Danielle Shroyer

I’m diving into a number of places where the term “mimetic” and “mimesis” keep coming up.  I will have to talk about that more later, but for the time being, you must read this article.  It is about mirror neurons, which apparently are highly adaptable cells that allow your brain to actually imitate the actions of what you see.  For example, when you watch football on television, if you had wires connected to your brain, it would scan as if you are playing football.    (WHAT?!?!)

These kinds of studies both delight me and send me into existential crises.  (I feel much better however now that I have a neurological excuse for why I get so unbelievably bothered by movies, and why I could not sleep for DAYS after watching Hotel Rwanda.)  Angst aside, I’m passing this along to you today because it’s Lent, and I thought those of us who are trying to do something differently with our lives could all use a big pat on the back that it’s really worthwhile.  You giving up the TV is good stuff, because every time you watch CSI you are apparently killing people somewhere in the recesses of your brain, and it does actually make you prone to be more violent in real life.  (Does this mean we should all get streaming video of monks chanting prayers or people doing social work?)  (Also, I’ve never actually watched CSI, but it sounds like a show where people would be killing people…crime scenes, right?  But perhaps, also being trained as top-rated detectives?)

What we spend our days doing actually does matter.  It affects us, even when we believe we are somehow “above” it.  So let’s get responsible and start watching the people and things we actually want to imitate.  (I will be taking the red-eye to Germany to have tea with the Moltmanns.)

So thank you, Mom.  We called you lame nicknames behind your back when you sang us that song about being careful with our little ears and eyes, but apparently you were way ahead of the neurological researchers who have now proven your point.

It seems popular these days for people to virtually ponder and verbally process where we all are in the conversation/movement/revolution/whatever-name-will-not-offend-you-and-create-another-retaliatory-blogpost called emergent/emerging/emersion/emergence.  And though I’ve certainly not read all such posts, I have read enough of them to notice a trend in the language to describe this shift.  (Disclaimer:  I mostly gleaned this from blog posts with whom I agree.  Although, I don’t recall hearing metaphors from most detractors, which may in and of itself be worth noting.)

There seems to be a common understanding that wherever we are now, we are not only standing against something (which is where all good revolutions/reformations begin) but we are now standing in a space that is more positively defined.  And wouldn’t you know it, this space is attempting the difficult and creative task of being defined by its inherent openness, rather than its stark boundaries or newly-drawn lines.  (Clearly, from the title of my book, you can guess how I feel about this sort of thing.)  If there is anything that makes this movement somehow different or more nuanced than those that might have come before, it is because of this.  Some metaphors I have read and with which I’ve resonated:  JRD Kirk has applied Tom Atlee’s metaphor of “story fields.”  Derek Koehl (former Journeyer before moving to Atlanta) has a guest post here describing the emerging space as the place where many spheres converge in open space.  Kathy Escobar likened her place in this new realm to that of being a (mostly) contented mixed-breed mutt.

All of this is pointing to what those of us who met last April to discern where/whether EV had a future horizon have been calling the Village Green.  I realize my more concrete friends don’t always appreciate the slippery nature of things like metaphors, as if they therefore do not mean anything, but in my estimation all of these posts show that the Spirit is prompting us all toward this way of inhabiting the space in which we live.  It is, to use a phrase we often toss around at Journey, not an issue of doctrine but of posture.  How do we posture ourselves in the world?  This is not a simple task.  It actually requires much more rigorous consideration than doctrine, where one could conceivably stand in the same way all the time.  (Imagine the Tin Man, getting rusted solid and needing a bit of oil at the joints to begin moving freely again.) Posturing in this space we call emergence requires us to pay attention to the whispering of the Spirit, and the poetic words of Scripture, and those beautiful voices of tradition, and the face of the person in front of us, and the culture in which our feet are rooted, and our own evolving senses of identity.  It requires us to acknowledge where our joints have gotten a little rusty.  Posturing requires all five of our senses.  It requires us to live a fully embodied life, as Jesus did.  And when we posture ourselves in such a way, we open up a space where other people can encounter this Jesus as well.  (Or, perhaps more metaphysically accurate, we recognize and live into that space that is always there, whether we notice it or not.)

This has rather endless atoms of possibility, but to lift up one that has the power to alter much of how we live our lives together:  this village green/story field/sphere of openness/happy home of mutts and mixed breeds allows a significantly higher amount of voices to be heard.  One does not have to be male, or have a title, or be ordained, or (to attempt a little poke at the newest universalizing accusation) have voted for Obama.  Mike Clawson pointed out quite wisely in the comments section of Jonathan Brink’s recent EV post that one of the reasons this movement seems less “up front” is because it is emerging in places that aren’t on the most trafficked highways.  One does not have to be in an urban metroplex to find space on this Green, either.  I ran into a woman a few months back who attends a very small rural mainline church, and she told me enthusiastically that her Sunday School group was using my study guide while reading through Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence.  Just because even the “flat” blogosphere does not pay attention to a 50-year-old faithful Methodist woman and her ten friends doesn’t mean what is happening there is not highly significant.  This space is being created everywhere.  And we would be wise to recognize the way it is changing our religious and cultural landscape.

Again, the task of cultivating the space of what my friends and I have been calling the Village Green is not a clear and definite as blog posts describing why someone else’s theology is wrong.  It doesn’t mean we don’t have our opinions; but it does mean that our opinions won’t have much merit if we can’t figure out how to hold them well in this new space.  And in this new space, perhaps the biggest lesson of all is that we can listen to one another, opinions strongly intact, and actually even learn a thing or two.