This Sunday we were blown further afield than usual by the wind. We revisited the wood on the crag behind the Crichton. The wind had a slight chill to it, laden with water, but the sun shone on us giving moments of warmth.
A ripple of Dumfries between the hillsHow long since these were carved?Reading the psalms while the trees sing in the windThe green contrastHorizonArt is everywhere
We look at the Horizon but it isn’t there, not really, it is just the furthest we can see. We know that there is something beyond it, and sometimes this mixture of knowing and not knowing is what draws us on beyond our present experience.
As usual we enjoyed a mixture of silent appreciation, discussion, and shared thoughts.
We will be meeting up as Forest Church this Sunday.
We meet outside the Crichton chapel at 2pm. We will greet each other in Christs peace, then take some time out to explore and practice #SensingSpirituality.
Please dress according to the weather, bring a folding chair if you are worried about standing up for too long. The Crichton isn’t a physically challenging landscape, and we usually end up sharing a snack and a drink together in the central cafe afterwards.
This Sunday will be a relaxed and informal event, but those who have taken part regularly have found the rythm of meeting and actively developing a spiritual discipline very helpful. This year we will also focus on a few big events, starting with Easter.
See you on Sunday, or get in touch for more details!
In some parts of the world absolute poverty is obvious, you see it on the streets as you walk. In Scotland poverty is a complicated issue, and not always visible.
This organisation lives out it’s faith through helping people overcome poverty related issues. An important first step is to become aware of what is actually happening.
The theme for the 6pm service last Sunday was forgiveness (12th of Feb).
One of a series of illuminated images by Simon Lidwell for Lent 2013
Kate talked about the woman who poured perfume on Jesus feet, and the issues of shame, guilt, forgiveness, and Love which that story involves. It is often too easy to focus on a simple dynamic of a judge giving forgiveness to someone who confesses that they were wrong. We don’t know the details of the life of this woman, but the story of her prophetic act has spread throughout the world through the ages. Much like the scent of the perfume would have lingered in the house to remind the proud host of his need for forgiveness. The kingdom of heaven is close, and might smell more like freshly baked bread served with kindness that the most lavish religious ceremony in the land.
Then as a creative response people were given three options.
They could look at the newspapers, and pick something that stood out in need of prayer. By cutting it out and sticking it to a board they could intercede for forgiveness and healing to be shown.
Going deeper into the news stories they could cut the words of the story up and re-edit them into a prayer. Perhaps a lament for something wrong in the world, or to highlight awareness of good news by rewriting the article. The finished cards looked like ransom notes! A reminder that our ransom is paid.
The third response offered was for people to use sticky letters and stamps to make a card to keep or give. These cards had messages to remind ourselves, or others, that we are forgiven. Perhaps that is a better thing to wake up to than BBC headlines on your phone!
Contemporary services are held on the 2nd and 4th Sundays in the month at 6pm on St Johns. Please come and experience a blend of guitar led worship, prayer, bible readings, and a reflection on them that usually has opportunities for a creative response.
During Advent in 2022 Quartz used visual arts to give people the opportunity to contemplate how they shape light entering the world. We made several mobiles, strings of mirrors, that were hung in the building. They were beautiful to look at, and many people commented that the installation helped them contemplate.
The process of making the installation was as important as the finished work of art. So please enjoy the images, and take some time to explore the process as well.
This video has a quick run through of a process which took several months.
We invited Photographer Stephen Ross to try and capture some of the atmosphere created by the installation. An evening with some powerful torches and a wee bit of smoke, and these are the final images.
Nuggets of JoyPhotos of the Installation
Travel through time on the Blog
The process was recorded on the Quartz blog. A main page for the project could be accessed through the “Activities” menu. The blog posts tagged “Christmas Light” built on this, step by step. They start with the first post introducing the ides for an advent installation from here You can follow the development of the thoughts and theology as the project developed.
Do you remember the canopy of Angels from Christmas last year? That was an example of a type of art known as an “Installation”. As a community art project it drew together ideas from a wide range of people, and worked in a relationship with the building it was hung in. The architecture and lighting…
Follow this link to find out more! As Christmas approaches Christians are thinking about the light of Jesus coming into the world. All over the world we will be spending time becoming aware of ways in which this light makes the world a better place to live in. We invite you join us in this…
As part of the Christmas installation this year we have been asking people to recognise the ways in which they bring light into the world, and their relationships. They have been writing words and drawing symbols as described elsewhere on this site. Here are some of the symbols of the “Nuggets of Joy” which have…
This picture is one of my early ones. It has been useful a couple of times recently.
