Quartz at St Johns Dumfries
Those who like Forest Church may like this :
https://www.crichton.co.uk/event/sing-for-the-trees/
If you go, please comment here on what it is like?
What could we learn from the experience? Where do you recognise the Holy Spirit at work?
And don’t forget the value of a smile, or the worth in experiencing the was a particular ray if light illuminates the green in ways that words fail you to describe.
As often happens, an idea for a Christmas installation came from a magazine picture and a chat over coffee.
The idea is to use ‘light’ as a theme this Christmas. Of course, a beam of light is invisible. Light helps us see things, so in order to see light we put things where they will catch and reflect it.
We could use the old chandelier hooks our canopies have been suspended from, or we could concentrate on one big statement piece above the nave alter.
Whatever our final collaberative piece looks like, perhaps over the summer while the sun is high and warm, we can ‘collect’ it’s rays. Don’t forget the beauty of the moon as well!
Experiments inspired from things like the glint on rippling water, or fresh green leaves soaking up sunlight, can be combined into pendant chandeliers or lanterns. Then when the nights are longest in winter, we can look at the artwork and remember the joy and warmth of summer.
This Sunday, the 22nd of May, we will be ‘refurbishing’ some fig trees.
Not actual trees, they have their own built in regenerative processes. These are trees that were made for the All Age/informal service back when it used to meet in the hall. They were used to create a ‘grove’ meditative space on good friday as well.
Now they are being refurbished to help create a forest labyrinth for “Bearfest”. As part of the Quartz contribution, we will be bringing a taster of what we do outdoors into the St Johns building. Visitors will be guided to encounter the wild – where bears still live – and reflect on their relationship with it.
All materials and instructions will be provided. This is a meditative activity, thinking about all the good things trees give us.
For contemplative inspiration you could read “The king of the trees”
To understand the extract in context as a warning to those who choose less than adequate leaders without thinking through the consequences read the whole story in Judges!
This is a bit overdue! Here is a wee film to reflect on from our Easter Sunday Gathering.
Several aspects of the new Wordsmith Crafts C.I.C. overlapped this Easter Sunday.
Quartz was the lead project (#SensingSpirituality). We have been meeting as Forest Church for over a year now.
Cluaran (living breathing heritage) skills were used to tell the story of Jesus meeting his disciples on the beach and eating some fish with them, after he had risen from the dead. There was something special about informally gathering where the water meets the earth, smelling the fire, eating the food together, and retelling the old stories.
The Studio (Heritage crafts) held all the equipment and skills we needed to make it happen. Look out for more interesting things this year – although we need a dedicated film crew to catch all the action!
I has been a pleasure getting to know artist Andy Brooke (portfolio here) since his families recent relocation to Scotland.
He walked into the orbit of Quartz during lockdown. So, despite living in Dumfries, and the odd meeting with other artists professionally through the Stove Network, his first contacts with Quartz were online followed up with sporadic chats over coffee following as the precautions taken to protect the vulnerable in our communities varied. Interesting times!
Andy has been facing the challenges of working on one of the physically largest commissions he has undertaken so far. He did this during Covid, after moving house, and whilst living across the border from the country it has been be installed in. For it he has translated a design by painter James Dodds into stained glass, and this has recently been installed so you can see the light rippling through the image to wash against the walls of the hall – perhaps we will find a video for a follow up post!
“Dove and Blue Boat” is an updated and very topical version of an ark – a sanctuary in troubled times – with the biblical dove bearing an olive branch of peace from out of the sun. James says he like to think the window depicting a small vernacular blue boat and dove represents love, community, hope and salvation, from the hardship and anxieties of climate change, pandemic and war.
“Former boatbuilder James Dodds’ paintings of traditional boats evoke a deep human need for safety in troubled times”,
says Belinda Bamber in her article in Perspective magazine “Love is a Boat”
The boat is a type that would have been built locally, a type that James helped build when he was an apprentice boatbuilder. The boat has come to signify many things to him. He says “the boat is a vessel that carries my artistic ideas. For the refugee a boat can represent a way to be carried to safety. For a religious person a boat can represent a place of worship and salvation.”
