I spent the day on Downham Market's Festival Field, for the last 5 years we have been responsible for setting up the Churches Together Prayer Tent, as the theme for the Festival this year was Through the Ages I decided to present the Church Year in colour, and through reflective and interactive meditation. Alongside this Tim and I offered Jesus Deck Readings, once again, they were surprisingly accurate!... All in all it was a very good day..
One group of people were so impressed that they kept coming back, bringing different friends with them each time. The readings were well received and the most popular prayer station was the one that dwelt upon Lent;
"We all have things in our lives we are sorry for, burdens if you like; the season of Lent offers us a chance to connect with those things, to recognize them, to be sorry for them, then to give that burden to God and leave them behind…
Take a stone in your hand, and feel its weight, let that weight represent the burden you are carrying, drop it into the empty bucket, listen to the thud as it hits the bottom, it has gone, and God says you are forgiven....
When you are ready move on..."
I suspect that it reflected a deep desire for transformation, this was followed of course by a reflection on Good Friday, again people lingered here, gazing at the San Damiano Icon set against a black cloth...
Interestingly though while the folk we see Sunday by Sunday rushed around the tent, lingering only at the Christmas and Easter prayer stations, most other folk lingered at Lent and Easter identifying with the God of suffering and finding as one person commented; "that he understands where I am at...." What is going on when there is such a dichotomy in the way that people engage, what does it say about the spirituality of the nation; I reflected on these things as I emptied the bucket full of stones back into my stone box this evening, each one represented a heartfelt prayer, each one different, but....
