Quartz at St Johns Dumfries
Have you dropped in to see the Quartz tree yet?
Opening Times
Wednesday 6 December, 7pm – 9pm
Thursday 7, Friday 8 and Saturday 9 December, 10am to 9pm
Sunday 10 December, 1.30pm to 4.00pm
This article is from 2019, but is shows what an artist (with help from their sponsors and friends) can do. It is a story of finding hope in reforestation.
This is closer to home, in England and Wales. “A Rocha” work internationally as well.
And at a Scottish level this page has some info and resources from the Scottish Episcopal Church.
I’m just back from spending most of a weekend in the woods (Barrhill woodland Festival 2022) with the Cluaran part of Wordsmith Crafts. We created a “Land of Legends” where people could listen to epic stories, learn to braid cord friendship bracelets, and test their skills with ancient games. This was part of a wider range of activities all set in a wonderful woodland.
The festival is a gift, a promise waiting to be realised. Most of the events were free to take part in, and all people needed to do was make the effort to walk into the woodland. Those who chose to enter into the promise were able to recieve a rich harvest.
Our activities worked within the woods to help people enter an imaginary realm where time became fluid. The past became present. In the present we could glimpse squirrels in the trees, taste the ripe bramble, and drink in the leafy greens and ruddy browns of the wood. A feast for the physical senses awakening the awareness of the senses we have which make human being more than simple physics.
This song was sent in by Alison. It is part of a growing awareness that something has gone badly wrong in our human relationship with our environment. We have assumed the earth is natural resources to be exploited, or in a more positive sense farmed. We have forgotten that we are dependant on and part of this environment.
Sometimes a gift is given and is a remote exchange of stuff. At other times a gift is the physical component in a deep relationship of mutual exchange and promise. The relationship is the environment within which gifts can be harvested.
Back to the song, can we keep the gift? Not if we smother it in plastic and break it. Much of the time Christians focus on God’s promise to us, and the moral aspects of that. But without an earth to grow in, without bodies for our spirits to live in, or animal souls where our eternal souls incarnate are we only experiencing a reduced version of the gift.
Can we keep the promise, are we able to? Perhaps that starts with re-discovering a relationship lost through developments like urban living, and industrial farming. In our theology by remembering the the significance of the risen Jesus eating fish with friends. In our heritage by rediscovering the green men built into the doors of churches looking out. In the woods, remembering wholeness and bathing in the deep green love that we loose at our peril.
News Sent in By Lizzie,
Some of us are meeting up on Monday morning to help each other explore prayer as a community. Lizzie has suggested that we make some boats! Not just in case the sea levels rise, but because politicians are meeting in Glasgow to discuss what can be done about the rise in sea levels that are happening.
Whatever your stance on this issue, we can all pray for politicians, and hopefully the action of sending a fleet of boats will be a fun way raise awareness of the very serious issues involved.
More information here:
https://www.christianaid.org.uk/pray/prayer-chain
Download the activity pack and get involved (online as well as physical)
https://www.christianaid.org.uk/resources/get-involved/rise-moment-activity-pack
Look at the fleet already assembled, and contribute a photo of your boat here
https://caid.org.uk/createboat
Want to get more involved? We are working out a plan for something on the afternoon of October the 31st. Leave a comment or get in touch.
This is event is happening on the day I post it – so not much advance warning I’m afraid. Even if the event has passed by the time you read this though, follow the link and find out more. Perhaps it will encourage and inspire you.
https://www.christianaid.org.uk/events/curiosity-creativity-and-climate
Even just knowing that Christian Aid have a Prophetic Activist on their team might make your fingers tingle…
In science fiction the reader is often given a glimpse of present reality from an imagined future perspective.
The first panel in this story reminded my both of the optimism of the atomic era, and the growing recognition that something was wrong with the way we were using oil.
It was an era of Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.) presented as a cost effective way to secure peace. The young generation enjoyed the benefits of a reasonable economy, and boomed beyond their borders in supersonic aircraft. The bust of AIDS, famine, and the global cost of this frenzied activity by a small minority of it’s population was yet to hit.
If you could go back in time and change one thing in order to save the world of today, what would it be?
Church of Scotland COP26 (get involved)
With COP26 in the near future, what can you do now?
Suggestions on a comment please …
This post is a collection of the things which Quartz people have been sending in because they found them interesting.
This year Eco-Congregation Scotland and Joint Public Issues Team (JPIT) combine to provide a bank of resources of real value to congregations, in a variety of current media, to facilitate ‘Creation Time/Creationtide/Season of Creation’ as, with Christians around the world, we dedicate this short season to reflection on our often troubled relationship with the Earth.
Encountering Christ in Nature
Without a sense of the inherent sacredness of the world—of every tiny bit of life and death—we struggle to see God in our own reality, let alone to respect reality, protect it, or love it. The consequences of this ignorance are all around us, seen in the way we have exploited and damaged our fellow human beings, the dear animals, the web of growing things, the land, the waters, and the very air. My good friend and co-author Patrick Boland invites us to experience Christ in nature:
These guys are based in Dundee, you might find some of the opinions they express in their intro video a wee bit harsh – but will that stop you from hearing the points they are making?
