Rev. Jimi Calhoun on Transformation (Protect & Serve)

The AllCreation Podcast

A Life of Transformation: Rev. Jimi Calhoun. The son of a pastor, Rev. Jimi Calhoun was a teen and early adopter of Hippie culture in the San Francisco Bay area during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. As a prodigious young musician he worked with breakthrough stars like Wilson Pickett and Lou Rawls before he could drive. By the early 1980s he had played on 100s of credited and uncredited recordings, including Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones. He is best known today for classic recordings with Dr. John (including the album, Gumbo), Parliament Funkadelic, Sly Stone, and his own band, Creation. In 1983 he entered pastoral training and has been ministering ever since. He is currently Lead Pastor at Bridging Austin. Rev. Calhouns’ books explore how Rock & Roll and Religion can help each other create long-lasting reconciliations. He is interviewed here by AllCreation exec. editor, Chris Searles, as part of our Winter Solstice collection: Envisioning Transformation.

Learn More

• JimiCalhoun.com
• Jimi Calhoun author page
• Jimi Calhoun bass player page
• A favorite early recording with Gene Redding
• BridgingAustin.org
• Rev. Calhoun is also a guest panelist at: Called to Care.

References

• Genesis 1:26
• Genesis 2
• Teshuvah
• Restorative Justice
• Punitive Justice

PROGRAM
0:00 Welcome & Intro

4:00 How have you experienced transformation?

8:15 How does society come together around a common identity?

10:30 Were people less afraid of conflict and discomfort in the 60s?

17:40 How did the Hippie movement and Civil Rights movements feel?

25:00 How do you relate creation care to human care?

29:00 What do you mean by biblical ecology?

32:00 How do you view the long journey of healing, reparations, etc.?

36:00 Restorative justice through kinship

41:00 Why do we fight against and destroy Other-life?

45:00 Doing service feels good, right?

48:30 Jimi’s comments on predictions & sticking together

QUOTES

“Who are we? Why are we here? Why are we doing this?“

We’ve lost our sense of mystery and wonder. We’re not looking beyond the everyday, mundane-accumulation of goods and materials-stuff. We’re not living in two places at once; we’re not living in the now and looking to the future.

There's no starting point for the common good.
Our political system is adversarial by definition, but disagreements should only be on the issues, not the essentials. We’ve crossed a line from disagreeing with people to being disagreeable with people... You loved ’em before you found out who they voted for. So that same person you loved five minutes ago, you can still love.

I’m not Utopian... I am altruistic and I do believe better is possible, but I believe it is hard to achieve.

And I thought, Wow, what an illustration for how challenging it is in the broader culture to have people be patient with the other, while they’re pursuing what it is they’re trying to contribute to the overall... We’re not a very patient society.

My job is to be of benefit to everyone, to protect and serve.

In a covenantal relationship you have to keep going no matter what the other person does, you have to push ahead, you do your part regardless of the outcome, you do what you’re supposed to do... That is creation care.

Where are my ’kind’? We really need to be careful when we assume we know who our KIND are.

You can see diversity is already built into the universe. It should not take a degree from Harvard to figure out that diversity is a good thing.

They think they’re doing the right thing by assuming everyone has their worldview.

I could give you some answers from my reading or my religious training, but they wouldn’t be very satisfying because they would only cover a small segment of the population.

I would say the biggest adversary is laziness… Being aware and appreciative of the diversity that exists is hard work and I think we’re basically lazy. We want everything to come to us. I don't think anybody is afraid, I think they’re lazy.

As Western people, we’re result-oriented rather than process-oriented. To have transformation that’s going to be lasting or meaningful, sometimes it requires us to be process-oriented.

I’m doing this because. I’m doing this because. I’m doing this because.

###

Thanks for listening.

This podcast is one of seven interviews

from our Winter Solstice 2022 collection,

"EnvisioningTransformation." It was edited
by Chris Searles. Visit our podcasts page
for more.