Will Richardson is a gifted Nashville singer-songwriter with a wicked sense of humor. Back in May, he and I exchanged a few emails during the Jeremiah Wright controversy (remember that?)  With apologies to Mick and Keith, he penned this ballad….

Will graciously offered to let me use his song “Viva Victoria” for the “Beyond Borders” documentary.

If you’re preaching this week and following the lectionary, you’ve been spending some time with the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat. No doubt, this parable (more so than the Parable of the Sower, which precedes it) has an apocalyptic bent (unless you choose to ignore the ending). 

So I was glad to receive today’s Sightings column, written by Noreen Herzfeld. [Sightings is produced by the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School - it comes to your inbox weekly and is always enlightening].

Herzfeld discovered that even after the Rapture, you (assuming you’ve been Raptured) can send a messages (as well as important personal data and documents) to your friends and loved ones who get “left behind” — thanks to www.youvebeenleftbehind.com. The first-year subscription price is $40 (not sure about subsequent years, or if the fee is pro-rated if the Rapture occurs mid-year).

Me, I’m not so sure (neither is Herzfeld). As far as important information goes, I’ll take my chances in storing it the old-fashioned way. And spiritually, I have a lot of ‘work’ to do and would not presume (or even wager $40 on) being among the Rapturees. Then again, I suppose it’s about God’s goodness and steadfastness, not my own….

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!”

Just then, a man in a black trench coat stepped out from behind a large oak tree near the place where the Sower was sowing, on the outskirts of a town called Pilot Grove, Missouri.

“Seed police!” said the man, flashing his badge. “Stop what you’re doing and give me those seeds.”

“Why?” asked the Sower?

“They’re patented by Monsanto. If you’ve saved them from a previous harvest and are re-sowing them, I’ll have to arrest you.”

And so it goes…

Bishop V. Gene Robinson

He could have stayed home. And some say he should have. But Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire (who grew up as a Kentucky Disciple) chose to travel to the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, to make a point: that gays are part of the Anglican Communion, and won’t be wished away or locked back in the closet.

Robinson was told by the Anglican Communion not to come, and he’s not ‘officially’ participating. Instead, he decided to go to Canterbury and make himself available to those who want to meet him in person. Even if they oppose his election as bishop on grounds that he’s openly gay and in a long-term relationship (his partner is traveling with him too).

To be fair, the Anglican Communion asked Robinson’s most vocal opponents, who are threatening a split, to stay home too.

Robinson will be available in the conference’s exhibit hall to meet with people (perhaps as sad a commentary on his exclusion as anything: i.e. “Come See the Real Live Gay Bishop!!”) He’s been invited to preach before and after the conference, and will be traveling in Scotland afterwards.

On Sunday, he was preaching at a church in Putney, England, when the service was interrupted by a man waving a motorcycle helmet and shouting “Repent!” and “Heretic!” Robinson writes about this experience in his blog, Canterbury Tales from the Fringe. He is also doing a video blog from Lambeth called The Gene Pool.

Yesterday he attended a screening of For the Bible Tells Me So, Daniel Karslake’s documentary (reviewed by DisciplesWorld, log-in required) that includes interviews with Robinson, his family, and other glbt persons and their families in the wider church.  Disciples minister Steve Kindle, founder of Clergy United for the Equality of Homosexuals, is also featured in the film.

Bethany Lowery, who interned for DisciplesWorld last year and is a student at Disciples Divinity House at the University of Chicago, is spending 10 weeks in India studying the Church of North India. She’s having quite the adventure - in her very frank blog posts she shares wonderful discoveries about India along with difficulties with travel and with adjusting to a new culture

This particular post gives some of the background on her reasons for going to India.

Bethany is also the daughter of General Minister and President Sharon Watkins and Lexington Theological Seminary’s interim  dean, Rick Lowery.

Rev. Gregg Brekke

DisciplesWorld contributing writer Gregg Brekke will soon be the new editor of United Church News, the bi-monthly newspaper of the United Church of Christ, and news director for the denomination’s website. Gregg is currently the pastor of Nexus UCC in Fairfield, OH.

