Quartz at St Johns Dumfries
Is holiness the preserve of white gowned angels singing a perfected concert of praise?
Or is that just an artists inpression intended to inspire you to seek out a very ordinary existence, but where things taste right and people are gentle with each other.
After all the hustle and bustle of the Scottish festive season as currently experienced, there is a lull while the weather is still cold and the chill mists still cling.
So here is a post from another blog that I thought might be relevant! A picture and a poem (and a reading as well if you prefer).
‘All things are lawful’, but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful’, but not all things build up.
1 Corinthians 10: 23 (read more here)
There is a shift in thinking from living bound by law to one where faith provides your rule.
Those who have been brought up Christian often feel frustration as Christmas approaches and the streets fill up with tinsel, and advertisers ramp up the pressure to consume – all with the branding of Christendom.
How should a follower of the way respond?
Everything is permissible. Laugh in the market place with those who love joy, weep with those who mourn. We are free from the need to moralise or preserve the worthless religious practices* of even our recent ancestors. But we must prayerfully consider what choices are most beneficial.
Our faith is not in a set of beliefs and practices. Faith in Jesus is belief that through genuine loving we will build up ourselves and those around us. Transform obstacles into opportunities, and show things in a new light which brings peace, change, growth.
Living a rule to give this constancy is much more demanding than conserving a moral code. The freedom requires each of us to judge ourselves rather than just conform to expectations.
In a place where bibles are banned you can be a hero lawbreaker smuggling holy contraband. Where sectarian or nationalist violence mars the daily life of ordinary people you can transgress religious boundaries to display love like the good Samaritan. In a high street that no longer feels like it is your own, is it time to turn over tables and protest the against the cultural appropriation of Christian symbolism by secular society?
Who would that benefit, who would it build up?
What are people celebrating at Christmas, and why are they choosing to do that online, in their homes, and on the high street but less and less in church buildings?
Is our own house in order, are we truly welcoming of people of all ages, sexuality, and cultures who choose to celebrate significant moment as Church?
What are the rules you set for yourself to make the journey toward Christmas, and the festival itself, spiritually significant? please use the comments!
While we were on holiday in Oban we discovered this mobile. Ogham runes from thousands of years ago stitched onto leaves that make the hidden colours in trees visible. There is a tradition which associates each ogham rune with the name of a tree which some people use today to think about ways in which language is embedded in environment.
The work explores indigenous language through natural dyes and pigments. It was a community project which is embedded in a community dye garden. There is more to explore online! Including a digital archive of conversations I’ve not found yet. It is curated by Naoko Mabon though if you feel like doing some research!
What could this inspire in Dumfries?
When the Israelites stop wandering and have the resources to find a king, then build a temple, they are reminded that this does not box God in. When we hear the story of Jesus talking with the woman at the well are we reminded that God is at work beyond our boundaries * *
Those who have access to Wi-Fi and a smartphone are connected globally. It is possible to feel a part of K-pop fandom or keep up with the Kardashians 24/7. If people are searching for spiritual nourishment they might choose to go somewhere (gone fishing!) as an antidote to the technology, or perhaps turn to YouTube to feed their hunger for knowledge from a global choice of institutions lecturers. Even if you are miles from a town you can join in with 24/7 live Christian worship (Vinyard). Most people probably use a combination of things like this, and this post has only a small selection of what is out there.
As you are reading this, at this stage of your life, are you more drawn to the story of a shepherd leading a flock to still waters, or to the story of Jesus preparing his disciples to face the challenge of feelings of loss and despair, (but with the promise that they will be connected in ways they cannot yet understand)? The good news is that Jesus meets us where we are, and God is everywhere. For those who are able perhaps though like Heracles this is a time when you can choose the tougher of the two paths. Instinctively we might imagine the harder path to be like rugged mountains and challenges to be overcome. However what if the struggle is to let go of the customs and institutions which shape our perception. If rather than being exiled and needing to replicate our home, we need to be inwardly transformed to adapt to new ways of connecting.
When you are walking the Way beyond boundaries how will you recognise God at work in preparation for your arrival, what truths about your path will you be told by the people you meet? Here are some stories told by people who have made connections with Jesus, but perhaps not with Sunday congregations.
We are Church. Jesus makes sure of that in coffee shops, bus stops, and while people are washing the dishes. The Church is for everyone. Heaven has an open door policy and that starts now.
How can we respond to the issues which challenge our own sense of being, and create congregations where all are welcome though?
I don’t have the answer, but I am sure the way to it is found by shedding the scales of terror, religiosity, and legalism to flourish in a state of metanoia fueled with Love.
If we are to be like Jesus and to minister to those who are different, marginalised and treated as outcasts, then we need to do more than label our churches and websites with messages of ‘all are welcome’. Jesus commanded that we should go out and meet people where they are. For me, this conference has been the start of a process in which to come to greater awareness of how I can be an ally, to reach out and to let transgender people know that they have a place in the Church.
Extract from article
Look for the glimmers, the nuggets of Joy. Learn to ‘Click the links’ which transform doom scrolling through life into a joy filled search. Then our gatherings will glow.
Practice using sling (tennis balls, not lead bullets, for shot). See if you can hit a target. Get a feel for the place and the weather.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life,[a] and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own,[c] and his own people did not accept him.
