The euphoria of the start - gone.
The future is distant.
So much before,
and so little behind,
the end is barely visible...
and yet we still stumble on
because our hope for tomorrow empowers our today.

A few days ago the local news reported that Bolton City Council are putting a 30 day time limit on road side shrines. They want to stop permanent memorials, as they say that they are a distraction for other road users - which they probably are. People are kicking off about it and protesting, the council are going to create a place where families can take their memorials instead. This isn't going down very well - people want their memorial in the place of death.
The shrines reaffirm the importance of place to me, in a society where we're increasingly finding identity in network rather than place, place still has an important value. I also think that there is something quite human about being rooted in a place, being born, living and dying in a physical place connected to the planet. I'm doing a funeral tomorrow morning, the person will be buried 5 miles away from where they died. There is a real and physical detachment from the place where they lived and the family. As place/land becomes more and more scarce i fear that the detachment may increase.
Roadside shrines also fascinate me as they blur the boundary between public and private space. On one level they are a deeply personal expression of grief yet they are located on a public highway where all can see the grief expressed. They are in many ways 'not very British' as they bring raw emotions into the public realm.
I'm also intrigued at the respect that people give to the memorials. There is one at the end of my road on a junction where three people were killed a few years ago but a hit-and-run driver and on each anniversary there is an explosion of candles, flowers and banners on the shrine. However, throughout the entire year the shrine is respected, people stop at it and pause, there is an area around the shrine that they do not walk onto. It has become sacred ground.
I keep hearing rumour that someone is doing a PhD in them...can anyone point me in the right direction?
I'm really excited by Earth Abbey. It seems to be a fascinating project that brings together community, ecology and Christian spirituality. Go and have a look at their prospectus and be inspired...
Tags: EarthAbbey, Ben Edson, Eco-spirituality
I've just got the new Ian Brown album, The World is Yours. It's a great album full of political and anti-establishment rants, included within that is, of course, a rant about Church. Whilst i think that musically the album is great, i have to confess to initially finding the lyrics a bit passe. To rant about the church is fair enough, to rant about the war in Iraq is fine but I was initially struck by the naïvety of the rants and their lack of thought through political comment.
This from MusicOMH.com 'Street Children puts forward the rather simplistic idea that people with big houses should open their doors to homeless children and let them live there, while Save Us criticises "those whose eyes are closed to the plight of the African child" - laudable sentiments to be sure, but ones which leave Brown with an even bigger messiah than the likes of Bono'.
However, i also wonder whether there is more going on that initially meets the eye. I wonder if the depth comes through listening to the whole album and the subtle theological messages that are coming out through it. I wonder if it's an anti-established religion rant but one that gives a positive message about Christ and God. For example the song before Street Children is called 'The Feeding of the 5000' which is obviously about the miracle of Christ. In it he describes the two fishes as the spirit and the five loaves of bread as the soul, Jesus is referred to as reaching through the darkness as the king of golden rays. The song that follows is street children that starts with a rant about the wealth of the church. It also has a line that says, 'that if i had a home with 10 million rooms i'd open it up for them'. I can't help but make the connect to John 14:2 ' In my fathers house their are many dwelling places'.
There seems to be a movement that goes like this: Jesus feeds the starving 5000 - the church closes it's doors to the starving millions and keeps it wealth - God opens the heavenly mansion to all people...
Whilst at Findhorn i worked in the gardens, growing the vegetables that the community ate and sold in the organic shop. I was so impressed that today i signed on to an organic veg box delivery scheme. £10 a week, which i thought was a bargain, and they deliver a fresh box of organic fruit and veg every thursday.
So i picked up our first box today, whilst in the shop, and brought it home. I've now found a few recipes on the internet and have cleaned all the mud off the carrots, beetroot and potatoes. But during the cleaning process a few thoughts crossed my mind.
Firstly, Kester - the dirt king - is always going on about dirt and how detached we are from dirt in the west, and i have to agree. But here i was, upto my wrists in dirty water, after carrying muddy carrots though the house and enjoying the experience of connectedness. Connectedness to the earth, connectedness to the seasons, connectedness to the environments, and dare i say it, connectedness to God. The God of the planet, the environment and the seasons...
Secondly, when i usually shop i buy food with a recipe in mind, whereas with the veg box you find recipes that are dependent of the veg that you have got. This once again means that you are more tied in with the seasons and I'd suggest this helps to keep life slightly more balanced. I can go to the supermarket and buy strawberries and melons, even though it is nearly December. In a city, it can be all to easy to become detached from the seasons, our houses are kept at a uniform temperature and our shopping is the same all year around. Due to this we lose the pattern of the seasons and i'd suggest the patterns in our life, i wonder if this has anything to do with the rise of S.A.D.
