headwayyouth- phil smith's blog

Back at the desk :-(

After a hard days work yesterday and a long drive back, today I'm back at my desk reflecting on what a fine festival it has been.
With my Traidcraft hat on, it was incredibly successful. Becoming an associate was a big risk but it paid off big time. Two Traidcraft highlights were the Saturday night Pub Quiz and the Sunday night Wine Tasting, both severely over subscribed. Personally speaking my bits seemed to go well; I ran a seminar called Beyond Ned Flanders, looking at ethical living as a new model for Christian discipleship, and that was fun and seemingly well received (except for one guy who wasn't best pleased that I gave a thumbs up to Body Shop).
When I wasn't working I was fortunate enough to get to most of the sessions I wanted to get to. Top highlights are as follows;

• David Batstone, talking about ethical living much more eloquently than myself!
• Paul Brannen, talking about effective campaigning and telling humorous stories about his more militant days
• Candi Staton- much, much fun!
• Michael Franti and Spearhead- wonderful, I'm a convert and will be investing before the end of the week
• Garden worship- nice to go to worship and it to stimulate my brain as well as my senses!
• Ikon- hmm, now here is the controversial one. Jonny and countless others are and will continue to be talking about the Ikon service and I can see why, it was challenging and really fresh in the alt worship conversation, but I don't know if it pushed me too far; I don't know if it was too dark, too controversial. Perhaps one example will help; at the end of the service people were invited to think of one fundamental of their faith, simultaneously rice paper was then distributed which, we were told, had 'I believe' written on it. Once we had thought of our fundamental we were encouraged to silently swap our rice paper with that of someone else before eating the paper (think Jeremiah and John on Patmos). All sounds good! The difficulty is as I swapped paper then I noticed the writing on the rice paper actually said 'I beLIEve'; what are you suggesting good people of East Belfast? That there is no such thing as fundamentals , that in fact anything someone shares about their faith could be a lie?
  Saying all that, the fact that I am thinking so much about it surely makes this a great service, so a big thanks. For those that were there your thoughts would be appreciated!

Greenbelt 06

Sunday here at Greenbelt and all is going well! I spent much of Thursday vomiting, which was particularly unfortunate as that was the day I was driving down to Cheltenham, but finally we got here and by Friday things were much better and once carpet was laid in the Traidcraft tent we were well away.

This year Traidcraft are associates, which means lots of things but not least that we get our own tent and over the past two days the tent has been overwhelmed- last night's pub quiz being the highlight of the weekend, though it did mean we couldn't get to Daniel Beddingfield :-(

Yesterday was my first talk for the weekend- a ten minute rant about how dumb trade rules are, and they really are, though I'll save that for another post- later today I'm taking part in a discussion on charity (not quite sure what that is going to entail!) and tomorrow I'm doing a seminar, entitled "Beyond Ned Flander" ('give it a Simpson's theme, that'll pull them in!!!')

Went to see Maria McKee last night that was good, besides that been to very little- but did meet a nice blogger called Chris, walked a very good labyrinth and went to the thoroughly enjoyable Garden service and finally met the lovely Barky and heard his wife's rather impressive voice.

P.s. Re picture on the right, that small blue thing half way up on the left is an inflatable bloon floating just above the Traidcraft tent. For more GB 06 photos check out the GB Flickr page

God's Politics on this side of the pond!

With Greenbelt just four days away I've taken half a day off today, which has given me the chance to finish God's Politics by Jim Wallis.

I'm a painfully slow reader, which makes it difficult to effectively summarise one book in one post, but, in brief, Wallis' book is a look at the political situation in America from a the perspective of a progressive conservative evangelical.

Although I have never been to the United States, the picture that Wallis presents suggests that politics and religion and the crossover between the two, is a whole different ball game in America to the situation here in the UK. Wallis' observation at the start of the book is that much of American politics (not least American foreign policy) is determined by bad theology . His suggestion is that the solution to this problem is not secularism, but good theology. Wallis then goes through a series of issues and presents alternatives to the [secular] policy of the left and the [theologically misguided] policy of the right. In particular Wallis deals with family values, the Middle-East, security, race and poverty (national and international).

Reading the book from this side of the pond the difficulty is that here the church does not have the influence that it does in America. Nor is the church a collective group that votes en mass. We are a disparate, diverse fellowship that has little influence on the state (except for a handful of white bearded men we call bishops) and therefore Wallis' softly, softly approach (meetings with and letters to the president) seems futile.

I would suggest that, politically speaking, the church in Britain needs to be more counter-cultural. To use the miners as an illustration, gone are days of beer and sandwiches with the Prime Minister, now is the time for picket lines and protests- Sentamu style!

John Sentamu- Part 2

Zoe, a couple of friends and myself went to York yesterday and we had the pleasure of joining John Sentamu in his prayers for peace in the Middle-East at 1pm. It was spectacularly unspectacular, but completely inspiring nevertheless. Although I know little of either, Sentamu's acts of peaceful protest remind me of Ghandi, and God knows we need more Ghandis!

The Bubble of Pretending

I've been having a bit of difficulty with the blog and especially the xml feed recently; sorry if you have been effected.

A couple of days ago I did a book meme and tagged Mark and Becky, Mr Berry, Ben and Chambers. Ben has done his already; when done, but not enjoying the dig at the great doug coupland!

In my book meme I mentioned Yacs; I was thinking about Messy Spirituality yesterday and the impact it had on my life so I thought I'd post an extract.

