we wondered on friday whether the ‘you’ in the hymn ‘were you there when they crucified my lord’ is directed to people or to god… i think we found our theme for next year’s easter space.
i wrote for the Age today, an opinion piece about hope. It’s online here.
it is a luxury to lose ourselves
in the drama of a holy week
to place ourselves in the ancient story
that unfolds with political intrigue and theological mystery
it is a luxury to be trawling for video clips and music,
to be contemplating the quirky moment that will make this week’s worship memorable,
scratching out drafts and final scripts in the search
for just the right poetic words.
it is a luxury
because we can speak of life and death
without it being our life and death.
so today
stop speaking
and listen to those who are living holy week
right now,
like we can never presume to,
who are facing crucifixion with no certainty of resurrection.
listen to those who do not know if they will survive this week
but who are choosing only and always
right at this moment
to live with faith and courage,
walking the path of love,
all the way to death.
this is something i was thinking of for an event, but we’re going with a different idea. i haven’t quite got it right - i’m not good at writing character stuff - and i can’t spend more time on it. but i really like the idea, so i’ll put it up here.
It’s to go alongside these winelabels, and this prayer
the basic concept is everyone is sitting around the table [on which there's bread and wine - cleanskins with the above labels attached], and there are a few planted story tellers… judas, mary magdalene, peter, thomas, john. at different points they stand and tell their stories…
Being Human is a new book curated by Stuart Davey of Solace community. it’s a collection of works from different artists in Melbourne, based around the themes of humanity and fragility. The artwork is fabulous - rich and evocative - and the book is beautifully produced.
I was invited to write the foreword for it, which was an honour. It feels lovely to have my name associated such a beautiful collection of artworks.
It’s on a limited print run, and can be most easily bought through Searching for Oscar. It can also be bought as part of a bundle with a study book, written by Stu, to use a reflection base for Easter.
these are the pages of the booklet we gave people as they came in. it was postcard size.
For some inexplicable reason, when i try to upload the cover it completely reshapes itself… it’s the same image as the promo poster. inside the front cover was the layout map of the space, as found in the post below. from the 3rd page on, it went like this:
the pdf is here: booklet_single.pdf
thanks to Blythe for saving the day with photos…
The theme of the space was ‘break of day’. The space was laid out roughly like this:
At the entry we had michelle painting “my god my god why have you forsaken me” onto the wall.
along the wall behind the corner, almost hidden out of view, was a table set up like the last supper, but with broken glasses, wine spilt, and bread crumbled over the table. there were some words to the effect of ‘there are days that break us… a cruel word that shatters us, a betrayal, a heartbreak, an ordinary day that turns to tragedy’ [they're not the words, but i can't remember what they were!]. That was a late addition. next time i think we’d put chairs around the table and make it interactive, rather than being purely visual.
the first thing you saw when you walked into the carpark was a screen with looping footage taken at docklands in the 30 minutes before sunrise.
the floor was covered with ashes. Poems, bits from Job and the story of the crucifixion, etc. were written on black card amongst them. you only found them if you wanted to.
in the end we had to light up the piles of ashes with candles because peoples’ eyes didn’t adjust quickly enough to the lack of light, and in the preparation someone walked straight through a pile of ashes… messy…
[nahum got the ashes from a sourdough bakery - over 100 kg worth in wheatbags. They were great ashes. ash gets into everything. i wouldn't do it anywhere but in a basement carpark...]
a cd of recorded poetry was playing over in the corner - a selection of poems that approached death, lament and brokenness in different ways. people could make their prayers and write their stories into the ashes or onto the wall over on the far side.
