Categories: uncategorized
Date: 16 September 2011 14:16:38
Realised I haven't blogged about a wander around Milton Keynes' historic and not so historic churches last Saturday. TOH and I did it as part of the Historic Churches Ride and Stride sponsored event. Doing it walking was a real eye opener for us and we got to see a collection of interesting street art as well as look at a range of churches.
There were a few things which struck us as we went round. Firstly, the level of hope each church was or wasn't showing. By this I mean some churches were clearly clinging on for dear life and you wanted to hug the vicars, others were vibrant and displaying a real sense of hope - the contrast was striking. There were two CofE churches in particular which were obviously beacons of worship and community involvement and mission. They weren't just bright they were also full of information about the local community aswell as religious stuff and most of all they were incredibly welcoming.
Second, related to this was the welcome TOH and I got. Whilst not trying to be in your face the nature of such a walk meant we were slightly doing our comedy lesbian act, (i.e. just being us and laughing, having fun, being a bit dozy and being clearly in love). Some people seemed fine with this whilst others seemed to want us signed off and out the premesis as quickly as possible.
The third thing to do with churches which struck us was the way in which some were clearly working for the community whilst others seemed to be defending the establishment. This might be unfair on some of the latter, but it was clear which were working in the more deprived areas and trying to be a real beacon of hope and which seemed to be fulfiling the coalition at prayer role.
As I say it wasn't just the churches which struck us it was also the art we encountered along the way. The majority of the art was streetart but there was also a wonderful Orthodox church with some beautiful icons.
The streetart varied from that done by street artists in the Banksy style sense of the work to community arts type projects to brighten up the underpass and in turn this latter group varied from those lacking graffiti to those damaged by graffiti and those enhanced by graffiti. Amongst the latter was a cow which had a speech bubble coming out saying, "this reminded me of Jesus". Um???? but it was an interesting comment.
The most beautiful piece of streetart was a painting of some flowers on a boarded up window in Stony Stratford. Hopefully TOH will get her photos uploaded at some point and so I can share as it was a really beautiful piece of art.