If you have seen something you would like to show other people, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise – send the link in to Quartz
Around 2018 as a group we read “Forest Church” a Field Guide to a Spiritual Connection with Nature . Some of the idea and principles within the book are part of regular Quartz activities – for example the #SensingSpirituality walks and have been for a long time. Some of you may remember the 2017 Summer Interweave – “Interweave Outdoors”
We have never really made a consistent effort to test out the idea of “Forest Church” though. One of the things this would involve would be to work through, experiment with (and think about) how to be an outdoor Church, rather than just to take our usual church activities outside.
What happens when the nights draw in and the weather turns bad? Do we need hymn books, and how would the recited formal liturgy of the Scottish Episcopal Church help or hinder in an environment where multiple pieces of paper will blow away in the wind? Can we read the creators message in creation in combination with scripture …
Here is a video of one example of forest church. There are many more, and each is adapted to the local environment and community who live within it.
Would you, or people you know, be interested in exploring this further? Follow the link to the Field Guide to find out more. When the season of summer holidays are over we will hopefully be able to gather together and make some plans
As a quick introduction, this description is taken from the Forest Church Facebook group:
FOREST CHURCH
“Forest Church” is the name taken by loosely gathered groups of like-minded people who are not formally connected to any denomination (although the core team of each group will normally have members of one of the recognised Christian denominations). They are people who wish to engage with the way in which God reveals God’s self in the natural world.
The meetings use poetic and open language to provide a safe and welcoming place for those of any faith or none who appreciate the spirituality of ‘The Green’.Each group has its own flavour and range of gatherings. Examples vary from meditative walks, workshops on naturalist subjects to more formalised rituals.
For some groups the latter tend to draw on the shape of Pagan rituals which have evolved to inhabit the outdoor space although the language often expresses the presence of Christ within the context of the Trinity, whilst also allowing for the fullness of gender expressed within God.
Story and the historical myths of the land are celebrated and valued alongside scripture, thus allowing each Forest Church to be centred in its own location.Many of those who attend do so because worshipping within the stone walls of a church provides them with little or no connection with God.
Forest Church recognises this and therefore meets outside to celebrate the possibilities of our understanding of panentheistic (God-in-all-things and All-things-in-God) engagement and relationship.We recognise that many of those who have left the church departed because of poor treatment by Christians or because of a severe lack of space for spiritual exploration, not because of the person of Jesus.
One aspect of Forest Church is therefore to provide a space for re-engagement with the person of Christ amongst other spiritual seekers, trusting God that a relationship mediated through the Holy Spirit, by whatever name the Spirit is known to the individual, may be holy and transformative.
Our part in Missio Dei (‘The Mission of God’) is relationship and respect: friendship with no ulterior motive, and an openness and willingness to journey together as valued friends who learn from each other and honour the different paths we may tread. We count ourselves as spiritual explorers in the Christian tradition making creative use of liturgy that expresses this belief.
From the Facebook group for anyone interested in Forest Church. A place to share news, ideas and exercises. For more information and to list your group visit: http://www.mysticchrist.co.uk/forest_church
Today’s lent thinking revolves around Jesus praying in Gethsemane. The story describes him feeling powerful emotions as he anticipates where his path will lead him.
Most people avoid fear and anger and the situations where we may experience these emotional states. There is a tradition of “Via Negitiva” though. I react badly to (hate?) Disney for the decisions they have made to edit out tragedy from old stories, or redress them to promote a simplistic and conservative vision of the USA. I think stories can, and should, help us encounter feelings we hope we will never experience for real and that this will help us handle the times when we have to walk a dark path.
When I was a teenager I was trained to take the good news to my friends. One of my teachers, in particular, combined music and visual imagery. Using a cassette tape and a film projector with actual reels! To help us imaginatively engage with the meaning. The song he chose was “The sound of silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. The experience of frustration has been reinterpreted and expressed by “Disturbed” more recently.
This freedom and adaption to a changing world was a rarity though. Many had a desire to take the gospel relevantly to every generation. Their underlying agenda was to bring people to their vision of Church however. With the best of intentions, it seemed like they would bait activities with fun, reduce their dogma to soundbites, and then expect new recruits to settle down into established church patterns. Young people who were devoted to the Way would be burdened by their elders perceived failures to succeed. Issues like consumerism, climate change and the persecution of people because of their gender and sexuality were badly handled by a culture finding it difficult enough to understand the ethics of vegetarianism.
This song and video helped me work though some of that experience.
I started with a pop/folk song covered by a metal band. A while ago I was intrigued to discover that a metal track composed by “Nine Inch Nails” had become popular in Church circles. The new version was recorded by Johnny Cash towards the end of his life. Hindsight, nostalgia, these are powerful emotions.
What are the consequences of addiction to social order experienced by national churches? To denomination by those trained in that path? All humans need safe spaces to nourish a strong sense of identity in relationship – but how many “little deaths” have young people been forced to make in order to fit in? Where has the support for them been, when they leave the mother ship to establish safe spaces for outcasts and those who question the status quo?
Today is the day (16th of March) The Eco Congregation Scotland network are running a series of events to help you think about things you can do in response to climate change.
Especially since representatives of the current ‘winners’ in the status quo are gathering in Glasgow this year.
You may wish to sign up to find ideas about what the Church worldwide can do to respond to climate change in this “Kairos” moment.