Among the dead

On Jane's blog she had a joke by a Bishop (I think his name was George) about how he didn't want to get up and go to church. The hymns were dreary, the sermons were dull, the people hated him, but he had to go: he was the Bishop. I think I need to met George before too long. I'd like to tell him he doesn't have to go. I know many people think they do and faithfully go on doing it. But I do not share this view. On Monday I hope to go to Cardiff where I have been asked to share some bible studies using RB (of course) for a Council for World Mission group on Evangelism in Europe. Well, of course I was surprised. But I'm going, even if I'm not giving the bible study they wanted: What does the bible say about evangelism? I told them I couldn't do that because I didn't know. I said I do some RB and they said I could if it wasn't too scary.

That's what it has come down to. Not being too scary. The dying church doesn't like its gospel too scary. Back in Bethany (where else) the neighbours are still talking about Lazarus and the scare they got when he came out of the stinking tomb, bandages flapping. Me, I'm with Lazarus. I hope to meet George sometime and invite him along.

Among the dead

Whisper softly,
speak in hushed voices
but do not disturb the dying.
Be respectful,
keep your eyes lowered,
as it dies little by little.

But you,
you who have already been in the tomb
three or four days,
who have smelt your own stench
and then emerged
at the call of the Life Giver:
you are not afraid.

For you,
you who make up words
who use your own given name
and dance on graves
flinging bandages about
celebrating release:
you are not afraid.

You already know
that body is not here.
There’s no point in seeking the living
among the dead.

JAL: 23.01.2010

The old and the new

We did some RB with both the Old and New Testaments during our weekend on Gateways into Prayer at Offa House.

This photograph of a lovely tree from the churchyard reminded me of the Psalmist saying 'hide me in the cleft of your rock' although obviously this is a cleft of a tree but similar. We did some RB on psalms and participants had quite a lot to offer. There were bits of psalms that were important to them:

I will lift mine eyes to the hills

God is our strength and refuge

The Lord is my Shepherd

You put me together in my mother's womb

and so on....

There were also less confortable but remembered ones:

My God my God why have you forsaken me?

May the wicked perish and of course the one about dashing the babies' heads against the rocks.

Some psalms we remembered had neither negative nor positive emotions attached. These usually contained some sort of memorable image like 'the oil running down Aaron's beard'.

Then we made up some music to go with psalms both those remembered and read from print.

We also did some RB with the gospel, remembering Jesus saying 'if you have ears'. How many ears can you remember from the gospel? Don't forget the one that gets cut off in the Garden of Gethsemane. We did some 'frozen poses' to remember these stories: think of a story and then freeze yourself in a position that reminds you of part of the story - sorry no photos of this!

Walking buddies

Three of us, the Always Helpful Two, Angela and Hilary, and me, have started a walking buddies scheme the purpose of which is to get us excercising in a gently but persistent way each day. Our route takes us around the circumfrence of Greenhead Park in Huddersfield, which is one mile. We try to do it twice which makes a week worth ten miles. Not as impressive as some of Bob's daily totals, but we're getting there. Our walk is supossed to be followed by fruit smoothies as a way of increasing our 'five a day' count but so far I seem to consume more of the smoothies than the other two. My plan to day is a smoothie in a cake: a low fat recipie that includes bananas, kiwi and blackberries. It smeels yummy just now!

Anyway all this has lead to a bit of creativity as you might imagine. You might recall that I rarely do RB with the Old Testament. Well here's a change then. Remembering the sort of pattern you commonly find in what is referred to as Deutero-Isaiah - that's from about chapter 40 onwards - I wrote this piece which is all about changing our deathly habits for more life-givign ones, which seemed to be the sort of thing old D-I was on about.

The playground of possibilities

Leave the outhouse of despair,

the barren barns damp with disuse,
the convoluted corridors of conceit,

where low lighting hides the true colours.
Leave all the gapping tombs and come outside
to the playground of possibilities.
Roll in the mud if you must,

swing from the trees if you will:
slide, slip and saunter, twirl, twist and waddle,
bounce, boing and be unrestrained in embracing
the recreational potential of humanity.
Do not acquiesce, accept or agree
to be tamed into the tram lines of timidity.
See the rainbow colours of life reflected in a puddle.
Hear the symphonic cacophony of sound echo round the park.
Admire the skipping squirrel and seek to emulate her glide and verve.
You were made for this;
the spitting image of your cosmic forebear,
it is written in every cell,
and this is the playground of possibilities
so come and play today!

JAL: 01.12.2009

Remembering the fig tree

One of the interesting bits about remembering the Passion Octave this year with many different groups has been the role of the fig tree. I wonder if you remember it?

