in the meantime, the other idea we had for a winter solstice sacred space involved lots of knitting and mulled wine… i think this could be part of it… knitting our prayers for the world. i think it would work…
see you next week.
‘The dichotomy between beauty and necessity has always been a false tension. Yet as a distraction, it has been extremely effective at crippling our power to bring full-bodied, earth-rending change. And those of us who are most intent on justice, those of us who are activists, and those of us who stand in the barrage of steady societal critique perhaps need to drink in more art than anyone else. In our line of work, the task of stoking our vision and constantly imagining possibilities is absolutely essential.
We can be so harsh and ascetic as we fling ourselves against the needs of the world. Art is accused of being bourgeois because much of the creation of art takes time and solitude and staring out the window. And how can we give ourselves permission to do that when people are starving and there is work to be done?
I think of Judas bemoaning the fragrant ointment that could have been sold to feed hundreds of hungry people but instead is poured in that single lavish, revolutionary gesture onto the head of Jesus. He views the profligate gesture as sin, and feeding the poor as the only good.
I know that voice. it comes from my own lips. But if we always see only those who are starving, we will continually wander the desert of the frantically working and overwhelmed. What we need - desperately - is to not be overwhelmed. And the single thing that keeps us from being overwhelmed is imagination…’
- taken from ‘How one justice-seeker was redeemed by beauty’, Dee Dee Risher, in Geez Magazine Spring ‘08 edition.
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.
i’ve heard the rumour twice now… that i applied to be a candidate for ordination and was knocked back. just wanted to say that i haven’t applied [and won't be], but the church would indeed have been right to knock me back if i had.
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i’m ordering these for christmas presents [no-one i buy them for reads this so i'm safe to put this here]…. i think i just had the beginnings of an idea, something to do with pictures of jesus on the cross, chocolate and easter worship… i might need to add to the order…
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loving this also :
There are hundreds more on the website, with the following explanation:
Rotterdam-based photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek have worked together since October 1994. Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 13 years. Rotterdam’s heterogeneous, multicultural street scene remains a major source of inspiration for Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek, although since 1998 they have also worked in cities abroad.
They call their series Exactitudes: a contraction of exact and attitude. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element.
this photo was taken by a photographer at the holy ground :: holy city space in the basement. there’s a face on the lifts at the back… we’re trying to work out how it got there. it’s not photoshopped on, and nothing was projected onto it…
apologies… had to take this post down… it’s to be published elsewhere… email if you’re gasping to read it.
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…
just off to farewell sue clarkson from her role as youth ministry coordinator for the synod. it’s the end of an era… i have to give a speech, so i asked around the office here what people would say about sue, the initial response from everyone was ’she’s just fabulous’, followed by a variation of ’she’s the most stylish woman i know’… [variations included 'she makes handknitted look stylish', 'who knew birkenstocks could be a fashion statement?' and 'the sunglasses... oh my god'.]
i think sue’s remarkable, and it’s impossible to measure the impact of her work in youth ministry in both synod and national contexts… we have been so lucky.
quick things…
firstly, i’ve had a few emails about my state of mind, after putting up the solstice stuff. i do worry sometimes that people look for hidden meanings in what i put up here… poetry or reflections that go up here are very rarely a reflection on my current state of mind… i get asked often about the writing i put out publicly - mostly in the Age - and how I can bare my soul to the world. I’m actually not baring my soul. I only write about stuff that no longer has a hold on me. I write in the present tense, but i’m thinking it retrospectively. That’s both to protect what’s still vulnerable and because i’m an introvert… I have to have it sorted in my head before i can find words to put it out to the world, otherwise I’m spectacularly incoherent. [I've just finished writing a piece, and it took 6 drafts. The first five are absolute crap, inarticulate, unfinished sentences, contradictory statements, utter bullshit... and then suddenly it comes together in a final piece that expresses something i never imagined in those first five drafts. in this piece i contradicted my earlier thoughts entirely, and convinced myself of something else completely, quite possibly just because it sounds more poetic in the final form. i am fickle like that.] And when it’s sorted in my head, it’s sorted… I’ve moved on. if i re-read what’s been published, it feels like ancient history, some other person… i’m somewhere else already.
anyway, onto the second point… i still can’t leave comments on the blog. we’re working on it, but there seems no obvious cause, which makes fixing it hard. it makes me grumpy, but not for long. be assured, it’s not causing enough angst to result in black poetry about solstices.
a few things coming up…
the newly formed communal justice network from Port Phillip West presbytery will be meeting on July 13 at Marngoneet Prison, near Lara. We’ll be sending information out about this tomorrow to the people who indicated interest at the workshop a few weeks ago. If others from the presbytery are interested in being part of this then let me know. Places are limited on the day - we’re going inside the prison, and we can’t get large numbers in - and we will need to know by the beginning of july.
we came up with an idea while in a meeting this morning. we’re going to give different prison chaplains passages from the gospel of mark [next year's lectionary gospel] and ask them to reflect on the passages as they speak into prison culture, and what the perspective of prison has to offer the passages, as such. i’m going to spend a day with prison chaplains in october facilitating this - i think we might be able to link it with some of the psalms that have been and are about to be written by people in prison, and some of the liturgies we’ve developed, and create a really useful resource… I’ve also said I’ll do a full easter in the women’s prison next year - Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday. It sounds fantastic in theory, in practice it terrifies me…
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