[ hold :: this space ]

i’m planning some sacred spaces for christmas at the moment, for a variety of contexts and ‘audiences’. today was my big day to make it happen - almost meeting free, working from home, a whole day to get inspired, and pull it together. It’s 3.30 and all i have is a dozen less ideas than i did at this time yesterday. luckily, i know it’s like this every christmas, so i’m not panicked. though maybe i need the panic. either that or gin.

and instead of being a place where we talk about these things, describe them so you don’t miss them when they happen, it would be nice if it was a place to encounter these things, so we go away different… so i started thinking about the wishlist, what i really wanted for christmas… in a space, and really, just in general…

light
a moment of knowing that this night is not all there is
and not all there will be

hope
an encounter with the kind of hope that captivates our imagination
so we can’t help but become more than who we thought we were,
and find ourselves living for something that is all at once
preposterous and impossible

peace
- world peace -
predictable, i guess, and unlikely
so perhaps a smaller moment would do
- just a sign that we want war to stop enough
to relinquish the satisfaction of the moral high ground
to give up our easy stereotypes and caricatures
of nations and people

[to know that any label
Israeli
or Palestinian
Iraqi
Muslim
Jew
Christian
witch
gay
straight
paedophile
murderer
evangelical
liberal
progressive
is never enough
to do justice to anyone

but i digress]

joy
to experience a moment it’s real,
when the theory becomes sacrament,
where we wonder what just happened then…

[That’s all i want for christmas

though i acknowledge
that i’d be happy to settle for less
like those earrings with the origami birds, a le creuset casserole, or the new augie march cd

and perhaps therein lies the problem…]

I’m back from holidays, which were very lovely and all too short… The time between getting back from the UK and going on leave was pretty relaxed, but that’s well and truly over now…

I spent the week in Adelaide, mostly hibernating and doing the family thing, but I did have dinner one night with Sarah and Michelle, who were both part of this year’s UK trip. Over the last few years Sarah has been organising Black Wood Jazz, which is ‘an alternative style ‘church’ space in which to enjoy live jazz and thought provoking stories and conversation’. She sent me through the following information about the next evening:

Kick off Christmas with an event that can be as kicked back, or stimulating as you make it. 6.00-8.30pm on 30 November 2008

BYO picnic, folding chairs, (and a table if you are that way inclined), cold drinks, friends, neighbours and good conversation to Christmas under the stars in the Blackwood Uniting Church carpark (At the Roundabout, 266 Main Road Blackwood, Adelaide).

Hot drinks available for gold coin donation.

Enjoy the smooth sounds of Daniel lee and Friends. Enjoy cool company – bring your own if you aren’t to sure about ours. We will unwrap some stories of hope too as the evening gives way to stars.

Donations will be collected to support Blackwood Jazz and the Christmas Bowl Appeal

And a couple of other Melbourne based things coming up:

We’re hosting a pre-christmas space in the basement on December 7. It’s invitation only, so let me know if you want to be invited!

I’m leading a workshop tomorrow on Psalms at the ‘Preaching in the Year of David and Mark’ conference. Hope to see some of you there.

NCYC is happening again in January. It’s not too late to register… Shane Claiborne is speaking, along with a host of others. I’m leading some electives and am involved in worship one evening [but don't let that stop you from registering...]. It should be a great week.

I think i’ve mentioned before that we’re rethinking our approach to basement spaces over the next year [if you're new to the blog, we use the basement carpark at my office in Melbourne's city centre, and curate sacred spaces and art installations in the space]. Previously we’ve created spaces around the different church seasons, but from next year we’re going to shape the spaces around a more secular calendar. We’ll curate a space for Valentine’s Day, another on the winter solstice [which is in June in the southern hemisphere], another on the summer solstice [our christmas - where we may even avoid the christmas theme completely].

