http://www.precipicemagazine.com Precipice Magazine is an online Christian resource featuring information, dialogue and opinion about the Emerging Church. Each of the articles and authors featured at Precipice offer perspectives on the Emerging Church and postmodern Christianity. Join our conversation about Emerging Christianity as we explore the interaction between postmodern culture and the Church. Precipice Magazine is committed to reaching out in order to faithfully forge community, proclaim the name of Christ, and serve as a messenger and agent for the already and emerging Kingdom of God. Each month we\'ll discuss the issues pertinent to the Emerging Church as we seek to reach out to anyone and everyone with an invitational spirit of thoughtful faith and faithful thought. en-us Copyright 2007-09. Some rights reserved. Monday, 28 September 2009 18:45:10 -0400 http://www.rssfeedssubmit.com/rss-generator/ http://www.precipicemagazine.com/images/precipicelogo-sm.gif http://www.precipicemagazine.com 144 40 http://www.precipicemagazine.com/million-miles-review.html Donald Miller opens his new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life, with a little note about why we wouldn’t find a story about a man who dreams about - and eventually gets - a Volvo, all that interesting. Why not? It doesn’t speak to the deepest longings of human beings, that’s why. And yet, Miller wonders, why is that we don’t apply that same understanding to the stories we write into our lives? Why do we pursue material goods, or status, or whatever, and think that’s going to be any more entertaining – or sustaining – than a bad movie about a guy longing for a Volvo? This is the basic topic of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, addressed by Miller in his unique, little-vignettes-strung-together-into-profundity kind of way. I won’t pull any punches: I really like this book. Sometimes, if a book is pretty good, I’ll get around to saying so somewhere in the conclusion. If a book is topically timely, but not all that entertaining, I’ll probably just say so, without saying I don’t really like it all that much. And then there’s a book like this one. Here you just want to come out and say it. “Buy this book. You will like it.” Personally (and I know this is saying a lot) I preferred this book even to Miller’s most famous, blockbuster of a novel, Blue Like Jazz. Speaking of which, this book really gets cooking around the time in Miller’s life when a couple of guys contact him about the prospect of turning Blue Like Jazz into a big screen feature. What Miller is surprised to learn is that what works in a book, doesn’t necessarily translate too well on screen. So while these guys love the book, they also recognize – and help Miller to recognize – that some “tweaks” need to be made. After all, as they point out to Miller, characters in movies don’t have narrators describing their feelings (not usually anyway). No, in movies, characters need to broadcast their emotions by what they do. But of course, as one can imagine, this was a bit of a strange process for Miller. After all, this was his life they were trying to – shall we say – spice up? And this got him on the track of considering life stories – and what makes them exciting, and compelling, or not? And Miller came to the conclusion that his life wasn’t nearly interesting enough. And he decided, through the course of this process, to start living into a better story. http://www.precipicemagazine.com/contemplations-confined-space1.html I recently took part in a discussion group organized by a group called Lumunos called “Make a Living, Have a Life”. Our small group was composed of people from all over the country; we met by teleconference and were looking at the issue of calling—i.e., how we discover what God has created us to be and seek to live it out in the midst of our busy lives. (A small group like this is a tremendous resource to have when one is seeking to gain clarity and/or confirmation about one’s calling or God-given identity.) One of the ideas that we discussed our group was the idea of the value of spending time in liminal space as we seek to clarify our calling. Liminal space refers to times when we experience change and transition in our lives. (In fact, Catholic Priest Richard Rohr suggests, in fact, that all meaningful transformation happens in liminal space.) It’s often a time in our lives where the old way we have been functioning seems to no longer “fit”, but we haven’t yet discovered or figured out the new way—at least not completely. We may experience times of liminal space with regard to our job (also called our vocation, which may or may not be the same as our calling), our personal relationships, or even as we wrestle with bigger issues like our beliefs about the nature of God in general. Sometimes we choose to enter liminal space. We may sense a leading from God to step out in faith toward the “next thing” on our journey even when we aren’t completely sure what that “next thing” is. The experience of Abraham comes to mind. God said, “Go the land I will show you,” and on that basis Abraham set off on a journey that would change his whole life, and also entered a time of tremendous change and transition that must have lasted a very long time. Other characters in the Biblical story had similar experiences as they respond to God’s call in their lives. http://www.precipicemagazine.com/deep-church-review.html In the ongoing conversation/controversy (and one might say, debate) that goes on within