We share a meal, then someone leads some worship. Today Paul got us telling stories of our summer, then thinking of what we want to keep, and what we would prefer to throw away- in the the form of a Pooh stick.
Brill.
I found this bunch of berries- one of those that used to be a stamen of some interesting lilly thing, but is now rotting quickly away.
Like the summer.
As might be inferred from my earlier post, the black dog has been stalking me a little. And the approach of the dark season makes me apprehensive.
So my berry poo stick became a prayer for all of us whose mood is mercurial, and easily shadowed by winter.
A prayer that the decay of the old might still be followed by a time of new birth…
And in the meantime- my your fireside be shared with good friends.
I picked up a book that a colleague was throwing out today- entitled ‘The Celtic Year- a celebration of Celtic Christian saints, sites and festivals‘ by Shirley Toulson.
I had a flick through- and came across this
Brigid’s Feast.
I would like a great lake of the finest ale
For the King of Kings.
I would like a table of the choicest food
For the family of heaven.
Let the ale be made from the fruits of faith
And the food be forgiving love
I should welcome the poor to my feast
For they are God’s children
I should welcome the sick to my feast
For they are God’s joy
Let the poor sit with Jesus at the highest place
And the sick dance with the angels.
God bless the poor
God bless the sick
God bless our human race
God bless our food
God bless our drink
All homes, O God, embrace.
And this in turn reminded me of the film Babette’s Feast.
For those of you who have not seen this film, it tells the story of an extreme religious community on the wild Denmark coast, living a life of simplicity and austerity, clinging on to the teachings of their now dead leader. Then along comes a refugee from the wars in a troubled 19th Century Europe, and they take her in. For years she works as an unpaid servant, preparing the dreadful food- fish soup and gruel- that the community eat.
Then one day, after years of hard work, news reaches her that she has won a lottery- a small fortune. The community prepare themselves to say goodbye to their loyal servant, and reluctantly agree to allow her to cook for them- a feast.
A feast the like of which this community- with all its austerity, its petty squabbles and its suspicion of all things ‘of the world’- could not begin to imagine. The finest wines, turtle soup, amazing complicated dishes.
And Babette’s former life as a famous chef in Paris is revealed- as the members of the community are transformed by this encounter with the feast- as tongues are loosened, and rigidity eroded. Until they stand together and sing hymns under the stars.
And discover that Babette had spent every single penny of her new found wealth on this one meal…
It is a story of grace and redemption and religion gone wrong, only to find itself again.
Here are a couple of clips- you can watch the whole thing on You tube should you fancy it.
Aoradh are going to be doing a few worship things again- participating in a day long worship event along with Sanctus 1 and Safespace. I just checked the GB website and see we are not mentioned as participants! How rude.
As part of the worship, we are providing a great big loom, into which people will be encouraged to weave in the names of their community- here is the loom frame in front of our house-
We are also doing a couple of liturgies- one around communion, with a really lovely piece that Audrey wrote, and another based on the Community of God- the Trinity, with our bit focussing on the Father.
If you are at Greenbelt this year, it would be great to see you- we will be in the New Forms cafe for most of the day on Saturday…
I pulled out an old piece of writing I did thinking about fatherhood, and have been doing some work on it. Here are a couple of sections I am playing with-
I spent a few hours yesterday making a start on constructing something for Aoradh’s worship collaboration at Greenbelt festival.
We are working with Safespace and Sanctus 1 to plan a day long worship event around the general theme of community- the people we journey with- with the title of ‘Here comes everybody’ after a Clay Shirky book title.
Part of this involves setting up a big loom in the middle of the room, and getting people to weave their communities into a tapestry- writing names on strips of cloth. Something like this I hope-
The horizontal lines will represent the presence of the Spirit of God- the attributes and fruit of the Spirit. The horizontal ones represent the communities and individuals that make up our lives.
I have been using saplings that I cut last year-
Cleaning and notching them-
And starting to construct two large frames that I will set up like a big artists easel.
It is a lovely thing to do- to take some bits of tree and construct something lovely and functional- with a view to allowing others to worship.
I love the beginning of new adventures- the chance to allow new things to unfold.
This one involves a commitment to meet with my friend Paul on a regular basis, and spend some time doing some deliberately spiritual practices, and writing about them. The idea is that we take a few hours and walk into the wilderness, talk, think and meditate.
On a bench.
This was today’s bench, in the hills above Dunoon…
Today we used one of my favourite psalms-
1God, I’m not trying to rule the roost, I don’t want to be king of the mountain.
I haven’t meddled where I have no business
or fantasized grandiose plans.
2 I’ve kept my feet on the ground,
I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.
Like a baby content in its mother’s arms,
my soul is a baby content.
3 Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.
Hope now; hope always!
Psalm 131 (The Message)
As I reflect on these ancient words, I am concious of a soul that is not content, and a heart that is unquiet.
I am puzzled too as to what things David was writing about that were ‘too great’ for him (at least in the un massaged version.) He was a king after all- but perhaps a king all too aware of his failings.
And I wonder whether I really want to stop dreaming grandiose plans- it is part of who I am. I kind of believe that our dreams should lie just beyond our grasp- just outside our comfort zones…
But in all of this, I am so aware that I need to hold on to hope.
Hope for life lived in communion with good friends.
