I am in need of 3 Early Readers for my soon to be published (and as yet untitled) narrative theology.

It is a quick, light read, 200 pages. There are lots of Motorcycles, Quixotic adventures, and a few horses and Quakers. Angels, both the Hell's variety and the regular kind appear.

I need three people who can read the manuscript on a screen, within two weeks and give some general impressions and maybe answer a few questions. (If the readers I want turn out to be paper only - I will print and mail copies)

Rule Outs: The right individuals will NOT be Quakers. They will NOT have previously read any of my stuff. They will NOT be academics.

I have three specific profiles. I do not want them to be married or living in the same household.

Reader #1  Female, 35-60, Evangelical or Fundamental Christian. A regular church attender. She likely reads faith based adventure lit, missionary stories and biographies of spunky gals. If she lives east of the Rockies, that is a plus. If she is not white that is a double plus. 
  
Reader #2 Male  35-60 NOT a regular church attender, but not anti-religion. Working or lower middle class. Blue collar a plus. Likes/rides motorcycles and/or horses. Veteran a plus. In recovery a plus. Reads non-fiction and historical fiction.

Reader #3 Any Gender 20-35.  Deity friendly, but not church attending. Active. Not educated beyond a BA. Reads ebooks, comic books and is pop-culture aware.

The readers get a free book when it comes out and buckets of gratitude. The person who recruits the right reader will also get a free book.


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I don't ask for much, do I.
 

Hero of the Faith

Johnny Weir

Well, the Olympics are almost over.  The US lost Hockey and Putin lost the Ukraine.

Johnny says that showing up and being extra special flamboyant was not a political statement.  That he is just being himself. But when they are doing this outside



Well then, just being yourself, can make a statement.
Especially when yourself is as fabulous as this.







Somedays, being yourself is heroic.
And The Faith says that everyone gets to be what they are called to be.


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Well, it was a celebration day. The recording of Ashley M Wilcox as a minister of the Gospel. The outcome of the business was not really in doubt. That is not where we get our serendipity at FFC.

We are spoiled with a history of God-made moments. The unexpected visitor.  The unexpected vocal ministry.  Most meetings get these. At FFC they tend to be just a bit alternative . 

This morning a gentleman walked up the boulevard into the meeting. Six foot or better. Strong looking. Long blond  locks flowing straight back from his face, piercing blue eyes below a broad, square forehead, a long, straight, noble nose and a full beard. Dressed in normal Friday casual except for the ladies polyester skirt. He seemed at ease and at home in the worship service. He nodded sagely when Joe Synder spoke the disciple's anguished Query, "Where else would we go Lord, you have the everlasting word of life!"  He smiled when Vail Palmer reader from the letter to the Ephesians. He sang with us and prayed with us. It was a beautiful meeting.

At the rise of the meeting I  welcome him and chatted. This is how he introduced himself.

"I'm trying to get to all the churches. I heard about some women who had a 'wear pants to church day' among the Mormons. I heard that they received death threats for their protest. That bothered me a great deal and so I decided to dress in a skirt, because Jesus had no seam between his legs, and I decided to go to all the churches and let them know that God loves us all and that the second commandment that we love each other is the only thing that matters. And that this is what Jesus, God or not, would want us to do." He had other things to say, and he was very impressed with what he said was his first Quaker meeting.  He loved our concept of ministry. When I told him that we had  recorded women to the ministry since the 1600's, he said. "It did seem like you had received the memo." 

I asked him if he ate pie. "Of course, who doesn't eat pie?" He chose the Cherry.  He smiled at us taking pictures and laughed when I called the assembled photogs "Quaker Paparazzi." And he walked out without saying goodby. His signature in the guest book is undecipherable, but he said his name was Erik.

The name Erik is a Danish name. In Danish the meaning is: Ever kingly.

Just another Sunday morning at Freedom Friends. 

Update: Here is Erik Kulick, Aka cross-dressing Mormon Jesus 

There are some things that I was taught as a child to understand literally, which I no longer understand that way. I do not think that Noah got polar bears onto a boat. I do not think that all this around us was made in seven, twenty-four hour days. But some things - some very important things - I do still understand that way.

I do believe He was resurrected. Bodily. On the third day.

I will always believe this.

For many reasons,but foundationally, fundamentally, deal-breakingly because I will not betray the women.

All the Gospels say that Magdalen and a few other women were the first witnesses. Mark, the first writer says that they were not believed. Matthew leaves that little shame out. John inserts Peter and most likely himself into the story and does not mention incredulity . Luke tries to make amends. Luke is interesting. Tradition says he was a physician in Antioch. Tradition says that Antioch is where Mary, His mother fled. Luke has stories, like the birth story, that are women's stories.

Luke says that "Their words seemed like non-sense (idle tales) and they believed them not."

They were not legal witnesses - no woman was.

What a betrayal that must have been, or maybe they were just used to it.

The Eleven must have felt embarrassed a short time later. I hope they apologized.
Well I guess some of them did. The earliest writer put it in the story. It would have been so easy to forget. To erase. Matthew and John seemed to do so. But Luke was not letting them get away with it. He put the radical, groundshaking witnesses in the story, and he documented the shame of their brothers. If you were cleaning up a myth to make people look good, you would take that bit out. The fact that Luke leaves that in has the ring of truth. It is making amends, which always comes out of a place of truth

Others could have erased it later. But no one did.  Not the first tellers of the story, or the first writers, or the the sucessive copiers.

