Friday, September 7, 2012

Life in all its fullness

We began the Season of Creation last Sunday with a Worship Together service on the theme of Life in all its Fullness which included some great songs from Greenbelt worship. Afterwards we had a simple but delicious vegetarian meal - it's great when autumn arrives and the puddings start clearly coming from people's gardens (in our case it was the raspberry harvest which has been excellent this year).

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Saving Paradise

Bruce Cockburn in the Big Top
 As usual there was a large group of St John's congregation at Greenbelt this year. The theme, Saving Paradise, was inspired by a book of that title (subtitled: How Christianity Traded Love of this World for Crucifixion and Empire)  whose authors were among the speakers (I know Alison made it to a couple of their sessions, I'm planning to download the talks when I get a chance). Both a lovely mini garden at the centre and Soul Space were themed on the four elements (my youngest would happily have spent a lot longer at both) and this theme also flowed through the Sunday Morning Communion - the sunniest part of the festival this year. Indeed we did experience the elements very much with strong wind, lightning,and torrential rain sending rivers along the paths and turning part of the site into a lake of mud (which the children loved even if some of us struggled with it!) There was a venue especially devoted to environmental issues, named Eden - Paul Kerensa opened in there with a genuinely funny take on climate change. Around the side of it were some inspiring small sets including an inspiring piece on SPEAK's Bardic Bike Tour that Fish had set up (maybe others did too, I just happened to see Fish in there).