A journey with wit and wisdom

It's Saturday evening. We've hit one of those rare moments of calm when the main path through the festival village seems almost empty. E., 21/2, runs ahead of us, flinging her arms wide and shouts to anyone with ears to hear
"Greenbot....I love you!"

So do I, her granny.

It's been 20 years now since I first fell in love with this place of wonder, hopes and dreams, falling into the arms of the festival with delight, as I discovered that there WAS a tribe to which I belonged, a place which heart and soul could both call home. 

In those first years at Cheltenham, with free range children exploring far and wide, enjoying a freedom and safety that I couldn't always offer them elsewhere, it was all about the talks. I bought tapes by the dozen, discovered new writers, new ways of approaching faith in terms of radical Kingdom living which my gently conventional Cotswold village church somehow never quite articulated, lapped up so much wit and wisdom, found myself stretched, challenged, inspired. I loved it all, - and the belated realisation that my own sense of discontent with the way Church and life seemed to play out was shared by others kept me going through the switch-back journey of discernment and ordination training. 
I made friends - online friends (a concept that was still excitingly novel, and transformative for me) with whom I spent many a happy evening on the Greenbelt forum, and so for a few years the festival was mainly a feverish series of catch ups, of "Greenbelt hugs" (oh, dear, dotty, beloved Anna, you are missed, still missed!) exchanged en route to yet another unmissable talk.
With them I savoured many, many Greenbelt moments. glimpses of God in unexpected corners that filled me with joy.

I watched those free-range children find their own roles, their own homes in the Greenbelt community...When I first travelled to India, at the same stage in my daughter's life as I had lost my own parents, it was to Greenbelt friends that I entrusted their emotional and spiritual flourishing if something went wrong and I failed to return. 
Those friendships were intense, sometimes demanding but never less than life-enhancing - and forged in our shared love of this place of hope and transformation year after year after year.

Greenbelt has always been a place where I could try new things...listen to music I'd never have met elsewhere, experience worship that was light years away from the norm I encountered as I travelled through curacy and into the early years of life as a parish priest. 
Sometimes Gloucester diocese, my then home, had clergy training days at the racecourse - and it always felt as if somewhere, just out of sight, the festival was going on in a parallel universe...that Snowy was stewarding a crowd into a John Bell talk, while The Rising brought in crowds to Centaur and DFG were up to something subversively funny in Underground, 
Ten years in to our relationship I had come to realise that there would ALWAYS be more than I could possibly fit in...but that if I missed something wonderful one year, there would be something no less wonderful waiting for me when we returned just twelve months on. I became less frenetic in my passage from Performance Cafe to Centaur, from Wild Goose to Christian Aid. It would all be alright. There were enough of us who were trying to live our faith in a Greenbelt kind of way, such that if I didn't get to everything, there would be others to pick up any one message and take it home with them.

5 years ago, I moved from Gloucester to Coventry - and the festival moved too, recovering from the trauma of 2012 Mudbelt, after which life at Cheltenham was never quite the same. Planted afresh on a greenfield site at Boughton, Greenbelt changed shape a little, but the passion, the beauty, the faith, hope and love were absolutely unaltered and we moved into a new chapter in our family too, as long-term partners became family and then, 3 summers ago, the very special Miss E experienced her first festival. With her dad up to his ears as head of traffic, it wasn't an easy weekend for her mum, but she's a wonderful woman who persevered anyway, so that last year we had the fun of chasing a rampaging toddler through the festival village, passing friends, talks, art work at a gallop. I'm not sure what I actually attended in2018 (I know I was at Communion, with the same group of beloved friends with whom we've shared this holy moment for at least a decade, as children were born to enlarge our circle) but I found that, despite a vague feeling that I hadn't actually experienced that much, when I returned to work I FELT as if I had been to Greenbelt. Renewed, enthused, challenged and changed. The addictive mix I've been lapping up continues to sustain and delight me.

And, this year, as temperatures soared, things were different again.
Different, but exactly the same in terms of what actually matters. Understanding friends coped when our conversations never shifted from the superficial to their former depths, as I had one eye constantly on a blonde, curly head intent on heading off across the Lawn to explore fresh woods and pastures new. In a new season, landscapes adjust their contours, and new delights emerge.

No, i didn't get to all the talks I might have enjoyed - but goodness, I was fed well by those I did attend. Mark Oakley, Padgraig O'Touma, Rachel Mann and the incomparable Nadia Bolz-Weber made everything gloriously alright, restoring my faith in preaching, in the power of story and in the joy of living in my own body...something Miss E had been trying to get across for a while.
I spent more time in the Haven and lying in the shade while Miss E created her own campsite out of a folding seat and organised her toys for "'Munion in the bootiful big tent" than I did soaking up the peace of the Chapel...but there were Greenbelt moments aplenty. 
Too late to gain a space inside Shelter for Saturday night's Taize service, I sat on the grass looking out across the lake towards the house and the festival village. I thought about a dear friend whose mother's life is gently coming to an end as we sang "Wait for the Lord whose day is near, wait for the Lord, keep watch, take heart!" and reflected that Greenbelt, more than anything else, enables me to keep faith and stretch out in yearning towards the Kingdom with all that is in me. And God was there, and I was there, and around us Greenbelt buzzed with life and that same longing urging us onwards.
And on Sunday morning I had an almost unbelievable, overwhelming privilege, when, asked to read at the Communion service, I found that my "lines" included my most loved verse in the whole of Scripture.
"For the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. And the darkness never will", matched by the wonder of the Magnificat, with its vision of the world turned upside down..rekindling my own treasured memory of being installed at Coventry on the feast of the Visitation, singing "Tell out my soul" as my beloved church family walked me up the aisle of the Cathedral towards a new life and ministry there...
I was even, incredibly, entrusted with the words of Institution, shared with a remarkable 9 year old. 
So many precious, precious words, to speak aloud in the place I love.
And I stood on my little platform, surrounded by 5,000 plus Greenbelters singing "O holy night" with all that was in them, and knew that here, right HERE, heaven was touching earth again. 
And I was part of it, caught up in love and delight and grace upon grace upon grace.

