Common Table

Perspective & Humbleness

[Service Artifact]

When we look at God’s word, when we spend time in God’s presence, when we talk about God, when we experience God, when we spend time with God’s people, we should ideally start to see things with and from God’s perspective.  We should grow larger, not smaller.  We should be more loving and compassionate, not less.  And we should become more humble. We should understand the universe is less about us, and more about God, and about God’s story that is unfolding.  We should be gaining a Kingdom view.  We should be less parochial.  Walls should come down.  We should come to understand humanity as one – all of us a creation on that 6th day.  Those things that divide us should grow smaller, and even disappear.

Basically a lot of good things SHOULD happen.  But pretty much, historically, THE OPPOSITE is what has actually happened.  Walls have come come up.  Not just between us and them, but within us.  We don’t view the other as equal.  We distrust the other.  Our view has gotten smaller.  More local.  Parochial.  We fight for more than our fair share of resources.  We act like the kingdoms of this world are more real than the Kingdom of God.  We view the other as intrinsically different.  We squabble.  We fight.  We’re small. We’re petty.

Our thesis is that it is not Holy Scripture that is at fault – as Scripture has no shortage of teachings that are meant to expand our way of seeing the world and the other.

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“… at the voice of God the earth itself melts” 

— Psalms

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Felix Baumgartner’s Jump from 128K feet @ Mach 1.24.

Felix reported not noticing when he broke mach (the sound barrier) but he apparently generated a sonic boom.

Tweet  <— click this!

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For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

— Romans

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Space Quotations  <— Read all o’ dem!

When you’re finally up at the moon looking back on earth, all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you’re going to get a concept that maybe this really is one world and why the hell can’t we learn to live together like decent people.

— Frank Borman, Apollo 8, Newsweek, 23 December 1968.

Astronaut Biographies.

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Voyager 1.

Pale Blue Dot.

Carl Sagan.

* caution:  includes a short segment from both Twilight and The Notebook.

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Indescribable.

Featuring:  Maxwell’s equations, and the Calabi-Yau Manifold.

Inspired by Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe.   Footage from Nova.

Amen.

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Hidden seed for this service (never referenced):  Radiolab, Dark Side of the Earth.

Muppet Service Theme

By popular demand (OK, one person), here are the modified lyrics to the Muppet Show theme from this morning’s Common Table Muppet Service.  Yaaaayyyyy!!!

It’s time to light the candles
It’s time to wire the mics
It’s time to get things started
For the Muppet Service types

It’s time share communion
It’s time to sing songs right
All welcome ‘round the Table
With the Muppet Service types

Why do we always come here?
It might be for the food
Or maybe for the friendship
(Although we’re kind of rude)

And now we’ll get things started
[Why don’t you get things started?]
It’s time to get things started
In the most sensational
Inspirational
Celebrational
Muppetational
This is what we call the Muppet…Service!!!

The Gospel at the Abyss

Radiolab #6 - Aug 19th 2012

• it’s about finding the gospel at the end.
• it’s about the rocks crying out.
• it’s about nothing making sense.
• it’s about redemption.
• it’s about fighting for life.

A Writing Exercise from the Service on Sunday, October 9

So, this past Sunday at Common Table, the liturgical team led a service based around a simple liturgy from Iona.  As part of this liturgy, we meditated on scripture and also on our past week, and were encouraged to share a short anecdote from our past week, incorporating our response to the scriptures in that.  We were particularly encouraged to make our anecdote visual… to try and capture a particular moment visually.

The texts we were meditating on, taken from the Lectionary, were difficult (Exodus 32:1-14 and Matthew 22:1-14).   These texts emphasized the wrath of God, and in particular, I found the questions posed by the opening verses of Matthew 22 disturbing.

So I wrote about my cab ride from the night before.

Doubt

The cab driver’s skin is the color of a Hershey’s Special Dark bar. His collar is up, against the mild cold of the evening. “You are smart,” he says. “You go home early, beat the traffic.” I laugh. “You bet, man. I love my sleep.” Pause. He looks at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes are the same Hershey Dark, with arched, thick eyebrows, giving a vaguely Sean Connery effect. His face is creased with lines, particularly around the eyes and forehead. Worry lines. This man is a thinker.

I decide to say it. “Plus, I gotta be at church in the morning.” Arched eyebrows fly skyward. “Church!!”, he says. “What kind church?” Ahh. What kind church. “It’s hard to say. Let’s just say Protestant. We’re a mix of denominations.” I hold up my hands, with interlaced fingers. “Somehow we make it work.”