and around the emerging church, a new book has been released that seeks to offer clarity and perhaps even mend relationships between those seeking to break new ground, and those content with the status quo. The book in question is Jim Belcher’s Deep Church. The sub-title says as much: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional. In my mind, the book is a welcome addition to a list of works that have often done as much to bring heat, as they have light, to the discussion. Belcher is clearly not out to prove either side wholly in error. Rather, he very evidently wants both sides to be understood. And for this he should be commended; even if some of his conclusions might leave some of us, on either side of that fence, a little unsatisfied, and perhaps even a little perplexed. If there is one thing that is probably more frustrating than anything else when it comes to the existing church’s critique of the emerging church, its that what’s often being critiqued is either a "straw-church" (can I say that?), or a church that can only be identified as a fringe within the broader emergent movement. When Jim Belcher sat down to write Deep Church, it’s abundantly clear that he was aware of this frustration among emergents. And so he responded by really doing his homework. And I mean that. He really did. He didn’t draw conclusions from a blog entry here or there, nor from second or third-hand remarks. Rather, while researching the emerging church, Belcher engaged with some of the chief protagonists of the movement. That means he read the books in question (by people such as Brian McLaren), and flew around the country to speak in person to others (like Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones). He also spoke with philosophers and culture experts, in order to really get at the heart of what spawned the emerging church, and where it was headed. http://www.precipicemagazine.com/david-bazan-review.html Trouble getting over it Is what you’re in for So pour yourself another ‘Cause it’ll take a steady pair of hands - David Bazan “Bless This Mess” “Artistic temperament sometimes seems a battleground, a dark angel of destruction and a bright angel of creativity wrestling.” – Madeleine L’Engle* Breaking up is hard to do Neil Sedaka told us. It’s hard enough when the breakup is with your girl or guy. What about if it’s with your God? That’s the way the Chicago Reader views David Bazan’s new album, Curse Your Branches: a Dear John (Jane?) letter to God. Paste Magazine sees it more as a therapy session, with Bazan lying on a couch complaining about (and sometimes to) God. Maybe it’s just that Bazan and God have finally had their DTR. Long before Derek Webb caused Christian book store owners to reach for the smelling salts by daring to use the word “whore” in a song, David Bazan was Christian music’s bad boy. As the front face of the band Pedro the Lion, he called it as he saw it, and if how he saw it was as a pile of shit, then that’s what he said. More important–and perhaps more truly provocative–than his occasional potty mouth was his penchant for brutal honesty. He was telling truths that one just doesn’t speak aloud in evangelical Christianity: sometimes our faith doesn’t make much sense, and sometimes it just plain doesn’t work. Somewhere in the twelve years between the last Pedro the Lion album and this month’s release of Curse Your Branches, the threadbare sweater of Bazan’s evangelical faith came unravelled altogether. In an emusic.com interview. Bazan fingered inflexible biblical inerrancy as a prime cause of his disenchantment with the religion of his childhood, but Curse Your Branches reveals that there was so much more involved. http://www.precipicemagazine.com/partnerships-contagious-hope.html There is ministry that God longs to see done in this world that we can only accomplish working together as partners. Like good ballroom dancers, we need to begin to discipline ourselves to stop looking down at our own feet and start looking up and ahead to see where God is leading us together. My 14-month old daughter has recently started to take her first few tentative steps. She’s very proud of her newfound mobility but she’s also still pretty unstable on her feet. It’s interesting (and a bit humorous) to watch her as she toddles along ponderously looking at the ground, carefully thinking about each step. In time, of course, she won’t have to think about what her feet are doing nearly as much; she will learn to walk without looking down. Though it may at first seem counterintuitive she’ll ultimately learn that she can move much more effectively when she doesn’t look down at her feet. She’ll realize that her feet are connected to the rest of her body, and she doesn’t have to look down to make them work. Becca’s first tentative steps remind me so much of my early days learning ballroom dancing. When I first started dancing it was all I could do to get my feet to go where they were supposed to go. I remember hours of practice in the basement: “Forward-side-together; back-side-together.” I thought I would never learn! I practically sweat blood trying to learn how to do the basic left and right turn combination in waltz—a fundamental movement for all of waltz. As hard as it was when I first started, I now do turns without nearly so much thought about where my feet are. Yes, my feet are still moving, but I am less aware of them; they are connected to the rest of my body and they move in response to how I want my body to move. Ballroom dancing is about two