Burning Man 10 Principles Devotional Posts

Following the links below are for the whole series of devotionals on Burning Man's Ten Principles, and how they apply to Gospel principles. I am often asked, how Christians can go to Burning Man, and sometimes I am asked to describe how Burning Man represents positive aspects of life and truth despite its overall hedonistic tenor. The devotionals below represent a radical missiology with a attempt to discover imago dei within the Burner culture.

Principle #1 - Radical Inclusion

Principle #2 - Gifting

Principle #3 - Decommodification

Principle #4 - Radical self-reliance

Principle #5 - Radical self-expression

Principle #6 - Communal Effort

Principle #7 - Civic Responsibility

Principle #8 - Leaving No Trace

Principle #9 - Participation

Principle #10 - Immediacy

Carnival as Revolution

The Italian "carne levare", or perhaps the late Latin "carne vale" are both potential origins for our word "carnival." Meaning to "remove meat" or "farewell to meat" respectively they point to the prohibition against meat at Lent. The Latin "carne vale" would later be thought of as "farewell to the flesh" since it translates the same as "meat" or "flesh."

Carnivale was presented as a means of revolution by Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin. In our wild world driven by growing freedom in hedonistic pleasures and capitalistic designs taking advantage of the same pleasures for the purpose of greedy gain, carnivale has become a revolution of pleasure. It has also become a trap for those who would enslave us for greed's sake. Every generation has the struggle for freedom, and in our generation this struggle it has been empowered by the commercialization of our passions. So, we must ask ourselves: are we really free? or is our so-called freedom the gateway for someone else to enslave us?

Our momentary pleasures and our sexual passions may not be our own. Could it be that they are being driven by others who are selling us things to make us feel fulfilled.

Enter stage right: The Holy Fool.

The 6th Century Saint Simeon is called the Holy Fool, and became the patron saint of fools and puppeteers in Catholic tradition. Through his tomfoolery and wild behavior he transformed the city of Emesa, Syria in his lifetime. He used wild clownish theater to share the Gospel.

Like fighting fire with fire, it may be time for the rising of the Holy Fool once again. We live in a season of carnivale as revolution. Our society is being transformed, and in some ways enslaved in a Roman "Bread and Circuses" style through the absurd theater of the entertainment that captivates us. Perhaps a Pauline "foolishness" is in order to counteract this wisdom of our age.

"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty..." (1 Corinthians 1:27)

I am hoping for a revolution within this world's passion driven revolution. I am praying for Holy Fools to rise up even now, and call our culture to something outside these traps of "the flesh" being set for us by our television sets, and rich men making money from our addictions.

If you identify with this - please, join me in the gentle and creative revolution. We are already practicing the revolution in Salem, MA, and the Burning Man Festival. Perhaps you would like to join us, pray for us, or support this work through giving.

Our current Burning Man project: Theophony, is part of this carnivale revolution. We are raising money to complete the project and get it to Burning Man this August/September. Consider helping us as our team seeks to raise $8,000 by July 21st. Follow the link above, or click on the block below, and please let us know what you think.



Visit The Gathering at Salem online

Radical Self-reliance: Burning Man Ten Principles Devotional Series #4

"Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources."

At first glance Burning Man's 4th principle may appear to contrast negatively to the values of the Gospel we discover in Jesus Christ. The grace of God, which brings us salvation is a wildly rich and free thing given to us by a hilariously giving God, and God understands that we are incapable of self-supplying all we need for life. Yet, a second consideration of this principle might help us navigate this wild anarchic world we all struggle to successfully live within.

Radical self-reliance is designed to draw the resources and strengths out of each person. A community of giving can not survive when people do not pull their own weight and then supply beyond that to serve others. A giving society is a society of workers, and carers. We know this is at the heart of the Gospel as well.

Paul highlights the tension between carrying our own weight and taking on the burdens of others. In the 6th chapter of Galatians, these two apparently contradictory passages are only a few lines separated from one another:


"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."

"For every man shall bear his own burden."

It is our ability to take care of ourselves, and to carry the burden of life that makes it possible to carry the overload of others in time of need. We not only learn to carry our own weight, but for those who carry lighter burdens in this life, we become the carriers of the overload others often struggle with.

Burning Man becomes a community of people who are radically self-reliant, and yet come ready to help one another, serve one another, and anticipate that it is in this community where we find our truest riches. Sounds a bit like the goals of the Gospel doesn't it?

Decommodification: Burning Man Ten Principles Devotional Series #3

"In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience."


