Bookmakers! (no not that sort)

This week CafeChurch was led by Pam and Ellie, who helped us explore creativity and prayer.

To introduce things each table had a sheet with reflections on it:

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” Luke 10:27

When making objects and things, your soul is deeply entwined with the object. We, as beings, are no exception. Our souls are creative because they were formed by God; so we search for God through creative ways. Making something tangible, either for yourself or for others, requires intention, love, and energy (“heart, soul, strength, and mind”) thus our souls are inextricably linked with the things we create. So then, how can we utilise our creativity in pursuit of God?

For tonight, we will construct booklets to facilitate and explore prayer and meditation.

When constructing your booklets, think about the ways God has manifested your creative souls. What are these talents? Why do you think God gave you your specific individual gifts and talents?

(Do not worry about perfecting the final product. We are creations mirrored in the likeness of God, and He that his creations were good. Similarly, our creations are a reflection of us; imperfect but good. J)

After some chatting about our understanding of creativity and our understanding of God we (some of us slightly nervously) moved over to the tables that had been set up with a whole range of craft materials and some very good instructions about how to actually make the books.

Book Making Instructions:

Take a sheet(s) of white paper and fold into fourths. These will serve as the pages of your book. There is sellotape should you want to increase the number of pages of your book.

Use the coloured poster board as the cover for your book. Your booklet can take on any forms!  Glue one end of the white sheet to your book cover.

The physical book form is unique in that it lends itself to intimacy and exploration. Books and notebooks are used by artists for sketching, writers for reflection, and scientists for observation; all of these actions are deeply personal in a way speak of the passions of each individual.

Now that you have your own booklet, for what purpose will you dedicate your creation to?

Will your book be a space devoted for personal prayer and reflection? Will it assist with more creative exploration? Will your book be gift for someone else as a gesture of your love for them?

Whatever you purpose your decide for your booklet, let this souvenir be a reminder of the intention and love God created us with.

Lives shaped by….

As usual the chapel was set out with tables and chairs and coffee was on tap (along with some amazing scones – thanks Vicky. There were also three small tables at the front of the chapel with various things on them.

As we sat and enjoyed catching up with each other cards were placed on our tables that read:

Shaped….  As we rapidly approach the end of another academic year tonight is the chance to take a bit of a step back and to reflect on all the things that have shaped us up to this point in our lives. On the tables around the chapel are different things that are shaped and formed.  Take some time to sand or mould or simply hold the different items

One one table was a collection of pieces of rough wood, some sheets of sandpaper, some cork blocks and a sheet of paper with the following written on it:

Wood

 The process of going from a seed, to a tree to a piece of fine furniture is very long.One of the last processes is sanding the wood to give a smooth surface. All rough edges are gradually removed. The beauty of the wood grain is revealed.

Take a piece of wood and some sandpaper. Sand the wood smooth. As you do reflect on all the parts of your life that have gradually been smoothed to reveal the true, beautiful you.

Although it’s not a parable about growing trees or making furniture this parable might help you reflect upon God’s part in your growing and shaping.

Jesus also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” Mark 4:26-29

The next table had a large dish with a collection of large stones, smaller stones, pebbles of various sizes and fine sand. A postcard offered the following:

Stone

Stones are shaped by pressure, by friction, by bumping and banging into other stones, by the action of water or feet against them for many years.

Hold a stone in your hands (start with a large one!) Explore the shape, the colour, the texture of the stone. Then take a smaller stone and look carefully at it…. Then hold some of the sand……

If you walk in the Yorkshire countryside you will see walls made of stones. Each placed carefully, chosen for it’s shape to help build a strong and lasting structure. (some of the walls you see are a hundred or more years old.

We are each chosen by God and used as part of the building blocks of his kingdom. We are being formed into the shape that he wants and needs us to be.

Psalm 118:22  The stone that the builders rejected
 has become the cornerstone.

Clay

The final table had a collection of lumps of clay and a selection of modelling tools.  The invitation was to take some clay and to shape it into something.
Again, a short reflection and a bible passage were offered .

Isaiah 64:8 But now, O Lord, you are our Father;  we are the clay, and you are our potter;  we are all the work of your hand.

The chapel was filled with the sound of people sanding wood, and talking with each other as they variously held and molded and shaped things.

We discovered that Alex had studied geology and was able to tell us about the way that the stones we had had been formed. We heard how Edmore had ended up in Leeds and how that been something that had shaped his life in new ways. Each of us has been shaped in many ways – sometimes expected, sometimes not. Sometimes by sudden events, at other times by a very slow gentle change over many years.

Walks with reflections

Leeds University has just had its ‘Healthy Week’ where a whole range of activities were offered to encourage our community to be a bit more healthy. The Chaplaincy had offered something each day under the banner ‘make the most of your lunch break’. Alongside a set of 4 beermats that offered a short spiritual exercise to do outdoors we also offered a guided walk with reflections. It went well and seemed too good not to do with CafeChurch

The walk was in three phases – each one focussing upon a different sense to engage with. We started with sight. The invitation was to walk through a very familiar space and to focus on one thing as you did – a colour, architecture, growing things, people you saw etc. At the end of that section there was a reflection from an interview with the playwrite Dennis Potter that talked about seeing the now.

A man that looks on glass…

a university trusts in God alone!

The second section was focussed around what we could hear. We were encouraged to walk into St. George’s field, find a place to stand or sit, shut our eyes and count individual sounds that we could hear. Matt then read a short poem he’d written that talked about a tapestry of sound.

The third section of the walk invited us to touch things. Either with our hands, or to be aware of the changing surfaces under our feet, the wind on our faces, the feel of clothes against our skin….. Instead of a final reflection we were invited to take time to write our own!

