GOOSEgander
1
EC SP
www.wgrg.co.uk www.holycity-glasgow.co.uk
IA LP ED EA ITI CE O A N W AR
D
The newsletter of the Wild Goose Resource Group Summer 2014 no.36
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
2
It consists of three resource workers, John Bell, Jo Love and Graham Maule. Gail Ullrich is the group’s administrator and Stella Cranwell is the sales administrator. The WGRG exists to enable and equip congregations and clergy in the shaping and creation of new forms of relevant, participative worship. The WGRG has to find a majority of its own funding. As a result, it exists on a provisional basis, only taking on events for the coming twelve months at a time. The WGRG welcomes donations and other forms of financial support (Gift Aid) towards its work. If you are interested in supporting the work in this way, please contact the Group at the address below.
WILD GOOSE RESOURCE GROUP Iona Community, 4th Floor, Savoy House, 140 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3DH, Scotland. T: 0141-332-6343 F: 0141-332-1090 E: wgrg@iona.org.uk Web: www.wgrg.co.uk; www.iona.org.uk/resources/wildgoose-resouce-group; Wild Goose Resource Group WildGooseRG
CONTENTS
GOOSEgander is the twice yearly newsletter of the WGRG, a semi-autonomous project of the Iona Community.
3 GOOSEeditorial 4 GOOSEoose A Wee Worship Book Five; The Great Tapestry of Scotland; Enemy Of Apathy CD; Translators & WGRG songs translations in Kirchentag’s songbook
6 ON BODY & the fabric of the future Holy City’s recent season was one of two halves. JO LOVE puts us in the picture.
11 HOLY CITY 14-15: Normal Service
GRAHAM MAULE gies us a wee taster of what’s new in Holy City land for 2014-15’s ‘Normal Service’ session.
12 HYMNS as subversive activity
The 20th annual Peace Colloquy, “Peace, Justice, and Song”, was held from 18th-20th October 2013 and The Community of Christ International Peace Award was presented to JOHN L. BELL and the Iona Community for work on justice and peacemaking through worship and music. A transcript of the address and presentation he gave when accepting the award.
21 CATALOGUEgander
New titles, including SHEPHERD SAINTS & TAMBOURINISTS and other seasonal materials.
22 DR. BELL’s Surgery
JOHN L. BELL offers incomparable balm and salve to yet more seemingly-intractible liturgical problems.
23 GANDER at the Calendar
What it says: WGRG dates to the end of 2014.
HOLY CITY Web: www.holycity-glasgow.co.uk; Holy City Glasgow HolyCityGlasgow
LIVING THE QUESTIONS (Scotland) Living The Questions (Scotland)
Cover photo: JOHN BELL receives The 2013 Community of Christ International Peace Award for work on justice and peacemaking through worship and music. JIM HANNAH, COMMUNITY OF CHRIST
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
GOOSEeditorial
MITCHELL BUNTING
3
We were sorry to bid farewell on her retirement to MARGARET CAMPBELL, who has known the WGRG team in its various guises from when she started working for the Iona Community around 30 years ago. Margaret supported the last five leaders of the Community and gave lots of help and encouragement to the Resource Group over the years. She has plenty of stories, none of which is appropriate to share here. But before she left, while working on the archives, she did unearth some dog-eared, fading photographs showing members of WGRG, sometimes barely recognisable in their youthfulness… well, JOHN is actually quite easy to identify. Following John’s itineraries, we find, is a useful way to brush up on geography, not least the position of North American states. It’s possible to memorise the order of his engagements by location through creating phrases using the state codes. MIngling ONtologically WIth MOdestly BeCkoning PAstors summarises John’s movements last autumn. SKat-singing CAntabile OR ABsorbing MIscellaneous MaDrigals covers this spring. Or, to put it another way, since our last edition John has again been busy working here and across the Atlantic as well as in Europe in churches of different denominations, retreat & conference centres, universities and theological colleges.
locations, including Perth, Aberdeen, Ayr, and Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh in May at ‘Heart & Soul’, the Church of Scotland event celebrating the life of the church. Earlier this year John and Graham met with a group of translators in Dusseldorf to pursue the translation and publication of more WGRG songs in German – more about that in GOOSEoose, on page 4. The squeak of an approaching wheelie case often heralds the arrival of Jo in the office as she pulls along whichever art materials are needed for that day’s school or Girls’ Brigade project. Jo has continued as locum at St. Paul’s, Provanmill, and as contributor to the Spill the Beans lectionary-based online worship resource for all ages, and we continue to marvel at her abilities with scissors and glue (as well as exploring the Bible and spirituality with young people). The team has just returned from this summer’s WGRG week on Iona “Reclaiming the Book for the People” when they again had the delight of working alongside poet, theologian and activist, PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA, who has previously led several retreats as part of the Holy City programme.
“John Bell in 1982, captured just leaving the Iona bathing block with his inflatable friend” OR “John Bell discovers the rare Argyllshire Aquatic Venomous Viper, but somehow manages to counter-hypnotise it with a repeated chant” OR “Answers on a postcard. The best answer gets a special prize”
As well as planning and facilitating Holy City’s recent ‘Tartan Jesus?’ series, JO & GRAHAM have also been on their travels, leading sings in various Scottish GOOSEgander Summer 2014
44
GOOSEoose Bits & pieces about things Wild Goose and other fine nonsense... A Wee Worship Book Five WGRG’s ‘A Wee Worship Book’ (4th incarnation) continues to be a top seller and is finding its way across the world with some liturgies being recently translated into Spanish and German for use in small retreat houses. Its wee sister, the 5th incarnation, is currently getting finishing touches applied, and should be available by the end of the year.
The brainchild of tapestry artist Andrew Crummy, author Alexander McCall-Smith and historian Alistair Moffat, this, the world’s longest embroidered tapestry, is a remarkable collaborative artwork, covering over 12,000 years of Scottish history, produced over 50,000 sewing hours (equivalent to sewing 24 hours a day for 6 years), using 300 miles of yarn (enough to lay the length of Scotland and beyond), fashioned by 1000 stitchers, in 160 panels. At Holy City in March we featured the work in a reflective workshop with images of the Tapestry and songs and music relating to it. A few weeks later, our colleague KAREN from the office went to see it and noticed this wee figure peeking out of one of the last panels depicting notable Scots from the 20th & 21st century. This is what she clocked first time round...
KAREN TURNER
Over 95% of the liturgies are different from those in the current incarnation, which will continue to be available once no.5 is published.
The Great Tapestry of Scotland
She did a double-take, looking more closely. However, while the profile was remarkably familiar the text was not in fact ‘John Bell’, but ‘John Bellany’, the painter. Still, while we are undoubtedly biased, we suspect you might agree, dear Readers, that our John’s inclusion would not have been totally inappropriate! One for future panels, perhaps?
