Quartz at St Johns DumfriesWhat are the differences between “Indignation”, a “lament”, and “moaning on” about a thing?
If we really believe that something is out of kilter, does that mean that we will demand change?
Is there something in us which prefers a sleeping Jesus, while we wrestle with storms, to an awake Jesus who will rebuke even the wind and the sea and expect them to obey?
We have been meeting to discuss our Lent journey online.
This is great!
But all the momentary thoughts and chance conversations which happen during the week when you live in the same physical community are an important part of being a community too.
One of the aims of this “Quartz” website is to help facilitate this even when lockdown means we can’t meet in groups, and when many of the people involved are digital migrants for whom the internet is unexplored territory.
An example of this is the page from a book which one of the Lent group would have brought along and showed everyone because she felt it was relevant. It’s the featured image for this post. If you’d like to find out more you can look at Thomas Mertons “Thoughts in Solitude” On the “Good Reads Website. This link should hopefully take you to the same quote…
A busker sets up on the high street. Some people nod and keep walking, some pause to listen, some start dancing. Still more record and share on their phones, or go home and find some piping. Others find some string and a box, or spoons, or even click on a digital tip jar.
The music can linger in your mind like an “earworm”. There are, of course, also those who hurriedly cross the street and mutter about “proper music” or “noise polution”.
If the music is divine potential placed in the pipes waiting to be revealed, where are you in the story?
Interested? Pray about it.
Or you could read some more
Many years ago Kate toured the Scottish borders, and Dumfries and Galloway with “The Weavers Hand”. The music she helped bring to life is combined with the artwork of Simon Lidwell in this video.
While you watch it, let yourself wonder about how the simple word “Love” can be a gateway to so many complicated emotions and experiences.
Can Love always find a way? There are certainly many experiecnes where it seems like something has gone wrong, even badly wrong. If you were to kill Love, and bury it letting go … given time, is it not true that it will grow back in new and surprising forms? Sometimes in ways that are better than we could have anticipated.
This is the post with a link we can use to join each other, despite seas, mountains and Covid precautions.
(From about 2.50pm on Sunday afternoon)
How have you been getting on with the daily “Knowing Jesus” material and readings? If you have explored the lot, or if you haven’t found the time to sit down – you are welcome to join in, listen, or discuss.
Please comment below if you would like to contribute something you have become aware of, even if you aren’t able to make it along on the afternoon.
The Teachings of Jesus were open to all! He had some …interesting… friends. Rich or Poor, he turned the conservative connection between Godliness and wealth on its head. Using your God-given gifts was expected though, failure can be forgiven but burying your head in the sand out of fear is foolish. Love for your neighbour, he taught, meant that anyone in need was your neighbour. Love will dare to take risks and even risk the wrath of religious authorities to do what needs to be done.
Turn the other cheek, was another reminder that laws are at best a limit to human excess, and instead of claiming our rights there is a higher path we can follow. Divorce is a recognition that a relationship has broken beyond repair. Infidelity cuts to the quick. Did Jesus challenge the pharisees by implying that their hearts of stone had lead them to oppose God and encourage baser passions?
In what ways do the teachings of Jesus about simple, everyday things, help us ask questions about our relationship with God? Where might your natural passionate desire to be one with God lead you? In either giving or Gracious Receiving
In 2019 we spent time every Sunday walking, watching, #SensingSpirituality and noticing the changes in ourselves and environment.
For Easter Sunday we had a BBQ on a beach by the river. In 2020 during lockdown we did something similar, but with a few adjustments to be covid safe.
This video is probably a good way to wind up #Febreflection for 2021
Here are two clips from the 1990’s. Protest songs? The music is soft as a feather, but I think they drink from a deep well of power which resonates throughout generations.
If you turn the other cheek will you just get hit twice? – or can it be a form of passive resitance that forces an abuser of power to recognise their abuse?
And to finish, something only about a decade old – but which echoes words from one of the oldest of English stories of herosm and tragedy.
Can Love find a way? There are many experiences of Love, some bring tears, some laughter, but Love gives the strength to endure and transform.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13
And this is the link for the second Quartz Lent group meeting! We are international this year, with not only people from different towns in Scotland joining together – but from the different continents on this wonderful planet we share too.
The Quartz Lent 2021 Sunday discussion group can be joined here:
(from 2.50pm on Sunday afternoon)
The daily “Knowing Jesus” material and readings have started by exploring the start of the ministry of Jesus.
2020 and 2021 have been very strange, tricky to safely keep in touch with your friends int he same town – but it’s possible to contact people who have the data available worldwide. This week has been filled with stories about the people Jesus connected with – his supporters, but also on occasion, critics.
Jesus family and friends: Parents, Women Disciples, Men Disciples, Close Friends, The Family, Martha & Mary
We quite rightly tend to focus on Jesus, but what do we discover about Jesus through exploring the context he lives in?
(Both on earth and on a cosmic scale as referred to by the verse and the picture).
This weaving, by Alison Fair Bixler, is inspired by plants and the Passion (of Christ)
“Plants and the passion…dyes from willow, Veronica, hawthorn etc”
The BBC radio programme is currently not available, but who knows what you will find if you look in the garden and online!
Aye, it is an exclamation mark. This is not a typo.
The Quartz Lent 2021 Sunday discussion group can be joined here
The daily “Knowing Jesus” material and readings have started by exploring the start of the ministry of Jesus.
The exclamation mark is usually found at the end of a sentence. It gets called a “Bang” mark by some people though. Perhaps it can transform a whole sentence into the start of something – like a pistol at the start of a race!
Shrove Tuesday (PANCAKES!) is a day of celebration and forgiveness, a party before Lent. We start this 40 day journey knowing that however far or fast we run we have already met the conditions to finish, because they were met before the human race was begun. When we meet on Sunday we can discuss more.