moving on through… we had two kind of waiting spaces: one was a bland, sterile waiting environment. we used the black ikea leather sofas and office chairs from my floor of the office [have i mentioned how wonderful it was to simply be able to put equipment and furniture into a lift to transport it?], brought in a lamp, put a tv and dvd player in the corner… we showed a recording of ‘the bold and the beautiful’, and had, scrolling over the bottom part of the screen [CNN style] a series of waiting statements - things like ‘waiting for a better job… waiting for an ad break… waiting for the train to come… waiting for 5 o’clock… waiting for life to begin… waiting for someone bold or someone beautiful… waiting for the day to break…’. we had a copy of shaun tan’s book ‘the red tree’ there for people to read and a simple reflection on blandness and mundanity. [i loved this space!]
the other waiting space - a meditation space - was much more active waiting. we [blythe and dave were the screen hanging masters] hung white transparent fabric to create a separate space. cushions on the floor, a great little selection of music on discmans, with words for people to reflect to. on one ‘wall’ of the space Blythe wrote the words to 1 Corinthians 13… ‘we don’t yet see things clearly. we are squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. but it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright’. on another wall we had a collection of images looping. these words went alongside it: is there a song here which says the words you need to hear? listen to it… is there an image that says the prayer you need to say? wait for it… wait for the fog to clear. wait for the break of day.’ a lot of people spent a lot of time in there.
right up against the far wall we had the ‘break of day’ space. there was a large screen with a loop of someone trying to light a cigarette lighter. on the ground we had a large pile of charcoal with grass growing over the top [a real-life manifestation of the image we used for publicity]. scattered around the edge were boxes of matches which we’d re-labelled with the image we used in the publicity. people could take a box home to use to light a candle we’d given them at the entrance.
on another wall we projected [straight onto the concrete] the loop of daybreak with balloons. we’d covered part of the wall with newspapers, and we had people painting images of hope over the top.
The words in the space were :
We live in a world that’s shattered
dark
broken.
Sometimes all that holds us is a taste of hope
and a glimmer of promise.
If you can hold this promise for someone else,
paint a word or image of hope onto the wall.
If you need someone else to hold the hope for you,
just sit for a while…
look at the images, listen to the music…
let us hold it for you.
along the side wall, leading back to the entry/exit, was a ‘tunnel’. we’d hung long strips of fabric - a mixture of thin and thicker - and transparent paper [baking paper]. we’d written blessings onto the paper. right alongside the wall was a row of candles.
We included this space as a transition point - a way of getting people out without having to retrace their steps. interestingly, someone told me this week that she didn’t go over there at all, but she really loved looking at it from all the other spaces as she moved through. she loved that it was always in the corner of her eye. it’s another one of those things you don’t plan for.
we handed people a little booklet as they came in. on the next post i’ll put up the pdfs for that. it will explain it all a little better.
[i'm still waiting on photos from easter saturday. when i finally found my camera, i realised that i'd taken about three photos, and two of those were terrible. i'm waiting on a couple of other sources.]
it was a good night. If it matters, we had a lot of people come through - somewhere between 70 and 100… no-one was really counting. the place always seemed comfortably full, with a steady stream of people. We had a few random people wander down the laneway to see what was happening, and they ended up staying quite a while.
There was much to learn - as always. In particular, it was a new experience to work in such a cavernous space - i’ve always used spaces that are set up for people - and, to some extent, equipment. A basement carpark isn’t. There were three single powerpoints in the space. We ended up using 18 things that required power - spotlights, data projectors, dvd players, cd players, tv’s, etc. We had to dash out and pick up more extra long extension leads - just hadn’t taken into account just how vast the space was.
The space being open between 4 and 7 in the afternoon meant that it was very light at the beginning with late afternoon sun coming through the entry, and completely dark by the end. That changed the amount of light we needed to make the place safe, particularly at the entry. We ended up having to have candles in the piles of ashes - i had to let go of the idea of the brokenness at the entry being… well… completely broken.