I think ‘the public’ [cf 'the private'?] are interested in / intrigued by / gasping for an encounter with a story that speaks of life and light, and that many resonate with a christian version of that story… but they want their engagement with the christmas story, for example, to be very different than that. I don’t know that the church will reclaim christmas from its nostalgic home easily [and since many churches were complicit in the process of creating its nostalgia, we might not have a right to try!]. Rather than fight that battle, we’ve decided we’re going to try Valentine’s Day, the solstices - perhaps something like Hiroshima Day as well - as moments to explore themes of life, darkness, fear, hope, love, grief…

I’ve mentioned before that a group of us are meeting once a month to talk about spaces [and life, imagination, faith and creativity]. We’re using that time to do the broad brushstrokes of planning - and anyone is welcome, of course. But I’d hate to preclude people from being involved in the basement project just because they might not want to get involved in a group like this on an ongoing way. So if you’re interested in being part of one of the spaces, or in talking about how you might be involved in other ways, let me know…

i started writing this in Hong Kong sometime yesterday… i’ve been home for 18 hours, asleep for not quite enough of them, and hope this doesn’t reflect that!… i intended to write a lot more while i was away, but barely touched the computer… no regrets there…

We had a good trip. Greenbelt was followed by a few days in Telford, then the group split with mine going to Belfast and Manchester, before rejoining the others [who had been in Oxford] in London for a couple of days. The time always goes so fast, and the conversations just seem to get started; at its best, the trip gives a taste, and it sparks some imagination.

The entire trip is made possible only by the amazing generosity and hospitality of the people and communities we visit. I think in future trips we need to think about how we minimise the burden for those we visit - it must be getting to a point where many of them are spending more time entertaining fact-finding visitors than they are being community … i also think there are a number of communities who carry the cost of public scrutiny and opinions that are arrogantly formed in a fleeting visit. It’s easy to speak of them theoretically, rather than as people trying to make sense of the hardest parts of their lives and faith in a public space. Needless to say, each group we connected with was remarkable - not just for the fabulous things they are doing, but for their honesty and integrity in who they are trying to become.

Over the last few days Nic and i were talking through possibilities for next year’s trip. we need to split the group into two again - one focussed on meeting with people in new forms of faith community, the other focussed on meeting with those who are working to make space for such communities in the institutional church. I think i’d like to go one step further with the first group though, and offer a trip for people who want to explore the connection between culture and spirituality, not necessarily for any outworking in a faith community context, and certainly not necessarily as potential ‘leaders’ of such communities… it would be great to take some of the artists [in the broadest definition] who are right on the fringes of what we’re doing here [which is, in its turn, on the fringe of the church] to visit greenbelt, then to meet with groups and people in the UK [christian and otherwise] who are making the same connections on a day to day basis… it would be the kind of trip where we’d spend as much time in galleries as we would with communities…

so a huge thankyou to those who met with us, brought us into their homes [and their pubs]… and to our UK support crew [especially Taryn!] who offered local knowledge and wisdom that makes logistics so much easier… And thanks to the group who put up with a fairly relentless schedule with great humour, and managed to turn even the dodgiest moments into some kind of learning experience…

the annual UK trip has functioned as a punctuation mark for me over the last few years - a semicolon of sorts. some theme always gets expanded in its aftermath, things take on a new direction in response. i’m looking forward to seeing what that might be this year… but it’s going to have to unfold in my subconscious for a few days; i’m taking most of the next week off… see you on return.

This is the ’script’ for worship… wish it were possible to put up the rabbit proof fence clip… all credit to Ben, Sarah, Craig, Nic for participating in a flawed process and making something good out of it… and to Ray, Jenny, Peter and Darren for turning up on the day and making it work…

Set up
Front of the room: screen with projected still of ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ salt pan with ‘the memory of water’ written across the bottom. ripped up pages of bible tossed around the floor.

Intro:
Intro who we are, context, shape of worship.

Gathering:

Voice 1
[selected verses from John 4]
Jesus left Judea and started back to Galilee. And when he came to Sychar, a Samaritan city, he was tired out by his journey, and sat by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty…’

Rabbit Proof Fence clip: ‘There was water here once’
scene: Daisy and Grace are walking across the salt pan
music: David Bridie’s ‘Salt’
words written over clip:

There was water here once,
in the beginning.

So much that the world overflowed with it.

It was the voice of God that pushed the water to the side,
and it left, in its wake,

dry edges
and arid centres

earth, with cracks so deep,
we could lose ourselves in them.

sand,
dust,
salt

all testament to the story
that there was water here once.