It is the sad case of our American culture that we have replaced having with doing as a description of our being. What we own, and spend our money entertaining ourselves upon become defining actions of our lives.

How is it that the same people who follow the Galilean Rebel whose kingdom is not of this world, whose attachment to rules of engagement with society were loose and unconcerned have not been forward thinkers in respect to revolting against the system of enslavement to pop culture and capitalistic entrapment? Burning Man leads us into a place of rethinking our attachments to this world, and hopefully loosens our grip on commodity based fulfillment.

The principle of decommodification separates us from the intravenous tube of the drug of pop culture. The question is NOT how well we will survive, it is how well we will identify and live in the values of this principle. Our participation in the second principle of gifting, in the sixth principle of communal effort, and in the ninth principle of participation will help determine how well we adapt to the playa.

Just remember to leave your brand name fashion statements at home. At Burning Man you'd be better off with nothing. Uhm, I mean owning nothing.

Gifting: Burning Man Ten Principles Devotional Series #2

Principle #2 - Gifting: "Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value."

It may not be possible to find a principle for behavior as closely attached to the ethic of Jesus as this second principle of the Burning Man community: Gifting.

It is common for Christians to reference the foremost activity and action of God as giving gifts to humanity. Particularly as we see God's gift in the face of His Son Jesus.

But, Burning Man is calling us to be more than voices about someone else's great gift. Burning Man is calling us to be gift givers ourselves. It calls us to prepare gifts for others. Our work on the Theophany art installation, and the interpreting of dreams will be our gift to the people of the playa, but as a basic principle of the festival we are called to more than playing this part in a corporate expression through art.

We are being called to be personal gifting agents.

The God Who has the gifting heart which gave us Jesus, performed miracles, and still offers the same blessings today is pulling on our own hearts to break the barriers of our selfishness. The Spirit calls us to give beyond ourselves - not considering ourselves, but others first. Only in learning to become Gifting Agents will we be able to express the heart of God among our fellow Burners.

Give. Give hilariously. Give freely. Prepare how you will give now. This is the only way you become a Burner, and not just a poser. That may be true for Burning Man, but it is true for the Kingdom of God too.

Radical Inclusion: Burning Man Ten Principles Devotional Series #1

This is being developed as a set of principles guiding the activity of our Burning Man 2012 art installation team: Theophany.


Principle #1 - Radical Inclusion: "Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community."

This is the first and probably the most important of the principles of Burning Man's ethical practice. As a team it is the most important value for us to exhibit toward others, and so we need to consider this in the light of our witness as a community of Jesus followers.

We have a model of radical inclusion in Jesus.

The Pharisees who were the religious leaders of the 1st century Jewish community, found themselves being critiqued by Jesus to a great degree for their exclusionary words and actions. Their anger over His critique became a driving motivation behind the move to have Him killed. His refusal to be exclusionary toward the oppressed, and the broken challenged the power of the status quo. He shows more powerfully than anyone in human history the revolutionary and subversive power of inclusionary love.

We may not agree with the beliefs of everyone we meet. We might even consider many of the personal practices of others to be unhealthy and insensible, but that does not mean we can ostracize them or exclude them from the love of our community of faith.

Radical inclusion is one of the places we learn to walk in the love of God.

About God the Psalmist writes, "with the merciful You will will show Yourself as merciful." If we think we are going to experience a deep sense of God's love toward ourselves without showing radical inclusionary love toward others we are only fooling ourselves.

This is our first and greatest challenge when we enter the playa, and walk into Black Rock City. But of course the challenge starts now, because if we can not act radically inclusionary in our everyday life, we will never accomplish it in the crazy community which makes up Burning Man.

Inclusion does not mean we think like another, act like another, or join another in everything they do. Radical inclusion is only radical because it embraces and includes others who are radically different than ourselves. There is nothing radical about it if we become like the other, or force the other to become like us. Radical inclusion is the heart of the Gospel's "agape," and therefore it is the one commandment we must practice.

Our place at Burning Man - Wow. Three days of wow.

We arrived at the gates of Burning Man. Matt and Dennis rolled in the dust, just like all virgins are supposed to do. In fact they were dramatic and fabulous about it. We received our materials, which included maps and information about camps, villages, and events.

Hope started looking through the map of the city, and the location of the art installations. We did not yet know where our art installation would be located. We knew that we were going to be in that barren patch of the desert beyond the open mouth of the somewhat Pacman-looking Burning Man city layout called "deep playa." You can see a slightly heavier dark dot in the beginning of that open area. That is the temple. Everything beyond the temple is "deep playa."