Hope for life that is rich and deep and saturated with the things of God.
Hope for life that measures it’s meaning not by a kind of success that rots the soul.
Hope for life that is life-giving to others.
And in awareness that in this life there are no guarantees- no easy short cuts. But there are moments when what has been grey can become saturated with new colour.
I am not quite sure what we will find when we land on Jura.
Neither am I quite sure how the whole social thing will work out- we are forming a temporary community of people who mostly do not know each other.
We are hoping to spend time seeking after God, but he can be so mysterious can’t he?
What I am reminded of is that old Celtic monastic tradition of peregrinatio, or ‘Holy voyaging’, which in practice meant to get in a boat, and simply to set sail. No destination planned, simply trusting to tide, wind and God. The destination of such a voyage was not geographical, butrather spiritual. The goal was to arrive at ones ‘place of resurrection.’ Arriving at journey’s end inevitably meant an actual physical place also however- and it is these places that still hold the memory of these voyages all over Argyll- in the place names, the folk lore, and also in the marks and mounds in the earth out on exposed headlands, or on tiny islands.
So, in anticipation of our own homecoming, I am going to re-post a poem that I wrote a few years ago, dedicated to that great voyaging monk, St Brendan–
Last night in housegroup we continued to read and discuss the Gospel of Mark, and by some quirk or accident (or design), we came to Mark 14.
The bit that describes how the Sanhedrin gathered together anddecided to kill Jesus, even before Pesach if possible.
In the meantime, Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper. Here he was anointed on the head, probably by Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, with very expensive ointment of spikenard.
Some of the disciples were furious; the oil could have been sold to support the poor.
In this context, Judas went to the Sanhedrin and offered them his support in exchange for money. From this moment on Judas was looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus.
Darkness.
It settled on us as we read. It was tangible.
There is a tradition in the church to mark this darkness by celebrating Tenebrae. A service in which candles are gradually extinguished, and then as the darkness falls, a book is slammed shut. It is the end.
There is this verse in Mark where Jesus predicts the terrible effect the next few says will have on us, his followers- “All of you will have your faith shaken” or as the NIV puts it-
“You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written:
” ‘I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep will be scattered.” (v 27)
(Posted from the Ferry using my dongle thingy. Oh the joy of technology… )
So, my friend and co-conspirator Nick has taken up blogging! Nick has a website in connection to his life coaching and outdoor instructing- check it out…
In his last post, I got a mention- but the main thrust was the small matter of risk taking- which has been a theme here too of course. Nick quotes a few lines from a poem which I rather like. I can not find an author attributed- so if you know who wrote it, please let me know.
I think the poem deals rather well with the wider issues of risk- not just the white knuckle outdoor stuff, but also the issue of social risk- the danger of opening ourselves up to others around us. Another vitally important theme I think…
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool;
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental;
To reach out for another is to risk involvement
To expose feeling is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and your dreams
before the crowd is to risk their loss
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To live is to risk dying
To hope is to risk despair
To try is to risk failure.
But risk must be taken,
because the greatest hazard in life
is to risk nothing
The person who risks nothing, does nothing,
has nothing and is nothing;
They may avoid suffering and sorrow,
but they simply cannot learn,
feel change, grow, love, Live
Chained by their certitude, they are a slave,
they have forfeited freedom;
Only the person who risks is free.
Question of the Day: How does one incorporate imperfection?
In a Navajo rug there is always one clear imperfection woven into the pattern. And interestingly enough, this is precisely where the Spirit moves in and out of the rug! The Semitic mind, the Eastern mind (which, by the way, Jesus would have been much closer to) understands perfection in precisely that way. The East is much more comfortable with paradox, mystery, and non-dual thinking than the Western mind which is formed by Greek logic.
Perfection is not the elimination of imperfection, as we think. Divine perfection is, in fact, the ability to recognize, forgive, and include imperfection!—just as God does with all of us. Only in this way can we find the beautiful and hidden wholeness of God underneath the passing human show. It is the gift of non-dual thinking and seeing, which itself is a gift of love, suffering, and grace. In fact, this is the radical grace that grounds all holy seeing and doing.
So- today I am 43. Thanks so much to those who have sent wishes/cards/presents! I am a man blessed.
I share a birthday with some of my friends- Nick, Stacey and Stewart. And aparently Kim Jong-il, North Korean dictator. So best wishes to them all. I am not expecting a card from Kim.
And for those of a certain age-
(I was reading recently that tests have shown that kids who grew up watching Sesame Street out perform kids that did not in key indicators. I did not watch it as a child unfortunately- my mum thought that TV sent brains soft.)
Michaela and the kids bought me a days sea kayaking tuition! Which to some might mean they are trying to get rid of me- but I know better. It is something I have wanted to do for years. Can’t wait!
We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide, and resist the terror of it’s ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanence, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity- in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
Lord Help me now to unclutter my life
To organise myself in the direction of simplicity
Lord teach me to listen to my heart; teach me to welcome change rather than fearing it
Lord I give you these stirrings inside of me
I give you my discontent
I give you my restlessness
I give you my doubt
I give you my despair
I give to you all the longings I hold inside
Help me to listen for those signs of change, of growth; to listen seriously and follow where they lead
Through the breathtaking empty space of the open door…
this fragile tent 