Category: Lent

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#SensingSpirituality Lent

Quartz Lent

Throughout Lent the Quartz group will continue to meet every second week. We are taking time out to think about “Glimmers of Light in Daily Life”.

The next meetup will be on Monday the 29th of Jan. 7.30 at Simon and Kate’s.

We are exploring the theme of #SensingSpirituality in the run up to Easter. If our physical senses inform us about the world we can touch and taste, what senses do we have that can help us experience, explore, and describe all the more than physical experiences which make up being human?

We will also gather to prepare for Lent on shrove Tuesday/Pancake day in the evening, and meet on Easter Sunday on the beach to eat BBQ fish together and tell stories of resurrection.

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Arts Lent Transformation 2023

Transformation

Words on paper making a cocoon skin for Lent 2023
Thoughts becoming visible as layers
Contemplating the initial construction of the willow frame
Building the Frame
The frame takes shape

 Quartz Community Lent Project for 2023

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Rom 12v2. NKJV

We are making a willow and paper sculpture over the weeks of Lent which is on the theme of Transformation. The sculpture will start as a cocoon and represents the process of personal transformation that we all go through as we approach Easter. 

Is there anything we want to let go of? 

Is there anything we want to take on in the coming weeks?

Explaining the process
Explaining the Idea

Everyone will have an opportunity to contribute to the cocoon by writing words on paper which can be added to the structure. The cocoon will develop throughout the six weeks of Lent in surprising ways.

Writing thoughts on paper, ready to be pasted to the cocoon

These words will symbolise our commitment to moving forward in our lives – and the sculpture will change and develop as we approach Easter!

No special art skills are required – we would like as many folk as possible to take part…thank you for your contributions.

“Spinning” a shell on the cocoon

If you e-mail quartz@wordsmithcrafts.co.uk then we will add your contribution, so you can take part wherever you are!

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Creative Worship Ignation Spirituality Lent Lent 2022

Quartz Lent 7/3/22

The next Quartz lent meeting will be one of contemplative reflection. This basically means that people can talk, and be actively listened too, but it isn’t a time for critical bible study or deep rational analysis.

This balances up the other Lent meetings where we will by exploring set questions and discussion to work out answers.

Alison is bringing something to guide our reflections. She will start with the boutique image pictured in this post, and Psalm 42

Psalm 42 – NIV version at Bible Gateway

She has chosen this because of its contrasts between desolation and consolation, past and present. 

We will meet in St Johns Church (The choir/green room) at 7.30 pm on Monday the 7th of March

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Lent Mission Theology

Tables

Who would be interested in gathering round a table to spend time thinking about what it is to become a missional community?

‘table’ the talking point

I’ve had a basic introduction to this resource and it is an engaging tool for helping think about what church community is and could become.

There is a video describing it here:

It’s almost an hour long discussion about it! So not so much an advert, more an introduction to becoming a more missional community.

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Lent

Quartz Lent 2022

Tried in the wilderness

This year we are starting with the spiritual nourishment we have found. Perhaps this is in our church activities, perhaps it is in our everyday lives. Wilderness experiences may draw our attention to them, or it might be that we have taken something from our abundance and have “tried it out” to see if it is of benefit to others.

We will have a pattern of thinking about things one week, and then contemplating them in a more Ignation style the next week. Throughout the season we can think about what “fresh expressions” of Church we would like to cultivate, both personally and as a community.

All our meetings will be on Monday evening at 7pm. Please join the mailing list to keep in touch with the details of where we are meeting. You will also be able to contribute your thoughts throughout the week by commenting on posts like this. Even if we are geographically separated we can still be a community.

WeekDateTopic
128th FebAre you spirituality hungry – where do you find food?
Sharing Pancakes and stories of the good food we have experienced – both Spiritual and Physical !
27th MarchReflection (like the CLC evenings)
314th MarchWhat do you dare to dream, but doubt the wisdom of trying?
421st MarchReflection (like the CLC evenings)
526th MarchWhat necessary compromises have you made, do they bind you?
64th AprilReflection (like the CLC evenings)
7As a community how can we help each other ‘sparkle’, and be the invisible agents active in the wider community making life easier to live.
Easter Sunday17th of AprilWeather Permitting – a BBQ afternoon by the river
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Lent Thought of the Day

Moving On

The journey through Lent is completed now. Quartz met as a group during it, but I also know that other people have enjoyed just reading the posts and walking along in their own way.

Whichever of these approaches you identify with if you have found this way of doing things helpful please consider the ongoing help offered by the Jesuits around the world. You can find out more here:

Moving On

Once I’ve taken some time out to smell spring I’m sure we will be doing more as Quartz too! Send an e-mail or subscribe to keep in touch.

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Lent

Level up?

“Levelling up” is something which happens when all the experience gained in a game is used by the player to improve their characters skills.

Some games make this a very detailed process, and some players spend a lot of time working out the best way to spend their experience points so that they can complete the game on its most difficult setting.

You may not be familiar with this process. However in my lifetime gaming like this has moved on from being a niche interest. Every high street has a gaming shop, and gamers recently made headlines by taking on, and beating a hedge fund that treated a gamer business like monopoly money. It is global growth industry, and one in which Scottish companies and universities lead the way.

As a character levels up, the challenges they face also become more difficult. The rewards increase too! It is very different from just rolling dice and pushing an old boot round a board.

This is the end of the Quartz Lent retreat. We will meet for the last time this afternoon – but perhaps you will spend some time in the coming week “leveling up”

What have you experienced? What new adventures await? If you feel like you are just trudging round the board avoiding bankruptcy – perhaps it is time to seek out a new game?

Join the zoom meeting

Meeting ID: 852 1415 7058
Passcode: 451055

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Lent

Easter Sunday!

Hope, a sunrise in the forest
Hope ! Hope as the sunrise dawning in the green of a forest of new hopes.

Christ is Risen!

Bleary eyed with our eyes full of sleep, we greet the dawn and a light which doesn’t blind us to what is happening – but which helps us see.

If we choose, this day can be the centre of time. Every Sunday an echo of creation being fulfilled, and every day a working out and releasing the potential laid within time from before time. The discovery of that which is truest to yourself and your environment.

Never laid upon us by an alien supreme entity but instead calling to us, through the example of Jesus descending to the lowest depths and returning with released captives.

This was a link to a live video meet on the day

Todays daily prayer material can be found here . If you’d simply like to join in the story of the Marys discovering the empty tomb this will take you to a song to sing and dance along to.

And a couple more …


We will have one more meeting after this. Next Sunday!

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Lent Thought of the Day

Downside Up

This is not a new post. It seemed appropriate to me this morning though, at a time where everything is tumbling, and no one is sure what will emerge.

Follow the fool, but don’t be foolish 😉

The Holy Fool

Please click the button to read the original post. You may find it a lot to take in at first. Or, perhaps you are one of those who find this easy to understand and struggle with the ‘normal’ of formal Church. Either way, seek and you will find!

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Lent Thought of the Day

Water

In the UK companies are formed to sell disposable plastic bottles. People pay to consume waste, when they could turn on a tap.

Elsewhere people have great difficulty finding clean drinking water.

Where did it go wrong and what can be done about it?

A colourful and hopefully thought provoking series of images placed in St John’s Churchyard for Holy Week. The accompanying leaflet is available on St John’s (Glastonbury) website

Click here (new window)