Hope was hunting for our project: The Pillars of the Saints. She let out a little "whoop" if I remember right. We were in deep playa alright, but we were the first installation past the temple on the 12 o'clock line in deep playa.

If you have not been to Burning Man that doesn't mean anything to you. If you have, and if you have done an art installation it does mean something.

It means that we could not possibly have been placed in a better location for what we wanted to do.

When I am trying something for the first time, and it starts that well, I think to myself, "Who the heck am I to get blessed with such favor?" The Gang the Artery in Burning Man: Miss NIK, and Awesome Sauce, and Daniel, and Betty June: You rock. Thanks.

For the next three days I repeatedly was saying things to Hope, Scott, Dennis, and Matt like, "Wow..." (long pause) "I can't believe where they put us."

So, on the third day, the pillars were up, and had a great view of the temple on one side, and the empty desert of deep playa on the other - with great Sunrise views. Perfect for meditation pillars - almost seemed like God organized it.

Pillars of the Saints Video

We had such a great time, and so many of the people who experienced the art installation were touched in a positive way. We built the meditation pillars with a 5th century Christian mystic Saint Simeon Stylites in mind. People came to meditate upon the pillars and share their experience by writing what they"heard" upon the walls.

Thanks to all our supporters who helped make this project come to life.

Looking for Tomorrow's Prophets in Today's Madmen - Burning Man 2011

"Yesterday's Madmen have become today's Prophets, Seers and Saints. Today's Madmen...?"

The quote remained unfinished upon the walls of the art installation. This was Burning Man, and the search for people who hear voices ought not to be considered a strange thing in this radical desert festival event of self-sufficiency and self-expression. But of course, even the mad create their own boxes of sanity.

Over the course of the week hundreds - no, I am sure thousands of people visited the site. They stood at the flame altar, they cast the things they felt compelled to surrender, they meditated upon the ten to twelve foot tall pillars, and they shared words which they "heard" by writing in holy graffiti upon the walls.

Some people might tell us that divine inspiration does not come in words. Others might view deity as something distant, unconcerned or perhaps even impersonal.

Caveat writes about his experience with the Pillars in an extremely fictionalized manner. (We know this, because we remember Caveat visiting with his mask.) He defines divinity as having the capacity of a capricious 2 year old, "It doesn’t care about prayers and poetry.  The only words it knows are “yes” and “no.”" Somehow Caveat sees this impersonal "it" divinity only using events like, "dreams and comets, in calls to action and faces suddenly appearing out of the darkness," but words are not part of the domain of the divine.

We thought otherwise, and provided a place for the Divine - God - The Spirit, to speak in words we can communicate with one another. It was a place for people to sit and listen - to sit and learn, to discover the simple things of life - the things we all need to be reminded of, and occasionally even the divine might explode upon us.

I suppose our view of God was larger - more personal, and allowed for dreams, and comets, and masks in the darkness to communicate as well as poetry and prayers. And so the walls were filled with words of a gracious expression - certainly more powerful than limited legalese of "yes" or "no."


We were looking to create an anthropological experiment by asking people who hear voices to do so in an un-moderated manner. Yet, we also believed that the Creator of the universe has the capacity to break into our little lives and speak in ways we can understand, and ways we can communicate to one another. Did this happen? We have hundreds of photos of the all the phrases written upon the walls, and we think it might have occurred. Naturally, that is how a group of five silly Jesus followers might think.

Of course, some of the words are personal expressions of catharsis. Some of the words are ideas people carry every day, but some of the words were too deep for words, and some were transformative and new thoughts to the hearers, and that's why we went to Burning Man with this concept. That's why we will go back next year as well.

But of course, Burning Man is a place where the search for a voice in the wilderness ought not be considered a strange thing. Well, at least not for most, but I say that with a caveat in mind. (wink)

Stories from Burning Man #1 - Jesus was lost, and I found him.

It sounds like a joke, but this is a moment when truth is stranger than fiction. I am told that I am one of those people for whom truth being stranger than fiction is a common event. That thought is both exciting and fearsome, and I am not sure what to do with it, because these things seem all very commonplace and normal to me.

Hope, Dennis (whose playa name should have been "Two Tents") and I arrived at the Pillars of the Saints to prepare ourselves for the coming of the afternoon visitors. It was a hot afternoon as most afternoons on the barren playa can be.

As we parked our bikes behind the pillars, I looked out into the deeper desert of "deep playa." Jesus was walking across the barren landscape carrying a cross. I shouted to Hope, "Look it's Jesus carrying a cross, let's go get a picture of him."

