My friend is part of a team that goes to the Burning Man gathering to engage in a radical form of ministry. Burning Man is a collection of spiritual misfits, often rejected by society and/or the mainstream Church. They frequently are an inquisitive type, often are searching for meaning; they are creative, outside-the-box people who gather in the Nevada desert once a year for this festival.
My friend and his group are courageous, innovative, and tender. They are meeting these people at their point of need, using their language and worldview to minister the love of the Father. Here is his report:
Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of...
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true
The refrains of a seventy year old song drift over us ageless like Spirit. I can't hold the center any longer. I'm crying. It's lunch at our Spirit Dream Camp in Burning Man's Black Rock City. Marjorie and Andrea (known as Ladybug and Firefly here) do an impromptu a capella version over our team and guests.
The spiritual weight hangs there, timeless like some mystic veil. Our Burner guests sit transfixed and red eyed. Gina who was gently lend into an actual conversation about Jesus weeps and weeps. She's close to the Door. She leaves copies of her music cd behind. We leave her with etherial weight to ponder. All in perfect process. In time. In season.
Six years of coming here and you'd think we'd get it. It's America but Ozzie and Harriet are gone. In their absence are drugs, a plethora of theme camp bars and sensuality and dark entities masquerading as goddesses. On the opposite pole there are good things here: humor,giving, amazing art and a hunger and realness that is free to give expression without judgement. Lisa Matshcek and I lead this outpost of light. We occupy our territory and cleanse and make a stand.
I beat my gift of a drum by our First Nations friends to each of the four directions. The light marks us and radiates out. In this spiritual climate people know how to see this light. As a team, we often wish the Christian gatherings we came out of could discern the same.
The tin men and women are coming even as we set up camp. "You're here again. We're glad we're camp neighbors" We're touched. We get out the oil can and dispel our own rusty thoughts and our chest cavities fill with desire to get to know those that love us. This year we take their gifts of hospitality on their turf - drinks, waffles, phone service and hair washing from Astral Headwash (an amazing experience in an itchy, dusty environment). We are learning to integrate.
They love us more. They send more people our way. They come and come. Ozzie and Harriet we are not but something far more mystical and safe - the fathers and mothers God meant us to be in this vacuum. The oil can reaches the jaw. We smile a lot here.
Friday afternoon. Lunch is over. There is a line out the door of our encounter tent. It's wicked hot. They are waiting. The tent flaps are parted. Darren hurriedly forms teams. We get people in our healing encounter groups of two or three. The waiting room is filled to capacity with people on the floor and there are still people out in the sun. Waiting. Waiting times go to an hour or more. They tell us they heard it is worth it. It's Burning Man. They have time. time is spent conversing or shifts occur where they practice their meditative style to prepare themselves. It's supernaturally cooler in temperature here. This is noted. The abstract tree of life sculpture (Andrea created) with leaves hanging down into our living space all add to the mystery, the expectation.
God is gifting us. We have higher level encounters as the week wears on. The Reiki master level people are here finding the true light. Really broken Dissociative Identity people fight hard internally and come to sit with us. I talk early on with a lesbian woman with horribly cut scarred arms. Rich is a chiropractic doctor in his forties heaving great sobs of release as collapses in my arms for a father's blessing. A few of the team compare notes and find dry coughing the demons out is common this year. Again, we find that the how to manuals do not exist here. Like John's desert we have to hear the voice of One.
Katie sits before Andrea, Julie and I. Two moms and a dad. She's a flower bruised. I pose a probing question to her "Are you concerned about growing old?" We ask her age. She floors us with "I'm 27" She looks 40. She confides "I feel I'm going to be disappointed with this encounter" Her mantra on life. Julie goes to OZ and says she looks like Dorothy. Julie takes her to the scene when all the others have gotten their gifts, she, without home, says "Is there anything in that bag for me?" We dig beyond the bag and ask permission to gently give her a portion of father identity blessing that will pool in the pock marks in the heart. The flower opens slowly and receives the rain as the mothers spirit whisper "This is home"
Somewhere over the rainbow. Bluebirds fly. Birds fly over the rainbow. Why then, why can't I?
Madison is in his twenties. He staggers off his bike as we are packing to leave. He can barely walk toward me. He says he's ready to commit to Jesus. He been coming to us for a couple of years and has won the hearts of many of us with his struggles and questions. Last year I did a fathers blessing on him. I think his internal circuits fried. We talk. I lead him in a prayer fitting him. He cries and cries, buried deep in my chest. My goofy flying saucer egg tee shirt beaming up a placid cow is covered in tears and snot. He eventually ends up on the dusty playa laughing and laughing in a new Spirit baptism.