The Nicene Council  - Patriarchs all - chose to believe the women, and document their witness and leave in the shame.

And for two millennial no Pope or Patriarch, potentate or preacher has been able to wipe those women out of the story. No one has had the nerve. Until lately.

I will not discredit the voice of Magdalen, nor her spiritual mothers and sisters.
I will not stand with the unbelieving brothers, the skeptics.
I will not turn them into metaphor, or allegory or hagiography.

I will not let my modernist sensibilities black ball their words in shadow - Less than other words, even the words of the Master.

I won't make them smaller. Their part has been shrunk enough.
I won't discount them. They are already a bargain.

I know what it is like to not be believed when telling the Gospel Truth.
I also know what it is like to create metaphor, and allegory, and hagiography.
I have told tales and sold nonsense. I, a story teller, know the difference.

These women told the most important truth ever told.

And if their witness is  discounted in my presence, I will not be silent.

Because I believe them. Quite Literally.


A poem for the Apostola Apostolorum












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From 2010, when I had y own moto in Bujumbura, Burundi - Daniella Hayo was my exquisite Charge D'Affairs.







Other Subversions:

The original
http://sillypoorgospel.blogspot.com/2006/03/art-of-joyful-subversion.html

A follow-up
http://sillypoorgospel.blogspot.com/2008/06/joyfully-subversive-redux.html

Africa
http://sillypoorgospel.blogspot.com/2010/11/joyfully-subversive-african-edition.html


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So There I was...


Looking at the news. Late in the day after the Feast of Gratitude. There was a video clip of a two women being interviewed by a Local TV reporter clearly at the low end of the Totem Pole. It was this poor man’s job to get a story out of how their shopping had gone. I almost clicked off, and then the camera caught an unusually good angle; the woman’s chin up and out, a laugh rolling out of her mouth, and flash of her eye that meant victory. The look was one that in earlier times or other places would be called blood satiation. She had triumphed and was bringing home the trophies, scalps and booty. She had planned and executed an invasion. The God’s and Goddesses of war had smiled upon her. She was the hero to whom the crowds yell “Die Now! Die Now!” for nothing more noble could be achieved.

She had shopped well.

Oh, my sister. How we have fallen. This is our victory. The pillage of Wal-Mart. The plunder of Target. The sack of Sachs.

Clearly, no one has ever told you who you really are. What you were created to do. Let me try and give you a glimpse. See if it does not sound an echo within your soul.

Our most ancient stories tell us the truth of who we are and what we can do. In every culture, the stories exist. Scheherezade knew these stories. Boudica told these stories to her daughters. These stories tell of heroic women; Judith and Xena. This archetypal woman has come down to our day and turns up as a blonde in Sunnydale. But she is here and she will not go away. You know these stories, you have just forgotten their meaning, and failed at their application.

The oldest story I know is of a garden. Firstmother was seduced by a lie. A fear-based lie. A myth of scarcity. She was told that her creator was holding out on her. She bought the falsehood that she must acquire, by deceit or force, what she was not given. She realizes her mistake very quickly, but the adhesive gum of the price-sticker of that lie stuck to her soul and was passed down.

But not before her creator gave her one more thing.
A task.
He spoke to her seducer and said this.

“You who were made for glory, you who has never had a predator, you have now made an enemy, and her name is woman, and you should be afraid, very afraid for although you will cut her, in the end, she will crush your head.”

Not Firstfather. Not the second Adam who came to plant the new garden. No, SHE was tasked with vermin eradication. She shall have the final victory. Doubt me? Get thee to a Roman church; find the pretty Lady, the one of the serene face, the upturned eyes. Look at her feet, and see what is crushed under them.

Since that day two forces have been competing for your soul, my sister. One, a foul lie from Hell, which says that you are not complete, that you are not good enough, that you must have more, be more. The other force is deeper and more powerful, but often buried, unawakened. It says that you are more powerful than you could ever know – right now. That force knows that evil itself, fears YOU. You were meant to crush poverty. To thwart abuse. To free captives as well as to bind wounds. You were meant to have clear sight, wisdom and power.

But sister, you have bought the lie. You have bought it wholesale, retail and on sale. You have stocked your cupboards with it and put it away for the winter. You have breast-fed and spoon fed it to your babies. Your soul has root cellars full of it.

You have let your enemy bind your feet, so that you cannot stand your ground. You have let your enemy steal your right to read, so that your may not look upon the truth. You have let your enemy impoverish you through mistaken wars you have enabled with your cooking pot and laundry pail. You have died bearing daughters who do not know who they are.

Yet in your deepest dreams the battle songs of Miriam and Deborah still sing.
“Horses and chariots are no match for my God”

There was nothing wrong with that feeling you felt on Friday night, my dear. You were hardwired to crave it, seek it, fight for it and revel in it. But oh, my sister, my mother, my daughter, you have settled for a pale echo of the truth.

Give it a thought now, before we settle into the cookies and the glass balls and the laughter of children. Any maybe on this New Year, you might want to sing a new song, and laugh a new laugh, and look your true enemy in the eye and let him see that you see him, clearly. Let him see that flash in your eye. Scare the Hell out of him, I tell you it will.

“Get the claymore out of the thatch where you hid it Molly.”

Vini… Vidi… Vi – effin – Ci