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Text of the page (random words):
y trinity to come and visit and they had their names on their own special tree i get the sense that it s important for many people that the church is still there that its doors are at least sometimes open to them that they know that it has been a place of sanctuary and prayer between their visits and just sitting down with them to catch up with news matters it s a lot of work i m not sure we ll raise a lot of money for this year s charity erskine but it s been one of the happiest times at holy trinity that i can remember and then we heard about the shootings in connecticut it seemed somehow important to keep that light and warmth alive as a minuscule counterpoint to the darkness the children who were so happily exploring the trees became more precious than ever and when we sang o christmas tree tannenbaum which i associate somehow with usa it brought us closer in spirit to those who grieve with words as defiant as they were hard to sing o christmas tree o christmas tree your beauty green will teach me that hope and love will ever be the way to joy and peace for me posted in christmas church mission 1 comment the last day posted on december 12 2012 by alisonpeden no not another advent theme though it sounds like it rather it s the thought that today is 12th december 2012 and i ve just dated something 12 12 12 there won t be a day like that for another century no 13 13 13 or 14 14 14 the last day indeed posted in uncategorized leave a comment lighting up columbia posted on december 11 2012 by alisonpeden medellin columbia s second city was notorious for drugs crime and violence when one of holy trinity s congregation told me she was going there to share work on urban regeneration through the use of light and lighting i was a bit concerned but she came back with such stunning reports and insight about their christmas lights that our sermon for advent 2 consisted of a dialogue between us basically medellin had had christmas lights funded by a company but when things got bad in 1992 and there was rationing and an energy crisis the lights were cancelled so the community rallied around and the women taught people how to make traditional christmas decorations which were reproduced on a big scale when they were able to use lights again they were all set to make an amazing display of christmas lights which was based on the community working together it s a real story of re birth and re generation the river was cleaned up and it has now become a lighted pathway to the city at christmas making and staging the light display employs women young people and those really needing jobs at least 1500 tourists have brought money into the city and street vendors are taught food hygiene and made to feel part of the community enterprise new energy techniques have halved the electricity used not insignificant when you realise they have 181 miles of rope lights the christmas lights festival in medellin is a place for families to go for friends to celebrate those who have put the displays together speak of their pride in creating something for everyone to enjoy something that embodies the spirit of christmas i think it was the river that made me think of medellin as an example of repentance for advent john the baptist crying out at the river jordan is often presented as a stark and harsh prophet denouncing our sins and making us feel bad but actually he is giving a message of hope and possibility rivers can be cleaned up and made to come alive with fish and lights posted in advent bible images travel leave a comment advent food posted on december 8 2012 by alisonpeden holy trinity s house group held an advent meal this week based on an iona liturgy i was going to write wild goose brand name from iona but actually we had cottage pie it was a bit like a passover seder in that there were symbolic foods and question and answer sections and like the seder it was a happy meal too with lots of conversation and sharing there was a place for john the baptist and we drank water for him the same for mary but we drank milk and a light for jesus then wine for god who causes us to rejoice the food courses were interspersed with more questions and affirmations i loved the leisurely feel taking time between each course and reflecting before we went on to the next i loved the family feel that s created when we eat together and you realise that a christian family has its own stories and dynamics i love the all age possibilities of worshipping in this way the bit with most impact for me it had to be drinking a glass of water for john the baptist and tasting the clear sharp prophet stripped of colour and impurity radical uncompromising it reminded me of antoine de st exupery s hymn to water when he was rescued from his crashed plane in the desert mad with thirst water thou hast no taste no colour no odour cannot be defined art relished while ever mysterious not necessary to life but rather life itself thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses of all the riches that exist in the world thou art the rarest and also the most delicate thou so pure within the bowels of the earth a man may die of thirst lying beside a magnesian spring he may die within reach of a salt lake he may die though he hold in his hand a jug of dew if it be inhabited by evil salts for thou water art a proud divinity allowing no alteration no foreignness in thy being and the joy that thou spreadest is an infinitely simple joy posted in advent children desert leave a comment advent therapy posted on december 4 2012 by alisonpeden i now know that if i stop blogging for a bit re entry is like getting into the water to swim lovely once you re in but requiring a bracing plunge a challenging and busy time just lately meant i did not have enough energy to reflect and write nor to relax properly so words from monday s reading hit home hard why should you be beaten any more why do you persist in rebellion your whole head is injured your whole heart afflicted from the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness only wounds and bruises and open sores not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil isaiah 1 5 6 well a sore back anyway my hope is that advent will be for me a time of cleansing and making sound repairing and being mended but what about the rebellion isaiah mentions he is talking about israel rebelling against god which often meant going their own way and not trusting god self reliance can lead to overwork so there is a spiritual side to burnout too our congregation at holy trinity has been exploring ways to share faith as part of our mission action plan we are practising sharing faith with each other and one of things we have done is to put together an advent calendar made up of contributions from the congregation texts ideas poems suggestions of things to do in advent one for each day i guess plunging into blogging again with this post is my contribution to that sharing posted in bible blogs church mission uncategorized leave a comment dangerous insects posted on october 31 2012 by alisonpeden i happened to acquire a copy of c s lewis surprised by joy at the weekend yes i know i should have read it ages ago but i find him hard going apart from the n arnia novels and sometimes those are a bit much too so i thought i d find out more about him from this spiritual autobiography i haven t got much further than his childhood writing about his fear of