Wild Goose Festival

Joshua Witchger 6-26-2012

A load of links to counter those mid-week blues ... a video of Wild Goose performers Damion Suomi and the Minor Prophets -- an Arrested Development art show -- Alec Baldwin interviewed by Terry Gross -- lists of summer music and movies to know -- the Bill Muarry coloring book (and baseball speech) -- Van Gogh recreated with dominoes -- The Avett Brothers, and more. Click through to today's Links of Awesomeness...
 

Frank Schaeffer 6-26-2012

Frank Schaeffer speaking last week at the Wild Goose Festival. Photo by Cathleen Falsani/Sojourners.

The second Wild Goose Festival has just ended. I left a piece of my heart in the hills of North Carolina. Ahead is the third WG fest at the end of August in Portland OR. And then there will be next year and the next... The White House sent the Rev. Derrick Harkins (faith outreach director for the Democratic National Committee) to observe and talk with some of us this year. So I guess WG got noticed.

Last year's WG was the first and there were about 1,300 of us there. This year we were closing in on 2000-plus. And now WG is West Coast bound too. The names of the speakers Jim Wallis and all the rest (I spoke 3 times) added up to a "draw" along with the big name musical performers. But the heart of the festival wasn't in the events but in the conversations.

For me the highlight of the festival was the fact that there was no wall of separation between us speakers and performers and everyone there. I spent 4 days talking with lots of people from all over America and other places too, about ideas but also about very personal subjects. I met Ramona who was the cook at the Indian food stand and found she is ill and has no health insurance and I was able to connect her with a friend who knew a friend at the WG fest locally to help her get the full checkup she needs. I could do that because the festival was full of the sort of people who help, love and care so for once there was someone to call.

And I watched the sneak preview of the movie Hellbound that will be released this fall. It happens that I'm one of the people interviewed in the movie but that's not why I say it is one of the best films I've ever seen. We watched it at 11 PM and talked until 2 AM. People were just stunned.

Cathleen Falsani 6-01-2012

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.
—From “Wild Geese”
by Mary Oliver

Late June. School’s out. The days are long, their pace slowed—languid and languorous, in the best sense of those descriptors. Could there be a better time to embark on a wild goose chase? I think not.

As luck would have it, just after the summer solstice this June, fans of such adventures—devotees of that sacred, untamable squawking bird—will gather on a farm in North Carolina for a weekend’s worth of music, art, the exchange of ideas, and the pursuit of the Spirit at the (aptly named) Wild Goose Festival.

The fest, a cousin of the U.K.’s venerable Greenbelt festival now in its second year on this side of the pond, takes its name from the Irish An Gé Fiáin (“the wild goose,” pronounced “On Geh Fee-an”), which some folks believe is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit traceable to ancient Celtic Christianity.

The idea (and it is a provocative one) is that rather than a dove, the Holy Spirit is more like one of those big, gray geese—wild, unruly, coming and going as it pleases, announcing its arrival with honking, bluster, and ample attitude.

Christian Piatt 3-29-2012

I’m working on wrangling the final submissions for book three in the Banned Questions series, which will be Banned Questions About Christians. It’s funny because sometimes the seemingly easiest questions are the ones that respondents struggle with the most.

So in order to clear up any confusion, once and for all, I thought I’d compile a list of simple criteria to help you figure out if you are officially an emergent Christian or not.

the Web Editors 2-09-2012

The Goose is on the loose, ya'll.

Today organizers of the 2012 Wild Goose Festival (June 21-24 in Shakori Falls, N.C.) released a groovtastic video (with special guest apperances by Sojo homies Gabriel Salguero, Lynne Hybels, David Wilcox, Father Richard Rohr, Brian McClaren, Phyllis Tickle, Richard Twiss, Jim Wallis and more!) to whet your appetite for four days of music, art, literature and curl-your-toes GRACE.

Watch the Wild Goose video and find out how to get your tickets, etc., inside the blog....

Shane Claiborne 1-18-2012
Shane Claiborne

Shane Claiborne

Sometimes folks ask me if I’ve spoken at any conferences that I get excited about. I’ll be speaking more than 150 times this next year in about a dozen countries — at all sorts of events from a Spanish speaking conference in Florida to an economic think-tank in DC to schools here in North Philly and 30,000 Lutherans in New Orleans. 

This year is going to be a blast. I decided to make a list of a few of the events that are real highlights for me in 2012. They are each unique and innovative, and a couple are in their infancy.

Here they are…Five Great Gatherings in 2012: