What a beautiful day! You can see our blessed greeting in the morning as we approached the festival grounds - God’'s promise of love for all creation. The beauty of that rainbow carried careful strands of hope throughout my day. We began with the gifted music leadership of Mark Miller! He led us into the message from William Barber who charged us to unite as the flames and wind of a moral Pentecost sweep through our land so that we rise for the poor and the marginalized. Standing with a great cloud of witnesses who have shown us the way in the midst of great struggle, they too had to rise as the rejected to redeem hearts and systems of oppression. How and where will we stand in solidarity, unite and be a stepping stone in the moral Pentecost? The strands of hope continued to guide my day with wisdom from Barbara Brown Taylor and a financial workshop. I participated in a workshop with Rev. Darci Jaret as she led us through a practice of visual narrative pastoral care that moved my soul and gave me creative ministry ideas! And then things got interesting as I encountered Bushi Yamato Damashi among the trees as he spoke of the making of a Christ Sangha (Buddhist understanding of community). His calming energy and gentle presence was an invitation to encounter wisdom in a new way for me. He encouraged us to work at coming back to our true selves. One way to find that, he says, is to engage in Buddhist practice of mindfulness and full presence and then to live out Christ’'s truth of love. Together Beth and I concluded our day with Mark Miller and Draw the Circle Wide. What a day of hope and blessing, promise and challenge! Sunday, July 14, 2019
Wild Goose Festival 2019
What a beautiful day! You can see our blessed greeting in the morning as we approached the festival grounds - God’'s promise of love for all creation. The beauty of that rainbow carried careful strands of hope throughout my day. We began with the gifted music leadership of Mark Miller! He led us into the message from William Barber who charged us to unite as the flames and wind of a moral Pentecost sweep through our land so that we rise for the poor and the marginalized. Standing with a great cloud of witnesses who have shown us the way in the midst of great struggle, they too had to rise as the rejected to redeem hearts and systems of oppression. How and where will we stand in solidarity, unite and be a stepping stone in the moral Pentecost? The strands of hope continued to guide my day with wisdom from Barbara Brown Taylor and a financial workshop. I participated in a workshop with Rev. Darci Jaret as she led us through a practice of visual narrative pastoral care that moved my soul and gave me creative ministry ideas! And then things got interesting as I encountered Bushi Yamato Damashi among the trees as he spoke of the making of a Christ Sangha (Buddhist understanding of community). His calming energy and gentle presence was an invitation to encounter wisdom in a new way for me. He encouraged us to work at coming back to our true selves. One way to find that, he says, is to engage in Buddhist practice of mindfulness and full presence and then to live out Christ’'s truth of love. Together Beth and I concluded our day with Mark Miller and Draw the Circle Wide. What a day of hope and blessing, promise and challenge! 
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Wild Goose Festival 2019
Wild Goose Festival 2019
Day #2
Today began with Diana Butler Bass totally excavating the biblical account of Jesus - post resurrection - greeting the disciples with a feast in the face of the empire. The Sea of Tiberius was named after the emperor who sentenced Jesus to death. In this place of Roman control the disciples caught a lot of fish, some even large enough to be shipped directly to Caesar. Jesus invited them to dine on the catch that belonged to the powerful. The powerful require blind loyalty. But Jesus asks "Do you cherish me." The imperial feast is one of fear and the Jesus feast is one of love. How can we embody the kind of love that invites the most vulnerable to dine on the feast that defies the empire? Like the disciples I often find myself at the edge of the sea of despair where the rulers of the day claim the earth's resources, control the marginalized with a regime of fear, and seek to silence the powerful narrative of love and hope. There at the edge is where Jesus shows up spreading out the table cloth, inviting all to partake in a feast of resistance, and whispering in the seat of our soul - "Do YOU cherish me?" - Feed my sheep. So may it be blessed ones.
Thursday, July 11, 2019
Wild Goose Festival 2019
Wild Goose Festival 2019
Many of you have asked me, "where are you going?" "what is this festival all about?" So each day I will give you a glimpse into my experience here. So let us begin with Wild Goose itself. When I took my Resurrection Pilgrimage to Ireland and Scotland this winter I traveled with Celtic Spirituality as my companion. As we got to know each other better, I found myself recommitting to my baptismal vow to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. Back to the wild goose ... which according to Celtic Spirituality it is a symbol for the Holy Spirit rather than the dove. I connected to the Wild Goose podcast and here we are! The theme at this unconventional (thanks be to God) Holy Spirit gathering is CoCreate! Spirit-Justice-Music-Art. It is here that I intend to nurture my spirit and prophetic call to be a voice in the creation and distribution of a hopeful narrative that claims God's life-giving justice - without asking permission. Ottis Moss III brought us powerful words of challenge and inspiration this first night - let God be God, by any means necessary. Which means that our limited human imaginations cannot dictate the ways and places God is at work in our world - stop blocking the front door, bring those in from the margins into the presence of the holy, and use the roof when necessary - by any means necessary (Luke 5:17 ...).
.... Blessed Be .....
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