[ hold :: this space ]

I was out at Brunswick UCA yesterday and Ray showed me the art / meditations that have been slowly building as part of the church’s engagement with Lent. It’s based around an idea that he took from Cityside’s Desert Files and reworked for the local situation - each week of Lent is given a theme [taken from the lectionary reading from that week], and people contribute artwork based around that image. The artwork is then integrated into worship each week.

The collection is open to the public this Sunday as part of the Sydney Road Street Party.

It’s lovely stuff, well worth going [and the Sydney Road Street Party normally isn't bad either!]. The church is on the corner of Sydney road and Merri St in Brunswick.

are the most terrifying wildernesses
those places which should be most familiar
and yet suddenly, inexplicably, aren’t?

[the other person,

the church,

the faith...]

… there are none to be found on the site, but you did start me thinking about what i’d do.

these are the random thoughts i’ve had - not polished, not finished, not to be analysed or exegeted … just a friday afternoon, 10 minutes to spare, random creative exercise. maybe i’d do it as a labyrinth, perhaps cover the basement floor with sand and mark the labyrinth into it…

i.
too tired to wander

in the relentlessness of this heat,
with the incessant swarming
of flies,
and the itch of ants
that trawl over my feet
i long for any visitor
be they devil or angel

someone who lets me know
i am still alive…

ii.
some end up
in the wilderness
by mistake
- you, perhaps? -
taking a wrong turn
from a street that was crowded
into one that was empty
until you found yourself
in a place where the streetmap doesn’t reach

if lent finds you in a place you longer recognise
in a faith that has no street map
where the crowds left long ago
you will know there is no easy comfort to be found

but if you wait, in the silence

maybe you can hear the stories of those who have walked the wilderness before
whispered in the wind
and the sand
and the silence

what are they saying?

iii.
they say the landscape is harsh here -
resilient, tough, unbreakable.
yet every chasm and gorge tells otherwise

of a story a million years old,
of the world ripping apart
of ruptures and rents
of rock crushing rock

the beauty of this wilderness
is made only through its fragility.

i confess
i would rather not be fragile
and i do not have the faith
to believe that the broken is always made beautiful

or that it is worth the cost.

that may be the step of faith
i need to take this lent.

iv.
is the wilderness everywhere that isn’t home?
everywhere your footing isn’t certain
everywhere you have to measure
water and food
words and thoughts
sparingly
and carefully
because you do not know how long they need to last.

is the wilderness the place
where the easy answer
[the stone,
the temple,
the kingdom]
seems the only answer.

where or what is my wilderness?

what do i need to survive it?

iv.
there are those of us
for whom lost-ness
does not come from not knowing where we are
or from being alone.

there are those of us
for whom wilderness isn’t being away
it’s being with.

there are those of us
in this world
who are always
always
in the wilderness…

jesus is with us for this 40 days.
what do we need to tell him
about what it’s like for us here?

v.
did you know what you would do, god
when you turned down the stone
and walked away from the temple?
did you have another plan?
or did you just know that one wouldn’t work?

am i ready for you to have no answers?
am i ready for your salvation to be different
to every idea i might have had?

[and i'd use this image from ellery creek somewhere...]

i am fasting this lent
[not from chocolate or red wine, let me hasten to add,
or muffins from deganis, coffee, or cut flowers of any description]

i am fasting from knowing.

so in a cafe, yesterday
she, sitting next to me, exclaimed over the headlines:

‘Britney shouldn’t be let near those children, should she?’

and i [deep breath] said,
‘i won’t ever know enough about Britney to know’.

you know - and this is much more embarrassing
than interesting -
this lent, unexpectedly,
i am finding i want to hear Britney’s story
all of it
and i think i might even want to understand.

