greenbelt #2

Saturday started with another tent queue to hear Sara Miles and friend (priest?) from St Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco (Episcopalian I gather). Sara told the fascinating story of her coming to faith through receiving the eucharist at the 'open table' practiced by this church. We heard about the centrality of the table and its openness to this church's understanding of the ministry of Jesus. Then Sara spoke about her 'vision' as a new convert of feeding the hungry as an expression of eucharist, the challenge of convincing the church to try this, and what had emerged - excess produce bought at cost, food made available freely to any and all, the tables set around the communion table, 9 tons of food given away each week, 16 other churches participating. Quite extraordinary and I'm hoping to go to another session to hear more.

I turned up to the next session early so I sat in on the end of a worship by "Outerspace" titled "my mother had a brother". The service was for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their friends and families. Some great prayers and reflections, and a stunning video of African Christians talking of their experiences (apparently it was shown at the recent global meeting of Anglican bishops). But I chatted to a friend later and agreed that the tone seemed t be about resolving the hurt and injustice that GLBT people had received - rather heavy and unbalanced. Some people whom I know would not relate to that much at all.

A session with 4 long-term members of "Ikon", a rather radical community from Belfast (whom we're visiting). Pete Rollins, who is really the founder, will be in Adelaide next March. It was a Q&A about Ikon, who are very post modernist, deconstructionist, anti-religion and in many ways anti-church. They're a fascinating and important community, and unfortunately the panel structure didnt do them justice. I look forward to hearing more later. However the interesting themes are about making space for doubt and disbelief, gathering where 'christian' and atheist might both feel comfortable/uncomfortable, helping people move away from unhelpful, immature or outmoded beliefs, a community of non-members, and more.

Then some of us Aussies met prior to leading a worship session called "The Memory of Water". Cheryl Lawrie co-ordinated this and did most of the work. You can read about it here. Cheryl's writing on this was excellent as usual. The theme was about thirst, and the memory that perhaps there was grace in the past, and might be grace again. About 90 people came and participated in the stations. Sarah told the story from John 4, Cheryl used a bit of "Rabbit Proof Fence". I contributed the music from "Paris, Texas" by Ry Cooder. We made the sand deserts, had bowls of water, gave away sachets of salt.... (One of the tech guys asked me why we had crumpled pages of the Bible all over the floor - and I tried to explain to him that dryness of faith could be related to the Bible in a number of ways.... sigh... at least he asked I guess.) And I caught up with Steve Collins briefly.(sarah in pic....)

I wandered around, took photos, bought a couple of books - Pete Rollins' new book and "Divine Beauty" by John O'Donohue (whose book "Benedictus" I love). Back at mainstage I heard some of Julie Lee from Nashville (wonderful bluegrass) and later How Gelb and Giant Sand (not enough - he's fantastic... rain... a small crowd...).

Then one of the unexpected highlights of Greenbelt. I thought I'd wander over to the Beer Tent, the "Jesus Arms". Hearing singing in the distance, I assumed it was the Iona worship, but instead I arrived for the 7pm Beer and Hymns. Imagine 800+ people in a tent drinking beer and singing hymns at the top of their voices - and its pouring rain outside. This is clearly a Greenbelt tradition, and its brilliant. A young Australian guy came out afterwards and said "I finally get what hymn singing is about". And he was serious - not sitting in straight lines on hard seats, hymns sandwiched between elements of worship, but rousing sweaty, empassioned, joyful singing. It was just marvellous. Could it happen in Adelaide?

At night I went to the worship led by Moot titled "Perpetual Dawn". The focus was on faith moving from daylight to night to new dawn - that this cycle is ongoing, and that it's ok to be at different points on the journey. A few hundred people present. The worship was fairly static - a range of projected images, electronic music, a 'live' painting', live music, poetry, biblical reflection, and two participation activities (one using cards and pens, the other sharing and eating grapes. I'm finding the worship smorgasbord very interesting but not very engaging, as you're moving from event to event and 'drop in' for an hour or so. The prose reading and nylon string guitar felt a bit like a 70's coffee shop, and I wondered seriously whether for many of the people my age and older this was an opportunity for that kind of experience (not a derogatory comment, rather an observation that it's perhaps not part of their regular church life).

The other thing is that it's hard to get a sense of the life of the host community from the worship, and this is a community I've read about online and would love to get to know more. The worship aimed to recognise and even celebrate the moments of doubt and darkness in our lives as necessary to the journey of faith. One of the common themes of "alt worship" communities, or at least, some emerging churches, seems to be a clear alternative to a more 'conservative' or 'happy, clappy' expression of faith - namely one that acknowledges and embraces the difficulties of faith as not only real but also essential for authentic human existence and growth in faith.

(A side comment is that just as I have from time to time felt not in a mood to praise, here I have found myself not in the mood to be doubtful and 'on the edge' of faith - I'll have to ask how communities include those who feel OK about life and God and faith.) This is not simply a 'liberal' reaction, rather many of the UK emerging church people are post or ex-evangelical. In fact many would reject such labels and seek a more radical (dare I say 'ancient-future'... not a great label...) church that is some kind of 'third way'. (I'm describing this for readers for whom this is all rather new...)

I missed Jose Gonzalez at mainstage but saw some of Seth Lakeman and his band. Fantastic english folk. Great weather. Despite the rain, the days are warm and humid, with a fair bit of sun today. Nights are cold but bearable.

Today's menu was fresh fruit salad, thai chicken curry, a pork stottie (roast meat in fresh pitta-type bread with stuffing and apple sauce) and later a crepe with maple syrup - cooked on a huge flat griddle - very impressive and tasty. Tomorrow I'm up for the chicken and chorizo paella and maybe the gourmet pies..... sigh.... glad I'm doing lots of walking!