Nov 02

In Solidarity with Standing Rock

By Rick Meredith Uncategorized One Comment

By Jeff Clark
Water is indisputably a core element of our existence, crucial to every part of our lives on this planet. It ripples throughout our human story, a fundamental relationship that inextricably connects us to the earth and to each other.

Photo credit: Sacred Stone Camp Facebook

When such an important relationship is threatened, when the racist underpinnings of a situation are thinly (if at all) veiled, when basic human rights are challenged, as people of faith and as members of the human family, we cannot look away. And I personally must stand in solidarity with the protectors of Standing Rock.

As you are probably aware, Sacred Stone Camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota currently sits at the heart of a protest sparking national attention. In an attempt to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, thousands of people have gathered in land held sacred by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The pipeline would transfer as much as 570,000 barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota to Illinois, and is proposed to travel underneath the Missouri River, a primary source of drinking water for millions. Facing a high possibility of water contamination, the desecration of burial grounds, and broken treaties, the protectors of the area include indigenous and non-Native people alike. The pipeline presents a multifaceted dilemma in the arenas of public health, environmental stewardship, and indigenous rights.

There are many ways to stand with our brothers and sisters in this crisis. #NoDAPL lists a number of solidarity actions on their website. The Atlantic magazine also reports that Standing Rock protesters have requested people “contact leaders in the Army Corps of Engineers and the Obama Administration in opposition to the pipeline.”

To these I would add two more: lament and pray. Lament the racism and injustice that indigenous people have suffered and continued to suffer in this country. And pray for change. As Mark Charles, a friend and past contributor of the Goose wrote in a recent blog post, what is happening to the Standing Rock Sioux is part of a broader systemic problem. May we all join in prayer that this broken system is repaired and may we also be a part of working to let “justice roll down like water.”

In Solidarity,

Jeff Clark
President & Producer
The Wild Goose Festival

Sep 23

Love0

Four ways we can stand with the movement for Black Lives

By Rick Meredith Goose News 4 Comments

Those of us in the Wild Goose community are reeling from the horrifying and tragic events of this week: the police shootings of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, two more names on a list that seems to grow longer and longer every day.

We abhor the racism and violence that is tearing our country apart and we call for those responsible for these killings to be held accountable. We follow a God of inclusion and love, and we stand in solidarity with all those who work for restorative justice and for building the beloved community.

We know that many of the people of color from the Wild Goose community are in unbearable pain right now, feeling hurt, angry and betrayed, nearly hopeless, and deeply afraid for their very lives.

Many from the Wild Goose community who have been raised white are weeping with their brothers and sisters of color, want to stand in solidarity with them and are sick to death of the systemic anti-Black racism that has authorized and empowered the targeting, assault and killing of black and brown bodies in this country.

And thankfully, many from the Wild Goose community are in Charlotte, deeply engaged in practical, productive, on-ground support.

But many of us are spread out across the country and unsure how we can stand with each other. How we can cry out for justice. How we can say “No more.”

Here are four things we believe the Wild Goose community can do together, wherever we are:

1. Lament
Rev. Jennifer Bailey, minister, community organizer, a Founder of the Faith Matters Network has said, “The type of healing we need can only be borne out of lament — a lament that holds space in the deepest pits of our beings for the piercing sorrow and rage being expressed by black communities, cultivates empathy, and puts restorative justice at the center of our collective action.”

It’s time to weep and mourn and cry out to God in our pain, grief and confusion, and yes, also, confess our complicity in a system of injustice. We invite you to stop and take a few moments for a simple ritual of lament and prayer each week, to light a candle and name the names of people who’ve been killed.

We have created a prayer of lament for you to use if you wish, which you can download here. Or come up with your own words.

You might want to do this with your family or gather with some friends around a table. You might want to kneel. You might want to create your own wailing wall or a jar of tears. However you do this each week, to remember that we are lamenting as a community, please share a photo to our @WildGooseFest Instagram page tagging it #WildGooseLaments.

2. Learn
Jim Wallis, author, preacher, and Sojourners magazine founder and editor, has recently written a book called America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. If you haven’t read it already, order a copy here. Then, starting Next Thursday, Sept. 29, at 8 p.m., Jim is inviting us all to join him on Facebook Live for the first in a series of conversations that he’s calling “ Race, Faith and 2016.” These discussions, about how issues of race and faith are playing out in society today and are reflected in this fall’s political campaigns, will continue each Thursday night between now and Election Day.

3. Listen
A survey on values by the Public Religion Research Institute not long ago reported that 75% of white Americans have “entirely white social networks.”

Despite what some of us might want to believe, we live in an incredibly segregated society. To change that, we have to start talking about important things… and listening, truly listening… with people of different colors than our own. Yes, it may be awkward. Let us be brave enough to be awkward. And when you do, let’s share our experiences with each other in the comments section below.

4. Love
“Let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love.” That’s the call we hear from our scriptures (1 John 3:18, The Message). And as Dr. Cornell West has said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” We can practice real love in many different ways. Speaking out against racial injustice on social media, in our schools and offices and churches. We can also participate by getting involved with groups dedicated to ending racial injustice like the #BlackLivesMatter movement…they have many local chapters. As does the group, Showing Up for Racial Justice. There are many other local grassroots efforts going on across the country. Tell us about ones you know about and invite fellow Wild Goose folks to join you through our Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis of Middle Collegiate Church in New York has said, “Love looks like this: Prophetic grief. Tears falling heavy. And activism that ends racism.”

Join us in letting the tears fall, in confession, in action, in real love. And please join the conversation in the comments section below.

Plans are already very aggressively under way to make sure racial justice will be front and center at the 2017 Wild Goose Festival. Let’s fight this fight together – in every way possible!

Sep 20

Love1

Brian McLaren talks about his new book, The Great Spiritual Migration

By Rick Meredith Goose News

Brian McLaren talks with us about The Great Spiritual Migration

A conversation with Lenora Rand and Rick Meredith | Wild Goose Creative Team

Already garnering some great press, including this article in The New York Times, Brian McLaren’s new book, The Great Spiritual Migration, just released this week, is one that Rachel Held Evans believes “may be his most important work yet.” Richard Rohr has called it a must read because it will “assure you that you are not crazy…in what you’re seeing and suffering today.” And Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City has said, “This well-conceived, intelligent, warm, truthful book is our guide to a space where a life of faith is defined by love-in-action.”

book-square We sat down recently with Brian, a long-time supporter of the Wild Goose Festival, for a conversation about the book. Ok, to be honest, we sat down with him virtually, through the wonders of the internet. We will also admit that it might have taken us longer to come up with the questions than it did for him to answer them. He’s just that good.

Lenora: If I had to summarize your book in a sentence or two I’d say it’s all about how the church needs to be less about belief and more about love. We need fewer believers and more people willing to be lovers. Did I get it – is that the gist of The Great Spiritual Migration?

Brian: You nailed the gist of the first third, and that sets the stage for everything else. I might tweak your statement to be “less about beliefs” (plural) – because I think there’s a deep and important difference between belief/faith and beliefs (as I discuss at some length in the book). The middle third of the book deals with the question of God … our understanding or vision of God, and specifically, God’s relation to violence. Then the last section takes all this and asks how we put it into practice in our faith communities and the world.

Lenora: You mentioned the Wild Goose Festival in your dedication. What role do you think Wild Goose has played/is playing in The Great Spiritual Migration?

Brian: In the last third of the book, I talk about movement dynamics, and how movements relate to institutions. One key element of a healthy movement is “movement culture,” and Festivals like Wild Goose play a key part in creating and expressing movement culture. Wild Goose creates a liminal space, a zone of experimentation, what some have called a “temporary autonomous zone” where people can practice a different way of being alive. That’s what so many of us experience at Wild Goose. It’s not the only expression of the spiritual migration we need, of course. We need migration in our academic communities, in our congregations and denominations, in our NGO’s and informal networks … but I think a place like Wild Goose plays a critical role in this. You think of Woodstock in its relation to the counterculture movement, or even Davos in relation to the global economy (for better or worse), or the role that summer camps and youth camps and mission trips played in many of our lives. These intense, extraordinary experiences stretch our imagination and give us a taste of something beautiful and possible and new.

Photo by Courtney Perry

Rick: In chapter three, “Learning How to Love,” you imagine the church of the future as anything from a weekly meeting in a cathedral to a annual retreat or even a daily online experience – a “studio” where people interactively learn how to live a life of love. This sounds almost like a description of what Wild Goose could be. Could you expand on how Wild Goose might best embody this ethos?

Brian: Great question. In many ways, I think Wild Goose is already doing exactly this. First, it is providing an experience of intensity that complements our usual experiences of regularity. Regularity without intensity becomes a bit boring, and intensity without regularity can become irrelevant. But put the two together – an intense week, once a year – and you can start to feel that your life direction and “vibe” is being shaped by that week. If I could make one suggestion in how to expand that impact, it would be to continue our focus on making kids and high schoolers and college students feel welcome, and more than welcome, central to the whole event over decades to come. That’s not easy. Events tend to start with one age cohort and then stay with that cohort as they age. But if we could always lean young, we could play a major role in the spiritual formation of many for years to come. If that sounds like too much pressure, I don’t want it to. Really, I think it’s inspiring. I know that few if any of us are just interested in a successful business venture for people’s entertainment. (There’s nothing wrong with that … but I think something more than that draws us together.)

That’s especially important because although I’m working hard (and writing hard) to help our faith communities seize the moment, I don’t think enough will do so fast enough. And that means that thousands – actually, millions – of kids will grow up without much in the way of intentional spiritual formation in the way of love. They’ll be formed to be cool, or rich, or to “make America great again” (yikes) or to be faithful American consumers … but until our faith communities in sufficient numbers pick up the call to spiritually form new generations in the way of Christ, which is the way of life, creative ventures like Wild Goose must play a significant role in filling the gap. At least that’s how I see it.

Over time, I hope the intense Wild Goose experience can help a new generation of leaders arise who build new faith communities where the justice and generosity we share for a long weekend in the summer becomes the norm for their daily lives.

Rick: In chapter eight, “Salvation from the Suicide Machine”, you suggest that perhaps the Spirit of God is calling the church to stop trying to save itself and instead to join God in saving the world. So many churches and organizations seem to make “growing the numbers” a top priority, as a matter of survival. Are you saying we should just take action and forget about the numbers, and if we are in fact doing the right thing, our survival (and growth) will follow?

Brian: I’m not saying forget about the numbers. But I am saying that if we recruit more and more people to do the wrong things and become the wrong kinds of human beings, we’re playing successfully for the wrong team. My complaint with “organized religion” is not that it’s organized enough to count numbers, but that it’s well organized to achieve the wrong purposes, or better said, that it’s shabbily organized to achieve the most urgent purposes. If we were to organize well to achieve the most urgent purposes … developing people as contemplative love activists and lifelong love learners in the way of Christ, loving the planet more than we love money and fossil fuels, challenging privileged people to love poor and marginalized people so that together we can create a better future, and pre-empting war and violence with a profound commitment to peacemaking … if we organized for those purposes and invited people to be part, I think we would find a new vitality and joy. (And hard work and push-back too!) That’s what I think Jesus did, and that’s what I think the Spirit is calling us to do. I think the world will be a better place if 5000 or 50,000 or 5 million people are part of that than if 5 or 50 people are part of that. So for me, it’s about organizing and inspiring and training and supporting growing numbers of people for these urgent, important, and profoundly meaningful purposes.

Rick: You talk about the necessity of multi-faith solutions and dialogue. Do you have a vision for how that might better play out at the Wild Goose Festival?

Brian: As you know, I’m deeply involved in multi-faith collaboration. In my experience, multi-faith collaboration has two possible paths. The first is to downplay individual faith identity and to try to create a kind of neutral zone where people focus on commonalities and minimize their distinctiveness. It’s kind of a least-common denominator approach. The other is to celebrate individual faith identity and come together to share gifts from our different traditions. There’s a place for both approaches, although I’m more interested in the latter.

But here’s the problem. Many of our faith traditions are themselves in deep crisis. Their identities are conflicted, polarized, and paralyzed. If you try to get Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity (Catholics) and a leader in ISIS (a Sunni Muslim) and a leader in the Iranian Revolution (a Shiite Muslim) and Franklin Graham (an Evangelical/Fundamentalist) together, it’s not going to go well at all. But think of how Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama became friends, or how Desmond Tutu and Pope Francis encounter “the other.” You might say that many faiths have their Desmond Tutu/Pope Francis pole and their Franklin Graham/Bill O’Reilly pole, and until we can get more people to the Desmond Tutu pole, we won’t have many people ready for multi-faith collaboration.

