Schrank nails it in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday:

Measured Response

Originally uploaded by Steve Stone

Just got back from our church’s weekend away, and I thought I’d check out the work of the photographer we used, Steve Stone. Here’s one of his highly rated photos - really works well with the title ‘Measured Response’ and his dry commentary. Plenty of other striking photos in his flickr collection. I’ll now check out his iStockPhoto pics.

She was delivered yesterday, after a long wait. Martha and Emma are very excited, with me less so (at this stage). We’ve given her pretty continuous company so far, and she gets fractious when we go away for too long. But she didn’t sulk too much when we get guests round for lunch, and we had to shut her outdoors.

She tips the scales at 5 stone, so is rather large. And she already has grey eyebrows. But she does appear to be house trained, which is a big help. Confused enough?

Maggie is a rehomed 7-year old English Cocker Spaniel, who needed a good new home and lots of exercise. Hopefully she will get us all out more to the Park for some exercise.

Photos when I can get her looking relatively awake. Most of the time she is flopped out on the floor, recovering from her last walk.

Maggi Dawn mentioned this posting from David Keen which I checked out. His experience about the difficulty of truly worshipping when he’s led so much of it himself rang very true to me. I was hoping to have more hints from him on how to improve the situation … but at least I know I’m not alone in having the symptoms. And to know ahead of time that if I ever land up going through vicar factory, it’s only likely to make things worse. Better to know that now, so I could try and do something about …

I suddenly realised that whilst I’d enjoyed Greenbelt and deliberately listened to and interacted with quite a variety of topics and artforms, could I say I was touched by God through it?

My first response was negative. We didn’t land up getting to the worship events we’d hoped to, except Aradhna, and that felt to me more like a concert as the words were all in Hindi or Punjabi. We deliberately stayed away from the huge communion service this year, having felt more frustration than blessing by it over the years. Though I slightly regret that now; I now remember feeling God’s touch both through the simple act of holding it outdoors, and by being just 1 amongst 10,000 others. Like the rest of Greenbelt it reminds me of the multitude of believers out there, that very few of them look or think just like me, and this again points me to how good God is. So, whilst sharing communion with complete strangers feels partly wrong — and James Cary goes further to say its a mis-use of its original purpose — I think occasionally it can be a good thing. (Incidentally, follow-up comments on his blog make similar points, and James does back down slightly.)

Paul Vallely as ever makes an interesting thought in his Church Times piece looking back on Greenbelt:

Camping undoubtedly adds to the spirituality of the experience, I thought as I lay awake at 3am one morning, with the wild wind whipping at the tent above me.

OK, but I do like the home comforts as well!

Possibly the most interesting conversation over the weekend was one I’d not mentioned before: sitting in CMS’ Blah… tent being part of a Spirited Exchange. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what the purpose was until after the session had started, but it then became clear that was for those experiencing faith and its struggles at the edges of or beyond Church. Last year I’d read and was much struck by A Churchless Faith, exploring the unreported phenomenon of the people leaving churches (notably evangelical and charismatic ones) that haven’t lost (all) their faith. The conversation was very much on this topic, with people in all sorts of places on the spectrum. One lady describe how she’d left her church, deliberately not found another, but after 3 years of deconstructing and reconstructing her faith, was able to become part of a church again. Most remarkably she rejoined the same one! The Exchange was designed to let people find support during an often very painful time of their lives. This whole topic is one that few churches take seriously, but more should. Another small cheer, then, to Greenbelt for being the environment in which people felt safe enough to be honest …

Just read Jonny Baker’s take on Greenbelt, and was interested to hear about some of the things that I missed. Including the Grace service they did, where they created a ’small in crowd’ and a ‘larger out crowd’ that didn’t get special treatment. No surprise that some of the latter got rather irate until they realised it was all part of an unusually visceral exploration of hospitality.

I also echo Jonny’s closing thought:

it always feels like summer is over once greenbelt is passed and a new season looms once september kicks in…

Philip and I decided to treat ourselves, and took the day off with our respective spouses. We headed for Batsford Arboretum, and wondered if we’d been dense to pick a rainy day for it. The sun soon appeared, and brightened things up considerably. After meandering around most of it, admiring the “Japanese Maples” in particular, and getting worried by some “mutant ferns”, we decided we needed lunch.

Close by in Bourton on the Hill, we found the Horse & Groom pub, which was rather classy, and had some great homemade beef burgers with horseradish mayo. Puddings scrummy too, and very pleasant garden and airy indoors to enjoy them in. Recommended.

4 months on, and the tomato seedlings from mum are huge and way too bushy, consuming vast amounts of water, but thankfully producing plenty of green tomatoes. Through the foliage today I spotted some red: just one small red one. Duly picked, and tasted just fine. Does this first red tomato mean I have slightly green fingers …?

Here’s a good looking site, and one that should help us all be a little good-er to the world around us.

‘Vision’ is just a short way of saying ‘frustration’.

Just one of Steve Chalke’s pithy sayings from Spring Harvest. He describes himself as being a visioneer, and therefore finds himself continually frustrated. Old friend Martin K describes originally got drawn into ordained ministry because he was frustrated at how he saw others doing it, and thought he could do better.

So interesting that Jo’s response to chatting and catching up with Martha and I was to comment “you seem very frustrated, Jonathan”. More confirmation of what I’ve been feeling for some time: I’m not using my God-given gifts and talents in a way that’s fully expressing who God has made me to be. Hence no surprise to find myself frustrated.

That’s the easy bit: the harder bit is divining what the next step in life is. And deliberately divine-ing: time to get seriously praying about it. And, I realise with some dread, that this would be a good time to practice some fasting as well. Hopefully this will help sort out which of many of my interests and motivations I should focus on. I hope to keep you posted …

(Added later: Steve Chalke’s new book Change Agents covers some of this ground.)