Spencer Burke :: Weblog

"Cold Grip" - Daily Meditation

"Cold Grip" I took this in a St Louis in an old church

"Work" - Daily Meditation

"Work" this image was taken in 1981 in downtown Los Angles - he struck a pose when he saw me shooting near the corner

"Beauty" - Daily Meditation

"Beauty" I took this photography under the 6th street bridge in LA

"Unseen" - Daily Meditation

"Unseen" this image is in the attic of an old movie theater in St. Louis.

"Blast" - Daily Meditation

"Blast" this is a close-up photography of flower

"Leather and Lace" - Daily Meditation

"Leather and Lace" I took this shot at the Block in Orange, CA - it was part of a walking meditation.

"The Line" - Daily Meditation

"The Line" I took this picture the other day in a parking lot with Grace.

"Adaptation" - Daily Meditaion

"Adaptation" I took this photography in the Southern California desert 1999.

"Why Not" - Daily Meditation

"Why Not" this is a Frank Gehry building in Minnesota, 2001.

"Tri" - Daily Meditation

"Tri" - I shot this photo in Colorado 1979.

"Time" - Daily Meditation

"Time" - this image is of my computer screen 2004.

"Moment" - Daily Meditation

"Moment" - I took this close up of a flower that only blooms one day a year.

Anna's Notes From Our Workshop Last Friday

Two heresies, two metaphors, and a gardener
Spencer Burke—Seminar—Friday March 12, 2004—7:00-9:00

Metaphors of Emergence or as I renamed it: two heresies, two metaphors, and a gardener

Anna italicized her thoughts, so if you read this and thought, hey, Spencer wouldn't say that, then look again because it was probably her response...

Learning: moving from teacher to facilitator. If learning is our desired outcome in our churches, then teaching is a part of it. In the next movement of where we’re going, then it will be more culturally appropriate. Teachers are a dime a dozen in an information age. What we need are information gatekeepers. To unpackage this, you move beyond the teacher as leader, and you move to a place of teachers a teacher. Instead of that, or to deconstruct this, you move to a place where you want a facilitator to help us learn. That person is helping you to learn. They are facilitating the ability for you to learn.

Excellence in a postmodern world is defined as a sense of authenticity. Excellence is being who you are and bringing all of who you are to what it is—not the performance of perfection.

This totally explains the phenomenon of William Huang. This dude is totally dorky, can’t sing, certainly can’t dance, but when he auditioned on American Idol and Simon told him he was terrible, he said something to the effect of “I have no professional training. I did my best. I have no regrets.” In a forum where most of the people ridiculed on American Idol argue and rant at the judges for not seeing how talented they are or being completely crushed by their sharp censure, he merely shrugged it off because it had no baring on him as a person. What happened? He gained a cult following complete with unsolicited fan websites and t-shirts popping up all over. This earned him a record deal. Can he suddenly sing? No. Did he learn how to dance? Did they give him a makeover? No, he’s not anything that anyone would think is cool, and yet he’s got all these fans. Why? Because he’s real.

Tour guide or fellow traveler? How are you running your church? Tour guides and fellow travelers exist in both the postmodern and the modern world. You can have postmodern tour guides.

Here’s a heresy that Spencer thinks he believes. He’s been playing with the idea of him as shepherd. He’s not sure we’re ever called as human beings to be shepherds. Peter was called to feed sheep. Have you ever seen a shepherd feed sheep? Who feeds the sheep? The mother sheep feed sheep. How did we become shepherds from that? There’s only one Good Shepherd and that’s Jesus Christ. There is no missing link between God and us; we don’t deserve the promotion to God. Does that mean we can’t be parent sheep? That we don’t know where the cool water is? No, but we are sheep following the Shepherd, and not shepherds. Yes, it may be a heresy, but it takes away the leap to spiritual expert that we often think of a pastor.

"Hell" - Daily Meditation

"Hell" I took this photograph in the SoHo district of NY 1990

"Self" - Daily Meditation

"Self" I took this photo with my cell phone the other day as I was walking.

"Church This Week" - The Park

Here is a post from Robert from our Church

Church this past Sunday for a few of us was in the park. We brought enough food for many for whom the park is not only their church, but also their home for now, a place of gathering and community. That is to say when they are not being pestered by the Anti-Yogi-Mr. Park Ranger-Homeless Patrol (Aren't those guys employed by our tax dollars?)