Right now, we need to build a strong movement among Christians at the Desmond Tutu/Pope Francis pole. This is a matter of spiritual formation, and I think Wild Goose invites people to “fly in formation” in that direction. In that way, I see Wild Goose’s primary calling to be a progressive Christian festival … and I mean progressive in the broadest sense … to help more Christians become the kinds of people who know how to relate to people of other faiths in a (think of it!) Christ-like way. But here’s where it gets interesting. If we do that, I think we will always be welcoming people of other faiths to the Festival – to learn from them, to share with them, to enjoy life and celebrate beauty and plot goodness together. So I think of a Muslim friend of mine who came to the Festival a few years ago. She told me that she felt completely at home, that these were “her people.”

Because Christianity is the world’s largest and richest religion, and also the religion with the most conventional and nuclear weapons under its control, it’s especially urgent for Christians to deal with our identity issues. But I also hear from many of my friends of other faiths that they feel Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and others all need their own spaces to grapple with their identity in this crazy new post-al context – postmodern, postcolonial, post-industrial, post-consumerist, post-nationalist, post-patriarchal, and so on.

I love the way the Wild Goose website said it…something like: “Because we are a Christian festival, we welcome people of all faiths and no faiths.” In other words, in our understanding of what it means to be Christian, we are hospitable, welcoming, appreciative, non-colonizing, and non-hostile.

Rick: You’ve laid out a blueprint here for creating a movement. What would you name the movement?

Lenora: We were thinking the Wild Goose Movement might be nice…Ha! Not really…but, maybe?

Brian: The nature of things these days argues against branding the movement we need with a simple label, at least for now. I wish this weren’t true, because it would be so much simpler if we could just line up behind one name or brand. But the spiritual movement we need must be a coalition of many sub-movements, and those sub-movements must, in my opinion, have their own identities even while they in a sense migrate in the same direction with others.

I see many reasons for the resistance toward a single movement label, and I’m sure there are other reasons I don’t fully understand. Maybe this will change over time. But for now, I think we have to be comfortable with the ambiguity, and Wild Goose Festival has to understand itself as a key player in an unfolding process with many other important partners around the nation and the world. At least that’s my dream.We have to become who we are, joyfully, and at the same time understand our affinity with parallel communities coming together. We can’t be everybody to everyone all at the same time, but we can be somebody whose heart is full of love for everyone … Many flocks, if you will, in one migration toward justice, joy, and peace.

Lenora: Since a lot of Wild Goose folks have probably read many of your other books, why should they read this one? Do you feel like in the current political and cultural climate we’re living in now, this book is particularly important?

Brian: I was relieved when one of the first reviewers of the book, Peter Laarman, said, “Every theme that McLaren has been carefully developing for years is present in the new book, only amplified with a new sense of urgency that seems to be informed by the climate change crisis, the new Movement for Black Lives, and the rising Islamophobia that so poisons our politics.”

I’m glad he saw this as a book that consolidates earlier themes and ups the sense of urgency. That’s how I feel. For people who have been following my work for a long time, this book in many ways puts all the pieces together and issues a call to action. For that reason, for people who haven’t read any of my books, this would be the best place so far to get the big picture.

The Great Spiritual Migration is available at:
Barnes and Noble
Amazon
Powell’s
BAM!
Hudson Booksellers
IndieBound

Aug 02

Love5

Singing in Discomfort

By Rick Meredith Guest Post

Guest post by Bekah Anderson, United Church of Christ
I spent the vast majority of Wild Goose feeling profoundly uncomfortable, and at the same time thrilled, inspired, and energized. I think that’s exactly how I should feel.

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From my post at the United Church of Christ hospitality tent, I was in a great position to meet people, because they’d come over to greet fellow UCC folk, or to ask what Queer Clergy Trading Cards are anyway, or, usually in the case of the children, to pick up free Starbursts. I loved talking to these people. I loved learning about where they were from, and what brought them to the Wild Goose. Most of them lived in places geographically far away from my small-town New England life, but in other ways we were often very much alike. We shared a common language. I could talk about being a beloved child of God without feeling like that person who just “made it weird” by bringing religion into the conversation, and I could talk about my passion for social justice without feeling like an “over-zealous” social justice warrior. Several of the worlds I usually find myself inhabiting separately merged together in those conversations, and in some ways, I was more comfortable and at home than I have been in a long time.

At the same time, I was deeply uncomfortable, because my feet were killing me. I spent much of the weekend on my feet at the entrance of the tent, and by about midday on Friday I knew that my body was not going to forgive me for it any time soon. On Saturday we rearranged the tent so I could sit down instead, but for the most part I opted to stay on my feet. Mostly, this was because I felt that people would be more likely to come talk to me if I was standing, waiting for them, but I also felt somehow that my discomfort was part of the point. Should I really be comfortable in a place where so many hard conversations were happening, so many great ideas were being shared, so much of the future was being dreamed? If I stayed comfortable all weekend, it probably meant I wasn’t learning.

I did leave my tent a few times, the first time to attend Stories and Mental Health workshop. Even giving my feet a rest, I was anything but comfortable. The stories I heard that morning were powerful, inspiring, and heartbreaking. They were stories that brought me into contact with experiences and viewpoints I rarely see, and at the same time they reminded me viscerally of my family’s own experiences with mental illness. Sitting in the back of that tent, I was close to tears, moved by the bravery and pain of those around me, even as I remembered my own pain. And this, I realized, is what the beginning of allyship feels like. When you listen to others, when you realize that their pain and experiences are not separate from yours, when you know that for you to be liberated, we all must be.

And later, I attended Set the Captives Free: A Christian Call to End Mass Incarceration. Again, my body was comfortable but my mind was not. Anyone who can be comfortably listen to a discussion about how our criminal justice system targets, imprisons, and disenfranchises black and brown men and other groups is not truly listening. I found myself perched on the edge of my seat, not sure if I wanted to get up and run away from this truth, or rush towards the presenters and beg them to tell me how to dismantle this terrifying, pervasive system. And much to my surprise, they did tell me. They told us all that we can best fight this system when we combine political advocacy and policy work with real human connections and direct support to those who have been caught up in mass incarceration. Hearing these words, I breathed a sigh of relief, although I was still poised at the edge of my chair. “Okay,” I thought. “There’s something I can do. Now I just have to go and do it.” And this, I realized, is what social justice combined with faith feels like. A call to action, a heavy burden of truth, and a spark of hope in our own abilities.

The last moment I would like to remember here is the end of the closing liturgy, where we all stood in a circle and held hands as we sang, “I am.” This, I know, is what community feels like. The circle, linking us all together, and our voices rising and falling together. Singing has always felt like community to me. When we sing together, we can hear that everyone has their own particular voice, their own place in the song, and we can feel that that is right and good. When I sang in that circle, I could hear some people singing the melody loud and proud, others adding sweet harmony, others just slightly off-key, others singing quietly but steadily, and I would be willing to bet that some people weren’t singing at all, but swaying and listening to the music around them with a smile. All of it—and I mean all of it—was right and good. There is no one right way to sing, just as there is no one right way to be a member of a community.

And yes, I was uncomfortable, even as I sang. My feet still hurt, my face was slowly developing a sunburn, and the song was just a little too low to sing easily. And still I felt this was right.

Sometimes, discomfort is purely negative and must be assuaged. But at other times, discomfort is productive. Sometimes, it pushes us to action. When I was singing in that circle, I didn’t want to leave and put on sunblock; I wanted to stay, singing, and add my own harmony. In the mass incarceration workshop, although part of me wanted to leave, I knew I couldn’t really hide from this; I wanted to do something about it. In the mental health workshop, I didn’t want to push away the presenters and the feelings brought on by their stories; I wanted to pull them closer and learn more. And standing in the UCC tent with my aching feet, I actually didn’t want to sit down; I wanted to run down the street, skipping and dancing, sharing my energy with the world and giving my feet something else to do. My hope for all of us, when we are far away from Wild Goose in this uncomfortable world, is that as often as we can, we choose not just to stand, but to run forward, through the discomfort, into our shared future.

Bekah Anderson is a young writer studying religion and creative writing at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. She is currently interning with the Congregational Assessment, Support, and Advancement department of the national office of the United Church of Christ. She hopes that the new, queerer church will have shorter job titles.

Jul 20

Love1

Wild Goose 2016 Reader from Chalice Press

By Rick Meredith Guest Post

Is your spirit still on the Wild Goose mountaintop?
Are you still thinking about the new friends you made, the new ways you think about your faith and your purpose in life?

Are you ready to go back next year?

Here’s a way to take some of your Wild Goose experience home … Chalice Press and CBP Books are offering a FREE compilation of chapters (more than 100 pages of great content!) from eight amazing authors who led sessions at Wild Goose Festival 2016:

Rachelle Mee-Chapman – Relig-ish: Soulful Living in a Spiritual-But-Not-Religious World
Chris Crass – Towards the “Other America”: Anti-Racist Resources for White People Taking Action for Black Lives Matter
Sarah Griffith Lund – Blessed are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness, Family, and Church
Nicole Massie Martin – Made to Lead: Empowering Women for Ministry
Teresa Pasquale Matheus – Sacred Wounds: A Path to Healing from Spiritual Trauma
Julie Richardson – Available Hope: Parenting, Faith, and a Terrifying World
Joerg Rieger and Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger – Unified We are a Force: How Faith and Labor Can Overcome America’s Inequalities

Go to chalicepress.net/WildGooseReader and find out how to receive your FREE copy of the Wild Goose 2016 Reader.

Jul 14

Love6

What are people saying about Wild Goose 2016?

By Rick Meredith Featured-2 5 Comments

NightStage_900

Ever since the closing moments of Wild Goose 2016, we’ve heard from many who had profound experiences at the festival this year. Who found community. And communion. Not to mention, really good coffee.

We wanted to share some of the blog posts and other things we’ve run across in social media about the 2016 festival, with this wider group. So you’ll find links below.

And if you’ve written something, or will be writing something soon, please send us the link so we can pass along your thoughts, too. You can share that in the comments section below. Steve-Podcast

For a great all-round summary of the festival, take a listen to Steve Ray’s podcast from the event. He interviews Science Mike and Michael Gungor and many others who were there, and asks them what the Goose is all about and why it matters.

Laura Parrott Perry, one of the presenters at the festival, blogs about wandering into OPENINGS, the late night worship event, and finding space to lament all that’s going on in the world, and to find hope again.

Jade T. Perry, another Goose presenter, reflects on her experience, particularly as person of color, about sitting with and holding both peace and grief together there. Read her full post here.

Rev. Susan Rogers, writes about all the stories she heard at Wild Goose, and also of the shared story we created together, and leaving with the sense that we are not alone.

PostGoose2-1675 Author, therapist and spiritual director, Marshall Jenkins, tells about his experience of discovering sacred space in the community and communion he found by the French Broad River.

Blogger, Austen Hartke, the creator of the YouTube series “Transgender and Christian,” made a short video blog about the festival, you’ll definitely want to take look at.

Melanie Lynn Griffin, in her blog, Writing With Spirit, shares some images that stayed with her the first day or so after the festival, here.

And here’s a reflection from Drew Downs, an episcopal priest, blogger and also a dad — who came to the Goose with his 8-year-old daughter, an experience filled with minor miracles and moments he might have missed otherwise.

Amy Rutledge Vaughan wrote the poem, “Re Entry,” about coming home after Wild Goose and wondering: “How do we make this more than simply a wonderful moment in time? How do we make this a movement?” You can read her poem on our Facebook page, here.

Gareth Higgins, who helped birth the Wild Goose Festival in 2011, was back with us this year, and shared a blessing on Sunday from the main stage that was quite powerful. You can find that blessing at this link on Gareth’s site.

And, finally, Gina Marina wrote a wonderful piece on her Facebook page, looking back at all she learned and experienced. And how she managed not to have any “cotton candy conversations” the whole four days. Read her post in full here.

Another easy way to tell us your stories of Wild Goose this year, is to share them in this space we’ve set up specifically for gathering them. We hope you’ll do so, because telling our stories and hearing each other’s stories matters. As the author Sue Monk Kidd wrote, “Stories have to be told, or they die. And when they die, we can’t remember who we are, or why we’re here.”