During his comings and going around Jerusalem in Holy Week, Jesus is remembered for cursing the fig tree. In the first place he sees a fig tree that has no figs on it. He's a bit cross and curses it. Sure enough when they pass it the next day the disicples notice the fig tree has died.

Various people who write about written down Bibles comment on this small but perverse incident as the only ocassion Jesus is recorded as cursing nature. So what do you make of it?

In the various rememberings of the Passion Octave I've done this year a number of different patterns emerged. In the first example there was a group who remembered curing of the fig tree three times in Holy Week, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. This proved to be a real laugh: Oh no, not the fig tree again! Another group didn't have the fig tree in at all - the memorable fig tree had become the forgotten fig tree.

This week Jane drew my attention on her blog of Laughter and Liturgy (that's listed on the side of my blog page) to a parable of trees in recorded in Judges chapter 9 in the written down bible. This parables features a number of trees the second of which is the fig tree.

It reads: 'Then the trees said to the fig-tree 'You come and be our king'. But the fig-tree answered 'In order to govern you, I would have to stop producing my good sweet fruit'.' [Judges 9:10-11].

So I wonder if the link is kingship. Holy Week is a different kind of king week. From Palms to Cross and early morning Garden, Jesus is demonstrating ways of contradicting the kingship ideas of his day, and ours. In cursing the fig tree is he saying something about his own refusal to be co-opted into the schemes and plans of human beings. There's no fruit on the fig tree and there's no chance Jesus is going to agree to be king either. Yet at the same time, he goes beyond the kingship ideas of those around him and produces fruit for those willing to to see beyond the bare branches of the fig tree. It is the kind of image that contains the sort of paradox Jesus seems to have been good at: not what we are expecting, challenging our expectations and interpretations.

As we approach the Feast of Christ the King again this year (this Sunday) may be a bit of remembering of Christ the King and Fig-Tree Curser would be in order.

The dream comes alive

Last week Delory Brown, better known to Vision4life contacts as Gaius from Welcome to Corinth, starred as Martin Luther King Jnr at the Lawrence Bately Theatre in Huddersfield. As part of Black History Month, this was also a local celebration of talent. The programme began with a young rap poet, Samuel Wyatt, who has won prizes for his poems. He was followed by a local choir, the True Colours Gospel Choir who sang some of the songs from the civil rights era.

The Dream Comes Alive was a fictional interview between MLK and Moira Stewart, played by Huddersfield actress Lindsay Pascall, and accompanied by archive footage of King.

Brown had obviously done a lot of work to prepare for this role, which he did superbly. The cellar theatre is a small space and this was really the only drawback of the whole evening. Brown could easily have filled a bigger space and indeed it was a shame that he did not have the opportunity to do so. Speaking for alomost the entire time, with only questions interpolated by Pascall in her role as the well known newsreader, King/Brown began be recalling his early life and inspiration. There were many young people in the audience and everyone was hooked by his portrayal of the man who for some many epitomises the Black struggle. He then reviewed the main tennents of non violent resistance and ended with a glimpse into the future: what would MLK have made of the war in Afganistan?

Brown himself has an imposing physical presence and when he stood to give the final 'I have a dream' speech it was clear that he could have benefited from a bigger space in which to perform. The speech itself is well know and it was wonderful to hear the sentences rolling across the audience, including as it does so much 'Remembered Bible'. All together this was an excellent evening and if your local community decides to remember Black history month this way then look no further than Delroy Brown to fill the role. Failing that opporunity you can still catch his portrayal of Gaius on the Vision4life website: http://www.vision4life.org.uk/ (and go to the download DVD section).

How can they remember who have never heard?

This must be the most frequently asked question about RB. At almost every event someone says 'But this won't work because ...' and it's usually because there is thought to be insufficient bible knowledge in the common pool for folks to engage in RB. In other words my opening generalisation 'There's a bible in everyone' is not true.

And of course, it's possible that folks saying this are correct. But then again it's not been my experience. In fact I think it's a red herring (enter red herring at this point - swims across screen and exits on the other side). The statement 'we can't do RB because there's no B to R' is just an excuse not to do anything.

RB is a risk. Maybe one day I'll find a group with no B to R but it hasn't happened yet. Personally I still think it's more of a question of how you R your B that what B you R. Of course some days RB goes better than others but for now I'll keep on RBing, at the very least because it's better than doing nothing.

PS When I published this post a free ad by Google popped up and offered me 50% off Red Herrings - now there's an offer it's hard to refuse.