insects which he found to be like machines come to life he added you may add that in the hive and the ant hill we see fully realised the two things that some of us most dread for our own species the dominance of the female and the dominance of the collective he was born in 1898 and so this is in a sense a period piece and i imagine he would view modern developments as the nightmare scenario he dreaded as a child do the two fears hang together though do women necessarily encourage the collective rather than the individual women are often assumed to be better at relationships good at pastoral work family oriented i don t much like stereotyping of any gender but in any case i don t think this trait is about the collective it s more to do with wanting to get individuals to hang together and celebrate their diversity it s this which makes the increase in female entrepreneurs political leaders and even religious leaders a matter not of dominance but collaboration i had always thought lewis was a classicist in outlook and yet the hive and ant hill which he fears were praised by the ancients as models of society so was he a modernist romantic for he seems to be an individualist how do you understand his perspectives i d like to have some motivation to continue reading surprised by joy is anyone willing to supply it posted in books gender leadership women 1 comment differently sighted posted on october 23 2012 by alisonpeden thinking about eyes sight and blindness ahead of next sunday s sermon on bartimaeus who was blind i was taken back to the exhibition of edvard munch at the tate modern that i saw a week or so ago munch was fascinated by the thought that each of us sees things differently not necessarily more truly he experimented a lot with painting the different perspectives associated with film for example people had been terrified in the cinema when a galloping horse first came charging out of the screen apparently towards them munch painted figures almost coming out of the picture frame straight at you but it was when he had a haemorrhage in his right eye that he really saw the world differently he was fascinated by it and painted what he saw including the distortions made by the blood inside his eye some people would just have considered it a disability and tried to paint round the blob in his eye rather than make it an integral part of what he saw and recorded for munch it was an experience of being differently sighted that fed into his artistic vision the exhibition blurb said his notes suggest the damage to his eye had enabled him to experience new visual sensation that would not otherwise have been available to him posted in art films images 1 comment the shaky ego posted on october 21 2012 by alisonpeden so the prime minister is rattling the sabre again after a week of embarrassment and bad news he is to announce a tough new approach to crime and imprisonment in which retribution will not be a dirty word and the 46 routinely given to prisoners on release may be cut the bbc reporter said that this would steady tory nerves and presumably thereby re establish david cameron s authority as leader it s a very well known syndrome you experience a failure or defeat and respond by asserting power and a strong man image that was what i found in today s gospel mark 10 35 45 james and john had shared the disciples failure to cope with 5000 to feed or to understand the transfiguration or to heal a young epileptic so they ask to have the best seats in heaven blustering their way to power covering failure with assertion of ego contrast aung san suu kyi who simply accepted her situation and did not try to grab power by compromise of her principles or sheer force once despised and rejected she is now being hailed and welcomed and honoured the tragedy is that there is always a cost aung san suu kyi s family suffered and it may well be that many prisoners will suffer too from cameron s law and order drive for not all prisoners are alike and many women in scotland really need that 46 to get a bus a meal and a bed when they emerge from cornton vale prison i thought we had passed beyond retribution as a solution to crime or even as a category of thinking in justice policy but it seems not i just hope that his words about extending rehabilitation do translate into action it s about serving others not bolstering the ego posted in government justice prisons scotland women leave a comment joining in posted on october 8 2012 by alisonpeden it was quite a weekend at church hosting a diocesan gathering and then celebrating music sunday we ended with a lunch and then a short musical about st francis led by what perhaps may become a junior choir our director of music had taught them the music splendidly in record time and they were great but i say led rather than performed some time ago i went to the rocky horror show with our kids and for a sad person like me who has always frequented well behaved classical concerts and operas it was shall we say disquieting not because of the content though that was an eye opener but because you were supposed to take part even standing up in your seats then there was the dougie maclean concert at the albert hall in stirling sit back and listen to my favourite folk singer i thought not a bit of it we all joined in when allowed and like most other people there i discovered i knew the words already from cds on long car journeys and st francis the musical well there was a line sung by st francis or christ then by his companions the children and then by all and we did sing adult choir and mums and dads and the rest of us who were there to see what it would be like fantastic we had explored in the service beforehand the effect that music and singing has on you and now we were able to enter into the story of st francis rebuilding the church first with bricks and mortar and then with joy and peace and love we were there and we were one in the task i just wish we had done the st francis musical at the diocesan gathering it was exactly the message we were trying to absorb and being led into singing it would have grafted it onto everyone s hearts posted in church music leave a comment the successful heretic posted on october 4 2012 by alisonpeden i remember so distinctly all those years ago as a student hearing one of my tutors claiming that st francis was a successful heretic it seemed so deliciously iconoclastic in those days and it makes a lot of sense the saint whom we celebrated yesterday managed to keep within the church just when those around him who were saying very similar things fell foul of the authorities on holiday recently by lake garda i found a simple little church currently used by the alpini the mountain regiment apparently fra dolcino preached there in the early c14th now fra dolcino is well known from the name of the rose umberto eco s novel that was made into a film starring sean connery some of the inmates of the monastery it features were charged with being among his heretical followers dolcino was a radical anti clerical preacher who lambasted the wealthy churchmen of his age and tried to create a new world he and his followers ended up stealing and fighting and trashing any community that resisted them also reputedly indulging in free love he met a very nasty end at the hands of the inquisition the franciscans were all too easily tarred with the same brush by forces in the church who squirmed at their critique of wealth and power this was the context of eco s murder mystery...