The opposite of old, dumb, scared and mean

There are many things in the world to be afraid of. Tornadoes and floods deserve a thought, especially this year. Hurricanes, always. But the big damage is done by groups of people that are old, dumb, scared and mean, especially when all those objectives describe how they think about the future. Like a tornado, there is no arguing with them, just beware their random damage. But like a flood, their swath is predictable; you can usually stay out of the way. And keep on eye on the levees, especially behind the levees where dumbness tends to find a way under. I’m thinking of the silly foci of the anti-Muslim crowds in neighborhoods all over the world. This is the same bunch that wants to change the very structure of our civil society to protect us against people nobody should be afraid of at all. They are a civic sand-boil, not a levee break. But they are useful in reminding us of what the future is not about.

What is the future about and how can we get there? Well, you could look through young lives that are the opposite of old, dumb, scared and mean. The (first!) Summer Youth Conference on UNITY and HOPE, attracted youth and adults (who are fit to be with youth!) in a feast of smart discussion and action, all about the world that should comes next. The future isn't exactly dazzling when it first becomes visible. The line up deserved 2,000 people and we had a cozier group of about 150. But then again, the Dalai Lama didn't fill up the place either (Memphis is a tough town). But the future is on the way. You can see it.


The gentle and gentle sprout of hopefulness was watered by some very big global names, such as as Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Dato’ J. Jegathesan of Malaysia. Most of us in Memphis haven’t heard of him, which is because isn’t from around here and isn’t afraid of the things we’ve been taught to worry about. He—like most of your youth—is interested in what should come next and how we lend our lives to making it so.


The whole gathering idea of Dr. Sunny Anand, the globally renowed intensivist at LeBonheur. He spends most of his time seizing the next few days of life from the jaws of young tragedy, one moment and one life at a time. Thank God. But he is a citizen of the future, focusing hope and imagination on those who we will depend on soon—and finding a way to gather them together to help us all find our way. Those coming together bring their faith, not just of different traditions, but also different futures. I’m glad my Jesus faith is there, but also that of others illuminated by other lights.


It is a bit audacious to think that my generation of grown-ups has much to teach the rising one. We’ve spent most of our time fiddling with new gadgets while a few of us invented some great music. But we pretty much failed to turn the course of things that matter; looking around the world today looks old, scared, dumb and mean, just with iphones. . But few of us can still rock, including the Kings of the Delta led by Greg Lacky of Arkansas (It takes some guts to call yourselves kings of the delta in Memphis!) So maybe we can at least talk with the rising ones.

And maybe together, teach other the things that make for peace and hope.

It's not done! (the future or the conference about it) It rolls on Sunday morning at 9am at Cannon Center in downtown Memphis through about 4pm. Check out the website at http://www.unityandhopememphis.org/

- Posted on the journey

Essence, Hope, Generosity (amazing)

You would not expect the Mississippi Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church to be a life-enhancing experience. Unless you knew anything about what is going on here. Mississippi is dead last in almost any health statistic in the any book, although they swear they have edged up ahead of West Virginia in a few categories. And it is true here as in most places that United Methodist clergy have been about 20% heavier than their lay members of the same age (not easy to do in the South!). Not encouraging for health folks.

So it is, well, amazing, that this is the Conference that has become best example of Wesleyan tradition in integrated health and faith since Wesley got on a horse. And the most visible signal of what is working is the Amazing Pace program, which builds a very smart and comprehensive wellness emphasis focused on the simplest of all things, walking.


Hundreds of Mississippi clergy wear their uploadable pedometers religiously, to use exactly the right word. In the past several years they have walked just over 2 million miles(including a couple around the state capitol early saturday morning). It is not a coincidence that the clergy health insurance plan has not had to have a rate increase in those four years and even returned a million dollars from their reserve fund into the pension fund -- because the hard claim data indicated that fundamental usage patterns had changed. This has happened in the years of recovering from the still-lingering trauma of Katrina when you would expect the opposite.