people moving together as one. Therefore, the strength of my connection with my partner is far more important than what my feet are doing. My dance teacher often admonishes me not to look at my feet while dancing. She’s trying to discipline me and set me up for future success in dancing. It turns out that if we look down while we dance, it actually pulls us off balance (the average head weighs a much as a bowling ball, so imagine all that weight pulling us down!) As a seasoned dancer, my instructor knows that if I stand up straight and look ahead as I dance my connection with my partner will be stronger and my dance experience will be much more fun! I might muddle through some basic steps with a bad connection, but I’ll never make that much progress; I’ll probably eventually end up frustrated and give up because I can’t make progress learning more advanced dance steps. http://www.precipicemagazine.com/assessing-spirituality.html The other day I was chatting with a friend and he made an observation that, to him, was no doubt obvious. He said there’s little doubt the world is spiraling down; that it is a more evil place than when we were growing up, that the state of the world seems to be getting worse. I remember being struck by the comment. Not because I believed it, but quite the opposite. As far as I can tell – and I do pay attention – the world is not getting worse but is, in many ways, getting better. After giving the matter some thought it occurred to me that this friend, who comes from a more conservative branch of Christianity than me, probably sees the world – somewhat anyway – through the fundamentalist lens. So, for him, when he says the world is getting worse all the time, that statement comes as a result (probably) of theology he’s been taught, observations he’s heard being made in his circles, and because the milieu of our 21st century, postmodern society, looks different – and perhaps therefore “worse” or a “downgrade” – from the one he and I grew up in – even only a couple of decades ago. Just a note in reference to the theology piece, I don’t know that this friend quite subscribes to the full “Left Behind” sillyness – which is of course, infamous for not being based on very much biblical grounding at all – but he definitely seems to operate on an assumption that the world will spiral down – inevitably – and then comes the judgment of God. So, considering he’s got this as a precondition to his perception, it’s maybe not all that surprising that he sees confirming factors all around him. Now, leaving this friend and his perceptions aside for a moment, let me offer a counter-conclusion. I actually think the world is (while not uniformly of course) actually getting better all the time. (Yes, I now have that old Beatles song in my head too!). So how is it that I can come to pretty much the opposite conclusion to this friend of mine? Well, for one, I think the theology he holds to is sadly lacking – and based largely on a misreading of biblical apocalyptic material – much of which I see coming to pass during the destruction of the Template in AD 70. Secondly, when I think in terms of “better” or “worse” I tend to think in more practical applications. My friend, on the other hand, tends to think in terms of purely “spiritual” applications – i.e. are there more born-again Christians in the population now than when we were kids, etc. http://www.precipicemagazine.com/sorrow-and-love.html Many of the songs we sing in our churches every Sunday proclaim the power and wonder of the cross. But do we truly appreciate that power and wonder? When asked what the significance of the cross is, the common reply is, “Jesus died on the cross so my sins could be forgiven.” That answer is certainly correct and very important, but I would argue that this answer is also incomplete. I believe that we lose out on so much of the power and wonder of the cross if all we do is focus exclusively on forgiveness of sins. There are countless theories of atonement—explanations of the meaning of the cross—that have been developed over the years. But no one theory sufficiently describes what happened on the cross. The fact is that what Jesus accomplished by dying on the cross contains a mystery so deep that theologians have struggled to understand it for centuries. So we need to understand and appreciate the different theories of atonement, all the while recognizing that we probably will never have the “complete” explanation. So given all that, simply saying, “Jesus died on the cross so my sins are forgiven and I could go to heaven when I die,” seems like a shallow and narrow-focused answer. It’s the standard Sunday School explanation of the cross, but as we grow in our faith, we begin to long for more… (Our standard answer focuses primarily on one theory of atonement—namely substitutionary atonement.) My life circumstances recently have certainly forced me to “go deeper” and to search for a deeper understanding of God as revealed in Jesus, and of the meaning of the cross in particular. The second verse of the hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross says: See from his head, his hands, his feet Sorrow and love flow mingled down Did ere such love and sorrow meet? Nor thorns compose so rich a crown? It seems to me that as we seek a deeper understanding of the cross we have to acknowledge both sorrow and love are expressed simultaneously and merge together in a single act that defies our human understanding. What we do know is that somehow, as “love and sorrow meet” on