Bowie Snodgrass<\/a>, Executive Director of Faith House Manhattan, is a key coordinator for our inter-faith friendship track at Wild Goose.\u00a0 The Christian tradition that gives birth to the Wild Goose Festival hasn\u2019t always been strongest at relating peaceably and with respect among people of different faiths; part of our vision for Wild Goose is that we would explore together how conversations among people from different faith backgrounds can help contribute to peace and the common good. Wild Goose exists at the space where justice, spirituality, and art interact. A post about inter-faith dialogue, Celtic pilgrimages, and a David Bowie cover seems like an ideal place from which to continue the conversation\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n Let me fly away with you<\/em> ~ from \u201cWild is the Wind,\u201d covered by David Bowie on Station to Station<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VbpMpRq6DV4<\/a>\n The Holy Spirit led me into ecumenical and later interfaith work through a Wild Goose chase that started in 1997, during a college year at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. \u00a0Studying Roman Catholic theology, medieval women, the Russian language, and Orthodox Christianity gave me ecumenical perspective on the roots of my own Episcopal tradition.\u00a0 Outside the classroom, I witnessed secularization in Dublin and the scars of religious violence in Belfast. My father and I went on a Celtic pilgrimage, visiting Glendalough, Ninian\u2019s Cave, the Isle of Lindisfarne, Bede\u2019s Jarrow, and Durham Cathedral (built with stones from Hadrian\u2019s Wall).\u00a0 My dad was called by the Goose to start a retreat center where the Spirit could be encountered in nature\u2019s thin places.\u00a0 Less than a decade later, he and my step-mother moved to Aibonito, Puerto Rico to start Centro Espiritu Santo<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span>I first heard squawks about the Emerging Church in 2003, while working at the Episcopal Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0In 2006, my friend Isaac Everett<\/span><\/a> asked me to co-found an emerging church.\u00a0 We were encouraged by many people, including Ian Mobsby<\/a>, founder of the Moot Community in London<\/span><\/a>, who invited us to Greenbelt<\/span><\/a>. We launched Transmission<\/span><\/a> in the New Forms Caf\u00e9<\/a> at Greenbelt 2006, which felt like three-days in heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The following summer, I was asked to be part of a group trying to start a North American Greenbelt.\u00a0 The weekend before I attended a planning retreat, my life took a wildly unexpected turn, when my now-husband proposed.\u00a0 That summer, the Wild Goose also called me to leave my job at the Episcopal Church\u2019s national office to do innovative, grassroots ministry.\u00a0 I found the courage to flap my wings, fly out of my safe nest, and found the perfect position, working with Samir Selmanovic<\/a> to launch Faith House Manhattan<\/span><\/a>, an interfaith community whose motto is \u201cexperience your neighbor\u2019s faith.\u201d\u00a0 This position has stretched me beyond ecumenical, Episcopal or \u201cemerging\u201d into interfaith.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Phyllis Tickle<\/a>\u2018s book The Great Emergence<\/span><\/em><\/a> proposes that \u201cthe two overarching, but complementary questions of the Great Emergence are: (1) What is human consciousness and\/or the\u00a0humanness of the human? and (2) What is the relation of all religions to one another\u2014or, put another way, how can we live responsibly as devout and faithful adherents of one religion in a world of many religions?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n This is a time of religious transition in the United States, when conversations among people of different faith traditions are not only possible, but necessary if we are to learn to live with each other in mutual respect.\u00a0 Faith House will be hosting wild geese from other religions so that the raucous gaggle there can \u201cexperience our neighbor\u2019s faith\u201d during three days that promise to show us new paths forward.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n I believe faith is born of experience.\u00a0 Leaps often land us where God wants and small flaps can create waves we could not have foreseen.\u00a0 Loud squawks chase us in new directions and sometimes we step out and ask God to point our wings where the spirit blows, knowing that wild is the wind.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Today, I sit on the brink of another personal transition, as my husband and I await a baby due this September 11th.\u00a0 We plan to bring our own little gosling to the Wild Goose Festival next summer.<\/span><\/p>\n Bowie Snodgrass and Samir Selmanovic<\/span><\/a> of Faith House Manhattan<\/span><\/a> are coordinating the interfaith programming for the Wild Goose Festival, J<\/em>une 23rd-26th, 2011. You can keep up with the Festival on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bowie Snodgrass, Executive Director of Faith House Manhattan, is a key coordinator for our inter-faith friendship track at Wild Goose.\u00a0 The Christian tradition that gives birth to the Wild Goose Festival hasn\u2019t always been strongest at relating peaceably and with respect among people of different faiths; part of our vision for Wild Goose is that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13,15],"tags":[19,23,33,36,44,65,76,77,83,84,85,90,105,108,111,118,121,122,123,160,167,179,180,192,201,207,228,229,231,259,272,273,290,291],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-features","category-spirituality","category-wild-goose-blog","tag-aibonito","tag-anglican","tag-bedes-jarrow","tag-bowie-snodgrass","tag-centro-espiritu-santo","tag-david-bowie","tag-dublin","tag-durham-cathedral","tag-emerging-church","tag-episcopal","tag-episcopal-office-of-ecumenical-and-interfaith-relations","tag-faith-house-manhattan","tag-glendalough","tag-greenbelt","tag-hadrians-wall","tag-ian-mobsby","tag-ireland","tag-isaac-everett","tag-isle-of-lindisfarne","tag-medieval-women","tag-moot-community","tag-new-york-city","tag-ninians-cave","tag-orthodox-christianity","tag-phyllis-tickle","tag-puerto-rico","tag-roman-catholic","tag-russian","tag-samir-selmanovic","tag-the-great-emergence","tag-transmission","tag-trinity-college","tag-wild-goose","tag-wild-goose-festival"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nFor my love is like the wind
\nAnd wild is the wind<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n