Category Archives: Spirituality

Greenbelt 2010- ‘Here comes everybody’

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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’ll let you know how things go…

Solas festival…

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We had a lovely day at Solas festival yesterday. Well- mostly lovely anyway.

Solas is a brand new festival held at Wiston Lodge, near Biggar. It is inspired by Greenbelt festival. A few of us from Aoradh went down, and we did ’40’ again, and set a few worship/poetry things. The festival was fairly small- a few hundred attendees. It felt a bit like it was looking for itself a little- not quite sure where it was coming from, but definitely heading somewhere…

’40’ was a bit of a disaster. The organisers had allowed no set up time, and inevitably we had technical problems, which meant that the soundscapes did not work. Also the room was really noisy as the rock band playing outside the window drowned us out. The end result was that we got all hot and sweaty and nervous- with me running around trying to get the sound to work whilst also reading one of the parts!

I have since been in to hospital to have my buttocks surgically unclenched because of the severity of the embarrassment.

But the festival was good. Lots of great music, and interesting discussion. And it was really lovely to be with my friends in a new context- meeting some folk that we new, but also lots of others for the first time. This is the real value of festivals for me- the chance to meet people and allow new things to grow.

I enjoyed Yvonne Lyon as ever- and loved Juliet Turner too.

As for the talking- I enjoyed listening to Richard Holloway, retired bishop and author. He spoke really well about his appreciation of the wide wobbly spectrum of faith- from hard religion, through softer forms right through to militant atheism. Holloway himself appears to be wavering around a faith that does not require God- but remains grateful for the inherited traditions.

He also told a story about his early love of Mysticism, particularly the work of Thomas Merton. This love took him on a retreat where he sought to deepen his understanding of the search for God through contemplation and mystical experience. However it seems that things did not go well- and Richard Holloway remembers the Roman Catholic priest who was his spiritual director saying something like this- “Don’t be bloody stupid, you are never going to be a mystic- you are a writer. You need to worship with a pencil in your hand.” That made me smile ruefully!

I also listened to Labour MP Douglas Alexander, former Secretary of State for International Development. He was slick, but impressive- a future leader of the Party perhaps? Another son of the Manse who is destined for great things.

Michaela was impressed by Alistair McIntosh– unfortunately I missed most of his talk.

Here’s hoping that the festival survives in these rather challenging economic times. Lord knows, Scotland needs the opportunity to celebrate a different kind of religion…

One of the Aoradh crew uses crutches- she has Lupus, and like most people of faith who have long term illnesses, she has had a long journey in dealing with the God who heals, but has not healed her. Helen is a lovely optimistic person, who now sees each day as a gift from God, and does many things despite the pain that she gets when she moves, and the potential long recovery time afterwards. She arrived at the festival field, and within minutes a man came up to her and asked to ‘pray with her for healing’. She politely refused, explaining that this was something that she had kind of thought to do for herself over the years. We later laughed- but it was not funny really.

It was an insensitive thing to do, but what surprised me was that this kind of way of faith is present within a festival like Solas. It is a kind of faith that many of us have experienced in the past, but have been grateful to leave behind.

It is not fair to sum up a whole festival by this one encounter- after all, we are all capable of doing some daft stuff in the name of Jesus- and this man is probably a nice and well meaning bloke. However, I do think that is kind of sums up where we are in terms of developing new kinds of church in Scotland. New developments like Solas are small, fragile, and tend to be an amalgam of people with quite disparate views- who are forced together by expediency because ANY new Christian thing is worth being part of.

There is a danger that the ticking time bomb of doctrinal warfare is always about to explode.

I am sure that the organisers of Solas this year have had a rocky road.

Pray for them- and it.

Up in the air film, and a bit more on community…

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I have just watched this film.

It both depressed me and uplifted me at the same time.

The film stars George Clooney, playing a narcissistic travelling businessman, who is paid to fire workers all over America. He lives in a world without any unnecessary connection. A world that is soon to be replaced by video calls.

Along the way he gives motivational speeches to other businessmen- in which he asks them to consider what is in their backpack- all those trappings of modernity that anchor them to place and time, and restrict their freedom of opportunity. All those relationships that tie us down.

