I like them because they each capture something of a common journey that many of us have found ourselves on- and because they can be as simple or deep as you want to make them.
And there is the old adage about pictures speaking a thousand words- although I do love words…
(By the way- one word used here is EIKON- which is a lovely word, defined here as- ‘Eikon is the Greek for icon and refers to the visible manifestation of the invisible’
I suppose your reaction to them will depend on that usual combination of personality/thinking style/theological position…
I have posted some stuff before on our embryonic Emerging Scotland network (or whatever it comes to be called!) here.
Today I circulated a document as follows- if you want to know more, get in touch!
Emerging Scotland Network… getting things started.
What?
It is clear in my mind that the proposal is for a facilitated network, which imposes few restrictions or obligations on members. We need to decide pretty early on what we would seek to embrace and include. My preference is for a very ‘generous orthodoxy’- and again, this seems to fit in with those who returned the questions.
The object is to support and sustain one another, share ideas, resources and find companionship and encouragement, and there may be grounds for formal/informal mentoring or partnership arrangements.
People may be part of existing church situations in which they are seeking new ways of being or doing, or they might be planting something new- or perhaps just dreaming of doing…
How?
By a variety of means: websites, blogs, on-line networking, but also face to face meetings, retreats, information sharing events etc.
We are clear that the development of a website is a priority, but only to facilitate real human contact! Stewart has a possible way of making this happen- but might appreciate input from anyone who has skills/interest.
Sharing ideas/ skills/ resources – labyrinths, prayer rooms, musicians, poets, and people who know how to support and empower through prayer. Not to forget preachers and evangelists etc etc!
What next?
This is up to you!
Below is a list of dates. Michaela and I will facilitate the first couple to get us started, and then others can take their turn. Please give consideration to whether you could host such an event or meeting!
These meetings will have an open invitation, but for practical purposes, we will need to know numbers in advance…
What will we do at the meetings?
This too is up to you! I suppose it could be a shared coffee, or something more developed?
But I would suggest a combination of the things below-
ØBusiness stuff- organisation of the network, ‘leadership’, accountability etc
ØCreative prayer and worship
ØA focus on key themes, for example- kids in the new context, the Bible, sectarianism, poverty, worship, rural/remote issues etc
ØSpecific local stuff relevant to the host area.
It might be that if you have an event or activity that coincides with one of these meetings (or we could make fit) then this is an opportunity for people to lend a practical form of support to one another.
So – dates… please put these dates in your diary, and we will try to fill them all… IF PEOPLE WANT TO SUGGEST OTHER DATES, let me know!
Date
Where
What
Facilitators
24th January, 2009
Starbucks,
Borders Bookshop
Glasgow Fort shopping centre
Just off the M8
Glasgow
Meet and share session
A chance to check out the thing a bit closer- and find out more.
Sort out some business issues- fill some dates, and allocate some tasks,
Chris and Michaela Goan
01369 707009
chris@goan.fsnet.co.uk
28th-29th March, 2009
Chris and Michaela’s house
179 Marine Parade
DUNOON
WEEKEND RETREAT/OPEN HOUSE.
A chance to spend some more in-depth time with people, and God. Come for the day, or for the weekend (we have room for quite a few, but obviously first come, first served!)
Kids are welcome, but we need to plan things around them- so let us know!
No cost- but you might need to bring some food along to throw into the communal pot.
This might include- quiet room, walks along the shore, worship sessions, specific group discussion times, sharing meals and sitting round log fires…
I have blogged before about my own Charismatic background- here for example… So the title of this book grabbed me.
I have found myself wanting to re-examine much of my own Charismatic experience again- something I have avoided doing in any detail until recently. I suppose these experiences are full of all sorts of mixed feelings and emotions. They left me with such mixed baggage.
For me, the it began with a yearning for God in my formative years, that met the electric possibility of a God who was present and active and empowering through the Holy Spirit.
But there was always the hope for more, amid the hype and exaggeration, and the plain madness of some people and situations I found myself in. I was often an outsider- not able to experience fully what others were blown away by. And feeling attracted and repelled in equal measure.