The three of us started out walking across the playa toward Jesus, but Jesus turned away, and was walking further into nothingness and away from us. So I hastened my pace and after a couple minutes caught up with him.


Referring to a Biblical passage, I lied and said, "Hi, my name is Simon, and the Romans sent me to carry your cross." He of course, was familiar with the Biblical reference - after all, he was Jesus, and he handed me his cross and said, "Oh, thank you, it's not too heavy is it?"


I walked and talked with Jesus. I confessed, "My name is not really Simon. It's Phil, and my friends and I created an art installation in honor of one of your saints - Simeon Stylites. We'd love to show it to you."

Jesus stopped. He looked me in the eyes, and said, "Are you Phil Wyman?"


"Uhm. Yes."


Jesus teared up. He said, "I've been looking for you. I was lost and couldn't find you."

And then Hope and Dennis finally arrived with cameras in hand.

Dennis took the cross from me, and we walked back to our art installation. Jesus meditated upon our pillars, and wrote something gentle and profound.


Jesus was kind enough to do an interview with us. Turns out he is really a bookseller from Canada, but that doesn't change the fact that Jesus was lost, and now he is found. I found him, and it turns out he was looking for me all along.

Burning Man Art: Pillars of the Saints story

A little more than three weeks ago myself, and four friends embarked on a missional adventure. We went to Burning Man to find God, and to see if he was actively participating in the event. I suppose in some sense we hoped to bring Him with us, but since God does not fit into a 12' tall shopping cart, and isn't likely to need a ride from Boston to Nevada, we just brought an art idea we thought He might be willing to work with.

This was my second Burning Man, and I was entering the project with Sophomoric innocence - thinking that I could make a difference in someone's experience at Burning Man. Now the rest of our team was in varying states of Burner experience: Dennis and Matt were virgins (Burning Man terminology for a first time participant - see their initiation process on Youtube), Scott was coming for his third year, and Hope was attending for the seventh time. This made Hope the matriarch of four crazy guys who are all older than she is, and she made sure we respected the brutal climate, and navigated the playa without feeling lost or overwhelmed, or getting dehydrated. Bear (aka John) joined us a little later in the week, and he kept us green, and brought needed supplies.

Our plan was to build three meditation pillars, a flame altar for releasing the things which hinder people from hearing the "Voice of Spirit", and sufficient wall space for people to write what they have heard upon the the walls.

Our original 17th century mission design had to be scrapped, because the pillars were redesigned for strength and for climbing from the inside, and no longer fit the motif. We also had raised enough money to do the project, but not to its full specifications, and so it did not have the columned entrance from the original design. But, as planned we built it to do what Burning Man is most famous for - burn it down to the ground at the end of the event.

The photo above is a wedding I performed at the installation early in the week. The Groom (Ryan) and The Bride (Rhonda) blessed our installation with their wedding vows, and we were greatly honored.

The art installation was really just a blank canvas. The true art is what people experienced and wrote upon the walls of the project. By the end of the week it was a well graffitied group of white walls and pillars.

The project was designed as an unmediated search for the "Voice of the Spirit." We were looking for people who hear voices, and asking them to share those voices with us.

Now before you start saying that we were looking for and wanting to exploit the insane, consider the fact that many of history's most famous people were "voice hearers." We entered the event with the assumption that Yesterday's madmen have become today's seers, and prophets, and saints; and that it was similarly likely that some of today's madmen will become tomorrow's seers, and prophets, and saints. Of course, not all voices people hear are beneficial, but we believed that many of those voices have the potential for transformation and good. As Christians, we came with the assumption that Spirit of God desires to speak to people today, just as the stories of the scriptures tell us happened then. This was the art we hoped God might ride on and whisper through.

Thousands came to experience the Pillars of the Saints, and left their marks upon the walls. They cried, they thanked us for being there, and many returned throughout the week.

I am still in the process of putting together the video describing the event, showing interviews with participants and responses from our team. These will be coming out in the next week or so. To all you who have helped make this come to pass - thanks. If bees have knees - then you are it. (I'm not sure how bees knees got to be of such high value either, but it sounds pretty darn good.)

Some theological thoughts as a post-script:

1. God does go to Burning Man. I traveled with the philosophical certainty (which is probably not an accurate phrase, but it is how it feels to me, so I will use it) in my heart, and the experience validated it further for me.

