I arrived Sunday and am settling into life in Oak View –

so far we breakfast at 7.30am and have a reading from the Anabaptist Prayer Book “Take Our Moments and Our Days”, we have a lunchtime (scrummy bean burritos!) post-prandial reflection from “All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets and Witnesses for Our Time” by Robert Ellsberg, before dinner I’m reading a little something from the Anglican English/Maori Book of Common Prayer “The New Zealand Liturgy 1970” and we will be reading aloud of an evening – potentially – “Ask That Mountain” which is the story of Parihaka, a little-known Maori chieftain who was doing non-violent resistance before Ghandi*.  But not on Tuesdays, when we will take turns at leading Vespers, or Thursdays when we will be praying through prayer points from a community called Sabeel in Jerusalem with whom Ched & Elaine have a connection… and, uh, we haven’t had a conversation about my specific study plan yet.

I’m rolling in the big leagues of Type 5! And yet,

The main foci of the BCM are as follows:

1. Radical Discipleship in the Christian tradition
2. Education “between the seminary, sanctuary and the streets”
3. Full spectrum restorative justice & peacemaking
4. Biblical literacy with an emphasis on social context
5. Movement history and interconnectivity
6. Ecojustice and sustainability
7. Indigenous justice/racism/Truth & Reconciliation

The importance of the story of their name ‘Bartimaeus’ is in the discipleship journey from the “blindness of denial to the sight of engagement” (Ched) and as Lanza del Vasto would say (one of my new Saints) “one could not hope to resolve the problems of the world as long as one was a part of them”… There is a sense of solidarity in learning together.  Ched and Elaine are inviting me (us!) into their discipleship journey and I just hope I can keep up!

Na, i tenei kapua nui o nga kaiwhakaatu e karapoti nei i a tatou, whakarerea e tatou nga whakataimaha katoa, me to hara whakaeke tata, kia manawanui hoki tatou ki te oma i te omanga e takoto nei i to tatou aroaro.          Hiperu 12:1

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely and let us run with perseverence the race that is set before us.                                                 Hebrews 12:1

*note that Ched is providing me with these resources I didn’t bring them with me and can claim no prior knowledge!