Philip's Tunnel to Nowhere 3

July 19, 2009

Cornerstone reflections #5: Visual art

Filed under: Cstone — Tags: , , , , — philip @ 11:49 pm

This will be a quick one.

I noticed that they handled visual art much differently at Cornerstone than in 2004. As I recall back then it was just some gallery in a tent somewhere. I didn’t go there, despite what I’d imagine is a strong interest in vis. art relative to the population of Cornerstone attendees, and despite the fact that I thought it was really cool that they had visual art. So i can imagine that whatever it was, it was probably underutilized by the attendees.

In 2009 the visual art was set up as a public art display, not unlike art one might see in a subway station or similar in an urban context. It was set up in the approach to “the bridge,” so i passed through there a fair bit going from the Asylum to the Midway area. Apparently the theme was the parables of Jesus. It wasn’t clear to me whether all the artists were JPUSAns or not. Unfortunately i didn’t catch either of the guided tours at 10 am Thursday and Friday — they conflicted with seminars I wanted to catch. But at least I got to look at the art for a couple of minutes on my way down the walkway.

In general I think this sort of public art display is a very positive development, and I wonder how many years they’ve been doing this. (Perhaps I’m just not remembering something like this in 2004, but I don’t think so — a couple of people agreed that visual art didn’t use to be displayed this way at C’stone.) My only suggestion for perhaps broadening the visual art offerings would be to have another public space for works not directly related to the theme. For example, the woman at JPUSA named Doria (?) who’s done some really great paintings featured on the Asylum shirts probably wouldn’t get her work in something like this, unless she happened to do work on the theme of the year. I really like her work and would like to see it get attention outside the Asylum, so I’d like to see some display of non-thematic works.

That’s sort of a quibble, though, that shouldn’t detract from the bigger point: JPUSA has done a good job of getting visual art out there where the Cornerstone masses can see and interact with it.

July 9, 2009

Cornerstone reflections #4: Prayer

Filed under: Cstone, spirituality — philip @ 1:26 pm

Now i turn to one of the biggest disappointments about the Cornerstone Festival 2009. I should state up front, though, that it’s entirely possible that the disappointment stems from some misunderstanding on my part of the nature of the three different prayer tents, of some idealized memories of 2003 and 2004, or what have you. If i’m basing my remarks on misinformation, please feel free to set me straight.

In 2003 or 2004, as in 2009, i had a few moments at the festival where i felt pretty alone, and others where i just felt overwhelmed at the sheer number of different possibilities that God was bringing to mind. At those moments i recalled that there was a prayer tent and ducked in to seek prayer, and to seek to pray for others (which often helps with feelings of loneliness, interestingly). In the past, my recollection was that some individual met me within moments of entering the prayer tent and offered to pray. My recollection is that there was a prayer team of several individuals there, each praying for different visitors and other needs. Maybe most importantly, the general impression received was that prayer was absolutely fundamental to the festival. I’m not naive, and i realize that 98% of the attendees were mostly there for the music and perhaps didn’t really care that so much prayer was going on, but in any case it seemed very prominent for those open to perceiving it.

My impression in 2009 was very different. Both on Friday and Saturday afternoons i dropped by the “24/7 Prayer Tent.” On Friday it was empty, except for a couple awaiting a seminar or something. (They happened to be people i wanted to talk to, in a wonderful divinely-appointed coincidence, but that’s entirely beside the point.) On Saturday, one woman was praying and talking about a confidential matter in the back, and asked me to wait in the front with another couple who looked like they were seeking out prayer. I got to talk and pray with them for the half-hour or so i was there. The confidential conversation went on for that duration in the back, so i never got to talk to an actual volunteer of the tent.

Someone mentioned that the Boiler Room prayer folks were packing up by Saturday afternoon — Saturday was rainy and muddy, and a lot of folks got on the road early — and that seems to be at the root of the issue. Apparently the Boiler Room ministry of Kansas City was the impetus behind this particular tent, and i can hardly fault them for wanting to get back home in a timely manner or for being limited to the volunteer availability of their own folks. But that prompts some other questions. Was there another JPUSA-staffed tent with more prayer volunteers? Why was the Boiler Room tent called “24/7″ if it couldn’t be staffed consistently?

I certainly don’t say this to put down what the Boiler Room people were doing, because any prayer is great and i know they’re the paragon of a prayer-centered organization. But i got the impression that somehow, prayer was less foundational to CS09 than it used to be. If that impression is accurate, it’s a tragedy and it alarms me for the future of the fest.

