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I always enjoy and am inspired by doing the Serum discussions at Greenbelt. If I describe what we do it does not sound like much in terms of ‘putting on an event’ – we welcome everyone,  explain some simple ground rules, have someone give a very brief ‘thought for the day’ and ask a question which is then handed over to the small groups sitting around the tables to discuss and explore before feeding back at the end – yet I am always surprised by how such a simple formula can produce so profound an experience, “humbling and powerful” in the words of the journalist from the Guardian who attended last year.   On reflecting why this is the case I think it is a combination of tackling some of the biggest questions you can ask in an environment of respectful listening, where you are not out to win the argument but to share and learn from different perspectives and  experiences and in so doing start to find commonality as well as difference with others. This year we asked three different questions on the three occasions serum took place: how do our beliefs (whatever these happen to be) relate to and shape the way we actually behave?; do we only really search for god when we are desperate rather than comfortable?; is life all about winning and death all about losing?  In the process of discussing these questions you raise others which go deeper into the issue.

Re. life and death/winning and losing, my group asked how can we fully live in the reality of death which comes to us all, what does a ‘good life’ look like? what does a ‘good death’ look like? How can we process grief and loss?  Would the practice of wakes help us to come to terms with the reality of death by being in the presence of a dead body – how this can offer a strange comfort in that the person is no longer present, it is just the body that is left?

My experience of this discussion was that with the help of the others in my group we were able to look at something we don’t often look at together, a topic that is often avoided and can make us feel uncomfortable.  Serum provided us with some parameters in which to undertake this exploration, to take part in a considered and respectful reflection where the challenge of different perspectives and experiences can be heard in a non-defensive, non-confrontational manner.  At its best this is a process that I find converting in that it causes me to go back and question the way I see things.  It also provides a space in which I begin to find some common ground with others, that by sharing individual experience and thoughts it starts to become possible to share meanings and interpretations of that experience that translate across the divide.

For those interested in these kinds of discussions serum is happening every other Wednesday starting next week – see link for more details.

POSTED 04.09.10 BY: Vanessa | Comments (3)

At this year’s Greenbelt festival, the Moot Community contributed three contemplative eco-spirituality services, Ian Mobsby gave one talk and facilitated a discussion on the emerging church, whilst Sarah Edwards gave a talk and contributed to a panel discussion.  This year, we played host to Mike Angell, and Ordinand involved in a neo-monastic type initiative in San Diego, Karen Ward, the Episcopal Priest and Abbess of the Church of the Apostles, Jon Myers Ordinand with the Bekon collective in Seattle and Eliacin Rosario-Cruz, new monastic also from Seattle.  It was a great success, packed out services and talks all round.  So well done Greenbelt and Moot.  To integrate all our resources at Greenbelt, see the links below.

If you liked what you saw of the Moot Community at Greenbelt – then do make contact and come along to one of our events or gatherings.

1. Information on the music we used at Greenbelt compiled by Jonny Spoor our music master at Greenbelt.

2. Photographs of Mooters at Greenbelt – please add in photos if you have any others to share.

3. Information exchanges going on in our Facebook Moot Group.

4. Information for new people interested in attending moot events or participating in the community – register on this site and see our info for new people

5. Interested in participating in our WEDNESDAY MEDITATIONS, SERUM discussion group or ENNEAGRAM training see here for details

6. Interested in our service liturgies, contemplative and meditative resources – see our mootique.

7. Need more info? click on the contacts for Ian Mobsby for general information, or Jonny our communications person

POSTED 02.09.10 BY: ianmobsby | No Comments

From the 20th September, we are starting up a new Skype driven Mini-Moot for all the Mooters who are currently spread around the world, and unable to participate in a local Moot.  We aim to make this monthly.  If you are a Mooter and unable to get to a mini-moot in London and interested in being involved in a once-a-month skype mini-moot, then do contact Ian.