As a worship leader, I could always hide behind a guitar… it was possible to be there, and to be seen to participate, but to only have the shape of participation, not the fullness of it.
As a young man- I thought I was alone in my doubts. I thought I lacked faith, and my sin was insulating me from God like a rubber blanket on a live cable.
There were also many times though when I caught glimpses of God. When I was as sure as I can be that he was there amongst us. There are many things that happened that I can not easily explain in any other way.
Here’s a quote from the book that captured some of my own experience;
They are tired of hearing the stories of the good old days, jaded from hearing too many prophecies about the great move of God that seems to be just around the corner, fed up with exaggerated or even fabricated stories of healings and miracles, and disillusioned with a view of spiritual formation that is lived through a weekly crisis moment at the front of the church…
Pg 17.
That is not to say that I want to reject or deny the work of the Spirit. May the Spirit have free reign to do with me as he will.
But I hope that it is possible to find my way to him, and his to me without all the baggage that has become so unhelpful to me.
And from my reading of this book so far- it seems that I am not alone.
If you have seen any of Loach’s other films, you will know roughly what to expect- beautifully filmed characterisations in intimate detail- with improvised scripts and wonderful acting. This film was no exception. Loach has this way of making you squirm uncomfortably, whilst you laugh indulgently, and in fully sympathy with the characters in all their very human flaws and failings. His films can be bleak, but somehow also kind, and life afirming.
This one follows the life of the main character- the wonderful Poppy, a teacher, whose niceness almost verges on the psychotic. But you come to love her even as you wince at her dizziness.
I heard Loach being interviewed about this film on release, along with a wider discussion about the nature of happiness, both as an individual, and in the collective. This is the source material for this film…
According to Professor Diener the evidence suggests that happy people live longer than depressed people.”In one study, the difference was nine years between the happiest group and the unhappiest group, so that’s a huge effect. Cigarette smoking can knock a few years off your life, three years, if you really smoke a lot, six years.So nine years for happiness is a huge effect.”
Happiness seems to have almost magical properties. We have not got proof, but the science suggests it leads to long life, health, resilience and good performance.
Scientists work by comparing people’s reported happiness and a host of other factors such as age, sex, marital status, religion, health, income, unemployment and so on.
In survey after survey involving huge groups of people, significant correlations between happiness and some other factors are repeated. At the moment scientists cannot prove causation, whether for example people are healthy because they are happy, or whether people are happy because they are healthy. However, psychologists have been able to identify some very strong links.
Standard of living has increased dramatically and happiness has increased not at all Professor Daniel Kahneman, University of Princeton.
There seems to be a strange truth in this research- if you are happy, if you set your life towards good and positive things- if you seek the good in people around you, and look to bring it out- if you spend time with your friends and love well- if you refuse to give up hope for the world around you, and choose to emphasise the good news rather than the bad.
These things will transform life. Even extend it.
This is not the same thing as living under the positive police, and is certainly no promise that you will not be hurt along the way.
So, lets all be Poppys. If not Polyannas.
It seems to me to have something of the Kingdom of God about it…
I had a good evening last night with our friends Nick and Lindsay- Nick fresh from travels to the USA. he had been to a conference for outdoor education/leadership types, and seems to have had a ball.
We have a project underway looking to create opportunities for meditation and reflection in the outdoors- using elements of the spaces we find ourselves in to bring deliberate attention to God, and to our journey with him. Some of this will hopefully become a book, if we ever get our acts together to get it finished.
People of all faiths seem to recognise pilgrimage as an essential spiritual practice. In researching WHY this should be the case, there seems to be very little complex theological reasoning involved. Pilgrimage, it seems, can not be easily deconstructed into theological structures- rather, it has to be walked, and experienced.
Pilgrimage appears to have meaning only in the life of those who walk it. It may have shaped whole counties and cultures, but it has not easy yardstick.
Some walk to escape, others walk towards.
Some walk in companionship, others alone.
Some always have an eye on a destination, others live for a far horizon.
For all- there is the outward symbolism of an inner journey. A decision to walk towards God…
We are all of us, sojourners. A long way from home.
