Greenbelt beckons…

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Aoradh spent tonight planning for some events we have up and coming- including our worship slot at Greenbelt Festival.

Greenbelt suddenly seems close, and we are still really at the ‘playing around with ideas’ stage. However, this is usually my favourite part of any project- the bit where you get to create things out of next to nothing- and how one idea sparks another, then another. The theme this year is ‘Dreams of home’- we are playing with some themes around the Feast of Tabernacles.

I am also doing some poetry with Proost– recorded and available on headsets around the site. I have not written that yet either! To be honest, I am a little worried about this- my poems tend to be so introspective and private- and these poems have to sit alongside those of two really great performance poets- European poetry slam champion Harry Baker and the equally brilliant Padraig O Tuama.

Oh dear- I can’t do that. Or that. I suppose that as ever, I need to stop worrying about what others do, and just trust that what I am/have is enough. I can do that. I think. Perhaps I will write a poem about it.

Anyway- there is lots of good stuff at GB this year- some music I really like- A Show of Hands, Kate Rusby,  as well as headline speakers Rob Bell and Brian McLaren.

If you are going this year, and you read this blog- drop me a line, perhaps we can share a beer/coffee.

Otherwise, Aoradh’s worship slot is on Friday night this year- 7pm I think…

 

 

Awkward…

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When I was a child I saw as a child

Walking scary streets

Avoiding the pavement cracks

Hoping for a God-who-saves

To save me

.

I watched normality, envious

Each window framed  a mysterious montage

Full of the glorious ordinariness of the other

Performing their small evening rituals

Needing no secrets

.

And me, an alien observer

Hidden in the static noise

At the edge of the radar screen

Tentacles twitching

.

It is the gift of the outsider

To see inwards

To linger in doorways

And enter reluctantly

Welcome but wary

Never quite learning how to belong

Andy’s images…

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My old friend Andy Prosser has a new venture going at present- marketing photographs and images for commercial use.

If you are looking for photographs, or textured backgrounds, check out his account here– good value, high quality stuff. Some of them taken during a recent wilderness retreat.

Andy does youth and community work with Fusion and this is one of the things that will support some of the great things they do- so give it a try!

New website for Sgath an Tighe…

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I have spent much of this weekend working on our new website for all things Sgath an Tighe. I hinted at a possible change of direction for the family recently- well here it is made real in cyber space!

Eventually this will be a portal for a number of different things happening in or around out house-

  • Self catering accommodation (already available)
  • B and B accommodation (still a work in progress)
  • Craft workshops (Blue Sky programme is on the website)
  • Crafts- woodworking, pottery, all sorts of other things
  • Retreats- both in the house and wilderness retreats
  • Photography
  • Writing
  • Information about our lovely area
The website is still under development, but there is a lot there already. I have used a wordpress platform, which has not been without the odd frustration, but is mostly OK, even to a relative novice like me.
Call by and let me know what you think!

Peace to you…

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She was back this morning- with both of the kids.

I know they are eating my plants (although, as you can see, the grass is overdue for cutting) but they are such beautiful creatures.

I am reminded of one of Justin’s lovely poems- circulated as part of our Aoradh daily meditations-

Peace to you. Peace with you.

You that sleep without resting

Wake without rising, Peace to you.

.

Peace with you.

You that have grown distant

From the sparrow, Peace to you.

.

Peace with you.

You that wait in some deep

Valley and know it not yet

.

As the beginning of a mountain.

May you be wholly and holy

Peaceful and makers thereof.

.

And while we are on the subject of peace- here is a picture of Michaela and our youngest guest- little Laurie whose parents are staying in the Annexe at the moment.


Visitors…

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Some deer visited our house this morning. They are always here or hereabouts, but this time it was a hind and her fawn. I happened to be armed with a camera, albeit with the wrong lens, so here are a few blurry, over cropped images…

Also today, our first holiday guests arrived to use the annexe.

I said I would post some photos of the annex when it was finished. My last task was to mend a switch on the cooker- and the part arrived just in time. For now, it is ready!