He nods. I dive in again. “You’re Ethiopian?” Slight crease between the eyebrows. “Yes, I am Ethiopian.” “Ethiopian Orthodox, then?” The crease smooths. “Yes… I mean I was. But now I am little bit confused.” He switches lanes. He’s a competent driver, knows these roads, knows where he’s going.

I say, “Well, a new culture, another country… it’s easy to be confused.”

And the dam bursts.

20 minutes of questions, challenges, one arm waving, one hand on the wheel… eyebrows raising, furrowing, dancing on his forehead. “If God is love, why did He kill His Son??” “If Jesus was God, why was He afraid to die??” “All the churches, they teach different things, who to believe??” “Why so many versions of the Bible??”

We’re hurtling down 14th Street: lit shop windows, darkened office buildings, shadowed doorways, pedestrians, crosswalks… a stream of vari-colored images: the secular world, material, embodied, and a thoroughly unhelpful visual landscape for contemplating answers to these questions. Not that I really intend to answer them, though. He’s not giving me space for answers… occasional pepperings of “Yes?”, “You see??”, and “You know???” appear to be there for verbal ornamentation alone.

So I nod. I say, “I see your point,” and a couple of times, when he stops for breath, I offer a short response to the couple of things for which I feel I have a response. Some of his questions I just don’t have answers for… they’re things that bother me, too, but not enough to chuck my faith. Plus, it’s late, I’m tired, I just want to get home. I end up having to talk over him in order to give directions… otherwise, it appears he would just speed on on on into the dark night, driving as long as his questions last, hurtling us both forward into the bottomless pit of his doubt.

In front of my apartment, he turns to me, intent on continuing. I mutter something about how he has more fares to collect, hand over my money (with a healthy tip), and pat him on the shoulder. “Keep asking the questions, buddy.” Pathetic. But a bright smile flashes across his face, worry lines around his eyes smooth. “Have good night!!”, he says brightly.

Is that what he needed? It was a pointless thing to say, but maybe better than anything else I could have said. He wasn’t looking for an answer… he just wanted a confessor for his doubts. I walk up the front steps of my building, tired and heavy with my own silence, but unable to think of anything more Christ-like than bearing witness to his struggle and answering gently and briefly where I could.

LORD, have mercy.

—Amy Moffitt—

A Rather Overdue Submission from the Common Table 10th Anniversary Retreat

Once upon a time, there was a people who did not know what God sounded like. They read stories about Him and sang songs, and talked about His Voice, but in truth, they weren’t sure what it would be like to really hear Him.  They had large ceremonies in big buildings, and many people came.  Sometimes, the people were helped by pretending they’d heard God, and sometimes they were hurt… but still, no one really knew… what would it sound like if God spoke?

Some of the people who claimed they heard Him said that He sounded like thunder. Others said he sounded like a whisper.  Still others heard His voice as singing. People divided themselves accordingly, and some loudly criticized those in the other groups.  The leaders of these people did not discourage the criticism… they were afraid that other people would know that they had never really heard God.

One day, a Person Who Was Different began teaching in the city square.  This person was a stranger and spoke in a strange sounding voice, but was nevertheless pleasing to listen to.  Many people came to the city square to listen to this person as they spoke new ideas about justice and love and beauty.

After some time, the person said, “What is the sound of God’s voice like?”  The crowd began to murmur.  People’s eyes widened and their shoulders grew tense, anticipating a fight when the stranger said that God sounded like a whisper… or like thunder… or like song.

The stranger raised their hand and gestured toward the crowd: “God’s voice sounds like all of your voices.  All of you, all together, in your thundering, your whispering, your song.  God sounds like all of you, together.”  And the stranger smiled.

The crowd erupted in shouting and cries.  They rushed upon the stranger, and rained blows on them, silencing the voice of God.

—Amy Moffitt—

Grande Dame

on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of her lady, Common Table Church

the lodge rises up beside the highway
at the foot of misty mountains
three looming stores of substantial structure

wood, everywhere
of every species and use

columns suspending balconies
porches and walkways
massive stringers receiving strong steps
delicate muntins surrounding wavy glass
wide, smooth floors that roll underfoot
wainscoting climbing to chair rails
curving staircases with fat railings
plain doors and thin siding

carved bed frames
dressers and chests of thick drawers
dovetailed together, forever

tall baseboards, delicate moldings
and even behind plaster
sturdy studs stretch
twelve feet to floors above

we are supposed to call this ‘waste’
an unwise use of resources
a grand forest reduced to a single building
these trees should yet stand
unmolested and serving their ancient ecosystems
but I’d say they gave their lives
for something grand

— Mike Stavlund