Patrick Oden :: Blog :: Your words in print

http://dualravens.com/ravens/?p=196

Well, maybe that is.

Here’s the deal. I’m writing a book on the Exodus narrative and how it illustrates God’s work in Christian maturity.

I’m using the same cast and basic setting as in It’s a Dance. More so, really, as I’m expanding the conversation to a lot of different people, making it more than just a conversation between a few people.

I’m at the point where I’ve added a lot of new voices and feel a desire to bring it back to some kind of whole. What does a good ol’ emerging/Baptist/Pentecostal do in a situation like that? Have church of course!

I figure I’m about halfway through, maybe a little more, in the book and I started a new chapter with a group of people gathered in the back room of the pub/restaurant. I’ve gotten the conversation started and then it hit me.

One of the things I really loved about those kind of open conversations is how different people bring different perspectives on a passage, perspectives that sometimes I’ve seen, but often are new to me. That’s the fun of not preaching in a church, by the way. Open up the floor and people add so much more than a single preacher can.

I’ve been doing a lot of conversations in this book, conversations involving different characters, different pasts, different genders, but all coming from a single perspective. My own. I can argue with myself, I can teach myself, I can question myself, I can push myself deeper in a conversation. But I can’t say what I don’t see. And that’s limiting in a broad conversation.

So, in the interest of developing something more authentic (though I can fake it) I’d love to have help.

I’m discussing Exodus 4:18-6:12.

The general topic is how God works in spiritual maturity, but that’s not the only thing I would want to hear. In a group setting there’s always a nice mix of exactly on topic and curiously not, though often the latter greatly adds to the former.

So, if you would help me I’d love to hear what sticks out in that passage to you. Something of particular note or some insight, thought, allusion, etc. you get while reading it. I’m not going to be focusing on the curiosity that is the emergency flint scene, but anything else in that passage is entirely open to contribution.

I’ll be taking the responses and letting various characters add them, so I guess by contributing you’re giving me permission to do that. If I end up getting a good response and go this route with the chapter I’ll be sure to include a note about it in the foreword.

In fact, if you’re willing I’d love to have this request passed along so as to have a wide amount of voices.

I’ve not included 4:1-18 in this request because I just finished a chapter on that. However, please feel free to bounce off that section if it helps the rest of the passage.

We’ll see how this works.

To sum up my rambling:

I’d love to hear your thoughts, random or academic or whatever, on Exodus 4:18-6:12.