Creative Ideas for... by Simon Rundell

Creative Ideas for Sacramental Worship with Children
Creative Ideas for Alternative Sacramental Worship

After participating in Blessed Worship at Greenbelt (see recent blog posts) I splashed out on these two books by Simon Rundell , the Vicar of Blessed's host Parish.

Considering the price (c.£15) my first reaction on their arrival was one of disappointment as they are slim volumes, however they are in fact packed full of ideas and inspiration and therefore I think they are worth the money overall.

Each one begins with a chapter of "philosophy" by Simon, which while mostly right thinking is often expressed in rather dogmatic terms. Then comes a "how to" chapter, for children on animation and for Alternative on the use of PowerPoint, these are very useful step by step guides linked to the accompanying CDs and a great introduction if you want to dip toe in either water, but they are by their very nature a little dry. Then comes the larger part of each book, the example liturgies and other worship resources.

Simon is very clear that the best worship is not copied out of a book but born out of community and therefore I am sure he would be very please to hear me write that there is very little that I would want to take directly from these books and use as is. Yes there is some I would adapt, some that I take inspiration from, and a significant amount which is an inspiration only to the extent that I absolutely definitely won't be doing it!

There is a serious playfulness within Simon's approach, it is at times hidden by the overblown pontificating - but one of the best quotes captures his true spirit "This anointing can get playful and messy, which is good, simply because good religion is messy and abundant in grace, suymbolised by copious amounts of oil smeared around."  (from the book about Children) And he is using messy in its general sense and not in the sense of the "messy" that has rather become hijacked in the last couple of years as the brand name of a yummy mummy craft based way of doing church.

One of the great truths that I like to push is that we have too much "incranation" and not nearly enough "ascension" as an organisational metaphor within the Church (I can't understand why I don't get much traction with this - maybe I need to get it printed on a T-Shirt?).   These books are all about the ascension, bringing people up, bringing them in to the heart of ritual and worship - for example we shouldn't have Nave Altars but Sanctuary Congregations.  You make a service accessible to children and young people not be stripping things away and simplifying it but by giving them grown up roles within it, by allowing them to sense the vastness of the ideas that are at play - Christianity which is "Bitesized" is dead - God is more than a mouthful...

It has been interesting reading these alongside Rowan Williams "the Lion's World" about C. S. Lewis' writings - in Narnia Lewis gives children a diet of grown up drama, of passion and pain.  He takes seriously the capacity for children to have a rounded encounter with the world and not merely a sanitized version.  In this Simon Rundell, and Blessed, are entirely in step with Lewis.

Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis

Out of the Silent Planet (Cosmic Trilogy)

Rowan Williams' excellent book The Lion's World set me off on the trail of C. S. Lewis' "Cosmic" trilogy, of which Out of the Silent Planet is the first part.

Published in 1938 it predates the space race by a generation and there is a simplicity to the "science" of this sci-fi which allows you to step over into the whole story without stumbling over the fact that we know lots about the destination, Mars/Malacandaria, which is incompatible with Lewis' narrative (especially reading it while NASA's Curiosity mission is expanding the boundaries of our knowledge of the Red Planet day by day).

However like a lot of sci-fi its main messsage is one about the here and now, our hero Ransom compares the treatment of the Malcandarians by his fellow travellers with the treatment of colonial officials with "the natives" of Empire (the very attitude we find in Union Castle). Lewis gives us 4 races or species which live in Malcandaria in diverse equality, poets, engineers, intellectuals, and philosopher spirits, and in so doing he offers a powerful critique of Western society that privileges profit driven utilitarian capitalism above all else.

This is a radical book albeit in sheeps clothing - and I am full of expectancy as to how the drama will unfold in parts 2 and 3

White Elephant by William Norton

White Elephant: How the North East Said No

This is a comprehensive account of the referendum about a North East Regional Assembly, at 390 pages with a further 100 pages of Appendices, but it is an account written by a leading actor in the No Campaign for that referedum and so it has to been acknowledged that it is a comprehensive account of half the story - this is however in no way a problem.

What is fascinating is that Norton takes you right into the guts of the campaign, and explores those tiny events that shaped it - it is a tale of a politics not of grand visions and great statemen but of ego, personality, bluff, and luck.  For those who subscribe to the "cock-up" theory of war there is much in this book to assist your argument.  It shows not only did the No Camp actively win the referendum but also the Yes Camp actively lost - there were a number of gift-horses during the campaign that the Yes Camp most definitely looked straight in the mouth.