2. Allowing people to experience the spiritual realm in unmediated, undirected ways allows for an experience of truth and wisdom to occur, and it is not something we should be afraid of. But of course, as Christians we are often afraid that the devil might show up. I am not worried about this, because I already know he shows up - usually it is on a Sunday morning at church, or in the homes, hearts and minds of those who proclaim to follow God. Similarly, the Spirit of God shows up and speaks as well, and I am confident that His voice is wiser, kinder, and more compelling than all other voices.

Returned from Burning Man and back to blogging

Hi gang. I'm back.

I decided to place my posts on moderation while I spent the last three weeks traveling to Burning Man, building an art installation, and returning. Posts are no longer being moderated before being posted - that was just a way being able to easily tell what did or did not go on while I was away, without having to forage through emails, blog reports, and posts.

So, here I am ready to begin reporting on the Burning Man trip, and other adventures in faith. Stories and concepts coming soon. ;-) (That's a winky-face icon telling you that I am silly, and have kooky things to say. Hope says that "kooky" is my favorite word. It's probably true when it comes to adventures in faith.)

Spiritual Phenomenon and Religious Bias (Part 2)

Part 1 of this post makes the assumptions that God is willing and wanting to communicate with everyone, and that there are no special skills, or devotion standing in the way of God communicating with anyone. There appears to be need to devote oneself to a life of service to God, but He may at any time simply interact with us because He likes to do so. He is not biased in such a way as to choose one group of people over another to communicate to - or so it seems.

Now of course, I am taking into account that the Old Testament is a covenant with the Jewish people, yet even in this covenant, God gives miraculous dreams to Pharoah, and Nebuchadnezzar; and He speaks through Balaam and Balaam's ass (his donkey for those of you who are thinking something else.)

In saying this I am NOT saying that special devotion does not trigger a closer relationship with God. I believe that it does. Yet, I do believe that God has, does and will continue to make Himself known in a variety of phenomena to people in this world. Those people will come from a variety of backgrounds.

Therefore, I must be ready to acknowledge that there will be people who experience "weird" things, and that those weird things might in fact come from God. (I do believe that they might in fact come from somewhere else as well, but that is another post.) I also need to acknowledge that there will be people whom I would not expect to have spiritual phenomenon occurring in their lives. If I can not get past this point, then I will be carrying a bias unlike the bias of God.

The bias of God is toward you, toward me, and toward all people. He is concerned and wanting to touch all people. At least, my theology and my experiences tell me so. Experiences of some of my friends and the people we meet in Salem, MA and at Burning Man tell me this as well.

If my bias tells me that certain people are only mad, or only are hearing from the devil before I have heard them out I am sure that my bias is not God's bias, because His bias is for people and not against them. On the other hand, once I have heard them out there is an opportunity to decide the source of the spiritual encounter.

Developing Cultures and The Presence of God

I made the comment a couple posts ago, that God goes to Burning Man. This was a simple observation in connection to the idea of a God Who is omni-present.

Now strangely, I have had a few Christians challenge the idea of going to Burning Man - as though participation in the event would somehow be opposed to the nature of the Gospel and God's Will. This is partly due to the exaggerations people believe about the event (note this Christwire spoof article, which highlights many of those exaggerations), partly due to the wildness of the event, but partly due to the fact that as Christians we often do not see God in developing cultures.

It is far too easy for us to see transitions in culture as enemies to tradition, and therefore also lacking God. If we truly believed that God was opposed to radical changes in culture, we might easily assume that God isn't going to be found at Burning Man - thus, God doesn't go there.

This mistake in logic is two-fold:

1) it assumes that God does not show up at places where sin occurs.
2) it assumes that developing cultures which have elements of licentiousness within them do not have expressions of the Gospel itself in their basic construction.

(I could add to the list of mistakes, but will not do so for simplicity's sake here.)

In response the first mistake: It almost seems silly to have to respond to it, but here we go. Everyone repeat with me, "Where sin abounded...." You do know the rest, correct? If not, please see Romans 5:20. We read that Jesus was a friend of drunks, prostitutes and sinners of all kinds. Yet somehow befriending people He befriended is wrong for us? Of course we do not sin in order to experience grace, yet where sin is grace shows up excessively. Doesn't the story of the woman caught in adultery teach us this?

