Wild Goose 2: What if we only had 5 years?

7/14

Rev. Barber wakes us up

Wild Goose:2

From inside my tent I hear the wake up music from the main stage. It’s the unmistakable bluesy growl and rolling keyboard line of The Rev. Vince Anderson.

Rev. Vince Anderson

(More about Vince later.)

I get up, go to the Desanka tent to grab an oatmeal and coffee  and then to the main stage.

There to wake us up in more ways than one is the Rev. William Barber from North Carolina. Founder of the Moral Mondays movement and now Repairers of the Breach (http://www.breachrepairers.org/) and planning a new Poor People’s Campaign. Barber as always is in his red and black clerics, complete with a red stole (usually signifying the presence of the Holy Spirit) as if to proclaim every public prophetic witness is a liturgical event.

It seems to be Barber’s moment now as commentators compare him to Martin  Luther King, Jr. much to the concern of some of his friends. It’s a heavy—and dangerous — mantle to carry. We don’t need another King, they say. A Barber is enough. 

Today he wants to tell us what time it is. But before he gets there, he’s got a litany of what time it is not….

To name a few:

• It’s not the time of Trump. We were facing the evils of white privilege and racism; police violence, mass incarceration and gentrification long before Trump.
• It’s not the time of Russia. Our elections were hacked by acts of voter suppression and race based gerrymandering to deny black votes long before Russia hacked in.
• It’s not the time  of white working class deplorables. The majority of Trump voters were upper income , those who benefit from his policies. The white working class are victims of economic exploitation as well with whiteness used a means of dividing natural allies and diverting class struggle.

SO what time is it?  The voice echoes and booms…it’s movement time! It’s moment time!  It’s movement time!

……

Barber also reported a visit by African American pastors to try and find common ground with Franklin Graham, who makes his father Billy look like a flaming liberal. Of course he served us fried chicken and watermelon, he said. 

….… 

Jim Wallis of Sojourners is next up. He’s currently been portrayed by the New York Times as the godfather of the progressive Christian movement and it’s “inside man.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/us/politics/politics-religion-liberal-william-barber.html) More than anything Wallis has served as bridge between the evangelical world and the world of mainline liberal protestantism. The Times article didn’t seem to get that many of the “liberals” they were lifting up are actually progressive prophetic evangelicals. Wallis is very clear that the single most important issue for us to be working in right now is white privilege. 

….

What followed was an all star panel of Nadia Bolz-Weber, Michael Waters and Doug Pagitt. 

Round table conversation

Last night Nadia had described a t-shirt that proclaimed   " Radical protestants: nailing shit to church doors since 1517.” She had described repentance as the “freedom from thinking the same over and over and over again.” That our sense of sin keeps us in shame. To which she says, remorse, yes, shame no. Our jagged edges connect us to each other and to God. 

Today Nadia reminds us that its the work of pastors to preach the gospel, administer the sacraments and proclaim the forgiveness of sins. She refers to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and asks us to think about what it would be like if our churches only had 5 years to live.

We could give it all away. 

We could be free people 

Christ came to set us free. 

Free people are forgiven people.

Forgiveness of sins is REAL.

Free to speak truth to stupid.

What if we only had 5years?

……

I go to catch Rev. Vince Anderson’s set in the Cafe. 

Russ Jennings and Rev. Vince

I first encounters him when I was on the Great Open Mic Tour of 2015 and we landed at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn. (https://www.facebook.com/Rev-Vince-Anderson-and-his-Love-Choir-74494194069/) Are you here for church? they asked. I looked in. Saw this bear of a man in a Hawaiian shirt and white Panama hat. Turns out it was Rev. Vince and his Barstool Tabernacle. Which I learned was the successor to Jay Bakker’s Revolution church.  (Vince’s Barstool has now been folded into the Bushwick Abbey (https://bushwickabbey.wordpress.com/) where he directs music) You hear traces of Tom Waits in his music well as a bit of Randy Newman and Dr. John but his style of dirty gospel is all his own.  He shares with us music from his new psalms project. After his set, Kristen Leigh and I spend some time talking with him. Maybe we could put together a whole tent next year?

Robert Brashear and Rev. Vince

………..

Podcast guru Tripp Fuller leads a conversation at the Seminary Happy Hour asking us to ask ourselves three questions about our seminary education:

1. 1. What was our ‘Oh shit!” (or 'Oh Schnikies”) moments when we realized everything we knew was about too come undone. 
2. 2. What was the “MMMMM yes, but not quite enough” moment..and
3. What was the “I may not know for sure but I'm putting my stake in the ground here” moment?

………..

The Goosecast tent hosts an everchanging eclectic collection of podcasts. Like Matt Inman’s “Ineffciency” (http://www.inefficiencypodcast.com/)  celebrating the value and importance of inefficiency in experiences and relationships and use of time.