Jul 14

Love3

What did you take home from Wild Goose 2016? Tell us your story.

By Rick Meredith Featured-1 16 Comments

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The theme of the Goose this year has been Story. Because stories are important. Our lives are shaped by them. Our world is shaped by them. And too often the loudest stories we hear around us are ones of exclusion and scarcity, violence, hatred, division.

But we came together for four days in July on the banks of the French Broad River, to tell and share some new stories, to hear stories, heal stories, sing and dance and paint stories, to lament the painful stories we’ve been through, and to receive, reshape and reimagine the stories of our lives and our world. Because we believe it makes a difference.

Did it make a difference? What stories did you hear, what stories did you create and tell and discover this year at Wild Goose? What moments rearranged you? Changed you? Opened your eyes and heart?

Share your Wild Goose 2016 stories with us. We want to hear them. And share them with our broader community here.

To do that you can simply write your story in the comments section below. If you write a blog about your experience at the festival, share that link with us as well.

Let’s not let the storytelling end just because the festival is over. Because Wild Goose can be so much more than a festival…we hope it will be an ongoing conversation in which we can listen to each other, support each other and inspire each other.

Jul 01

Love1

Top 10 Tips: How to get the most from the Goose

By Rick Meredith Goose News

Can you believe it? Wild Goose 2016 is almost here. With so much to see and hear and do we thought you might like a few suggestions from experienced Goose-goers on how to enjoy yourself as much as possible.

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Tip #1: Make a plan. Now, before you arrive. The schedule is online, so you could start this very moment. The good news is there are so many great options, practically every moment of the day. The bad news is many are happening simultaneously, so the first thing you’ll have to deal with is the fact that you can’t do everything. But relax…you can do a lot. And whatever you end up at will be wonderful. And if you’re traveling with others, you can divide and conquer. Workshops end about 10 minutes before the hour so you should have time for a restroom break and to walk to the next venue. By the way, if you are trying to hang with friends or family, you might want to designate meeting places and times. Cell service is spotty, at best.

Tip #2: Toss the plan. Talk to strangers.
Wild Goose veterans tell us the conversations they have are the most significant part of the Goose experience. As cool as having a plan is, and as amazing as all the speakers, storytellers, mystics and musicians are, often the big life-changing moments at Wild Goose are the small ones. Don’t worry too much about the next event you want to get to. Take the time to meet new people, hang out with them, and don’t rush off from that conversation just to get to the next item on your plan. Forget what your mother might have taught you…and definitely DO talk to strangers. Surprisingly deep encounters with complete strangers, conversations with someone you meet at a workshop, or while picking up some lunch, are a huge part of what makes Wild Goose more than just another summer music festival. Take it in.

Tip #3: Bring your “festive” to the festival. You and what you bring to the festival are a huge part of what makes it what it is. So bring your wild, including a few things to personalize your campsite – flags, fabric, streamers, lights (battery powered and solar Christmas lights work great) – decorating your little corner of the campground will make you and everyone around you feel like you’re not in Kansas anymore. Wear clothes you’d wear around your non-judgey-ist friends…your fun-nest, silliest, wildest, most creative. Strange hats are always welcome. And feather boas, because, well…feather boas.

Tip #4: Do some exploring. When you arrive, grab a map and take a tour of the grounds, locating the various tents where all the workshops and music, art, and worship events will happen. Note where the food vendors are and check out all they will be offering. (That way you won’t get to the end of the weekend and be kicking yourself because you didn’t know they had those crazy-delicious burritos.) Also scope out the restrooms and the Porta-potties…there are plenty of them, so lines are rare… and they’re usually more pleasant than you’d imagine.

Tip #5:. Try something new…or at least not something you do every day. Don’t usually do art? Visit the studio tent and get up to your elbows in a project or two. Don’t usually talk about yourself? Tell your story to the WGTV camera or participate in any number of other storytelling opportunities. Only sing hymns in church? Sing them like you’re at a rugby game with a beer in hand, at one of our Beer and Hymns gatherings. Have a lot of questions? Stop by the Troubling the Gospel Tent and starting asking them. Always wanted a tattoo but just haven’t quite made the leap yet? Visit our tattoo artist (but if you want something custom, contact her ahead of time with your vision). Never experienced a podcast, live? Now’s your chance – check out GooseCast Live.

Tip #6: Take care of yourself. Bring an umbrella. You’ll need it for sun – especially at the Main Stage – and perhaps for rain. Don’t forget sunscreen and bug spray, flashlights, headlamps (always attractive…), and chairs – most people bring folding camp chairs, which you can use at your campsite and also bring with you to the main stage for a comfy seat while listening to music and speakers. Bring a favorite mug, and a water bottle (free bulk water is provided) and stay hydrated. By the way, some people also suggest that you bring a blanket or tarp to put over your tent to keep it cooler and have a battery-powered fan. Important camper tip: Stock up on firewood before 5 PM Thursday while you are still allowed to have your vehicles on the grounds (versus safely tucked away in the parking lot).

Tip #7: Live in the moment, embrace the unpredictable, and also, possibly some rain. Wild geese are, by their very nature, wild….unpredictable, untamed, uncontrollable. That’s why the Wild Goose became the Celtic symbol for Holy Spirit. And the symbol we’ve claimed. So try to be flexible, especially when things don’t go exactly as you’d like them to or think they should. Be open to the moment. Open to new ideas, new ways to connect with God’s wild and loving spirit. Open to new music – emerging artists happen to be playing almost all day every day, at the Cafe. And if the moment happens to include a downpour of rain, consider going out and playing in the mud. (Oh, and if you need a refresher on how to live with gratitude for the moment, feel free to drop by the kids’ tent, for a little reminder.) Speaking of gratitude, find a way to say thank you to the volunteers, every single day. They’re the unsung heroes of this event.

Tip #8: See yourself as an actor, not a spectator. You are a significant contributor. Not an insignificant observer. Tell stories, read your poetry, collaborate on some art, do yoga, speak up in the workshops, dance to the music, take communion, join an instant choir, walk the labyrinth, invite people to have dinner with you, bring your drums and get in the circle, jump in the river, let your hair down, let your guard down, be as fully present as you want to be, and possibly as loud as a wild goose (except after midnight, at which point local ordinances require we quiet down a bit. Which is why we have a Silent Disco).

Tip #9: Enjoy being off the grid for a few days. You know how we mentioned cell service/internet is fairly unreliable? This is because of the beautiful Smoky Mountains surrounding us…and the number of people trying to access it all at one time. So if you can’t check your Facebook, post on Instagram, or Tweet, consider just sitting and taking some deep breaths. Allow yourself to slow down and let feelings happen. You may find yourself having a lot of feelings that don’t fit neatly into a 140 character count. So you might want to bring a journal and a pen. You also might want to get your social media fix while on the road to and from the festival. Which would be great. Instagram, Tweet, Facebook your heart out and share with #WildGoose2016. That way we can all start connecting even before arrival. And stay connected on the way home.

Tip #10: Attend Joy Wallis’s “Get the Most Out of The Goose” session, Thursday, 5PM in the Spirituality Tent. Joy Wallis is our board chair and has been with the festival from the beginning. She knows better than anyone how to do the Goose. So she’ll be sharing her tried and true tips and taking questions. It’s a great chance to meet some new folks right away, too.

Oh, did we mention? The rumors are true. There WILL be ice cream!
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, for the first time ever in the history of the Goose, we will have an ICE CREAM TRUCK. Oh yeah, baby. Look for it near the main stage area.

Have some practical questions we may not have covered here? Check out our FAQ page.

Can’t wait to see you.

Jun 30

Love2

Theology. Ecology. Good food for all.

By Rick Meredith Goose News

Guest post by Methodist Theological School In Ohio

We’re from Ohio.
Thomas Edison was born here before his family moved to Michigan to follow the railroad. The Wright Brothers developed the first airplane in their Dayton bicycle shop before their historic sustained flight, which took place in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It’s a point of contention between Ohio and North Carolina, even now.

A simple place.
Still, many world-changing events have taken place here. While Edison was moving to Michigan to embrace the future, abolitionists were secretly moving enslaved people across the Ohio River, along the Underground Railroad and toward the hope of freedom. And, 100 years later and 30 miles to the north of the river, 800 volunteers met in Oxford, Ohio, to train for the violence they would face during the Freedom Summer of 1964.

With great significance.
Also in 1964, just north of Columbus, four professors at a brand new seminary, Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO), were packing for a trip. It was Holy Week, but they were leaving for Jackson, Mississippi, to accompany black worshippers into the Easter service of a white Methodist church. On Easter morning, all nine members of the group were arrested during a dramatic encounter in front of Capitol Street Methodist Church on the charge of “disturbing divine worship.” Well, that started it.

A deep tradition of justice.
A few weeks later, the first graduates of MTSO earned their degrees, beginning a tradition of ministry and justice in Ohio and beyond. To this day, deep theological refection and social justice advocacy are at the core of MTSO’s cultural identity and work. As you are reading this, MTSO students and graduates are initiating and leading a network of Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools throughout Ohio, in direct succession of the original Freedom School movement.

And partnership.
In partnership, MTSO and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center are developing and teaching freedom theologies in the areas of race, gender and economics, and engaging churches and the public in conversation and action. MTSO will offer select for-credit courses at the Freedom Center in Cincinnati, develop certificate programs and seminars for theologies of freedom, and host traveling exhibits from the Freedom Center in the Columbus area.

Ecology. Theology. Good food for all.
The MTSO campus is located on 70 beautiful rolling acres just north of Columbus, and we’re putting those acres to good use in the movement toward ecological, economic and food justice. MTSO’s Seminary Hill Farm is a USDA-certified organic farm, offering a community-supported agriculture program and supplying our dining hall, local restaurants and social service agencies with fresh, local, organic produce. Also, our Community Food and Wellness Initiative supports the development of community gardens, urban farms, and other food projects, which increase food access and environmental resiliency, promote nutrition and active living, and create fair employment and just community.

Welcoming and affirming.
MTSO’s campus is both welcoming and affirming for those who might be excluded elsewhere. And our course content embraces theological reflection beyond the intersections of gender and sexuality. We strive to welcome all perspectives. It’s just who we are.

Come visit us.
We invite you visit with us, either in the Spirituality Tent at the Wild Goose Festival or on our campus in Central Ohio. You can also learn more about us on our websites and through Facebook and Twitter. Here are the links:

Web site:
www.mtso.edu

Facebook:

www.facebook.com/MethodistTheologicalSchoolInOhio/
www.facebook.com/seminaryhillfarm/

Twitter:
@MTSOedu

Jun 30

Love1

Jordan: Home to the Wilderness of the Goose

By Rick Meredith Guest Post

Guest post by Jordan Tourism Board

The voice crying in the wilderness.
The desert, the wind, the reeds, the river, the springs.
Flocks from all over the region come for baptism.
The One comes.
John baptizes.
The heavens open.
The Wild Goose descends upon the beloved Son.
The Father speaks.
The mission begins.

According to the Bible (John 1:28), the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Wild Goose – was first revealed to mankind at Bethany-beyond-the Jordan, where John baptized his cousin Jesus.
What did the crowds do? Could this have been the original Wild Goose Festival?

Jordan, the eastern part of the Holy Land, welcomes pilgrims from around the world to Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan, a UNESCO world heritage site. This special place of baptism – the Wilderness of the Goose – is one of many Old and New Testament locations in Jordan awaiting pilgrims who make the journey.

We look forward to telling more of our Jordan story at #WildGoose16. Our friend Benjamin (Ben) L. Corey, blogger and author of “Undiluted: Rediscovering the Radical Message of Jesus,” will be with us to share about his own experiences in Jordan. Please look for us in the Spirituality Tent and at our pop-up oasis video tent, where we can dig a bit deeper and discover more about each other

Here’s Ben swapping stories about Jordan with a few other Christian bloggers:

To learn more, please visit MyJordanJourney.com or our My Jordan Journey Facebook Page

Download a copy of our Biblical Jordan educational booklet HERE

Jun 27

Love1

An open table for authentic seekers

By Rick Meredith Guest Post

Guest post by Paul Swanson, CAC

I don’t make songs for free, I make them for freedom.
Don’t believe in kings, believe in the Kingdom.
—Chance the Rapper

God is inside you, all around you, and up above.
—Sturgill Simpson

Chance the Rapper and Sturgill Simpson are my musical go-tos during this season of life. Though stylistically different, they are both innovative storytellers who are laughing off the prescribed genres and archaic routes of professional artistry. To me, Wild Goose has taken a similar approach to spirituality—unafraid of the paradoxes that inherently come with stepping out of ascribed spiritual uniforms, belief structure, and religious norms. Rather than taking the easy path of embracing a cynical and iconoclastic spirit, Wild Goose holds the graced space of an open table for authentic seekers.