"Make life more like Greenbelt" said my younger son, as we headed home one year, coated in mud but shining with joy.
"Greenbelt is a state of mind, not just a festival" said another...and once again I'm restored to myself, by 4 days unlike any other. 
As so often, my best beloved E said it best, with her joyous exclamation
"Greenbot...I love you".
"Amen", and again  I say "Amen."

Greenbelt reflection - on being a hippy dippy Christian.

Just one week ago excitement was at fever pitch in the vicarage.

Hugger Steward and the Dufflepud were already encamped in the swamp that was Cheltenham racecourse after a deluge, working with that wonderful team of festival makers that transform a space of grass and concrete into a fantastic playground for 20,000 people to celebrate, learn, dream and worship together.

With a friend staying who was new to the festival, I was slightly apprehensive.

I love Greenbelt so much, and for the past 11 years it has been so central to the life of our family...

Introducing it to someone else is a bit like the process of watching one of the children perform on stage (one of the most nerve wracking parts of parenthood for me). 

Will they achieve their best?

Will their music reach others? 

Will it be ALL RIGHT?

I needn't have worried.

My friend "got it" immediately - though I suspect I taxed her stamina to the limit and beyond as we drove home after Last Orders every night.

But I was sad when a twitter contact was clearly unconvinced and wrote of "too many hippy dippy Christians".

At least, I was sad at first.

But as I thought about it, I began to cherish the label.

Yes, Greenbelt is full of grown ups reliving their youth, awash with the idealism that struggles to find a place the rest of the year.

There's a preponderance of bright colours, tie & dye & Fair Trade cotton - such that I always struggle with the thought of these joyous birds of paradise constrained once more by city suits or clerical collars come Tuesday morning.

There's also, and more importantly, a preponderance of Christians who are passionate...who long to make a difference...to change the world for the sake of the Kingdom...to live their faith each and every day.

It's that passionate joy that I miss in the Church community for the rest of the year...the sense that we are dreaming together of something beautiful beyond our imaginings...the sense that we are marching to a different drum.

Yesterday as I read the epistle at Church on the Hill it all fell into place

If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. 

So I'm home inspired by Tom Sine and dreaming of intentional Christian communities.

I'm home considering how to live the upside down world of the Beatitudes with Dave Andrews.

I'm home considering the rival claims of peace and truth as presented by Giles Fraser.

I'm home with the music of Jars of Clay, Courtney Pine and Ellie Williams still filling my head and making me want to dance at odd moments.

I'm home with a longing to engage in deep contemplation - be it the Rosary or, the Jesus Prayer or a route beyond all words.

I'm home - but certain that I really do have a foothold somewhere else.

I'm a hippy dippy Christian - and proud of it.

Standing in the Long Now 2 - Stillness

The long now is, of course, the very best place to engage with God.

There were many many opportunities across the weekend – some obvious, some completely unexpected (but for the fact that Greenbelt is such a thin place, encountering God is never really unexpected).
God-filled moments for me included

sitting in Centaur on Friday night listening to Christopher Norton (Mr Microjazz – just think of that! - I used that with many a piano pupil once upon a time) and Robin Thompson-Clarke playing Arvo Part's Spiegel im spiegel

a window opening in my soul as +Gene Robinson reflected on Jesus words to the disciples
“There is so much I would like to tell you but you are not able to bear it…But when the Holy Spirit comes she will lead you into all truth”...a reminder that the sometimes unbearably slow learning processes of the Church have been expected from her beginnings

much of the Sunday worship, where I was surprised by tears as each member of our small group, among the thousands took it in turns to use olive oil from the Holy Land to anoint the hand of their neighbour and to pray a blessing on them.

the peace and holiness that I characterised everything I attended in New Forms, (always a wonderful place to be) specially Blessed’s Mass of the Trinity (I could have spent far longer just sitting with God before that blue lit altar) and the Long Worship put together by emerging communities Dream, Grace, feig, and Safespace


I found 2 stations here particularly powerful.
One consisted of many many cards, each bearing a single word…This was liturgy, the work of the people – and we were invited to arrange the cards to express our own prayers, our own situations and post them on the wall.
Elsewhere, we could write a letter to our future selves, with hopes, dreams, reminders of wisdom encountered, moments to cherish from this year’s Festival. The letters will be posted on to us in early March. I was quite tough with myself – so can only hope it doesn’t arrive on a difficult day.
Being told off by oneself if everyone else is feeling fierce might not be the best thing, though the substance of my letter (the ongoing question of time, boundaries and space to be human) is something I undoubtedly need to work on...

"Standing in the Long Now…" part 1 - Serendipity

1......

Was the theme for this year’s Greenbelt.

What a theme for those of us caught up in feverish activity, in dreaming of 6 impossible things before breakfast and struggling to achieve them.
What a theme for a culture that still seems intent on instant gratification.
One of this year’s festival tee shirts reminded us “Now is all we have” so perhaps I was more conscious that usual of the need to take the festival gently,to savour the moment rather than hurtling with too much determination from seminar to seminar.
Whatever the reason, it worked for me.