"Inefficiencies"

Or Carla Ewart of Holy Writ(https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/holy-writ-podcast/id1205352786?mt=2) interviewing Tina Schermer Sellers author of Sex and the Conservative Church.

Tina Schermer Sellers and Carla Ewart

In their conversation, the two women explored the damage done by the (so-called) Purity Movement and Ms. Sellers’ work bringing a Biblically based sex positive perspective to evangelicals.

The day ended with the Brew Theology crew:Ryan Miller, Janel Apps Ramsey, Shane Oram and Andy Millman. (https://brewtheology.podbean.com/ ) They shared their stories and how Brew theology works, meaningful conversations…and beer. The casual relationship with beer, so much a part of this scene, i snot without deeper implications. Janel, for example, speaks of being seventh generation Nazarene and deciding to leave the denomination rather than live hypocritically. Each person’s journey has its own unique marks. 

The Brew Theology crew

……

An important discovery  is the Desanka Diner tent.  Taking its name from an African word meaning Joy, Contentment and Pleasure, the Desanka community provides an invaluable service by providing simple free food every day for Goose volunteers and everyone else. A simple act of hospitality that makes thew Goose possible for many and opens tables for unexpected conversations. So a hearty thanks to Desanka (http://www.desankaspirit.net/blog)…..

My favorite concert of the festival is Friday night with David Wimbish and the Collection.

David Wimbish and the Collection

They have a special place in my heart since the band spent a night at West Parka couple of years  back following a concert at the Rockwood Music Hall celebrating their Ars Moriendi album. Th next day, they had vehicle issues so they spent the day hanging out and playing music in different configurations throughout our church. I was impressed that so many musoicians would come together to help bring David's music to life. Their music is carries the indie vibe of Mumford, Sufjan Stevens, Fleet Foxes etc. with its own unique orchestral flourishes. The music is also driving and infectious and explores issues of mortality, spirituality and young adult angst. When I first saw them there were at least a dozen musicians with multiple horns and other instruments.  Tonight’s Collection includes in addition to the standard rock lineup a  harmonium and one horn player. With a larger stage and fewer musicians, the players jump around the stage with a punk sensibility. Although as Kristen Leigh says, in North Carolina, genre boundaries are more fluid. Songs from  the new album “Listen to the River”are featured and the music satisfies, intelligent, creative and catchy. (https://thecollection.bandcamp.com/) 

After show conversation

The Collection

David and his new partner join us at our table and we talk about music and intentional communities. “How great thou art” resounds form the Beer and Hymns tent….

Creation (still) groaning: god wrestling

7/22

Ready to hit the road

A busy and full day.

It took the Collection until 4:30AM to find a place where they could park their van and trailer. Some place in the Village. So they’re a bit sleepy. I want to give them a socio-religious overview of where they are. How the religious and social history of this place connects with the new reality  they are creating. 

Tricia is the director who has begun readings of her take on Othello, coming up in the fall. She was here last night and blown away by the energy and activity. Jeremy G’s seed group. The reGroup theatre rehearsal. The Collection family getting ready for their gig. It felt magical to her. Inspirational.

Berik is in to get his stuff out of the old medical room, my old office, so that it can become a green room. 

Deacon James back looking for Danielle again and again we’ve got a full house. 

While I was talking with the Collection, a very (successful, by certain standards), evangelical Christian group was in looking at the space.  They’re interested in the whole show. I will hand it to them, they do celebrate multiculturalism…and service…and discipline and commitment…BUT..there is a triumphalism, a rejection of women’s leadership and don’t even mention LGBTQ issues…I don’t understand why young adults are drawn to this at all. 

Jeremy G is in with Danielle finalizing plans for this weekend’s conversation. 

While I’m hard at work, Don stops in. He’s got some extra staff time this week. Can they help us with web site? Yes, of course. How do we make that concrete? That’s one of our biggest needs  right now. We’re one foot into a new site with lots of blank spaces. 

Russ stops in. I’m hoping he can at least meet David Wimbush, given his work at Wild Goose. He’s well known as the guy with the white hat….Everyone is still waiting for David to return. We wait for awhile but decide to head out for conversation. I try to explain what’s inside of me. How I look at the celebration of the life of Pete Seeger last Sunday. The thousands who came out. How I finally learned the subversive power of what he was trying to do with all of his sing alongs. The sustaining power. Like the black church and it’s creation of liberated space within  the context of life  denying slavery and oppression. My Harlem neighbor, First Corinthian Baptist, is living  that out whether they know it or not. I know that a community with mutual accountability, with disciplines of worship and prayer, stewardship, study and witness, could be a powerful presence. And  wonder again if I can do it. Somewhere between the intensity of the Open Center folks, the power of sung song in the Seeger tradition. As I looked around at the septuagenarians and octogenarians in the audience, I thought that what was most visible was hope. As Jim  Wallis said, Hope is believing inspite of the evidence and having the courage to work to make the evidence change.