This morning I was thinking about peace as I stood in to help out at a commemoration of remembering the day that Bruce killed Comyn in Greyfriars, Dumfries. The opportunity to help arose as a result of connections I made during the “Hidden Histories” project. It is one strand of a complex mesh of connections in developing local community work. Essential work but difficult to classify!
My role was portreying a member of the Grayfriars monastery community. As part of a team from the Bruce Trust to help the general public and a primary school class imagine the significance of the events and access their heritage.
We were hosted in a Church that is still known locally as Grayfriars although there is only a vague connection through the communion of saints living and departed. This helped link the history, with the spirituality, and the whole human experience of time though.
Characters included, King Robert, his sister Lady Christina, Lady Mary (who was imprisoned in a cage for years) and Tom the pilgrim to show that history is not just about kings and warfare.
Hopefully by retelling the stories surrounding the violence of 1306 in their home town, the pupils will be better able to understand peace and practice #SensingMeaningfulness
I draw during the 11 O’clock service. The pencil and paper help me to explore the familiar surroundings and repeated words.
Perhaps this is similar to taking notes in a lecture theatre, even if the text is available online. Writing helps focus the mind and activate more of the brain to aid retention. For me the drawing is not so that I remember though, it helps me contemplate rather than rationalise. Sometimes I’ll draw a design inspired by the feeling of the moment or the archetecture of worship. At others a phrase from a reading will start me exploring the nature of my experience of the Divinity. It is usually a combination of many things!
This Sunday my drawing was most influenced by the reading from 1 Corinthians ch2 (although I later looked up John ch14 when I started putting my thoughts into words).
The development of a drawing
The flow of the service seemed to follow the theme of questioning the relationship between ritual acts and righteous living. Even kindness and public displays of charity can conceal support for systematic injustice. Whilst all the right words might be said, the balance of power remains with the privileged. An empty ritual of giving reinforces dependency rather than releasing potential, whether this is through fulfilling basic needs or placing abundance at the service of those who need it – both to restore healthy relationships.
Beneath this flow, my mind was occupied with thinking about the passage from Corinthians and the relationship between the presence of Jesus and that of the Holy Spirit. As Christians we look to Jesus for our example. Did Jesus ascend so that we would need to sense more broadly though? Rather than imitating one human being, we now have to be aware of the Spirit in being human. As pervasive as salt, yeast, light and obvious in her absence in tasteless behaviour, the weight of grinding poverty, and piety which blinds us from the minute to minute reality of what needs to be done.
So my drawing starts with a cross. Radiating from the cross are waves of water, transforming into tongues of fire. Perhaps viewers loose sight of the cross as they gaze on the drawing. For me though, I see the fire of the advocate blazing with anger fueled with an experience of ethical indignation that cannot be satisfied within the status quo. I see the healing waters of the comforter refreshing and bringing peace to those who are weary. The art style comes from stone and the metals of the earth, and perhaps by exposing it to the “open air” in this blog post others will find meanings I haven’t seen yet.
And that perspective shift is why the cross gets smaller and smaller as the drawing develops. The cross in it is not something to look at. It is a place to stand and look out from. The invitation is there to centre yourself in Jesus.
Let the fire of the Holy Spirit bathe you and transform darkness into light.
Let the water of the Holy Spirit bathe you and heal your wounds.
And flow through the food you eat, the drink you drink, and the relationships you live your life in.
at 6pm on Sunday the 29th of January we will be gathering in St Johns to use digital technology to worship together, and also explore ways in which access to the digital world can help us live out the Missio Dei, the mission of God.
I was living in a farmhouse without a car and several hours walk outside town, but with broadband I could keep in touch with what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic. I just had to switch on my PC and I opened a door to a space where I could learn, pray, and be challenged and inspired. Here is one of the videos from that first pilgrimage into the online world.
The online world has developed considerably since then, and people who were born on the day I made that webpage are now sixteen and adults in Scots law. They have grown up in a world where having an online digital presence is more normal than reading newspapers and where they often communicate with their peers through digital media more frequently than in person.
Can anything good come from the internet?
As people realised that Covid was not something that would be over by Christmas they changed from hunkering down to shelter in a blizzard and started to adapt to prolonged lockdown. For many this opened their eyes to ways in which digital technology could provide ways to overcome the isolation of lockdown, and perhaps grudgingly at first they learned.
