Please join us at 2pm outside the Crichton chapel to spend time outdoors #SensingSpirituality
Please read on for more thoughts about what we are attempting to do.
The estate is full of many people doing this in their own way. Activities like Walking the dog or playing football are a normal part of peoples daily routine. You don’t tend to think of the benefits of them, or even seek them out each time because you hope that they will be beneficial. The habits are simply part of a healthy lifestyle like taking a bath to clean your body.
Every now and then though we become aware of just how good it is to be in a place. The way the mist hugs the trees, or the light shines on a drop of water or the experience of a particularly good match that you watch or play in can stand out and create a changed sense of awareness. Not only do you enjoy the moment, but you also become aware of the specialial-ness of it. These memories become treasures and help you form your identity and sense of self. They can be a reservoir of resilience when it’s chucking it down with rain and you don’t have the energy to hope for an enjoyable walk.
Take a moment and compare this with your experience of services in church, if you have any. For some the smell of the place, the flow of the poetry in the words, being with people and singing of thoughts through song becomes physical feeling of sound harmonised with the building and belief.
I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
Then I was constantly at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind.
Proverbs 8: 27 – 31
Do you recognise who is speaking in these words?
Learning #SensingAwareness can be a process of learning to recognise the “Voice”, in unfamiliar places – or perhaps in familiar places too!
So this Sunday we will spend time doing the normal activities of meeting, walking, together in a park, talking, eating, and drinking; and they will become special.
Look out for a special Midsummer events – A Labyrinth at Caerlaverock castle, Forest Church on Wardlaw hill
If you look on the website you will hopefully see that a new option has been added to the main menu. #SensingSpirituality has been a theme running through Quartz activities from around 2015. This means that we have built up a track record of resources, both in ideas and experiments where we test those ideas out. Some of the time we even manged to get photos and written descriptions of what we were doing!
These are (slowly) being added to this website. They are also available in a draft printable text copy. The online version will be able to go beyond the limitations of print though, and allows readers to dip in and out finding out what interests them.
You can get access to both of versions by using the menu button or by clicking this link
Please comment, share and get in touch if you want to become involved in developing this sort of thing. If you have been involved, get in touch sot that we can add your memories to the resource as well.
Scroll down on their page to read the version in English language
Have you noticed changes in the seasons, a breaking in the pattern of the wheel of the year?
#SensingChallenge What are the changes we need to be aware of if we are to head the warning in Jesus words about the foolishness of recognising weather warnings but ignoring the signs of the times? (recorded by Luke here)
Are you inspired to suggest any ways we could use the arts to explore, understand, or express these things? (Please use the comments or send us a message)
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 sentiment that humans are more than their physical elements.
Some experiences are special. Life is more than just it’s physical components. There can be moments where we sense something that can be described as sublime. Mystics experience transcendence, and then spend the rest of their lives trying to explain it in a way which avoids disrespecting the experience. Whatever metaphysics you use to understand these experiences, taking time out to become mindful of the otherness of where you are, the specialness of this particular moment, can help enrich your ordinary experience of everyday life.
