Emergents Weblog

If you’ve ever been back packing in the high sierra’s you understand how essential cairns and blazes are to your sanity and safety.

For those of you who are new to the adventure, a blaze is a designated trail marking method using paint or dye to mark a surface and give directional information without words. Blazes are most often used in wooded areas or caverns.

A cairn is the ancient method of trail marking using stones piled up on one another. Sometimes these piles are taller than 6 feet other and at half mile intervals so that the traveler can see the general direction of the trail off in the distance. But in more perilous regions, that are often that are well above the tree line and known to have high winds, the cairns are usually set ten foot intervals and only twelve inches tall. This is done so that sojourner who might be crawling to ensure their safety, can follow the trail with certainty. These trails are not the only way, they mark the way of one who survived. The mark the path to a designate location.

What path are you on?

What application of cairns and blazes was there among the disciples?

How might our understanding of these markers allow us to help others along the journey, their journey?

Old thoughts about

sacred spaces

and a
house of peace

The other night I was waiting to meet with a a friend at a local pub, when in through the door walked a man who one day 10 years ago walked into the church I was pastoring. James Torranzano, a wonderful human, an art teacher at a junior high school and art therapist has touched the lives of so many. I have never forgotten James, and I was overjoyed to have another chance encounter with him. When I visited his website today (www.enchantedway.com), I found a number of nugget that may be appreciated by this group as well. The first was this:

“Temenos: is a Greek word meaning sacred space. It connotes a sheltered space, a place where one can search, quest, journey, examine, and re-examine while protected from the habitual routines of the outside world”.

The early church searched for the house of peace when they entered a town. This was to be the first of many families and homes that would welcome anyone so inclined to join this fellowship day by day. The ‘house of peace’ is a space that is able to foster openness through the sincere embodiment of Jesus’ values that embraces every human and our mutual desire to know and be known by one another and God.

How might we be touched by such an experience? How might such a space better further the work of God among us?