Quartz at St Johns DumfriesContinuing the liturgical theme, do our liturgical prayers in Church carry the lamentations of those caught in climate anxiety ?
Is there room to confess our experiences of being caught in the grip of the vice of oil dependence and unsustainable lifstyles ?
Do we leave absolved of our sins against the creation we are part of, ready, transformed to sin no more?
What questions do you have after listening to this discussion!
Whilst on holiday Alison caught a glimpse of this exhibition through the window.
I wonder what your experience of mothering is?
Or how many various experiences both positive and negative contribute to your understanding of what mothering and motherhood is?
How does that relate to husbandry?
As Quartz Forest Church we have been meeting in a very managed estate for over a year now. The grass is mown, the flowerbeds weeded and it is as well managed as a family offered up for a morning service in their Sunday best clothes.
Even in the most pristine and culturally conservative setting though, verses from the bible challenge the status quo. The rich and respectable are warned that it is the poor and marginalised who more often recognise the prophets. Those who lead armies are reminded that the king of the world won through mounting a cross and in dying fulfilled the promise of creation. Even in the texts there is a wildness that challeges human rationality. An earthy humour that pokes fun at us when we elevate our religion to an untouchable status and make it sterile.
Likewise, even within this managed estate, whether that is described as husbandry or mothering, there is an uncontrollable energy. We will take time out this Sunday to look for the deep green and echoes of wild vitality. We will pause to sense ways in which the landscape reminds us that we are participants in our relationship with the rest of creation. Even though we shape the landscape, our environment also shapes us.
Please join us at 2pm if you are near Dumfries, or send comments from wherever you are in the world!
The next Forest Church gathering for April will be on Easter Sunday
The experience of being challenged and moved by experiences including love, beauty, goodness, joy, compassion, injustice, evil, suffering, death.
