Cornerstone Festival 2007- Part 1

I am back from a wonderful little festival called Cornerstone that takes place in the old corn fields of Bushnell, Illinois. This is my third journey out there and it becomes deeper and more meaningful everytime I go there. I spent the days at seminars and the evenings at concerts. In between I ate corn dogs and pasta and gyros and all sorts of unhealthy things that are part of the whole experience. Everything takes place under these big, wonderful tents and I feel like I am at one of the old revivals from the past.

There were some incredible speakers this year. Shane Claiborne, founding partner of the Simple Way and author of the book Irresistible Revolution, was one of the most convicting people there. He does not just talk about being a Christian, he is living it, day in and day out. I was challenged by him to be an "ordinary radical" and try to live differently than I ever have before. He started his seminar with a Peter Maurin quote. He said, "If we are crazy, at least we are not crazy in the same way the world has gone crazy." Shane is a dynamic speaker with dreadlocks and a message that is borne out of his life story and his experiences and his efforts to truly live the way Jesus did.

(Sidenote: Shortly before attending the festival I heard through the blog world that The Simple Way had a terrible fire. That is what brought my attention to him in the first place. I found out about his book and decided I wanted to read it sometime soon. Then as I was looking at what speakers were attending C-stone this year, there he was on the list! It is wonderful how that works for me sometimes.)

Shane's religious upbringing reminds me of my background in some ways. He grew up Methodist, like myself. Only problem is my congregation had become so small and filled with elderly people by the time I came along that I did not get the opportunity to attend confirmation classes and attend youth gatherings, like my Mom had years before when it was a bustling community. I did not even get the chance to be an alter girl, like my sister had been five years prior to me being at an age where I could do that. Boy, did I want to be one too! I wanted to wear the white robes and light the candles and do something for Jesus. Hee hee.

I want to quote a few thoughts of Shane's about John Wesley and criticisms about the Methodist Church because I do still have a heart for the foundations of this denomination and may even possibly head back there one day. Shane says, "I learned in confirmation classes about the fiery beginnings of the Methodist Church and its signature symbol of the cross wrapped in the flame of the Spirit. Where had the fire gone? I learned about John Wesley, who said that if they didn't kick him out of town after he spoke, he wondered if he had really preached the gospel. I remember Wesley's old saying. "If I should die with more than ten pounds, may every man call me a liar and a thief", for he would have betrayed the gospel. Then I watched as one of the Methodists congregations I attended built a $120, 000 stained-glass window. Wesley would not have been happy. I stared at that window. I longed for Jesus to break out of it, to free himself, to come to rise from the dead...again."

Then in high school Shane met some people that led him into the charismatic, interdenominational world. I found that world in college through Christians in Action. He was "secretly fascinated" by the speaking in tongues and dancing in the aisles, as was I. It was the passion for Christ that seemed to stand out in my mind. I remember attending Christian weekend retreats and learning different styles of worship and digging into the word and praying with a community of others my own age for the first time and it really was an exciting time for me. However, I could never quite get into the evangelism side of things, for I often felt they were trying to shove Jesus down the throats of strangers, completely out of context from the people they were throwing flyers at. I never got into the idea of selling Jesus and even back then believed that to be a witness for Christ meant living quiet lives doing the things Jesus did. At the core of this was attempting to love others. Shane became a complete "Jesus Freak" and did that for almost a year before the newness and glamour of it began to wear off for him. I like the way he described it. He was "overchurched" but wanted to really study and learn all he could about Jesus.

So Shane ended up attending Eastern College in Pennsylvania (where btw, a preacher named Tony Campolo chaired the sociology department). This is where he met some friends that would take him to the inner city streets to meet the homeless and get to know them personally. He experienced discomfort and fear at the very beginnings of this. It is "amusing" to read that he actually left one of his credit cards in his college dorm room when heading out to the city, in case his wallet was stolen and while he was gone, his credit card was stolen by someone in his dorm who went out and racked up a lot of money on it! It was during this time that he actually spent the nights in the streets with the homeless because his friend had been reading Mother Theresa who said, "...we can't understand the poor until we begin to understand what poverty is like."

Oh, how I wish I had met a group of people like this on the campus of Oakland University where I spent my college years. A person needs someone scaffolding them into new ways of thinking and being and living out their faith. A little nudge into helping someone expand their comfort zones can change the course of someone's life. Here is was that Shane, a high school prom king of his class, who wanted to go into the medical field to make lots of money, began to head down a different road than he ever expected to.

He became involved with Kensington Welfare Mothers who had moved into an abandoned Cathedral called St. Ann's Church. This group is quoted as saying, "How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?" The Catholic Church found out about them and said they had forty-eight hours to leave. Shane's group of friends organized in a college dorm room and went out to the area bringing about a hundred others and the media. The Catholic Church was unable to kick them out with all the attention on the situation. For months this went on. At one point they even tried to get the fire department to come out and condem the place. Two anonymous firefighters showed up the night before this was to happen bringing smoke detecters and exit signs and getting the place up to code so that they would pass the inspection. It is sad to note that they got one box of donations from the church during that time that contained a box of popcorn and yet the mafia came out and brought each of the children living there a new bike, turkeys for the families and donated thousands of dollars to the organization. What does that say about the condition of the church? Finally, people started coming forward and buying houses for the homeless women and they eventually were able to leave the cathedral of their own accord.

Shane's story continues as he tells of wanting to find a Christian who was really doing the word and not just talking about it.
He wanted to spend time with this person and learn about how to live that way. He found that one person. Mother Theresa. He wrote a letter asking her if he could come to Calcutta and when he didn't get a response he started calling around trying to get a way to reach her. He found a "Mother Superior" that actually gave him a number where she was and at two in the morning from his college dorm room called the Missionaries of Charity and Mother Theresa answered the phone! That was the beginning of his experiences in Calcutta where he spent his mornings in the orphanage and his afternoons in the Home for the Destitute and Dying.

He also spent time in Iraq back in 2003 and I did not get to the seminar where he talked about that time and I have not gotten to it in his book I have been furiously reading since I came back home. I do know it was great to see a man filled with a fire in his belly for Jesus, living out the life of a Christian in every sense. He talks about how much we need imagination to live out our Christianity. He was inspiring and challenging and I am glad to have been able to hear him speaking from his heart about his life.

I plan to have more to come about the other seminars from other speakers on the Emergent Church, Subversive Orthodoxy and the Farm Bill. Then of course there are the concerts. I have written a bit about my favorite concert of the festival somewhere on this page here.