New Life…
… feels amazing!!
All Around Has Fallen
When all around has fallen your castle has been burned
You used to be a king here, now no one knows your name
You live your life for honour, defender of the faith
But you’ve been crushed to pieces and no one knows your pain
Come, come lay your weary head be still my friend
Come, rise I’ll place my sword upon your shoulder
Come, rise with me
When tomorrow has been stolen and you can’t lift your head
And summer feels like winter your heart is full of stone
Though all your hopes have fallen your skin is now your only armour
Wear your scars like medals defender of the faith
Come, come lay your weary head be still my friend
Come, rise I’ll place my sword upon your shoulder
Come, come lay your faithful head, be still my friend
Come rise with me
[When All Around Has Fallen – Delirious?]
Life
Some new pictures up on my Flickr… plan to start putting more up, maybe put up some old ones I’ve got as well. There are a few from the e.s.t. gig the other night up now.
Life is pretty busy right now… I got a new job… althought wondering how long I will be able to stay!! Gotta give it a try at least.
I’m getting baptised on Monday evening! Excited about that, and my folks are going to be over for it as well which is cool. More details later.
Celtic Soliton Sessions In Review
About time I got another post up here, process some more…
Andrew lead a conversation on dangerous living as it impacts new communities. We looked at Luke 10:1-10, specifically paying close attention to the verbs. The verb I noticed most was ‘eat‘ – that in this context it’s not us giving away food, but becoming a beggar and accepting someone else’s food.
Andrew talked about how ministry is shaped by whose house it happens in. In Luke 10, the party is held in Matthews house, not some church building or whatever. Matthew already has the relationships with the tax collectors, so its the most logical place to hold the party. We often find this style difficult as we aren’t in control then – if we are in control, we can determine what it looks like, but sometimes (usually!) it’s wiser to let the kingdom stuff happen among the people where it is already stirring, rather than trying to force it happen on our terms.
This also ties in with the progression in Luke 10… As people become more comfortable, needs become obvious, which provides opportunities to share / explain the Gospel.
Loved Brodie’s comment:
“What we need is not a bigger flat, but a bigger mind”
In the afternoon I was in Mark’s conversation on the emerging church and the poor… quite a difficult conversation due to the size of the group! I know it put me off expressing opinions somewhat. Someone talked about how we often would rather do that which is glamorous than that which is necessary. Do we really want to help the poor, or do we just want to be able to say we help the poor? Good question.
Pete talked about this kind of “parallex view” – we can see the hurt and pain on CNN but we look out the window and everything looks fine. We know what’s happening in our heads, but how do we reconcile these things?
“Would Jesus want us to be more nice or more angry?”
Brodie was in both the conversations I was too, you can check out his thoughts on them here.
We shared communion together before enjoying a intimate concert by Aaron Espe and Juliet Turner (who was also with us for the weekend).
Sunday entailed an early-morning walk along the White Rocks beach with Jim, who used nature to remind us of God’s heart for the broken, for us. Andrew posted a short video of it here, and Chris blogged on it here.
Spinning In iTunes
Stuff I’m listening to right now…
e.s.t. – generally!
The gig last night was good (though I’m not so sure I like the songs that are purely synthesiser) Will have some pictures up on my Flickr sometime in the next week.
Viktoria Tolstoy – Love Is Real
She supported e.s.t. last night, along with the Jacob Karlzon Trio. (Billed as the Viktoria Tolstoy Quartet) She was quite amazing actually! Her voice is great, and Jacob Karlzon on the keys was stunning… would like to get some more of their music.
Rosie Thomas – These Friends Of Mine
I downloaded just this one song, I’d like the album now though! Heard of her through a blog post, where she was described as,
“just sublime. feels like the sound of wanting to touch another’s fingertips with your own with tentativeness and tenderness and the sadness that you can’t, or won’t, for fear you would lose your soul to love…”
Which I think is a very adequate description!
Jazz Night!
This evening I’m off to see my favourite band… soo excited!
e.s.t. are playing in the Fruitmarket in Glasgow tonight. I remember finding out they were playing in Belfast about a year and a half ago… I found out the night before, and unfortunately had to work! Ally also likes e.s.t, and was pretty annoyed at having to miss the gig too, if I remember correctly!
I love their song ‘Dolores In A Shoestand’ from their latest album, Tuesday Wonderland.
Current Musings
Some stuff I’m interested in / reading / thinking about / acting on at the minute:
The Still Small Voices blog is sharing stories of asylum in the UK, well worth checking out. This is a big thing in university at the minute too, as asylum seekers are being forced to pay international student fees if they want to study.
