Mostly a chance to get together, but there will also be ways to artisticly respond to the season.
Please contact us if you need directions.
Categories
Pancake party!
Category: #SensingSpirituality
Categories
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.
Categories
Pōhaku
At Christmas we remembered the story of Jesus being born, fully man. Rooted in a particular place and time.
How many of us live in the place we grew up in, or continue the same occupation as our parents? Even if we do, how much of our everyday lives are spent connected with the soil and the living things which surround us. How much with words, news, tastes, customs, and ideas that are new and international?
Here is an insight into one persons experience of rediscovery.
- The leaves of a tree live in a very different world to it’s roots, but without both how can a tree exist?
- What does it mean to be rooted?
Here is more about the meaning of the word Pohaku
Categories
Symbolist Art
Paint what you can to see what you can’t
The word used to describe artists like Mucha takes its meaning from broken pottery!
In Ancient Greece a treaty could be recorded using pottery. Each city state held a broken fragment of the whole. If you have ever tried to glue a mug back together you will know how precise and unique the match is when two fragments become whole.
Art can describe that which cannot be seen, and although sometimes it can look like you are sitting in a pile of broken pots – can you imagine the feeling when things match?
More about Alphonse Mucha here:
https://corymbus.co.uk/alphonse-mucha-art-music-and-spirituality/
These guys have been experimenting since 1993
http://www.freshworship.org/about/ethos.html
Categories
Quality
If you were omnicompetent, understood everything and held the expanse of time like a lump of clay in your hand – how would you handle creating everything?
Or scale it down to something as simple as a trip to your ancestral home. Would an unexpected pregnancy, room booking failure, and the univited arrival of a crowd of sheepherders look like a failure or something planned?
John Drane uses the phrase “McDonaldization” to question our expectations of being Church. To what extent have the modern cultural values of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control influenced our expectations of what Church should look like?
To put it another way, to what extent have our expectations in turning up to a service affected our experience of the quality of the moment. Do we expect to turn up regularly to a well ordered quality experience of familiar words and actions in a gathering that doesn’t make the building look messy or too empty. If these expectations are not met how does that affect our experience of sensing a special quality of gathering as Church?
Do we think of the messy, unpolished, entry of Jesus into the world where he only escapes death at the hands of Herod due to angelic intervention and a relaxed policy on refugees by Egypt as a near disaster – or something planned by God in the same breath as Eden? (Please read Romans chapter 18 ) How has the tendency towards McDonalization in culture influenced the ways in which we do Church.
This post doesn’t offer answers, but hopefully it will encourage questions.
What quality can events like washing dishes with a friend, a session with guitar on a beach, a discussion in a cafe, a mega church display in las Vegas or a trad. service in a victorian building all share, and how do we learn to sense it?
Marking a trail
Following up on interest about Forest Church at the Christmas Tree Festival we will be meeting as usual 2pm on the 3rd Sunday outside the Crichton chapel.
We will meet in Christs name, read (text and natural environment), pray and worship. We will also explore the readings and our life experiences by spooling a story.
This creative response is inspired by the work of Hannah Lamb – read more about her here.
Peace
All are welcome to meet in Christ’s name and share his peace. Whether you consider yourself a close friend, or are simply curious, all are welcome.
Prayer
Christ of the seven directions is with me
Christ above me to uplift me
Christ beneath me me to support me
Christ before me to guide me
Christ behind me to protect mec
Christ on my left to meet me
Christ on my right to greet me
Christ within me to strengthen me.
Reading from the bible
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.[b]
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. 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.[e] 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who[f] is close to the Father’s heart,[g] who has made him known.
The Testimony of John the Baptist
19 This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed and did not deny it, but he confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”[h] 21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22 Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said,
“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ ”
as the prophet Isaiah said.
24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 They asked him, “Why, then, are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah,[i] nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, 27 the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal.” 28 This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.
Reading from creation and response (story spools)
Discussion
Blessing
In the full tide of the day and in its ebbing
In the rising of the sun and in its setting
The might God be with you
The loving God protect you
The holy God guide you
And the blessing of God the Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore, Amen
Sharing food and drink
(at Simon and Kate’s this month)
Categories
Angels on Queensbury Square
Quartz Artists have been making an Angel collage, bot online and in person, on Queensbury Square.
The hope is that this will encourage people to send a message to God at this time of year
You can read more about it here:
Categories
Online Reflections
News of this online opportunity came in through our network of contacts.
Categories
Poverty
When the topic of Poverty is raised people in the UK often find it important to mention the distinction between “Relative Poverty” and “Absolute Poverty”.
After all, how many people in living in Scotland are unable to access drinking water, decent housing, heating, and healthy food? This article has some statistics.
https://capuk.org/news-and-blog/millions-skipping-meals-as-we-head-into-winter
Categories
Ogham Leaves
An Exploration
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?
