" It's an oasis of sanity! ", said the Muslim lady and I realised that today is becoming a very interesting day....where I work in Southend, with several thousand other civil servants, we are fortunate to have a large Christian Union (Membership: 65+ ; average weekly attendance: 14 ) and where today, a CU member gave a brief talk on the subject of Christianity and Islam. Our attempts to advertise our meetings by various means paid off this week - a Muslim came along. After Peter's overview of the subject, he invited questions and she duly took the opportunity...to say that his talk had been very fair to Islamic beliefs, and to show how disgusted she was with a tiny minority of her fellow Muslims - the ones who appear in the news, acting in a way that isn't compatible with the teachings of the Qu'ran, she says, and invoking the disapproval of the majority of peaceful, genuine Muslims. She was very intelligent and articulate and we went over time by twenty minutes as we began touching on questions of tolerance, PCness, diversity, nationalism, refugees and right-wing politics...and yet no-one left to go back to their desks. We were told that Muslims regard Christains as being, " closest, in love, to Muslims ", despite the images to the contrary that are broadcast on our TV screens and that our meeting was a tremendous environment, each week... " If only more staff knew how good it is here ", she said. We eventually left with her promising to return in three weeks time, to hear the testimony of a collegue that she used to work with. Judging by her enthusiasm this lunchtime, I think that she'll be the first one through the door, that day!
I mentioned a few weeks ago, a guy that I work with, Phil, and how I'd lent him some Bruce Cockburn stuff, after he'd told me that he was keen to listen to any new singer-songwriters who played in a folkie style, but more importantly, sung good, meaningful lyrics.
Well after a month or so of being in pocession of Bruce's last three studio albums, and the mini-live release from 1997, what was Phil's verdict? Somewhere between excellent, brilliant and superb. The material more than came up to scratch for him ; leading Phil into a bit of an InterNet search for more info on the Toronto Blessing, ending up at the verifiable paradise that is The Cockburn Project website ; meaning that the offer of more Brucie delights - I'm not talking Play Your Cards Right, here - was not turned down.
He felt that all the CDs were fine, but that his favourite was Dart To The Heart...although he sung the praises of all it really - which is quite a recommendation as Phil is as sussed about music as anyone I know...an example of his expertise is his ownership of one of the Natural Blues albums years before Moby sampled some of the blues and vocal parts from it for his mega-selling Play album, that itself provided the soundtrack to a thousand TV adverts. Run On, Bruce...
This morning the postman delivered me my new Blogger bag, sealing my identity as web diarist as now I'll be constantly wearing it over my shoulder.
This evening I packed it with a fresh-baked bread loaf, a bottle of Turning Leaf, an assortment of candles and various other accoutrements, and I made my way to the other side of the parish to lead a simple communion service, round a simple table with friends.
Seems appropriate - I got into blogging through Greenbelt; I blog often about life as one of God's odd clerics (still bemused by the role I find myself in, and that I'm in it at all); and also, lots of blogs are fed and watered by the things I talk about, hear about, see, feel, while around the place with friends.
So tonight at communion I raised a glass to bloggers everywhere, caring enough to share themselves in the digital spaces they inhabit.
And I remembered the fun and the thrill of being a GB2002 Blogger in the run up to the festival. So, signing off now till next summer, thanks to this little online community and those readers who shared our world. Click on Insight and let Greenbelt continue!!
Whoever said that the Christian lifestyle was boring....it's certainly been an eventful last few days, and the sudden death of someone I hardly knew, but whose life I had become, ' involved ', with, if that's the right word, has had the effect of shaking up myself and several others at our church who had had a similar, brief, ' relationship ', with him. You don't get all this if you're just a churchgoer, only sitting on the back-pew, if not sitting on the fence, every week. I sometimes wish that I could put God on the shelf for a couple of weeks and have a fortnight off....
Then, Saturday night was great. Friends of ours, Sarah and Jaz had been asked to flat-sit for someone for a week, and they were inviting people round for a pizza and some tinnies. Fiona and I joined Mandy and Rich in eventually bringing the turn out up to six, and after clockin' Bowie and Tom Hanks on Parky, we drifted out into the garden...and there we were : a lapsed Mormon who still believes in God, an agnostic who has recently started back at church again, a hardened atheist, an interested seeker who displays considerable insight already...and us. And God answered my prayers, because as the beers flowed, our subtle attempts to introduce Him into the conversation were met with metaphorical open arms, and as midnight turned into 1 o'clock the increasingly interesting conversation, around a patio table in a Southend backgarden, was to take in Darwinism, the Titanic ( both the film and the real thing ) Catholicism, Quantum Physics, geneology, lineage, Monotheistic religion, Existenialism and Absolute Truth, among other things, and ended later, when it was finally too chilly to stay out there any longer, but not before Sarah had asked us, " Which church DO you go to? ", shortly after declaring that she stills finds the thought of having a faith very appealing - it's just that she feels that the Mormon path is not for her. On the other hand, after the week that I've had, it felt like I knew the real thing, alright....