..... at missing the big Greenbelt birthday party ........ thanks John for missing me (below blog) missed you and loadsa people I have not seen for a long time .......hope it went with soulful fun and 5 trust we raised some good kingdom dosh too ....... because we need it and promise to spend it well ............and ...... if you are a Greenbelt Angel .....we would not have got here without you YES YOU ......... we were almost on the edge of a disaster, we were on the edge! WE WOULD NEVER HAVE SURVIVED WITHOUT ANGELS
Angels are people who have decided to stand at the heart of the festival and give of their specialness .... at a cost. (details on this website if you want to me more than a GB taker) ...... you can become a `greenbelt maker' ...... for a special festival as PART of our festival ....." kicking darkness until it bleeds daylight" in the contempory culture for the next 30 years.
bhp
Not everyone was there (for instance, we missed Pip, for reasons he's blogged about today), but nevertheless this afternoon Lambeth Palace gardens glimmered in the sunshine and smiles of many Greenbelt bods, past, present and ... most encouragingly ... future. Children and balloons everywhere. When Beki asked us to turn to our neighbour and share what GB means to us we found it hard. Impossible to find a defining moment from so many, or a word that sums up an event which has filled our lives for so long.
I came out with the word, "family". Family because of the generations represented today by, on one part of the lawn, Soham philosopher and GB elder John Peck and on the other, an expectant Nancy Butcher with another little one on the way very soon. And family also because many of our friendships go deep enough and are strong enough to merit that metaphor. It's all been said before so I won't go on. Suffice to say that as always I find myself emerging from a soiree with Greenbelt folk feeling affirmed, enlivened, positively challenged, resourced, wanted, amused, encouraged. And with just about enough new energy to want to get back to the grey and try to stir some colour into it.
So busy talking I didn't complete my picnic. Ah, well, time now instead for a nice iced tea and a pack of Walkers. Thanks for today, excellent GB staff and co-workers. Thanks, kind, generous Archbishop.
I am never ill but Thursday I ended up with two ambulances outside the front door, three checks of the heart, countless blood pressure checks and hospital until 3am Friday morning.
To cut it to the minimum, it was gut ache that made me finish early and drive home only to get the pain higher in the chest and then the clammy sweats. It turns out that all is well and I did well in the entire test but it was a gastric thing, maybe an ulcer? Never had anything like this before other than a few Rugby injury hospital visits some years ago.
It was ugly especially for Joan, and now I am shutting down the pace and cutting all weekend things and anything else I need to because …….I still want to drive to Italy on Thursday ……without a blue flashing light!
Sounds like a medical report rather then a blog ....... but it is real life .......... bhp
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Those of you who read this regularly know I'm a sucker for t-shirts. My Billy Bragg NPWA shirt got folk talking yesterday; today reading The Big Issue Scotland I'm onto Howies, whose shirts look very good - I like their Voted Blair Got Bush shirt among others.
But today I've had to say goodbye to an old favourite. The Greenbelt 1989 Art and Soul shirt. A classic Picasso-style design. It's been a bedtime winter-wear companion for some time; the design has faded but is still intact (some old shirt designs flake away, this one's just become easier on the eye over the years). But wear, tear and repeated spin cycles means the cotton's finally giving way. Touch it and holes appear. It's like a modernistic Turin shroud.
So this morning I held it up to the light, which shone through many tiny places, held it fondly and then with heartful silence almost banished it to the bin. When instead, inspired by love or madness, both perhaps, I instead popped it into the machine for one last wash. Once it's dried and ironed, I've decided I shall affix it to a suitable picture mount, put a modest frame around it, and keep it, prominently displayed. Like others do their old footy shirts, and I already do with old posters of events I've hosted, and pics of me mum, that sort of thing.
Tomorrow many of Greenbelt's hundreds of contributors since 1973 will meet up, in the gardens of Lambeth Palace no less, for a party in the sun (we hope) to celebrate thirty years of this unique event - a Christian arts festival without peer. It'll function as a pseudo-birthday party for me, as that milestone is today, and this year I'll celebrate my twenty-fifth Greenbelt. So I've booked my saver ticket. Washed the old shirt. Packed the rug.
Seems fitting all of this has come together this weekend. Celebration, commemoration intertwined. "God is really only another artist", said Picasso. "He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no great style. He just goes on trying out other things." Here's to Greenbelt. And my old shirt.
sometimes I don't feel like writing
today I don't
last few days I didn't
tonight I try
big brother on tv
like it
the art I pursue is people
I heard Dwele in interview with Gilles Peterson
I have his album
he said in passing, that a songwriter-singer is like an artist who when painting
fixes his mind on every line
every contour
every fleeting facet of shade
his music, he says, is like that
his study of his subject creates his art
the title of his album is
subject
a human said to me, as we looked at a picture of jesus in a crowd
why do you analize everything?
I don't but I do people
I study them
love them
desire them
often I hold myself back in expressing a love, a feeling for them
yearning
and yet I know I do say thing upfront more than most
so big brother is on
Gilles is on the mactop radio
and this is my favorite time of the day
what is yours?
tell me?
pip@pipwilson.com