We gather together in Jesus' name on occassion with folks here that likely would not find themselves in a more traditional church on Sunday, even if on a random case a particular church might welcome someone of their "sort".

Can you recall the last time you sat next to someone in church who hadn't showered, was obviously high (I don't mean on "life", dude), basically had no means or prospects, and simply had a conversation with them?

Taylor, one of our cherished congregants, not only loved the food but also sharing about his journey from addiction to heroin and drinking as a teenager until age 28 when he had to stop due to his diabetes, and then quite convincingly shared how marijuana was a great substitute. He said, "you don't see people on pot robbing banks or doing drive-by shootings, man, do you?...They're too busy chillin', they can't even get to the front door much less hop in and out of a crime vehicle" He has a point.

I loved watching our kids interact with every one, offering another plate of food, cookies or chips in between their forays to the playground nearby to folks that are not so very different than their own families even if they happen to speak another language, or appear a wee bedraggled.

Children somehow naturally understand how to be kind to strangers, and perhaps see angels for who they really are in the thick of our everyday world.

Yup, church was great on Sunday. Come on out sometime.

Peace,
Robert Dugan

"Home" - Daily Meditation

"Home" - as I am on the road I realize how much I miss my home, family... This photography was taken down the street from the "beachshack"

"Mother and Child 2" - Daily Meditation

"Mother and Child 2" (I let Bob Carlton pick this image), I took this photograph in downtown L.A. (1999) it is the other side of the coin from my 1st "Icon" post.

"Launch" - Daily Meditation

"Launch" - this image is taken in Maine in 1999, it could be a sunrise or a sunset...

"Wisdom" - Daily Meditation

"Wisdom" this image was taken in 1979 of an older man who peered over his fence as I was photographing the area, he told me to look over at him and then struck this whimsical pose...

Blog Responds to "Church this Week"

It is great to have others posting and commenting on what we are doing each week as a church. Below is a post from chrismc followed by my comment I posted on his site…

Does Jesus show up if Buddha is speaking?

Please help out here. I totally understand the experience that Matt had. I really do. But I suppose if I was there I would have had this thought; As truthful sounding as Hahn might be, he and all the other monks there will never see Heaven. Unless of course he puts his faith in Christ. On top of that they are leading 1000's of people astray.

If that is some how my modern worldview blinding me to something please show me how to remove that blinder. What am I missing?

My posted comment on chrismc

It is fascinating to me that we will allow a business “guru” to come into our church and teach our leaders how to become CEOs (BTW many of these heroes of the 80s and 90s are now in federal prison for their part in swindling America).

But when a simple person of faith, shares from their own story of spiritual journey, we put up red flags and cover the children’s eyes. Why? Who are your allies? Who will you and your church call on to help lead you closer to Christ? The power hungry, consumer driven, worldly success role model, who wants you to believe Jesus is best represented as the CEO of your company/church? OR the quite monk, who has taken a vow of poverty, was nominated by Dr. Martian Luther King jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize, embraced by Fr. Thomas Merton as a close spiritual brother, who wants you to believe Jesus is best represented as the servant and example of humility for the church.

As we move into the coming age of the church my prayer is that we will be wise as serpents and harmless as doves as we contemplate who we will call our allies and who will be considered adversaries.

"Soulace" - Daily Meditation

"Soulace" I took this picture in New York in 1988.

"Path" - Daily Meditation

"Path" - I took this picture yesterday in New York

"Part of the Story" - Daily Meditation

"Part of the Story" this is a section of a stain glass window. (santa cruz, ca 1999).

"Flight" - Daily Meditation

"Flight" this image was created using a slow shutter speed of a bird leaving its nest (Maine 1998).

Hahn - Church This Week

Here is a post from Matt Palmer from our community

For church this week, we went to a gathering at Mile Square Park in the heart of Fountain Valley. We attempted to “smart mobbed” as we all gathered at the place separately arriving each in our own cars, . In order to smart mob, you need contact by cell phone to land the others who are arriving to the spot, and this gathering repeatedly conveyed that silence was paramount and cell phones were not allowed (although when they did ring by those who left them on, no dirty looks were given). This was a gathering of Buddhist followers coming to speak and take a day in the park with monks and nuns of the Monasteries taught by none other then the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn.