I know that I missed some real gems.…
Somehow I failed to get to hear Nadia Bolz-Weber; doubly annoying as not only did she get rave reviews from all those who attended her sessions, but she really inspired Hattie Gandhi, - who normally claims that GB speakers are not for her, that she’s only there for the music and the festival vibe.
I queued fruitlessly for Rob Bell (once – then decided that life and Greenbelt were both too short), for Ikon and for Stephen Cotterel (deep deep fury, as his session was not recorded, but sounded particularly apt as I continue to struggle to achieve balance in my life and in my diary)
Indeed, Sunday was for me the day of standing in the long queues…and of discovering unexpected compensation.

After the service (which I'll hope to blog later) I waited for nearly 90 minutes outside, Centaur, the huge indoor venue where Rob Bell was to speak. It was fine. I had things to read, a spinach pancake to eat, and it wasn’t raining…but alas, when the doors were opened something really un Greenbelty happened as the crowd surged forward rather than proceeding decently and in order. In no time the venue had reached capacity – so I turned disconsolate away and headed for the Tiny Tea Tent to regroup.

Bummer!

But wait…

As many of you will know, while the speakers, the music, the theatre, the whole Festival atmosphere is very close to heaven, it’s the people above all that make Greenbelt heaven on earth…Every year, there are some wonderful meetings and happy reunions, and the days before the festival see many exchanges of mobile numbers, to enable these to happen.
Sometimes, though, it’s a bit harder -for example, when the person you are longing to see is coming from the States, with a phone that doesn’t work in the UK at all….
There are 20,000 people at the festival so it’s horribly possible not to glimpse people whom you DO know and recognise irl., still less find someone whom you only know via their blog.
Lilly Lewin and I have been blog friends for around 4 years now, and I was very excited when she wrote that she’d be at Greenbelt. We agreed that we must meet at the Tiny Tea Tent…We have a mutual friend who has my mobile number, - so I assumed we’d be able to fix something up relatively easily.
I’d failed to take into account the extreme busyness that overtakes this friend once the Festival gets going… He has Very Important Jobs to do and a scarily full agenda. A text to him yielded no results, and I was beginning to worry

Silly, really. I should have known.
Lilly is someone who prays – and isn’t ashamed of including some very practical requests along the way. She was as intent on our need to meet as I was and had reminded God of this that very Sunday morning so perhaps it’s not that surprising that I, who find it almost impossible to initiate a conversation with strangers unless I am in role as a priest, dared to ask the vaguely familiar American woman (does anyone actually look like their profile picture?) just leaving a likely table in the Tiny Tea Tent
“Excuse me, but are you Lilly…?”
and received the answer “YES”!

So, my grumpy failure to get what I thought I wanted led instead to an encounter that was exactly what I needed – friendship confirmed, exciting conversation, and some wise thoughts about a particular situation.
So often a “Greenbelt moment” is very much a God thing, and this one certainly was.

Another came later that same day, when yet again I was too late to make it into a venue – this time the beer tent for Beer & Hymns. I’m hopeless at estimating numbers, but there were surely a couple of hundred of us left sadly outside the picket fence, while the empty “beer garden” recalled the great gulf fixed between Dives and Lazarus, dividing us from the happy souls within, who could both drink and sing.
After a rather sadly ironic interlude during which a man near me decided to lay into the steward about the madness of the restrictions, and the unreasonableness of a festival that was trying to protect the safety of its visitor, while all around him the crowd sang “Praise my soul the king of heaven”, things looked up.
We might be beerless, but nothing could stop us singing. I was surrounded by good voices, who were quick to pick up parts and we had the time of our lives.
At one point a learning impaired adult left the crowd in the beer tent to leap on a table and conduct us
At another we sang my desert island hymn “And can it be”
That hymn has been part of so many important events for me – my farewell service at my sending parish, my first Mass, my licensing here – but singing it with all that I had, as I stood beneath the sign of the Jesus Arms, was maybe the best of all.
In case you hadn't noticed - I do so love Greenbelt!

Greenbelt Music

Many moons ago, before the vicar was even a curate, a good friend (who incidentally has just acquired a very exciting new job) suggested that I might enjoy going to Greenbelt.
"August Bank Holiday? You must be joking - you can't expect anyone running a B&B to get away then...Anyway, Greenbelt is an evangelical rock fest isn't it?"
You see, I'd heard about the festival during my student days, I had even spent a day uneasily skirting its fringes at Knebworth, but those who enthused about it seemed to be in a totally different world from my Renaissance bubble, even if we did share a taste in ethnic skirts and assorted bangles. Greenbelt, in my mind = evangelical Christians playing bad music loudly. Not a trace of Palestrina from dawn to dusk.
So I knew all about Greenbelt, didn't I? And I knew that I'd hate it...