Some would think it would take all kinds of draconian threats, humiliation and massive incentives to achieve changes like that. And there are some minor incentives that will actually return some cash to participants if they meet the goals of 10,000 steps each month. But the main incentive is visible, verifiable improvement in health, energy and sense of possibility that is visible in the lives of each other. Oh, and, being religion, competition. The program tracks and makes visible who is walking how far in terms of individuals, but also teams from Districts. It is considerably more fiercely watched than church basketball (which makes rugby seem civilized). People encourage each other and not just the svelte and fit. Many of the leaders are traditionally shaped, but getting fitter and fitter.


We see this because Methodist Healthcare offers free health screening, which we've done for a couple decades. In the past few years we've been delighted to lend our support to the Amazing Pace (including sponsoring that walk in what feels like the middle of the night!). Our volunteers, almost all retired employees, do blood work and then counseling for a bit over 300 people each year. They tell the truth, inform and encourage people to take their own lives in the right direction. And many do. Year after year after year. Amazing.

All this health stuff is like a positive whirlwind that translates quite directly into energy that is felt on the floor of Conference itself. It helps that Bishop Hope Morgan Ward is the embodiment of all things alive and well in the Church--and that she is such a gracious messenger for Life. So the hundreds of pedometers carried by clergy on the move resonate with the Word from leaders.


So the songs of hope, grace and possibility all make sense; the prayers for healing are seen to be in the process of being answered. It is not delusional to hope--just look around. The Spirit moves and moves and moves.

It is still Mississippi so much of the mean and savage past remains visible, too. Faulkner noted that the problem with history is that it is not in the past. Race, gender, sex, privilege and power are all remain fiercely contested. The Bishop is regularly flogged because she gave the microphone to a lesbian couple two years ago. But just a few booths down from the Methodist Healthcare health fair is DREAM: "daring to reconcile and embrace all in Mississippi"(blogging at www.dreams.word press.com).

Steps and then more steps. You show up and start walking. Things happen you had given up hoping for.

I've been thinking again about Nathan Wolfe's observation that viruses live because they are able to "generate novelty." And the way they do that is to share their DNA in wildly unpredictable ways. They are generous with their essence, so things happen that would never be possible if change depended on each individual virus tweaking and scheming.




Human communities that learn to be generous with their essence generate novelty that allows life to find a way. Lee Burdine is the brain and spirit behind Amazing Pace. He is quick to deflect credit and he is correct in seeing the amazing changes involving many people who are generously contributing to the emergence of novelty. But he is generous with his essence, gracious and tenacious in the Mississippi way I have to respect. Not one, but ten thousand steps at a time. Amazing.

- Posted on the journey `

Murder of crows, hilarity of geese

Paducah is full of surprises, such as a full scale giraffe where you would not expect it. And, for that matter, a whole arts district (and a gorgeous coffee house named "etcetera"). Here for the Annual Conference of the Memphis District (no, nobody knows why Paducah is part of it). Reflecting on the curiosity of hundreds of clergy in one spot, John Kilzer informed me that a group of crows is called a "murder of crows" (look it up) and a similar group of geese can be called a "hilarity of geese."

I'm not sure what a gaggle of clergy should be called, but nothing so bland as conference. Some are worse than crows and funnier than geese, but most are simply people who year after year after year show up in people's lives with integrity, humility, care and then do the very best they can with what they've got. And then suddenly before
they notice, they've done it for 30 years. The best are surprised and regard the suddenly passed decades with some humor, but could fill it with a million stories of what matters most.



When you look closer, the colors and patterns of integrity are subtle and dazzling at the same time.

In Bishop Dick Wills "state of the church" this morning he said that if you didn't want to follow Jesus, just stay in church. But don't bar the gates for those following Jesus outside in ministry. He begged us not to take the church so seriously, while taking Jesus far more so.


He played the video from "playing for change" and the original stunner of a video beginning with Roger playing "stand by me." (http://playingforchange.com/episodes/2/Stand_By_Me) If you haven't seen it, do it now and forget the rest of the blog.

