Sunday, August 24, 2003

Improvisation. Theme of the Sunday service. Just before the Bishop was due to bless us all, with thousands on the grass beneath the stage on which he stood, and banked high up the Grandstand, the sound went down on the whole affair.

Who improvised? First up, the Bishop, who just carried on and whose wonderful outfit (though suspiciously close to Arsenal colours) and generous hand gestures, together with the length of his prayer, demonstrated to the crowd that, without words, we'd been well-blessed.

Second improvisers - the Grandstand congregation, who made up for the lull in activity by establishing a Mexican wave.

Third improvers - the good folk working hard at the side of the stage doing signing for the deaf. Improvisation is their skill and their art, all the time, so they were just carrying on the work they'd been doing all morning. It was a lovely twist that due to them, only the deaf folk in the congregation got the Bishop's blessing in full.

But top improviser has to be top Greenbelt woman Jude Levermore, outgoing (in all senses) Festival Chair. As the Bishop stepped back and the Mexican wave rolled on, the sound engineers still struggling to restore amplification, Jude came up with a winning way of getting communications going to all the fifteen-thousand worshippers. From somewhere she conjured a megaphone, through which she asked the section of the crowd closest to her to shout - so all could hear - the lines she fed them. So it went:

Jude (to nearby crowd): "I have a message from Archbishop Rowan Williams!"
Nearby crowd (to massed throng beyond them): "I have a message from Archbishop Rowan Williams!"
Jude: "I have become a Greenbelt Patron!"
Crowd: "I have become a Greenbelt Patron!"
Throng: (CHEERS, WILD APPLAUSE)
Etc.

Improvisation. It's what gives a festival a soul. It's what makes worship human. It's here in abundance today.

Saturday, August 23, 2003

Skateboarding. Greenbelt's fringe gets wheels. There's a tremendous amount of organised activity on site here, for everyone, all ages and physiques. But Greenbelt as ever nurtures free spirits, and it's the boys on the boards exploiting the concrete rises, curves, steps and gulleys around the Grandstand area who've caught the spirit this year.

Skate park Cheltenham - whilst in a room above these speed conjurors a lunchtime audience listen to a gentle cellist, across the way on the main stage a rock and roll group have familes jumping in the sun, and just below me here on the Grandstand steps hundreds are singing along with the Iona Community, "Gabi Gabi, Liberator Lord: he frees all the captives and gives the hungry bread."

I had my Greenbelt moment early this year. A Greenbelt moment is when, without warning the festival triggers something deep inside, a renewed feeling of deep joy about this event which does indeed liberate. The moment came at the end of the 'opening ceremony' yesterday when festival chair Jude got up on stage with her three daughters and said a blessing, a blessing which contained all those liberating things that mean so much.

I don't know why the moment came them, maybe it was only then I'd realised I was here, 'home' among friends and friends-to-be. Maybe it was because seeing Jude made me realise all the hard work she and others had put in not just to put together this event, but to keep the thing going when things looked so grim for it only three or four years ago.

Maybe it was seeing her family, who've grown, youngsters up there leading us. How it should be. Kingdom of God = children's place. Playful. Shrill. Provocative. Not for the bored - but for those with skateboards.

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Greenbelt has no mirrors - we see through glass doors darkly. Help us to give up what we don't like when we look at ourselves, to embrace the wonders hidden, latent, inside us.

Greenbelt has no ceiling - we walk beneath God's great sky. Help us to unclench our anxious, frightened souls, to open up to the universe and all who walk alongside us here.

Greenbelt has no air conditioning - we inhale the odours of food vans and our tentmates' socks. Help us to accept the unsavoury, to learn grace through the differences which challenge us.

Greenbelt has no volume control switch - our ears take in musical collisions, amplified talks, other people's conversations. Help us to welcome new sounds, to be excited by new ideas, to learn to really listen, to hear God through it all.

Greenbelt has no dietary restrictions - we share food with each other, regardless of dogmas, theologies, teams supported, eye makeup or clothes. Help us rejoice in the holy wonder of sharing with strangers, help us revel in the joyous creativity involved in making friends.

At Greenbelt...............
Help us remember that the idiot who cut us up in traffic is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing to Greenbelt to cook a meal and settle the kids down so they can have a good first day at the festival and
spend a few precious moments with her friends who have saved hard to get to Greenbelt.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't handle his change correctly is a worried YMCA Hostel resident who is behind in his rent and cannot afford the cheapest hotdog on site. At the same time balancing his apprehension over with his fear of not getting
on well with the group he came with.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking young woman, rolling her eyes and cannot stop moving her body, is a recovering slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Remind us that the scars of the self harming woman, scarred for life, is just like me with my scars that hinder and equip at the same time. And remember that we, maybe, can just hide ours better.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the festival site and blocking our progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will
be the last year that they will be at Greenbelt together.

