Greenbelt thoughts
Well, we made it! And (a little to my surprise) I really enjoyed it. The tent was great, and once I succumbed to wearing a thermal vest and my Grandpa’s old long-johns (!) I was warm enough at night – although never truly comfortable when Ruth demanded access to the all-night milk bar.
Highlights? – ooh – so many – I’ll try to list a few:
It was great to meet Daisy – although always a little odd to meet someone for the first time, but know so much trivia about them. There were many other friends we saw too – and frustratingly many we knew quite well were there, but never managed to see (and we never did get the chance to visit the NSTCT 
).
The food was fantastic – not only were we more than adequately catered for by Chris at the Franciscan encampment, but the food stalls were the best we have ever seen. There was a strong emphasis on organic/fair-traded/locally produced food, and a surprising quantity was gluten-free. There was a surreal moment when a woman joined us at the table where we were eating our dinner and commented somewhat embarrassedly on her plate of 6 sausages – explaining that she didn’t want them all, but since they were gluten-free the stall-holders had given her the extras for free. I commented that I am Coeliac too, at the same time as the woman at the other end of the table did the same – it’s not often that 3 Coeliacs end up at the same table by chance!
So for the more serious/spiritual stuff: I managed to get to 3 seminars – Jane Bartlett on saying evening prayers with children, Karen Armstrong on fundamentalism and Leo Hickman on ethical living. They all had very good things to say (although I am not in the least convinced by Jane’s claim that since it has been “shown” that praying over polluted water purifies water crystals, and children are 90% water, praying with them must do good things… er, no, that’s not how it works! She has some good creative ideas for making prayer accessible to little ones though.)
I was delighted to hear Karen Armstrong – it’s now many many years since I read her first autobiography, Through the Narrow Gate, and I have been very impressed by her writing in the New Scientist about the Intelligent Design v Evolution debate. I think a lot of what she had to say about fundamentalism boiled down to the fact that people simply don’t understand each other’s cultures, and a throw-away comment from one person may be deeply, offensively wounding to another, and that this lack of ability to communicate with each other has a dehumanising effect, which in turn legitimises a violent response. There was a lot more to it, including the way that secularism and modernism can be very threatening when implemented badly. I have ordered her book, but am never particularly competent at retaining this sort of information, so apologies for not being that coherent.
I have read as many of Leo Hickman’s columns in the Guardian as I could (although we gave up getting it on a daily basis once I returned to work after maternity leave). He was also very good, although maybe I had a slightly smug “well, we’re doing a lot of that already” reaction.
So – good intentions:
1) Try to start some sort of bedtime prayer routine with Adam. (And discourage him from trying to find the “bad men” who killed Jesus so he can kill them – Jesus said not to, that’s good enough for me.)
2) (More tricky) Try to read blogs of “ordinary” Muslims regularly – to try to make personal links and friendships.
3) Join the second Year of Living Generously, which I believe will be set up soon.
Anyway, bathtime and screaming baby call, I’d better go!
two comments:
Hi Anne, so glad I managed to meet you all (if only briefly!). I, too, was amazed by the Greenbelt food – I’m veggie and don’t think I’ve ever had such a good choice before! I went to Karen Armstrong too (have you read the Spiral Staircase?) and hadn’t realised that she had also done some writing in New Scientist, will have to look out for that.Daisy () (link) - 02 September '05 - 12:07
I’ve already whinged on John’s blog about missing you all (this means I’ve missed Ruth altogether, so far ;-( ) but glad you had a good one…We’ve signed up for The Year…so maybe paths will cross on their site too. Hope term is going smoothly thus far.Kathryn () (link) - 13 September '05 - 10:29
