foundation weekend away

Some 20 or so members of foundation went down to Lee Abbey, near Lynton for the weekend. Leading up to it, I’d had an extremely full couple of weeks and, frankly, by Friday would have been more than happy to have opted for a quiet weekend at home… but, as so often happens when you’re tempted to do so on these occasions, it proved to be a really brilliant weekend. We were one of three groups who were staying at Lee Abbey over the weekend. We were by far the youngest of the three (apart from Moira+me!) and, unlike the painstaking preparation put in by the other groups (probably over several weeks), our “programme” was devised on the hoof over the last few days. In the event, it proved to be wonderfully stimulating, thought-provoking stuff. Last night, we decided to have a “friendly stage” – with people volunteering to come up with songs, poems, some improvisation etc (don’t worry, I didn’t perform – I vaguely acted as MC!). It was absolutely brilliant (an amazing amount of talented musicians and performers!). We were given permission to use the “tower” – a ramshackle shell of a building located high up on the headland overlooking the sea (and about a 10 minute walk through the woods in the pitch dark) as our “stage” and so, at around 10pm, we all disappeared to the tower for the latter part of the evening. There was no electricity, but we managed to light a fire and found a few candles… and then proceeded to sing various “rock(?)” songs at high volume to the accompaniment of Rob’s guitar and Tim’s harmonica. Some of the “party” stayed up until about 3am (not me, I hasten to add!) and, for a relatively brief but rather worrying time, managed to get themselves locked inside the tower! Dylan produced some absolutely wonderful photographs of the weekend (as well as videoing some interviews!). Hopefully, he’ll post them either on the foundation website or the foundation facebook site.
A truly wonderful weekend with a great bunch of people.
Photo: some of the group beside the crosses.

looking for eric

I realise that going to the cinema is not the most sensible thing to do on a beautiful sunny afternoon but, believe me, it proved to be WELL worth it! I went to see Ken Loach’s “Looking for Eric” at the Watershed and really, really enjoyed it. It’s about an ailing Manchester postman getting his life back on track with the help of Eric Cantona (yes, Eric Cantona: ManU football legend) and it’s just beautiful. It’s funny (I found myself laughing out loud at various stages), it’s quite tough at times, but it’s also a poignant love story and, according to a review I’ve just read, it’s a “feelgood vigilante film” which (and I know you’ll find this hard to believe) just about sums it up!
Even if football doesn’t interest you at all, you really should see this film.
PS: Coming out of the cinema, the sun was still shining and people were smiling and I even gave the singing guitar player some of my loose change! As I crossed over the swing bridge by the Arnolfini, an old man fell off his bike. He wasn’t badly hurt but a couple of us went to his assistance, someone picked up his bike and others were clearly concerned…. eventually, we got the old man up off the floor and he smiled and said to the gathered throng “Thank you ever so much for all your concern. As you can see, I’m a bit of a learner at this, but it’s really nice that so many of you stopped to check that I was all right”. People beamed back at him and you could almost sense everyone thinking “aaaah, what a nice man!” before going on their respective ways. A very nice moment.
PPS: Also connected another section of roof drainage to the water butt, went along to the Refugee Week entertainment in Queens Square and attended Tim’s entertaining and thought-provoking “service” at foundation (busy day!).

foundation again

The wonderful Bruce Stanley has posted some lovely words and images of last week’s Foundation little/medium service on his embody website. They include photographs (see above) of some of the wine label drawings or words contributed by those attending the service - all done completely “off the cuff” in a matter of less than 5 minutes.
I think they’re rather beautiful.
PS: you really must sign up for Bruce’s “Happiness for Life” 8 week course starting in Bristol on 2 April (see this link).

foundation

Excellent “medium” service at foundation last night. It included watching clips from the film “Babette’s Feast”, eating, drinking and passing empty wine bottles to each other!
No, it really was very good!
Photo: empty wine bottles, blank labels and night lights.

trinity cakes

Last Sunday was Trinity Sunday and I spent part of my morning trying to explain the concept of the Trinity (God the Father/Son/Holy Spirit to those who don’t know these things) to a group of 11-14 year-olds. What I should have done was to have got my lovely friend Ellen Loudon to do it! At the Foundation service in the evening, she got us all to “imagine God” in pictures, sounds, numbers, words, sacraments, lights, thoughts, stillness, laughter…and cakes!

Well it worked for me – and the cake tasted REALLY good too!
PS: cake photo taken from Ellen’s blog without permission!

lent

It’s taken me some time to put something in writing, but I’ve been hugely challenged by the foundation quarterly service (on 18 March, entitled “Unknowing God”) – hauntingly beautiful and somewhat dark in content. I’m still reflecting on the powerful and stark declarations from Lizzie, Ellen, Dylan and Tim. No easy answers or forced optimism, but rather an honest rawness as they shared aspects of their own spiritual journeys. I don’t yet really know of any of them all that well, but I wanted to hug them all!
Our Bedminster Parish Lent group, meeting at home, has also provided much food for thought (study book: “Source – on prayer for Lent”). We decided we needed an “askjeeves.com” equivalent on the parish website – to help answer those tricky questions no one knew the answers to!

Photo: "Breast-feeding Madonna" by Antonia Rolls (one of the artists featured in the foundation quarterly service)

deeper foundations

Moira and I actually made it to one of Foundation’s littleservices on Sunday evening. We were made very welcome (thank you!). We knew one or two people already, but I did find it rather strange to see people there who I already “knew” from their blogs!
Photo: apologies and thanks in advance to Steve (Tunnicliff), but I downloaded this image from the Flickr link on the foundation website – taken at foundation’s recent weekend at Lee Abbey – hope that’s ok?!

foundation

I liked Ellen Louden’s recent post on Foundation’s website (‘Rhythms of Life: a reading’) quoting from Iain McColl’s words about farmer and writer Wendell Berry’s work and, in particular, when he talked about “a rhythm of life which does not pillage the earth but which recognises that there are ‘no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places’”.
It reminded me of John Bell's words on the guardianship of creation in his book ‘Hard Words for Interesting Times’:
“It is the amount of energy I choose to use; it is the demand for unseasonal vegetables that I choose to make; it is the number of journeys by private transport that I believe is right; it is the mountain of waste I decide not to recycle; it is the investments in environmentally hostile firms I want to profit from. And for Christians, it is the distance I want to put between the will of God and my lifestyle…. All of this ultimately affects the state of the planet and the consciences of those with whom I engage”.
Photo: “Prayer Tree” at Greenbelt 2005 by Si Smith and friends.