I hope everyone in Moot has seen that we have a change in Mini-Moot’s from September.  For a start they go up to twice a month, and move to Tuesdays. Need more info, please contact Ian or info@moot.uk.net.

POSTED 08.08.10 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (1)

In 2009, some will know that the Fresh Expressions initiative in the UK sponsored a Symposium day to explore New Monasticism. This gathered a number of participants from traditional and new monastic communities. The papers presented on that day are about so to be published by Canterbury Press in the second of a series called Ancient Faith Future Mission, which will explore Fresh Expressions and New Monasticism.

Additionally, after discussions with a number of different parties, we have agreed to fund a New Monastics Network Ning for a year, to help build up the network of new monastics in the UK, and promote a number of new events and gatherings planned for 2011. So we are now encouraging people who are involved or interested in new monastic models of missional communities, to join with this Ning group – so follow the link and participate in what seems to be a growing and interesting new movement of the Spirit. Click here to go to the site, and join with what seems to be bubbling up. Let’s see what will happen.  Mooters – you are more than welcome to get involved in the Ning site.

POSTED 30.07.10 BY: ianmobsby | No Comments

With James Vincent departing us in the summer, we have an opportunity for others to take on what James was doing.  James – we will miss you as you have contributed a lot over the last 6-months. This role will be to join a small part-time consultant team to help shape up the Arts Cafe Lounge vision and to assist with Moot’s development.  See advert below.

POSTED 27.06.10 BY: ianmobsby | No Comments

I have been ruminating a little on the first discussion, a couple of weeks ago, on the virtues, practices and postures proposal, and I’d like to share some of my reflections.

Plato and Aristotle theorised about the make-up of the human person, and one of the models they came up with, which seems to have stood the test of time (not that that necessarily means anything, but let’s work with it for now) suggests that we have three main faculties: cognitive, conative and affective.

These can be understood as: cognitive – the thinking part of us; affective – our thoughts and emotions; conative – our drives, our strivings and tendencies, almost totally informed by the affective. I know I can relate to this basic outline – my active life is informed by both my thought-life and my emotional-life – and it started to connect with something else I heard recently.

One of the world’s most influential theologians, Jurgen Moltmann, recently spoke at a conference at Holy Trinity, Brompton about “being church in the power of the Holy Spirit”. Among very many other important (and no doubt relevant) things, he spoke of the great need we have for a good dose of orthopathy in current church practice. Never heard of that word? No, me neither. But he described it, basically, as ‘right feeling’.

We’ve all heard of orthodoxy (many of came to Moot to escape its tyranny), which is ‘right thinking’. Many of us with church backgrounds well know the importance often placed on this, generally to the exclusion of other things. We’ve probably all heard of orthodoxy too – many of us have been learning, and indeed prioritising, things coming under the rubric of “justice” (social action, political campaigning, protest marching, buying the Big Issue, etc, etc).

Orthodoxy relates most closely to a part of my self – my cognitive faculty. Orthopraxy relates most closely to my conative faculty. So where does orthopathy fit? Church culture and teaching, it occurs to me, have often neglected to bless and teach us with regard to our whole being. On a global scale, the church can be thought of as bipolar: one half has generally been concerned with “believing the right stuff”, and the other can crudely be described as prioritising the need to “do the right stuff”. But who’s got wisdom on “feeling the right stuff’ – orthopathy? Put simply, the monks, nuns and friars.

I’m sure you’ve heard it before but I’ll say it again: Moot is a fresh expression of church. I think that our new monastic focus, and the current discussion on virtues, practices and postures, is one of the things that really makes this true. This is because the proposal deals with the affective aspect of our being. We are a community seeking wholeness, integration. Believe it or not, the foundational idea of the proposal is that the Christian tradition actually has the resources to make this possible.

