I have just arrived home from Summer School with ERMC at St Gabriel's conference centre, Ditchingham. We have spent the week engaging with Tim Gorringe's book, " Furthering Humanity, discussing how we can see and relate to and also reveal God through film, literature, art and music and more....
Part of that engagement involved participating in practical workshops on music, art and creative writing, it was an amazing relief after days of fairly intense lectures to paint, draw, write and sing. God's image is truly within each one, his creative power flows forth when we allow it space and time to "play" through us.
Play is an evocative word, it seems to me that we too easily become serious that we forget to play, we forget what it is to respond in childlike wonder to the world around us, even our creativity can become serious as we strive all the time to be the best. So I am challenged by the idea that God might want to "play" through me, her gentle spirit smiling my dry soul into life....
...and so I have stopped to consider those things that give me delight, things like plunging into a pool of cool water, dancing , drawing with chalk pastels and blending the colours to produce something beautiful, watching the clouds roll across the sky, and taking time to enjoy and drink in a beautiful sunset.
When I look at the amazing diversity in the world around me I am more and more convinced that God delights in her/his creation, animals and birds, trees, plants, landscapes all speak of delight and draw us to wonder....
... and yet we should be challenged for this world also contains sorrow and pain, death and disease, war and famine...we need to have eyes to see both, to respond to both, to inhabit the gap and call forth hope...
Our community offering from this morning will go to Darfur, for we must be conscious that art, music and literature although worth engaging with are truly available to a privileged few...
Delight and prayer, suffering and prayer....Lord we pray "Your kingdom come".
These are the closing responses to one of the Summer School acts of worship:
Look at your hands; see the touch and the tenderness
GOD’S OWN FOR THE WORLD
Look at your feet; see the path and the direction
GODS OWN FOR THE WORLD
Look at your heart; see the fire and the love
GOD’S OWN FOR THE WORLD
Look at the cross
See God’s Son and our Saviour
GOD’S OWN FOR THE WORLD
This is God’s world
WE WILL SERVE GOD IN IT.
AMEN