[could this be compassion?]

it’s much harder than i thought it would be,
this fasting.

kangaroo at sunrise, just outside Alice

[apologies if you saw this up here briefly last week and then wondered where it went - the post i put up to explain why got lost somewhere. A version of this article was published in last Sunday's Age, so I took it down until then]
I was in the middle of Australia last week. A friend and I road-tripped from Adelaide up to Alice Springs, which is a 1600 km trip straight up the middle of the country. It’s one of the quintessential Australian experiences - the dirt gets redder and redder with every kilometre, until it’s almost blood red by the time you get to the centre. For the last 1300 km, there are only towns or roadhouses every 250 km or so. On the second day, we couldn’t get breakfast in Coober Pedy, where we’d stayed overnight. Nothing was open, not even the service station food counter. We drove the 150 km to the next roadhouse where the only coffee we could get involved a teaspoon of Caterers Blend in a polystyrene cup [make your own at the urn, hand over your $2.50 for the privilege].

It’s tempting to think that we were in the middle of nowhere, but more truthfully we were on the edge of nowhere. It’s the vast space to the left and right of the road that is the nowhere: thousands of kilometres of wilderness with barely a tree or a bush or even a track. Australian folklore is full of stories of people who took a turn from the road without knowing what they were doing and have never been found. It is only by miracle that sometimes someone is.

My friend was going home. With every signpost that indicated we were getting closer to Alice Springs, her smile would broaden. We took ‘welcome home’ photos at the Northern Territory border. She couldn’t wait to feel the soil beneath her feet again, the burning heat of the centre’s sun. This was her place, these were her people. This was her life.

I, on the other hand, felt an unexpected sense of alienation. It is remarkable country, made even more beautiful by its ancient story, but I don’t find my own within it. Its beauty for me is in its otherness, not its resonance.

Somewhere after the border, though, I had an almost irrepressible urge to turn left; to leave the road and take a faint track into the immense emptiness that lay on the side of it. The urge was so strong that had I been on my own, I don’t doubt I would have done it.

If that sounds romantic and cliched, it was actually anything but. I knew that if I took the turn I’d not come back. If I turned left I’d lose myself in this wilderness, and, more frighteningly, I would want to stay lost. There’s no happy ending to this kind of lost, though. I had no sense that I would find myself to be one with this place and, as the cliche goes, know myself for the first time. This would be lost-ness of the most terrible kind, where you no longer know the edge of your skin, where you are subsumed by your surroundings. You no longer know who you are. You become nothing to the world’s everything.

I knew without any doubt that if I turned down the track into the wilderness - if I made this my lent - when the 40 days were over, I would not know to return. My survival would not be of my own making, and it most definitely would not be assured.

We throw around poetry of wilderness and deserts at Lent with the blithe carelessness that comes from not knowing how desperate and desolate these places are. We speak of having faith in terms of believing that God will provide the food or water or shelter from the heat. I’m not sure I know anymore what faith really is, but I know it’s much, much more vast than that, and even more important. It’s something to do with lost-ness, survival, and holding on to the edge of my own skin. I’m not sure the wilderness is my place to find it. But I’d really like to know where is.

i love what Cityside are doing for Lent this year: the desert files. wish i could go [NZ for easter? there's a thought...].

The end of last year was so full that I didn’t dare take a look at this year’s calendar before I left on leave, for fear that i’d be too overwhelmed to take holidays. So while I knew easter was early this year, i didn’t realise that Lent began this week.

To be honest, it feels quite good to be taking a step back from it. One thing that became clear at the end of last year is that if what we’re doing here is to connect in with the community, then we need to follow the rhythms of the community, rather than the rhythms of the church. Lent is a peculiarly religious season - which is not a bad thing at all. While the community might need Lent [that's such an arrogant statement to make! thinking we know what the world needs...], the reality is that they’re actually not going to engage with it. But the seasons of the church year are [at least partly] about practising how to live faithfully: learning how to grieve, how to get ready, how to celebrate, how to be thankful, how to remember, how to say sorry. And i think there are many in the world who want to learn how to do those things.

The Australian government is making a formal apology to the indigenous people of Australia at the end of next week - it’s the opening act of the first meeting of parliament since the election at the end of last year, where we voted in a new government. The apology is for the government policies and actions that led to thousands of indigenous children being forcibly removed from their parents and communities. The ramifications of the government’s policies, enacted just a few decades ago, are immeasurable. An apology isn’t enough, but there’s no healing possible without it. It has the potential to be a turning point - repentance, in the true definition of the word.