Remembering the Bible in Calderdale

Stainland and Holywell Green URC is a small faith community just over the border into Calderdale, and part of the Waverley Group. Today I took the Vision4life RB road show to their midweek fellowship group. About 12 people were there, mostly retired. We worked on Bible Scrapbooking (see Vision4life website for these instructions) using RB in five small groups.

Although not at first very confident, they soon got into this and produced five interesting versions of gospel stories. There were three different takes on the Holy Week narrative, one that emphasised Jesus carrying the cross, one that looked beyond Good Friday to Easter Day and one which saw the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as the culmination of Jesus life. The two other groups remembered two other well remembered gospel episodes: Jesus calming the storm and the parable of the prodigal son. Hopefully we may have some photographs of these by the weekend so watch this space.

Everyone enjoyed it and felt able to contribute. One person was surprised how much everyone had joined in. Another said how much they liked working in the small group. Some made links between the Rb and episodes from life, including current events in the news and suggestions for prayer. All in all, another good example of how RB can reach the parts other ways of using the bible don't seem to reach.

Finished!

I'm pleased to say that the batik I started about 6 weeks ago is now finished. It represents the view of the bay and castle at Holy Island, where we did some RB back in April along the theme 'In my end is my beginning'. It was here that we remembered the post-resurection story of Jesus meeting the disciples at the enge of Lake Galilee with bar-be-qued fish. Kate Gray kindly brought along the fish and the smell (and eventual taste) added a wonderful dimension to our RB.

Boys and the bible

David Hockney has had a thing or two to say about boys and art in response to one of those daft Ofsted reports that makes you wonder if they could inspect their way out of a cupboard. The report includes a vibrant piece of 'computer art' pictured here.

He says "I was appalled when I read that school inspectors say boys are turned off art when it's too heavily focused on drawing and painting," he said. "It's a bit like saying schools shouldn't be bothering with grammar." Well, we all know they'd never stop teaching grammar, would they?

What about the bible? Are boys turned of by that? Lasty night I was at a session with the Boy's Brigade company section at Brackenhall URC exploring more of the remembered bible. Some great insights into Jesus passion as we remembered around the Easter story. Washing feet was 'just wierd' but betrayal was more recognisable, as was fear and wanting to avoid pain. The streets of Huddsersfield may not be the same as the streets of Jerusalem two thousand years ago, but in the small upper room where we met there was plenty of honest remembering.

Wacky in Wythenshawe

Playing with the Bible for the weekend at St Mark's Wythenshawe was a most creative time. Here are some pariticipants with their bible scrapbooking of the Easter story, from Palms to Pentecost.

You can find the instructions for bible scrapbooking on the Vision4life website. Why not have a go yourselves!

Work in progress

I've had a busy few weeks remembering the bible here and there. As a result of being away I've not been blogging but I do have other work in progress to share, so here's a bit of it.

Inspired by remembering the bible on Holy Island, this is a batik, a technique that uses hot wax to mark out designs on fabric (in this case an old cotton sheet from Oxfam that cost £1.99) in order to allow the artist to build up layers of pattern and colour. I'm about half way through it now. Watch this space...

Still remembering the bible: local and national

Yes, I promise I have been doing it - RB of course - since I last posted here. Often indoors, sometimes outdoors, it has been a week or so of creative RB and still some more to come with a visit to SW Synod this week.

Last week was Durham and Lindisfarne with the members of the Thames North and Eastern Synod Ministers' Spring School. Here are some of us eating bar-be-qued fish on the beach as part of remembering post resurection stories - yum yum.

This morning Clive James had a go at RB too in his point of view on Radio 4, with a reference to the Sermon on the Mount. Some of the members of the congregation at Moldgreen URC had heard that as we came to our own rememberings of a wide range of gospel encounters that leave us with scars. So it has been a moving time doing RB and as I get on a train to the SW tomorrow I will look forward to moving a bit further.

Remembering the bible with football fans

It was the morning after Shearer's first game in charge of Newcastle and the team had gone down 2-0 to Chelsea, when I preached my Shearer Walks on Water Sermon. Even in deepest Essex there was one Newcastle fan in the congregation. This is a suprise in a place made up of ethnic old Londoners, the majority of whom are Spurs supporters like me (there was one Chelsea fan there). The congregation was about one quarter members of the local congregation and three quarters family and friends of the baptismal party. I began the remembering the bible session with the Jesus life-line activity you will find on the Vision4life website. This is usually a good place to start. We had some good ideas: Wise men who visited the baby Jesus (one 5 year old remembered), the Last Supper (one 8 year old): as usual the children are quickest off the mark to shre their remembering as active learners. They seem less inhibited than the adults on the whole. This is clearly one of the main factors affecting our monogenerational ageing churches. We lack the energy and action that these younger ones contribute. Many of us can remember attempts to drive these kind of tendencies out of us as young people. Unfortunatley in most cases it worked and drove almost the whole generation out too. Those of us that did not go are left hanging on by our fingertips in the 'We don't do it like that here' churches.