What brings me back to Wild Goose? The Spirit of participants and presenters is real; I trust their underlying desire to lovingly impact the world through compassionate presence and engagement.

It’s been a year or two since I set up my tent at Wild Goose, but I am looking forward to being back this go around as a part of the team from the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC). We are proud to be a sponsor of the pre-festival Mystic Action Camp. Doubly proud to see three of our Living School graduates (Teresa Pasquale, Brie Stoner, and Holly Roach) as integral contributors to this offering.

Wild Goose and Mystic Action Camp embody the same spirit as the CAC. Our founder and wisdom teacher, Father Richard Rohr, says:

The most important word in our Center’s name is not Action nor is it Contemplation, but the word and. We need both action and contemplation to have a whole spiritual journey. It doesn’t matter which comes first; action may lead you to contemplation and contemplation may lead you to action. But finally, they need and feed each other.

If being the and in action and contemplation sounds like your type of conjunction, we hope you’ll join us at Wild Goose to further deepen your contemplative engagement with our beloved world.

See you soon. . . .

Cheers,
Paul Swanson
Director of Curriculum and tallest person at the CAC

Jun 25

Love6

Worship at the Goose – diverse, imaginative, radical acts of defiance and hope

By Rick Meredith Goose News

49 dead in a LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando. Black lives that don’t seem to matter nearly enough. 60 million refugees without a welcome. Transgendered rights under attack in North Carolina. Given all that’s happening in our world, we need opportunities to lament, reorient ourselves to God’s story, reconnect with hope and joy and remember that steaming piles of crap don’t get the last word.

Worship_900 That’s why we’re grateful for all the different kinds of opportunities to gather together with song and story, prayer, liturgy and communion at the Goose this year. From early mornings to midday to late night. All of them opening up space and time to see, hear, sing, move, and reach for the God whose other name is Love. And perhaps, even, re-vision how to follow the way of Jesus, and be love in our world again.

We’ll start the weekend on Thursday night with Stories & Blessings, led by Ana Hernandez, with Paula Williams, J.Kwest, and Rebecca Anderson. Beginning at 6:30 on our main stage, think of this as the opening invocation for the festival, but, of course, Wild Goose style…with music and story and sound and an open-heartedness that will open us all up, sort of like a deep breath after being underwater for too long.

Then Ken Medema and Jacqui Lewis will keep that spirit going, and kick it up a notch… or ten. Ken, a musician and storyteller who’s been performing worldwide for over 40 years, is incredible at improvisation, playing off what is being said and done in the moment. It promises to be a powerful experience as he works with Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister at Middle Collegiate Church, a 900-member multiracial, multicultural, inclusive congregation in the East Village of Manhattan, who will deliver our opening sermon. Together they will help us imagine being a church that is truly multiethnic, multicultural, filled with the wild flurry of Spirit.

Before it gets too late on Thursday night, be sure to find the Episcopal Tent, because they will host Compline at 9 pm, Thursday (as well as on Friday and Saturday) and a number of worship gatherings throughout the weekend.

Set your alarm for Friday morning – and get back to the main stage by 8:30 am. Melissa Greene, associate pastor, and Josh Hailey, creative director, both from GRACEPOINTE, an interdenominational, progressive Christian community in Nashville, will lead music and liturgy before Stan Mitchell, GRACEPOINTE’s senior pastor, speaks. GracePointe became one of the first evangelical megachurches in the country to openly stand for full equality and inclusion of the LGBTQ community, after Mitchell found himself asking “Could you be a church in Selma and not march?” He, along with his congregation, decided they couldn’t. This hour promises to be a welcome taste of what happens every week at GRACEPOINTE, and their “widened approach to the Gospel.”

You will definitely want to head to the Episcopal Tent at noon on Friday for Eucharist with spiritual theologian Matthew Fox. Co-founder of The (r)evolutionary Creation Spirituality movement, and author of a number of books, Fox was a Dominican for 40 years, and he’s especially known for bringing Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart and Hildegard of Bingen into the consciousness of contemporary Christians. A voice for social, environmental, and gender justice, it has been said that Fox “…may be the most creative, the most comprehensive, surely the most challenging theologian in America.”

At 5:30 on Friday and Saturday, stop by the The Practice Space for a Taize Vespers Service, led by Leslie Withers and Mark Reeve. Taize is a kind of contemplative worship that includes periods of silence, punctuated by meditative singing. The songs come out of the Taize community in France, an ecumenical monastic order dedicated to kindness, simplicity and reconciliation. You could also head to The Episcopal Tent on Saturday at 6 for a Potluck Dinner Eucharist with Healing Prayer.

Another don’t-miss event — Friday at 11 pm, join us at the Cafe for OPENINGS: Lament, Celebration, and Holy Communion with The Many. Born out of the collaboration of a diverse group of artists, writers, social justice activists, and pastors, with music by the emerging indie music collective, The Many, OPENINGS promises to be just what we need right now – time to lament, pray and sing, share bread and wine, and open a way to hope again. You’ll even have a chance to be in an Instant Choir for this event. Instant Choir Rehearsal is at 1 pm on Friday at the Circle Tent (listed as Openings, the Backstory, on the schedule). It’s your chance to learn the new music that will be sung on Friday night so you can join in. The original music, much of it written for worship at the Jesus-and-justice-loving, multiracial, inclusive LaSalle Street Church in Chicago, has been described as “indie folk meets gospel choir meets social justice worship band.”

lightthruopening Wake up on Saturday morning and make a bee-line for the main stage again by 8:30 for Morning Liturgy: Praying with the Music of the World. Featuring music from Taize and Iona as well as from faith communities of Africa and South America. Led by Gary Rand, worship/arts pastor at LaSalle Street Church and McCormick Seminary in Chicago, he’s known for weaving together music, prayer, and liturgy from different traditions to open space for God to work and people to respond in the rich diversity of creation, experience and culture. He’ll be joined at 9 AM by Emilie Townes, who
will be reflecting on Psalm 124: The Theology of Somehow. Emilie is the Dean and Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School with a perspective that we need to hear right now. As she believes, “God speaks in a variety of ways, and when we try to confine God to speaking only one way to only a certain group of people, then we’re really creating God in ourselves.”

On Saturday at 4:00 pm, Matthew Fox and Howard Hanger will be leading “Earth Liturgy: The Blessed Mess” in The Practice Space.

Then find your way to The Labyrinth Tent at 4:30 on Saturday to join Galileo Church and evangelist Katie Hays in an interactive liturgy crafted around the original music of singer-songwriter Paul Demer’s album Maybe All Is Not Lost. Layers of song, scripture, body prayer, query, and the sharing of bread and cup will invite us to discover how to stand for hope during a hard season, without retreating to the clenched fist of certainty.

On Sunday morning, you’ll want to head to the main stage again at 8:30 am, for Morning Liturgy: Prayer, Songs and Strong Coffee. It’s BYO Coffee by the way. And you can take part in a Catholic Mass at 9 am on Sunday in the Labyrinth.

For the closing liturgy of the weekend, which begins at 11 am on the main stage, we will celebrate God’s stories in our stories and our stories in God’s stories, led by two engaging liturgist/artist/activists, Matthew David Morris and Cláudio Carvalhaes. Matt has led liturgy at Wild Goose before, with words and music that take us into greater truth and a stronger sense of connection with ourselves, our world and our Creator. This will be Claudio’s’ first time with us, but he is known around the world as someone on the cutting edge of cross-cultural worship, a voice of liberation among communities of color, and a prophetic presence among those who are pushing the church into the 21st century. We can’t imagine a more fitting ending to the weekend, one of both challenge and hope, culminating in the celebration of the Eucharist together.

hands There are so many reasons to come to Wild Goose. So many things to hear and see and do – music, speakers, opportunities to hang out and have amazing conversations. But we believe participating in liturgies, experiencing Eucharist, and singing out our fear and faith and sorrows and joy in communal rituals, may be some of the most significant times you will have here. In the mess and mudhole that is too often the reality of our world today, worship at the Goose can be, as writer Lenora Rand said recently in a piece in Red Letter Christian’s blog, “…an act of defiance in the face of the prevailing powers of the gods of scarcity, injustice, hate and violence.”

We hope you’ll join us for as many of these wild and holy, celebratory acts of defiance as you can.

Jun 24

Love0

So what’s an evangelical for social action, anyway?

By Rick Meredith Guest Post

Guest post by Evangelicals for Social Action

At the Sider Center we make a point of discussing topics your grandmother probably told you not to discuss, like sexuality, money, politics, and racism. We think we can talk about these potentially divisive things with love and respect, even if we disagree, because we value theological diversity as much as we do racial diversity. We don’t pretend to know the all the truth, but we know what love looks like. It looks like Jesus—bold and kind, creative and patient. And it’s to make the radical love of Jesus visible in this world that the Sider Center exists.

ESAbanner The Sider Center of Eastern University promotes peaceful coexistence and social justice through scholarship, community-transformation programs, and loving dialogue across deep differences. Primary avenues for this work include the following:

Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA)
Founded in 1973 by scholar-popularizer-activist Ronald J. Sider, ESA is the premier project of the Sider Center. ESA promotes peace with justice by educating and energizing the church through online publications (our blog, the weekly ePistle, study guides), hands-on training (such as our Racial Justice Institute), and speaking engagements.

Associate Fellows for Racial Justice
Because racial justice is so important to the Sider Center and to ESA, in 2016 we brought on Micky ScottBey Jones and Darren Calhoun as our Associate Fellows for Racial Justice. Micky and Darren focus ESA’s work on racial justice and reconciliation while leading our campaigns for racial justice and equality through social media, writing, and public actions.

Sider Scholars
Our work is supported by Sider Scholars who work 10 hours per week at the Sider Center, receiving a scholarship for 50 percent of their tuition towards Palmer graduate programs, like the Master of Theological Studies in Christian Faith and Public Policy.

Oriented to Love
Oriented to Love helps Christ-followers gather in loving, respectful dialogue around the topic of sexual and gender diversity in the church. Retreating to a place of beauty and rest for two days, together we discover a unity that is deeper than agreement.

CreatureKind
CreatureKind exists to engage churches in new ways of thinking about animals and Christian faith, with a special focus on farmed animal welfare. CreatureKind also helps churches play a leading role in animal theology and protection.

Family Advocates
The Sider Center partners with the Family Strengthening Network to provide Family Advocates in local churches and other organizations who can work with families on complex issues like employment, housing, childcare, financial management and counseling.

Latino/a Initiatives
In collaboration with Palmer Seminary, the Sider Center helped launch an online Spanish language master’s degree for educators and pastors in México City, México. This is one of the few graduate theological programs in Spanish that emphasizes women in leadership and holistic approaches to community transformation.

On July 7, Evangelicals for Social Action will host a one-day Racial Justice Institute at the Wild Goose Festival to help participants reflect on, heal from, and discover creative ways to confront racism together. Please join us for this important and timely conversation. Even if you can’t make it, please be sure to stop by and introduce yourself! Throughout the festival, Sider Center staff will also be hosting workshops and conversations on animal welfare and how to communicate safely and lovingly around divisive issues in our faith communities.

Jun 23

Love0

“It’s really a magical place”

By Rick Meredith Guest Post

Guest post by Sojourners’ Rob and Hannah Wilson-Black

What do you get when you combine the 1960s rock festival Woodstock’s vibe, the Taize community’s singing, the Chautauqua Institution’s events, and the Aspen Ideas Festival’s speakers? Hey, get real — those four things cannot be combined, in part because of geography, brand confusion, and a time-continuum issue.

But imagine they could be and you could attend with your family and friends and survive to tell the tale because you could actually remember them on your ride home? That’s the Wild Goose Festival in Hot Springs, N.C., July 7-10 — and you are officially invited to join us and a couple thousand of your best friends in this surprisingly intimate gathering of faith, art, hymns (and beer even!), rich reflections on life and faith, and good ole down-home fellowship across the tents and river wading. The common metaphor for the Holy Spirit in the British Isles is the wild goose, so that provides a clue as to what you’ll find at the Wild Goose Festival.

