MICAH NEWS - November 2010
UMC Students Learn Sustainable Design and Landscaping
On Tuesday, November 16 and Friday, November 12, 2010 we will be using the MICAH building as a teaching tool. UMC students fro the Sustainable Landscape class will be coming out to the building and Friday UMC students from Energy and Sustainable Design class will be at the building.
Crookston Pastor Uses Art To Teach And Inspire People
from WDAZ Channel 8 Television
Trey Everett was featured on WDAZ Channel 8 on November 6, 2010.
[...] A pen and a piece of paper is all this artist needs to express himself.
"As a kid I drew comic books and loved art class." Everett said.
A love that grew from a hobby to a way to express a love for theology and art. Pastor Trey Everett published a book of his "Holy Doodles" two years ago.
"They're really simple and they can be funny and I really like being able to do that so it sort of catches people off-guard and causes interest."
And that's what Everett did. Now he tries to draw a new cartoon each week based on life experiences and different situations he finds himself in.
The driving force behind Everett's artwork is to inspire people to think in a deeper way about God and how they live their lives.
"Being able to take difficult subjects that people may not think about it as much or have a hard time grasping or understanding." Everett said. [...]
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MICAH NEWS - October 2010
Pastor creates religious cartoons
from the Fargo-Moorhead Forum
October 6, 2010
 Jesus reaches out to hand a glass of ice cold lemonade (complete with a little umbrella) to a man in swimming trunks lying on a lounge chair.
“You’ve been tithing, going to church every Sunday and reading a Bible verse every day,” Jesus says. “Take a break … Would you like a massage?”
“Thanks, Jesus,” the man replies. “It’s all for you.”
Ouch!
Trey Everett’s snappy, stinging commentary on the mind of the American Christian titled “Real Sacrifice?” is part of the spiritually minded “Holy Doodles” cartoons created by the ordained pastor in Crookston, Minn.
“I really like the idea of taking complex spiritual or theological ideas that we often don’t think about that much or they just seem really cloudy or maybe we just ignore and then drawing a little picture of it so that people really kind of notice that and take a second look and go, ‘Oh,’ ” says Everett [...]
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MICAH NEWS - July 2010
Fresh Voices, Fresh Air
from the Crookston Daily Times
July 21, 2010
 The youth in this summer’s Fresh Voices program housed at the U of M, Crookston, in which they work on projects that share their cultures with others, ventured to the Minnesota Institute of Contemplation and Healing (MICAH) northeast of Crookston over the weekend to experience nature firsthand while also working on their projects and, according to Kris Sorensen “cooking and eating a lot of food.”
Sorensen, working with the youth through IN PROGRESS, said the MICAH scenery was a great backdrop for three photo series the kids are working on, one on cultural identity, another on how people label themselves in society, and one on Latino pride.
View article and photos >>
MICAH has a new blog based off the popular cooking classes we have been offering. As a continuation of the principles taught, we decided to start a blog where the class participants and others can exchange healthy cooking recipes, ask questions, and encourage each other as we journey toward healthier eating.
Check it out at: http://cookingwiththespirit.blogspot.com/
Notebooks Availabe:
Notebooks from Cooking with the Spirit classes are available for $10. This first notebook covers salads and stir fries. The notebooks include information about: whole grains, oils, food additives, conventionally grown crops, website resources, cookbook suggestions, and recipes.
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MICAH NEWS - April / May 2010
by Trey Everett
Mark 1:9-13 is the passage about John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. Remember when Jesus came out of the water? The sky opened and a dove came down and rested on Jesus. One translation says, "he saw heaven being torn open." I was thinking about that phrase "he saw heaven being torn open." What would heaven being torn open look like? What does it look like to see God moving through the fabric that separates the spiritual from the material. What does it look like to see the Holy Spirit materialize right before our eyes?
I was reminded of the line of a song from some Christian group I listened to in college, "Come on and crack the sky for me, come on and crack the sky and take me home..." Maybe the air begins to ripple and move like heat waves rising from the landscape. Maybe there is a flash of light, a flame, a tornado. Maybe it’s a huge zipper and God unzips it, steps through, and zips it back up. The real trick though is not to get a snap shot of that amazing moment, that metaphysical door opening. The real talent is to see the dove. Forget the doorway and pay attention to who is walking through the doorway.
In Scripture it was often this half man half bird creature we call angels? For Moses it was a bush on fire that wasn’t consumed. In Bethlehem it was a baby boy named Jesus. Today is could be that stranger we ignore or smile at, the one we turn away from or help. To see God active, moving, involved, participating, digging through life is the key. To notice God already here among us with dirty hands and a sunburned neck and chapped lips is our work. To realize God has already stepped through that tear in the sky and landed in our hearts and minds is what God desires. We are to live a resurrected, God-filled life, Holy Spirit empowered life. That is what we are to pay attention to.