This is not the politics of the idealist but the dirty street-fighting of pessimist. And therefore it is a great read for anyone who is interested in the actual process of engaging the public to vote.  There is a recurring theme that the No Camp struggled at length with the fact that they were exclusively the "No" Camp breaking the first rule of campaigning that you have to be "for something" - you should have a positive message.  The answer seems to be that the first rule is rubbish and it is much better to keep the message simple - if you want people to vote no then tell them why to vote no - don't muddy the waters explaining why they should be voting yes to some other idea that is not even on the ballot paper.

There is also an interest in the perspective of the author writing in 2008, with New Labour and therefore effectively the Yes Camp still in Government - there are a number of point where you are left wondering if the tale would have changed now the Conservatives, the leaders of the No Camp, are the party of Government. If you are a Labour supporter you are likely either to end up shout at the book for its historical inaccuracy or blushing in shame that Labour really were bad - a case of pay your money make your choice. Also the fact that the referendum campaign was viewed by many as a dry run for a referendum on the EU Constitution the Tony Blair side-stepped connects to the current politics as I was reading in a week when Ed Milliband told the Labour Party Conference that they would support holding an in/out referendum on the EU.

Norton's style will not be to everyones taste, there are endless footnotes - most of which are witty (or not) asides to his own main narative - and the feeling that it is "all about me" is inescapable, but it would be a very strange ego that wrote a memior and made it "all about someone else" so I think that should be forgiven.

I had got the book because graduating from Durham in 2002 I had missed the referendum but had been aware that the Regional Assembly was going to be coming to Durham - something as students we had mixed views about, Durham had bad traffic, expensive housing, expensive eating before you added a lot of new bureaucrats into the mix - but hearing the Regional Assembly had been voted down there was a pang of sadness that Durham was going to miss out of this extra accolade of being the capital of the North East. 

The Lion's World by Rowan Williams

The Lion's World: A journey into the heart of Narnia

Rowan Williams has a reputation, quite ill founded, for being unable to communicate clearly and accessibly which comes I think mostly from a wilful desire of many not to hear what he has to say.  It is delightful to find in this book such beautiful evidence to bury that reputation as he opens up for us such a rich encounter with complex ideas about faith and the world.

This is an interpretive work, as a companion primarily to the Chronicles of Narnia but ranging widly and freely over C. S. Lewis's othewriting, much of which will be unfamiliar to the general reader, and I will admit that while I know about the Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce it is only Narnia that I have actually read.  As an interpretive work it tells us as much about the theology and world view of Rowan Williams as about C. S. Lewis, I am not suggesting that there is some great distortion going on here just that the very fact that Rowan Williams sat down to write this book, and the themes which he felt were important to include is clearly an insight into his thinking so it is all the richer for giving us a window into two minds rather than only one.

My main encounter with Narnia was the BBC TV adaptations, I then in my late teens I did made my way through most (if not all) of the books, and more recently saw the blockbuster Film versions.  I am not someone with a deep knowledge of the text, a point I make to reassure you that reading this book is worthwhile even if you have only very limited knowledge of the "primary" material.

The major point that Rowan Williams makes is that Narnia remains an excellent tool for mission in a world where people are increasing interested in faith/spirituality but disinterested in "Church".  The trouble is mostly they have written off Church without encountering the true potential it has - "Sharing the good news is not so much a matter of telling people what they have never heard as of persuading them that there are things they haven't heard when they think they have." (p17) It is a vehicle through which people can see and feel what faith is like freed from the assumptions and baggage that have become encrusted around organised religion.

Rowan quotes a comment from Alsan about the Dwarfs "they have chosen cunning instead of belief.  Their prision is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out" and without him making about direct reference the mind jumps to the "New Atheists" and to Darkins in particular - when they not only deny evidence for God but desperately try and manufacture evidence for God's non-existence as if it is rational to bring forward empirical evidence of the non-observation of an unknowable being?

I think this book would make an excellent Confirmation present, certainly highly preferable to the usual flurry of stuffy prayer books that accompany that event.  Confirmation is often felt as an anti-climax, built up as a life changing event all too often followed by a sensation of a continuation of the horribly ordinary.  A book that looks at the depths of faith and look for those depths outside the "churchy" is just the kind of thing that you need at that moment. It would also make a useful basis for a study group or lent course.

Readings from the book of Exile by Pádraig Ó Tuama

Readings from the Book of Exile

For me this book has been long awaited for, as many of you will know, my appreciation of Pádraig and his work verges on the inappropriate.