I arrived alone and could easily be recognized the gathering from far away by red banners saying statements like “I have arrived” and “I am free”, and monastic in brown robes and white cone type hats. The moment I left the parking lot, and entered the grassy area in which they were to meet, I felt a presence like none before, I had to stop and stand to take it all in. There were about five hundred or more people all waiting to see Hahn (the Buddhist equivalent to Billy Graham), and 80% of them were Vietnamese. I definitely stood out (being Caucasian), but was greeted warmly by a Vietnamese man who struck up a conversation with me. He said he was not a Buddhist but a “movie maker”, who spent the part of the war in a P.O.W. camp for 7 years. When I told him that I was a Christian (hard to say to a group like this with a lot of baggage on the Church as a whole, especially against them) he asked if I was “curious about all of this”; we spoke for about a half hour.

I had read one of Hahn’s books, Living Buddha, Living Christ and was inspired by the respect that a devout and renowned Buddhist spoke of Christ as a peacemaker and a “brother” of Buddha. I was ironically reading Hahn’s book on 9/10/02 before going to bed and remember he was speaking about his opinions of war, his efforts during the Vietnam war to reconcile with the North and South, and his passive stance. Ever since then, I have had a new respect for Hahn and that he has at least dared to examine other faiths to sharpen his own understanding and faith confident in the correlations of others to his. This was what brought me here but I encountered something much more.

When the monastics arrived, everyone was asked to get up from the crowd and line a pathway. There was a sea of brown, and one man in yellow. At first, I assumed that Hahn was the man in yellow, but when he got closer, I recognized that the man to the right of the man in yellow was Hahn, in a brown robe. The scene was spectacular, these people in brown walking in rhythm, but not marching, holding small clay pots in their hands, everyone on the side silent, palms together. Later I learned that the reason they put their palms together is to “look beautiful”, the palms together resemble a budding lotus flower; something very beautiful and sacred to them.

After Hahn walked down this path of lotuses followed by the rest of the monastics, he sat down and spoke, asking everyone in the crowd to “sit beautifully”, which I noticed was cross legged or Indian style, palms together. He then started to speak in Vietnamese then translated into English. When he spoke, it was not in anger, it was not to force, it was not to convince, it was to guide. The ambience and setting was amazing. Just the fact that everyone was silent and meditating on the teaching was different for me, but very refreshing.

The agenda for the day was to take the crowd through a day of the life of practices Buddha himself would have exercised. Hahn spoke first of how every place can be a beautiful place or a place of “hell”. We can decide to see the beauty in it and take it, or we can put up our defenses and make it hell. He then gave us something to meditate on as we did a small meditation walk within the park, lead by the monastics. The words were “I have arrived”, “I am home”, “I am here”, “I am now”, “I am solid”, “I am free”, “I live in the ultimate”. Walking around what was no more then a quarter mile, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. Everyone was walking to their own pace, monks with nuns, monk and nuns along side lay people. You could hear what they were meditating on, and the only real sound was the grass crunching under everyone’s feet. This place where dogs play Frisbee and kids play football had all of a sudden become sacred.

After we got back from our walk, Hahn spoke again and asked everyone to “sit beautifully”. He then spoke of how the Buddha would mindfully eat and how the daily routine for a monk / nun is to walk into the town where the monastery was and to go door to door with a clay pot and ask for food in exchange for a teaching. After collecting the food, the monks / nuns would go into a forest and eat mindfully the meal together in the beautiful surroundings. Hahn then asked that those in the crowd would give to the monastics present, a piece of food in exchange for the teaching heard that day.

Being a Christian, this teaching was amazing. So many times in my life I think of how fast I eat, walk, breath and consume without first thinking of how precious it really is. All of the situations I am in can be either a heaven or hell, not by other people, but by me. Was this teaching from a prominent Christian evangelist seizing the moment to convert, no. This was a man who is very small, soft spoken and has shaken the world in very significant ways, just by teaching others to be mindful. Some would wonder if this was “church” or if it was simply a cultural experience? Does this “count” for my attendance to a church gathering for the week. I would say that it was deeply spiritual, and touched me on so many levels that I have not gotten in a traditional church setting ever.

"Freedom" - Daily Meditation

"Freedom" I took this shot in a graden downtown London with a "throw away" camera. I call the pictures in this collection "sling shots" (1996).

"The Scarlett Letter" - Daily Meditation

"The Scarlett Letter" I took this picture at The Block in SoCal.

Live from the Garage

"Family" - Daily Meditation

"Family" this photograph was taken while I was in Africa in 1979. The title can mean so much in the world effected by AIDS.

"Church" - Daily Meditation

"Church in Motion" I took this image for a promotional booklet for Soularize 2002.