Another Wacky Crime, Typical Day, in Oakland

They caught, arrested and charged the freaky lady that was going around from Piedmont Ave. through the Laurel District robbing people, in particular old ladies, by spraying them in the face with chemicals such as Ant Killer Spray. Bizarre that such things are tolerated here, and that we keep paroling so many crazies who are drug-dependent and thus lost back in our neighborhoods instead of helping them get the strategic help that they need.

Read the Tribune Article for more un-skewed info: "Woman charged in chemical spray robberies."

Presence: Part 1

Monte's Book Club

We live in a world and culture that seems to be stuck on separation, distinction and breaking things down into parts that we can get our minds around. Yet in this first part of the book, the writers advance that "the whole exists through continually manifesting in the parts, and the parts exist as embodiments of the whole." p. 6 of intro. Where we see separation we should be looking for integration, synchronicity, inter-dependence, mutuality and reciprocity. Historically it seems that those that are able to step back, to see the big picture, or take in the whole are the ones to voice as prophets, healers, and truth-tellers what the whole is that we live in, what's wrong with it and how to transform it. That's what the authors advance as the most true and essential vocation of leadership. Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, MLK Jr., Gandhi, Amos, and Esther...they are examples of leadership according to presence. Leadership is more about being a being who can see the whole, who recognizes that the whole - or system in which we breath, move and have our being - is a whole that is fundamentally relational.

With the emergence of global culture, instant communication, rampant individualism and as-of-yet-historically-unknown-material acquistion our traditional family, religious and social structures are threatened. We live in a moment where much of what we know is questioned, in crisis, and unsure to continue. Global Warming. The Food Crisis. Global Multinational Companies. The Slow Food and Locavore Movements. We need leaders that are aware of the changes around us - and call us to hope - of course it's one thing to talk about it (like Obama) and another to be what the authors consider living an awareness of the system in which we live, the changes happening and the ways in which to move into the future. We can't just react to change (which merely leads to reinforcing old established habits and affirming empty vague rhetoric, violence and genocidal tribalism), we have to move beyond the escapist tendency to find comfort in habit to seeing uncomfortable and extraordinary clarity regarding what it means to act in the service of what is emerging around us.

We most often think that we fail in changing institutions because we lack visions and noble intentions, when in fact we ail because people can't see the reality that we face. In a sense we live in an almost sci-fi world depicted in the Matrix, Star Wars, Battlestar Galatica and the X-Files. We fail to recognize and discern the synchronistic and interdependent relationships all around us from the quarks that make up the atoms of creation to the ways in which we work together. To be a good leader in an effective and emergently aware way, is to redirect energy to focus on the whole through spiritual practices of mediation, centering prayer, silence and awareness.

It's challenging to see that these non-religious folks go towards spiritual practice as the foundational essence of leadership. It's not about action but about awareness, not about reactivism but presence, not about being distant but about being connected. Yet we continually focus on leadership as about power over others to direct things in ways that we want. It's about collaboration through motivation, shared decision making or if all else fails, manipulation.

I think about the people/leaders/mentors that have had the most impacted me.....they did so more through their relationship then through their knowledge, wisdom, actions, or words. It's a direct challenge for most pastoral leaders, when we base people work leadership on a CEO model in which leaders stay in an office, directing others by staying on top of information...instead of walking the streets, hanging in the cafes and bars, and being present in the world seeking to be aware of what God is doing. The other day I walked through the Dimond District (the neighborhood of the church I serve) in jeans, a t-shirt and my ipod visible. A friend said that no one would ever be able to know my pastoral profession from the way I looked. Maybe I'm on the right path then towards Presence Leadership....

short urban street e-fiction

the bush part 2

ok - last week corn dog was inspired by a large daisy-like bush in the back of my car, and wrote up a short urban street e-fiction (part 1) piece. today i saw that same bush, where i planted it, and it looks like this....


so how does the story end?
corn dog?
buhller?
anyone else?

Bumper Sticker of the Week

I saw this one - ok it's actually a mosaic of stickers - on an old beat up semi-white Vanagon (aren't they all?) in Rockridge a couple weeks ago. It made me remember that we often ask if the glass if half-full or half-empty, when we should start by being grateful that there is a glass. Cheers. Wish I could have gotten the whole back of the Vanagon in the photo...it was completely covered. I think the stickers were what was holding the bumper on.