Fast forward to Pentecost 2000, when the whole of the diocese of Gloucester was invited to a huge party at Cheltenham racecourse, to celebrate the church's 2000th birthday. P2K they called it...and it was wonderful. A one day melee of speakers and music, arts and worship, culminating in a laser show that was a first for our family. We were enraptured and the (very young) Hugger Steward begged me to find out if there was anything like this anywhere that we might attend. Fortunately the main Communion service that day included the obligatory Anglican rite of notices..."If you are enjoying yourself, and would like to experience more, why not visit the Greenbelt stand..." - before the service was over, there we were,booking day tickets and discovering just how many and varied strands this Christian Arts Festival brings together.
It's always fascinating to compare notes after the event...There is so much variety that it's quite possible to hear descriptions from two members of the same family without realising they were at the same festival. For so many, it's all about the music. In the weeks before hand, as details of the music line-up are gradually confirmed, there are cries of joy or anguish on the Greenbelt forum..but mostly, I'm still in the dark. My wondrous offspring have widened my horizons beyond all recognition, from those of the rather bigotted classical musician who scorned GB at Knebworth...but all the same, I mostly don't know the names that appear on the GB website. But, of course, it's a festival. Once the wristband is donned, you have access to whatever you fancy..speakers, worship, debate, visual arts and, yes, music.
My favourite venue is the Performance Cafe (nurtured, as it happens, by the friend who first suggested that Greenbelt might be a life enhancing experience for the whole clan Fleming)....It has grown through the years, but is still an intimate venue where artists play acoustic sets, and you drift in to listen for a while before wandering on. It's the perfect place for someone like me to experience new music. Mainstage always seems to belong to the afficionados - and to youth....I'll stand on the edge of the crowd for a while, but unless I'm sure I like the artist, it's not the place to try things for the first time.
GB 06 saw Martyn Joseph playing mainstage- despite my offsprings' scorn I am totally addicted and his performance in Centaur this year reduced me to a small pool.Fortunately, everyone else was equally afflicted.


Last year was my introduction to the wild, whacky and wonderful Duke Special
and the follow up birthday present of tickets to his Oxford gig was one of the highlights of my year.

And this year? Perhaps not surprisingly, my discovery reflected the Indian resonances of my own particular Greenbelt. Aradhana
played during the Communion service, but I was rather too busy dealing with my role in a group including people from St M's, people from Church in the Valley, family and Greenbelt friends to engage properly. Sunday night in Centaur was a very different matter...Their website describes them thus
the sounds of sitar and guitar merge to create a new global instrument that blends unusual rhythmic patterns with the dipping and soaring of the vocals. listeners sense a deep devotion and connection to the yeshu revealed in the holy scriptures



Given the western origins of the musicians, this might have been deeply cheesy...in fact for me it was utterly wonderful. At the end of the gig, they were given a standing ovation...and persuaded into an encore, for which we were invited to dance.
So a middle aged cleric found herself stepping out of her flowery wellies to whirl barefoot around Centaur, dancing out of love for India, for music, for God.
It still sounds cheesy, doesn't it? Perhaps you had to be there.
I'm so glad that I was!

A blur of colour

I took this picture of one of the juggling staff from the ever popular "BallzULike" stall as GB 08 wound down on Monday evening...That whirl of colour and movement isn't a bad metaphor for the festival experience at its best(though I really don't remember flames leaping from his head, as they seem to be in the picture - perhaps its a post-dated miracle?)

"Rising Sun"

was the unintentionally ironic theme for this year's Greenbelt...Ironic, because it was the wettest festival we've had since moving to Cheltenham, I think. On Sunday afternoon, as we gathered for Communion, the heavens opened and we clustered under umbrellas and groundsheets to sing "Here comes the sun".
Humph

In some ways, this year was a festival of near misses for me. I failed to get to two worship experiences offered by friends...I forgot to go to another...I made a wrong call or two in terms of choices...I missed some friends completely, despite our best efforts, - and I really didn't enjoy the experience of driving half an hour home in the small hours to nurture the convalescent cat, despite the obvious pleasure of a real bed and as many showers as I wanted.
In the past few years, when not camping I have had a house full of Greenbelt friends so that the festival continued at home. This year, I felt much more detached - so I guess that means cat sitters and campsite in 2009 if I'm to really make the most of the festival.

Despite this, there was much to celebrate!

My first Greenbelt moment occurred on the Saturday when I turned a corner in the festival village and found myself face to face with Prem, the Indian priest who had taken me to see elephants in the Bhannergatta National Park almost two years ago.He heads up A Rocha India, and was a major speaker at this year's Greenbelt - but I'd somehow missed the news that he was coming, and clearly he hadn't expected to bump into me among 20,000 assorted punters. Great delight on both sides, though I was dismayed as I heard his talks to realise that despite the all I had learned during my stay in India, I've done so very little to work for change - either on behalf of those oppressed by the caste system, or indeed on behalf of the poor, benighted elephants.
To have two important bits of my life collide was an interesting experience...For my children to be able to hear Prem for themselves a joy. Vintage Greenbelt stuff!

Sara Miles was predictably splendid...Coming hard on my ponderings on abundance inspired by the lectionary last time I preached, her story of "eating Jesus" and the changes that brought about for her was hugely inspiring. I'm certain that eating together is the way to create community, and that offering radical hospitality is a huge part of our calling. Recently, some of my congregation from the valley have been thinking about ways we might connect with our community. Some sort of drop-in cafe is very high up the list,- finally making sense of a visit I made two years ago...
It would be lovely if this were the way forward for us...I wonder if there's a way we could make it free?
Of course, to welcome people unlike ourselves widens our experience of the God whose image we bear...It also changes us in ways we might never imagine.

John Swinton's talk "The Body of Christ has Down's Syndrome" took me further along the road of looking for God's likeness in everyone.
What does it mean for our theology if we believe that those with disabilities will be healed in heaven?
If we believe that someone with Down's is fully human and completely beloved of God as they are, what does this tell us about full humanity and about living in God's image
Clearly I need to revisit the work of John Hull
whose input on sight and blindness was one of the most compelling experiences of vicar school.
I wonder if he's ever spoken at Greenbelt?