the cross of Calvary something wondrous takes place, and a power beyond anything this planet has ever known is set free in the Universe. The aftershock of that event in history continues to reverberate down through the ages. Even death itself cannot hold it back. http://www.precipicemagazine.com/vintage-green.html My grandmother lived an environmentally friendly lifestyle even before “going green” was the buzz. Grandma canned jellies, fruits and spreads in reusable jars while sealing garden-grown veggies in airtight bags to freeze for winter use. Not only did she sew and mend many of her own clothes, but she washed them by hand, and with great care, hung the clothes up to dry. The neighbors’ chickens provided eggs for the entire neighborhood, while the milkman came weekly. Life and community were built upon this altruistic model. Yet somehow, despite the environmentally friendly marketing campaign, contemporary society has digressed in the conservation department. Our idea of going green has morphed into a recyclables bin at the end of the driveway and paper plates on Sundays instead of every night. It’s no secret that our environment – in the form of unnecessary waste, CO2 emissions and global warming – has paid the price for our busy, wasteful lifestyle. In his book, Deep Economy, Bill McKibben argued that by replacing community with cheap convenience, our society has sold out our collective integrity for quantity. We have chosen to become families who work tirelessly outside the home, in order to afford newer vehicles, bigger houses and lavish vacations. In the crux of this busyness, we are forced to forgo the “good” in exchange for the quick and easy. Yet, all this has come with a hefty price tag: less time as a family, poor health (high blood pressure, heart attacks and obesity) and eco destruction. New York Times’ bestseller Thomas Friedman even goes so far as to say that permanent eco-destruction is inevitable if we do not change our lifestyle from lavish to environmentally frugal consumers. Friedman points out that many natural goods that we (and Grandma) enjoy – chai tea, aloe vera, coral in the sea – are only still around due to government foresight, protecting these vulnerable natural commodities. I’m not going to be the one to tell grandma that she can no longer enjoy her nightly organic tea and honey because we chopped down all the trees and polluted the rainforest to impress the Jones’ with our SUV. I’m sure you don’t want to volunteer to have that conversation either. Yet, the question remains: Why do we continue to buy into this fallacy of quantity over quality despite staggering evidence of the family and social destruction that we are causing from gluttony of resources? My guess is that our view of success is so tied into the American dream – material riches, prominent career and powerful social status – that we fail to see God’s view of a successful individual. Over and over, the Psalmist spoke of wisdom, generosity and obedience as characteristics to strive for. When will we get it into our heads (and hearts!) that worldly riches will get us nowhere? http://www.precipicemagazine.com/justification-review.html It’s an interesting relationship a community of faith has to its theologians. There is a fondness there that speaks to a very unique relationship. In many ways theologians have, historically anyway, served as a kind of rubber stamp of approval - from none other than God himself. In evangelical circles these theologians have, not at all surprisingly, also been biblical scholars. Because, in an evangelical's mind, even for progressive evangelicals, if the Bible doesn't teach it, it’s just not rubber-stamp(able). For those who follow the emergent stream of thinking/being, there is one particular scholar who has stood above the pack. And the fact that this scholar/theologian doesn’t walk solely – or even primarily - in emergent circles, perhaps gives him even more objective credibility. I am of course speaking of N.T. Wright: the once New Testament teacher, now Anglican bishop of Durham. Tom Wright has had more influence, as a theologian, on emergent theology, than any other figure. Speaking of the good bishop, a little dust-up has arisen rather recently in which Wright is front and center. The dust-up deals with the (in-house, Christian) concept of atonement/justification. And Wright's sparring partner has been Pastor John Piper. Now, here it gets even more interesting. For, as much as Wright is the unofficial theological guru for emergents, Piper is known rather notoriously, around those same circles, as an arch-nemesis. Piper hasn't pulled any punches in his sharp critique – or perhaps better put, outright rejection - of all things emergent. He's even refused to participate with emergent Christians in missional causes - claiming that doctrinal unity (might some say conformity?) must come before Christian outreach. To Piper, the Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory is front and center. It is the gospel. Everything else is window dressing. So, it’s not too surprising then that Piper (and others like him) stand up in objection when people such as the good bishop Wright start reframing some conceptions of the atonement/justification issue. Wright, in turn, has returned serve, claiming that his view of the atonement issue is fully biblical. It is Piper, according to Wright, who had skewed the perspective beyond the parameters of its biblical context. Okay, so we're all caught up on history now. But where does all this