Change
Continuing a theme of transience and permanence. We will look for signs of change in our surroundings and in the Bible.
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October Forest Church
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Tabernacles plan
Saturday the 14th of October
Timetable
9.30 am Meet at St Johns and shuffle for car sharing.
Leave at 10
11.30 Get to Cairn Holy
Stop to wonder about who built them, why? #SensingMystery
(HES site) (Megalithic Portal)
Look at the view, close up with the stones and then far out to sea. #SensingOtherness
Cairn Holy II reminds some people of Aslans stone table. In the books this has laws written in “deep magic” written in it that are older than anyone remembers.
Gloria and Andy have prepared some readings, prayers and activities to explore the history of Sukkot.
Sukkah is the Hebrew word for ‘booth’ or ‘tabernacle’. ‘Sukkot’, the plural, is the name of the festival of booths. Sukkot were the shelters in which the Jewish people lived during their years in the desert after they left slavery in Egypt and before they arrived in the Promised Land (Israel). Sukkot comes at the end of the High Holydays (Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur), which are the most serious days of the Jewish year. It is a joyful pilgrim festival
find out more on the day…
12.30 to 13.00 ish
Return to vehicles and drive to the beach, which will hopefully be Carrick beach (https://maps.app.goo.gl/8eG8AupjEBF2NeL89) as the weather forecast is good.
13.30 ish
On the beech we will build shelters. Gloria and Andy tell the story of why we are in tents, and the link of the day to the Jewish festival of Sukkot. Hopefully we can sit and eat lunch in the shelters. (Bring a packed lunch! or pick something up on the way)
For those that choose we can also pray (in the way each is accustomed to) for peace and all those who work for it.
Hopefully there will also be the opportunity to make sand moulded candles as a reminder of the journey. Taking something permanent home from the shifting sand, that can be lit to let out some light.
3.30-ish Return to Dumfries for 5pm
There are no modern facilities at any of the locations, but we will pass several towns. The weather forecast is good, but it might be a bit chilly.
Can’t make it on Saturday? We will meet as Forest Church as usual on Sunday the 15th outside the Crichton chapel at 2pm
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Contemporary Service
8/10/23 6 pm in St Johns Dumfries
As well as in the Crichton estate on the 4rd Sunday of the month, you will also find a lot of Quartz members in St Johns building on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month.
Like all other services there will be a readings from the bible, prayers, reflection of the readings, and music. There is also an effort to provide the opportunity to respond to the theme of the evening through the creative arts.
This has involved many art forms over the years. Some of the results are on this website. Tonight Alison and Mark leading. The theme is Worshipping through Nature.
We are a part of creation, but how often do you stop to take time to become aware of that? Arranged flowers, parkland, rivers or the growing living things that we find even in urban environments are often places to find peace and connect. Do you have a favourite “Sit Spot?” where you can practice #SensingSpirituality as a discipline like “Quiet times” with the bible.
St Francis describes the Sun and Moon as brother and sister. He was aware of worshipping with the natural environment, and imagines parts of it worshipping along side him. The echo of the Canticle of the sun can be found in many songs, and perhaps was inspired by singing psalm 48
As well as worshiping in and alongside nature though, have you ever worshipped with the natural environment? Perhaps you are familiar with stories of bible verses being given to people as they pray and the words help them. Or perhaps you have sat in front of a picture and through it you have become aware of or explored your relationship with God. The text of picture are not God, but through them we can enter into worship with God. These are skills which take time to learn. Not because they are exclusive, but simply because most things take time to learn and if you spend time learning how to do something you usually get better at it.
So can the flight of a flock of birds that enters your mind while in prayer, or the experience of green grass on a sunny day become a part of your worship vocabulary?
We will have some of the cards we use at Forest Church available. These are described as “Doorways“. Thoughts and activities to help people become aware of being present in creation, worshipping with it, and in particular through the natural environment.
For those who can’t get to St Johns on Sunday evening, here is the play list we will be using as we reflect on the witness of St Francis of Assisi
(https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/1xs8dzPsGSj60TAWuyHDAA?utm_source=generator)
For those that couldn’t make it on the evening here is a flavour:
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Tabernacles
Saturday the 14th of October
The theme for this day is drawn from the Jewish festival of Tabernacles known as sukkot
We will be exploring Permanence and Transience using a very ancient place and temporary shelters on the beech to raise questions about experiences of eternity and the present moment.
More information to follow, register your interest and join the mailing list here:
Our plan would be to meet up outside St Johns in Dumfries to share cars and head out by 10am.
We will travel to Cairnholy which is a visually stunning location. There we will reflect on the solidness ancientness of stone and the contrast this has with the transience of a human lifetime emphasised by just how much we don’t know about the people who built the structures. These is a song to sing here.
