Monthly Archives: July 2011

Eden

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We think we were the first to ever feel

.

The first to dream of higher places

The first to fall

The first to scream at sharp things

The first to feel that indescribable sting called love

The first to make music

The first to feel shame shrinking our callow souls

The first to seek the promised land

The first to eat from the tree

Called puberty

.

We were not

.

Long before light could be conjured by a switch

Men and women sat around fires and

Dreamed of starflight

They rose high above the flat old earth

Pregnant with new possibilities

Favour rested on their fields

Wilderness became their garden

.

But every generation grows and leaves home

Sometimes it seems that you and me

Have spent forever

Looking for a way

Back

Two screens…

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Today I worked from home. There is sickness in the house- M and I seem to have picked up some bug or other, and as a result, sleep was largely absent last night.

So I toiled most of the day on some reports- including ‘equality impact assessments’ relating to proposed service redesigns. If that sounds boring- well perhaps, but it actually relates to the need to save money from already overstretched budgets so actually, it is an ominous kind of boredom. It relates to an activity that will potentially have impact on lives and livelihoods. So forgive me- this post is a wee bit of therapy for my soul.

Open all along the bottom of my screen however, mixed in with various documents I am trying to make sense of, are other kinds of writing.

I found myself flicking between two screens-

One contained a file into which I am typing dead, anodyne yet scary words into an predetermined format.

The other contained a poem I am working on.

The contrast is palpable, and painful at the same time. Like being caught between the body and the soul. This dual life that modernity has condemned us to.

Not that we have any kind of right to an easy life, full of creative choices and mystical mountaintops to be conjured at our own choosing. This kind of self-activating-self-fulfillment-self-absorption is equally repellant.

But how we all long for a life of simple integrity, where what we have is enough, and all the more so shared.

And how (today at least) I hate bureaucratic solutions to human problems- no matter how necessary.

Time for a poem I think. An old one, from ‘Listing’

Blessed are those who are poor in spirit…

Blessed are they in failure
Blessed are they in repeated defeat

And blessed are they in
Every empty success

Blessed are they when plans, laid out-
Are stolen

And dreams are drained by

Middle age

Blessed are the wage slaves
And the mortgage makers
Blessed are those who keep on treading

This treadmill

Blessed are they who have no hope
And for whom life is
Grey and formless

Blessed are the B-list
And the has-been’s

Blessed are they at the end
Of all their coping

For here I am

And here I am building

My Kingdom

View from the boundary…

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Lovely day today- blue skies, soaring temperatures (for us anyway- well into the twenties) and- CRICKET!

After a long start to the season during which just about every game has been rained off, today we had our single wicket competition. In case you are interested this works as a kind of tournament in which you compete against others in pairs- two overs each, with runs halved for a wicket. The rest of the team field.

And in the draw- I was paired first up with William!

Did I go easy? Could I have lived with a defeat by my 11 year old son- who will surely be giving me a thrashing soon enough?

Sorry- no I had him out 5 times in two overs. Then gave him a nice slow short one, which he put away for 4.

I was out in the quarter finals to someone bowling so slowly that it was just about impossible to get under the ball. Grrrrrr.

Here are the players- athletic honed bodies all.

The worlds coolest castle…

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We have been to a music festival today- The Garden Party at Kelburn country park, just down the coast at Largs. We were only there for the day- but it was a lovely atmosphere- lots of stages in the woods with music and arty things, as well as the parks usual attractions- the secret forest and adventure play parks.

And it is home to the worlds coolest castle- covered in graffiti art. It was meant to be temporary, as the planners will not let a castle be anythig other than boring.

Painting over this will be a shame though don’t you think? We have loads of normal castles in Scotland- we should have at least one like this-

Wanted- your front door!

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I have just enjoyed a lovely evening with some of the Aoradh gang planning some activities we have up and coming- including a worship installation for Greenbelt Festival.

As part of this, we intend making a photo montage of images of people standing next to their front doors.

We live in a culture that has come to worship the housebrick. Lawrence Lewellyn-Bowen as the high priest! The idea we have is to turn upside down the house-worship idolatry thing- and re-imagine  homes as places of hospitality, where we might seek to love and serve those outside.

So- we would love to be able to use a photo of YOU- stood next to your front door! We will use these images, along with ones that Andy and I will take up here, to be part of some projections, and also to make an image of a cross in which the different photos form pixels (like the famous Myra Hindley picture made out of childrens hand prints.)

You might like to see this as a kind of prayer/act of commitment.

If you would like to take part- send a photo of yourself (and your family if you like) stood next to your front door to me here- chris@goan.fsnet.co.uk

Here is the first one!