GRAHAM MAULE
The Great Tapestry is on exhibition at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh until 13 September. www. scotlandstapestry.com
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
UNKNOW PHOTOGRAPHER
5
Translators & WGRG songs translations in Kirchentag’s songbook In January, John & Graham spent a day in the well-appointed offices of the FFFZ der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland in Düsseldorf meeting with a group of translators who are working to produce the first major collection of German translations of WGRG songs. A collection of around 100 songs will be published in 2015 by Strube Verlag of Munich.
Original photoshoot at launch of ‘Heaven Shall Not Wait’, ‘Enemy Of Apathy’, ‘Meaning The Lord’s Prayer’ and ‘Reclaiming The Common Life’ books in 1988. Clockwise from top left: Graham Maule, John Bell, Ron Ferguson and Rev George Reid.
Enemy Of Apathy CD Likewise, the Wild Goose Collective’s latest recording of songs... by the title above (and drawn from the 2nd Wild Goose Songs collection of the same name in the year 1988) is nearing completion and should be published in the next few months. As mentioned before, one curiously unique (or bizarre) characteristic of this CD is that it is being made a quarter of a century after the book it ‘accompanies’. However, the photograph above gives documentary and symbolic evidence that this was always the covert Wild Goose plan... that 26 years later, a CD would appear. The key to this mystery is held in the number of fingers - 23 - being clearly indicated by the Three Musketeers and That Ither Yin (as they were known at the time). Plus... only 3 (Graham, Ron and George) are showing their teeth: 3 + 23 = 26.
Dr Mark Burrows, who teaches at the Evangelisches Fachhochschule Rheinland-Westfalen-Lippe in Bochum (and also is Poetry editor of Spiritus, ‘A Journal of Christian Spirituality’) is the co-ordinating editor. He and the team of over a dozen translators have done a huge amount of work already, carefully and faithfully attentive to the delicacies of translation, and not least attempting to imitate the collaborative spirit of the orginal, distinctive process via which John and Graham and the Wild Goose Worship Group repeatedly filtered and critiqued these songs through their various stages, in the dowdy wee living room of Lansdowne Parish Church in the West End of Glasgow. Subsequent to this meeting the translators’ work has found further success, with several WGRG songs being included in the planned Kirchentag Songbook in June 2015. With invitations regarding Kirchentag and other events, John and Graham may be seeing a bit more of Germany next year.
There is one question though that remains... what happened to John’s wallies* that morning? Where had he left them? [Note: *wallies = dentures (Scots)] GOOSEgander Summer 2014
6
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
ON BODY & the fabric of the future Holy City’s 2013-14 was a programme of two halves. JO LOVE puts us in the picture...
‘BODY... Flesh and bones and earthy faith’ Body. We all have one and together we allegedly are one. Earthy bodies can feel utterly dead and heavenly bodies can feel very much alive. The promises and realities of resurrection, prophecy, remembrance and incarnation weave into the fabric of our experience. These themes and thoughts flowed through the three events of Holy City’s 2013 autumn season. We heard the voices of Ezekiel and Mary, of saints famous and forgotten, of angels dancing in anticipation of a baby’s birth. We were invited to respond, by making prayers for new life, by approaching the throne and the banquet table naming those who for us were saints, and by laying strips of cloth on the rough crib in fresh acknowledgement of the humanity of God and renewed awareness of our potential in body, mind and soul.
‘TARTAN JESUS?... weaving the distinctive fabric of a nation’ This new year being a hugely significant one for Scotland where we are rooted, we set out to let Holy City be a time and place for exploring and challenging our attitudes and actions in relation to five key issues of these current times. “Tartan Jesus?: weaving the distinctive fabric of a nation” became the overall title of our Holy City events from January to May.
GRAHAM MAULE
Under this heading, we addressed issues concerned with our food systems, materialism, arts and creativity, love and nonviolence, faith and spirituality. Among the range of excellent workshop leaders, we welcomed the expertise of Mike Small, founder of the Fife Diet; Luci Ransome of the Transition Movement; visual artist Eóghann MacColla; Karyn McCluskey of Glasgow’s innovative Violence Reduction Unit; singer-songwriter Karine Polwart; and Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University’s Professor of Sociology of
Religion.
JO LOVE
Alongside this high calibre of visiting facilitators, our homegrown leaders enabled explorations of energy justice, dance, new national anthems, ATOS assessments, and the creative practice of developing choirs in the criminal justice system. What about the dialogue between all this and the Biblical witness and narrative? For the Tartan Jesus? series, we offered a separate gathering later in the month, where we recapped on the workshops and followed up our learning by looking at stories from Scripture which deepened our thinking and challenged our discipleship. In our worship at the main events, we laid in the centre of the worship space a fishing net, spread out or bundled in baskets, introduced in these words… In the centre of the hall is a fishing net and fishing baskets, left there by Andrew, who is, of course, Scotland’s patron saint. The net and baskets are signs of the work, tools of his trade - fishing that he and his brother and his family and neighbours were engaged in, there and then, in Palestine. This evening, as we did last month, we let it carry the issue we are concerned with and the work we have to do… GOOSEgander Summer 2014
7
ALL IMAGES: JO LOVE
8
And so in January (when ‘Food’ was the theme) the net was overlaid with our shopping lists of commitment towards our food-related habits. In February (‘Stuff’) it held chunks of polystyrene (the packing material for stuff’) on which we had drawn pictures or written words confessing our materialism and stating our intended actions towards changing our materialistic habits. In March (‘Art’) we took from the bundled nets and baskets, cards naming aspects of our creativity, and placed these by large candles as an act of commitment to realise more of our creative potential. In April (‘Love’) we chose coloured cloths representing those we find hard to love yet are commanded to love, and wove these strips into the net as a recommitment to demonstrate compassion and nonviolence in all our relationships. In May (‘Faith’), fishing floats were passed among us, bearing some of the promises of Jesus for us to read, ponder and pass on. Finally the floats were tied to the net which was then hoisted up high in our midst, declaring the constant presence of hope and encouragement through Jesus and his words and teachings. Towards the closing of each liturgy, we shared an affirmation which grew throughout the series as the theme of each month was aggregated to those of the previous months. GOOSEgander Summer 2014
ALL IMAGES: JO LOVE
9
Symbolic actions during the ‘Tartan Jesus?’ session. Top left: January (‘Food’); Top right: February (‘Stuff’); Middle left: March (‘Art’); Middle right: April (‘Love’); Bottom right: May (‘Faith’)
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
ALL IMAGES: JO LOVE/ GRAHAM MAULE
10
At the final event of the season, in May, we thus affirmed: Leader: That this land is God’s land and that those who live here are its servants and guardians: ALL: THIS WE BELIEVE. Leader: That this land is part of the commonwealth of heaven, intended to be a place where God’s joy and justice prevail: ALL: THIS WE BELIEVE. Leader: That our food should be more nutritious, more sustainable in its distribution and more just in its production: ALL: THIS WE BELIEVE. Leader: That the stuff we use should be sufficient for our needs denying excess that enslaves and diminishes, demonstrating the imperative of the common good: ALL: THIS WE BELIEVE. Leader: That the art we experience should comfort us and disturb us; and so compel our imagination that all things are made new and another world is made possible: ALL: THIS WE BELIEVE. Leader: That the love we give, may be at least as generous as the love we have been given; not limited to those close to us; nor limited to those the same as us; in its indiscriminating reach, may it only be bounded by the excess that is the love of our Saviour. ALL: THIS WE BELIEVE. Leader: That the faith we have, though small like mustard seed, will be strong enough to move and transform, and that God... as a mother teaches her child to take on life’s risk and responsibility ... will enable us to welcome, with courage and boldness, the future we do not yet know. ALL: THIS WE BELIEVE…
THIS WE BELIEVE AND TO THIS WE ARE COMMITTED.
