inspiral blog

Lee organised a social night for us this week to the Cue Bar in Brunswick St, so we hung out there for a while in the arvo. Anthony’s choir had a gig in the afternoon, which meant some came a little later. Naomi from Urban Seed joined us too, which was cool.

We came back to the house around 6ish and Sammy cooked up a storm for us. Since it’s my birthday this week (it’s also Tara’s), there was a cake for me and Julie and I were given a present for our 30th. It’s a voucher for RedBalloonDays, a website that enables you to buy experiences. We’re still deciding what we want to do.

Thanks guys!

This week we had a discussion about whether or not we would begin to forge deeper link with the Seeds network. Seeds is…well, it’s hard to explain, but very vaguely, it’s the network of conversations and theology and relationships and practices that have come out of Urban Seed. The practices would be centred around three central discipleship themes: teaching, healing, and casting out evil. From the Seeds website:

Know the Word
We seek to know and be known by God’s message of truth, love and justice by gathering together to pray, discern and celebrate our participation in the living story of Jesus Christ.

Grow Home
We seek to grow a new sense of home in local places by re-imagining the traditional vows of

Poverty: by seeking simplicity; solidarity with those marginalised; and ways of sharing our resources.

Chastity: honouring the sacred connections between God, creation and each other’s bodies through sharing “slow” food around an open table.

Obedience: Being faithful to the mutual decisions we make to live this vision with others.

Go Engage
We seek to serve others through the practices of teaching, healing and casting out evil. These are often expressed through ministries of education, hospitality and political engagement.

So Lent is the time of discernment of what these will look like for our ‘mob’. The sense really was that this was a no-brainer – that we were doing these things anyway, so it made sense to link in with a larger network of people doing similar things, and to put a structure (a non-restrictive one) on the way we do it. So: prepare for us to become seedier.

Julie, the girls and I arrived early so we could set up and get ready for everyone’s arrival. The first surprise of the weekend was the unexpected appearance of Felicity, who had only touched down from her extended stay overseas on Tuesday. She brought her sister Emily too, so it was a doubly delightful surprise! Meryl and Croz arrived next, then Tara, and finally also Anthony and Jane (they caught the train to Frankston, then rode their bikes from there!).

Once everyone was arrived and settled, we started the Open Space thing, and made our agenda for the weekend.

One of the first items on the agenda was a guitar singalong, and that took pretty much the rest of the evening.

The next morning I’d committed myself (passion & responsibility) to leading a group meditation at the beach. It was a bit tough getting up that early, but we made it to Gunnamatta. We read Matthew 14:22-33 (Jesus walks on the water – appropriate for beside a stormy sea) and then spent half an hour in silence. Then Anthony taught us ‘Wade in the Water’, a Negro spiritual that recalls the exodus, which we sang as we waded in the water.

On our return we had breakfast and the rest of the morning was whiled away with other things. Some of us jumped in the car around 11:40 to take Felicity to her 12pm ferry, only to discover about 15 minutes down the road that it was actually more like a 45 minute drive. We were the winners there as the next ferry didn’t leave till 5! Lunch (Chelsea was picked up by Gran and Gramps) was followed by Cluedo (I had an afternoon nap) and then Anthony and I took Felicity to the ferry while others had Jane’s discussion about Jesus (why we like him and what intrigues us about him).

Dinner was fish and chips and was followed eventually by Sam’s life story. Amazing, thanks Sam. After that, we were up till about 2am discussing lots of things, from the goods (and evils) of consumerism to the best way to do bible reading.

If it was hard to get up early on Saturday morning, it was almost impossible on Sunday morning. But get up some of us did, and walked the 10 minutes to the Rosebud foreshore. Half an hour’s meditation (preceded by a reading from John 8:2-11) was followed by a few ends of beach bocce, and we returned to the house around 10ish.

Then we decided we’d all go out for brunch at the Rye hotel. ‘Whatever happens is the only thing that could have’ was unfortunately borne out as we got there to discover they were running on auxilliary power – the high winds overnight had brought down powerlines all the way to Dandenong, we were told. Not to worry, they said: we’ll have enough to make your orders. By this stage we were hungry enough to chance it so we stayed, only to have them run out of gas half an hour later and tell us they couldn’t make them after all. Unsure of whether our power would be out or not, we chanced it and bought breakfast/brunch things at the supermarket and ended up cooking up a storm (the power was fine – everywhere other than the Rye hotel it seemed). It was 12:30 by the time we ate, but it was so good it was worth it.

After lunch we cleaned up and had the closing circle ceremony. Then cleanup before the trip home: Anthony and Jane again making their way back to Frankston on their bikes in gale-force winds.

Obviously, what I’ve described here are some things that happened, that don’t anywhere near touch the significance of this weekend for this group of people. So great to have almost our whole mob here for at least some part of the weekend, and stands us in good stead for the rest of the year.

Wow. Nearly two months now without an entry. That’s because it’s been almost two months since we were last together – and it kind of feels like it. Not that we haven’t talked, but it’s not the same when you’re not all in a room together. Absence has certainly made the heart grow fonder – I’ve been looking forward to this reunion for many weeks.

Over the break, there have been a lot of changes – me starting more at Urban Seed, trying to get a business happening with Jarrod McKenna, and soon to be starting at Brunswick Baps too. Anthony has quit his job (he finishes this week!) and subsequently will soon be unemployed (though only as long as he procrastinates in finding another). Lee has got his dream job at the Herald Sun, Sam has her dream job cutting up dead bodies (it’s ok, it’s all perfectly legal) and Matt has been working his dream job at Holden. But onto today…

Some of us (Julie, Simon, Anthony, Tara) went to the Holy Transfiguration Monastery a week or two back, and many things remained with us, but two that I want to mention here. One, is when they hug you, you stay hugged. None of that awkward token-effort, dreadfully-chic, fleeting type of hugging – this is a genuinely warm, welcoming, authentic hug, lasting at least 10 seconds. Sure it’s a little strange the first time, but I’m totally won over. The hugs are here to stay at inspiral. You’ve been warned.

The other thing was their focus on “people before mission”. That is, they strive first of all to get community right – to make sure that they are doing everything they can to care for those in their community before even thinking about mission. That way no-one is sacrificed for the sake of the mission, and the mission is done out of the overflow of community. Thus, mission is sustainable, and done out of authenticity.

It was this latter point that stuck out to me as we talked today about what we wanted out of this year – what we wanted to tackle, what we wanted to see happen, what we wanted to look back on at the end of the year and affirm as worthwhile. At first we talked about things like our mission – making sure we get Opportunity International fundraising done, how we can connect better locally, etc. But then talk started to turn to community, and on several points we connected with this idea of getting community right first. Only then can we move out of that.

We talked briefly about identifying as a Seeds mob, and that seemed uncontroversial simply because it’s pretty much what we’re already doing. Linking in with others seems to make sense.

Also, great to welcome Jane Moyle to our gatherings this evening. Hopefully it wasn’t too chaotic (though it certainly was chaotic) for her and Chris to think about coming back.

So, the year is shaping up well, if very differently to the last two. I get the sense that we’re maturing a lot as a group. More than that, I have a strong feeling that whatever happens is totally out of my hands this year. That’s probably for the best.