lead? Well, it leads to a debate that has turned into a couple of books. First Piper wrote on the issue. And now its Wright's turn. The bishop has recently published a new book that speaks directly to this question. The title of the book is right on point: "Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision". http://www.precipicemagazine.com/knowing-dead-frogs.html When I was a student in biology class, there was a day when we all were brought in to the laboratory to dissect bull frogs. We were each assigned a partner to work with, and to each pair of students was given a big dead frog that had obviously been pickled in formaldehyde for a while. The teacher gave us scalpels and other tools, basins of water and a notebook of instructions. For the next two hours we were to cut the frog into pieces and make notes of our observations. We peeled back the thick skin of the frog and noticed how it was put together. We took notes on its long legs and webbed feet. We looked at the amazing amphibian lungs and its chest cavity. We dissected the entrails and the heart. When it was done, we felt that we had learned a lot. But what we had learned was only biology.The point that I want to make is that we ONLY learned about biology. We learned almost nothing about frogs! If one wants to learn about frogs, he needs to spend some time among the lilly pads, watching the actions, listening to the sounds, learning the habits of these amazing little animals. Observe the eggs and the stages of tadpole-dom. See how the adult sneaks up on the insects. Differentiate between the “burdeeps” and the “ribbits,” and discover that there are mating sounds, and warning sounds, and bragging sounds, and happy and sad sounds, and much more! Watch how their eyes turn and the pupils change. Notice the colors that they display. Try to understand the conflicts they encounter. In short, spend a lot of time with LIVING frogs and you will learn much more than you can get from the scalpel and the notebook in the biology lab. The reason I am saying all of this is I think there is too much of the “biology lab” approach when it comes to knowing God. For too many years, too many of us have labored under the assumption that if we studied more biblical facts, systematized our theology, drew charts about the end-times, and could answer all the academic questions, that we would know God better, and be better and more spiritual people. I am here to tell you that it doesn’t work! I have known some people who have degrees in the subject of God, but did not have much knowledge of the real ways of a living God. At times I have been one of those people. I also have known people who had very little religious knowledge, but they humbly walked in a loving and powerful relationship with the Almighty... http://www.precipicemagazine.com/tapping-reservoir-within.html f then you are wise you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. A canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus without loss to itself [it shares] its superabundant water. —Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) A new year is upon us… we make resolutions… we set goals. We prepare for what we think lies ahead… I did this in 2008, as I do every year… I attempted to plan for the year ahead. I made resolutions and set goals based on what I thought the future held. I knew at that time that twin daughters were in my future and I did lots of thinking, praying, and journaling about what that would mean for my life. My wife and I did all we could do to prepare to receive the unexpected blessing of two daughters—and the joy of watching identical twins grow up together. We assumed we would be dealing with two more healthy children in our family and all the challenges that would bring; we never could have anticipated just how challenging this year would actually be. On the morning of May 2 my wife Laurie and I went to the hospital to deliver our daughters. All indications to that point suggested both girls were healthy. At every check-up (and there were many!) mother and both daughters got a good report. We had made it to 37+ weeks with identical twins and that was considered great. The staff at Franklin Square Hospital was ready to receive two full-term healthy twin girls. In fact, since we had made so far in our pregnancy, they felt there was a good chance the girls would not even have to spend time in the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). They even had two bassinets in our room ready for us to have our girls in the room with us after delivery—something we didn’t get when our son Brady was born as he had to spend his first few days of life in the NICU. It turned out, however, that all the reports were wrong; and we (and everyone else involved) were completely unprepared for what happened next. Unbeknownst to us all, one of the girls had sustained major brain damage sometime during pregnancy. While Rebecca Mae was born healthy—a short stint in the NICU not withstanding—two days after she was born Hope Marie passed from life support to life eternal. Our family (and our church family) was devastated, and now, eight months later, we are only beginning to emerge from the cloud of grief that has hovered over our lives since that fateful day. I guess what I learn from this past year is that no matter how much we try and plan for the future, we simply cannot predict the circumstances that will come our way. I don’t think that means we should not make plans, but we do need to be flexible when we make them. Only