In response to the second error: (There are too many negative responses to changing culture to fully cover this mistake in a quick post such as this, but here go a few thoughts.)

a) Change is a dynamic of life with God. Perhaps we should anticipate change in culture to have some elements of God built into it. The Reformation is a radical example of this. It was more than a theological revolution, it carried cultural changes as well.

b) because cultural revolution may have elements of excess it does not mean that everything within a developing culture is birthed out of selfishness, or a lust-drive. The radical acceptance, and the culture of "gifting" (neither buying nor selling, nor even bartering, but simply giving freely) is part of the culture of the week at Burning Man. If nothing else, this models the dynamics of grace better than anything I find in our capitalistic American culture today. Everyone pitches together to make art projects happen, to give food, and gifts and services of all sorts.

c) If we make the mistake of seeing nothing but the devil in a developing culture, we will make the same mistake that many missionaries have made in history. We will either lose the audience we hope to love, or we will change them so fundamentally that many of those changes will isolate them from their own culture, and harm them. In these times of radically changing culture it is necessary to find God in the developments. Seekers are looking for ways to find God and authenticity in cultural shift, and because of that God is there in the cracks between the shift.

d) believing that cultural change is wrong is tantamount to deifying our own culture. The Jesus I read about came to the culture of 1st century Israel and turned the culture of the religion upside down. His work was progressive enough to get Him falsely accused and executed. He was an iconoclast of His times, tearing down the idols of a culture which viewed itself as the culture of God.

This missional consideration is the philosophical background behind our art project Pillars of the Saints, which is a Burning Man art installation this year. It is our way of meeting God at Burning Man, and helping those who are seeking find what they are looking for. This is our last day for reaching our funding goal. You can help us reach that goal by visiting the Kickstarter fundraising site. Thanks.


Of course, this will necessarily lead to another post in which I look at God's position both outside of, and inside culture, because I do view God as transcendent to culture, and yet immanent and present within it.

God Goes to Burning Man: Believing that God is There Before We Arrive

I am a Pastor.

I am going to Burning Man. Again. Yes, I went to Burning Man last year. And yes, I have theological justification for going there.

God is at Burning Man. He has been going since it's inception. So I thought I ought to go to Burning Man to find God, and I did.

God is in fact everywhere, and the understanding of this causes me to assume that God has already been to places I want to go, and has already been working with people I want to touch with his Gospel. This being the case I must assume that God has already expressed His love, communicated His passion, and made Himself known in some way to the people I come across every day.

This is my assumption in the city where I am a pastor - Salem, MA - yes, Witchcity USA! And I have found that this assumption has proven valuable to myself and our church over the course of the last 12 years.

So, if God has already been to the places he is sending me, it should inform my behavior towards the people I meet. These are just a few things I am aware of in my encounters with other people who attend large, sometimes strange spiritually directed festivals:

1) I assume that everyone has encountered God, whether they realize it or not, whether they define it that way or not.
2) Many weird beliefs people hold are an attempt to define their experiences with God.
3) many people do not know how to describe their encounters with God, and therefore I am sent as an interpreter of those experiences. (This might be the most powerful expression of the prophetic in our world today!)

This year I am leading a team of people to build an interactive meditation art project. This project is based upon the belief that God is already at Burning Man, and wants to communicate with people. We are merely making a place for people to listen for the Voice of the Spirit. We are also hoping to document this search for the Voice of the Spirit on video.

On the basis of the above point of faith and my 3 basic responses to it this art project is dedicated. May the God Who is Already at Burning Man, and already with all the people going to Burning Man be with us as we endeavor to be His interpreters of His Voice in our generation. Too big a task for anyone person. I am glad that God is starting the work, and simply allowing us to arrive with a stylishly late entrance.

Our project is called Pillars of the Saints. Well, and yes it could use financial support. There are 5 more days on the Kickstarter fundraising.

Further Thoughts on Burning Man: the direction of spiritual pursuit in a post-Christian America

Today I had my yearly eye doctor exam with Krishna Gaddipati.  Our whole church likes Dr.Gaddipati, he has been a life saver, you can read more about that story here.

After the rains at Burning Man 2010.

I mentioned to the Doc that I had just returned from Burning Man.  He spent time in the Bay area and had friends who had extolled the virtues of Burning Man.  For Krishna's friends Burning Man was a spiritual experience - a pilgrimage of sorts.  My last post relates some of those same spiritually enlightening dynamics which it held for me.

This is the nature of spiritual pursuit in our age as I have seen from the perspective of one living in a pilgrimage location.  500,000 people will visit my city in October alone.  Many come to Salem, MA in pursuit of fun in the month long Halloween season, but others come in pursuit of the mystical, magical and in hope of the answers or comfort it may provide.

There appears to be a growing movement of people leaving the Christian church as we know it in its traditional forms in search of something other.  Among those who have left Christianity altogether, some have adopted other forms of religious expression such as Neo-Paganism.   Others have adopted non-religious worldviews such as new-atheism.