Anyway, roast veg for tea tonight...better stop blogging or else they'll burn - and i'd end up nipping out for a curry!
Technorati Tags: Findhorn, environment
On Friday night I celebrated the birth of a new moon Scorpio at Findhorn. I stood in the dark of the garden of cluny college of the findhorn foundation surrounded by a group of 11 people, 3 men and 8 women gathered from across the globe.
We walked down to the gardens in silent, moving to a pre-prepared area where we were to light a candle and stand around in a circle. The priestess, an eastern European woman, invited us to hold some silence for a few moments whilst she lit the candle.
In a small bowl she placed a mixture of sweet grass and sage, she then set them on fire before blowing them out leaving some smouldering ashes. Taken a feather she fanned the ashes created a consistent plume of smoke. This bowl of smoke was carried around the circle as we were invited to smudge ourselves - to fan the smoke onto ourselves - and invite blessings down. The bowl was carried around and I covered myself in the smoke from the smouldering ashes.
We were there invited to burn any negative patterns that we had in our lives. We’d previously written these down on a piece of paper, and as the candle was passed around we burnt our papers in a pile on the floor. The priestess cried out ‘Ho’ and we responded with a ‘Ho’. ‘Ho’ meaning ‘I have spoken’ and the response meaning ‘We have heard’.
A bag of seeds were passed around the circle and we were invited to take a seed symbolising our hopes for the new moon. We were invited to hold the seeds next to our heart, so that our energy field could envelope the seed and our positive energy transfer onto the seed. We then individually placed our seeds into a large ceramic bowl in the centre, and as we placed our seed in the soil we called our ‘Ho’ which was responded to with a “Ho’ from the rest of the group.
The bowl was passed around the group and held aloft as we held one another’s hopes and dreams in our hands. The bowl was placed into the centre of the group and we held hands with one another and sang a chant four times through.
We moved to the fountain where water was placed upon the seeds by the priestess whilst a blessing was spoken, finally we moved around the garden in silence before resting at the compost where the seeds were returned to the earth. Placed in a place that would bring new life into the garden, our hopes and dream infecting the whole garden.
I'm off to findhorn tomorrow for a week ad a bit, it's part of research and I'm quite looking forward to it - all except the sacred dances...
Technorati Tags: Alternative community, Mind Body Spirit, mission
March 15th | The Entrepreneur Imperative
with Bill Bolton 6:30pm – 8:30pm at Nexus
Bill leads the field on thinking about entrepreneurial talent. He has been closely involved in the 'Cambridge Phenomenon' - he set up the St. John's Innovation Centre which now has an international reputation for generating new businesses and nurturing entrepreneurial talent; it helped to launch about 500 businesses - 2 businesses a week for 5 years. He was a UNESCO professor of Innovation and Technology Transfer and is a specialist in Business Incubators. He has written three books, and has developed an entrepreneur evaluation tool that identifies people’s entrepreneur potential and also that of entrepreneur enablers. While his background is in business, he sees entrepreneurs working with three kinds of capital – economic, social, and spiritual. He has also recently written a grove booklet on entrepreneurs and the church.
A changing world is the entrepreneur’s natural habitat. Business, mission, spirituality, social transformation are all environments where there is huge change. So it makes sense to see what might happen if we can encourage more entrepreneurial thinking and activity.
Blah...manchester is a partnership between CMS and Sanctus1.
6:30-8:30pm
Admission free
Venue: Nexus
Drinks served from 6:30
Input begins at 7:00
For a map of the location see: http://www.nexusonline.org.uk
We have a limited number of places. It would help us to know in advance if you're coming, so please book a place and turn up!
E-mail Ben Edson on: [email protected]
Technorati Tags: Blah..., spirituality
I'm preparing for a couple of Christmas services and TSK got me thinking about Xmas and Easter with this post. In emerging church circles I've come across the Eastern Orthodox Perichoretic nature of the trinity a bit, particuarly in Liquid Church and have recently discovered the Eastern Orthodox theological concept of Theosis.
Theosis means deification and it is the process of human beings becoming holy and being united with God. For Eastern Orthodox people the incarnation is the way in which humanity can become united with God. This statement by St. Athanasius of Alexandria indicates the concept beautifully: "The Son of God became man, that we might become God".
What would otherwise seem absurd - that fallen, sinful humanity may become holy as God is holy - has been made possible through Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate. Naturally, there is a limit on this as it is not possible for any created being to become God or even another god...But as II Peter 1:4 says we may become " . . . partakers of divine nature."
And i think that this is my hope this Christmas, that we may all become partakers in the divine nature of God...Wouldn't that be just fantastic...but probably a bit scary too!
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