God knows what the future holds for us, and somehow I think it might be best that way. I often ask why everything happened the way it did? But would it really help to know? Would it make it any easier to understand? The only thing we can, and must, choose is how we will react to those circumstances: Will they make us better or bitter, break down or break through?... http://www.precipicemagazine.com/current#third_way Scot McKnight has been an advocate, for some time now, of what we calls “the Third Way” of doing Christianity. In Scot’s words, The Third Way approach to the orthodox Christian faith is one that gets beyond the fighting, and between the fighters, in order to carve out a middle way. The Third Way captures and sustains the good in both the conservative and the liberal. It is the Jesus Creed at work in the church’s theology and praxis. It affirms the great traditions of the Church and seeks to embody those traditions in a new way for a new day. It is not afraid of change but has a deep desire to remain faithful. While I appreciate Scot’s ecumenical and forward-thinking outlook, I would actually question whether or not talking about a “third way” communicates, perhaps unintentionally, that the grid we’re standing on is valid; that all we need to do is chart a new course over this familiar terrain. I actually think we need to go further - as opposed to farther. In other words, this is about degree, not distance. We need a new grid. I actually think the so called great emergence we are going through right now is all about this question, this process. And, at the end of the day, so much of the liberal/conservative continuum lives and dies with the assumptions of modernism. So the way forward is not so much a third way, as it is climbing, ascending, reaching for, a different plane - if you will - altogether... http://www.precipicemagazine.com/current#biblical_infallibility Ever squirm in your seat when reading certain aspects of the biblical narrative? – like this one for instance: “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.” (Num 31:17-18) I’ve come across numerous razzle-dazzle ways of getting around the difficulty inherent in such passages, but very few of them sound, to me anyway, anything close to convincing. Some would like to claim that the societies being wiped out were just way to evil to keep around. Really? Including every single individual? Others would claim that maybe there were innocents around – albeit few and far between – but that in killing them the Israelites were mercifully alleviating a painful existence as part of such a clan. I don’t know, that sounds creative, but it stretches the bounds of credulity, don’t you think? To me, such narratives reveal as much about the underlying worldview of the recipients of God’s message(s), as they do about God himself. I think, like a good postmodernist, that all such “message-events” are a combination of sender - message - and receiver. There is no special crystalline reception that exists - somehow miraculously outside a worldview - merely because it is God who is speaking. So, all that is to say, I assume that in such passages the people in question heard *something* from God, but they then filtered it through their expectations/presuppositions. And, history suggests that their Ancient Near Eastern expectations told them that the gods who were powerful showed this by wiping out other people groups - thus effectively wiping out other gods. It was always a zero-sum game... http://www.precipicemagazine.com/poetics-of-leadership2.html Margaret Wheatley asks, “Is it possible to live in the humility of knowing that our purpose, as clearly as we self-define it, is but ‘a husk of meaning’? The task is really to become superb listeners. Heidegger wrote that waiting, listening, was the most profound way to serve God.” One of the most fundamental precursors of emergence is emptiness, and an ability to embrace mystery. On the other hand, one of the most fundamental characteristics of modernity is the search for certainty. No wonder we have lost the ability to embrace liminal space! It isn’t easy embracing insecurity. It isn’t easy leaving our comfort zones, our titles, or our previous understanding behind. With every change of paradigm comes the need to embrace a new self-understanding, and the loss of a settled identity. But our faith paradigm itself is rooted in a fundamental insecurity. The heroes of faith are described by the writer of Hebrews: they went out, “not knowing where they were going.” Faith is a trusting in something beyond sight, something we have not yet seen. Thomas Merton writes, We must affirm and deny at the same time. One cannot go without the other. If we go on affirming, without denying, we end up affirming that we have delimited the Being of God in our concepts. If we go on denying without affirming, we end up denying that our concepts can tell the truth about Him in any sense whatever. (The Ascent to Truth, 94) Community and mission are both about love and emptiness of our own agendas, freely encountering the other. Community only exists where there is vulnerability, the choice to take risks and create open space. Real community only exists when we learn to embrace insecurity. So it seems that a precondition of emergence is emptiness. Only the empty, the poor, the naked and the disenfranchised can see clearly, because they have no vested interests and nothing left to lose. This is why Jesus says that we must become as children in order to enter the Kingdom of God...