I’ve often wondered how to get my emotional life healthy, how to find healing so that I have less ridiculous outbursts, less of the bad kind of anger, less anxiety; I’ve also wanted to be more consistent in my ability to love, to do the right thing, to grow up/mature. The proposal says (although maybe not in so many words) that life is a journey of conversion of the whole person – cognitive, affective and conative.

My point is that what drives us can also be transformed – we know about the need to “think the right stuff”, or “do the right stuff”, but without addressing our thoughts and emotions, without finding healing and wholeness as people, we aren’t ever really going to change. The approach to spiritual growth we are advocating is holistic, which means that it is candid about the need to find inner freedom, as well as practice justice and have good theology.

Of course, psychotherapy has had to pick up the baton in the modern period because the church forgot the wisdom of the desert fathers and mothers. I believe it’s time we began to reclaim our heritage, and release some real life and liberation into the heart of our community. It will also save us vast amounts of money on therapy.

P.S. Brian McLaren’s new tome, A New Kind of Christianity is great. I could say loads about it – because I do think you should go and buy it at The Centre Bookshop on Lombard Street – but maybe in another post. If you have it, turn to pages 38-39.

POSTED 12.06.10 BY: Aaron Kennedy | Comments (10)

Here’s a bit of poetry that I came up with the other day. I just started playing with words and within the space of an hour I had two poems. I’m gonna save the other one for another post/time, but here’s the first one I wrote, entitled: One foot in the grave, one foot on your head

Would be interesting to know people’s opinions.

One foot in the grave, one foot on your head

Limericks so lucidly lie,

When it comes to black hearts and bomb battalions

One for the heroes and fallen.

An evil,

Not necessarily, but I say verily

We are the custodians of the wounded

Profits and policy.

Whitehall and wankers,

Bravado and Bullshit.

Yet we cry,

Another way surely?

Motivate yourself,

take a long hard look, because for this remedy there is no book.

Tell me why?

This dove,

A symbol of love so misplaced,

An empty symbol of flesh and feathers,

or is it the hope inside that weathers?

Humans are a complicated sort,

especially when it comes to cruelty for sport.

Sometimes when silence is about

All you want to do is scream and shout, but…

We do not realise we are the ointment,

because If we were made in the image of a deity

We are a serious disappointment!

POSTED 27.05.10 BY: Definition_1990 | Comments (6)

Finding Happiness is Abbot Jamison’s follow up to Finding Sanctuary. In this book he contrasts happiness as defined by society, with how it is understood by the monastic. In so doing Abbot Jamison examines the limiting ‘8 Thoughts’ identified by the desert fathers and the necessary virtues we are called to practice in their place. These being: Spiritual Carelessness – Spiritual Awareness; Gluttony – Sufficiency; Lust – Chaste Love; Greed – Generosity, Anger -Patience; Sadness – Hope; Vanity – Magnanimity; Pride – Humility.

As with Finding Sanctuary, the Abbot challenges his reader with a wise, non-judgemental insight into the human condition, and provides powerful tools for the pursuit of interior freedom and peace.

Currently in Moot we are in the process of developing postures and practices based on the virtues Abbot Jamison has outlined. Ian has therefore purchased several copies of Finding Happiness which are presently doing the rounds in the community. I therefore recommend that you either contact info@moot.uk.net to track one of these down, or buy your own copy (following this link generates 10% income for Moot) click here for UK and here for US

POSTED 26.05.10 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (9)

Just in case you missed Jonathan and Samuel Bartley on the news this week, it is this Jonathan Bartley that is coming to talk to Moot at St Mary Woolnoth at 7.30pm to talk about the subject ‘post-Christendom and the election’. For more information, please see the events section of this site.

POSTED 01.05.10 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (1)

Just in case you missed Jonathan and Samuel Bartley on the news this week, it is this Jonathan Bartley that is coming to talk to Moot at St Mary Woolnoth at 7.30pm to talk about the subject ‘post-Christendom and the election’. For more information, please see the events section of this site.

POSTED 01.05.10 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (1)