Creator God, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the
greatest gift is love. That it is not enough to share that love with those we
hold dear. But those who, on first impressions, make us shudder, or sigh or grunt with irritability.

Open our soul and press your finger tip right on that part, the part to raise your love to the surface. So it touches the practical. The proactive. The love department.
Make our Greenbelt an act of love.

It is great to work with people who have had tough lives and have learned so much. There is hurt there. There is experience there. The face shows it as the words struggle out in the context of a group. This is what I do now. It is pulling people together and building a climate of trust and........ letting the group open up on an issue which they are stretched with. Not comfortable, but something which stretches their mind and the very depth of their soul.

When you have been hurt it is difficult to trust again. More-so to love again. My push is to stretch to love. The theory is that if we separate from people, not liking one or another or slagging off others, that destroys the 'community' (the principle methodology of growth and development) and also hinders the growth of the person themselves. To write someone off is to damage me too. It is old fashioned 'love your enemies' because.... anyone can love their friends. It is wonderful to hear affirmation flying over the group. One corner to another. "I used to think you were an idiot, a loud mouth idiot with no care and sensibility to yourself or anyone else. Now I have got to know you, you are a really good guy. "
Love it, love it, love it.
That very issue of getting to level 5 communication makes my heart sing and I believe God rejoices in heaven 'because such is the kingdom of heaven'.
There are people in the group who really add some great stuff and sometimes sit back and think .......... something of God is being made here.
"Shalom' ........ right relationships
right community
right sensitivity
right openness
right direction toward the kingdom coming in rich and broken lives.

What I really admire is the staff who enter into the group life and really share their own vulnerability, brokenness, hurts, faltering ...... it is so beautiful that the staff do not have to pretend to be 'beautiful perfection' but like us all in the group ...... 'beautiful imperfection'.

Several of the people I work with will be going to Greenbelt and they will not automatically fit in. They will feel different. They will feel that everyone seems to know how to enjoy the festival and they don't. Then the famous Greenbelt vibe will touch deep in their souls. They will feel that atmosphere that is, in my experience, the nearest we will get to heaven ........ on earth.
If you see them.
Talk
say hello
acknowledge
smile
love with your eyes
love with your smile

of such is the Greenbelt kingdom of heaven

bhp

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Have The Who sold out?

"People try to put us down" - well, thousands will pay forty quid for a ticket to see then at the Albert Hall, so they're hardly unpopular;
"Just because we get around" - they don't get around much these days; the odd charity gig, and on stage they don't get around like they used to;
"Talkin' 'bout my generation" - this is an old criticism, a cheap jibe, but what generation precisely, granddads?

The bit which grated most in a recent Who charity gig I'd taped and watched tonight, was them singing "Hope I die before I get old". The charity is the Teenage Cancer Trust. Young people denied the luxury of making such a grand statement, old sods whose 'hope' had faded too. (John Entwistle himself died a year ago. He was 57.)

Have the Who sold out? It's a non-question because life's too precious to quibble about such things. The Who Sell Out - they acknowledged / lampooned the process of 'selling out' on their 1967 album of that name.

What counts is that after all this time there's still great power in the music. It's sung by granddads but it is still young people's music, songs for people searching for identity ("Who are you?"), battling for integrity ("Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"), yearning for genuine emotions, meaningful relations ("See me, feel me, touch me, heal me").

Bone-tired of spending my days soaking in the griefs and anxieties of others, of acting 'together' whilst feeling as ripped-up and inadequate as everyone else, I welcomed The Who tonight, blasting through We won't get fooled again. Like they think there'll be no tomorrow. As there may well not be, for the young people for whom they're raising funds ......

Listening to you I get the music.
Gazing at you I get the heat.
Following you I climb the mountain.
I get excitement at your feet!
Right behind you I see the millions.
On you I see the glory.
From you I get opinions.
From you I get the story.
Listening to you I get the music.
Gazing at you I get the heat.
Following you I climb the mountain.
I get excitement at your feet!

Monday, August 18, 2003

It is great to read the life led by the other bloggers on our Greenbelt journey.
We are all doing our stuff but all heading for a special Greenbelt experience which will also be unique.
Will we meet us bloggers?
Will we bump into each other?
John Davies who I know and love, I didn't even speak to him last year ........ hardly the chance.
I don't like to think of after Greenbelt yet but, join the Greenbelt forum because the best time of the year is all the reflections and experiences of Greenbelt all comin' at ya with emails.
Love it love it.

Today is getting ready and the day has gone now.
I am on the slippery slope to Greenbelt and I am happy.

hey hey