The walk ended back in Emmanuel with the inevitable invitation to enjoy the sense of taste and smell with more coffee and cake.

Walk to Emmaus

It’s been a while since cafe church have all been together. The major Christian festivals always seem to happen in University holidays. Why is that?! So after what seemed like a very long break we finally met for the first cafechurch of a new term
Alex led us with reflections on part on one of the resurrection appearances of Jesus.
We were invited to share a story of something unexpected that had happened to us. Then to reflect on how that experience had made us feel and how we had responded to it.

We then read the story of Jesus appearing to two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35)
The cards on the tables had the following questions:

Many of us have particular spaces, places or materials we use to feel close to God. However God can also show up at those times we don’t expect Him to.
Can you think of experiences from your own walk with God or from someone else’s where you’ve met God unexpectedly?
The disciples world view seems to have been reconfigured in this story. Do you ever worry we (the church) have it wrong? Has there been a time your world view has changed?

That question about worrying that the church has got it wrong – has not understood the story or has only got part of it right reminded me of the story ‘Being the Resurrection’ in Peter Rollins book ‘The Orthodox Heretic’. The story is a bout a group of disciples who “packed their few belongings and left for a distant shore, for they could not bear to stay another moment in the place where their Messiah had just been crucified.” They fled and eventually set up an isolated community far away from Jerusalem “where they vowed to keep the memory of Christ alive and live in simplicity, love and forgiveness, just as he had taught them.”

Over a hundred years later, some missionaries arrived at the remote settlement and realised that the community “had no knowledge of the resurrection and the ascension of Christ, for they had left Jerusalem before his return from the dead on the third day.”

There’s much celebration, but also real shock for the community. Their reason for following seems no longer about Jesus and his “radical life and supreme sacrifice”. Instead they worry that their rationale will turn inward and be selfish, “because his sacrifice will ensure their personal salvation and eternal life”.
Sometimes we need to have our world shaken by the unexpected, but when it is we always need to be asking questions about how we now understand the world.

Remembered Bible

Sometimes we think we remember things and then when we look carefully we realise that our memory is not as accurate as we first thought. What we remember, or indeed what we forget may be revealing about how we understand a story.

On the table was a piece of paper that read ‘The Prodigal Son’ – without looking it up, how much of the story can you remember?

In the small groups around our tables we tried to recall as much as we could of this familiar story from Luke’s gospel (Luke 15:11-32). Of course we thought we’d got all the details right!

There was then a picutre on the table – a small print of Rembrandt’s ‘Return of the Prodigal’ This was accompanied by the question ‘does the picture help you remember or focus on particular parts of the story?’

Finally we got to read the story (and in doing to see where we’d got some things slightly wrong, or out of order)

There was pretty wide ranging discussion around the passage, around what was remembered, what was forgotten and why we thought that was so. One of the things that really struck one of the groups was the balance of the story – it’s called the Prodigal Son, or in some traditions The Running Father. We’re not aware of it being known as the ‘Fed up Older Brother’ but over half of the text of the story is concerned with him and his reactions. Even Rembrandt’s picture has him appearing as a figure on the side of things. Maybe we’re a bit embarrassed by him, because maybe we see too much of ourselves in his reaction.

Forgiveness

Having stepped into Lent we’re taking a look at themes that connect with the season. Forgiveness seemed like a good place to start things off.

Even though we’re in Lent the evening started with the same mix of coffee and excellent cakes which we caught up with each other. After a while some sheets of paper with a few prompt questions on them were put on the tables. ‘What is forgiveness?’ ‘How do we forgive?’ ‘Do we find it difficult to forgive?’ ‘Are there things that can’t be forgiven?’ ‘Is it difficult to accept forgiveness from others?’ ‘Should we always forgive?’. Along side the prompts were a few bible quotes (Matt 6:9-15, Matt 18:21-35,  Luke 6:37), A photo of a military chaplain celebrating communion using the front of a tank as an altar, and a quote from Gandhi (‘The weak can never forgive. forgiveness is the attribute of the strong’). To be honest, that would have been enough for the whole evening. Conversation flowed and people shared often very personal experiences of forgiving or receiving forgiveness, or struggling to make sense of the whole mixture of guilt, anger, pain, and a whole lot more that formed the mud that surround those deeply personal things.

In the chapel were a series of cards that told the stories of people who had worked hard at forgiveness. These were deeply moving personal accounts that were part of the Forgiveness Project. We took time to look at some of these.

A number of us then watched Geoff Thompson’s short film ‘Romans 12:20‘. Again hearing someone else’s story opened up more space for discussion of our own understandings and struggles with forgiveness.

It was an evening that could have gone on a lot longer than it did, but perhaps it was good that it ended when it did. A so often with cafe church it is the unsaid, or the spaces between the said that requite us to do some real thinking, and real praying.

Candlemas

Christmas seems like a very long time ago. Epiphany an increasingly distant memory, but Candlemas really marks the end of the great season of remembering and reflecting on the great mystery of God in Christ as an infant.

On our tables was a card with an introduction to what Candlemas is all about (thanks Malcolm Guite!) There was also a collection of glass candle holders and marker pens. We were invited to decorate the holders to represent Christ’s light coming into our lives.

As we drew on the holders (with varying degrees of skill and success) we shared some of what we were drawing and why those things were significant to us – from shapes and symbols, to bible verses, landscapes and the names of people.

Eventually we moved into the chapel where a large cross lay on the floor. As Luke 2:22-40 was read out candles that covered the cross were lit and our candle holders placed on the altar. Malcolm’s Candlemas sonnet was read and we listened to a recording of Eccard’s Candlemas anthem ‘When to the temple Mary came’

We finished by saying the Nunc Dimittis together.

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace : according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen : thy salvation,

Which thou hast prepared : before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles : and to be the glory of thy people Israel.