Brian McLaren was fab - though the panel that included him alongside other emerging theologians and leaders was frustrating - too many exciting people, which meant that none of them had enough space to talk. I barely heard Karen Ward at all, - maddening! At the moment the emerging theology which I find so exciting seems quite remote from the reality of my parishes - but we clearly need to find new ways of being church here as much as anywhere...It's just that there's so much to assimilate for the moment, in learning the way traditional church happens...But I needed the cold water wake-up call, that's for sure



The Breathing Space Yurt was a treasure - a lovely place to be...On the last evening, I spent almost an hour in there, listening to the sound of stalls being taken down, the beginning of the end of the Festival, - which might have been sad, but wasn't. The peace was so solid that you could almost cut slices and take them away with you...


Personal highlight? -a close call, but I think it has to be blessed's Mass on Monday night. I was bowled over by the experience of the Sacrament being brought to me sprawled on a beanbag...very much just as I was...and Jesus came to me.

I know that I spent the rest of the evening wandering around with a silly grin - but then, that's rather the effect that meeting God has on me, specially at Greenbelt!

"Tomorrow shall be my dancing day..."

or at least, a day of much singing, laughter and general rejoicing.
Tomorrow, you see, is the start of Greenbelt 08.
Think of the best family Christmas - the times when you really ARE delighted to see everyone who turns up.
Add all the really interesting people whom you wish you could gather in one place but would never dare to ask.
Throw in copious handfuls of challenge, inspiration, and things you didn't even guess that you might need.
Set to music. Whatever music you love...any genre
Remember that you are loved.
Not just once but again and again.

Greenbelt...this year featuring Sara Miles, Brian McLaren, Karen Ward, Sally Vickers - and some of the people I love most in all the world.
I hope you might be there too.

It's impossible to explain how much this Festival means to me, and to so many thousands of others...Why don't you come along.
I promise you won't regret it.

A box marked "Heaven"

When our Greenbelt wristbands arrived this year, with them was a small flatpacked white cardboard box, the beginning of an art exhibition to which we were all invited to contribute. Our brief was to create our own glimpse of "Heaven in a box" - and all the boxes that arrived at the Festival (a goodly number, though not the 20,000 that would have represented each paying person on site) became a delightful and quirky peep into our deepest joys and longings.

In our family, the artistic/creative people are on the whole also the chaotic last minuters- so we didn't actually realise we could have been doing something glorious until the moment had passed. I've been thinking about it, though, and
here's my box after the event...

The contents may not be terribly obvious but include

• a minature kaleidoscope - making beauty out of tiny fragments of brokenness...
• a shell to represent all that the sea means to me...childhood, eternity and so much else in between
  
• the names of my children and some others to represent the myriad people who show me heaven...
• a tiny scroll (one that I've used in alt worship with the youth group), there both to represent all the wonderful words that have opened my eyes to God in different ways at different times and the shiney young people themselves who are clearly a sign of heaven
• some notes of music - the surest route to heaven I know
• a tea light - so many wonderful acts of worship in more contexts than I can recall, small reflections of the light that shines in the darkness
• a square of fair trade chocolate - for itself and for all those who work tirelessly to make the kingdom come on earth as in heaven

So - that's my box full, at least for today.
I'd love to know what you'd use to represent "heaven in a box" though...Do add a comment to share your glimpses

A maze

as you, gentle readers, know full well, is not the same as a labyrinth.
Try as you might, you can't get lost in a labyrinth, as it leads you on its inexorable route to the centre, and then safely out again. Labyrinths* have a long and honourable history in Christian spirituality, whether they simply provide a prayer path on which you cannot go astray, or include interactive stations en route, designed to deepen the experience.
The whole point of the labyrinth is that it always takes you to the centre - there is no wrong turning possible. No wonder it's a beloved metaphor for our journey with the God who "searches out our paths and is acquainted with all our ways".

A maze, however, is a very different matter.
A maze can involve any number of false starts and dead ends, can confront you repeatedly with the need to turn round and retrace your steps. You may, indeed, never succeed in completing your route at all (always supposing you're sure where you are trying to go in the first place). Mazes are designed to lead you astray...to mislead (an old name was "miz maze" - which says alot about the crazy, wandering path).

I was struck by this as I walked the grass maze at Greenbelt. This year's design was a complex one, based on the forms of two people, curled round each other, each intent on the other**.

Once people are involved, things do get complicated. No surpises there, then.

In human relationships, things are rarely straightforward, and wrong turnings are all too possible.
It's tempting to simply leap off an unpromising path and see if the one next door is more productive...but there could be a value in simply retracing your steps and trying to see where you first took a wrong turning.
Perhaps it doesn't actually matter if you don't arrive anywhere, as long as you make the most of the journey.

I spent a while watching others walk the Greenbelt maze.
Children, in fact, didn't walk at all. They skipped, hopped, ran - and if they reached a dead end, more often than not they giggled hugely.
For adults, it was a more serious business. They seemed to walk with intense concentration, even anxiety. Getting things right mattered far more - and the success of the journey would only be determined by a safe arrival at a particular goal.
I'm not good at following directions, so I often get lost.
Sometimes this bothers me hugely...I get tearful and panicky if I know that someone is waiting for me, that I'm running the risk of letting anyone down by a late arrival or a no-show.
At others, though, I'm able to detach the journey from the end point and savour it for its own sake..and then getting lost doesnt' matter at all.

