Friday, 18 January 2008

Go on Say something! You know you want to

Okay so every now and then I meet someone who makes a comment on something that they have read here that makes me believe that actually this is not just me chatting with myself. So just to make sure that is the truth I have a question for you that I hope you feel free to post a reply to, as well as a question just for the sake of a good ponder.

Q1: If you had to move to another church community tomorrow, what would be the three most important things you would look for in choosing your new spiritual home?
(Note: no extra brownie points will be given to those saying ‘it’s not about what I choose it’s about where God sends me’, we will just take that as a given!)

Our pondering question is…
If you were a stranger visiting your church or faith community for the first time, what would either attract you, or turn you off making this your regular place of worship?

Tuesday, 15 January 2008

Nativity Icon

Here is the Nativity Icon I did for my family this year. It is a very pretty Icon to do and I am struck as I begin the Lamentation Icon which is my most ambitious icon (over a metre long) by the stark difference from doing a mother and child full of richness and hope and moving to an icon of sorrow where the babe in arms is replaced by a mother cradling the head of her dead son in her lap.

The image is a little blurry as it is a scan of a photocopy but you get the idea.

You know at times like these I wonder if I am a little odd in today's church. I am not quite sure where I fit, as though I have been placed out of time somewhere.

I am struck as I begin the lamentation icon that in April I will leave my parish as I move to experience other faith communities in my training. There is a real grief for me in this as a lot of healing has occurred for me there and I am aware of experiencing each parish event with a sense of last times. Each celebration is a little grief I guess as I detach and let go.

The adventurer in my is excited about new experiences and meeting new people yet there is also the other part of me that feels pushed by the unfamiliar.


Maybe time to go jetty jumping again.
Meg

Latest Icon

Hi there
really short as I am about to zip up to mass. Saw I am Legend last night ...disturbing but more about that later. In the mean time here is the pattern I am basing my latest icon on (there will be differences).
I am waiting for a photo of the Madonna and child I did for my parents at Christmas to arrive and indeed the photos we took at icon school the other day of the first stage of this the creating of a pattern.

Monday, 14 January 2008

Hellooooo

Yes I am alive and all rumours that I had been kidnapped by a renegade faction of the Church with the intention of forcing a coup and installing me as the next Pope are seriously exaggerated. I mean there's the whole being Cardinal first after all.

First day back at work and I am trying not to ask why? why was I not born wealthy where I could travel the world writing icons moving in and out of communities and settling in lonely cabins in snow filled forests or nestled into wild coast lines?

Okay so this is a brief posting(yeah right) high lites, low lights and insights of the 'festive' season.
Low lights
Friends 12 year old son out salmon fishing with his dad on New Years Day catches his first Salmon then a short time later falls over dead. Family left wondering what kind of God lets this happen. Second low light old family friend dies after heart attack, his wife is Christian with AoG he is not. Wife is left full of anxiety and terror praying to God please please let him go to heaven "he is a good man even though he is not saved' her words not mine.
Two very different responses to grief and indeed to God.
Two family occasions over Christmas both where I am the focus of you Christians have done this this and this wrong in the world you are hateful bigoted etc all veiled in polite terms and said by family 'friends' nice introduction to Christian bashing by loved ones. Not sure how to deal with this one it is an ongoing process for me.

Highlights
Having lunch with an old long haired self confessed Jesus freak and look alike, who over spinach pie debates prophecy and the challenge of change as leaps of faith. Then after lunch takes me jetty jumping in Lyttleton Harbour, big drops into thirty feet of water where you can't see the bottom. Where we jump again and again until I have the courage to take off by myself hurtling off the end of the peer. The two of us like kids yelling out in the name of the father and the son and the 'Splash". Has it really been so long since I have smiled with such abandon?

Insights
Christmas morning wrapping presents with the tele on, children's cartoons on all about Christmas all variations of I was poor and lost, on the naughty list and then Santa came and it was lovely and I got a new family and we are all loved and perfect, and singing around a tree, and we all had mountains of food and presents and dad and mum didn't get drunk and fight and we were cherished. Not a Jesus insight. It was for me a rancid joy. Here there was image after image of sugar and spice and all I could think of was the kids who would be watching this for whom this image of Christmas was unobtainable. Who would be wondering 'how come my Christmas is not like this?' 'If I was better maybe I would have this maybe, maybe, maybe.'
And I am left just thinking this is obscene, if it weren't for Jesus what would this holiday be?
There are a couple more insights but that will come in time, in the meantime I have fulfilled my long short posting quotas blessings to you all

Meg