It’s easy to be thirsty
when the water is everywhere.

And for a while, when it dries up,
it’s fine.
There are wells that run deep
from hidden springs.

But after a time
even the underground rivers run dry.

And when you have been in the desert too long,

the cracks no longer testify that there was water here once
they speak only of its absence.

you lose the taste of water.
you lose the courage to thirst.

Sometimes faith is having confidence that rain will fall again
sometimes it’s knowing where water is to be found.

and sometimes it’s just having the courage to be found here,

cracked
empty
and arid

Welcome to worship

Invite people to move to stations

i.
prayers for the world
[Words to psalm laid out, response transparencies, bowl of salt]

You visit the earth
and water it.
If we have no water,
have you stopped
dropping by?

The river of God
runs full and far:
if our rivers are dry,
have you run away?

Meadows are not clothed with flocks,
valleys are not decked with grain;
there is no song of joy in the land
in its abundant lack of rain.

How can we sing the Lord’s song
in this strange land?

[written by Sarah Agnew]

Response and instructions:

It seems that neither gods
nor clouds
are of our making.

We wish the world were different
and maybe sometimes we wish you were too, God.

Where are the places in the world, where rain has not fallen and where prayers have not been answered?

taste the salt… and make your protest or your prayer to god…

ii

prayers for ourself
[a loop of a small part of the salt pan walk from Rabbit Proof Fence on computers
bowls of water on brown paper]

We turn our face towards hazy seas
that beckon us from the horizon.

we hesitate with fear that their promise is a mirage

no longer sure of any map,
no longer trusting the words of ancient wisdom,
we pray they do not have it wrong…

what is the act of faith that is beyond you?
what is the hope you are not able to trust?
what is the ancient wisdom that you can no longer hear?

write your prayer into the water

iii

Confession

[‘bed’ of sand, letters SOS torn out of sandpaper and laid on top, sheets of sandpaper]

Make your prayer of confession, or your plea for help with the sandpaper.

iv

cracked

[bed of sand, ripped out pages of bible for people to ‘wrap’ sand in]

When the cracks first appear
in the soil of our faith
our instinct is to cover them over
with artificial turf or concrete
[someone else’s prayers, another’s declaration of faith]

just so no-one will notice
and deem us neglectful,
untidy,
careless,
lacking.

They say we just need more faith,
that of course there’s water to be found,
we’re just looking in the wrong place
[sing this song! pray this prayer! we’ll baptise you!].
Pretend the cracks aren’t there
and one day they won’t be.

But the songs no longer work
and the promises are empty

the waters of baptism only drown us in loneliness.

They may say we need more faith
but we know the faith it takes to stand here
cracked,
and parched

naked in the truth we can’t go back, and that there seems no way forward;

barely remembering the touch of water
and not believing rain will ever come again.

if you stand here cracked and parched, take a handful of sand, let it trickle onto the ground in the shape of your story.

and if you can honour the faith that is held in another’s story
take some of the sand with you…

v

the well

[a dinged up metal bucket, a ladle, sitting on brown paper or black plastic, glasses, people to pour glasses of water]

Sometimes faith is having confidence that rain will fall again
sometimes it’s knowing where water is to be found

and sometimes it’s just having the courage to be here,
cracked
empty
and arid.

rest for a while.
if you would like, there is water here for your journey.

Gather back and send out
[ziplock bags of salt]

Perhaps it is blind faith to have confidence that rain will come again
and easy cynicism to say we will never find a well

Let your thirst be your faith,
let the memory of water haunt you

so that if it rains, you can stand with hands open

and if you see a well, you will know it is yours to drink.

If you cannot leave with faith,
leave with courage.

If you cannot leave with hope,
go yearning…

amen.

I curated a space for a leadership training event at the Centre for Theology and Ministry [CTM] on Saturday. It was on the theme ‘the memory of water’ … the chapel at the CTM is so perfect for doing installations. The CTM is a new complex, and the architects did a fantastic job of listening and understanding the dynamics of different forms of worship and sacred space. i was in on the initial conversations with the architects - they asked quite brilliant and insightful questions, and it’s reflected in the way the space has worked.

