Had a funny moment on the tube.  The lady with the book, is reading a little book of Zen, all about finding peace and centredness.  Five minutes before this scene, the woman with the book on centredness screamed and shouted out “Jesus Christ, you are standing on my b****y h**l don’t you think you should be a bit more careful’.  He responded ‘that’s not very Zen’, to which she responded with another expletive.

Without deliberately wanting to embarrass Mike & Clare, I just wanted to point out that I think Moot is entering a new phase when we again consider the question “How should we live?” which we entered when we created our Rhythm of Life drawing on the wisdom of the Monastics. This requires us to consider how we live in contemporary culture but not of the darker sides of culture. Or put another way, where are we called to affirm the good things within culture and where are we called to be counter-cultural about the things that impair healthy living and being.

One of the important areas of being counter-cultural – is the whole issue of naming addiction that arises out of a life strategy dependent on consumption and the desire for affluence. Both Clare’s book, and the book Mike has recommended us to read as a community in June, not only name these addictions, but taken together, challenge us to face our Rhythm of Life elements of Balance and Presence for a start, and then into all the other elements. Clare’s book ‘Addicted to Love’ tells her story, and the place of Moot within it. She names the patterns of addiction she has experienced alongside God’s grace in loving her and not shaming her towards her own human becoming. Affluenza, the book Mike has suggested, takes this further, and re-evaluates the pressures on us in Western postmodern culture, and names how affluence when gained, does little more than create more stress and unhappiness.

So if you are in Moot, do consider getting both these books, and we will be reading Affluenza together for June. If you have not got a copy yet, click here and Moot get’s some money against every sale. Personally, I am very grateful for the input Mike & Clare bring to our community, which is at one level very challenging and at another, incredibly encouraging and loving – with a sense of humour!! Our community would be severely impoverished without either of them.

So we will be discussing this together in the new term, and the implications not only for ourselves, but for the health of our community. See the website for the term May to Aug 08.