Here’s what my 15-year-old daughter Hannah texted me last night about our time at the WG Festival: “The first image that the Wild Goose Festival brings to mind is a small village of bike-riding, creative hippie-hermits who cultivate a culture of sharing. It’s really a magical place. Though everyone at Wild Goose is very different, one thing that ties us all together is a certain knack for making something out of nothing. We make an acre or two of land into festival grounds, hundreds of attendees into a family, trash into art, even, and a collective spirit into music. And if that’s not magic I don’t know what is.”

While I’ve never considered myself a hippie, other than intellectually perhaps (I think by hermit she means her fellow introverts are welcome), Hannah has it right. All three of our children, from when they were very young to now well into high school, have enjoyed their time at the Wild Goose, and as parents we don’t spend much time tracking their whereabouts throughout the day (I hope I’m allowed to admit that — the story of young Jesus being lost on the way out of Jerusalem should give me pause).

What seals the deal for me this year is the amazing Emily Saliers and Amy Ray as the Indigo Girls will be there, as will worship leader extraordinaire Tripp Hudgins and Anna Golladay’s artistic genius. Especially since people claim old friends and new family will be found at Wild Goose, it was a wonderful surprise to discover my college buddy Tripp, elementary school friend Anna, and new songwriting teacher Emily are all connected to Wild Goose! I can’t promise you’ll find your childhood friends and new mentors here, but it would not shock me in the slightest as that is my recent Wild Goose discovery.

Whether you’re enjoying NOT having to be at the kids’ tent with your own wonderful kids, wading in the river and hiking through forests with new colleagues, or learning more about implicit bias, slow church, and social movements’ ties to scripture, you can be sure that at the Wild Goose, you’ll find all this and more. So while you can find new ideas without Aspen, cool institutions without Chautauqua, tent communities without Woodstock, and music without Taize, why not come to Wild Goose and experience a bit of it all? I’ll see you down by the river on my bike singing “Closer to Fine” this July.

Robert Wilson-Black, PhD is CEO of Sojourners (sojo.net) and a board member of The Wild Goose Festival. Hannah Wilson-Black is a ninth-grader at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC and is the creator of www.teensplaining.com

RobWB

Jun 23

Love0

Matt Morris invites us to start “troubling the Gospel.”

By Rick Meredith Guest Post

Not having all the answers but being willing to ask the hard questions – this has been an abiding principle of Wild Goose from its earliest days. And providing the time and space to ask those questions through art, music, words, silence and movement – we believe that’s some of the most important work we do at this festival.

Troub-Gospel_900 This year, we’re taking that belief even further with the addition of a new tent called Troubling the Gospel, dedicated to questioning our assumptions, interrogating easy answers, freeing the good news from the boxes it’s been put in, and striving to uncover new meaning in our sacred stories, in light of our own personal stories.

Co-curated by Sean Michael Morris, a critical pedagogue, teacher, and contemplative, and Matthew Morris, musician, blogger, and spiritual explorer, Sean and Matt will also be the primary facilitators for the tent. We asked Matt to tell us more of what we can expect from Troubling the Gospel.

Let’s start with the tent’s name. Why “Troubling the Gospel”? What’s that about?

The Gospel is an orientation, a lens through which things are seen, through which the world is turned upside down.The idea of the Troubling the Gospel tent is not as much to change the way we read the Gospel as it is to recognize the deep ways that the Gospel troubles us. When we do troubling the Gospel work, part of what we’re asking is “how is that connected to the kingdom of God”? What words do we use to describe that kingdom (or kin-dom), what images, what sounds, what memories, what hopes? What do we want the Gospel to say to us, and what is it saying to us? How do we hear the Gospel through others’ words, through our relationships and interactions and collaborations in community? Is the Gospel a work of social justice, and if it is, how do we work to translate that into our work, our social lives, our sense of justice?

So what we will actually find when we walk in the door?

A place of dialogue, art, and collaboration. With a multitude of art supplies to use— crayons, paper, finger paint, Play-doh — musical instruments, writing tools, and more.

Will there be workshops going on in the tent?

This will be both a space of individual reflection, and also of guided participation — with active workshops led by community teachers and artists. Each day, the tent will host focused sessions working with a specific aspect or idea from the Gospel through one or another artistic medium, such as:

Troubling the Gospel with song
Troubling the Gospel through art
Troubling the Gospel with reflective writing
Troubling the Gospel through movement
Troubling the Gospel with story
Troubling the Gospel through confession
Troubling the Gospel through collaboration
Troubling the Gospel through dialogue
Troubling the Gospel through community building

There won’t be a podium, stage, or presentation space. We want the participants to be the center of the discussion and work.

Each day will also include hours when visitors to the tent will be

encouraged to engage with a more personal, individual experience of

troubling the Gospel.

So what about the individual work? Will someone be directing that?

Facilitation will always be available during the tent’s open hours, but these individual reflection times will be primarily self-guided. Art, writing, and musical supplies will be on the tables. Each table, too, will include a prompt — a line from the Gospel, a thought or question for reflection, etc. — for visitors to engage with, if they’d like.

So if you had to sum it up in a sentence: Why visit the Troubling the Gospel tent?

So you can engage in and discover deeply personal relationships with the Gospel, its messages, its contexts, the text itself, its resonance, and all its repercussions.

Jun 11

Love1

Executing Grace: A Call to Action from Shane Claiborne

By Rick Meredith Goose News

Shane Claiborne is back with us as a 2016 contributor at the festival where he will do several sessions empowering Christians to work to end the death penalty. We are inspired by Shane’s commitment to ending the death penalty and fueling his activism with his faith. Check out the below letter from Shane and maybe you can join him on the steps of the Supreme Court in holding vigil to abolish the death penalty June 29th to July 2nd.

Executing Grace Grab

A Letter From Shane Claiborne

To all my grace-filled revolutionary friends,

Here’s what I realized as I finished writing my new book Executing Grace. This isn’t just about a book. It is about a movement that has the potential to make history – to make the death penalty history.

This isn’t an ad (I’ve never been much of a self-promoter), it’s about uniting our voices and movements to stand on the side of grace, redemption, and life… and to put an end to the death penalty once and for all. I am hearing conservatives, liberals, and political misfits (I think that’s what I am) who are all convinced that if we work together we can create better forms of justice than killing those who kill to show that it is wrong to kill.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the death penalty – we Christians have been the champions of death. 85% of executions happen in the Bible belt. Where Christians are most concentrated is where the death penalty continues to flourish. It’s time to change that – as we declare the truth that no one is beyond redemption. And for those of you who are not Christians, we need your voice and your courageous witness too. We Christians don’t own exclusive rights to grace and mercy. We need your voice.

So here are a few really practical ways we can collectively disrupt the machinery of death in America:

Order Executing Grace now, as it releases this week, so that it can hit some bestseller lists and get as much buzz as possible. If you like it, throw a review up on Amazon. If you don’t like it, keep that to yourself (just kidding). We have also created a very helpful “Influencer Kit” which is sort of a tool box with everything you need to spread the word, and keep amplifying the message of grace.

Go to our website and check out the materials there. We’ve worked hard to create practical resources, links, facts, and photos there… useful info for organizing and creating conversations. There’s also a press kit for media on the site.

If you’re feeling a little more on the wild side, join me and some of my heroes on the steps of the Supreme Court as we hold vigil to abolish the death penalty on June 29-July 2. Every year, groups working for the abolition of the death penalty converge during this specific week, which marks both the date executions were halted in 1972 and when they resumed 4 years later. Murder victims’ family members against execution, exonerees (folks wrongfully convicted), and families of the executed – all join together. It’s a powerful event, and I hope you’ll join, even for a day. Register for the vigil here.

I want you to know that I feel so honored to have such incredible friends with whom I get to conspire and plot goodness, and create holy mischief. We really do have a movement on our hands. So much is at stake. Many lives are at stake. The message of God’s grace is at stake. So let’s do this thing… and make the death penalty history.

I love you each and all. Thanks for being such powerful voices for grace. Thanks for doing what you can to amplify the message of Executing Grace and bring about an end to execution.

– Shane Claiborne
Author / Speaker / Activist
ExecutingGrace.com

Jun 08

Love0

Why I Hate Christian Fiction

By Rick Meredith 2016 Festival, Guest Post

I am an out-and-proud Christian. So you would think I would love Christian fiction. But no, I can’t stand it. Oh, you’ve read some of it, too? So you know what I mean, then. The squeaky-clean protagonists give me hives. They don’t have any ACTUAL flaws, you know? And that’s just unrealistic. I mean, the Christians I know and love and worship with, week-in and week-out look nothing like the folks you find peopling the Left Behind series—unless we’re talking the bad guys, that is. No, we are seriously flawed individuals who often swear like longshoremen, and screw up in big ways on a regular basis.

And where are all the Gay and Lesbian people? Half of the folks in my church are GLBT folks. I’ve never read a Christian novel where I saw GLBT folks depicted as Christian heroes. I decided that since no one had ever published a book showing Christians as real folks—or at least Christians as I know Christians—I’d have to write it. So I wrote THE KINGDOM. And then I wrote a sequel, THE POWER. I’m working on THE GLORY now. Flawed characters? Check. Real people? Check. Love Jesus? Check. Badass demon hunters? Check. (Yeah, there’s a little bit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the DNA of those books, too.)

Is it hard to get something like that published? You bet. It’s like Mark Heard said, “I’m too sacred for the sinners and the saints wish I would leave.” And that’s why I started the Apocryphile Press, because honestly, no one else is going to touch books like this with a ten-foot pole. We’ve got about 130 titles out, many of them pushing (or downright punching out) the envelope of “acceptable” Christian publishing norms. Last year we published a large-format art book called THE PASSION OF CHRIST: A GAY VISION, which shows scenes from Jesus’ last week, his crucifixion and resurrection—if Jesus were a young gay man living in the American South in the 1960s. I know that sounds kind of out there, but in fact this book is stunningly beautiful and deeply moving.

We publish anything Steve Case wants to write, because he’s just a wacky good writer—check out his incredible FR. DARK to see what I mean. We also just published a bold new study of the book of Revelation called THE APOCALYPTIC GOSPEL by Justin Staller that has people buzzing.

So in between the awesome speakers and the awesomer music, please stop by our booth and check out our books. Steve Case, Justin Staller, and myself will be there. We’re giving away free ebook copies of THE KINGDOM and FR. DARK, we’ll be signing books, and selling them. We also promise to be insufferably silly. Most of all, I’m interested in hearing your book ideas—because we specialize in the kinds of books other publishers are afraid of. We are especially interested in Christian fiction that depicts real Christians—folks like you and me—as we actually are, warts and all, not as some idealized role models.

I want Apocryphile to specialize in BADASS CHRISTIAN FICTION. We’ve got a good start on that already. I figure Wild Goose is the PERFECT place to find folks who’d like what we publish, and who write the kinds of books we’d LIKE to publish. So do you have a book for us?

John R. Mabry
Publisher, THE APOCRYPHILE PRESS

Jun 06

Love2

How big is that tent, exactly?

By Rick Meredith 2016 Festival, Guest Post

Guest post by Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, IN

Since our founding in 1855, Christian Theological Seminary has leaned toward the right side of history. We have been inclusive, ecumenical and respectful of all traditions and faiths. Founded as a school that assured “students attending it would not be brought into contact with the habits and manners that exist in populations where slavery exists,” CTS has continued to stand in solidarity with those whom history tries to leave behind. We were among the first theological schools to grant tenure to a woman, and we sheltered a faculty member of Japanese descent during the terrible period of US internment camps during WWII.

But our convictions are tested all the time. The latest? Whether to go to the Wild Goose Festival this year, because it’s being held in North Carolina—a state that just passed one of the nation’s most heinous anti-LGBT bills.

Don’t worry, Wild Goose: we’re coming. After all, we’re from Indiana—a state that’s neck-deep in hateful laws. What right do we have to call out North Carolina?

But that’s the dilemma of being a Christian, isn’t it? Our convictions are constantly tested. And at this stage in history, we may be facing one of the biggest tests of all.

We are among the Christians who believe in a “big-tent,” “embracing” and “tolerant” expression of faith. The tent we pitch is big enough for people of all faiths. But is it big enough for candidates who use hate to curry votes, legislators who work to limit school lunches for poor children, gun owners who quote the Bible to justify “stand-your-ground” laws?

Can we forgive these people? We try. Can we pray for them? We do. Can we learn how to include them in the tent, while also protecting those who are hurt by their actions? We are working on it.