We will then travel to a shoreside location. If the weather suits the plan is to have a picnic on the beach, but we will adapt!
On the beach we will build a shelter, and use it as a venue to share food and hear the ancient story that is still remembered every year at “Sukkot” . Without too many spoilers the main ideas are God’s provision and presence, harvest, celebration with everyone, and inclusiveness.
To remember the day, and draw things together with an action we hope to make wax candles to take home. This will use the sand as a mould.
The candles might not be as permanent as the stone of a chambered cairn, but when you burn them the light which is released will hopefully be a reminder of the light which has been and is part of the human experience since the dawn of time.
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Crichton Events
Monthly Forest Church
At Forest Church gatherings we have spent our time getting to know the Crichton estate. This has been quite informal, but now we are on their website as an official event.
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September Forest Church
David versus Goliath.
What giants threaten you and yours? How will you face them…
2pm outside the Crichton chapel. 17th of September.
Dress for the weather, because it’s going to win.
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A testimony
Litter picking, games mornings, walking with Jesus where people are..
Canklow faces isolation, deprivation, antisocial behaviour. We have a few people who are struggling, so they take it out on people’s property or other people. But it’s a good place as well because we have community spirit and no matter what anyone goes through, guaranteed someone’s going to be there to help you. Which is what I’m trying to grab hold of and spread out more.
This is an example of the traditional Church responding to God’s nudging, and supporting someone to grow the kingdom where they live.
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Ecological Salvation
Continuing the liturgical theme, do our liturgical prayers in Church carry the lamentations of those caught in climate anxiety ?
Is there room to confess our experiences of being caught in the grip of the vice of oil dependence and unsustainable lifstyles ?
Do we leave absolved of our sins against the creation we are part of, ready, transformed to sin no more?
What questions do you have after listening to this discussion!
The relationship between the language we use to describe what we see, and the way in which we see things is an ages old topic of study. Think about the sentence you just read. When I used the word ‘see‘ you hopefully understand I mean more that just ‘visually observe‘. Sight is a very important sense for humans, so much so that when someone says “I see your point now” we understand that they understand. However we do not intend to imply that those who have visual impairments are unable to understand. Or that those who are unable to tell you what colour the horse they are imagining is, do not know what a horse is.
Consider then the importance of liturgy. If the use of words to describe everyday things is prone to misunderstanding, how much more so when we are thinking about divinity? Imagine the words used are like a scaffolding to help people hold together while we build each other up, constructing a house of prayer, what happens if there is a wrongness in our use of language? Simple mistakes might be quick to observe and remedy. Long term systematic wrongness might be more difficult to identify, and like the famous leaning tower, still hold together but be wonky. The building still holds together, but would you want to move there?
This video is a discussion that takes time to step back and think about ways in which language has been used. Recorded during lockdown it is an example of how stepping back to reflect helps us transform our experiences.
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beauty will save us
Here is a claim for you –
“There is no art without beauty”
Either an artist strives for beauty – to reveal or represent it, or their art depends on beauty just as shadow is light obscured. Nordic Giants are described as performing “Dressed in feathers and shrouded in a ubiquitous fog the pair look more like residents of Middle Earth. The award-winning short films that accompany the live performance are each one a work of art; by turn poignant and powerful, dark and uplifting.“* and the shadow is the first thing you see when you look at the video thumbnail.
Take a moment to click play, tune in, and step sideways to escape the relentless grip of Chronos. Can you see the beauty, the salvation calling?
You can read the lyrics here https://genius.com/Nordic-giants-together-lyrics
Those who were born when this was released are now teenagers.
Reaching further back in time, the sample in the song draws from this speech by Martin Luther King Jr https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
(Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City)
I encourage you to read the speech in full. There is darkness in it, and a recognition of the mirk which surrounds us. Nordic giants have found the beauty in it though. They have used this to see the world they live in and write what they see. More than this I think they encourage everyone to look for themselves.
In the blink of an eye those teenagers will inherit the world we leave for them, just as we have inherited a world we did not choose.
…We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time...
But what do you do when the light is switched on and you can see? There are many colours of witness. They cannot be imposed upon you. When you live in the light you will see, and in seeing find your path.
It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.”
External Link to the King Center: http://www.thekingcenter.org/
This is not an encouragement to build motorways and a concrete future at the expense of the environment. Beauty is more subtle and complicated than that. When you are overwhelmed by a work of art, you are not bulldozed. It is a moment of #SensingSpirituality. It can be a lightbulb moment, as described in John’s gospel where he introduces Jesus as light. Those that see with this light are unlocked to fulfill the hope and potential which has been placed there since the beginning.
So take some critical moments of time and dream of possible futures, and be gentle with yourself and others when you work to make them happen.
And just before you go, here is another Nordic Giants track with another speech to inspire you.