There is no room for pretending in the spiritual life. Unfortunately, in many religious circles, there exists an unwritten rule. Pretend. Act like God is in control when you don’t believe He is. Give the impression everything is okay in your life when it isn’t. Pretend you believe when you doubt; hide your imperfections; maintain the image of a perfect marriage when your family is like any other dysfunctional family. And whatever you do, don’t admit that you sin.

Practically, pretending is efficient, uncomplicated and quick. Answering ‘fine’ to the question,’ how are you doing’ is much easier than saying, ‘not very well thank-you; my back is bothering me, my teenage children are disappointing me, I’m unhappy with my body, my husband never speaks to me and I’m wondering if Christianity is true.’

Pretending is the grease of modern nonrelationships. Pretending perpetuates the illusion of relationships by connecting us on the basis of who we aren’t. People who pretend have pretend relationships. But being real is a synonym for ‘messy spirituality’, because when we are real, our messiness is there for everyone to see.

But the truth is, we are a mess. None of us is who we appear to be. We all have secrets. We all have issues. We all struggle from time to time. Noone is perfect. Not one. The essence of messy spirituality is the refusal to pretend, to lie, or to allow others to believe we are something we are not. Unfortunately, people can handle the most difficult issues more than they can handle the lack of pretending.

When you and I stop pretending, we expose the pretending of everyone else. The bubble of the perfect Christian life is burst, and we all must face the reality of our brokenness.

technorati tags:Yaconelli

Life on the tyne...

As ever it's been an exciting week on the Tyne. Last weekend myself and Zoe went to visit some close friends and camped on the Northumbrian coast; it was a bit windy but much fun nevertheless. Today, those same friends are visiting Newcastle and we've just been to the Baltic, Newcastle-Gateshead's contemporary art gallery.

The Baltic itself is amazing but, more often that not, the exhibitions are a little disappointing. This time however there were two installations that even a Philistine such as myself could appreciate. Firstly there was The Space - Time Tunnel, a 35 metre tunnel of newspapers, magazines and 66 television screens broadcasting global television programmes. Secondly there was an exhibition called Still Lives, by Sam Taylor Wood.

The most famous peice in Taylor-Woods exhibition is a video recording of David Beckham sleeping, but of much more interest was a series of photographs, entitled Crying Men. Over two years Taylor-Wood met a bunch of celebs and asked them to cry for the camera. The results are impressive and a good challenge to the male stereotype.

Nb. I know you shouldn't take photos in these things but I felt I owed it to the blogosphere!

Tag; book meme!

How exciting. Just been tagged by The Old Bill for a book meme, so here goes…

One book that changed your life: Undoubtedly Messy Spirituality, by the late, great Yaconelli. I love stories and the book is full of them and the Yac’s honesty is so liberating. To date I’ve given away seven copies of this book and I’ve one spare on my bookshelf so if anyone wants to do a swap for another good book let me know!

One book that you have read more than once: Hmm… tricky? Pass

One book you'd want on a desert island: 10 Ways to Get Off a Desert Island and A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson. Zoë bought it for me a couple of years ago but due to its immense volume I still I haven’t got round to reading it

One book that made you laugh: Can I have two or is that cheating? Timewasters Letters is hilarious and Eats Shoots and Leaves isn’t far behind.

One book that made you cry: Although I am open to the possibility of crying during the reading of a book and do not have anything against the practice, I cannot recall it ever happening

One book that you wish had been written: Web 2.0 for Illiterate Fools

One book that you wish had never been written: This is a bit harsh but probably Stories We Could Tell by Tony Parsons. Not a bad book, but his other three novels were miles better.

One book that you're currently reading: God’s Politics, by Jim Wallis; thoroughly enjoyable but a bit of an epic so it’s taken sometime to finish (full review to be posted in due course)

One book you've been meaning to read: Jpod, I can proudly say I’ve read and loved every other Doug Coupland book, but now I’ve made it this far I think I’ll just wait for it to come out in paperback.

So now I’ve got to tag someone else. How exciting, it’s like school; Mark and Becky, Mr Berry, Ben and Chambers, consider yourselves tagged...

Apologies

Yesterday's link to the BBCs video about John Sentamu's fast didn't work. It has now been updated. Click here and check out the first video listed.

John Sentamu: Respect!

The BBC website has a great video about John Sentamu's 7 day fast for the victims of the conflict in the Middle East.

Far be it for me to say what is and what isn't Christ-like, but at a time when so many are defending the destruction of the Middle-East in the name of religion, this prophetic act seems to get much closer to the response of the God I know.

In a world dominated by mass media we have a lot of loud and proud prophets (Bono, Geldof and the like) who change the world by dominating the headlines, reaching millions and having a direct line to the powers that be.

Sentamu is different; he changes the world not primarily through his eloquence but by living the parable; by putting on the hoody to challenge our stereotypes, by getting his head shaved to highlight the death, by fasting to manifest hope, by giving up a holiday Salzburg, Austria, to sleep in a tent, to demonstrate sacrifice.

Fortunately, I'm going to York on Saturday, so I suspect this won't be the last you've heard of Mr. Sentamu.

technorati tags:Sentamu, Faith, Middle-East

Disappointment

Today I am sad because I am not featured in the Guardian. Normally this would not be an issue but yesterday I was interviewed in relation to this article about ethical shopping (or the lack thereof by young people). Anyway, the spoil-sports decided to feature someone from People Tree instead. Another ambition therefore remains!