Samuel 17
In the story, Goliath is a mighty giant of a warrior. Like the Nephilim or the Jotun of Northern climates. His spear had a head the weight of a bowling ball and a shaft like weaving beam. His armour weighed as much as a young woman. Morning and evening he challenged any Israelite to face him in single combat and to claim victory in the war…
26 David said to the men who stood by him, ‘What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine, and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?’ …
31 When the words that David spoke were heard, they repeated them before Saul; and he sent for him. 32 David said to Saul, ‘Let no one’s heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.’ 33 Saul said to David, ‘You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth.’ 34 But David said to Saul, ‘Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down, and kill it. 36 Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.’ 37 David said, ‘The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.’ So Saul said to David, ‘Go, and may the Lord be with you!’
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2017&version=NRSVACE
David faces down Goliath with five smooth pebbles from a river, and a sling. This will loose a bullet that hits like a .44 magnum, but still if David were to miss he had no sword. His first shot avoids goliaths helmet and fells him, then using Goliaths own weapons David kills him and takes his head as a trophy. The war is won.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed, if not because of particular catastrophes then from a stream of 24/7 news, voices in the supermarket queue, and chats with acquaintances. What can we do in the face of such Giant threats? Do we blame ourselves and regard our lives as worthless in dismay or do we look for a super hero saviour with a magic bullet that will make everything better? That is one possible response to the story of David and Goliath, if we read it as an onlooker.
The Church in the west, especially in the modern era, has had a tendency to separate matter from spirit, humanity from creation and to then either represent nature as a vastness to be overcome and tamed, or raw resources to be managed. Both of these approaches overlook that our being is within the natural world. John uses the contrast between light and darkness, but the light is always there in the world, and the darkness does not slacken it.
There is no pain in our hearts or in our planet that you do not know,
for you have touched the lowest places on earth.
Silence
Teach us to grieve with you, O Christ,
the loss of all the beauty that is being killed.
Silence
There is no place in the heavens that cannot be touched by your resurrection presence,
for you fill all things.
Silence
Give us strength in your victory over death to grow into your way of love,
which does not despair but keeps sowing seeds of hope and making signs of wholeness.
Silence
In Christ all the parts of the body fit together
joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is provided.
Each part working together, promotes the body’s growth,
building itself up in love.
Silence
Teach us to recognise our interconnectedness with all things.
Teach us to grow with each other and all living creatures through love.
Amen.
Hold a hazelnut in your hand (shell some too if you like!)
From Meditations with Julian of Norwich
I saw that God was everything that is good and encouraging. God is our clothing
that wraps, clasps and encloses us so as never to leave us.
God showed me in my palm a little thing round as a ball about the size of a hazelnut.
I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and asked myself:
‘What is this thing?’
And I was answered: ‘It is everything that is created.’
I wondered how it could survive since it seemed so little it could suddenly disintegrate into nothing.
The answer came: ‘It endures and ever will endure, because God loves it.’
And so everything has being because of God’s love.
Hazelnuts in their shells are about the same size as a roman slingshot bullet. Faith the size of a mustard seed is all that is needed though! What if instead of thinking of ourselves as separate from creation, or alienated in from God and in need of salvation, we thought of God as a creator who is creating us. The artist is never entirely separate from their art, and this can be a whole world of pain! There is a longing for the work to be finished, complete, and revealed. Every attempt leads towards this, and the longing gives worth to all the scrunched up pieces of paper that are discarded. All the slingshots which miss the target are not wasted. Even better news is that we can be Davids. Any of the warriors in the Israelite armour could have taken the challenge, but they didn’t. It was a shepherd that stepped forward, unencumbered by the preconceived ideas of how warfare should be carried out. Vulnerable to being called dishonourable, if it were not that he was laughed at because of the inequality in size.
12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,[d] full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”’) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son,[e] who is close to the Father’s heart,[f] who has made him known.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%201&version=NRSVACE
As autumn progresses, look for hazelnuts. For signs that God is with you.
Almighty God and Father,
you have so ordered our life
that we are dependent on one another:
prosper those engaged in commerce and industry
and direct their minds and hands
that they may rightly use your gifts in the service of others;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
All Amen.
[1] Adapted from “The Iona Worship Book” Creation Liturgy, The Iona Community
People have been sending in photos from the August Forest Church.
Back in 2021 I wrote a report reviewing Quartz activities for the vestry at St Johns in Dumfries. I used the diagram (Pioneer Spectrum) that is the key image for this post to help give a structure for the report.
A new version of the diagram has been released and the changes made to it are described here. Following that and for the last two years we have been trying things out and seeing what works. As we reach the end of the summer in Scotland, this post is the start of a time of reflection. We can gather in the harvest, and think about what to let go of in autumn, incubate over the winter and plant in spring.
If you like to start with what is happening now, rather than reading the background first, ignor the links and start with this video which introduces the newly updated Pioneer spectrum toolkit.
There is a whole toolbox to help shape discussions and provide some theoretical framework.
The pioneer spectrum tool is designed to help explore all of these questions…
You can explore that here
If you were at CLC on Monday the Pioneer Spectrum cards to help with your personal reflection can be found here:
https://churchmissionsociety.org/files/pioneer-spectrum-cards/
Each one of us scratches their mark as a passage through time. Sometimes grasping to hold on, sometimes filled with the joy of living.
What if time itself is the womb of God. When our creation reaches it’s term will we be able to step back and find peace after the trauma of birth?