He is a kind of metaphor for post modern fluidity and disconnection.

And I think it depressed me because it is a culture and an industrial environment that is familiar- even in the public sector. A world where value is placed only on efficiency and personal goal attainment.

And it is kind of the antithesis of everything Jesus calls us to. He seemed to call us to a way of being in which living sacrificially for others is the measure of the value of a life- and in being connected to others in deep and interdependent ways.

And to celebrate this in community.

Of course, that is the point of the film.

And because it was made in Hollywood, and not by anyone Italian, French or called Ken Loach, then Clooney has an epiphany, involving his rather kooky family, and a romantic association of his own.

Then the existential/romantic crisis.

And the final resolution- which I will not spoil- watch the film!

It reminded me again of the counter culture of the Kingdom of God.

And the hope that we, the Agents of the Kingdom, might display a different way of living based on this other culture, and fed by the fruit of the Spirit.

English Cathedrals…

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I read recently that attendance at services held within English Cathedrals are growing around 4% each year since the Millennium.

No surprise really. What they offer to post modern people is a connection to something pre-modern- a rediscovery of a liturgical and spiritual tradition that goes back a thousand years. It is made visible in a ancient glass and stone, and comes alive with the continued traditions of worship and seasonal observation.

I love Cathedrals. They are one of the things that I really miss about England. They survived the puritans and the Civil War almost intact, and continue to be at the heart of most of the major cities.

On the way back from out recent trip to Telford, Michaela and I visited Lichfield Cathedral, and attended the end of the afternoon service. There has been a Cathedral here since 700 AD, built to house the bones of St Chad. Fragments of this building remain, along with the Lichfield Gospels which date to around 730AD.

But the impact of the place on Michaela and I was not anything to do with historical facts though. We sat in awe as the light filtered into the ancient building. And the sound of the choir singing away in the distance found a way through the old stone arches.

And we both cried…

Cathedrals make me cry

It was the powdered bones of St Chad

Mingled with the dust made

By the masons in the soaring north transept-

Some of it lodged in my eye

.

Or perhaps it was a glint in the light

Falling through ancient glass

On a flag floor polished into smooth undulations

By the leather of a hundred thousand pilgrims

.

Or perhaps it was the west wing

Stuffed with memorials to men speared and shot

In empire battles long forgotten

Tattered ensigns flying the cross of Jesus over genocide

Or perhaps it was the music of a choir

At first half heard and half imagined

Like the very stones breathing

Then a rolling on me like a wave, lifting me on a last Amen

.

I know not what will bring meaning

To men 1000 years from now

Or what towers they will point towards God

All I know

Is that Cathedrals make me cry

Emerging children…

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Michaela told this story the other day-

Once there was a large cruise liner voyaging across a wide ocean. It was full of people of all ages, who appreciated the safety and security offered by the experienced crew. Landfall was predictable and always on time, and although there were many storms, most of these could be by-passed or ridden out thanks to the ships stabilisers.

The crew of the liner were skilled at the production of all sorts of entertainment- balls, grand dinners, deck sports and above all- childrens activities. The kids were able to have fun, and this gave the parents to opportunity to do thier own thing, without any anxiety about what the kids would be up to.

But some of the passengers became restless. The life on board was just a little too predictable, and the ports of call organised and booked long in advance. For some, what was needed was a new adventure- the call of the high seas, and the beckon of the distant unexplored shore.

So they packed their belongings into small boats, said their goodbyes, and set out with their families on the blue sea.

And as they left the liner, someone shouted-

“But what will you do with the kids?”

We had a discussion at the Tautoko weekend about kids in these new forms of emerging church/small missional community/fresh expression (or what ever the current term that we are trying out is.)

Of course, the kind of church or community who might use one of these labels are varied. Some are embedded within more traditional church structures- complete with Sunday schools, youth groups and dedicated support structures for the development of young Christians.