Eventually we had a shared remembered life in which the Life Giver was also remembered for getting lost in a temple at 12 years of age, getting baptised, turning water into wine, feeding a lot of people with a small amount of fish and bread, telling parables and yes, for walking on water. Afterwards over the tea and coffee more inhibited adults suggested other rememberings including 'the one where he turned over the tables of the bankers in the temple'. So its true, even in deepest Essex, just down the road from where Jade Goodey was married those few short weeks ago, the Life Giver is still remembered and celebrated. Let's hope Alan Shearer lives long enough to keep Newcastle in the Premiership as well.

Jesus saves but Shearer....

... gets the job at Newcastle United for eight games only. However, the whole episode is replete with religious language. They say some folks take this game of two halves very seriously indeed. A BBC reporter said of the unfolding events: 'For these fans, Shearer walks on water'. More examples of remembering the bible? Is it possible to understand the image of Shearer walking on water without remembering who the description originally refers to? Also known as 'The Angel of the North', is Shearer only a God by reference to that other God-human, Jesus? Or is it enough that humans can't walk on water so we must be referring to Shearer's God-like qualities whether or not some minority group still remembers another water-walking bloke two thousand years ago? Bearing in mind the remembered events of the week coming up, I only hope Alan Shearer makes it to eight games and doesn't find himself nailed to the cross-bar in untimely fashion. He's a very nice bloke (even to a Spurs fan).

Still remembering the bible

There's this website about the bible: http://betterbibles.com/
and they've got a poll there about how often people read the bible.
Now, if I was clever enough I could find out how to put a poll on this website to find out how often people think they remember the bible. But just for fun see what you think when I ask:

How much of the bible do you think you remember?
A lot
A bit
Not much
None

[most people I've asked before think they don't remember any of the bible].

Do you remember any of the following:
The Lord's prayer?
How many days it took for God to create the world?
What happened on the first Good Friday?
What happened on the first Easter Day?

If you remember any of these, Congratulations! You are remembering the bible!! (Ok, so not all of it - try not to be so hard on yourself).

Do you remember things from the bible
often
sometimes
never
only when asked by polls like this on blogs like this?

Do you notice other examples of people around you remembering the bible?
In newspapers
on the radio
in films
on TV
in conversations
in your dreams
in other places?

If so please tell me about it.

Remembering the bible: art, humour and gender

When using Remembering the bible some folks accuse me of making the bible up. I'm not sure how these folks think we got a bible in the first place. How do they imagine memory works for 30-40 years after an event (about the time the gospels were written down after Jesus death), even with good oral story telling and oral memory strategies in an oral culture? Just what do they imagine we are referring to when we read, in the written down gospels 'Jesus said...'?

Well here's someone with a good eye for making up the bible: humous feminist Karen Whitehall. She makes collages from the gospel sotries using classical European paintings and photographs of actresses from the 1930-50's. This one is Palm Sunday. See her gallery at:


http://klwcollages.com/index.html


I was looking for Caravaggio's two paintings of 'the not last supper' (or the emmaus Road as some call it) to go with a reflection I am doing tonight and came across these. As a novice blogger it never ceases to amaze me what's out there! She does a good all female last supper with Great Garbo in the central place. It reminded me of an RB session a few years ago doing the Last Supper with an all female group of rememberers. Very moving stuff. Try it sometime yourselves if you can to explore something of what gender says about remembering the bible.

School repeats Crucifixion

Last night's performance of The Crucifixion by Stainer at Silcoates School was sung by a mixed aged choir of around 60 people, outnumbering the audience by quite a few. One of the best things about this school is the way it encourages people of all ages to work together in many different ways.

Although this particular cantata might seema bit old-fashioned (it was first performed in 1887, which was more than half a century after Silcoates first opened) it was actually a very powerful experience. It gaves us all a chance to revist the story, even if the words were not in contemporary English. Malefactors is a word I really use these days and there were one or two other 'Kenneth Williams' moments, but to hear the words of the Bible sung in recitative is an interesting way of topping up your remembered bible.

The last line, sung by the solo tenor, whispering away to silence: 'And he gave up the ghost' was amazing. Yes, he died. Once and for all. As do we all. Don't forget that. Don't water it down. Don't fudge it. Crucified, dead and buried.