Wayne Merrit used to say that "you shall know the truth and truth shall make you odd. "It is not easy to follow the odd savior Jesus, for it will surely make you odd, too. It is sure a lot harder to do so inside the walls of the institution which tries to keep him safe from all he said. This is probably one of the clues to why it is generally healthy to be in a congregation, but potentially lethal to lead one, or lead four hundred like a Bishop tries to do. And a clue about what health looks like. More like the arts of resistance, than "compliance" (a hospital's favorite word for good patients).

- Posted on the journey

Innovation Invocation

Every quarter the top 500 leaders of Methodist Healthcare gather to see how we are doing and where we are going. We call this the "quarterly business review," but it is really a mission review. Today we gathered in 8 locations linked by video broadcast from the Innovation Studio in the Center of Excellence. We were sobered by the stunning images of the wrecked hospital in Joplin, so I opened with the following prayer.

God of every past, you have drawn 10,000 of us together from Arkansas and Mississippi and every part of Memphis, but also Pakistan, Scotland, India, Africa and every part of the United States. What a wondrous thing you have woven from so many different pasts!

We see the shattered hospital in Joplin and ache at what people just like us are struggling with at this very minute. Give them strength beyond their own strength to do their labor. We cannot know what the day will ask of us. But whether we are asked for courage or quiet diligence, we thank you for bringing us into others' lives as agents of your healing.

God of what comes next, give us the spirit of curiosity about you have not yet revealed, not yet done. As we are accountable to the past, let us be accountable to the future, too. So we offer up our best without pride as the seed of something better. Revealing God, honor our earnest search for innovation so that your love and justice might flow into the lives of the patients and families and neighbors you have given us to serve. Break down our fear, break loose our imagination and break through our satisfaction with "good enough." Fulfill Ezekiel's prayer that you replace a heart of stone, with a heart of flesh. And now tune our hearts to each other as we listen for the common heartbeat of a common mission.

We know you are already saying yes, even as we offer up our prayers. So with confidence we say Amen.

- Posted on the journey

God's Economy

There are no weeds in the economy of God. There are, however, a lot of things we don't know how to work with. So, fifty of us met in Simsbury, Connecticut (which has this week nearly as much water falling from the sky as Memphis). We were "converged" by Criterion Ventures, led by Joy Anderson, one of the most creative people in whole world (top 100, according to Fast Company Magazine). In her presence, everybody gets about ten notches more creative, too.


Patrick Duggan helped us move to understand the "church as an economic being" with some asking, "where is the cash stuffed away in all the nooks and crannies of denominational structure?" Others asked baldly, "what is the value proposition of the local church?" Others, also practically, "how do we find a workable business model for seminaries," and "how do we find and form the next generation of leaders who can lead these spiritual/economic beings?" Andy McCarrol and I came curious about whether there were new models that might help us expand our Memphis congregational health strategies to scale.


There is no shortage of anxiety in the church today, but I share little of it. Church structures are certain to dramatically shed structure and form like our auto companies have done in humbling fashion. But humility is appropriate after decades of serving as the complicit center for a culture that is among the most wasteful in the history of the species. Does anybody think the church deserve a reward for our performance any more than Chrysler?

So we'll have fewer full time "learned" clergy, a lot fewer seminaries and way less gothic boxes on corners. No big loss to the Kingdom of God. The astonishing thing is that we (I am an ordained part of it) have billions of dollars of liquid and material assets that are fungible enough to realign in service of what God might have in mind next.

We still have thousands of people laying their life on the line through churches doing all sorts of useful things. Some are young and crackling smart like Tom Daniel of Atlanta, or Tim Soerens of the Parish Collective in Seattle, Dan Senter of California and Cynthia Rasmussen in Rochester. How much more talent does God need?

