We are off down to Cheltenham for Greenbelt Festival. Hope to see you there!
If you go- come to our worship event- New Forms Cafe, 7pm on Friday.
Or you might like to check out the Proost ‘Silent Pilgrimmage’- poetry by Harry, Podraig and myself. Pick up headphones at the Greenbelt Angels desk.
But do say hello, perhaps we can share a pint of Redemption ale.
I listened to this on the way home from Lochgilphead today- wonderful, powerful emotional stuff.
The Killing of Sophie Lancaster is an elegy to the young gap-year student who was attacked in Stubbeylee Park, Bacup, Lancashire. She later died on August 24th 2007. This is an elegy to mark the anniversary of her death, four years later. Aged twenty, Sophie suffered fatal injuries while cradling her boyfriend Rob’s head in an attempt to protect him from a ferocious attack by a group of youths. Rob survived but Sophie went into a coma and never recovered.
The story is told by her mother, and poetry written in ‘Sophie’s voice’ by Simon Armitage.
Poetry enough to make me stop the car to wipe away the tears…
A story of a vibrant young life wasted- because of the way she looked. Listen to it on the i player!
I didn’t do sport.
I didn’t do meat.
Don’t ask me to wear that dress:
I shan’t.
Why ask me to toe the line,
I can’t.
I was slight or small
but never petite,
and nobody’s fool;
no Barbie doll;
no girlie girl.
I was lean and sharp,
not an ounce of fat
on my thoughts or my limbs.
In my difficult teens
I was strange, I was odd,
– aren’t we all –
there was something different down at the core.
Boy bands and pop tarts left me cold,
let’s say
that I marched to the beat
of a different drum,
sang another tune,
wandered at will
through the market stalls
humming protest songs.I wore studded dog leads
around my wrist,
and was pleased as punch
in the pit, at the gig,
to be singled out
by a shooting star
of saliva from Marilyn Manson’s lips.But for all that stuff
in many ways an old fashioned soul,
quite at home
in my own front room,
on my own settee.
I read, I wrote,
I painted, I drew.
Where it came from
no one knows
but it flowed. It flowed.
Courtesy of minimergent-
In one sense we are always traveling, and traveling as if we did not know where we were going. In another sense we have already arrived. We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are traveling and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore, in that sense, we have arrived and are dwelling in the light. But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!
Thomas Merton
The Seven Storey Mountain
Today we played cricket against Mid Argyll Cricket club.
What a ground! In the shadow of the ancient hill fort of Dunnad in Kilmartin Glen. There is something about played such a quintessentially English game (a discussion point- I know!) so close to the ancient seat of power of the Scots.
For the record- we lost. Badly. But it was a great day.
Meanwhile Emily and Michaela were at Toward Sailing Club fun day. Sailing races, food, swimming and being towed behind a speedboat on an inflatable. Emily that is, not Michaela.
Been doing more Greenbelt thinking- it is only a few days away after all! If you are going to the festival, Aoradh’s worship slot in the Worship Collective (Used to be called New Forms Cafe) is first up- 7.00pm on Friday.
The GB theme this year is ‘dreams of home’, and we have used this to consider something of the contrast between our house-obsessed culture, and the deeper things of home that we long for- resulting for most of us in a kind of yearning, that might be called ‘homesickness’.
For many Christians, this impulse seems to have resulted in a deliberate focus on ‘heaven’- as in some place that we go to when we die. In doing this, the danger is that we enter into that old dual thinking trap- we split into sacred/profane, temporary/eternal. What seems to have happened at times is that our religion became an escape pod from this doomed planet.
This is not the way of Jesus.
How might our homes reflect this then?
I turn once more to the Jesus manifesto from Matthew chapter 5…
Beatitudes for houses
Blessed is the house of the poor in spirit (for this home belongs to theKingdomofHeaven.)
Blessed is the house of those who mourn (for their homes will be places of comfort.)
Blessed is the house of the meek (For their house is bigger than the whole earth.)
Blessed is the house of those who long for righteousness (for their homes will be pregnant with grace.)
Blessed are houses full of mercy (for love will rest in them.)
Blessed are the house of the pure in heart (for God will be ever present.)
Blessed are the houses of the peacemakers (The sons and daughters of the Living God.)
Blessed are the houses that are broken because of Jesus. (The Kingdom of heaven is no earthly insurance policy.)
Came across this today- lovely!
Part of our worship event @ Greenbelt festival-
There was a concern in the land
In every town the roads were lined with beggars
There were homeless orphans and widows cast out onto the streets
The lunatics were stoned by children
And melancholics drowned their sorrows with gin
The mess of it all was in the middle of us
The Jesus in the least of these
Was weeping
He had no home amongst us
So the good people gathered
“What is needed” they said “Is asylum.”
A safe home where broken people can live out their lives in care-
Protected from all of the mess of life
Fed and warm and watered.
So money was gathered
Stones were shaped and raised
Staff were retained and clothed in crisp starched clothing
And the heavy doors were opened wide in welcome
And so they came- the halt, the sick, the lame
The motherless and the pregnant child
All those broken by worry and grief
The shakers and the mutterers
All the awkward squad
The outsiders now came inside
They were home at last
It went well for a while
All was orderly and planned
Starved frames filled out
Songs were sung again in the entertainment hall
Gardens were laid and tended
Sheets danced in the evening sunlight
And a bell rang out to warn of the dowsing of night candles
But time passed, and shadows fell
Budgets were tight, and the paint peeled on windows
The good folk who had once been so generous had other calls on their coin
A few still visited on feast days but for the most part
Out of sight became out of mind.
And there was trouble
The awkward squad was still awkward
The asylum split into‘us’ and ‘them’
‘We’ had roles- uniforms and clipboards, rotas and registers
Big bunches of keys danced at our belts
We had dreams- of advancement, romance and families
We had homes away from this home
‘They’ stood the other side of our desks
Dirty and lacking in motivation
Ungrateful and manipulative
Un co-operative with our assessments
Lacking insight into the nature of their dysfunction.
They had ceased to be like us
Rather, they lived out regulated half-lives
They ceased to be flesh
And became instead a collection of paper
In manila folders
Despite all the material provision- something was missing
Despite all the person centred plans, the person was not at the centre
Despite the close press of humanity, there was no family
Despite all the risk assessments, there was no adventure
Despite all the planned activity, there is no purpose
Despite the safety of the high walls, I am still destroyed
So it was that care became captivity
Individuals became invisible
And home became hollow
And toxic
And Jesus in the least of these
Was weeping
We had a lovely gift through the post today- a collection of lino prints entitled ‘British People in Hot Weather’ by artist, illustrator and all round good bloke Si Smith.
If you like the look of these- check out Si’s Etsy store. I really like his bus prints too- capturing something beautiful in the ordinary.
Up here in Scotland, the school holidays are over.
Emily starts her ‘highers’, and William is now in his last year of primary school. Emily is a prefect this year- complete with blazer of office-
I often hear parents longing for the end of school holidays- not me. I love the gentle pace of the long summer days- which like our children’s childhood, still pass by so quickly.
Summer is now on its last legs- staggering onwards to autumn. It has been lovely though…
this fragile tent 