The Holy Spirit is often represented as a dove. In the famous paintings by Piero della Francesca and Leonardo Da Vinci of the Baptism of Christ the dove flies straight down from the heavens. The dove is also a symbol of peace, with its olive branch it offers Noah hope when adrift in the great flood. The Ark is a sanctuary in the turbulent seas. The boat is an ancient symbol for the Church and still resonates. The word Nave comes from the Latin “Navis” for ship, and is still the word used in some churches for the central portion of the building they meet in.
For my part, it was a privilege to work on a window designed by an artist I admire, for a contemporary church building. The building itself is a dynamic addition to the traditional Victorian church it abuts.
Making the window was a kind of spiritual journey itself – with the highs and lows experienced by us all as we go through this earthly life!
Andy Brooke
Keep your eyes open for more work by Andy, and keep up with his current work in Lincluden by following his blog here. (visit his website to read more and about the making of the window here)
It’s been a busy start to May.
There was a full weekend at Allanton. We were working with Cluaran and many others using heritage crafts, storytelling, and the experience of fire to help people find peace. On the Sunday we prayed for peace worldwide, and joined with people worldwide via the internet.
There was a lot of packing, unpacking, and sorting too, of course.
Today I’ve been working on some “Calling Cards” for the St Johns contemporary service. We will be thinking about vocation. This has a specific meaning in the church setting, but is also an experience that shapes human being in general.
The Quartz Christian Life Community will meet again on Monday evening. So if you found the Lent group helpful this is a chance to continue the habit of meeting together. Everyone is welcome!
Keep an eye out for forest church, the teddy bear festival, and other developments as the summer opens up before us.
If you are truly searching for reality, do you need to tear down the structures that frame reality?
To find the house of God does the curtain need to rip, and the temple be destroyed, so that it can be rebuilt three days later?
Strong language, but perhaps art can provide the means to to this in non violent, consensual, ways.
We don’t expect a tree to look like the seed it grows from. If we can free our minds from expectations laid upon us, then perhaps we will be better able to recognise God at work. The task then becomes one of recognising God at work and joining in with the growth, rather than planning and imposing a predetermined form.
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/features/find-your-surreal
Post picture, wiki commons. Here
As the culmination of our Lent journey we invite you to join us to cook fish by the water, and meet the risen Christ.
This is the start of a journey as well as the end of one. We have chosen this place to meet partly because of the connection some of the group have with Lincluden Abbey, and also out of sensitivity to the preservation of information buried in the soil. This means that we are meeting on the other side of the river where our fire will not disturb the scheduled monument.
To what extent did the disciples know what to expect when they left those times they met Jesus on a beach and ate fish with him? They would have many memories to fall back one – several of which involved eating bread and fish! But also the filling of their hunger for #SensingSpirituality . They had seen the dead raised back to life, blind people able to see, and also the quickening of downtrodden women and slaves in ways which humbled the authorities (and scared them) .
They had walked through towns and villages doing these things. Feeling the good news flow through their fingers.
When we meet we remember the history of what has happened. Reenact the events to re-member abstract thought in physical experience – both smokey taste and spiritual reality. We also have the opportunity to prepare for and dream up our path for the coming year.
All are welcome!
17th April – Easter Sunday BBQ – meet outside St Johns at 2pm to walk along the riverside to a beach opposite Lincluden Abbey – or 2.45 meet at the Nunholm car park. (Bring things to BBQ) We will have fire.
As Quartz Forest Church we are spending a year exploring the Chrichton Estate in Dumfries. For many of us, even though we live in Dumfries, the grounds around the university are not a familiar place.
We started in autumn, and are seeing signs of spring now. We have also been meeting some of the other people who inhabit this space. Some are ‘residents’ like the veterans garden, others passing through and walking their dogs.
An important theme in forest church is getting to know the natural environment. Which is why this trail in particular looks interesting.
Click to view The trail website
In the Quartz lent group we have been thinking about the wilderness and testing our experiences.
Where are you on this diagram though? Or perhaps more importantly, where would you like to be ?
As we near the end of our lenten journey it is time to consider where we are going next.