No conclusions to draw - just some thoughts, one morning at Greenbelt.

*More about labyrinths in worship here

**I've really tried to find details of the designer online, but without success...my apologies that I'm writing about her work without a link to her site. Stupid of me not to write things down at the time, but there we go.

What happened next

Thanks to the Junior School projector, evening worship proceeded pretty much as I'd planned it. Another exploration of Heaven in Ordinary, it picked up where I'd left off with this congregation one month ago, on the eve of the Transfiguration, and worked with my own feeling of returning to earth with a bump after the heights of Greenbelt, and the melancholy end of summer, the resumption of school, the need to get on with the daily business of living.

It was heavily inspired by the Dream worship at Greenbelt, by my beloved George Herbert and also by John Davies and his Common Prayers.
We read psalm 23 and then Mike Riddell's "Urban Shepherd" and considered which, if either, was a closer expression of the real landscape of our lives, the place where we could expect to meet heaven in ordinary. I'd taken assorted shots of my route up to church, which we used as an extra focus for this, while we explored our inner landscapes using the Dream map.
We discovered with Jacob "surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it"
and I offered a few extra thoughts on the theme
I began our prayers with 3 of John's Common Prayers, giving thanks for wheelie bins, for bus stops and shopping trolleys - and these really captured the imagination. We prayed for John, too, as he walks a new landscape, finding signs of God along the M62...
A far cry from the creativity of last weekend, but a good way to bring some glimpses of Greenbelt back home.

Ikon: The God delusion

Part of the worship programme, but maybe its alternative label of "transformance art" is more helpful..Even before it began,it challenged...did I want to enter beneath the arch marked "Believer" or would it be safer to enroll as a doubter? why wasn't there a "questioning believer" route?what difference would it make anyway?

A hugely thought-provoking evening, which began with the story of the day God spoke and said "I do not exist" and went on to explore the question of faith, with word play -"Where does your faith lie? Where does your faith lie?"- and striking visuals...around the central image of a towering woman (?Truth? reality?) whose garments (faith) were being unravelled gradually throughout the proceedings.

Ikon explored what happens when you dare to pull at one loose end ...how once you begin to take something apart, it may just not prove possible to recreate it in its original form.

We were invited to edit the creed (visit the Ikon wiki for the final version) as it was projected onto screens around the room...shown what a difference punctuation makes
"...Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried..."
disturbed and challenged again and again.

" We have reified our creeds: I am right They are wrong Our truths are binding and We will not let them go"

I loved the metaphor of reverse origami...when you unfold your paper bird, painstakingly, hoping to learn how to make it for yourself, all too often your end product is a creased sheet of paper which offers no clue as to how the bird could ever be recreated.

Before we left we were given a strand of wool...symbolic of the unravelling garment of faith, but with potential to be wound or knitted into something new.
I tied mine around my ankle and it's still here a week on...faith isn't watertight, finished, rigid...it changes as we change, mirrors our relationship with a God who is alive, mobile, infinitely greater than any construct we may devise to contain God.

Greenbelt worship (part 3)

I really don’t want to bore you…but I do need to note some other highlights of Greenbelt worship this year, if only so I've a reference point when I need it …

Sunday Eucharist: this is always a huge challenge…how do you include up to 20,000 people from right across the traditions, in one act of Communion?
If the worship is led by a particular denomination, other groups may complain (as ever, the cry seemed to be that it was “too Anglican”…though wonderful Bishop Nelson from Uganda is surely rather outside the mould of your conventional C of E cleric ;-) )…if there is lay presidency, this raises issues for others.
Altogether, creating something that works for everyone is quite a task – but one that Sanctus 1 rose to with creativity and zest.
For the last couple of years it hasn’t been possible for everyone to fit in one place, so the worship has been divided between the arena and mainstage areas. Last year I was at mainstage, where the “live” service was taking place but I felt far more connected and involved this time round, when I opted for the arena.
This was billed as being more “alternative” but in fact (unless I’m now so used to alt worship that it doesn’t strike me as such at all) there was only one part of the service when things diverged particularly…the mainstage congregation were singing something while in the arena we were shown a video loops on the big screen and invited to pray around it.

As in previous years, we were invited to gather in groups of around 20…friends and strangers together.
We gathered as a community by writing our names on strips of paper to link into a multicoloured chain…(which I got to keep – so I have a mini Greenbelt family to pray for when I can). As a community, we released our prayer balloon and watched it join the others, sailing off into the bluest of skies…
Later, when the Bishop prayed the prayer of consecration Serena stood in the centre of our circle holding up the bread and wine
We sang, we danced, we celebrated…and it was very good.

Greenbelt Worship (part 2)

Having been so inspired by Moot it was kind of inevitable that the following evening saw me back in New Forms, where Dream was exploring
A life more ordinary

Romans 12 Place Your Life Before God 1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.


We reflected on the images we hide behind, those projections of ourselves that we somehow feel are more worthy, more admirable than the reality…and were invited to draw something on a mirror to represent this. I so often ponder where aspiration (the air brushed image) becomes deceit so this was both challenging and helpful – and when the mirror was smashed with a truly impressive crash there was no chance of missing the point! God engages with our reality...however much we might wish that God wouldn't!

There were a series of stations to engage us….a map on which we were invited to use a cocktail stick to plot our position…out on a limb….seeking guidance…..on the path of obedience….Having scored a hole on our sheet, we then turned it over to discover that right where we were, in whatever state, is where God meets us.
Simple but effective – the sort of hug from God that everyone needs more often than not.