He is very much a performance poet, and many of the poems in this collection I have heard him perform at Greenbelt, and so I don't just read the words I hear again the tone, the slow pauses, the lilt and rhythm of his performance.  But one of the joys of this collection was at times hearing the poems in my own dislocated but conventional English ascent and yet finding that they were still as powerful as ever.

Now I really want you to go and buy this book because it is brilliant and your life will be better for it (you can use the link above to get it from Amazon - but if moral scruples prevent you from using Amazon I am sure there are plenty of other places you can turn to instead) - so I am going to share just one poem with you ...

Ar eagla na heagla

There is your fear

and your fear of your fear.

There is your beginning

and your fear of where you are.

There is your body

and your words about your body.

There is your possibility

and your hatred of all failure.

There is the gaze

and your fear of the gaze.

There is your destination

and your fear of where you’re not.

 

Greenbelt 2012 Beer & Benediction

I find Blessed fascinating but not always entirely convincing as I think I wrote about the worship event I attended at Greenbelt last year.

Beer and Benediction was just one of a number of worship sessions they were offering this year, but the Beer element meant I felt this was the fail safe option!

The majority of the beer tent had turned into a sea of mud but thankful the annex "the upper room" had remained largely dry and this was where Benediction was to meet beer.

What I found was the smaller scale (last year I had been to a Mass in the Big Top) allowed you to feel like a participate rather than just the audience, also there were a few technical hitches which Simon Rundell covered with a humour that gave a sense of grounding and humanity that I think had been missing in earlier encounters with them.

After the Mass and Benediction we went on a Eucharistic Procession around Greenbelt (sadly due to licencing constrains this part was minus beer).  It was wonderful to see the faces of the Greenbelters we passed by - there was a wide range of expressions. Some clearly know what was going on, removing hats and crossing them selves as Jesus passed by, others clearly know what was going on due to a look of horror that such heresy was here at the heart of a "Christian" festival.  But for most there was a benevolent look of puzzlement with which you greet all sorts of things at Greenbelt - putting them down as "its ok - its Greenbelt".

The Procession ended in front of the Grandstand where a number of "worship collectives" were coming together for a shared service, sadly I could not stay for that as there was a talk elsewhere in the festival I wanted to get to. 

Lanark by Alasdair Gray

Lanark: A Life in Four Books (Canongate Classics)

This is a very different kettle of fish from The Island which I have just written about and which I read in the middle of reading Lanark.  When we visited Glasgow earlier in the year we saw an exhibition of Alasdair Gray's art and getting home I looked in the library for the book of that exhibition, they didn't have that but they did have Lanark and so while it is a bit of a door stop of a novel I gave it a go.

The covers of the book are crammed full of praise, claiming that Lanark called forth a new era in Scottish writing which is almost as off putting as hearing a book won a Richard & Judy prize!

The 4 parts of the novel are arranged so you read part 3, then 1, 2 and 4 with the prologue and epilogue somewhere in the middle.  Parts 1 and 2 have only a very loose connection with 3 and 4 (something a God like character "the author" notes at one point in the book - a device that I have never found successful). Parts 1 and 2 are basically realist while 3 and 4 are a kind of dystopian science fiction, this is held up to parody when a teacher criticises the writing of Lanark/Thaw for trying to combine realism and fantasy - claiming this is something even the greatest of writers struggle with.  It is as if Gray is eye-balling you and daring you to say "nice try but maybe try something a little less ambitious next time..."

It is a political satire, and it is clear there is anger at the way Glasgow was declining with the collaspe of heavy industry.  But with his anti-hero Lanark/Thaw Gray seems only to confirm the hopelessness of the situation.  That those with the brains to understand the situation will either be depressed to the point of inaction or be corrupted by "the system" and despite continuing to spout proletarian rhetoric find their own beds feathered with others misery (Lanark ends up doing both in turns).  It seems to me this is an entirely bleak vision.

Given the novel is over 30 years old there must be a question about whether its politics has enduring relevance.  Off the back of the recent global financial melt-down much of Gray's more depressing depictions of the soulless system feel deeply contemporary - the "too big to fail" mentality fits into its picture of entangled organisations and the blurring of state and corporationl.  What has changed perhaps is the settling - it is not the streets of Glasgow (even the poorest of Glasgow's streets) where the full force of the financial annihilation is now felt.

The most hopefully message Gray seems to manage is that in the face of extremes of life the ordinary misery of the individual will endure - "I am miserable therefore I am"