What’s so important is the attitude of the pilgrim. And the attitude of pilgrimage is one of openness, one of allowing the unexpected and the surprise to be present with you, and to not be caught up in what your plans were, or the way things should be going, but rather what’s happening, and what the experience is giving you. I think the sense of coming to a pilgrimage site, it’s so awesome that you can’t but feel complete, or you can’t but feel invited in and a part of the millions and millions of people down through the ages, who have made a sacred track.
Freecycle is a UK based network though which you can give stuff away.
It is that simple!
We all have stuff lying around the house that we no longer need or use- cameras, books, bikes, toys etc. A lot of it is destined to end up at the tip. Freecycle enables you to offer it out ot other local people who might be able to use it. If you need something specific, you can put this up as a request.
Over the past few weeks and months we have used it a lot.
We have given away a paddling pool, an old tumble drier and some other odds and ends
We have inherited an old Bell and Howell slide projector to use for worship instalations.
Friends have given away old kitchen units, computers rugs- you name it.
I heard about the tragic story of this young rugby player today (more from the BBC here)
Daniel James, talented rugby player, tipped for great things. Until in March 2007 he suffers a compressed fracture of the spine as a scrum collapsed, and the resultant damage left him a paraplegic and in considerable pain.
And 18 months later, after two previous failed suicide attempts, he traveled to a swiss clinic who were prepared to assist him in his wish to die.
His parents described their experience in an e-mail in this way (as reported by the BBC)
“We returned from Switzerland on the 12 September after accompanying our… son who had been left tetraplegic after a rugby accident,” she wrote.
“Dan found his life so unbearable and had tried to commit suicide three times, other than to starve himself to travel to Switzerland was his only option.
“Whilst we were away some ‘well meaning’ person involved with social services took it upon herself to call the police.
“This person had never met Dan before or after his accident and obviously gave no consideration for our younger daughters who had seen their big brother suffer so much, and the day before had to say goodbye to him.
“I hope that one day I will get the chance to speak to this lady and ask if she had a son, daughter, father, mother, who could not walk, had no hand function, was incontinent, and relied upon 24-hour care for every basic need and they had asked her for support, what would she have done?!
“Our son could not have been more loved and had he felt he could live his life this way he would have been loved just the same but this was his right as a human being, nobody but nobody should judge him or anyone else.”
It is a terrible thing to lose someone you love. We can only begin to guess what this family have gone through. Nor what we might do in their situation faced with such pain and suffering.
But this seems to me to be such a terrible waste. A young man full of talent and aspiration looses everything that he thought life was about. And in the middle of all the searing pain and loss, he finds no hope. He sees no possibility of a future that has any meaning.
His family have been with him every step of the way, but 18 months is a short time for you and me in the stride of our life, but a long long time if every minute is full of misery and agony.
So they eventually accede to his wishes, and take him to one of the few places in the world where assisted suicide is permissible, administered in a modern clinic surrounded by his family.
A peaceful medicinal and narcotic end to what is known, and a passage to whatever is to come…
To lose hope is to lose life itself.
Could this young man have found his way back to life given another 18 months/weeks/days/hours?
No-one will ever know for sure. His actions can not be undone. His parents can not afford to ever think like this, or no doubt it will destroy them.
May they find their own hope.
But what of us, facing our own uncertain future? We have a friend who is a supporter of dignity in dying. She is towards the end of a full life, and lost her husband a couple of years ago. She is an atheist, and sees no point in prolonging life beyond the ability to fend fully for oneself.
These are such difficult issues. As with many deeply human ethical questions, what may seem black and white is shadowed with large areas of grey.
The giving and taking of life is God’s business.
But the sustaining and defining of life- this increasingly is a scientific phenomenon- at least for those who can afford it.
I think our response can only be to be those who accompany, and illuminate beauty and grace particularly those who need it most.
May we be bringers of hope to the hopeless
And singers of songs of freedom to those who are captive
My closest friends know that I have this secret addiction. Some would describe it as an affliction.
It is called… cricket.
If all sport is distraction then it seems to me that cricket is one of the best ways to waste time. Today, for instance, is Saturday. The weather has closed in outside and the rain is rattling against the windows. We have an empty house after a week full of family and hard work re-plumbing. The house is warm and the kids happy.
