by emma | Mar 31, 2008 | Social Justice
I posted some notes from Archbishop John Sentamus keynote speech at the liveit! conference a few days ago, but I thought it was time to share some notes from the rest of the speakers too…
* “Things have to change” really means “I have to change.” (Father Jim O’Keefe)
* We live in a time of transition – one of those transitions has to be in our hearts. (JOK)
* A constant invitation to change. (JOK)
* Sacrifice: the willingness to let go of everything in the belief that God will hold us and sustain us. (JOK)
* It’s blasphemy when we don’t hurt over things like the river dolphin going extinct, because we are contributing to the de-creation of the world. (JOK)
* Living simply is very complex, but it’s all about love.
[Mike Edwards playing didgeridoo at the liveit! conference]
* Solidarity is not with the likeminded, but with the oppressed. (David Wells)
* We’ve got caught up in an endless cycle of performance indicators, and it’s killing our souls. (DW)
* “Success is not a fact, it’s a comparison” – Nouwen.
* Do you tend to count your blessings or the cost? It has nothing to do with the cost and everything to do with the blessing. (DW)
* The issue isn’t just awareness, it’s can we stay grateful? Gratitude compels us towards compassion. (DW)
* We are a country who does all it can to be invulnerable (eg security systems). (Pat Gaffney)
* We can be driven by other peoples expectations in a way that blocks our access to simplicity. (Tina Beattie)
* “The contagion of desire” – the only way we can counter the consumerism is for our lives/communities to be so different and infectious that it draws other people in. (TB)
* The rich/poor divides are essential to our kinds of economy. To undermine it would be far more than undermining just our economy – it would be undermining our entire world/economic systems. (Tom Cullinan)
* Doors will open as soon as you’ve stood by people long enough for them to trust you. (DW)
* A new consciousness – the drama that God is playing out is not just the human drama, but the drama of the whole earth. (TC)
by emma | Mar 29, 2008 | Social Justice
A few weeks ago Holly and I were down in Manchester for the liveit! conference, organised by livesimply and CAFOD. The thing that grabbed both of our attentions was the fact that Archbishop John Sentamu was speaking. Here’s some notes I made from his keynote speech on the day…
* What would it look like to exchange places with the poor?
* God’s movement of change wasn’t just an ideology, it was an actual program of transformation.
* [We have] A conflict of responsibilities.
* We must never confuse simplicity with being simplistic.
* The life & teachings of Jesus were often encouched in paradox.
* In our world, the poor look for food, but the rich are looking for an appetite.
* We are not being called into activity, but into resignation, into surrender. Nothing matters aside from God, becoming nothing before him.
* The beginning of simplicity is letting go of concerns and releasing ourselves in abandon to God.
* “Heaven affords unlimited accommodation to the simple-minded.”
* Concern for justice/ecology/etc is not primary; it flows from seeking God first; however we are prisoners to his love and he has left us no choice.
* Freedom is a freedom to love.
* “Only the simple are free. All others are under the tyrannous ambition of self.” – Richard Foster
I just noticed that you can download and listen to Archbishop John Sentamus speech again from the livesimply website: click here and you will see a dialogue box at the top right side of the page.
Notes from the rest of the day coming soon.
by emma | Mar 28, 2008 | Words
We can start changing people’s mindset. Instead of asking young people, “What are you going to do when you grow up?”, ask them, “Who are you becoming?” The question is not whether you will be a doctor or a lawyer but what kind of doctor or lawyer you will be.
[Jesus For President, Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw]
by emma | Mar 26, 2008 | Africa, Everything Else
I’ve been exploring Etsy for the last few days, and today I took the plunge of signing up and setting up a storefront.
Etsy is an online marketplace for buying & selling all things handmade.
Our mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.
Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice:
Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.
I’m going to be using it to fundraise for my trip to East Africa this summer with Fields of Life. You can purchase prints of some of my photographs on my Etsy store here. Would be grateful if you would spread the word!
Visit my Etsy store, Emma Boyd Photography, at emmaboyd.etsy.com
by emma | Mar 25, 2008 | Photography, Travel
by emma | Mar 24, 2008 | Faith
I’ve been thinking about Easter a lot today. When I posted on Saturday about it feeling very un-Easter-like, I thought it was just me. Yet it seems to be a general theme among a lot of my friends and fellow bloggers. Many people feel like the season just kinda crept up on us and all of a sudden it was here and we weren’t acting or thinking any differently, even though this is the defining day for us.