And there are plenty of the "older young"--people in the 50's-70's who have seasoned talent and staying power: Jim Bennett of Church of the Savior, Steve Monti in North Carolina, and on and on. And some way smart veteran denominational mechanics: Phyllis Anderson, Greg Black of the UCC, Woody Bedell, who knows all there is to know about clergy health. How much talent does God need?


So too at the root. Last Thursday I witnessed the miracle of another class graduating from our CHN training, filled with power and encouraged by the practical knowledge. Every seven weeks another 60 or 100 goes through another flight of learning. How much talent does God need to get going?

There is startling number of faithful people who know how money works, and how to get it into the service of real change. The Investors' Circle, Village Capital, Praxis, Imago Dei Fund, OikoCredit, Equilibrium Capital Group, e3bank--and the whole wild ecology of others found at SOCAP. How much money does God need?


This morning I walked through the drizzle to an abandoned field behind the hotel. Some pine trees were quietly starting over in their busy and awkward way. And down at the root of what I thought were just weeds are gorgeous little red flowers. How much beauty do we need?

When we release our fears just a second, we notice assets and human capacities sufficient not just for the day, but for all that may be required of us. If God has enough (which seems to be the case) perhaps we do, too.

Surely, we have at least enough to take the next right steps on the path. What we could use more of is clarity of vision. That deserves some prayer, discernment, deep dialogue and, maybe even silence. What exactly do we need to do next?

The question has an edge when we know we have enough to start.

- Posted on the journey

Quiet, massive. The Mississippi

The Mississippi flows across the land and carves it path this way and that. The picture is from Reelfoot museum, mapping in different colors the many different courses across the years.For the last hundred years or so it has been contained within earthworks that among the largest humanly constructions on the planet. For the most part they look like they will hold the river in once again, except the lowest-lying neighborhoods where the poor live. There are a lot of poor in Memphis, so this is not a small number who will lose--once again--everything.


What is surprising to me--and might be surprising to those reading from a distance about the raging river and it wrath-- is that massive flow is actually quiet. It is hard to imagine tens of millions of gallons of muddy water moving in silence. It boils and rolls, carrying trees and clutter from upriver. But it doesn't seem wrathful, or particularly emotional.


It just does what rivers do, dangerous only to humans who take it personally and fail to respect its ways.

- Posted on the journey

Be a whirlwind of love

It is still raining out my window as it is up and down the Mississippi. There is justified awe and fear of the power of that great river, which channels the flow from 31 states. A very great deal of that brown water goes past beneath the Memphis bluffs and it is rising to levels not seen since 1937. One of my sunday school class members told yesterday of that great flood which covered much of eastern Arkansas. He was 17 at the time and remembers his high school closing so that it could be converted to emergency shelter for people driven off their land by the water.

On saturday I road in a fundraising bike ride for diabetes (the tour de cure). The 35 mile route wound from riverfront splendour though industrial grit and then in neighborhoods on the edge. Their homes were financially "under water" with lots of foreclosure signs block after block. And now non-metaphorical water rising up the walls of the mobile homes in the bottoms, heading for the streets nearby. Humans are vulnerable people, needing each other to make it in ways and means that we don't expect.

The radio and TV shows know they can draw a crowd with bombast and mean-spirited silliness about individual responsibility replacing government. But in real life where it rains, floods and ever now now and then swirls with F5 tornado force, it takes all kinds of responsiblity--personal, social, faithful and government.

Collins Dillard is an artist of abnormal sense and sensitivity. The picture is a poster he did for our little United Methodist Church, St. John's, to tell us how to send money where it will help somebody immediately and efficiently. The United Methodist Committee On Relief (UMCOR) has a stellar record moving fast and smart with compassion and competence. Just google UMCOR Advance 30021326. Send money. And prayers of gratitude that we are made to connect.

The other pictures are of a kind of sculpture Collins did that went along with the poster. The bent wire spirals up out of a stone toward a heart. We were encouraged to come, pray, place a paper heart at the base signalling the prayer and the intention to help.

Do it.

Gary

(Thank you Collins, for quietly reminding us that art gives us the coherence to find our toward each other.)