Leader: Go in peace, Christ goes before you, ALL: AMEN. THANKS BE TO GOD. GOOSEgander Summer 2014
‘Tartan Jesus?’ net, top & bottom: May (‘Faith’).
11
GRAHAM MAULE
HOLY CITY 14-15: Normal Service
GRAHAM MAULE gies us a wee taster of what’s new in Holy City land for 2014-15... oh, ‘Normal Service’, same old same old then?
consequences... will it be ‘normal service’ resumed or the beginnings of the fashioning of a new ‘normality’? And partly because the kind of liturgy and engagement habitually found at Holy City is not what folk would normally call ‘normal’, we thought ‘normal....’ etc (you get the idea... - ED).
Holy City (nee. 2000) is only slightly younger than the date of the reconvened Scottish Parliament of 2000. When Holy City re-convenes for its 2014-15 session in October, a mere 2 weeks earlier Scotland will have voted in the historic Referendum on Independence. Will the electorate have proclaimed ‘No’ - to remain with the ‘status quo’ (sic) - or will Scots have chosen self-determination and to take the responsibility of making their own decisions... and their own mistakes. It’ll be an interesting time...
So dates for your diary:
So, partly because our last session was concerned with (but in no way exhausted) issues pertinent to the Referendum, we felt we should reflect on the post-vote
Holy City: Sunday 5th October 2014 Sunday 2nd November 2014 Sunday 7th December 2014 Urban Retreat with Pádraig Ó Tuama: Friday 5th - Saturday 6th December 2014 More details in due course on the website: www. holycity-glasgow.co.uk
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
12
HYMNS as subversive activity The Community Of Christ is an international Christian church with 250,000 members in more than fifty nations. Their International Headquarters, including a Temple dedicated to the pursuit of peace, is located in Independence, Missouri, USA. Each year it holds a Peace Colloquy, at which it honours a person or group in recognition of their contribution to peace. The 20th annual Peace Colloquy, “Peace, Justice, and Song”, was held from 18th-20th October 2013 and The Community of Christ International Peace Award was presented to JOHN L. BELL and the Iona Community for work on justice and peacemaking through worship and music. Here we re-print the address and presentation he gave when accepting the award. I am deeply honoured to be present among you and to receive, on behalf of my colleagues and the Iona Community, this peace award from the Community of Christ. It seems barely believable that a denomination of which, hitherto, I have known little, should recognise the work of people on the other side of the Atlantic about whom, hitherto, you have known little. And it may seem unusual that rather than donate the award money to the work of the Iona Community, I should wish to disburse it elsewhere. This is no indication that we have an surplus of revenue; indeed at the moment we are fundraising to sustain our work. But the Gospels teach us it is more blessed to give than to receive and, for me, this has to be more than a nostrum.
I live in a nation where you are not persecuted if you are a Christian. This is not the same in Nepal, but the New Life Church bears witness to Christ’s affection and yearning for all. Hence some money will go to that and to the Marion School, built by villagers in an area in the Himalayas where there was no school, and now the classrooms are overflowing. And I live in a country where, were a British national or an American national to be injured in the street, they would be given the best medical attention free of charge at the point of delivery. But this is not true of the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, and sometimes we are fooled into imagining that Israel and Palestine are equal in economic wealth and welfare provision. Hence some money will go to Medical Aid for Palestinians. But I am also aware - most recently by sharing a train journey with a former Israeli soldier - that there has to be a movement for peace as well as the amelioration of pain in the Middle East, and therefore some money will go to an organisation called Breaking the Silence, which gathers the testimonies of the now thousands of Jewish Israeli soldiers who see the continuing aggression against Palestine as futile and who lobby people of all persuasions in Israel and in the Jewish diaspora to seek a peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict. You have enabled us to be generous and for this I thank you most sincerely.
MEMORISED TEXTS It may also seem strange that a peace award go to a hymn writer. Well, that was your decision and not mine, but having made the choice one of the consequences is that I might just ask you to sing… which I intend to do right now.
Advertisements I’m going to sing the first half of a line of a song known mostly to people over 50, and I invite you to finish the line. Here goes:
You’ll wonder where the yellow went... WHEN YOU BRUSH YOUR TEETH WITH PEPSODENT.
For those who don’t recognise that beautiful spiritual, let me indicate that it accompanied an advertisement for Pepsodent Toothpaste.
Disbursal I live in a nation from which, to my knowledge, no one flees because of persecution. But we do have a considerable number of people who flee to Britain, often because our previous imperial conquests divided up vast areas of the continents of Africa and Asia, and we forcibly repatriated people in areas which were not always friendly to them. Hence some money will go to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns which works with genuine Aslyum Seekers. GOOSEgander Summer 2014
In the sixties and seventies, many television and radio advertisements relied on jingles which were instantly memorable. If this were the UK, I could also invite you to sing:
A million housewives every day pick up a tin of beans and say, ‘Beans means Heinz.’
JIM HANNAH, COMMUNITY OF CHRIST
13
Or, the slightly more moving ditty for bathroom soap
You’ll look a little lovelier each day with fabulous pink Camay.
What these advertisers were doing with jingles is something which in previous eras, governments did with songs.