Can we talk about all this at Wild Goose Festival? We will. See you there!

True Story

When potential students apply to Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, they tell us about themselves. High GPAs. Terrific references. Years of devotion to their home churches.

But it’s not until they’ve settled in a bit — when they get through orientation, move into their apartments, go to class — it’s not until then that the true stories come out. Stories of joy, hope, support, epiphanies. Stories of abuse, loss, shame, doubt.

Novelist E. M. Forster used this example to show the difference between facts and a story:

The king died, and the queen died.
The king died, and the queen died of grief.

Jesus’s story is full of joy, hope, support, epiphanies, abuse, loss, shame, and doubt. No wonder we connect to it, are transformed by it, seek to follow his “way.”

We can’t wait to swap stories with old friends and new at Wild Goose Festival this year.

Jun 02

Love1

Seminaries, Roads and Stories that become what Everything is About

By Rick Meredith 2016 Festival, Guest Post

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS) is excited to be at Wild Goose! Located in Berkeley, CA, it is a little tiny bit like Wild Goose all year long.

There is a story behind every person who comes to seminary, and each story is different. As the Director of Admissions, I get to hear a lot of those stories. I live and work at PLTS. Our campus is in kind of a funny location. Berkeley is funny just on its own, being the birthplace and epicenter of the free speech movement in the 1960’s. The campus is located 8 blocks up the steepest hill a road could be on, Originally intended for a trolley, this road is how Google will tell you to get there, but your car might really fight it. But it’s not the only way to get there.

In fact, the Berkeley hills are made up of a myriad of winding roads and pathways and staircases between people’s homes. You can pass lots of interesting things on the way, like the morning we passed a person having nude pictures taken of herself on some steps.

I’ve been thinking of those multiple roads as a good metaphor for how people come to understand their life story, their calling in life–which sometimes leads to seminary, and sometimes leads a million other places. Or sometimes lead to a million other places and then to seminary. Or sometimes lead to seminary and then to endless other places. Sometimes people wander a bit–up roads that are windier but not quite as hilly. Which path is better is really not the question. God is on all of those paths, and it is your own journey. Each journey has a story to tell.

And along the way of any road there are stories told, like the story in the sacred text of the Bible, where the guys are walking on the road to Emmaus, telling stories about all the things that had taken place in Jerusalem. Then Jesus, telling stories of the prophets, begins to make sense of the stories they are telling, and those stories become what everything is about.

When a person finds themselves at seminary, more stories happen: In the classroom, in coffee shops, during classes and protests and late-night end-of-the-semester paper-writing, new friendships are made, new understandings are born, and new experiences continue to shape a story that becomes what everything is about.

And then, trained as faithful leaders for a future unknown, people are sent out, ready. There is a story in front of every person who comes out of seminary too, which continues to become what everything is about.

Think about bringing your own story, and finding out what comes next.

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary: A place for forward-thinking faithful leaders to engage in open-minded, interfaith study to prepare for faithful leadership in an evolving church and world. Come and talk to us about our story. PLTS is a graduate program of California Lutheran University, a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and part of the largest interreligious theological consortium in the world–the Graduate Theological Union (GTU). Come ask us about it!

Website: www.PLTS.edu

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrvX6HufVTVy4kcXxb_02og

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pltsofclu/

Twitter: @PLTSofCLU

Holly Johnson and Christa Compton will be there!

HollyJohnson_300px Holly Johnson, Director of Admissions at PLTS, is also a graduate and pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She loves live music, poetry, blurring the lines between sacred and secular, good food, good wine, and she’s a little thrilled that she gets to be at the Festival and call it work. @MinnesotaHolly @PLTSofCLU

ChristaCompton_300px Christa Compton is a graduate of PLTS, and current pastor in New Jersey. She also likes music, poetry, literature, good food and wine. She describes herself as a southern woman who likes to defy stereotypes. @ChristaCompton

Jun 02

Love2

Can’t come all weekend? Get a Day Pass.

By Rick Meredith Goose News

There’s no better way to experience The Goose than by spending Thursday through Sunday immersed in this transformational, experiential, sing and dance and play and dream and eat and camp and meditate and talk and listen and twirl-you-around-and-shake-you-up gathering like no other. Seriously, have you seen the video?

WebsiteHeader_1600x300 However, if you can’t spend the weekend, the next best thing is to get a taste of it, by just coming for a day. That’s where Day Passes come in…a day pass is kind of like the Big Gulp of Wild Goose.

We’ve made a limited number of individual Day Passes available for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And they’re now on sale. Check out the day by day highlights and get your day pass tickets soon.

TICKETS

HIGHLIGHTS
Please check the detailed schedule (available next week) for full details.

THURSDAY
Rev Jacqui Lewis
Matt Maher
Ken Medema

FRIDAY
Jim Wallis
Stan Mitchell
Frank Schaeffer
Soong-Chan Rah
Doug Pagitt
Michael Gungor
Emilie Townes
Joerg Rieger
Look Homeward
Emmanuel Jal
Pato Banton
Home-brewed Christianity Live
The Liturgists Podcast

SATURDAY
Lisa Sharon Harper
Chris Crass
Charles Eisenstein
Shane Claiborne
Matthew Fox
Joe Davis and the Poetic Diaspora
Phil Madeira
Dar Williams
Indigo Girls

SUNDAY
Ask Science Mike

May 27

Love1

A conversation with the leaders of Racial Justice Institute

By Rick Meredith Goose News

How to turn tenderness into fearlessness. A conversation with the leaders of Racial Justice Institute.

Are you tired of conversations about race that quickly turn into shouting matches? Do you feel uncomfortable, as a white person, bringing up race, or feel your “help” is not wanted in movements like Black Lives Matter? Do you feel frustrated, as a person of color, being asked to explain things to white folks? Is it possible to confront white privilege, promote racial justice, and still have friends?

The Racial Justice Institute is a day-long pre-festival event put together to tackle these questions and more. And though it’s called an “institute,” which may make you think of a stuffy classroom with long, boring lectures, it’s designed to be anything but. Instead think “interactive workshop” — a day to talk deeply and honestly, sometimes awkwardly, about race, in a place where you will be respected and listened to. A time to feel, reflect, sing, pray, possibly even laugh, and most importantly, figure out how we can individually – and collectively – do something about racial injustice.

This personal and communal journey will be facilitated by a group of gifted and wise, multiracial and interdisciplinary facilitators including Micky ScottBey Jones, Kenji Kuramitsu, Rev. Jennifer Bailey, AnaYelsi and many more.

We caught up with some of these folks recently and tossed them a few questions about what to expect from the day and why it’s so important to be there.

Why do a whole extra day about Racial Justice? Won’t that be a big part of the festival?

Sure it will. There will be conversations and talks and storytelling and music around this subject throughout the festival. And on lots of other subjects.

This is a time to drill down, to participate in a facilitated conversation where you can engage honestly and openly, be comfortable asking uncomfortable questions, and spend more focused time with other people coming up with ideas for transformative action.

As you leave this event, we think your head will be spinning with new ideas, new understandings, and an increased depth of awareness, so as you go into the festival you’ll very likely enter into it more deeply than you would have before. Our facilitators will also be leading workshops throughout the festival, so participating in RJI will prepare you to get even more from those sessions. Not to mention you may also make some friends you can hang out with throughout the festival.

Who is this for?

Everyone who wants to have a deep, open, challenging, thoughtful conversation about race and oppression. It is for people of color and for white people. It’s for people just beginning to engage issues of race, and those who have been engaged for years and need fresh perspectives.

What will I take home from it?

More awareness and wisdom. You might even leave with a commitment to change your life and the systems around you.

Why should I attend?

Because although ignorance can be bliss, one person’s bliss can create another’s hell. Attending this will create knowledgeable bliss and less hell. It’s backwards that way.

What will I learn?

How we’ve gotten to this place where certain people have privilege and others have been “disprivileged,” how it hurts, and what we can do about it. How you fit into the story of race, inequality and justice and what that means for you. How race has shaped American culture and systems like education, prison, economics and civil rights, where we are today and where we might be going. How none of us are free until we are all free, and the beauty of getting there together.

What will we do all day?

Open our raw hearts so that the tenderness becomes fearlessness.

Yeah, but are we going to sit and listen to people talk all day?

Only if you want to. You can also speak if you’d like to share. And participate in all kinds of other ways. Which is why we call it an interactive workshop.

How will it be “interactive”?

Through contemplative exercises and small group conversations (including those we have at meal times) occasional singing, journaling, even, yes, possibly dancing. (For those who see themselves as “dancing challenged,” don’t worry, we aren’t talking “Dancing with the Stars” dancing.)

Is this going to involve a lot of debate?

Only if you can find someone to debate with. We’re planning opportunities for one-on-one conversations with each other and with the leaders…no game playing, just sharing our best truths. Clear-eyed, vulnerable, compassionate truths.

Why are there so many people leading?

We want everyone to feel welcome, and we don’t want anyone to feel alone. Also, race isn’t just about black and white. So we’ve included facilitators with many different stories, many different perspectives and experiences — black, white, Asian, Latinx, straight, queer, gay, 40s to 20s, Anglican to evangelical, black-churched to Pentecostal.

We heard there might be a campfire…will this be just another feel good campfire conversation about race?

It will be more like being the marshmallow in the campfire. We’ll let the flames burn away our sugary falseness.

If I attend am I going to get yelled at? Am I going to leave feeling more frustrated and/or guilt-ridden?

We recognize it can be scary to talk about race. We have created RJI to provide a place to experiment with being brave, to ask questions that bring up big feelings, risk vulnerability and to crack open complex ideas. In the process, perhaps we will find personal and cultural healing. Even transformation. It’s designed to be a day that leaves you not with more guilt but with deeper knowledge, inspiration, different questions and new relationships as well as resources and ideas for action. We hope that you’ll be changed and leave ready to help create change in the world.

Sign up to join us for the event here.

Check out the full schedule for the day here.

Have more questions? Contact Micky ScottBey Jones

May 26

Love2

Hear and tell stories at Wild Goose 2016

By Rick Meredith Goose News

This year, all over the Wild Goose Festival, and especially in the Wild Goose Studio Tent and Video Tent, you will have opportunity to hear stories, tell your own story, and be a part of workshops designed to help your story sing (y’know…metaphorically).

As people of faith, we’ve always believed stories have power. Stories matter. The stories we read in the scriptures and our own personal stories bear witness to what we’ve experienced of God in our lives and in the world. They tell of our small joys and huge moments of grace. And yes, also of all the ways we’ve failed ourselves and each other.

Get ready for some amazing storytelling opportunities throughout the weekend. We’ll announce specific times soon – check the website for updates as we get closer. Here’s what’s happening:

1. Storytelling Workshop (two hours): Rebecca Anderson, co-host of Wild Goose Story Slam
You know a great story when you hear it – but what makes it work? In these two hours, come get an intro to the craft of storytelling, strengthen your style, and use structure intentionally and creatively for maximum impact. Offer and receive the kind of feedback that makes everyone’s stories better.

2. Tenx9 – with art!
Tenx9 (“ten by nine”) is a Belfast-originated monthly community storytelling night where 9 people have up ten minutes each to tell a real story from their lives. It’s about real people and real stories. It’s not about professional storytelling; it’s about strange people telling their strange stories to strangers, a place tenx9Graphic for the nervous and the unsure to get up and give it a go. We make space for the ordinary, because we believe everybody has a story. Tenx9 is thrilled to be hosting a night of storytelling at Wild Goose for the first time ever, and we’ve decided our theme will be “Courage: Stories of Resistance.” We welcome your submissions! If you have a story of courageous resistance, regardless the scale or context, let us know. Propose your story by filling out this form. We will get back in touch to confirm spots by June 17. To learn more about Tenx9 and our approach to storytelling nights, meander around our website at tenx9nashville.com. Tenx9 is a place where stories may very well break your heart and put it back together again. If you want to be moved, to feel deeply, join us for Tenx9 at Wild Goose. Got a story? We’d love to hear from you. SUBMIT YOUR STORY HERE

3. Storytelling workshop: Michael McRay, host of Tenx9 Storytelling
In this two-hour workshop, writers will reflect on the overarching narrative of your life, brainstorm some of your greatest stories (interpret that as you will) through various themes, compare and contrast compelling and mediocre sample stories, and if time permits, peer-review each other’s narratives to provide constructive feedback for story development. Please bring a true personal story of no more than 750 words. These plans are subject to change.