And India are playing Australia in the heat of the Punjab- brought to me by the power of TV here in autumnal Scotland. India are in the ascendancy after a drawn first test match. The Genius Sachin Tendulkar has broken the record by compiling the most runs scored by a batsman in a career, and two spin bowlers are twirling away in the kind of attritional subtle cricket that Indians excel at.
Some of you will not have a clue what I am talking about. Others will already be curling a sardonic smile at my stupidity for suggesting that cricket is worth watching. It is like watching paint dry you say. Here in Scotland, despite the fact that cricket is still played, most people love to have a go at the game. Perhaps this is because cricket is seen as an English game- conjuring up images of imperialism and empire.
This makes little sense- as the powerhouse of cricket has shifted permanently east- where it is the obsession of millions of Pakistani’s and Indians. English teams have become famous for getting well beaten all around the world.
In Scotland, cricket was the most popular sport with working people until around 1900, when that other English invention- football- began to take over. Celtic bought the site of their football stadium from a cricket club.
Well, I thought I would indulge in a little cricket apologetics… For the sake of the argument, I will limit the discussion to international cricket.
Cricket is boring. Some of the games last for 5 DAYS for heaven’s sake!
Test matches do indeed last 5 days. Most purists think this is the ultimate test of skill, captaincy, stamina and strategy. These matches are full of individual one-on-one battles of wit and talent, and the whole thing ebbs and flows with high drama and tension. It is a team game, played out by individuals. Strategy is everything, and the captain’s role is crucial.
Like all things- this will indeed be boring if you do not understand what you are watching- and test matches are not for everyone. Numbers attending have been falling around the world- apart from India, and surprisingly, England, where matches are sold out routinely.
But there are also one day matches- where each team has one innings of 50 overs (each over is 6 balls). whole different set of skills and talents need to be honed.
The current craze is for 20/20 cricket though- each side facing only 20 overs. This is frenetic, crash bang whallop stuff, often played under lights in the evening. Not for the purists, but great fun and seems to be a marketing phenomenon.
It is not a sport- people walk about in white clothes in the sunshine. You can be fat and still play cricket. It is a soft game played by wimps.
Anyone who has ever tried to bowl fast, or face a ball bowled by someone who knows what they are doing and is out to hurt you, will suggest that cricket can be a serious business. At the highest level it demands great fitness, huge concentration, and above all things, strength of character.
It was the West Indian bowlers of the 70’s and 80’s whose tall fast bowlers terrified and humbled cricketers around the world. The bouncer, aimed at up into the ribs of the batsman, or whistling into the odd nose, became stock in trade. Most batsman since these days, despite helmets, padding and glove, walk from the field covered in bruises. This summer a wicked bouncer from James Anderson knocked the teeth from an unfortunate New Zealand batsman. And we were all impressed.
See if you think you could face this kind of pressure. Here is England’s talisman in full flow
Cricket is all about snobbery and English stiff upper lip affectation. It lacks passion and real emotion.
Nonsense.
Cricket is played all over the world (unlike the American baseball so-called ‘world series’) and different nations bring their own characteristics to the the game. So the West Indians bring a calypso cavalier brilliance, the Australians bring ruthless professional gritty determination to win, the New Zealanders somehow maximise the mixed bag of limited talent through working as a close team, and the English- well expectations are usually exceeded by achievements.
Then there is the fine art of sledging- the practice of teasing, humiliating and abusing the batsman. The Australians became past masters at this- a ring of foul mouthed close fielders for whom nothing was off limits. It was criticised around the world- particularly by the ‘whinging poms’ as the English were termed by the Australian media. And damn it- the Aussies kept winning!
But sledging is here to stay- here is another bit of Flintoff. The famous ‘mind the windows Tino’ episode. You decide whether English cricket is soft and gentlemanly!
Cricket is a waste of time.
I could go on about the old imperial stereotypes of preparation for life by the building of character- but of course, cricket is indeed a waste of time.
But there are so many others. I reckon this is better than most.
this fragile tent 