Soul Khaya

I am strange

2009-11-16T20:16:00.003+02:00

over the weekend I learnt that being missional is not just about inviting the stranger into my little soul khaya. It's also about embracing my own strangeness. I am the stranger. If I always have it the other way around, then my dominant way of doing will never have to change. Somewhere along the line I expect of the stranger to become like me. But, if I acknowledge that my right of passage into a missional way of living depends on the hospitality of the world (aka the cosmos God so loved that he gave his only son) towards me the stranger following in the footsteps of the Strange One, then change is also something that is about to happen to me.

I am the stranger who needs to be invited in, given a meal, a place to rest my head.

Ages ago, Jesus taught his friends exactly this when he sent them out two by two into thevillages of the strangers they used to avoid. They had to go without their usual stuff of comfort and safety, rather being totally dependend on the hospitality of the strangers along the way.

I wonder how the Soul Khaya journey will shape and mould if this ancient way of travelling becomes our current way of being?

vote earth!!! or move to another planet!

2009-11-16T16:13:00.002+02:00

It is time! Make a vote...stand...commitment...difference!

The AA of faith recovery

2009-11-16T08:40:00.003+02:00

We have the risk of being lured into the idea that we ought to be whole before we can be imitators of Christ...and therefore we contemplate, read, study, discipline ourselves...in the hope that we would become worthy disciples before we go out and be the change we hope to see. The story of the disciples (especially Peter - the rock) always help me to get moving/following despite my doubts, fears, misinterpretations...It seems to me that you figure this out as a sick, selfish, broken dreamer - only by following. I often use the Alcoholics Anonymous as metaphor for how church should rather be... A quote from the discussion about the AA that puts explains it clearly: "AA's program is an inheritor of Counter-Enlightenment philosophy. AA shares the view that acceptance of one's inherent limitations is critical to finding one's proper place among other humans and God. Such ideas are described as "Counter-Enlightenment" because they are at variance with the Enlightenment's ideal that humans have the capacity to make their lives and societies a heaven on earth using their own power and reason.”

A colleague shared the following quote with me...

“I think the trouble with us Christians is that we imagine that we are a healed community because Christ is whole and that we can heal others although remaining sick ourselves … I wonder whether it would not be a great deal healthier if we thought about ourselves a bit like “Alcoholics Anonymous” and were prepared to recognize the fact that we are not well ourselves and to tell this fact to others … You don’t need to be whole to be compassionate with one that is not whole … We can then fulfill what was said before that Christ did not give us permission to heal everyone indiscriminately, but to love everyone indiscriminately. If people could see this, they would first respect us a little bit more and, because compassion is healing and indiscriminate love is healing, our attitude could give to others more than we posses. Then we could achieve inadvertently so to say, the conversion of others to more that we possess”. Anthony Bloom from The Metropolitan of Sourozh, Russian Orthodox Church

Quoted in: McGilvray, James C. The quest for health and wholeness.

UKHAMBA

2009-11-08T20:22:00.005+02:00

At our 2nd gathering of SoulKhaya we introduced the ritual of UKHAMBA! Ukhamba is a ritual in the African culture where the local brewed beer is shared with each other from a ‘khamba’ a clay pot. We used the oldest cup we could find in Paul & Sandra’s cupboards and we shared some Sauvignon Blank because that was what we had on the table.
The idea of the ukhamba ritual at SoulKhaya is to give everyone the space to share. The ukhamba topic we shared around ‘Where are you and your thoughts concerning SoulKhaya?' We shared ideas, expectations and mostly longings. A communal theme we struggle with is that our gathering are still to one dimensional, that we need diversity in all aspects.

We challenged each other to:
Become strangers during the week – to enter a space where you acknowledge your own strangeness within an unfamiliar space or conversation...
Continue to engage and welcome the stranger.
Support and pray for a family whose 5year old boy has been diagnosed with and aggressive brain tumour. [May they be blessed with Shalom.]