Once again- if you are looking for some very reasonably priced accommodation (£250 a week) over the summer, on the banks of the Clyde, and in the middle of stunning scenery- then drop us a line. So far we have three weeks booked, so plenty of availability as we speak. (We are working on a website, but for now, it is just word-of-mouth really- apart from this blog.)

As another taster- check out this website– extolling the delights of the coastline across the other side of our lovely little peninsular.

Cowal is an unspoiled, undeveloped, scenic gem. Don’t take my word for it- come and see!

Here are the photos-

A story about falling from a great height…

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There is power in the story.

Jesus spoke into the Rabbinical tradition of teaching through the telling of challenging and difficult stories.

I heard an old Jewish story the other day that goes something like this…

A Rabbi stood with his son at the bottom of a set of high wooden stairs. Lifting him on to the first stair, the Rabbi urged his son to jump. It was not very high, and the boy trusted his father, so he jumped into his open arms.

Next the Rabbi placed his son on the second step. This was a little more scary, but still the boy trusted- so he jumped again- and landed safely in his father’s embrace.

And so it went on- each time climbing another step, then the jump, and the catch. “Well done my son” said the Rabbi.

Eventually, the son stood at a dizzying height, peering down at his father in trepidation. “Jump son, Jump” said the man. So, with shaking knees, he took to the air.

And his father watched the leap, and stood back.

The boy clawed himself to his feet, bleeding and crying.

“There, my son” said the Rabbi “That will teach you.”

What on earth is that all about then?

Something about the uncertainties of life, and the inevitability of suffering.

The failure of all authority figures, sooner or later.

And- most disturbingly of all- the unpredictability of God. The apparent injustice of God.

Or perhaps the deeper, mystery of God. God beyond the temporal. God the uncertain.

No tame God whose role is to grant our lifestyle wishes.

A God who calls us to leap- with no promise of featherbed landings.

But leap we must- sooner or later.

Happy birthday William!

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William is 11 today!

We have just done the party. All the mess is cleaned away. Peace descends- apart from Emily playing some dreadful dancing game on Wii in the next room. After a long day (much of it  in a small room with the suits trying to decide what services to cut) I am ready for some peace.

But Will had a great time so it is all good. This year he had a ‘Detective Party’ with fancy dress and games like ‘pin the magnifying glass on the detective’.

And as ever- when kids are happy, parents have a special feeling somewhere deep inside. I think it is related to love.

Is there hope for Evangelicalism yet?

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Vodpod videos no longer available.

10-15 years ago, when I was attending a fairly large Evangelical Church near Preston- more or less everything this church seems to stand for, I would have celebrated enthusiastically. I loved the Church I attended, and the wonderful people it contained (I still do) although I felt considerable frustration about how isolated we were from engagement with real need in our communities.

Although to be honest, I spent most of my time behind an instrument of one sort or another, so my rhetoric did not necessarily match my actions.

As time went on, these frustrations grew- it was ever more obvious to me how Church can suck you in then suck you dry, and how activists within church spend all their time serving the machinery of the church, with little room left for anything else.

These days, I suspect that there would be a lot about Frontline Church in Liverpool that  I would struggle with- in terms of theology, world view and underlying culture. Not to mention the politics.

But I am grateful that there are places like this still.

Grace factories.

And although grace can not really be manufactured, where people are motivated by their faith towards acts of love- then we should rejoice…

As John Harris puts it in the Guardian-

The next day I meet a former sex worker, now apparently off drugs, set on somehow starting college and a regular Frontline worshipper. “I was a prostitute and a drug addict for 11, 12 years – maybe more,” she tells me. “God is so forgiving – he wants me to win.” Wider society, she says, is “too judgmental … it’s: ‘That’s a prostitute, that’s a drug addict.’ They don’t want to know.” And how has the church helped her? “Oh, it saved my life,” she shoots back. “I would be dead if it wasn’t for this church.”

A question soon pops into my head. How does a militant secularist weigh up the choice between a cleaned-up believer and an ungodly crack adict?