So i’ve been wondering, this morning, if this apology is what the Australian church has been preparing for when we’ve practiced Lent in the past. and i wonder if the act of confessing and apologising is a skill that many in the community are wanting to practice and participate in as well.

And i’m wondering how the community can do that, in a way that isn’t simply a one day wonder… I wonder how we move out of opinion pieces and debates and position papers, and actually into confession and apology… to join the waiting and the wandering in the desert of a people who don’t yet know how or where we’ll come out of it. As the season of Lent shows, it’s the kind of process that takes 40 days. Actually, it takes longer, but it’s only after 40 days of living it with every breath that you realise it’s a lifetime’s work.

it’s good to be back.

Frank Wesley, The Forgiving Father. Image sourced here

sorry, i know this is a lot of posts for one day… but i’ve been getting a few calls from people asking for a copy of this. it’s a reflection on the story of the prodigal son / forgiving father, which is this Sunday’s Gospel reading. it was written to be used alongside Frank Wesley’s painting.

You’d never end the story by turning us away
so why do we live as if we could do something that will stop you loving us?

You’d never end the story giving up waiting for us
so why do we live in fear of wearing out your patience?

You’d never end the story with a litany of our sins
so why do we live as though you see us only with eyes of judgement?

You’d never end the story giving us one last warning
so why do we live in fear that your goodwill will run out?

You’d never end the story not recognising us
so why do we live thinking you don’t know the shape of our souls?

You’d never end the story with outpourings of anger
so why do we live in fear of incurring your wrath?

You’d never end the story by taking us back as servants
so why do we live as though there are limits on your grace?

You’d never end the story slamming a door in our face
so why do we live in fear of your rejection?

You’d never end the story with anything but love
so why do we live as though our story might end with anything but love?

my days are consumed with easter planning at the moment - Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and take away Easter Saturday postcards to get ready for the prisons; the Easter Saturday sacred space / art installation here in the city… Lent is passing me by completely. i feel somewhat jealous of everyone who’s living the wilderness and contemplation.

i’ve given up guilt for lent…

i’m grateful you’re keeping your distance, jesus
while i wander in this wilderness.

[you know the demons that have to be faced alone]

i would not want your arm around me
or anyone’s well meaning word of comfort.

all the company i need
is an indentation in the ground
showing where you’ve lain down before me

and a broken branch
that says someone else has walked here.

[for a wrap up see the previous post]

This space was prepared for staff at the Synod Office. It was open for about 3 1/2 hours, in the chapel at the office.

The chapel was set up with 5 stations, and an entry point, all on low tables. People sat on cushions. Each table was covered with black card.

At the door:

Welcome to this sacred space.

There are different stations placed around the room - please move around them at your own pace.

There is no right or wrong way to participate, and you can stay as long as you would like.
Entry point:

[This was a kind of bridging space. this is the thing i never give enough thought to - giving people a chance to breathe when they come in, to make the transition from work to space. it's especially important in a work environment, because the time between sitting at your desk and being in the chapel is probably about 90 seconds... nowhere near long enough to get that last email or phone conversation out of your head. most people seem to catch the lift up with someone else, so they will have talked about work all the way...]

Set up:

computer showing video loop of leaves blowing across the road; copies of Psalm 103:13-16, printed on ripped bits of transparent paper.

Words:

Ash Wednesday marks our entry into the journey of Lent.

At the heart of this day is a reminder of the simplest and yet most difficult reality: that God is God, and we are not.

Before you enter into the space, take a moment to slow down…

read the bible passage…

(breathe…)

————

Station 1:

Set up:

cast iron bowl with burning charcoal, incense resin (the cast iron bowl gets really, really hot. i put rock salt into the bottom of the bowl, and i put it on a trivet, and i still feel nervous… and don’t even think about touching it for two hours after you last put some charcoal in. it’s also only going to work if your smoke alarm isn’t very sensitive. but it’s worth it.)