Reactions afterwards were diverse. Some people were quite overwhelmed [i think we needed more of a regrouping, re-entry point]. others were intrigued. others told us we were very creative [i'm always a bit disappointed when i get that as feedback! i always feel like we've not quite done what we set out to do... if sacred space is transformative, people don't notice the creativity... kind of like lou rhodes and her singing]. A friend told me yesterday that he wished there was more of a community feel about it. another told me how wonderful it was not to have to be near anyone else. hmm.
i think one of my favourite moments was this: we had a blank canvas stuck onto the wall at the entry. throughout the time, michelle was painting the words ‘my god, my god why have you forsaken me’ onto it over and over with black paint [an idea stolen from ikon]. i took over from michelle a couple of times - it’s quite a powerful set of words to paint, over and over. a few people came and asked whether they could have a go. one stayed for a long time, just painting the words. and then came back again later for another go. i like it best when something takes on a layer we hadn’t planned.
next year… food, i think. late at night on maundy thursday. that would be great. i’ve had the idea for that an hour ago and my head’s spinning with possibilities already. it’s logistically tricky, in terms of getting access to the space early enough, but nonetheless worth trying. and at least now we know how to get the screens up first go…
i took the last post down - i only meant it to stay up for a couple of days, but once i’d posted it i switched straight into holiday mode and completely forgot i even had a website.
a couple of things… Nahum is posting some of the video loops from the easter basement installation onto his website and youtube. These include a pre-dawn train trip from werribee to melbourne, 30 minutes of pre-dawn melbourne skyline, and a sparking cigarette lighter. These are fantastic bits of footage. If you want them in greater resolution then we can probably arrange that. email and let me know.
we went to hear Lou Rhodes on Friday night. She was playing at the Northcote Social Club, which is such a brilliant venue - small, close to home… She played some songs from her upcoming album, which were, if possible, even more exquisite than the songs on Beloved One. She was also one of the most centred, still performers i can remember seeing. She wasn’t there to perform, she was there to let the songs be sung. it was really beautiful.
towards the end of the night she apologised for not being all of Lamb… she said she knew we would be disappointed about that. It took my breath away. She could not have been more wrong.
On the way into work this morning i realised how much time i’ve spent this year apologising for not being something else, wishing i could do things differently and better… imagining who could do this job differently and better. No more.
i’m taking this week off… a couple of things before i head outside to make the most of this glorious sunshine… [still haven't found my camera for photos from saturday night, although i confess to not really looking!]
i was absolutely delighted to open this morning’s paper to the page where they ‘wrap up’ Easter with a description of yesterday’s services, etc. The top of the page was headed ‘The meaning of Easter’ and the article immediately underneath it was about a former prisoner who is now trying to make his way in the world. The article asks when redemption will be possible for him. i was really moved that the journalist and papers’ editors had made this connection.
the writer from Friday’s article rang this morning to say that a lot of what he and i had talked about had been cut at the last minute from the article, and he wanted to apologise. unnecessary but lovely. the full version was in the Sydney Morning Herald here.
and finally… i had breakfast yesterday morning with some of my closest friends. they aren’t part of the church. we spent a couple of hours together doing easter egg hunts with the children… talking about the fear and delight of impending childbirth, the grief of infertility, the disappointment of family conflicts, the horror of mortgage payments… a couple of them had come into the space on Saturday night [they described it as very zen, which was a lovely compliment], and we talked about death and redemption in response to that… On the way home i passed a church which had a sign out the front advertising easter services with the headline ‘Come and hear the real Easter story’, and it struck me that when we say that, we say that the way people who aren’t Christians celebrate Easter - the meaning they find in celebrations with their friends and family - is false or fake. what an insult.
christians might tell another story of Easter to the rest of the world, but its point of connection with the world will be to honour the world’s story, and find the stuff that resonates between them, rather than setting the world’s story up to be false, and christians as holding the only truth.
happy easter…
recovering today from last night’s ‘break of day’ car park installation / sacred space. it was a very good night. more about that when i have the energy to move from the sofa to find my camera…
i have written a feature article for today’s Age newspaper… they asked for a profile on Jesus. It’s online here.
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