I’ve got this friend who reminds me a lot of Jesus. Neither of us are your stereotypical girl, yet we still will call each other up and talk for hours on the phone. She’s got this beautiful, tender heart that lets me talk around the subject for as long as I need, then gently but firmly asks me the questions I’ve been avoiding.
I can’t help thinking that’s a lot like what Jesus does. He’s gentle and he wont force himself on you, but if you let him, he’ll ask the hard questions.
Today I feel like Jesus has been doing that to me. Easter came early, and the disruption was just that: a disruption. It’s almost as if Jesus has been saying, “You’re too comfortable Emma.” Have we put Easter in a box? Have we forgotten what this story really means? At church yesterday we sang Jesus Loves Me, an old kids praise song. It’s simple truth knocked me for six. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” For me at least, I have become so familiar with many of the songs and many of the stories of Jesus life that I don’t really think about them much anymore. I mean, lets be honest…
Jesus rose from the dead!!
In case you didn’t notice… people don’t normally rise from the dead! It just doesn’t happen. But we (I) walk around as if this is completely normal, nothing our of the ordinary, doesn’t surprise us at all.
Maybe as our patterns and rhythms of living are disrupted, maybe that’s exactly what God wanted this easter. Maybe it was less about our not engaging with it and more about God calling out to us. Calling us from death into life.
And you see, that’s the beauty of the cross. It isn’t just Jesus’ resurrection. It’s my resurrection too. It’s all the ways in which Jesus makes me alive again where once I was dead. It’s life in all it’s fullness.
by emma | Mar 22, 2008 | Faith
I have a confession:
It doesn’t feel much like Easter to me right now. I am struggling to engage with this season. For some reason, it feels like I have been railing against it, unwilling to let it permeate who I am. Which is a really stupid thing to do, even if I do say so myself, because this is the thing that defines me. I’ve been in a prayer room in Govan several times this week, I’ve been reading blog reflections and more on the cross, I’ve been reading the Gospel narratives… and my heart is harder than I’d like to admit.
I’m so thankful God holds me, even when (maybe especially when?) I’m not so good at holding him…
and you held me and there were no words
and there was no time and you held me
and there was only wanting and
being held and being filled with wanting
and I was nothing but letting go
and being held
and there were no words and there
needed to be no words
and there was no terror only stillness
and I was wanting nothing and
it was fullness and it was like aching for God
and it was touch and warmth and
darkness and no time and no words and we flowed
and I flowed and I was not empty
and I was given up to the dark and
in the darkness I was not lost
and the wanting was like fullness and I could
hardly hold it and I was held and
you were dark and warm and without time and
without words and you held me
[ And You Held Me by Janet Morley ]
HT: Anna Poulson, on the Grace Lent blog
by emma | Mar 22, 2008 | Words
“Windows in general has been like a confused and slow person. Vista is like a person who lost their meds and its trying their best to ignore the voices.”
[ 37signals blog ]
by emma | Mar 22, 2008 | Poverty, Social Justice
Today (as you might have guessed by the title!) is World Water Day.
Right now, 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us.
Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation causes 80% of all sickness and disease, and kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Additionally, collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault. Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water. Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.
Shocked?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBOJyAY42M8&hl=en]
One way to help: get involved in charity:water…
by emma | Mar 20, 2008 | Everything Else
I’ve been listening to some new podcasts recently I thought you might appreciate…
First up, the Guildford Boiler Room are hosting ’24/7 Prayer Spaces’, a daily 10-minute podcast in the run up to Pentecost. I’ve really been enjoying having a little it more focus as I begin my days! Find out more on their website here.
Secondly, I stumbled across the website for a conference that took place last month, “A Sustainable Faith“. The conference looks at a wide variety of topics, all orientated around fostering community. I’ve only listened to one podcast so far (Troy Bronsink, talking about ‘adaptive re-use’), but it was excellent and I am very much looking forward to listening to the rest. I was struck by how Troy described us (followers of Jesus) as being ‘artist, artisan, and curator’.
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