There are still brambles on the bushes, apples ripe for picking on the tree. The yard is secluded, and the birds find space to sing. This is an industrial yard, a coal yard, but times have changed and its use has changed with them.
There is broadband so we can meet transatlantic friends and pray together. The physicality of hand skills is used to help people make sense of their surroundings and find confidence. Academics have travelled here to experience primitive firefighting techniques. Philosophy is pursued whilst cleaning mud from tent pegs.
We must not cling to the past, or buildings will become rocks that wreck the future. Even then, the memories, associations and loyalties people have bound up in a place will drag them down with it, swimming trying to keep the memorial afloat.
Which is a negative view! But what can or should be saved from the shipwreck? Why have generations abandoned ship and found fulfillment for their spiritual needs elsewhere? What spiritual assets are locked into victorian stone, and how can we help them sing? What pre-modern learning has been loaded into liturgy, and how can it be laid out as lore for a post modern community dislocated by the experience of global warfare, neo liberalism, and climate crisis?
How can we reconcile ourselves with the past, and meet with Jesus in the present, to empower our walk into the future?
Welcome to the 2nd Sunday creative worship service in November. Whether you are online, or in the St Johns building there will be a lot that seems strange.
Set this time aside to rest from the strain, don’t ignore it as the challenge of encountering the unfamiliar can be healthy and helpful, but rest. You are not in this alone, and we have the heritage of the Church spread throughout time and space to draw on. Take time to become aware of your feelings, your thoughts, your breathing, and the peace of God be with you.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning is now, and shall be for ever.
Amen.
II. PSALM
Psalm 46
Another (extended) version of this playlist can be found here if you are online, have a bit more time, and don’t mind a bit more metal)
Time for ReflectionActivities
The psalm for this Sunday is followed by a playlist of music videos on the theme of refuge. The following activities have been chosen to suggest a wide range of ways to respond to the psalm. Have a look at the headings and have a go at one or all of them. They will be available online at least unitl the 2nd Sunday in December!
In the St Johns building we will be providing clay, but these reflections activities could be carried out using a wide range of materials at home.
Some Questions
Where do you find refuge? What are the foundations you build your life on? When have you felt alone? When has God been your refuge?
Want to make something with an obvious use?
Labyrinths can be used to help guide your meditation, they can be a visualisation of calming down and placing things in order. Becoming aware of God at the heart of your life.
Roll the clay into a ball
Flatten it and roll it out as a disc
Make a dot in the middle
Lightly draw 5 circles radiating out from the dot
Use these lines to trace the path into the centre
The white lines in the picture are the path your finger takes!
You could use this time to write references or words on clay pebbles, stones – or even a wall to remind you of texts you find helpful. The CornerstoneStanding StonesLegal Refuge Assurance
Graphical Truth, meditation on meaningfulness
If you draw a right angle, wrong, the house will be insecure.
You can discover and explore truth with a bit of string and a straight edge, and these are the foundations on which archetecture is based.
Roll out a flat sheet of clay and take some time exploring the making of patterns (or a pencil, ruler and pair of compases on paper).
There is a pattern of circles within which all the Euclidean solids can be formed – perfectly- and this is constant within the human expereince of physical time and space.
So when you look at a building, perhaps you can wonder at the amazing ability given to Humans? Can it be a way to sense less physically accessible truths? Perhaps you could make a more permanent reminder of this as a clay mandalla – or a window frame?
Lord, God almighty, come and dispel the darkness from our hearts, that in the radiance of your brightness we may know you, the only unfading light, glorious in all eternity.