Other communities are like mine. Groups of families and individuals who find themselves doing church in a more isolated situation, and kind of making it up as we go along. And those of us who are parents often worry. Because this experimental freedom is great for us- it was our decision (or perhaps our calling) but what about the kids?

How will they learn the stories of faith if not through Sunday school?

How will they absorb the Christian tradition unless through participation in a Church? (Note the capital C.)

How can we take a risk with their souls- the risk that we might be reducing the influence of Jesus on their formation, and so on their future and even eternal lives?

These are questions that Michaela and I have worried about. We no longer attend formal church, but live out faith in small group meetings, housegroups and in planning worship events in public spaces. It is exciting for us, but just ‘normal’ to our kids Emily and William. What legacy are we leaving in their lives?

Back to the discussion. The room contained parents of kids from about-to-be-born right up to 18. We talked about our experiments with family worship and Jonny described how their kids had grown up in as part of the Grace community. Others talked about the value they still found in their kids attending Sunday schools.

Despite the variety of opinion- some strands emerged that were meaningful to us-

  • Guilt and anxiety comes all too readily to parents. Particularly around the bringing up of our children towards and understanding of faith.
  • Perhaps we entrust this responsibility to others too readily. And this trust has a mixed reward- in our own memories, and in terms of those who survived Sunday School into adulthood with a live faith.
  • Involving our kids in something that contains all our passions and hopes rather than just reluctant duty must be a good thing! In this way perhaps we can impart something deep and real…
  • But HOW we involve the kids is important. Naz described housegroups where adults met to do their thing- to meet their own spiritual needs- and the kids had a great time running riot in the house or garden!
  • We decided that sharing FOOD was important.
  • And that taking kids seriously- and trusting them to contribute- was vital.
  • We also noted the importance of mentoring and deliberate inclusion from OUTSIDE our kids immediate family. So perhaps this might be another member of the community recognising a skill or passion and inviting our young people to use it.
  • Finally we noted the fact that kids seem to be able to deal with modular and perhaps even contradictory experiences of faith. Our kids typically combine small group meetings, youth groups weekends, major events like Greenbelt Festival, along with forms of church that we might find rather difficult.

I am glad that we left the big ship and set sail in our small one. I only hope that the journey is full of blessings for kids.

I love this picture, taken of a little girl dancing in Gloucester Cathedral during the Tautoko gathering last year. It represents the freedom that I hope for for my own kids-

Tautoko network…

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Michaela and I are just back from a lovely weekend down south- attending the Tautoko network gathering in Ironbridge, Telford. Our friends and fellow Aoradh members Simon and Helen went down this year which made it all the more special.

Tautoko (apparently a Maori word meaning a group that seeks to support/uplift others) is a network of people who are involved in emerging church/small missional communities/new monastic communities/alternative worship. This is how the network defines itself-

A network of uk based mission practitioners and communities who are restlessly trying to follow Jesus in the midst of a changing contemporary culture.

To share the journey with others who face similar mission challenges.
For mutual friendship, encouragement, solidarity, support, gift giving, discernment, resource sharing, ideas and learning.
To see what emerges as creative people connect.

Ethos:
Open set
Spin free
Generous
Vulnerable
Questioning

What I like about the network, is that it does not make unreasonable demands on already busy people, or take itself too seriously. It is rather disorganised (although there are moves afoot to bring a little more organisation) and characterised by friendship.

Because of our rather isolated location, the chance to meet up with others and share ideas, hopes and stories is always a real delight. It was great to see some familiar faces, and some meet others for the first time.

I will post a few thoughts relating to conversations later.

Thanks to Jonny, Naz, Gareth and Mark who put effort into the planning and leadership this year!

Some photies-

Tautoko network weekend…

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We are away on a road trip tomorrow. We are driving first to Nottinghamshire to take Michaela’s mum home, the leaving the kids there with her while we go off to the Tautoko network weekend in Coalbrookdale, near Telford- not far from the famous Iron Bridge.

The weekend is a chance to get together with others who are into new ways of doing church/mission/worship. It is a very informal affair- and we are really looking forward to it.

I am not looking forward to the drive though. And we have a fairly late start as I have to entertain Argyll and Bute’s chief executive all day in Helensburgh.