National Songs... UK Should you ever make it to the Last Night of the Promenade Concerts in the Albert Hall in London, you will be present at a musical orgy of Britishness which will inevitably include a prominent and busty female soloist filling the hall with her rendering of the song: When Britain first, at Heaven’s command arose from out the azure main; this was the charter of the land, and guardian angels sang this strain: Refrain: “Rule, Britannia! rule the waves: Britons never will be slaves.” The nations, not so blest as thee, must, in their turns, to tyrants fall; while thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all. Still more majestic shalt thou rise, more dreadful, from each foreign stroke; as the loud blast that tears the skies, serves but to root thy native oak. Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame: all their attempts to bend thee down,
will but arouse thy generous flame; but work their woe, and thy renown. To thee belongs the rural reign; thy cities shall with commerce shine: all thine shall be the subject main, and every shore it circles thine. The Muses, still with freedom found, shall to thy happy coast repair; blest Isle! With matchless beauty crown’d, and manly hearts to guard the fair. (James Thomson, 1763) Now, if you peruse the lyrics of this particular ditty, you might wonder whether it is more fanciful than accurate. I have never met a geologist who claimed that when the earth cooled, Britain was the first nation to emerge. Nor have I ever met a theologian, angelologist or mystic who would defend the statement that the favourite text of Guardian angels is ‘Rule Britannia’! The reason for this and other similar songs is that to enable the expansion of the British Empire, the British people had to be behind the colonial exploits of their political masters. Indeed, they had to provide the troops and the civil servants who would maintain law and order and administer the infrastructure of fledgling nations on every continent. And the political masters knew that what would enable this would be popular songs which spoke of a divine commission for Britain to civilise and evangelise the world; and the more catchy or memorable the tune, the more likely the words would colour popular opinion.
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
Jesus never says, ‘I am your commanding officer.’ Jesus says, ‘ I have come among you as a servant.’
14
National Songs... USA The same thing happened in this beloved country, as is indicated in two verses of very different texts. While Stephen Foster (THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME) mimics African American patois and seems to suggest that black people had an affection for plantation life, the abolitionist James R. Lowell, (MEN WHOSE BOAST) asks whether people dare consider themselves to be free or brave if they have no empathy for people who are shackled.
Hear the battle cry... Onward Christian soldiers...
And for the children:
I’m in the Lord’s armee...
There’s a flag flying high in the castle of my heart...
Steeped in this militaristic spirituality, the man - then a teenager - was conscripted and served a spell of duty in Vietnam. There he went to the chapel services where the same kind of heroic hymns were sung.
THE POTENTIALLY SUBVERSIVE SONG OF THE CHURCH
But he began to have a troubled conscience. How could he who was affecting and infecting the Vietnamese land and people with Agent Orange and Napalm Gas subscribe to a belief in a God who seemed to endorse this activity?
What both advertising ditties and popular songs indicate is something which the Church forgets at its peril, namely that singing is a highly influential and potentially subversive activity, because people who sing tend to believe the texts that they articulate. Recent research done by Mennonite scholars in the USA and Anglicans in Great Britain give academic witness to this reality.
So he became an agnostic, and never returned to faith until years later. Giving God a last chance, he opened the New Testament to discover that Paul may use the militaristic metaphor three times, but Jesus never does.
Words set to music are much more memorable than words simply spoken. And you and I will know this because, had we all the time in the world, we could probably sing to each other songs and choruses, hymns and advertising jingles which we learned and which we have retained from before we were able to read. Hence, recent pioneering work in the area of the care of Alzheimer’s patients has confirmed that to let people with dementia occasionally hear songs that they sang as children or teenagers, can bring them even momentarily from what seems a fog of confusion into the sunshine of awareness.
Militaristic hymns and an antidote Because the Christian church, like its Jewish antecedent, has placed a high priority on sung text, we need to be aware of the power which that has over our perspectives on life, faith, God and ourselves. I first recognised this around 20 years ago on one of my first engagements in the USA. It was a seminary in Bangor, Maine, and I asked the class in advance of my visit to write an essay regarding how their childhood hymns had affected their adult life. I remember vividly one submission. It was from a man who grew up in an independent church which seemed to overdose on hymns with military imagery:
Soldiers of Christ arise... March on my soul, with strength...
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
Jesus never says, ‘I am your commanding officer.’ Jesus says, ‘ I have come among you as a servant.’ The point of this anecdote is to underline the very real effect which sung text - particularly religious sung text - can have for good or ill on our faith and discipleship. In contrast, I would like to introduce you to a hymn from my community which the Mennonite Church in Canada, completely unknown to us, had found probably in a photocopied manuscript version during the 2nd Gulf war. They encouraged congregations every Sunday of the conflict to light a middle eastern styled lamp and to sing (IF THE WAR GOES ON)... If the war goes on and the children die of hunger, and the old men weep for the young men are no more, and the women learn how to dance without a partner who will keep the score? If the war goes on and the truth is taken hostage; and new horrors lead to the need to euphemise, when the calls for peace are declared unpatriotic, who’ll expose the lies?
JIM HANNAH, COMMUNITY OF CHRIST
15
If the war goes on and the daily bread is terror, and the voiceless poor take the road as refugees; when a nation’s pride destines millions to be homeless, who will heed their pleas?
The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus no crying he makes. I love Thee, Lord Jesus, look down from the sky and stay by my side until morning is nigh.
If the war goes on and the rich increase their fortunes and the arms sales soar as new weapons are displayed, when a fertile field turns to no-man’s-land tomorrow, who’ll approve such trade? If the war goes on will we close the doors to heaven, if the war goes on, will we breach the gates of hell; if the war goes on, will we ever be forgiven, if the war goes on… and on... and on...? (John L. Bell & Graham Maule)
The Passive Jesus Two things have for long puzzled me about the Christian church. The first is why Jesus has been depicted in song and in portraiture as a very passive person. Now one reason - as regards physical art - is because it is easier to represent a passive than an active person. Hence the baby in arms and the saviour on the cross are much easier than the one who turned tables in the temple. But there is no excuse for hymn writers. Words like commotion, disturbance, anger, confusion, division, bewilderment - all of which Jesus caused - are as easy to put into verse as words like tender, mild, meek, gentle. But the latter adjectives have been more commonly chosen. Witness AWAY IN A MANGER... where Jesus as a baby who never cries is the kind of infant whom most parents would worry about. Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head. The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep in the hay.
Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay close by me forever, and love me, I pray. Bless all the dear children in thy tender care, and take us to heaven, to live with Thee there. (Anonymous) ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID’S CITY suggests that this passive behaviour goes on ‘all through his wondrous childhood’ which means up to his bar mitzvah in early adolescence. Once in royal Davids city, stood a lowly cattle shed, where a mother laid her Baby, in a manger for His bed: Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ, her little Child. He came down to earth from heaven, who is God and Lord of all, and His shelter was a stable, and His cradle was a stall: with the poor, and mean, and lowly, lived on earth our Saviour holy. For He is our childhood’s pattern; day by day, like us, He grew; he was little, weak, and helpless, tears and smiles, like us He knew; and He feeleth for our sadness, and He shareth in our gladness. And our eyes at last shall see Him, through His own redeeming love; for that Child so dear and gentle, is our Lord in heaven above: and He leads His children on, to the place where He is gone. (Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818-95) I imagine that most mothers here would be greatly concerned if their 11 year old was to be found lying in their arms while other kids the same age were chasing girls or playing baseball. And when it comes to the adult Jesus - as celebrated by Edward Denny in WHAT GRACE, O LORD, AND BEAUTY SHONE - I have great difficulty in finding verification in the gospels that... GOOSEgander Summer 2014
‘..why within the churches of all denominations, (is) change is seen as the enemy rather than the ally of faith?’
16
speak for the Almighty and who belongs in the kingdom.
No ungentle murmuring word escaped thy silent tongue.
The Holy Spirit comes early in the morning in tongues of fire, not in mid evening in silence. It took students in an ecumenical seminary in Bangalore to turn this from a scriptural insight to a sung truth, GOD’S SPIRIT IS HERE:
Nor do I believe that his heart ... could only love. It could also rage against injustice as both his disciples and the Pharisees discovered to their embarrassment. Contrast, therefore, the text of THE FAMILY, each verse of which is based on incidents in Jesus’ active ministry to which few songs in the history of Western hymnody allude. He had no wife, no family, he had no children of his own; he once had been a refugee, despised but never left alone. To all the widowed and the fatherless he showed the love that none had shown.
God’s Spirit is here that never alone the followers of Christ need face the unknown. The fount of all living is leading the dance, dismantling old systems that earth might advance. She banishes sin, eradicates fear, lets hesitant faith affirm God is here, till, living like Jesus and blessed by his name, we bind up the broken and lift up the lame.
He liked to watch as children played and knew the lyrics of their song; he cared for those that lived at risk, the ones whose rights had all gone wrong. The plight of helpless and of homeless folk would always in his heart belong.
She defuses hate and raises the dead, becalming life’s storms removing all dread. So that we might serve God, confirmed from above, she tests us with fire and aflames us with love.
He had no job to pay the rent, but women gave him house and food; they saw in him no hidden threat, his singleness was safe and good. And those whom no-one ever listened to discovered that he understood.
So, seek out the lost, and share out the pain, and love at such cost that all rise aqain. God’s lamplighting spirit is dancing the way through dark into dawning, from night into day.
He chose to eat in simple style beside the wounded, hurt and poor; he told them tales to make them laugh and, for their stigma, was the cure. In crowds and circles of rejected folk his generosity was sure. Those whom he calls his family are this through love and not reward: sisters and brothers we can be, if we but take him at his word. And so we join to celebrate the life of Jesus Christ, our friend and Lord.
(John L. Bell)
The negative understanding of change (John L. Bell)
We might similarly make a comparison regarding how the Holy Spirit has been typically depicted as a predominantly unobtrusive calming presence. This is understandable as long as we only think of the Spirit as the gentle dove. But Pentecost - when the Spirit came - is not an experience of docility. It is a time of excitement, disturbance, confusion, noise as God upsets conventional wisdom as regards who will GOOSEgander Summer 2014
But the other conundrum which for a while puzzled me was why within the churches of all denominations, change is seen as the enemy rather than the ally of faith. I cannot speak for the USA, but I do remember in a church in the North of Scotland, an elderly man saying that he could not understand how if a preacher said that she or he had doubts about the Virgin Birth, no one would bat an eyelid. But if she or he decided to move the altar six inches, all hell would break loose.
JIM HANNAH, COMMUNITY OF CHRIST
17
Perhaps the Community of Christ is absolved from such expressions of discontent, but I have witnessed it in every country in the Northern Hemisphere in which I have worked. Anything from changing the time of the morning service to removing a few pews in a church which has a surfeit of empty seats suddenly rouses the ire of the liturgical conservationists…
cisely because God did change his mind.
… and this despite the fact that in the Bible no one and nothing which has been touched by the living God remains the same… and one could go further and note that at the centre of our faith is the resurrection of Jesus in which there is the transformation from a mouldering corpse to a resurrected body. Jesus wills, explicitly, that all shall be changed and made new.
However, the dear senior in the North of Scotland who posited the problem, also pointed to one potential cause. He named a hymn sung widely throughout the Western world, which begins with the words ‘ABIDE WITH ME.’ Look at what it says in verse 2: ... Change and decay in all around I see. ‘The church’ said my old friend, ‘is the only place where I automatically associate change with decay’…and all because of one line in a hymn... … a notion which incidentally appears in other well know hymns, including PRAISE MY SOUL THE KING OF HEAVEN. But it is a two-way bind. Not only is change associated with decay, but change is regarded as something about which the Almighty knows nothing: Oh Thou, who changest not, abide with me. This notion is also witnessed in IMMORTAL, INVISIBLE, GOD ONLY WISE: To all, life Thou givest, to both great and small; in all life Thou livest, the true life of all; … undoubted, but then:
We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree, and wither and perish— but naught changeth Thee. (Walter C. Smith, 1876)
We wouldn’t hear ‘AMEN’ to that from Moses, who on at least four occasions saw God change his mind. Nor would Jonah assent to that sentiment. He became furious pre-
Nor would Jeremiah who accused God of duping him. Nor could those who heard Jesus radicalise the previous statements of the Almighty, whenever he began a sentence with the words: You have heard it said… but now I say to you.
That God should change his mind is as permissible as for us to change our minds. But the prime motivating force for God is not personal advantage, irrational anger or personal pique. God changes the divine mind when love demands it. THE MIND OF GOD The mind of God is forever changing, forever pondering what shall yet come true, forever noting every child’s potential, forever restless to make all things new. The heart of God is forever changing, forever moved by each cry of pain, forever touched when we say we’re sorry, forever yearning that we start again. The world God made is forever changing, forever moving between death and birth, forever turning through the seasons’ cycle, forever clothing the productive earth. The love of God - this is never changing, but brings to light all that God intends; transforming those who are met by Jesus, the love of God never, ever ends. (John L. Bell) These two conundra - why was Jesus always depicted as passive? - and - why do good Christian people get upset about change? have been long time puzzles.