Awaiting the release of Black Gold, the film adaptation of a book (of the same name) I read last summer. Starbucks are getting some pretty bad press because of how they are treating their Ethopian coffee farmers. Oxfam have a campaign to make Starbucks pay fairer happening now.
Also awaiting the release of Amazing Grace, a film telling the story of William Wilberforce and the abolition of slavery. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery… but there are still so many people in slavery…
600,000-800,000 men, women and children trafficked across international borders each year. Approximately 80 per cent are women and girls. Up to 50% are minors.
[US Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2005]
Stop The Traffik are campaigning against this, check them out.
I have some friends involed in the “The Truth Isn’t Sexy” campaign, which is attempting to raise awareness of sex trafficking. They designed and printed a load of beermats which are going into as many pubs, clubs and bars as they can get them into. I heard recently that the NUS has agreed to put them into 100 university students unions, which is great. If you want to get involved, for example, get some beermats to take to your local, get in touch with me (leave a comment is probably easiest!) and I’ll forward your info to the appropriate people!
Haunting
A stand-out comment from Soliton that is haunting my thoughts…
“We can build missiles but we don’t sleep with our secretaries.”
I Still Need To Be Reminded
Sometimes I cannot forgive
And these days mercy cuts so deep
If the world was how it should be
Maybe I could get some sleep
While I lay, I dream we’re better
Scales were gone and faces light
When we wake, we hate our brother
We still move to hurt each other
Sometimes I can close my eyes
And all the fear that keeps me silent
Falls below my heavy breathing
What makes me so badly bent?
We all have a chance to murder
We all feel the need for wonder
We still want to be reminded
That the pain is worth the thunder
Sometimes when I lose my grip
I wonder what to make of heaven
All the times I thought to reach up
All the times I had to give
Babies underneath their beds
Hospitals that cannot treat
All the wounds that money causes
All the comforts of cathedrals
All the cries of thirsty children
This is our inheritance
All the rage of watching mothers
This is our greatest offense
Oh my God
Oh my God
Oh my God
[Oh My God – Jars of Clay]
Belfast Soliton Sessions
Gareth kicked the Soliton Sessions off for us in Belfast on Thursday.
Trevor facilitated a conversation on the impact of Martin Luther King’s writtings for today, and how we can gain hope from them. We talked briefly about the idea of heaven coming down to earth, figuring out what it looks like to build Gods kingdom in our midst. Someone (maybe Trevor?) commented on how we can claim and use the title ‘New Belfast’ just like there is a ‘New Jerusalem’. We discussed how it can be so discouraging to look around at the world and feel like we have nothing to give – not enough money or whatever – but sometimes all we have to do is get on the same level as people (Big Issue sellers, homeless guys, etc) and simply acknowledge their humanity. The question was raised, has our culture taught us not to dream, but instead to stifle our creativity?
“Answers are never really answers – just hints of truth.”
After lunch Derek Poole and Linda Gould from CCCI spoke briefly on peace and reconciliation, in Northern Ireland particularly. When asked about one thing they’d like to see change in the church, Derek said something that’s stuck with me:
“We are social creatures that are shaped by the poetics of space. I’d like to see a change in emphasis from a strong emphasis on immanence (the God who is near) to a stronger emphasis on transcendence (the God who is other and mystery). For that change to affect our spaces and gatherings. We need a deep sense of the otherness and the mystery of God so that we may learn to see the holy in the ordinary. A space that is fundamentally about an alternative consciousness, and nudges us again towards the numinous. One expression of numinous today are the artists”
The afternoon conversation I took part in was facilitated by Rob and Angela Spain, and looked at the death and regeneration of churches, and decentralised methods of church. I loved this session I have to admit – helped me to understand it a bit more!
We talked about the passage from John 15, and how we look at it very introspectively – what if we look at it in a world-wide view? Vineyards are pruned, but the parts that are cut off aren’t burned, they could be used to compost, fertilise.
Rob talked about how the Internet is a model of this type of scale-free organisation – not random distribution, but connected around hubs that are seen as important, and the hubs are also all interconnected. The connections are fluid and liquid, as the nature of the system is that it is always changing.
Is the ‘dying’ of church then a form of redistribution? It’s not necessarily a bad thing then, if we learn to embrace it, and view the redistribution from a more kingdom mindset.
“Maybe the church appears where connectivity between each other appears.”
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