Some of his work for DisciplesWorld includes feature articles and photos on the lives of homeless families and on migrant workers who are rebuilding New Orleans, and news articles on Blue Theology, a new congregation in Kentucky ministering to those recovering from addiction, Cool People Care, and the upcoming Sessions conference for Disciples men. Gregg’s photography is also featured in the documentary “Beyond Borders: Faith and Action in the Arizona Desert.”

We will miss Gregg but look forward to collaborating with him in his new role, which begins Sept. 2. Congratulations Gregg!

Stacy Spencer is the pastor of New Direction Christian Church in Memphis. He and his wife, Rhonda, are featured in a TIME magazine article this week by David Van Biema: “And God Said, ‘Just Do It’“. The Spencers are part of a small-but-growing number of churches taking on the topic in hopes of encouraging married couples to have more and better sex (and presumably, a stronger, more intimate relationship) based on biblical texts like Genesis and Song of Songs.

The article talks about helping men and women understand the importance of what happens outside the bedroom. From TIME: “For instance, a husband can expect smoother sailing at night if he helps his wife clear her “to do” list that evening, Spencer said in a conference call with his wife, who added, “Otherwise he’s just another thing on that list.”

One of the best quotes in the article comes from someone who questions the new wave of church-sponsored sex programs: “Lauren Sandler, feminist and author of Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement, suspects they are ‘another way of becoming the best Christian wife–to have tons of orgasms so their husbands can go to church the next day and tell people how they really made Jesus proud in the sack.’”

Sorry, that’s just plain funny. Hopefully not true, but funny.

Anybody surprised at the latest news from Iraq? Not the civilian or troop casualties, but the no-bid contracts being handed to oil companies.

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship sum it up in their blog posting, “It was oil, all along.”

How much will the American people, and the church, put up with before we are lulled awake from our comfy, cozy nap to take action? How much will we compromise as Big Oil twists the gas-price thumbscrews, and other corporations follow suit, blaming it on oil prices?

Off-shore drilling? Sure, go ahead!

ANWAR? Have at it!

The environment? Fuggedaboudit. We’ve got Animal Planet and the National Geographic channels on cable, plus air conditioning and no mosquitos.

The lives of young American men and women in uniform? Just another form of cheap labor, I guess. The grunt work for Exxon-Mobil, BP, and others, outsourced to the Armed Forces.

Sorry to sound angry and discouraged. Maybe I shouldn’t have read the Book of Habakkuk this morning.

A group of Indiana Disciples who visited the Democratic Republic of Congo in May talked about their experiences on June 24 at a Global Ministries-sponsored luncheon in Indianapolis. They shared wonderful and moving stories about the hospitality they received from their counterparts in the Community of Disciples of Christ in Congo. They also talked about Congo’s human rights and environmental crisis relating to the mining of coltan.

Coltan (columbite-tantalite) is found in cell phones, laptops, and DVD players. I had never heard of it until a couple of years ago, when I met Rev. Boseala Eale, a church leader from Kinshasa, at the Disciples’ Michigan Regional Assembly. Rev. Eale told me that the mining of coltan in the eastern part of Congo results in death, violence, and injustice. In the end, most of the Congolese people receive nothing from the mining of coltan. The situation sounds very much like the mining of ‘conflict diamonds’ in Sierra Leone and other African countries, yet few people in North America know about this - yet.

Last month, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced the Conflict Coltan and Cassiterite Act, which, according the Brownback’s news release, would call for a certification process for minerals imported from the DRC. Here is a link to the full text of the bill - which was introduced, read twice, and referred to the Finance Committee.

North American Disciples have strong ties to our sister churches in Congo. We are in a position to bring attention to the need for justice and an end to violence surrounding coltan mining there. Let’s see what we can do to support this bill and other efforts to draw attention to Congo’s situations. Its wealth of natural resources could be used to help the Congolese people and can be mined without damaging the environment but without proper attention, that’s not likely to happen.

Rev. Linda Hunsaker is the pastor at Ursa Christian Church in Ursa, Ill. Linda has taken her passion for worship design to the web, with her new blog, Creative Disciples Worship.

It’s a great place to share ideas and musings on all styles of worship - traditional, contemporary, emergent, and so on. So go on…check it out.

And keep Linda and her flock in your prayers. They are very close to the mighty Mississippi and the flood waters were rising Sunday as she was preparing for worship. She posts some interesting thoughts about that in her latest blog entry.