life for us all? Could it be that we should all take on some of the characteristics of the Holy Fool? Could it be that in doing so we fulfill walking in the power of God?


For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.


The Holy Fool by Phil Wyman
The Power of Paradox by Julie Clawson
That Darn Ego by Jonathan Brink
Won't Get Fooled Again by Alan Knox
Strength on the Margins by Igneous Quill
Foolish Heart by Erin Word
A Fool's Choice by Cindy Harvey
Quiet Now, God's Calling by Jennelle D'Alessandro
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right... By Mike Bursell
Ship of Fools by David Fisher
Hut Burning for God by Father Gregory
God Used This Fool by Cobus van Wyngaard
Fool if you think its over by Paul Walker
Blessed are the foolish -- foolish are the blessed by Steve Hayes
The Foolishness of God and the Foolishness of Christians by KW Leslie
What a Fool Believes by Sue at Discombobula
Fools Rush In by Sonja Andrews
What A Fool I've Beena> by Reba Baskett
God Uses Foolish Things by Sally Coleman

Friendship and Discipleship

To what degree is friendship a necessary part of true discipleship? I tend to belive that it is highly important. Jesus' words ring in my mind, "You are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you." This appears to hold following and befriending in tight tension together.

Must a mentor be a friend, and or can we follow at a long distance, and still grow in grace without friendship? If we can develop well at a distance does this say something about the character of our faith, and of our relationship to God?

I ponder discipleship and friendship as I consider trying to help someone move toward God who is visibly moving away, and justifying it as something positive in the process. How does one once again win those who have been meandering away from Christ, and Christ's deep calling upon them?

Theology and Experience: Which Drives Which?

My life ought to be driven by my faith, and my understanding of truth. Or so my pentecostal/evangelical heritage tells me, but I wonder to what degree my understanding of theology has been driven by my experiences in life.

I have noted elsewhere in this blog that I began to read the Gospels differently after experiencing the backside of corruption in my previous denominational affiliation. Was there a significant theological change following my circumstances? I tend to think that there was not a significant change, but rather a deepened understanding of things previously only partially understood. Yet there are others who would see it as a theological veering off course.

So this causes me to wonder what degree off my own faith is driven by experience despite the fact that I think of myself as far too objective to allow it to be a large percentage.

Are my experiences the back seat driver of my theology, and have I been listening to them? And is this good, or bad, or a little of both?

One Laptop Per Child Competition

So, the One Laptop per Child Plan by Nicholas Negroponte at MIT just received the news that Intel was backing out of the deal of working with One Laptop Per Child. Could it be that Intel wasn't going to make the money they hoped by selling a billion inexpensive computers to the poor children of the world through One Laptop Per Child?

This is a sad moment for the plan which began as a means to end poverty by putting inexpensive computers into the hands of the world's poorest children. Now everybody is competing for a piece of the money making pie. There are certainly enough children to go around for many companies to get involved, but doing it for profit, versus not-for-profit certainly makes the story sickeningly greedy looking.

I'm no wiseman on the inside issues of this brief partnership breakup, but at first glance Intel looks pretty sleazy. Read the story at the NY Times, and on the BBC.

Check out a 60 Minutes short interview here:

Witch Children of Africa Continued

Traveling Posts at The Why Man

Over the next week I will be traveling from Salem, MA to Asheville, NC and back with my wife, my mom, and Crash (my son's funny little mutt) in my 1986 Volvo 740 Diesel wagon. I will be pulling a 12 foot cargo trailer over-stuffed with my son and daughter-in-law's belongings down to Asheville and the fixer upper house they purchased.

I hope I make it - pray for us.

I hope I make it back - I understand if that is not as important to pray for.

You can follow the adventure at The Why Man

Advent Series Continues at Salem Gathering Blog

I have been doing a daily Advent series this last week of Advent at The Gathering Blog. Check it out if you haven't been following it.

The Last Week of Advent

During the last week of Advent I will be posting a devotional thought for each day connected to a work of art for meditative purposes. You will be able to follow this at the Blog for The Gathering. Of course some of you will receive this by e-mail already.

The Children of Pentecostal Theology

I am Pentecostal by belief system - pretty much. This is not the case if the point of determination is tradition, and praxis. I don't look typically Pentecostal - perhasp I wold look Charismatic, but that's a distinction to be made by those who know the finer points and care.

I do believe in the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, and am convinced that all the gifts of the Spirit are active today, and are necessary for ministry - especially evangelism. Yet I do not hold altar calls, nor do I feel that the gift of "Tongues" is necessarily initial physical evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

I believe that Pentecostalism (and her sister, the Charismatic revival) has given more to the world of Christianity in the last hundred years than any other movement. This point would be difficult to disprove considering the phenomenal growth of the movement. What is has given unfortunately falls into the categories of both good and evil.

Enter stage right: The witch children of the Congo.

Pentecostal theology, and its step sisters have filled the cities, the villages, and the slums of Africa. Faith teaching, and deliverance ministries with their emphasis on spiritual warfare, and faith as thing of power are common theological traditions.

In Kinshasa's slums children as young as 4 or 5 are being accused of witchcraft and sorcery, and people claiming to have spiritual power to cast out demons charge money to deliver these children from the power of witchcraft. Often it does not work, and more money may be required to finish the task, or the parents may be encouraged to cast the child out of the home. These children are being blamed for the ills of the household or even of the neighborhood. Sick animals, sick people, the lack of food and water are all blamed upon them.

