A story complex and intriguing

There is a thread that I'm going to acknowledge as picked up by a recently by a well known author of fiction and then hopefully let it go. I'd like this blog to concentrate on "the gathering center" as called by Phyllis Tickle rather then the possibly good but distracting circumference that Richard Rohr warns against in Everything Belongs.

Phillip Pullman, famous for the trilogy His Dark Materials beginning with The Golden Compass, has very recently released a book called The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ. It is a fascinating story that could prompt readers to very important questions about the past, present, and future of the church as well the radical nature of what Jesus was bringing to us.

It picks up a very neglected piece of the Christian story: the challenge of the Shadow of the mission. It does so by by weaving the pieces that we know and possibilities of what I like to think of as the back stitching of the story. In needlework there are a lot of interesting things going on the other side of the fabric. Those odd crossings and resurfacings are what makes the image on the front possible.

Hopefully now that a version of this highly heretical story, and that's all it needs to be: a story, is out there in the public forum I can stop worrying about finding a way to tell it.

Next stop: back to the river. Now that I've readjusted to being back for a bit, I can review my notes and bring out some of the gifts from the Albuquerque conference.

Blessings.