Interestingly, Neo-Pagans and new-atheists have a common factor.  They are both movements which gather around events - "festivals" as it were. Whether the Amazing Meeting, or local gatherings during Pagan Pride days both movements exhibit a trend toward gathering together on a yearly calender cycle, and finding their inspiration to live throughout the year by a combination of the 'festivals' and personal reading during the year.

Enter Burning Man:  a festival based upon radical self-expression.  50,000 people meeting in the barren desert.  Like Jews traveling out into the wilderness to see John the Baptist they gather in a climatically brutal, and barren environment.  But these do so to celebrate life, art and a tradition of "gifting."  To find meaning, to cry at the temple, to celebrate the burning of the man - these are things which happen at Burning Man.

Is this our new mode of spiritual pursuit?  Is this how our generation is finding God, or inspiration, or direction, or hope, or learning experiences?  If so, the Christian church might be behind the times on discovering how to touch pilgrims wandering through the deserts, and festivals looking for God.

Burning Man: Post-apocalyptic, post-Christian, and somehow a return to an ancient faith

Burning Man 2010: I spent the week in the barren desert.  Well, it was a once barren alkali flat called a playa, but last week it was filled with 50,000 people, their goods, and art projects.  It was a party, it was a pilgrimage, it was a radical ongoing experiment in human community and creativity.  It was my first burn.

It was not new to me in its ethos.  I live in Salem, MA, and as a Christian pastor, I have been able to develop deep friendships with the Witchcraft/Neo-Pagan community.  This is not the same thing as Burning Man, but the rules of engagement are not dissimilar.

My church world, and their festival world are not the same.  We speak different languages - or we used to, but I have learned the languages of our culture in Salem, and it was not a significantly different language at Burning Man.

I walked away with a few observations which I want to put down in white and black.

Enculturation is at the heart of the Jesus way.

Popularly we speak of incarnational ministry in Christian circles, and this often means being filled up with God, Who then is poured out through us to others.  That view is good, but it is also mechanical if there is nothing more to it.  It presents the believer as a thoughtless, action-less vessel who becomes nothing in order to allow God to flow through unhindered.  The way of Jesus included that dynamic, but was not that only.  Jesus was incarnated as one of us.  Spoke our language, ate our food, worked a job we might work, and struggled with our calamities.  Incarnational ministry means being birthed into and becoming one with a culture.

So as to make sure I am not misunderstood:  This does not mean partaking of the unhealthy, unwise practices within a culture, but it does mean understanding and identifying with all things redemptive, and non-detrimental within a culture, and allowing those things to become a part of your own way of being.  For example - radical creativity is not antithetical to the Jesus way - in fact it is perfectly connected to the Jesus way.  It is part of the ethos of Burning Man, as it is in Salem, MA, and is easily embraceable.

Initiation into culture can be an important process.

A first time attender to Burning Man is asked to step out of the car, roll in the dust, and ring a bell declaring they are a "virgin."  The dust will be the ever-present host of the week.  It sticks to you like talcum powder, and will travel home with you as well.  Rolling in it has become the initiation.  Some people avoid this nasty process, and do not divulge that it is their first time on the playa.  I did not do that.  I happily declared that it was my first event.

I was ushered from the car to a dusty piece of ground near a large bell.  I was told that rolling in the dust was something new burners should do.  Dust angels were suggested,  I thought - 'no, not dust angels.  I grew up on the beach, not in the mountains.  I should surf the playa dust.'  So I did.

I laid on my belly, paddled in the dust like I was catching a wave, and then hopped up and declared that I was getting tubed in the playa dust.  I threw the dust over my head like it was a wave, then I shouted "wipeout!" and crashed around on the ground like I was being tumbled by waves.  This silly activity, was my way of embracing the ethos of Burning Man - I embraced the initiation with my way of doing things.  Then I hugged the group of greeters who had begun to gather around me.  This was followed by a lady who grabbed a big handful of alkaline dust from the ground, and poured in my hair delcaring "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

This encounter was more for me, than it was for anyone else.  I was initiated, and felt as if I had passed through a simple process of identifying with the event, and its people.  Those at the gate were laughing, and having a good time through it all, and I was in some small way identified as a contributor to an event which is all about contribution of the many members to one another in a radical community experiment.  The initiation was to prove to be a significant part of my high level of comfort with the whole event.  I was a theologically and morally conservative (I suppose some of you reformed thinkers may not believe that) pastor who was immediately at home in a wildly counter-cultural, post-Christian experience.