It will take a while to understand the impact of those years. This article describes a sequence of adapting to enable people who were isolated by lockdown, extending practices to involve them, and starts to ask questions about how the new normal might disrupt previous assumptions. This one explores similar issues at greater depth and lists some of the challenges to traditional church structures as a result of what was deemed possible and beneficial.
For those comfortable with digital resident behaviour when worshiping lockdown might have been a very positive experience. Prevented from the ability to attend a place they were geographically committed to, they found online spaces to gather and participate with others as Church.
Online spaces like this have existed for a long time, but congregations were swift to adopt video conferencing technology to provide a range of solutions. They used a mixture of interactive gatherings, live transmissions, and pre-recorded liturgies presented at a set time for people to participate in together from their own homes.
St Johns primarily used a combination of webpage and zoom coffee to adapt the 11 O’clock service. As Quartz we used a mixture of online and blended activities, and developed our use of technology to the form you are experiencing today.
A quick taster of what to expect…
Musical worship
We will be using Spotify to sing together. The karaoke setting provides lyrics and a playlist can be pre-selected or made collaborative from the app on peoples smart phones. This is a more social way to use the app than just using it to create a soundscape like the Candlemass one below.
Meditative prayer
Several members of the Quartz team use the “Pray as you Go” app. This is a chance to talk about that.
The SEC gospel reading for the day can be found on the SEC digital calendar which can be viewed on a browser, or downloaded to the calendar app you use on your phone.
Or you could read it in many different translations at Bible Gateway Mark 1:21-28
and if you want to read, and be guided in contemplating the passage, here is something provided by the Jesuits in Ireland
Please bring your ideas, and any examples of ways in which access to the internet has helped you.
Digital Divide
We recognise, and understand, that if you have been working all week in front of a screen you might not want to spend your Sunday evening doing the same! The evening is a chance to meet in person, and converse.
A digital divide exists as well. In Scotland we have a high level of access to digital technology, but lockdown showed that there are rural families who rely on a satellite, and families where all the children needed to share the same device to access school. Please take a moment to look at these projects which work to improve access to appropriate technologies.
Access to theology and worldwide academic research
To what extent can digital Church be Gods instrument for mission, or will those who engage with the divine online remain a marginalised community? This paper discusses online pilgrimage and some of the issues.
The view from the Crichton QFC on January the 15th, 2023
It had been a drich few days before we met. Record flooding levels in Dumfries saw businesses washed out, some perhaps beyond their ability to recover. I wasn’t sure if some of our proposed activities (follow the link to see the plan) would work out.
However, we were greeted by a clear sky. It is the winter so the weather was brisk, but when you stand in the sun you are warm. Once we had gathered, we moved to a place where we could look through the trees and over the Solway.
Alder?Catkins and ConesSigns of new growthLying back on a branch and watching the sunshine on the top of the tree.The green springing from the brown.
One of the things which stood out was the Alder tree. More about Alder here. We moved between activity together as a group and individual exploration. Each of us found space to pray and time to share what we discovered to build up the group as a whole.
We eventually gravitated towards the central café. It is warm enough now to sit outside in the veranda, to share refreshment together and and watch as the sun sets.
Sunset is often used to communicate romantic situations. There is a fire there which warms us. What happens when you step beyond the romance though, and find the secret fire? Will it burn hot enough to carry you into places where you stand out to hold back the floods, and at what cost?
To what extent is salvation given or worked out through living?
I suspect that the issue of how “Grace” and “Works” relate to one another is an example of #SensingMystery, although like all mysteries it involves a confusion of certainty that keeps us going and awareness of the unknown so we have to keep asking questions.
Particularly in discussions with those interested in ‘Celtic’ spirituality the names Augustine and Pelagius are important. Learning more about the views they expressed is also a good ‘mirror’ within which we can explore our personal beliefs and received teaching about the issue too!
In Scotland most church members who have even heard of Pelagius will remember him as being refuted by Augustine. Augustines understanding of human nature dominates reformed thinking. This article introduces Pelagius and gently encourages us to question our assumptions.
This is a discussion about the nature of human being. The Augustine position combined with a dualistic understanding of human being leads to problems with pre-destination, and the tendancy to dehumanise such as explored in the book “Scarlet letter”. The Pelagian position is open to the accusation that it puts too much emphasis on the ability of humans to save themselves, rather than rely on Jesus death and resurection.
Where do your beliefs place you, and how does that position influence your understanding of salvation? Is there an integrity of belief when you apply this and think of children, convicts, the unborn in the womb, your neighbour?
