.............. I get some emails which are full of feelings and I am cut deep.
Love it love it
When people open it touches me and I live in wonder
It all helps me to reflect.............
Today I spent an hour in an old Church
Last Sunday four days at a racecourse
Today I went to Church with about 200
Last Sunday with about 15000
Today I took communion on my knees
Last week sat in a circle on a concrete racecourse grandstand
Today I sipped wine from a silver cup
Last week from a plasic one
Today I had a round wafer of bread
Last Sunday a slice of Tesco white bread touched by 20 or so hands before mine
Today I wondered why I was there
Last week I knew why I was alive
Today my mind flew away in all directions
Last week my my soul was offered as a gift again, in one direction
Today I was in Church
Last week-end I was at Greenbelt
Both real
Both my choice
Both part of me and the journey I chose when I was around 21
So I will go on and reflect because I have decided make my life an act of love and work it out in large and small places
I love the concrete......
www.pipwilson.com
Roy's been busy. He's one of the Soul Space team at Greenbelt and today has set up an MSN website to show off his photos of the festival and of our space in particular. Check it out.
GREENBELT is over for another and the thirtieth year. The old year has gone and a new one appears. I hate the ending of Greenbelt and the anticipation of the next is too soon ....... I must reflect........
Leaving GB early is nothing to Bragg about. I missed Billy an caught some of Polyphonic Spree. Hmmmmm I leave that as the reflection on them.
I left to get back to work.
To people work.
To community work.
To group work and I live it, love it.
I was somewhat dead headed in the morning and sleep came upon me as I travelled on all three trains over the ungreen London town. Hmmmmm ...... Polyphonic Spree again!
Soon I was alerted to live again by people and enjoyed the rapport again with the people I love.
And then we come to Donut. To donuts and discussion which is and was fab. Love it love it.
A privilege to be amongst people who talk from the heart, gut, emotions and life experience ALL at the same time.
As usual there is people sharing from a deep experience of damage.
Not the detail but the learning experiences.
Not arguments but live reflections, all coming out fresh.
Just made.
Just worked at that very minute.
Just dug out deep from their souls.
"I don't feel beautiful" is said in words and cried in tears over dinner in public view. Said in facial expression when reflecting on the life lived, the scars on the soul and the regrets.
And we talked about this in the group. That theory about experiences in life, is not only recorded as a video in the mind for ever, (better replay than Blockbuster), but also that these recordings carry the same feelings forever.
Recordings of feelings. Good and bad!
So we discussed this.
The feelings lingering on from 'early years' damage.
So we own these feelings
This is part of the managing them.
Owning and knowing.
And then kicking the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
The wondrous thing is the mutual learning.
I try to set the climate.
Stick on track.
One only talking at one time.
More difficult, all listening.
Eyes are seen to wonder away to the side as minds dive for cover on mention of a trigger word, or on mention of a live and kicking emotion.
Press the button.
Click the keys.
Refresh.
Refresh emotion.
Refresh hurt.
The group and the individual can handle that.
And it is coming out.
The boxes of ugliness are being unwrapped and therefore not the bogey man of our childhood.
The wholeness we seek is here.
It is here and will be here.
It is here and will take a lifetime to seek.
.......and because of Greenbelt I was saved and brought, with my damage, to a Greenbelt community to work that through....... as such is the Kingdom of God.
Real.
Fresh.
No messing.
I didn't become a breakdown case.
I didn't become another disillusioned Christian because Greenbelt give me no illusions.
"Some like to live within the sound of Chapel bell
I want to live within a yard of hell."
I don't really.
Not my quote.
But I like it because it is right to live on the edge.
Be incomplete.
Be stretched.
Be uncomfortable and outside those zones of ease.
So tomorrow we will walk on from today .....walk on from Greenbelt and the days growth, into another.
I love Greenbelt and the getting the grit between my toes..........
www.pipwilson.com
........ he introduced himself to me at the bar and then came and joined the big circle of old friends and new.
He told me about his 20 Greenbelt and his zilch church.
Greenbelt was his Church.
He told us about his new baby Grace.
His eyes leaked as he told us his experience of showing Grace the 'Grace' things at Greenbelt.
And Julie his wife bringing him to this place and showing him the kingdom of Greenbelt and his soulhome.
Another life on track and kicking new sand into dark places.
A new friend and a life long Greenbelter.
www.pipwilson.com
Bob's a first-time Greenbelter, and after his weekend experience working on Soul Space and zipping around the site on his little buggy, this morning in Pitville dining room, over sausage, egg, bacon and beans, he shared his impressions of the festival and its people.
Bob felt Greenbelt was notable for its calm atmosphere and its human warmth. He felt there were a lot of single people there; and that loneliness was an issue for many. Perceived in Greenbelters a desire for depth - in relationships, in conversation, dialogue and debate. And reckoned many Greenbelters were looking for something, though they may be unsure precisely what.
On loneliness, the rest of the Soul Space team wondered how many more people would have done the speed dating thing if they'd had the courage (maybe even I would)? And I shared a picture from an afternoon when I was sitting on a kerb by the food vans eating a burger. In the Performance Cafe someone was singing 'Eleanor Rigby' and on hearing the words "all the lonely people..." I looked around me and noticed that the kerb was peppered with many other individuals eating alone, hundreds of people passing them by.
But the picture which will stay embedded in my mind for many, many years, will be what I saw when I turned around from the front of the crowd at Billy Bragg last night, high on emotion, and through tearful eyes saw that throng stretching way back up the ramp towards the far end of the grandstand, heartily singing that great anthem of longing and promise, 'Jerusalem'. We may still not have found what we're looking for, but William Bloke / Blake gave us so much to go on last night.