Here is some more information on the ukhamba ritual in African cultures:
The word ukhamba is a Zulu word for a huge clay pot. It is commonly used by all African cultures. It is a central piece in the rite of social fellowship. The rite itself is treated with respect and studied deference.
As a spiritual concept ukhamba shares the same status as the female womb, which offers protection, sustenance and nurturing to the unborn child. Its contents have the potential of becoming something greater than itself. It may be likened to the Eucharistic rite and those who share the contents of the ukhamba to others do so from a squatting or kneeling position. It is placed on the floor on a reed mat. The kneeling position symbolises its potency and strength and two messages are conveyed by the kneeling posture: first it is a sign of respect to the fellowship ritual taking place and secondly it is a sign of strength because kneeling symbolises humility in strength by not assuming a proud upright posture yet conserving one’s energy and reflexes to be used with deliberate control.
The place of the ukhamba is the centre. The gathering may sit is a semi-circle or full circle depending on the number of people present. This tasting off is always done in a kneeling position and those who receive the gourd may drink from it from a kneeling or sitting position.

True community: a process

2009-11-03T08:59:00.003+02:00

M. Scott Peck writes in 'The diffirent drum' that the creation of true community is the first step to world peace. He then challenge people who share live together to work through what he calls a 'Pseudocommunity' and that this is a journey through the landscape of chaos and emptiness before we reach a place called community.

Bonhoeffer argues "The more genuine and deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us."

How will this look...when Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us? I surely hope that it is not just about Christ and his work - but more about Christ and his way of being. If Bonhoeffer came from a French background (and not German) I think he would have mention 'Christ and his way of being' and not 'his work'. Which ever way - I like the idea of a genuine & deeper community.

The first gathering

2009-10-29T21:48:00.003+02:00

Tonight we had our first Soul Khaya gathering at Bro Paul's house. Wine, bread and tapas became a holy meal while Bono from U2 reminded us that "we still haven't found what were looking for". We talked about how it will look when strange(r) friends start to become "foretastes of the Kingdom of God on this planet, a way of being human where humor, politics, economy, children, food, love, awe, wonder and life in general become acts of faith, hope and love. In the words of Bro Buurman "we hope to move from a way of believing to a new way of being".

After many stories were told and questions answered with silent pauses we realised that we have not shared enough bread, tapas and wine to see the full picture. So next Thursday we'll be at it again. If you stumbled upon this blog and you happen to live/be in Joburg you are invited to come and share a meal with us on Thursday, 5 November. You'll be able to contact anyone of us just by clicking on the profile of each person.

Being in the Church, Not of It

2009-10-23T12:07:00.005+02:00

I've read these words (posted below) from Henry Nouwen this morning...At first I wanted to post it, but then I decided not to...aware of the risk that this space can easily become the dumping site of just more information and thoughts...

Then I remembered the conversation we (a couple of soul-searchers) had this morning... that thoughts, conversation and information in itself are not necessarily bad and that we confessed that we actually need it...the conversation...

It is when we only keep on theorizing about stuff that we get kind of stuffy.

Long story short: I've decided to share Nouwen's thoughts...

“Often we hear the remark that we have live “in” the world without being “of” the world. But it may be more difficult to be “in” the Church without being “of” the Church. Being “of” the Church means being so preoccupied by and involved in the many ecclesial affairs and clerical "ins and outs" that we are no longer focused on Jesus. The Church then blinds us from what we came to see and deafens us to what we came to hear. Still, it is “in” the Church that Christ dwells, invites us to his table, and speaks to us words of eternal love.
Being “in” the Church without being “of” it is a great spiritual challenge.”

That’s why I moved into this SoulKhaya...

walking/evolving or thinking/mastering ?

2009-10-22T14:09:00.004+02:00

'Just thinking differently won’t change your ways...' Alan Hirsch

Jewish perspective on education: Act yourself into new ways of thinking. (Cultivating)
Greek/Roman perspective on education: Think yourself into new ways of acting. (Teaching)
It seems we've been thinking and writing for 2000+years...at the cost of all off humanity.
Thinking is a safe private indulgence where you are in control of the next step.
Walking along a way is a dangerous public challenge where you are at the mercy of what awaits you around the corner or who walks with you.

ton kairon! (Greek for 'it is time for a decisive moment')

“…a revolution of hope makes radical demands of us. It requires us to learn new skills and habits and capacities: the skills of a new way of seeing, the habits of a new way of thinking, the capacities of a new way of living. This kind of learning is less mastering material for a test and more like evolving from a burrowing or crawling creature into a new species that can walk upright or learn to fly…As we have said before, it is not a new system of belief patched into an old way of life; it is a new way of life that changes everything.” Brian McLaren in ‘Everything must change’

Dust

2009-10-22T10:21:00.002+02:00

"we are to follow in the footsteps of our rabbi so closely that we get his dust on us." - Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw

Just another khaya, or what?

2009-10-21T22:33:00.004+02:00

There’s a squatter camp of gatherings in the name of truth (and a bunch of other things) around our country. Will this be just another gathering of the ‘faithful’ (I’ve always wondered, looking at their practices, what the faithful are actually faithful to?)...Will we just share and gather more and better knowledge...will I just continue with this sophisticated habit to consume as much designer spiritual sushi as my digestive system allows?

Maybe I'm in need for some help with my constipation (on a regular basis)?! Eugene Peterson calls for a ‘purification of means’ as a suggested remedy (I’ll describe it not verbatim but from my understanding of his thoughts):
ENDS = The Jesus life. All of us (with our different understandings of the term) want in on the Jesus-life, because John describes it as life to the fullest (and from our Western-capitalist thoughts, who doesn’t want in on that!). The way or means by which we want to reach this ends/place/time/state of Jesus-life (life to the fullest!) is not by walking on any way...All roads may lead to Rome...but sadly not all roads lead to the Jesus life (although anybody is welcome on this way)! The way to the Jesus life (don’t think of it as a specific place, time or state – more a certain way of being) can only be reached along the Jesus-way, cultivating an embodiment of the Jesus-truth.

“The ways Jesus goes about loving and saving the world are personal:
Nothing disembodied, nothing abstract, nothing impersonal.
Incarnate, flesh and blood, relational, particular, local…
The ways employed in much of Western culture are conspicuously impersonal:
Programs, organizations, techniques, general guidelines, information detached from place.
When it comes to persons, these ways of the world are terribly destructive.”
Eugene Peterson

I’m becoming part of this way of life because I don’t see any other way that all humanity (and creation) will benefit from...I’m starting (again) to be a limping companion along this way out of a deep longing for home...and an aching for the homelessness that surrounds me daily(especially for those tucked away in their mansions)...

“If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I’m staggering from side to side. If it is not the right way, then show me another way; but if I stagger and lose the way, you must help me, you must keep me on the true path, just as I’m ready to support you…” Tolstoy

Foretastes

2009-10-20T15:21:00.002+02:00

In the words of Robert McAfee Brown, in and around a Soul Khaya "it's our task to create fortastes of the Kingdom of God on this planet - living glipses of what life is meant to be, which include poetry and art and music and shared laughter and picnics and politics and moral outrage and special privileges for children only and wonder and humor and endless love."

The Soul Khaya Way

2009-10-20T11:35:00.003+02:00

We are starting this blog as part of a happening hope among friends that a new way of being human is indeed possible. Ages ago a few friends and strangers, outcasts and insiders, intellectuals and hopeful nobodies, rich and poor, men and women saw a glimpse of it a in a Jewish Rebel Rabbi called Jesus Ben Josef, or JC for short. After his death, whenever they got together they felt a powerful new presence of their old friend in and amongst them.

As individuals they felt as if they got a new change at doing life even though their history told otherwise. They believed that through the death of their friend and this new presence that they feel whenever they get together, they are being made new., One of them coined a term “Neo Adam” (check out the writings of Paul in the NT) and developed a whole new theology just to get to terms with what it means to live as human being who got a second change.

As a group of friends, whenever they were together (two or more), their old Friend would show up, sometimes as part of the conversation, sometimes as a stranger along the way, but most of the time while they were eating. The more they got together the more they started to believe that whatever was happening to them should be like butter, it must be spread. And so they went out, telling stories, sharing meals, mending broken bodies, minds and souls, changing lives, creating hope. As more and more people joined and changed, they got the feeling that they can change the world.

And they did.

Some called this movement Church, some called it Christianity, but at the start it was just known as The Way.

More and more followers of Jesus are starting to reclaim that first “label”, because somewhere between The Way and The Church we lost our first love for the Rebel Rabbi and his invitation to be like him.

Recently we stumbled upon the term: "Soul Khaya" (in the Zulu language khaya means home) and something inside us kicked like the first kick of an unborn baby. It's as if our imaginations about a new way of being "church" got wings and took flight. Ever since we've been dreaming about being a "Soul Khaya".

We hope that Soul Khaya will be about being a Way again, about the “getting together of friends and strangers” in the hope that our Old Friend will show up.