4. Finishing touches
Been working on a story at a workshop or on your own? Come get some feedback and tweaking designed to boost your confidence and get you ready to put your name in the hat at the evening story slam.

5. Wild Goose StorySLAM with Music! Hosted by Mark Longhurst and Rebecca Anderson. With live music
StorySlamImage A fan of The Moth? This is gonna be your jam. Come and put your name in the hat to be one of 10 storytellers – or just come and listen to true stories, crafted for impact, humor, and connection. Our theme for the night is From Shit to Shine: Stories of Redemption.

Storytellers: Prepare a 5-minute true, first-person story about a transformation.

Think: a divorce that became a blessing, a fight that ended in friendship, an addiction that helped access vulnerability, a lie that stumbled into trust, a wound that became a scar, a death more crushing than you could endure…until you did. You lived to tell the tale, now’s your chance to tell it!

Additional Stories -- in worship, on the mainstage...

We’ve also got a need for stories to integrate on other stages. We need stories ranging from shorties (3 – 4 minutes) to mid-length (5 – 7 minutes) to slot between other events and as part of worship, too. Sure, we’ll pull from the overflow of Courage: Stories of Resistance and StorySLAM tellers, but if you have a story on any theme that you’re aching to tell, SUBMIT IT HERE! We need all kinds of voices, and all kinds of tales.

Tell Your Story on Video

WhatsYourStory We want to make sure your story is captured on video and archived for viewing on the Goose website after the festival.
Storytellers: We may not have video coverage at all storytelling events, so please make arrangements to tell your story to our cameras either before or after your scheduled storytelling time. We want to make sure your story is heard! When you arrive at the festival, please stop by to schedule a time to tell your story to our camera.
If you’re not a scheduled storyteller but would like to share your story – whatever your story may be – we want to capture your story too! All are welcome! In the past, we’ve grabbed people walking by and asked them to spontaneously “Tell us your story.” This year, we’d like you to think about what you’d like to say in advance, then stop by and talk to us.

Our video studio, “What’s Your Story,” will be located next to the Art Studio tent.

May 05

Love1

Why I’m Participating in the Wild Goose Racial Justice Institute

By Rick Meredith Goose News

Why I’m Participating in the Wild Goose Racial Justice Institute
by Sarah Withrow King (Re-posted from Evangelicals For Action)
Sara Withrow King is a contributor this year and a leader in our Racial Justice Institute, a pre-festival event sponsored by Evangelicals for Social Action.

On July 7, 2016, on the eve of 2016’s Wild Goose Festival, I’ll be participating in a Racial Justice Institute sponsored by ESA. racial-diversity-frimages.iStock
My primary vocation is animal protection. I’m an indoor kitty, and this is an outdoor festival. I grew up in Oregon and get hot and cranky when exposed to temperatures above 65 degrees Fahrenheit. But I’m really excited, and I want to tell you why so that you’ll consider joining Micky, AnaYelsi, Darren, Kenji, Paul, Jen, Kristyn, and me for this one-day interactive workshop engaging issues of race and justice through practical, spiritual, emotional, historical, and social streams of knowledge.

And so, a list. I’m thrilled to participate in the Racial Justice Institute….

Because we’ll look at race through a whole bunch of lenses, making for a deeper, richer experience.
Because liberal progressives need to be redeemed, right alongside the right-wingers and independents and everyone between and beyond.
Because I’ve hung out with these folks before, and it’s a guaranteed good time.
Because in 1995, I told the only African American kid in my class that “racism doesn’t exist anymore” and didn’t realize how wrong I was until Trayvon Martin was shot walking home from the store.
Because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Because my fight for animals, your fight for gender equality, his fight for the unborn, her fight for safe schools, our fight for one another won’t mean a thing as long as skin color is used to measure the worth of a person.
Because it’s possible to acknowledge past and current injustice, to accept that light skin is privileged skin and that people who looked like me perpetuated and continue to perpetuate horrific crimes against people who do not look like me…and not get bogged down in white guilt.
Because white fragility is as damaging as white supremacy.
Because I want my young son to grow up watching me tackle white privilege head on so that he becomes an anti-racist man.

Sarah Withrow King is the Deputy Director of the Sider Center, the co-director of CreatureKind, and the author of two books, Animals Are Not Ours (No Really, They’re Not): An Evangelical Animal Liberation Theology. (Wipf & Stock) and Vegangelical: How Caring for Animals Can Shape Your Faith (Zondervan).

May 02

Love4

All Are Welcome.

By Rick Meredith Goose News

“All are welcome.” We’ve been saying that since the very first Wild Goose and we’ve always meant it. And by welcome we don’t mean “tolerated,” or “accepted.” We mean embraced, as in long-lost-friend-embraced, you’re-finally-home-embraced. This “welcome to all” has been so much a part of the Wild Goose DNA that we’ve almost come to take it for granted.

But we realized, especially in light of the passage of North Carolina’s HB2, that we needed to be more explicit about our welcome. So we’ve adopted and put in writing an anti-harassment policy. You can read it here. https://wildgoosefestival.org/anti-harassment_policy/

We’re committed to helping make our world safer for everyone. We hope this policy makes that clear, and if you have any questions about it, please ask.

When North Carolina passed this legislation, we thought long and hard about whether to cancel the festival or move it in protest. But ultimately we’ve decided it’s important to be here, to be visible, and to be a voice for God’s radical love (check out Kimberly Knight’s passionate blog post on Patheos). We hope you’ll join us!

Apr 08

Love1

It’s all about saying “Yes.” An interview with Phil Madeira.

By Rick Meredith Goose News

Phil Madeira is a Nashville-based musician, songwriter and producer who’s worked with names like Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Alison Krauss, Mat Kearney, Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, Amy Grant and The Civil Wars…just to name a few. He’s also an author, painter, artist and long time friend of The Wild Goose Festival. And this year he’s helping curate the first ever Wild Goose Songwriting Contest.

Lenora Rand, author of the blog Spiritual Suckitude, who will be leading a workshop about finding the holy in our stories at Wild Goose this year, caught up with him this week to ask a few questions.

Lenora: In your 2012 album, Mercyland, Hymns for the Rest of Us, Paste magazine said, you coaxed “the divine from plain dirt.” Christianity Today said you captured “…the vulnerable exchange between hurting humans and a holy God.” And Evangelicals for Social Action, said, your music called us “…to live today in a way that brings heaven a little closer.” Wow. Is that what you set out to do?

Phil: Mercyland Volumes 1 & 2 were created as a response to the hysteria that continues to be stirred up by American fundamentalism, all in the name of Jesus. Look at the so-called “religious freedom” laws being passed in the South in 2016. I started the first Mercyland in 2009, writing with and recording the then-unknown Civil Wars. “From This Valley” is all about the outcast, the orphan, the invisible community that Christ spoke of often. Emmylou Harris’ willingness to participate in both records gave credence to what I was doing, both musically and philosophically. My intention was not to make a Christian music record, but to just make the statement that God loves everyone. To that end, I succeeded.

Lenora: A lot of people might call Wild Goose a festival “for the rest of us.” Do you think of it that way? What drew you to Wild Goose in the first place? What keeps you coming back?

Phil: I was invited to play songs from Mercyland, as well as my own brand of roots music in 2012, I think, the second year. What drew me was the opportunity to share my music. What I found there was an interesting mix of folks trying to rescue a faith that has been politicized, nationalized, and de-sanitized by the status quo. While there, I made vital relationships, including the woman who signed me to a book deal. You never know what saying “yes” to the unknown will yield in your life, but in my case, I’ve been back every year for more of the same kind of community building.

Lenora: The theme this year at Wild Goose, “Story,” is all about bringing our stories together and seeing what happens when they rub up against each other. As someone who’s co-written with lots of musicians in your career, what’s the value of coming together and co-creating?

Phil: Co-creating is important to my very survival. In the endeavor to get songs to the masses, I’ve found that writing a song with another person will always make the meaning more universal. The co-written song becomes less about me and more about us, and usually that makes it much more resonant with a larger audience.

Lenora: Why did you agree to help curate the Wild Goose Festival’s Songwriting Contest? Why is this a good thing for the Goose to do?

Phil: The invitation benefits the Goose as well as the songwriter. Who knows what bright light will shine from some unknown corner of our world? Who knows what wonderful message or melody might emerge when we invite the unknown into our midst?

At our Mercyland Songwriter Workshops (this year in Hot Springs NC July 17-21 by the way), we’ve continually discovered those kinds of voices and hearts. Because I’m often in the thick of unknown writers, I see it all the time, and I know that the Goose is in store for some wonderful new music.

Lenora: It’s pretty scary to put yourself out there as an artist and share your work with others, especially when they’re not your family and friends who are mostly fairly nice to you. Why do you think it could be a good thing for aspiring songwriters to submit a song to this contest? Besides the fact that they could win a lovely Republic 317 mahogany Parlor Resonator guitar, of course.

Phil: Allow me to answer with a story:
A few years after Emmylou invited me to be in her band, I found an album cover I had designed for a graphics class I’d taken in college. At the time, I had no record to put in the sleeve, so I filled the credits with the great session players of the day- Lee Sklar, Russ Kunkel, Al Perkins, and others. Thirty years after making this cover, I looked at those credits and realized I had played with every single person I’d written down in that waking dream. What really blew my mind was reading Emmylou’s name among them! At 21, I had dreamed big and then forgotten all about it.

I often share this story with people who are afraid to dream the kind of dream I was dreaming as a young man. Wild Goose is offering the opportunity to share a dream, that impossible story that is waiting to be lived out. If someone’s dream is to be a songwriter, here’s an opportunity to make it come true. Again, it’s only a matter of saying “yes.”

There’s still time to enter the Wild Goose Songwriters Contest. Submissions accepted until April 30, 2016.

Phil Madeira music, art, and books available at www.philmadeira.net

For info on Mercyland Songwriter Workshops, go to
http://www.writingcircle.org/mercylandsongwriterworkshop/

Apr 03

Love2

Calling All Drummers!

By Rick Meredith Goose News

A Call to All Drummers by Phil Wyman

The Wild Goose Festival knows you have drums. We peeked into your closets and the corners of your rooms, and we saw those Djembes, Congas, Bongos, Cajons and assorted percussion instruments. Some of them have been gathering dust, but we have seen some of you making noise late into the night with your friends.

We need your help! We love drummers at the Wild Goose Festival, but sometimes the drummers don’t bring their drums. When that happens, the Wild part of the Wild Goose gets suppressed just a little bit. If there’s one thing the Goose is not about, it is not about suppressing our Wild.

So, this is a call. Bring your drums! It doesn’t matter if you are a professional drummer in a studio, someone who likes to make noise when the musical instruments break out, or someone who bought a drum because you had a little rhythm and thought you could learn how to bring a little life to the party. Whatever your reason for having a drum, bring it. Bring your drum. Bring your Wild to the Goose, and release that Wild at the late night drum circle fire pit with us.

Phil Wyman is a musician, songwriter, writer, poet, wanna-be philosopher, pastor, creator of interactive “blank canvas social art”, and a general instigator looking for people to join him in a revolution. He is the pastor of The Gathering in Salem, Massachusetts and is working with a team of friends to plant spiritual communities in festivals in the US and UK. The festivals include places like Haunted Happenings in Salem, Burning Man, and Rainbow Gatherings. The recently published Burning Religion highlights his concept of a “Wild Theology,” which envisions God, creation, and humanity as wilder than most “radical” theologies have imagined. Phil is the leader of the Wild Team at Wild Goose so keep an eye out for dispatches from the Wild Team as the festival gets closer!

Mar 24

Love5

Wild Goose Supports Equal Protection Under the Law and Calls for Community Action

By Rick Meredith Goose News

We’re very disappointed with the recent actions of the North Carolina legislature has voted to deny equal protection under the law for our LGBTQ friends and neighbors.

The Wild Goose Festival is committed to doing everything we can to remain a welcoming and safe space for all who attend. While we can assure everyone that our space at Hot Springs is safe and welcoming we want to call on the Wild Goose community to work to make every space a safe space – everywhere, all the time.

We encourage you to make your voice heard. Tonight in Charlotte and Raleigh at 5:30 PM and in Asheville at 5:00 PM there will be rallies against this legislation (NC House Bill 2) and we want to encourage Wild Goose folks who live near these places to attend. And to our Wild Goose family around the country, please consider making your voice heard as well! It’s time once again to stand with our LGBTQ friends and neighbors for equal protection under the law.

