Categories: uncategorized
Date: 30 August 2011 14:40:19
There was some good stuff on Friday, including a very interesting talk by Bob Holman, about the gaps between rich and poor getting bigger and how we as Christians should respond to that. It did rain on Friday so I wasn't entirely happy, but I'm glad we were able to persevere. mum got to see Conduit in the Underground (indulging her inner rocker) and got an album too. I got Rend Collective Experiment's Album. Rob Bell was on the mainstage so we were able to see him without all the queuing, which was a brilliant idea! Thank you organisers! He was really good with a basic message about that no matter how much you think you've failed, God still loves you, so failure isn't the end. It's difficult to believe, especially for me, so I'll be happy when the mp3 recording of that talk is on the greenbelt website so I can buy it, as I think it would be a good one to keep going back to! I felt, like the vicar who used to be at my church said, that I "needed to get angry" about the Israel/Palestine issue again. It's difficult to talk about because no matter what you say you will offend. Our church won't want anything to do with the issue, because they heard about it from the last vicar, so trying to make people realise what a travesty is happening is hard. There were some things going on to do with fundraising and organising a food collection, because things either clashed, or, by Monday, me and mum were so tired that we went back to the tent and slept for 2 hours! My friend has just texted me and told me that a picture of me and mum taken at the big communion on Sunday has ended up on the greenbelt website! We've looked and it's there! The camera didn't break! If you take a photo of me it should happen! Actually the communion had this amazing symbolic act. Ribbons being fed from the sides of the crowd through all the people to the front. At one point during the service all people holding the ribbons had to pull the ribbons so that the massive knot at the front was lifted up into the air by everyone pulling! The ribbons were symbolic of all of us there being joined together in prayer. It was amazing!
I spent quite a lot of money, and that wasn't just on food because our camping stove stopped working! Actually breakfast and lunch was provided by us as we had taken buns, houmous and lettuce, plus apples, cakes and crisps with us. It was just hot food and hot drinks (my mother and her hot chocolate! I had one chai during the whole weekend, but I admit, if I'd remembered the Chai Chapel was there earlier, I'd've had more!). I bought CDs, as I've said, books, including Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis which I always said I'd never buy, and now I wish I'd bought it earlier, two t-shirts, and two hoodies (one is on order as they didn't have the one I wanted in my size, cos I need a men's extra large as I'm just bigger in certain places, like my tummy, hips and shoulders!).
So what have I come away with? A wish to do something more for Palestine, but what I don't know. More ideas for church, and a wish to continue with what I've started in terms of work with the homeless. It's the first Sunday of the month on Sunday, so I'll be there with my cakes to raise money. I've added a website for a couple of charities, BibleLands and The Amos Trust, to my links list. I've also written a script for Lipstick and Maurice, my puppets, for Harvest. I've had thoughts and ideas that I need to talk to our vicar about (she was a volunteer at Greenbelt and so was working a lot patrolling the campsites) but whether anything will be any good, I don't know...