There are powerpoints everywhere, including a number of hidden points in the centre of the floor. There’s also network cabling for internet access. The chapel has full length windows against the back wall, which look over a gorgeous garden…

those windows have mechanically operated blackout blinds, and then the choice of a white overlay blind that can be lowered to cover the black [which is great to project onto]. The skylights have blackout blinds. The lighting is easy to manipulate, the furniture is all easily moveable, and there are good storage spaces which make it possible to entirely clear the room… the space is large, but not too large… next time i’m taking a ladder - i think we could stick a data projector onto the cross beam on the back window and project up high onto the ‘hidden’ wall…

i was even given permission to put hooks in the ceiling if i needed to [i wanted to hang stuff], but there were glass shields on lights that weren’t being switched on, so i could use suction hooks instead.

in terms of the space itself, i think it worked ok. most of the people who came through are very new to this kind of space… it’s such a leap to move beyond participation as reading the words in bold to a prayer on a newssheet…

after the jump are the words for the ‘thirst’ station - we’re using a variation of this at greenbelt, so save the surprise if you think you might get to our service there…

(more…)

we had the first of the ‘between the spaces’ nights on wednesday - a gathering of a wee group of people who have worked on the basement spaces over the last year or so, and who have decided we might want to meet more intentionally to plan the spaces and explore faith and spirituality within a creative context.

it was good. no grand plans [although a few great ideas for things we might do!], no great statements about the kind of group we might be, or the things we aspire to… just a conversation about where we’re at, and what might be possible within that. i think most of the group are not sure what shape of community we can connect with or commit to, so we have no plans for becoming a particular type of community - we’ll just begin with a common idea, a few possibilities that will no doubt be rewritten as we go, and see what evolves from that.

we’re having another drink together in a few weeks time. let me know if you want to be part of it and i’ll pass on details.

[the soundtrack for the conversation (provided by the pub where we were meeting) was the CD Divenire, by Ludovico Einaudi. it's piano and strings - kind of minimalist contemporary classical. it was so beautiful it stopped us talking mid-sentence. i just bought it and have it playing now...]

This is a fascinating commentary about the disconnect between traditional religion and those in the community who are post-modern and post-religious, as it finds itself played out in religious rituals.

I think within my own tradition that this conversation plays out [one side of it, anyway] with infant baptism. The church often makes judgements about why people outside the church want to baptise their children - often assuming it’s because of nostalgia or because of family / society pressure. While that assumption may sometimes be right, I think that often there’s a much deeper longing or motivation, which is not done justice by the alternative offer of a thanksgiving or dedication - the desire for ritual is more mysterious, more ‘beyond’ than these. Even if this is not the meaning the church invests the sacrament with, the baptismal water means something to people, it matters to them that they are participating in an act that’s echoed through history.

The question alluded to in the article is whether the church can offer its rituals as a gift, not as a transaction [where participation is welcomed in return for right meaning], or whether the ritual only holds integrity when it’s grounded and held within the tradition’s meaning… The question for me is if there is no space within the church’s rituals for an alternative investment of meaning [and i'm not saying there should be], how do those of us who know how to make ritual happen help new rituals form that those who aren’t part of the church’s faith can participate in; that will make real the same connection with humankind through history, and with a mystery that is beyond our articulation and reason. Will the church let us borrow theirs and reshape them? Must bread and wine always and only tell the church’s story of communion?

and i wonder if, at its essence, this all comes back to the tables we find ourselves sitting at…

this is for worship i’m leading next week for the cfm staff gathering

it will take grace to let others here be different to our expectations of them
so we pray for grace

it will take courage for each of us to live beyond the story we know of ourselves
so we pray for courage

it will take wisdom to believe we don’t have all the answers
so we pray for wisdom

it will take hope to believe our future is not yet determined
so we pray for hope

in the story of god all expectations are defied
all things are made possible
the whole world is made new

it will take faith to live as though this can be our story
and so we pray for faith.

Graham emailed to say that the next hobart alt worship is happening on july 6, 5.30 pm at Wesley UCA, 58 Melville St, Hobart. This is a collaborative service, curated by a group of people who linked up at the workshop we went down to hobart for a few weeks ago. it’s fabulous to see the next step unfolding…