Mar 16

Love5

Indigo Girls Return to the Festival!

By Rick Meredith Goose News

If main stage at night is your happy place at the Wild Goose, we have a lot in store for you this year! Much of the magic of the Goose is due to the generous and amazing artistry of musicians who inspire us and move us. This is just the beginning of the amazing line up we are putting together this year so stay tuned!

We are delighted to have the Indigo Girls back again this year. This much beloved duo is coming back to the Wild Goose stage with their sixteenth studio album called “One Lost Day.” We are much indebted to the friendships and graciousness of Amy and Emily and can’t wait to boogie down to their new songs as well as our longtime favorites!!

Dar Williams is a folk artist with a tremendous gift of storytelling. Whether it’s “Christians and Pagans sitting together at the table” or an introspective “wandering out on the hills of Iowa” Dar’s ability to weave a story through song is unparalleled. Dar is also an author of three books and a profound teacher of the power of music and songs to create social change in justice movements.

Matt Maher, a Grammy nominated musician whose latest release, Saints and Sinners is a call for social justice rooted in the work of historic faith leaders such as Archbishop Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King Jr., St. Therese of Lisieux, and Mother Teresa, joins the 2016 Wild Goose opening night experience!

Across the years, Ken Medema has shared his passion for learning and discovery through storytelling and music with an ever-growing circle of followers around the world. Ken has been performing for over 40 years and though blind from birth, Ken sees and hears with heart and mind, singing stories from his audience and accenting themes and perspectives from speakers and workshop leaders. Ken custom designs every musical moment through improvisation and new composition to bring each event to life.

Three years ago when Melani Jackson first played the Performance Cafe, we had complaints that Melani wasn’t featured on the main stage. We’ll never make that mistake again! We are proud to welcome Melani Jackson back to the main stage this year!

Mar 14

Love5

The Call of the Wild by Phil Wyman

By Rick Meredith Goose News

The Wild Goose Festival is just a few months away. Preparations for events like this are best begun early, because participation is the name of the game.

Transformative Festivals like The Wild Goose are transformative, because everyone comes as a participant, and not simply as a spectator. Participants are those who live by the ancient description of the spiritual person, “doers of the word, and not hearers only.” They are transformed by their own participation. The participant also initiates surprise in a festival, and in doing so brings transformation to others. Everyone expects the band on the stage to perform, but they are surprised by the beauty of a well-made costume, or the skills of someone juggling to the music. People expect to hear something helpful and challenging during a lecture, or a workshop, but are surprised by the vibrancy of a spirited debate, or the simple eloquence of a life-changing story. People enjoy the food and drink in festivals, but are even more pleased by the camp inviting them to share in fish tacos, or a homebrew.

Simple preparations such as costuming, preparing decorations for your campsite, bringing something to share with others, and finding ways to express your own creativity are all that are required to turn a festival from an event of talking heads, and fulfilled expectations into a wild surprise of exceeded expectations, and interactivity.

The Wild Goose is wild because of you. Spend a little time considering how you will be bringing your wild this summer, and help us keep the Goose wild.

Mar 09

Love1

An Invitation to Songwriters: Inspire someone with your musical story this year at Wild Goose 2016!

By Rick Meredith Goose News

In the spirit of this year’s Wild Goose Festival theme, Story!, we invite you to submit an original song to the Wild Goose Songwriting Contest.

Be a part of the collective exploration of heart and soul asking: What are our shared narratives? How have they shaped us – in our joy and in our suffering? How do we challenge the destructive narratives in the presence of a growing wave of fear, violence, and control? Can one person’s story of success be another’s story of oppression? How do we see the truth in the mash-up? Help us think beyond limits and tap into what Richard Rohr described as “ too big and too deep to be merely ‘understood’ or taught.”

Submissions will be accepted through April 30th. The winners will be announced by June 30th and will perform at the festival (July 7th-10th) in Hot Springs, NC with Phil Madeira hosting. Categories for submission include Gospel, Americana, Pop, and General.

Grand Prize is a lovely Republic 317 mahogany Parlor Resonator guitar presented to the winning songwriter at the Goose this summer.

Click here for more information.

Mar 09

Love5

Mystic Action Camp: A Pre-Festival Offering

By Rick Meredith Goose News

We are excited to announce Wild Goose’s Pre-Festival Mystic Action Camp from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on July 7th, preceding the opening ceremonies for the Festival itself. This pre-festival offering is brought to you by co-curators Adam Bucko, Holly Roach and Teresa B Pasquale and the generous sponsorship of the Center for Action and Contemplation. Mystic Action Camp will integrate dialogue and practices which intersect contemplative spirituality and activism brought by wisdom teachers from both Christian and interspiritual traditions.

Our world sits on the precipice of a new age of both spirituality and activism, one in which we are beginning to learn the essential interconnection between these two arenas of hope and healing to manifest activism that is grounded in the Divine and contemplative spirituality which is able to be activated in and for the goodness of God in the world. We are in a process of making and becoming a bigger tent of faith and action. We are the makers of the next iteration of tent revival in the world — a tent we carry with us, manifest in our lives and faith contexts, and where radical love and liberation are the root motivations, liberation for all of us, or none of us at all. Join us under this bigger tent to dream, pray, and live into this new tent of action and contemplation.

Click here for more information about Mystic Action Camp or buy tickets here. Print

Feb 22

Love5

Spring Ticket Special

By Rick Meredith 2016 Festival, Goose News

The Goose is calling! As Spring is emerging, our thoughts are turning to Hot Springs and summer. Hugs from old friends, making new ones, a little rain, a little humidity, raising a beer as we sing a hymn…..finding something new in our soul!

Spring Ticket Special , March 20 – June 19, 2016
Adult – $249.00
Senior 65+ – $169.00
Student – $125.00
Youth 13-17 – $75.00
Children 0-12 – Free

June 20 – Festival
Adult – $299.00
Senior 65+ – $169.00
Student – $125.00
Youth 13-17 – $75.00
Children 0-12 – Free

Group of 10+
Adult – $169.00
Senior 65+ – $149.00
Student – $99.00
Youth 13-17 – $49.00
Children 0-12 – Free
Contact Mary at [email protected] for promo code

Feb 18

Love0

Sojourners’ Jim Wallis to Curate a Timely Interactive Series at the 2016 Wild Goose Festival!

By Rick Meredith Goose News

America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, the newly released best-selling book by Jim Wallis, Sojourners President and Founder, forms the foundation of the timely interactive series we’re proud to announce he’s curating at the 2016 Wild Goose Festival!

The book is getting enormous traction – Amazon ran out of stock on the first day, it made the Barnes & Noble online top ten, and is number 8 on the Washington Post Top 10 Best Seller list – in just its first week of release.

Join Jim in the conversation at the 2016 Wild Goose Festival (July 7– 10, Hot Springs, NC) as we challenge our community to be more than consumers of information – to be co-creators of a world in which we want to live! Wallis says,

“This conversation—leading to action—on racial justice and healing is critical for the Wild Goose and urgent for the country at this moment. I’m really looking forward to vital discussions and discoveries on the ‘Bridge to a New America’ with the Goose community this summer! Where better to have that discussion?”

By the way, Amazon has re-stocked and Barnes & Noble is still counting. We encourage you to read and to recommend this important book to literally help launch the conversation that is so painfully timely right now!

Feb 18

Love0

Dean Emilie Townes to Present Justice Notes

By Rick Meredith Goose News

Dean Emilie Townes
Emilie is the new Divinity School Dean. She comes from Yale.
(Vanderbilt Photo / Daniel Dubois)

Imagine taking a walk through five notes on why justice and peace are profound values to hold if we choose to live our lives with passion, commitment, integrity, justice, hope, and love. You’ll have that opportunity at Wild Goose Festival 2016, as Emilie Townes presents, “Justice Notes.”

The Wild Goose is thrilled to welcome Emilie Townes, Dean and Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, to the festival this year! Dean Townes is a widely recognized leader, a creative innovator, a clear and certain voice in the pursuit of justice and she will be an important contributor to our community. Dean Townes is the first African American to serve as Dean of the Vanderbilt Divinity School and the first Black woman elected to the presidency of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). The Durham, NC native is an American Baptist clergywoman. She holds a Ph.D. in Religion in Society and Personality from Northwestern University and a Doctor of Ministry degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School. She has taught at Yale Divinity School, Union Theological Seminary, and Saint Paul School of Theology. Townes is the author of four books, including the groundbreaking Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil and editor or co-editor of four books.

“We must choose righteous anger that does not excuse inequities, does not tolerate poverty, does not sanction false hopes. Righteous anger takes to the ballot box, encourages us to claim the responsibility of citizenship and educate ourselves about the issues of the day and also the ways we can address them, works as communities united with a vision that refuses to accept a weary status quo that allows a few to flourish and the rest struggle to survive.”

Read Emilie’s blog.

Professor Emilie Townes speaks of Jesus’ righteous indignation and our need to be angry in the face of injustice.

Feb 18

Love1

Triple GRAMMY® Nominee Matt Maher to Play the 2016 Wild Goose Festival

By Rick Meredith 2016 Festival, Goose News

Matt Maher, a Grammy nominated musician whose latest release, Saints and Sinners is a call for social justice rooted in the work of historic faith leaders such as Archbishop Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King Jr., St. Therese of Lisieux, and Mother Teresa, joins the 2016 Wild Goose opening night experience! Many Goose faithful have been asking for Matt for years and we’re excited that we’re finally able to get it done!

Matt is up for three GRAMMY® nominations in tonight’s 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards. He was nominated twice in the “Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song” category and his album, Saints and Sinners, was nominated for “Best Contemporary Christian Music Album.”

Here’s Matt giving the backstory of Sons & Daughters one of the song and his self-described centerpiece of the album:

Moving to Nashville, the South, I encountered a greater understanding that so much of the American tradition of music was born out of the slavery movement- rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, country, R&B, hip-hop. It all goes back to a group of people who were enslaved and who desired freedom. I had been wanting to write a song based on the speech ‘We Shall Overcome’ by Dr. Martin Luther King. I asked a buddy of mine – fellow worship leader and songwriter Ike Ndolo, who grew up in Columbia, Missouri – to write with me.

I took what we had started, and asked Ike to, ‘Draw from your experience as an African-American male living in the shadow of the civil rights movement still praying for all those things to bear their fruit.’ It’s really the job of the church today to finish what was started in the ’60s. Just because you can outlaw racial discrimination doesn’t mean you get rid of it. This heart behind this song was to inspire other people. I have to think that there are other leaders in the church right now who have a burden on their heart to help lead a movement like this. I think it’s the centerpiece of the whole record; it’s a really special moment.

Root for Matt at tonight’s Grammy’s, buy your Wild Goose tickets, tell others about the Goose, and get ready for a wild time this July 7 through 10 in Hot Springs, NC!

Son & Daughters (Lyrics)

How free is anyone, when some are still in chains
Slaves to brokenness, all this blindness
How free is anyone, when all these doubts remain
In the dead of night, no sign of the light
Child don’t grow weary, soon we will see the sun
All my brothers help each other
All my sisters walk together
No one is a stranger
We’re all sons and daughters
Join hands with everyone, don’t you hear the song we sing
Oh there might be tears, but we are more than our fears
We are marching on, but there’s a price we have to pay
For love means taking on, the weight of what was won

Jan 05

Love2

Open Call for 2016 Contributors

By Rick Meredith Goose News

It’s time to let us know what YOU would like to do at Wild Goose!

The 2016 Wild Goose continues to create space for courageous, imaginative, and participative social justice work, creative expression, spiritual practice, and astonishing music and art.

We’ll be exploring all this in the context of STORY: What are our shared narratives? How have they shaped us – in our joy and in our suffering? How do we challenge the destructive narratives in the presence of a growing wave of fear, violence, and control? Can one person’s story of success be another’s story of oppression? How do we see the truth in the mash-up?

We encourage you to go “all out” to increase the level of participation and interactivity – a lot! Whatever your role – artist, musician, speaker, or… when crafting your presentation, think without boundary or expectation in ways that will actively involve your audience.

The deadline for applying is midnight on February 29th. Our programming team will consider all submissions and we will notify applicants of the status of their submission no later than April 1st. In rare instances, a submission may be waitlisted and notified no later than May 1st.

There’s a $40 application fee to offset programming costs. If you have any questions contact [email protected]

Thank you for all your submissions.