It would not be wrong to halt all the music at the fest for 3 hours one night and gather at all the stages to pray. Really.

July 8, 2009

Cornerstone Reflections #3: On cynicism and big dreams

Filed under: Cstone, my psychology, spirituality — Tags: , — philip @ 12:10 am

I have a few other of these vignette things to write — I thought about making the next one about the way they handled visual art at CS’09 versus five years ago — but instead here i’ll offer a short observation more at the core of what the fest meant/means to me.

On the trip up i was quite cynical, because of my experience with two previous Cornerstones as well as other similar underground ministry-related events (such as Source’s Urban Ministry Training in 2001). I always get very inspired by these things and come back on a spiritual high where i feel inspired to go do great things. Usually the “great things” is rooted in some form of networking, because i really do believe that half the battle is for underground Christians to know where each other are, especially when it comes to other people in their immediate geographical vicinity. So i come home thinking, “There really out to be some way for those of us around here to connect! I’ll try to reach out to some people and see if there’s any interest in getting together.” And i come home full of other ideas, too.

And then the spiritual high dies down. For one thing, i generally find that others aren’t nearly as interested in connecting or keeping in touch as i am. Well, that’s fine — perhaps i’m just unusually sensitive to the value of such connections or something. But i also find myself losing that fervor very quickly, because i’m just not i patient person. I wish i were, and it’s certainly worth pondering and praying about how i might develop more perseverance in these tasks. Until that happens, though, i know myself, and i know that building up that spiritual high is counterproductive.

So this year i was very tempted to start doing this again. I caught myself with all sorts of “big plans” brainstorms: We ought to get a bunch of Memphis churches together to create an arts center! I should go polling local youth pastors on the needs of young people here! On and on the torrent of ideas came, because that’s just how my mind works. But — call it antispiritual cynicism, or perhaps just pragmatic realism, i’m not sure which — my better judgment kicked in. The ideas aren’t dead, because after all i just documented a couple of the more interesting ones above. But instead of focusing on the ideas, i focused on what God was teaching me about my own role and about praying for stuff to happen, long before trying to act to make it happen.

So yeah. I don’t need to get frustrated with myself for not having the resources within me to drive some of this stuff forward. I just need to pray about it and accept that if God’s in it, the resources don’t depend on me. Cattle on a thousand hills, something like that.

July 6, 2009

Cornerstone reflections #2: Public journals

Filed under: Cstone, spirituality, underground — Tags: , , — philip @ 9:51 am

I think this will really work better if i try to write several short posts than if i try to cram everything into one big post.

One of the pleasant surprises for me was discovering the public journals at the Alliance World Coffee tent. There must have been about seven or eight of them, and the entries ranged from frivolous or lighthearted to artistically impressive to very poignant. One author addresses a letter to his mom. We never find out why she left and didn’t come back. Another talks about the alienation of being gay and closeted at the festival. Skeptics write sharp criticisms (sharp warranted criticisms, IMO) about the feeling of commercialism that pervades the fest. I include a sentence about my own occasional feelings of loneliness there (fortunately, for only a small fraction of the whole time), and find that others have shared similar emotions. Other contributors draw a ship, a 70’s-looking Jesus poster, or whatever.

I think my time at the fest would be well spent just going through the public journals and praying over the people who wrote in them. I certainly plan to be praying for some of these people in the coming weeks.

July 3, 2009

Greetings from Cornerstone

Filed under: Cstone, my psychology, spirituality, underground — Tags: — philip @ 4:10 pm

Bushnell, IL – I’m taking advantage of the wifi provided by First Baptist Church of Bushnell to check in for a few moments. I’ll have lots of reflections and processing that I’ll try to document here as appropriate. For now I just want to share this thought.

On the drive here I was wondering why on earth I needed to go to C’stone. There are probably several reasons, but the real reason I’m here is to learn how very little I matter. I sincerely mean that. So much of my past motivation for some sort of underground ministry thing has been to provide an object for my personal quest for meaning, to find “my thing.” And more and more I’m being reminded that my presence just doesn’t matter. What I mean is, some of the same growth in certain directions that needed to happen five years ago, before I started wandering in the wilderness so to speak, has actually happened. While I was sitting on the sidelines, it happened! And that’s a very good thing.

If God wants my role in all this to be sitting on the sidelines clapping and encouraging, then I really need to be content and to take on that role with all my heart. Only as I accept my own smallness can I effectively tell the story of God’s greatness.

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