Wednesday, September 17, 2008

the green bible

this wonderful edition of that old favorite (the bible) is now being released.  just the right thing for 'the people of the book' in these times.

congratulations to matthew who has written the introduction...other essays in this bible by such luminaries as N. T. Wright, Barbara Brown Taylor, Brian McLaren, Matthew Sleeth, Pope John Paul II, and Wendell Berry.

Monday, September 15, 2008

"Ordinary Radicals" premiere in Lexington!



At 7pm on Thursday, October 16 Communality will be sponsoring a viewing of the movie "The Ordinary Radicals" at the Kentucky Theatre in downtown Lexington. The viewing will be from 7-9pm followed by a live Q&A with the director Jamie Moffet and a short presentation from our good friends at Kentucky Refugee Ministries. But here is the best part about it. This viewing is going to double as a fundraiser for KRM with 100% of the proceeds from the $7.50 tickets going to KRM! This is a fantastic opportunity for us to put our faith into action while we explore together what God is doing anew in America through "ordinary radicals." Please help us sell this theatre out and spread the word about what God is doing through ordinary people all across America. You can view the trailer for "The Ordinary Radicals" here:

http://www.theordinaryradicals.com

You can contact the Kentucky Theatre at 231-7924 or 231-6997 for tickets....please republish this post on your own blog if you want or spread the word at your own local church/group.....I have posters if you need them

Saturday, September 13, 2008

sunday night

here are a couple of recent pics from our life together in communality.  these are from one of our sunday night gatherings.

DSC_1410DSC_1407IMG_1187

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Atta Boy, Obama; Atta Boy, McCain

There are already so many posts about this year's presidential race; there's so much to process in this inevitably historic year. But in the midst of all the politics as usual, there are moments of true graciousness and statesmanship -- on both sides -- that bear highlighting and commendation. Here are two.

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Example #1: When Obama's acceptance of the Democratic nomination fell on the 45th anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, McCain aired a TV ad congratulating Obama on this historic moment. Watch it here.

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Example #2: When Gov. Palin announced that her 17 yr old daughter is expecting, Obama adamantly denounced the media's involving families in the campaign tactics, and wasn't afraid to name the similarities between the Palins' situation and his own childhood.

"We don't go after people's families. We don't get them involved in the politics. It's not appropriate and it's not relevant. Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be. And if I ever thought there was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they'd be fired," Obama said.

Obama also said: "This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories."

"You know, my mother had me when she was 18. And how families deal with issues and teenage children - that shouldn't be the topic of our politics," Obama said.

Good on ya', both of you.

Monday, September 01, 2008

in this world (words from thomas merton)

Christians are now asking themselves curious questions about something called the "world." Should they revile it as their fathers did? Should they renounce it as monks do? Should they love it as it loves itself? Should they enter into dialogue with it, as the Pope has dialogues with all kinds of people not excluding Russians? Or, in the long run, should they frankly admit that they are part of the world and start from there? What is this world? Does it exist at all?

We must begin by frankly admitting that the first place in which to go looking for the world is not outside us but in ourselves. We are the world. In the deepest ground of our being we remain in metaphysical contact with the whole of that creation in which we are only small parts. Through our senses and our mind, our loves, needs, and desires, we are implicated, without possibility of evasion, in this world of matter and of [human beings], of things and of persons, which not only affect us and change our lives but are also affected and changed by us. From the moment we sit down at the table and put a piece of bread in our mouths, we see that we are in the world and cannot be otherwise than in it, until the day we die. The question, then, is not to speculate about how we are to contact the world-as if we were somehow in outer space-but how to validate our relationship, give it a fully honest and human significance, and make it truly productive and worthwhile for our world.

Thomas Merton. Love and Living. Naomi Burton Stone and Brother Patrick Hart, editors. New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979: 106.