Hymnody about and from the Developing World But more recent has been my curiosity as to why, within my own country, there has been a reticence about singing songs from outside the European/ North American axis. Your tradition and mine has for so long sung in translation hymns from Germany: O SACRED HEAD, SORE WOUNDED; Sweden: O LORD, MY GOD, WHEN I IN AWESOME WONDER; Italy: ALL CREATURES OF OUR GOD AND KING; and France: THINE BE GOOSEgander Summer 2014
JIM HANNAH, COMMUNITY OF CHRIST
18
THE GLORY. But - as I once discovered at a missionary rally - there was audible resistance when confronted with the possibility of singing material which came from the global south. We cannot blame the theologians for this, for in 1910 at the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, an American academic, John Mott, suggested that in our engagement with those in lands other than the imperial nations, we might just encounter what he called ‘A Larger Christ.’ The theology of missions began to change from being paternalistic to being reciprocal in 1910, but that never crept into the songs of the church which preferred the previous benefactor/ supplicant mentality as witnessed in these examples, mainly taken from the American Hymnal:
(Reginal Heber, 1819) COMING, COMING, YES THEY ARE
O’ER THOSE GLOOMY HILLS OF DARKNESS
Coming, coming, yes they are, coming, coming from afar, from the wild and scorching desert, Afric’s sons of colour deep; Jesus’ love has drawn and won them, at His cross they bow and weep.
Let the Indian, let the negro, let the rude barbarian see that divine and glorious conquest once obtained on Calvary. Let the gospel, let the gospel loud resound from pole to pole.
Coming, coming, yes they are, coming, coming from afar, from the fields and crowded cities, China gathers to His feet; in His love Shem’s gentle children, now have found a safe retreat. (William Williams, 1772)
What though the spicy breezes blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle, though every prospect pleases and man alone is vile; in vain with lavish kindness the gifts of God are strown, the heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone.
FROM GREENLAND’S ICY MOUNTAINS From Greenland’s icy mountains, from India’s coral strand; where Afric’s sunny fountains roll down their golden sand: from many an ancient river, from many a palmy plain, they call us to deliver their land from error’s chain.
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
(J. Wakefield MacGill,1829-1902) For my colleagues and me, it has been one of the great liberations of our lives to realise that the Holy Spirit has given bountifully to the churches in Latin America, Asia and Africa rich gifts of music and song which are for our growing in faith. Not only is much of this music accessible, but when we - and particularly when we with our children - begin to share the spiritual gifts of people in lands which we once invaded, patronised or whose corrupt regimes we kept in place - do we begin to make visible and transformative signs of reconciliation.
19
We may even be led into a deeper appreciation of Scripture, especially the Psalms. These were given to us, not just to provide pleasurable praise songs, but which, in their texts, articulate corporate despair and carry us towards intercession into the lives of those who are persecuted for their faith, even at this present time. So here is a paraphrase of Psalm 94, O GREAT LORD AND GOD OF THE EARTH, as sung in the Salvadorean Mass with words which predate Jesus and which Jesus sung, which today might allow us to feel for people in Northern Nigeria, Syria, Egypt who are persecuted for their faith. O great God and Lord of the earth, rouse yourself and demonstrate justice; give the arrogant what they deserve, silence all malevolent boasting. See how some you love are broken for they know the weight of oppression; even widows and orphans are murdered and poor strangers are innocent victims.
The Lord of the earth is a holy God whose passion and purpose are sure, and those who are summoned to bear God’s name respond to the cries of the poor. Alleluia! Alleluia! God’s holy purpose is sure. Alleluia! Alleluia! The Lord hears the cries of the poor. The words of the prophets which God inspired cannot just be silently read. Their summons to action must be obeyed; our lives should reveal what they said. Alleluia! Alleluia! prophets cannot just be read. Alleluia! Alleluia! our lives should reveal what they said. In Jesus, our saviour, we clearly see the Church must be keen to forgo its comfort and privilege and self-esteem till Christ’s is the lifestyle we show Alleluia! Alleluia! Privilege is what we forgo; Alleluia! Alleluia! till Christ’s is the lifestyle we show.
Those who crush your people delight, claiming God above takes no notice; they proclaim that heaven is blind, that the God of Jacob is silent. Stupid fools, when will you listen? Now take heed, you ignorant people. God who gave us sight and hearing has observed and noted what happened.
With all of creation we join to sing a song to the Lord of the earth who teaches that some things must change or die, and new life be brought to its birth. Alleluia! Alleluia! Sing to the Lord of the earth. Alleluia! Alleluia! New life must be brought to its birth.
God the Lord will not stay away nor forsake his well-beloved people; heaven’s justice soon will appear and the pure in heart will embrace it. Yes, the ones whom God instructed, who revere and study God’s word will be saved from all that harms them while a pit is dug for the wicked.
Singing within the Christian church is not a neutral activity. It is meant also to teach what we believe, therefore it has to be true.
Should the wrong change places with right and the courts play host to corruption; should the innocent fear for their lives while the guilty smile at their scheming; still the Lord will be your refuge, be your strength and courage and tower. Though your foot should verge on slipping, God will cherish, keep and protect you.
It is meant to honour God and therefore has to be passionate. Thank you, in honouring those I work with, and the Iona Community, for recognising the great potential in the song of the church to lead to or deflect from the joy and justice of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, whom may we praise in song for ever. (John L. Bell)
And here, from that same country, is a text based on the writings of a contemporary martyr, Oscar Romero, who moved from being a very conservative catholic priest to being a thorn in the flesh of the establishment, because he dared to speak out for justice and for peace:
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
20
CATALOGUEgander the material can be used at other times during the year as well.
NEW TITLES SHEPHERD SAINTS & TAMBOURINISTS is a wonderful album by Alison Eve. It sees her exploring her musical and spiritual roots as she uncovers (and covers) a selection of hymns and songs by the Wild Goose Resource Group, mainly those set to traditional folk melodies. A wide variety, some well known some less so, are included on this album, and many are given a fresh treatment with Alison’s harping and singing [CD: £10.00] Also now available are 2 new anthems/ sheet music from the GATHERED FOR GOD CD. Both by John Bell, the titles are ‘Gathered for God’ and ‘Dolorosa’. [Anthem: £1.80 each or £3.50 for the two together]
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
SEASONAL RESOURCES We are now ‘in between’ major festivals, but the following resources are particularly useful for this time of general worship: If you don’t have any of the four books compiled by Ruth Burgess, you could start with: BARE FEET AND BUTTERCUPS - Resources for Ordinary Time (Trinity Sunday to the Feast of the Transfiguration) [Book: £14.99]. A collection of resources for the summer period of Ordinary Time – prayers, stories, responses, songs, poems, reflections and meditations, written by Iona Community members, associates, friends and others. While offering resources for groups and individuals covering the weeks from Trinity Sunday to the Feast of the Transfiguration, including Father’s Day, Saints’ days and Lammastide, much of
ACORNS AND ARCHANGELS - Resources for Ordinary Time (The Feast of the Transfiguration to All Hallows) [Book: £14.99]. A collection of resources for the late summer and autumn period of Ordinary Time – prayers, stories, responses, songs, poems, reflections and meditations, written by Iona Community members, associates, friends and others. ‘Acorns and Archangels’ offers resources for groups and individuals, including the psalms and the prophets, the Acts of the Apostles and New Testament letters, women’s stories, sections on saints and angels and harvest, a variety of blessings and a play for Hallowe’en. It is a companion resource book to ‘Bare Feet & Buttercups’. There is also our very own Wild Goose material: PRESENT ON EARTH Worship resources on the life of Jesus, Wild Goose Worship Group [Book: £14.99]. This 3rd book in the Worship Resource book series provides prayers, dialogues, meditations and worship ideas covering the three years of Christ’s earthly ministry.