 And I look at David’s Collection, these young Christians (in a post Christendom sense), with their combination of self-protection, who really wants to open up their soul to vulnerability and get hurt? and passionate, existential ahistorical wrestling with Jesus, like Jacob with the angel, somewhere in that gritty mix is the new church, or new Christianity being born.

The real dialectic is plain to see. The historic mainline church is irrelevant to this moment. Yes, they have  enough money to continue into the future perhaps indefinitely. But their power to shape what Christianity means is over. The dialectic is between the god wrestling, paradigm breaking grassroots radical discipleship on the one hand and the rapidly growing disciplined Muslim brotherhood style of conservative Christianity on the other. I know that new community can come into being. Is coming  into being. I want desperately for us to help bring it into being. But I don’t see all the how. That’s why my heart burns. That’s what Russ and I talk about. Is he down for that struggle? Everything about  him seems to say yes.

David Wimbush and Bob

When I get back, David and Mira are on the steps. Still waiting for the van. Stuck in rush hour traffic in the village. We talk about some of this. Inside, folks are getting bored. Instruments are coming  out. People trying out their own songs. Some Johnny Cash. Folsom prison. That  kind of thing. David comes back, opens up his violin. I’m about to get my own guitar. See if RL wants to come down. But just about then, the van shows up. And it’s the VW clown scene in reverse. How much can you put into that van? Soon enough, they’re ready to head out to Philadelphia. Leaving me pondering. Burning. I wave goodbye. Just like any rock band. But some serious Jesus wrestling going on in there. Keep struggling.

Waiting for the van to come

Spend some time with RL. Allow him to rail at me regarding how I accomplish my mission. Again. Knowing he does this because he cares. 

Collection connection

7/21

The Collection at the Rockwood Music Hall

Deacon James looking for Danielle. She’s not in yet. She’s going to help him  sort through some legal  issues, some family issues. He’ll come back later.

Pat O, Marsha and then Jamie gather to  meet with our candidate for Construction Manager. who has come with his associate. He’s cool. Collected. Level headed. We go through the whole building, yet again. He sees things we don’t see. Sees solutions. practical. Pragmatic. We can do all this work within the grandfather provisions. He has made a good impression. People ready to move. Need to see some licenses. Some insurance. Some references. But we all  believe we can start work soon. I can almost see construction work beginning. 

Leila and Berik are in. Going to clear out all art stored in the old ,medical room so that it can become a green room for regroup and their Texas Trilogy production. 

Late afternoon, the van arrives. With its trailer. We are hosting the Collection Family Band from Greensboro, North Carolina. They are on tour. With their first CD. Connections. Friends with Kristen

Leigh Southworth, who has been in several shows at West-Park including her own Songs in  the Key of Redemption last year while I was in Berlin. She met their leader David Wimbish singing with him at the Wild Goose festival in North Carolina. An annual festival defined as  a community gathered at the intersection of justice, spirituality, music and art. (http://wildgoosefestival.org/) Our friend Russ J from our Palestinian work is the stage manager there every year. Connections.

Short story: their New York City housing connection fell through. Can I help? I offer them space on the floor, our showers not currently working. They’re overjoyed. I’ve got to run. David S will host them until they’ve got to head downtown for their concert at the Rockwood Music Hall, that lower east side emporium of fine music. I’ll head down there in time  for the show. It’s a big band. 13 members. Seeing them come out of the van reminds me of Bread & Puppet.  Or that old clowns out of the VW circus routine. They just keep coming. And they are so young…

From the balcony at the Rockwood, I look down in the show. A little loose at first, but turns solid, tight. Wimbish’s lyrics tackle questions of faith and doubt, somehow with both cynical distance, not wanting to get hurt, and desire, he takes this all very seriously. The Rockwood crowd taken aback by a 13 piece band. Guitars. Keyboards.Violins. Autoharps. Clarinet. Baritone horn. Trumpet. Drums. Mini glockenspiel. And well, there’s the didgeridoo, I knew there  was one in there somewhere. 

A touch of Sufjan. A touch of Arcade Fire. And maybe Mumford. But it all revolves around David and his lyrics. What I could do with a 13 piece band. (To sample their music go to http://noisetrade.com/thecollection)

I leave to make sure I can  be back at the church before they arrive. It’s after 1:30 AM when they get there. I tell them, they make me feel parental, waiting up for them. Welcome back home, kids.  They’ve got to try and find a place to park the van and trailer overnight. I’ll see them in the morning.