Heres hoping that she is blessed with brevity…

Aliens and the life of faith…

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I was thinking about aliens today.

Like you do…

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Hebrews 13:8

God does not change.

Truth is eternal.

The Protestant adventure is made up of a thousand battles over truth, as if doctrine was ever the most important thing.

But our understanding of God and our grasp on what is truth certainly does change. If it does not, then faith will be broken as perspectives shift. But always there is this tension between those who resist the change, and others who feel drawn into new theological (heretical) adventures.

It was ever thus.

The medieval world view of the nature of the earth and the heavens, and the sun and the stars (gleaned from a reading of Genesis) was blown apart by people who circumnavigated the globe, and others who mapped the orbit of the earth around its distant sun.

The modern age dawned with constant scientific discovery- each one seeming to make God smaller- to force him into the gaps where superstition was yet to be replaced by hard science. And Christians had to accommodate this new age of enlightenment, reinventing faith as a kind of science- with the Bible used as a technical blueprint to engineer disciples.

But back to the little green men…

What if we are not alone in the universe?

What if in all the millions of galaxies out there, there are lots of planets just like ours- with just the right combinations of atoms and energy to make genesis and then to sustain unfolding life?

Or what if the conditions on earth that allowed for creation to unfold are unique? What if we are indeed a kind of one in one billion billion accident? Might there come a time when we know this for sure?

Either way- what implications does this have for the life of faith?

I would suggest that either way- Hebrews 13 verse 8 remains true.

But we Christians might have to rethink the narrow boxes that we tried to place God in…

A time to hate

There is a time for all things under heaven…

.

One summer evening I lay on my back as the light leached from the passing day

And watched the stars slowly flicker into the frame of the darkening sky

At first one here, another there

Then all of a sudden the sky was infinite

Full of fragile tender points of ancient light

Some of which started its journey towards us before there was an ‘us’

And I wonder

Is there someone up there

Raising his tentacles to the night sky

And using one of his brains

To wonder about me?

.

And should this unseen and oddly shaped brother across the huge expanses

Seek contact

What would he make of us?

.

I heard an astronomer speak once about the possibility of life elsewhere

In this beautiful ever expanding universe

He had come to believe that intelligent life will always

Find ever more ingenious ways

To destroy itself

.

And I fear the truth of this

That somewhere in the messy beauty of humanity

We nurture an evil seed –

Grow it in an industrial compost of scientific creativity

Water it with greed and avarice

And hot house it in a mad competition for the first fruits

Lest our neighbours get to market first

And once we work up production

There is no going back

No squeezing back the genie into the oil can

There is only the need for bigger, better

.

And the defending and defeating

And the ranging of rockets

Exploit whoever

Denude wherever

And if anyone should get in the way

Dehumanise

Overcome

Or destroy

Set up barb wire borders

Teach one another

To hate

.

So for the sake of green men

And Scottish men

May we yet stand before the eternal night

And decide that truth and beauty and grace will be our legacy

In this fragile passing place that God gave us

.

May we decide that now is not

The time

To hate

From ‘Listing’.

Football, Faith and Scotland…

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Who was it that said something like ‘Football is not life and death- it is more important than that’?

World cup mania is upon us. All over the world ordinary people are seized by a kind of quasi-religious madness. National flags are being festooned on cars and out of a million bedroom windows.

Apart from Scotland it seems. Here the national tone is driven by the fact that our national team did not qualify for the competition- through perennial inconsistency and an ability to snatch defeat from the brink of victory.

But the other overwhelming feature that dominates Scottish football is sectarianism. It is only possible to worship our team if we hate our main rival. And hate has a full spectrum- from a kind of fixed sneering prejudice right through to outright nasty violence and murder.

At club level, this has become mingled in with religion in an overt way- the Rangers/Celtic Protestant/Catholic stuff, which is a shameful stain on both football and faith.

At national level, this same process can be seen in the vitriol reserved for that old enemy- England. It is an instinctive, self perpetuating and self sustaining reaction- constantly re-enforced by repetition and peer pressure and sanctioned by school teachers, politicians and ministers of religion.