Gathered from the work of the WGWG over 15 years, opening up the stories, characters and teaching of the Gospel in ways which don’t presume biblical knowledge or religious commitment.
anthems on the theme of ‘peace’ which can all be purchased through our webshop:
HARVESTING THE WORLD [Booklet: £4.50]. ‘Harvesting The World’ contains a full liturgy which - coincidentally ! - is ideal for Harvest, celebrating the
Hymn for Night Prayer, from the collection ‘Take This Moment’.
Let Your Restless Heart Be Still, from the collection, ‘The Last Journey’.
Be Still and Know, from the collection ‘God Never Sleeps’.
LIVING THE QUESTIONS RESOURCE CENTRE
gifts of the earth and its people. Additionally, it includes elements specifically designed, in collaboration with The Balmore Trust and Just Trading (Scotland), who together have initiated a project to aid the education of the children of rice farmers in Malawi: The 90kg Of Rice Project. Material specific to the project can be found at the end of the booklet.
ANTHEMS ON PEACE You’ll have already read that John has received the 2013 Peace Award from The Community Of Christ, so on that theme, here is a little sample of
It is now a year since we launched this exciting new facility. The people who have used it have been very enthusiastic about how accessible it makes the material to groups who don’t want, or can’t afford, a large financial outlay. We are licensed to lend out any of the LTQ titles – and charge just £5 per disc per 6 week loan period. Get in touch with Gail or Stella for more information or enquiries - 0141 332 6343; or wgrg@ iona.org.uk.
21
CATALOGUE A hard copy of our catalogue is now available/ or to download from our website, so you can place an order for any of our books, CDs, liturgy booklets or badges.
JUST TRADING SCOTLAND
And do consider registering as a customer, as that way you can get updates on new titles and special offers, some of which will be available only to previously signed-up Shop customers – just visit www. wgrg.co.uk, sign up and log in.
Join Just Trading Scotland & rice farmers in Malawi in celebrating the new harvest! Rice farmers in Malawi are celebrating a successful harvest. This year 56 ox carts were distributed to farmers in Karonga through our government grant. They also bought improved quality Kilombero seed from a research station and have grown it on under special conditions, with stunning results! Now they need to sell their rice at a fair price. These improvements would not be possible without people like yourselves. Each time you buy a bag of Kilombero rice, you are supporting rice farmers in Malawi. Make your harvest celebrations special by taking the 90kg Rice Challenge and giving them the power to send their children to school and build resilient communities. Get in touch with the JTS Team for more information: info@jts.co.uk | www.jts.co.uk | 0141 887 2882
GOOSEgander Summer 2014
22
DR. BELL’S surgery On matters liturgical that require insight based on years of experience (not to say delusion), who can you call on? Why, none other than our very own expert in clinical worshipology, Dr. JOHN L. BELL in this his regular GOOSEgander column...
Shame and dismay may overtake him, but should he remain seated at the organ until the end, congratulate him heartily on his best playing in years. That should both set him off and send him off. Yours etc.
The Hymns Of Diminishing Returns Musical Directions For The HeavyHanded Dear Dr Bell, Could you advise me as to how to deal with the tyranny of a director of music who believes that nothing significant has been written for the church since Bach died, and that the only instrument appropriate for public worship is the pipe organ? During Lent, I was keen that we should sing The Servant King. It was not given the light touch it deserved, but rather he played it at twice the tempo on full organ with mixtures allegedly ‘to prove how unsuitable the song was for worship.’ Yours in liturgical Gesthemane (Name and address undisclosed... but it’s an Anglican priest from the diocese of Ely)
Dear Herbert,
Two years ago, our church installed screens on which are projected the words of the hymns. More recently the person in charge of the digital system has taken to projecting ‘pastoral’ images before worship, which both young and old members of the congregation find overly sentimental. I have noticed over the two years that our range of hymns has diminished, particulary when visiting preachers come. It seems that the man in charge of the projection system suggests his favourites, as if his preferred ‘pastoral’ pictures were not enough! What can we do? Yours,
(Letter signed by seventy two members of All Saints, Margrite St. - average attendance 74)
Dear friends,
I fully sympathise with your plight, and I believe that the remedy may be in your hands. But it will require some skillful work done surreptitiously.
This is indeed a serious business and calls for immediate and (as above) surreptitious action.
As you know, an organ has ranks of pipes, most of which are unseen to the worshippers.
There are two things which may make amends, but first you have to find a trustworthy person who understands digital technology.
I looked up your church in the organ-builder’s directory and discovered that your instrument has 24 such ranks. What you need to do is to simply enter the organ loft and spend an hour switching the pipes from rank to rank and aperture to aperture, thus guaranteeing that the next time he plays it will sound like a veritable cacophony. He may not last the whole service. GOOSEgander Summer 2014
Dear Dr Bell,
With his or her help, first of all access the database on which the gentleman keeps the photographs he shows prior to worship. Into his preferred sequence add some, shall we say ‘irregular’ slides. I am thinking, for example, of advertisements for dog worming tablets, antihalitosis agents and extra large condoms. And should you be able to acquire a picture of the said gentleman in a compromising position,
GANDER at the calendar such as cleaning his dentures, add that to the selection. Secondly, substitute alternatives for the traditional texts of favourite congregational hymns. The following two have worked wonders in a similar situation. I am sure that taking these as examples of what is possible you will be able to devise some of your own. Example 1: BE THOU MY VISION Be thou my vision, my eyes are so dim; I lost both my contacts in the Marriot gym. I cannot detect who’s a woman or man, who’s black, white or inbetween with a recent suntan. Example 2: BE STILL MY SOUL Be still, my soul, it’s only constipation. It soon will pass through sennacot or prune. Then comes the joy, the rush of glad elation, when things are past which were not passed too soon. Be still my soul eat roughage every day till bowels of mercy sound a loud Hooray.
Do you have any questions for the Doctor? Can he offer help and (in)appropriate remedies for your liturgical symptoms? Write to the Doctor: c/o GOOSEgander at the contact address on page 2.