Other stations included a graffiti wall on which we wrote places or situations where we had encountered God in the previous week and a string of paper people to cut out and label as people who showed us God.
There was also a rather exciting station “Heavenopoly” – where you could place yourself and those on your heart in the appropriate square on the board…Free Parking? In gaol – just visiting?Needing support from the Community Chest? Overwhelmed by the riches of Mayfair?
I didn’t use this myself but the friend I was with was very enthusiastic about it – and there were other stations too…all apparently creative and inspiring.

After some time to engage with these, we broke bread …each communicating ourselves in silence.

Wonderful! Just wonderful!

Greenbelt worship ( part 1)

comes in as many forms as the Festival itself….from Quaker silence, through the Franciscans Celebrating Common Prayer to the Underground Rock Eucharist and the many creative expressions of worship in the New Forms venue.
This year I felt drawn to far more worship than in the past (when the need to be educated and stimulated generally took precedence) – and it was all wonderful (too wonderful, it seems, to be confined to one post - I hadn't intended a series, but there's so much to savour I may just have to produce one! Apologies to those who either experienced Greenbelt directly, or who are heartily tired of my reliving it already...I'll be a while yet)

Saturday night saw me exploring Moot’s Divine Sense of Place…with its focus on the fear that lurks just beneath the surface of the urban landscape, the hositility to the stranger that the media love to cultivate.
The worship included some revised Beatitudes that I found very moving

“Blessed are the single mothers….the homeless…the asylum seekers…the yobs…the excluded”

and the reminder, from the parable of the sheep and the goats, that we meet Christ in the stranger.

“Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ ³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ ⁴⁰And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matt 25:31ff)

We looked again at our fears and tried to see the face of Christ in the stranger once more, so that we could say from the heart
“Stranger, no longer a stranger, I wish you well”

Towards the end of worship we were given the opportunity to go to one of a series of bowls and in silence have our hands washed, and wash the hands of another person….a stranger….
I was sitting on a bean bag very close to one of the basins and was enthralled by watching this sacrament of recognition and service again and again.
Finally there was just one person approaching, and I knew it was my turn…I was not prepared for the impact…When did someone last wash your hands? Not since early childhood,I’d guess…This was a far cry from the symbolic pouring of cool water that I receive before I begin the Eucharistic prayer -a thorough soaping…immensely powerful, - the silent contact, the loving care and then the moment when our focus changed from the hands to which we had each paid such total attention and we spoke to one another, Christ in the stranger, heaven in ordinary.
“When did we see you?”

Greenbelt 07 Music

Greenbelt was launched (33 years ago) as an arts festival – and when I first visited it as a student in the early 1980s, the arts on offer were too far off my own exclusively classical map to appeal…so I missed 20 years of something that could and would have fed my soul.
When we first started attending the Festival again as a family, I was mainly drawn by the speakers - a tremendous range that appeals across the board whether you want theology, social justice or (most often) both.

This year, I did attend some excellent seminars, but spent more of my time elsewhere – above all the Performance Café, where you can hear sets by artists you (well, I at least) would never come across otherwise and enjoy good food and drink at the same time.
So it was that I came to hear and enjoy Lleuwen, Helen J Hicks and Esther Alexander and to meet again Lovers Electric….though I guess my own Perf Café highlight was hearing Maggi perform with In Camera. Time she returned to GB as a singer as well as a speaker, I’d say….

Centaur hosted an amazing classical concert – the work of John Tavener performed in his persence by the Greenbelt Orchestra with the ever stunning Patricia Rozario. I was running late and opened the door from the foyer to hear that amazing voice doing incredible things…and there she was, handed to us on a plate, without any advance publicity that I noticed. Stunning!

But the real excitement for me was really really loving 2 mainstage events – which could not have been more different.
On Friday, with GB07 only hours old, Hugger Steward (off duty after a busy day) and I sat on the grass on a perfect summer evening listening to Kathryn Williams while a hot air balloon drifted lazily overhead. Around us, there was the gentle buzz of happy reunions and a festival waking up. An hour of complete calm and contentment.

On Monday I was part of an excited crowd hearing Duke Special…who produced a stormingly good set. Amazing music. Amazing musician. An all-round incredible performance - my own musical highlight this year.


Thank you Greenbelt – once again you’ve widened my horizons (and extended my wish list alarmingly….but nothing is without cost in this world!)

As ever

Dave Walker puts it best.

I did actually see Dave across the bookshop tent...but at the time he was being overwhelmed by the son of a friend...who, at 9, is a much better bet as a fan base than a middle aged curate! Anyway, there is absolutely no doubt about the accuracy of Dave's observations of life post Greenbelt. Eat your heart out, Kubler-Ross!

"Heaven in Ordinary"

is always a pretty good description of the wonder that is Greenbelt - but it was also the theme of this year's festival.
Certainly the whole weekend was, from my perspective, pretty heavenly.
All the offspring are more than capable of fending for themselves these days (the Dufflepud, indeed, showed a promising tendency to worry about my welfare, and treated me to wonderous MochaMania hot chocolate with mind blowing quantities of squirty cream at the end of each day- which has to be a sign of a good upbringing, I feel). Moreover the LCM was kept busy driving contributors to and from the site...which left me free to chat with the people I most wanted to see (though as always it was frustrating to have near misses of proper conversation with some friends), to hear the speakers and music I most wanted to hear, and generally have a selfishly blissful (or blissfully selfish?) time.

I loved it.

