Categories: uncategorized
Date: 30 August 2005 17:56:59
Eight lots of washing later (how did we manage to wear so many clothes when it was so hot?) and I'm ready to report from Greenbelt -one amazing weekend (again).
It's hard to know where to start, but I think it was the best ever - I always say that. Not particularly because of the music, or the talks, or the random worship, though there was lots of good stuff. Just because of the hanging out, the chilled time with friends (and with God), and the feeling that you aren't alone in what you're thinking about, oh, lots of things. I love Greenbelt - and this year we've become Angels and I spoke on my first ever panel, so I'm feeling more involved than ever.
Some highlights? Meeting the other lovely wibloggers first - sorry I was there so briefly and looked so fazed - i'd run from the journalist discussion and had to wander back to meet Anna who'd done a talk and knew nothing about greenbelt and was a bit scared. Thanks all for being so welcoming and lovely. I was a bit scared at first and I'm not used to introducing myself as "fishsoup". Now many of you know I do have a normal name!
The panel was fun to do too - not particularly for myself, though it was nice that anyone was even vaguely interested in what I thought about journalism, but mainly because it was so thrilling to see my colleague (who this time last year wasn't going to church, or praying or even talking about the fact he was christian at all) sit in front of all those people and explain how his relationship with god affected his work. That made me nearly tearful, actually.
I enjoyed the blogging panel (dave, you're such a celebrity) - wish I could have stayed for it all. Blogs are now officially cool and it was fun to say to the friends I came with "oh yes, I've been blogging for months" (not that I told them where!). And I enjoyed listening to Andy Flannagan outside the performance cafe in the sunshine with my husband (twelve years after we first got together at Greenbelt), meeting friends and making new ones in the organic beer tent (fantastic innovation) - particularly seeing my non-churchy at all contributor friend wandering round it going "do christians drink? This is quite cool, I like it here". We were also amused watching our Economist friend take on all of greenbelt over globalisation - he really is brave- and i think found it more nervewracking than he showed.
The camping was great, if filthy (now I've showered i am ready to show the world the top of my head again without a headscarf - which one of our church friends dubbed "brethren chic"), the weather was fab, and we had some great chats, some great laughs and random moments of joy. And we bumped into oh, so many friends who we've known for years, and met friends of friends who were great. And, as usual, the only real low point was sunday morning communion, (still random, after all these years), which didn't quite hang together. There were few other stresses except the ones we'd planned for. Thank you Lord for real answers to prayer on so many things there.
Now I have culture shock. when we drove into london last night everyone seemed very clean and monochrome. Back to work tomorrow. Despite being surrounded by hacks at various points in the weekend, the whole "going back to work" thing still doesn't seem real.