Wild Goose Resource Group A selection of open WGRG events for Summer - Winter 2014. Local contacts in brackets, otherwise details from WGRG office, 0141 332 6343; wgrg@iona.org.uk; www.wgrg.co.uk; www.holycity-glasgow.co.uk; www. iona.org.uk/resources/ wild-goose-resouce-group
23
August 2014 22nd-25th: Northamptonshire, Boughton House “Travelling Light,” Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival. John Bell seminars & WGRG/ Holy City worship (www.greenbelt.org.uk)
September 2014 13th-14th: YORK, Central Methodist Church Music workshop led by John Bell, who will also preach at the Sunday morning service. Saturday registration at 1.30pm. (RSCM North & East Yorkshire, Bob Batchelor, 01904 488353, robert.batchelor7@ btinternet.com)
October 2014 4th: CHELTENHAM Literature Festival. John Bell in a Panel Event: ‘Is There a Future for Christianity?’ The challenges Christianity is facing in the 21st century, its vital role in the public square, current issues around faith and gender, the future of the Christian church. 1.45pm, Writers Room, Montpellier Gardens (www.cheltenhamfestivals. com) 5th: GLASGOW, Renfield St Stephen‘s Centre, Bath Street. HOLY CITY is a monthly event, a rendezvous of faithful folk, curious enquirers and compelling doubters, from the whole, glorious spectrum of Christian traditions, edges and beyond. All welcome, irrespective of creed, practice or preference. The 2014-15 programme: ‘Normal Service’... focusing on the issues facing us, our cities, our country, post-Referendum, in either the return to normality GOOSEgander Summer 2014
24 GG & LITURGY BOOKLET SUBSCRIPTIONS You can now get GOOSEGANDER in 3 ways! If you want the whole bhuna (ie. complete contents), you can subscribe (see ORDINARY/ ORDINARY+LITURGY/ SUPPORTING below) and you’ll receive 2 issues of the full hard-copy issue, twice a year, by post. If you become a registered WGRG ONLINE SHOP customer, you can download an extracted version of GG. This contains the contents of the hard-copy version, minus the main feature articles. See: www.wgrg.co.uk. Or you can read the extracted version in text form online at our WGRG pages of the Iona Community site. See: www.iona.org.uk/wgrg_home.php. There is no need to send this slip if you are already a subscriber. So to subscribe to the hard-copy version of GG, choose from below: Yes, I’d like to subscribe to GOOSEgander @ 2014-15 rates. ORDINARY, £4.50, 2 issues of GG (hard copy), UK postage paid.* ORDINARY+LITURGY, £8.50, 2 issues of GG (hard copy), plus a copy of that year’s WGRG liturgy booklet (worth around £4.50), UK postage paid.* SUPPORTING, £40, 2 issues of GG (hard copy), plus a copy of that year’s WGRG liturgy booklet (worth around £4.50), and 10% off all purchases of WGRG books/CDs, (UK) postage paid.* *These rates apply in the UK only. Overseas postage is additional. Overseas subscribers should contact WGRG office for the appropriate subscription rates. See contact details below. I enclose a cheque for the above amount, payable to the Wild Goose Resource Group. (If also ordering WGRG mail order goods, please send TWO separate cheques. Thanks.) NAME ADDRESS
POSTCODE PHONE E-MAIL Tick for further information: WGRG mail order catalogue (please enclose stamps to the value of 50p) Ways to financially support the WGRG The Iona Community Holy City, Glasgow 2014-15 A copy of GOOSEgander sent to a friend (please append their address) WILD GOOSE RESOURCE GROUP, Iona Community, 4th Fl., Savoy House, 140 Sauchiehall St., Glasgow G2 3DH. T: 0141-332-6343; F: 0141-332-1090; E: wgrg@iona.org.uk; Web: www.wgrg.co.uk; www.holycity-glasgow.co.uk; www.iona.org.uk/resources/wild-goose-resouce-group GOOSEgander Summer 2014
GANDER at the calendar (continued)
(sic) or the making of a new ‘normality’. Each evening consists of participative, reflective workshops and embodied liturgy (www.holycity-glasgow.co.uk) 5th: EPSOM, St. Barnabas Church. To mark World Mental Health Day and launch Epsom Mental Health Week, John Bell preaching at the morning service. Big Sing later in the day. ‘Love Me Love My Mind’ (01372 721518, info@lovemelovemymind.org.uk) 7th: WIDNES, St. Basil’s & All Saints Joint Church Songs and stories of saints and sinners – John Bell shares songs anyone can sing and odd stories from all over the globe, 7.30-9.30pm (Angela Kaye, Gift of Life for Zambia, 0151 424 8668, angelakaye1963@ talktalk.net) 11th: PRESTON, Tabor Carmelite Retreat House John Bell leads a day retreat 10.30am-4pm, ‘Meditating on the Miracles’, where he’ll consider them in the light of both scripture and our own experience, using teaching, conversation, silence and song (01772 717122, tabor@carmelite.net, www.carmelite.net) 13th - 14th: LEICESTER ‘Social Justice and Faith in Action’. John Bell will lead a conference on Monday 13th, 2-5pm and Tuesay 14th, 10am5pm (Ark Homeless Trust website - www.ark-trust.org.uk) 15th – Fri 17th: THEDDINGWORTH, Leics, Hothorpe Hall John Bell leads a retreat - Social Justice and Faith in Practice looking at what we can learn from the dispossessed and marginalised, and what might sustain us for the long haul, given that the ‘poor will always be with you’. Organised by the Ark Homeless Trust, www.ark-
trust.org.uk (Revd Tim Blewett, tim@ark-trust. org.uk, 07971 52895)
November 2014 2nd: GLASGOW, Renfield St Stephen‘s Centre, Bath Street. HOLY CITY. See 5th October (www.holycity-glasgow.co.uk) 25th: BUCKLEY, Buckley Cross Methodist Church Songs and Stories for Advent with John Bell – an open evening for local churches in support of Cornerstone. (Shirley Whyte, L’Arche Cornerstone Flintshire, 01244 544877)
December 2014 2nd – 8th: PERTH, St. John’s Kirk ‘The Soles of God’s Feet Have Touched the Earth’ - Experiencing Advent in Scotland, an Advent Retreat and Tour. Organised by Scotus Tours, for individuals and church groups from North America (www.scotustours.com) 5th-6th: GLASGOW HOLY CITY Urban Retreat with Pádraig Ó Tuama. See website for details (www.holycity-glasgow.co.uk) 7th: GLASGOW, Renfield St Stephen‘s Centre, Bath Street HOLY CITY. See 5th October (www.holycity-glasgow.co.uk)