It was one of those weekends when everything flowed perfectly. For me, there were fewer programme clashes than usual, and I never left a venue wishing I'd made a different choice.
The queues were mostly manageable and the one time I failed to get in to hear a speaker, I was with friends whom I only really see at GB, so we enjoyed some extra talking time instead.
I listened to some truly excellent speakers including Mark Yaconelli, James Alison and Lucy Winkett, who were all positively inspiring. As someone who struggles with a longing to do everything, to stand as advocate for anyone in need, to try and change the world even if I can't get round to changing my sheets, Lucy's advice to "Do what you can, when you can" was hugely liberating....I'm not coming home with a car-load of guilt at all the campaigns I'm not supporting, the times I'm silent, the times when I walk away from a possible battle.
"You'll know your moment," she said.

I found myself crying as I talked to Mark Yaconelli at his book signing about how the whole Festival missed his father and he told me how much it mattered to him that he'd finally come to see the place where Mike had felt most at home.
I cried again as Mother Frances shared the words of a child from Helen House, the children's hospice that she founded,
"Death is being born backwards".

Actually, I cried quite alot, but in a very positive way...during the Eucharist, surrounded by such a wonderful community...when I saw the sea of prayer balloons floating overhead, released by the congregation at Main Stage and then drifting over to join those we released from the arena.
The sky was full (this picture by no means does justice) and it was awe inspiring to realise that each balloon represented some 20 people...that is alot of people breaking bread together...and I loved the fact that our group was a mix of family, friends from St M's, online friends and people we only met that morning...another glimpse of heaven in ordinary. More on some of the New Forms worship later.

On Sunday afternoon I stood on the Grandstand, taking photos of the racecourse and breathing in as much Greenbelt as I could and a passer-by commented
"You try to take it all in - but there's so much that you can never manage it"
I guess that's a good observation in terms of blogging the festival too...and I need time to let it all sink in while I catch up with sleep and washing.
More posts in the days to come.

Are we nearly there yet?

Thankfully, we've always been within easy reach of Greenbelt Festival since it featured on the family's map, so we've never had one of those endless journeys in a car stuffed with children and camping gear... That doesn't, though, mean we've been immune from the sort of desperate excitement that leaves everyone intently focussed on the glorious moment of arrival on site for the festival. HS has a counter on his computer running all year long and is already on site stewarding blissfully, while his father collects poor unsuspecting contributors from the airport (now they, I'm willing to bet, will be very busy asking "Are we nearly there yet"). I need to tidy the study enough to pull out the sofa bed to accommodate much loved friends arriving tomorrow...and I stop work after Evening Prayer tonight. We ARE nearly there. And why does it matter so much? It's hard to explain to those who've never tried it. I worked really hard to convince my good friend the Canon that she ought to come along. I'm certain she would enjoy it once there, but clearly my passionate enthusiasm had no impact in the face of the prospect of crowds of excited Christians on a racecourse (put like that, I can see why she might not have grasped it!) - though I wish that she, and everyone else whom I love, could be there this weekend. What's so special? Another dear friend has reminded me that it's easy to feel isolated and alone, even at Greenbelt, and fears she might not cope this year, which makes me very sad- but my own experience has always been that even when wandering anonymously among the crowd, I've felt myself floating on a tide of love and friendship, of faith and committment, of all that gives life and brings joy. I've been through sad times there too, - but always with this sure sense of love and care wrapping and holding us secure. One special friend (whom I wouldn't know at all but for Greenbelt) described it once as "God's playground" - which is pretty well spot on in my experience. Paul has written in terms that express so much of my own love for the festival here So here I am, as full of joy as a child waking on Christmas morning. Tomorrow I'll be fully at home...reminding myself of what it is to dance in the sunshine of God's love, even as a middle aged clerical mother!
Edit: currently that is by no means metaphorical sunshine....all shall be well.

On the Journey Towards Hope

This was the Weekly reflection from the ever- wonderful Henri Nouwen Society: the it's by Rabbi Albert M Lewis.
As more than one person I care about could probabaly do with an extra injection of hope right now, I'm posting it intact. When you're feeling that life's not great, following links hither and yon is probably just too much like hard work.

The journey towards hope is a deliberate and difficult decision, especially if hope is not a common part of our life and vision. The extreme opposite of hope is despair, and the middle ground is indecision or ambivalence. Ambivalence prevents us from seeing the mystery and hearing the music of life; all is gray, and sameness surrounds us. Despair causes us to see and feel everything in consistently blotted blocks of black. Hope, the consciously conceived child of the desire for more, is parented by the will to dream ever so slightly about a tomorrow, and to let go of what must be cast off from today. Moses, Jesus, and certain prophets wandered in the desert of doubt and despair for as long as forty days. Yet each of them allowed himself to be open enough to be delivered, and ultimately to become the deliverer.

Hope whispers to us: "You are alive and loved, even if you cannot fully feel it." The inhale and exhale of a breath, the blink of an eye, and the yawn of tiredness or boredom remind us that hope is part of the soul yearning to be fully acknowledged. Hope rises from the soul first as a rivulet and then as a great stream. It begins in the daring to sleep or nourish ourselves. Hope is rooted in the soul, watered by tears shed and shared, and given life by us and God. At any moment, therefore, you are at least halfway there.


Actually, the doldrum state of ambivalence that is described is very much the hall-mark of the dog days of late August after a dull, wet summer....but for many of us hope is more than in sight, in the shape of Greenbelt. I've just dropped off Hugger Steward to embark on his stewarding, the sun is shining and hope is surely just around the corner. I believe that...and pray that you do too, whatever your plans this coming weekend.