Are these children the children of our Pentecostal doctrines of spiritual warfare? Have the superstitions of American Pentecostals bred itself into 3 and 4 generations to bring us "God-fearing" parents who throw their own children out on the street because they believe that they are witches?

Some people are estimating there are 20,000 to 40,000 witch children in the slums of Kinshasa alone.

I think these are the children of American Pentecostal superstition. We are responsible, and we should clean up our mess.

That's what I think. What do you think?

Want to read their story?

Save the Earth?! Perhaps it will Save Us

As I continue to ponder the issue of geocentric Holydays, this thought comes to mind: Perhaps we need saving more than the earth does, and perhaps - just perhaps the earth is part of that salvific plan.

Christianity is growing greener each day. Christians are considering their part in the ever growing story of planetary struggle of pollution, famine, dwindling resources and all. In all this growing interest to save our planet from a demise, we are in some way seeking to save ourselves, and future generations from a self-induced second coming.

Yet in our sensitivity to the earth's groanings (see Romans 8 on this), I am not sure we are really sensitive to the planet and the heart of its groanings.

There is a holiness to the earth. Its created beauty is God infused, and it carries clues to God's greatness, and wondrous love. Should we become sensitive to this voice of glory crying out in creation, I am sure that our care for creation will increase simply by the ever growing sense of wonder, and the need to protect that wonder. At the same time our ability to discover the voice of God in creation will transform us as we read His story in His handiwork. Perhaps if we could really read the clues of creation it might save us from foolish ways.

This brings me back to considering the need to celebrate Geocentric Holydays. Times like the Solstice become Thin Places calling us into deeper places with God.

SynchroBlog - Geocentric Versus Anthropocentric Holydays: Solstice and Christmas

Here in America our Holidays tend to be based around the celebration of the activities of human beings. Labor Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving , even Easter and Christmas celebrate the activities of human enterprise and often the celebration of overcoming impossible odds. Christmas which is nearly upon us is the celebration of the coming of Christ, and even so it is the celebration of a man - although God - still a man who did great things.

These celebrations are good - needed - appropriate, and especially in the case of Christmas and Easter needed for the health off Christianity, but as we enter in to the time of Christmas and its near neighbor the Winter Solstice I wonder if we have lost the mystery of the geocentric holydays. In agrarian cultures days were celebrated around harvest and planting and seasons. The feasts of Israel include both geocentric holidays based in the harvest, and the anthropocentric/theocentric holidays such as Passover with the deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt.

In my culture only Halloween, and New Year's Eve are calendrically based in the changes of the seasons, and even then nothing is remembered about these days which ties us back to the earth and changing seasons.

I believe that God has given us the seasons with beautiful lessons mysteriously hidden in the dynamic changes. I do not believe that we should stop celebrating th achievements of man, and certainly not the achievements of God through men, but a return to geocentric holyday celebrations may well yield a return to the mysteries of God as they are hidden in the seasons He has given us.


Redeeming the Season is the Topic for this month's SynchroBlog. Now there are a variety of seasons being celebrated at the end of each year from Christmas to Hannukah to Eid al-Adha and Muharram, from the Winter Solstice to Kwanzaa and Yule. Some people celebrate none of these seasonal holydays, and do so for good reason. Below is a variety of responses to the subject of redeeming the season. From the discipline of simplicity, to uninhibited celebration, to refraining from celebrating, to celebrating another's holyday for the purpose of identification with their culture the subject is explored. Follow the links below to "Redeeming the Season." For more holidays to consider see here


Recapturing the Spirit of Christmas at Adam Gonnerman's Igneous Quill
Swords into Plowshares at Sonja Andrew's Calacirian
Fanning the Flickering Flame of Advent at Paul Walker's Out of the Cocoon
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Eager Longing at Elizaphanian
The Battle Rages at Bryan Riley's Charis Shalom
Secularizing Christmas at JohnSmulo.com
There's Something About Mary at Hello Said Jenelle
Geocentric Versus Anthropocentric Holydays at Phil Wyman's Square No More
Celebrating Christmas in a Pluralistic Society at Matt Stone's Journeys in Between
The Ghost of Christmas Past at Erin Word's Decompressing Faith
Redeeming the season -- season of redemption by Steve Hayes
Remembering the Incarnation at Alan Knox' The Assembling of the Church
A Biblical Response to a Secular Christmas by Glenn Ansley's Bad Theology
Happy Life Day at The Agent B Files
What's So Bad About Christmas? at Julie Clawson's One Hand Clapping

MacArthur and Emergent Pagans!?

I have a lot of contact with the Emergent Conversation, and I have a lot of contact with Neo-Pagans. Now John MacArthur tells me that they are the same. I'm not sure he knows either group very well. They don't look the same to me. I wonder what he's thinking. So, here's the quote.

Persecution of "Child Witches" in Kinshasa

This blog post is over a year old now, but it is worth a look. A couple days ago Brian McLaren was in town, and suggested I read the book "Planet of Slums." In it, Mike Davis writes of the rising superstitious and dangerous fears in the Kinshasa slums against children who are presumed to be Witches. Charismatic Churches are theorized to be partially (maybe mostly) to blame. I would not be surprised to find this blame to hit the mark. Who will rise up to stop this insanity?!

Check out the blog post at No More Big Wheels.