The real trick, now that I think about it, is not to see the tear or spot the dove, but to allow God to manifest within us. The real trick is to be the dove.
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MICAH NEWS - March 2010
by Trey Everett
2009 has been a year of evolution. The MICAH retreat house has continued to evolve. Various groups and individuals spent time at the building experiencing change. The inside slowly changed from a large framed space into bedrooms, and bathrooms, and into a fully functional kitchen. The port-a-potty disappeared and the comforts of indoor plumbing took its place. The outside of the building transformed from white Tyvek to gray masonry and dark slate. The old labyrinth became overgrown and a new labyrinth emerged next to the building. Ministries changed, the integrative Medicine clinic changed, my family and I have undergone change as well in 2009.
People, relationships, churches, ministries, programs all need change, because, when we don’t experience change we die. We don’t seem to like change because it is difficult and demanding, trying and taxing, unsettling and uncomfortable. But it is the life we are called to. It is how God has made us. Right now we are in the season of Lent. Lent is not only a time of penance but a time of change as well. We all need a change of mind and heart. We all can benefit from altering our mind-set to wonderful new ways of being and acting. This involves the ability to look deeply and honestly at where we are right now, accepting that, and then moving toward Christ however we can. The good thing about change is that Christ is with us. By His power we have the strength to move into the unknown, the unsafe, the different. By the presence of God we renew commitments, cast off our old selves, pay attention to the world around us as well as the world within us, and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. 2009 has been a year of change. May we all continue to move and grow through 2010.
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MICAH NEWS - February 2010
by Trey Everett
A few years ago I read scripture at church. Nothing unusual about reading scripture in church, however this wasn’t your ordinary church. This was one of the largest churches in the entire nation. Southeast Christian Church in Louisville Kentucky runs about 18,000 in weekly attendance! I was just a wee bit nervous.
Everything was going fine. The worship service had started, back stage I was nervously waiting for my cure, my Bible was open to the passage I was about to read… and then it happened. I realized, to my horror, I didn’t know how to pronounce some names in the passage. Thousands of people were about to hear me butcher names like Naphtali, Jahziel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem. I started to sweat. The people back stage didn’t know the correct pronunciations either. Knowing the passage would be displayed on the large projection screen for all to see panic began to set in. It was then I realized another wrench had been thrown into the machine, no one had mentioned which translation to use. I just assumed it would be the NIV, but they might easily use the NLT or the Message or the NASV or King James for that matter! I couldn’t believe how unprepared I was.
I’m not sure how it happened, but while this little drama was being played out I missed my cure. Everything got quiet. Not the good meditative quiet, like during communion. But the awkward silence, like when your teacher asks a question and the entire class is staring at you and you can’t think because you forgot your brains at home. I suppose it was at this point things just got ridiculous. I hurried to the podium but he lighting was so dim I couldn’t see the words. In desperation I took off my glasses and stuck my face into my Bible, just inches from the page, in hope I could read something, anything! For some reason I forgot to comb my hair and it was standing straight up. Someone from the worship team walked up behind me and placed a beanie cap on my head, the kind with a propeller on top, and gave it a spin. Then I woke up.
This dream was so vivid I recorded it in my journal. The Bible is full of vivid dreams; good dreams, bad dreams, God speaking in dreams, angels appearing in dreams, end of the world dreams, people interpreting dreams. Joseph not only had prophetic dreams but he interpreted the dreams of Pharoah and his cupbearer and baker. In the book of Daniel King Nebuchadnezzar commanded his magicians, enchanters, and sorcerers to not only explain the troubling dream he had but to also tell him what he dreamed in the first place. "Tell me the dream and I shall know that you can give me its interpretation," he demanded. His upset servants replied, "No king, however great and powerful, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king is asking is too difficult, and no one can reveal it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with mortals." But God revealed the king’s dream to Daniel who then interpreted it. I wonder how he would have interpreted this anxious dream of mine. We all have anxieties and worries that are revealed in our emotions, eating habits, health, choices, and yes, in our dreams. When was the last time we worried about money or sickness or taxes or retirement? What about our marriages or kids or relationships? Homework, college, church, the future and the past worry us as well. We’re anxious people. I imagine Daniel or Joseph saying to me, "You worry too much! You’re trusting in yourself rather than God." I wonder how my life might change if I really put my trust in God. I wonder what I might dream about.
Thanks for the wonderful kitchen shower!
The MICAH kitchen is up and running! Thanks so much to all who donated items for the kitchen and most especially to Mary Pester who helped make the 'kitchen shower' a reality.
Peace,
The MICAH Staff
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