Words:

Even if we know that our life is finite, mortal
it seems we often wish for some part of us to stay alive -
some achievement or success,
a mark that we were here.

On Ash Wednesday we come face to face with the reality that all that we are, and all we can do, fades in the light of the love that exists before us, beyond us, in spite of us…

[and if the fear that reality brings is a sign of our humanity;
the liberation it brings is the beginning of our faithfulness]

Place some of the incense onto the charcoal… and with it place any desire for success, permanence and immortality…

Let it be burnt to ashes.

——-

Station 2:

Set up: printed images from news photos, burnt around the edges, sitting in a pile of ashes, little sealable plastic bags filled with ashes.

Words:

We live in a world where too many people’s dreams of justice and peace lie in ashes.

The call of faith is to take on the struggle for justice and peace for those who no longer can.

What does that call cost you?
What are the things that hold you back?

Take some of the ashes with you to carry during Lent. Let them remind you of those who need us to act for justice and peace.

——-

Station 3:

Set up: black card covered with ashes, a pointy stick (i used a chopstick, because i had one in my desk drawer…)

Words:

If you have been marked too many times by ashes this year

if you need no more reminders of life’s mortality
or of the impermanence of dreams and hard fought ideals,

if you have learnt too well the lessons of fragility and preciousness,

if the only prayer you can muster is ‘enough’,

write your protest into the ashes here.

——

Station 4:

Set up:

bread and wine sitting in ashes

Words:

On Ash Wednesday we stand at the edge of the Lenten journey into the wilderness.

Perhaps the wilderness is already your home.

Perhaps standing here is no act of faith
[at least, not of your choosing]:
the wilderness just grew around you
until everywhere you looked
it was.

If the purpose of entering this wilderness, this journey of lent,
is to be stripped back to nothing,
perhaps it feels like you have already arrived at its destination

left only with uncertainty
and disillusionment
and the cold ashes of dreams that once burnt fierce
with faith’s passion.

If you can, stop and rest here a while.

If you would like, take some food for the journey.

——–

Station 5:

Set up:

bowl of ashes mixed with oil
Words:

If, this Ash Wednesday, you do not feel worthy to carry the blessing of the one who is all love and justice and hope,
make a sign of the cross on the back of your hand with the ashes.

Carry the mark with you today as a reminder that
your worthiness is never part of God’s equation.

——-

This is a pdf of all of the above: ashwedfinal.pdf

This is a pdf of the words, formatted for the stations: ashwedfinal_formatted.pdf

In the next post I’ll put up the sacred space i did yesterday - it was prepared for my work colleagues. It was OK. i was happy with the stuff i’d prepared beforehand (that rarely happens!), but when i got into the space it felt too cluttered - i think the words, or the themes, of ash wednesday overfilled the room. Ash Wednesday needs to be done in a big, empty warehouse, with echoes, or a cathedral with the pews removed, rather than a prettily carpeted and windowed chapel…

I only had 45 minutes for set up, so it had to be easy and low tech. my original plan had been to black out the windows and to project images of static onto the walls and windows, but that required a few hours of setting up, and would have alienated all except for about 3 of the participants. Plan B was to go with an overload of ashes.

It’s hard to get ashes in Melbourne in February, and we needed a lot of them (i should just have driven to Yarra Glen where there were bushfires earlier this week). Luckily, someone i work with doesn’t clean his fireplace out very often, so he had some left from last winter… This winter I need to remember to store a few icecream containers of ashes to have, just in case, for whatever we might want to do next year.

[there's a quite funny story about buying the incense resin, but i need to tell it face to face...]

Although the space was self explanatory, we were burning charcoal so I had to be there the whole time. I was thinking, as i watched people move in and out that i know so many of them have a story of tragedy or pain or devastation from the last year. i suddenly felt very nervous about the idea that we were doing these massive themes of death, mortality and sin… and i wondered what it costs people to encounter those themes. I’m feeling a real unease about that, and i don’t quite know why.