Finding the redemptive story in culture is invaluable.

People sat at the temple, which had been built out toward deep playa - away from the city, beyond the Man. 

Some sat on the ground holding pictures of loved ones who had died.  Others sat on benches built into the temple walls and cried over lost relationships.  All wrote on the walls with words of hope, or sorrow, loss or thanksgiving, lessons learned or pains inflicted.  I wrote on the wall too.  I wrote something deeply personal.  At the end of the week the temple would burn to the ground, and like the prayer written on a piece of paper and tossed into the campfire the smoke would rise to God.

This was a deeply potent experience for me to write on the temple walls, and I could have stayed in the temple for far longer than I did.  It came home with me, and will serve me well for a long time.

This was a redemption story built of wood, waiting to be burned to carry my struggles to heaven.  This was not the only redemptive story on the playa either.  Unbiased eyes will have walked away with a sense of holiness seen upon that blank canvas of desert, which had been turned into a painting with God's signature appearing upon some of the work.  God speaks into every culture, and developing cultures like Burning Man are not an exception to this rule.

God is already speaking.  We are merely translators of His voice.

I was privileged to participate in this event with a theme camp doing Dream Interpretation, and offering a variety of "Spiritual Encounters."  Every person I worked with was talented and brilliant, and it was an honor to stand with them.  Yet, we did not have to conjure up encounters with God.  People entered our Dream Tent with God upon their shoulders.

The Ancient One preceded us, and was already at work in people's lives.  How could it not be this way?  The One who loves us all, actively pursues us all.

People cried.  People rejoiced.  People had returned from previous years' encounters with stories to say thank you.

Incarnational ministry will change you.

Once you discover God speaking into other cultures, and are able to identify His voice you will be changed.  You will have learned more about God, and will have experienced His love in new ways.

Coming to Burning Man I was asked to have a "playa name."  I did not come up with one.  I did not pray for one.  I was determined that others would name me in accordance with what they saw in me.  Consequently no one name stuck, but I was constantly being named by people throughout the event.  Some names were embarrassing, some were glorious, all were acceptable because they came from other people.

Here's the list of the silly, the mundane, the sacred, and the profound names I was given over the course of the week:  Dr. Phil, Dr. Love, Jerry (as in Jerry Garcia), Treebeard and Greenman (for my costume), Moses, Abraham, and Socrates.

Hopefully I carry a little of all of those names with me.  Like being given a new name, I am in some small way a new person for having walked with friends, for having met new friends, and for having served in community with 50,000 other radical self-expressionists.

If our humanity is imprinted with imago dei, then self expression must have a bit of dei in it.  I found it last week, and I am the better for it.  I hope the people I encountered were imprinted with the little bit of dei I might have offered as well.

Like Old Testament religious experience, festival is the new (yet ancient) way of church for many people today.

People (like our new found friends at The Tribe in LA) have been fleeing the institutional church for decades.  Similarly to the Neo-Pagan culture I have come to know in Salem, MA there has been a development of seasonal festival experiences, which look something like the feasts of Israel.

It has replaced church, and become a new kind of church for many people.  God seems to have designed this pattern for the children of Israel in the desert.  Who's to say that it might not be a new, yet ancient way of drawing close to God today?


So, am I a Burner now?

Only if another Burner sees it in me.  I will not name myself what others can not see in me.  At the very least I am extremely comfortable in that world for the week Black Rock City exists.  Next Year in Black Rock City?  Who knows - perhaps - I would certainly love to be there in 2011.

Some special thanks to those who spoke into my life most potently:  Rob and Lisa - thanks for trusting me in a difficult season of life.  Hippie Fish and Fish-wife (couldn't resist) :-) - you make everyone feel comfortable - what a great gift it is, and I will be wearing a burner necklace for quite some time - even though I never wear jewelry.  John Bear - I miss your wry smile already.  Dannette - be seeing you soon in Salem perhaps?  The whole Deifell family - some real Burners who made me feel like a Burner too - included me in on their re-wedding, named me Socrates, and allowed their sis to hang with the weird Christian Dream camp and teach us how to really appreciate the experience fully. Roger, Elmer, and Monty - you may not have stayed in the camp with us, but your gracious ways both before and after we returned to default world were life giving.  Mr. Inventor Man - we could be seriously dangerous together if someone let us loose!  Godfather, and Mama Bear - I could not have met better friends to drive across the country with.  For each of you, mi casa es su casa.