Blogging Towards Sunday

May 18, 2008
Deuteronomy 6:1-11
John 20:19-23

What do you spend most of your days talking about? I'm a habitual complainer - on the inside of course, I'd never want to come out of my sarcastic, cynical and passive-agressive closet. Ironically (or not) the more I complain the worse I feel because I allow myself to be consumed by my narcissistic anger, bitterness, and malcontentment.

Deuteronomy 6 tells the Israelites how to transmit and mature faith, how to pass it on to others - through dialogue, discussion, conversation - not just at a weekly Bible Study or regular coffee date - but in every moment and activity of life: rest, recreation, work and travel. It seems to affirm that we talk ourselves into faith through story-telling, testimony, dialogue and relationship. They're to remember who God is, the living God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt to a new life in the freedom of the promised land.

In John 20 Jesus tells his friends and followers that as God has sent him, so Jesus sends them. It's a promise that extends to us. Jesus was sent to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom to the prisoner, recovery of sight for the blind, release the oppressed and announce the moment of the Lord's favor. (Luke 4:18-19). We - as those that follow him and call him master - to be about the same business. To talk about it when we walk and when we sleep, when we work and when we eat.

I asked someone how they share their faith today. They told me that they do it with their children, but that otherwise they're not much of a preacher, that's your [meaning me] job. But that's not what these two scriptures teach. It's all of our job. And it's not as difficult as we make it out to be.

How do we see Jesus in our world - through the actions, presence, work, words and relationships of others. We talk ourselves and each other into faith, not in a proletariat-dupping sort of way, but in a dialogue-discussion, have another beer or latte way. It's in those conversations that we are open to being changed in the way that we see the world, see each other and see ourselves. It's like the funny picture above. You have to change the way you look at it to see Jesus in it. You have to take in the whole thing, not just a part of it, in order to grasp the big picture.

Speak up for and with your favorite teachers today!
4-6pm at Frank Ogawa Plaza
Make your voice (and that of your children) heard with your feet!

short urban street e-fiction

written by corn dog

corn dog walked by the church where i worked the other day and noticed the ecclectic collection of junk, plants and dirt in and on my car....which inspired a short urban street e-fiction piece that i just had to share. corn dog is a great writer - ready for publication in the new yorker - check out other stuff at www.rubbercorndog.blogspot.com


Monte was a man, small in stature, but not heart or spirit. He knew what the country needed. He loaded bush into the back of his station wagon, drove to the abyss, and threw him in. Polly Pockets rained down on America after that, and God forgave Monte because bush survived well in the abyss, bottom feeding as he had in the White House. Dimond Gospel according to LaTina Chapter 1 Verse 1

Day of the Teacher May 14, 2008

Take Action to Prevent Cuts & Protect our Public Schools

Articles & Resources to empower your voice & support our teachers!

Directions to Frank H. Ogawa Plaza (Oakland City Hall)

"Day of the Teacher" - California Teachers' Association

"Teachers to rally from Peninsula to San Jose" [Oakland Tribune]

"Day of the Teacher to be used against Governor"

Oakland Education Association - Invitation to the Rally May 14th from 4-6pm @ City Hall

List of things YOU CAN DO to fight for public education on the OUSD website

Budget Crisis Articles hosted on the OUSD website

What I Read This Past Week 

that was Read-worthy

In my burnt-out, over-relationalized, technology-avoiding hair-let down of Monday I always catch up on reading through the newspapers and magazines that came during the weekend.  Here's what struck and stuck with me this weekend:

Arms and the Man: What Herodotus was trying to tell us (The New Yorker)

Nearer to Overcoming: Black America today (The Economist)

Too Solemn for Her Generation: Chelsea Clinton (Washington Post)

2008 Summer Movie Preview (Pink Pages SF Gate)

Taking the strain: Food prices and protest (Economist)

TRYO
Urban Francophile Reggae

I'm doing traffic school at home via the web...and while I should be studying I'm loving listening to an old album of accoustic reggae that I'd almost forgotten about. TRYO is a French group, all the rage (ou bien le top) when we last lived in France. They were environmental, political, rythmic, hip and marjauna-smoking long before Al Gore got into it (without inhaling of course). Here's some of their stuff for you to enjoy! It's a good workout for your French - fast and argot-ridden!

Tryo BLOG
website
MySpace Page

Amusez-vous bien!

"La Misere d'en face" - The misery in front of us



"L'Hymne de nos campagnes" - Hymn of our Countryside



"La Revolution" - well performed by some unknown guys
well performed by some unknown guys


Tryo mixed to Harry Potter