Of course, this is not just a Scottish phenomenon. After all, most great religious movements require the dual polarity of good and evil to drive passion and zeal. However, there is something particular Scottish about its application. It has becomes mixed with a thousand years conflict, of wounds both felt and dealt and of a kind of selective history that nurtures old enmity and perpetuates the possibility of more blood being spilt in the future. Is it possible that football has allowed us to ritualise these divisions in our national make up? Has it become a vehicle for the passing down of prejudice to the next generations?

Does this matter? Well I think it does. I believe that we Christians are called to bring blessing and healing to our communities- to be the embodiment, the  demonstration and the very channels of peace.

Because we believe in the power of forgiveness.

And the call to love our enemies.

To be in this world, but not of it- which means that we are prepared to go against the cultural flow.

And the challenge to confront our own motives and motivations honestly before the God who knows all.

So here is a provocative challenge to those of us in Scotland who ascribe to this way of being. (I hope it does not get me into too much trouble!)

I want to invite you to participate in the spiritual discipline/practice of…

Supporting the English football team during the next world cup.

(If you are English- substitute ‘German’ for the word ‘England’.)

And if you think I am just being provocative and English- know this. I am simply not that much into football. My first allegiance is not to a flag, a country or a democracy, or clan. It is to a King and Kingdom.

Aoradh family day…

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Some Aoradh folk met today for our monthly time to eating a meal and worshipping. 18 of us sat around our garden table- including some of Michaela’s family who are visiting from Nottinghamshire.

As ever it was great. We ate, laughed, the kids played and danced.

And it was Paul’s birthday! Hope it is a good year…

After the meal we spent some time thinking about setting out on new journeys- letting the wind of the Spirit blow- and remembering the old practice of peregrinatio.

To help us visualise this, we made paper boats, wrote prayers on them, and set them sailing on the Clyde. Watching them disappear out on the mighty river was magical. We hope this compensates for the little bit of extra flotsam (or is it jetsom?) that we added to the old river.

We read some poems, and a prayer together. I loved this- borrowed from Mark Berry (here)–

Three loads I carry as I walk,
Three packs I balance on my back.
Each one I meticulously packed,
Each I carefully stowed and strapped down hard.
Not one I felt I could leave behind,
Not one could I do without.
Three weights I feel dig in my shoulder,
Each one present and distinct,
Pulling me in different directions,
Making my way harder than it seems,
Causing me to miss my step and trip,
Yet often they feel as one,
So tightly are they bound together,
So long have I carried them.
At times they feel alien jabbing and ripping me,
At times they are part of me.
They are things of great value to me,
Things that make me who I know I am,
Things that give me place and time,
Things that though at time they give me pain,
Are me.

One great sack carries all I hold of worth,
All that I think I love,
All that I hope never to lose.
How could it be possible to leave this bag?
I could no more cut off my arm or leg!
This I bind closest to me,
I wear it next to my back,
This load gives me stability,
It sures me when I feel feeble.
It is my frame, yet still it is heavy.

One carries all my certainty,
That which I have no doubt is ordained.
In each part a word or thought,
A prayer or poem which gives me purpose,
It is what keeps me on.
It holds my map, my itinerary.
How could I abandon all this,
For whom should I walk,
Which way should I go,
How would I know, how could I be sure?

One load binds all three,
It wraps around the other two,
At times holding them,
At times pushing them sharply into my skin.
My fears I carry in this last bag,
My fear of losing the others,
My fear of walking alone,
My fear of being lost.
My fear of being pointless,
Of going nowhere, of being no-one.

But,
All this speaks of me; my loves, my faith, my fears.
My scale of what is valuable,
My sense of what is good and right,
My insecurity.
I am content in each step and yet I count each mile,
I want to pass, to savour each view,
To go the places I could not plan to visit,
I want in each to leave something of me, something good behind.
Somehow, I don’t know how,
I know I must risk leaving parts of me by the road.
I must give up my load,
Lay down my pack.
Not in wild abandon,
But in faithful surrender.