Remembering the Bible in Blackburn

Yesterday Revidge Fold United Reformed Church hosted a Vision4life Day for United Reformed Churches in Blackburn. About 20 people attended and spent some part of the day remembering the bible together.

We began with pictures by Dinah Roe Kendall, whose work I have mentioned before. Her two pictures of Palm Sunday and the Family at Bethany provided a good starting point, as participants could easily relate to the vibrant images. You can get them from Piquant here:

http://www.piquant.net/PDFs/postersallegories.pdf

Then we went on to try some of the Vision4life Bible Year Menu activities. Remember anyone can visit the Vision4life web page, view the menu and download materials, even if they are not 'signed up'.

From the menu we did the Jesus life-line and later in the afternoon Kennings and Cookies.

There's a link to the Vision4life website at the side of this page. Some of the participants said...

'A day well spent, an eye opener'

'Reassuring and real'

'Thought provoking'

'Brings the Bible to life'

'Made me dig deeper'

Whilst I understand that 'not everyone would want to do this' if you think you know some people that do then please get in touch.

Meanwhile a thought from the way home on the Caldervale line, after St Francis.

Remembering, after St Francis

Make me a channel of your peace:

where there is chaos,
may patterns emerge;
where there are words,
sentences take shape;
where there are fragments,
stories unfold.

For it is in remembering we forget,
in forgiving we are released to forgive,
and in listening we are empowered to speak;
in fighting we discover our need of peace,
in hugging we gain courage to let go,
and in creating we set free the stuff of life.

[copyright Janet Lees]

Still remembering the Bible: the not last supper

About a week ago there was a poll about books people had not read (!). It seems that 65% of people lied about books they had read. Anyway one of the books people lied about reading was the Bible. Charlie Brooker wrote about this in the Guardian on Monday [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/09/charlie-brooker].
He says
'Potential partners who genuinely adore reading the Bible on a daily basis traditionally don't mention it until later, when they've invited you back to their place to unexpectedly nailgun your hand to the wall while loudly reciting a selection of their favourite parables from memory.'
Now this was not a technique I'd seen referred to in any daily Bible reading notes I've ever seen, nor a method of RB I'd tried myself. I wasn't sure wether to invite him round and see if the same effect could be produced with my staple gun.
However, it did illustrate once again how the Bible keeps getting into the news, even in this rather odd way. As for 'reciting their favourite parables from memory' - Hurray! They have favourite parables in their memory.
On Monday evening I meet six young people at a local Boy's Brigade group. We got started. One said he had a Bible: small red one with New Testament written on it that he got at school. No one else owned up to having one. Anyway I asked them if they thought they remembered anything from the Bible (well from the story of Jesus life of course, I am a gospels woman). No they said. So we got the string and pegs out. Forty minutes later they had remembered this:

Jesus was born in a stable.
Before he was a year old the king tried to kill him but he escaped.
When he was 12 he got lost in a temple.
When he was an adult he went into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, then he met some fishermen and he told them to fish on the other side of the boat, and they got a net full of fish, and then he went into Jerusalem on a donkey.
The night before he died, he had the last supper with his friends.
He was crucified, but a couple of days later he came back to life.
And then he had another supper with his friends so that was 'the not last supper'.

So there it is. A core remembered gospel generated by 6 teenagers in 40 minutes with a piece of string and some pegs. Not a nail gun in sight. Brilliant!

Remembering which bible

There's a weekly programme on Radio 4 at certain times of the year, called the News Quiz. Chaired by Sandi Toksvig, an irripressible Dane, it is a great source of examples of the RB. It happens quite often that RB comes up in the group's discussions of obscure news items. This week it was Leviticus and whether the bible was funny. Now we could get sidetracked by that but I suggest you just download the podcast from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4

The subject of todays blog is remembering the Hebrew scriptures, another challenge from Jane, who has been remembering Bable with a multilingual group in Switzerland. In the 15 years of so of working on the RB method it is true to say that I have been selective about which bits of the bible I've remembered with people. There are many reasons for this

1. RB is not about remembering the whole bible - a rote pedagogy - but about the bits that matter to you at the time and how remembering them challenges the status quo;

2. RB is a contextual method - it is about remembering the bits that seem relevant for that context - and in the context of 21st century Britain and the margins of urban living that is the core of Word of Mouth, the 'bit' of choice was the gospel - the central Jesus story;

3. RB is a personal method - as Jane notes in her blog about Babel, our own stories are essential to our rememberings. So Babel was great with multilingual bridge builders. But I am a gospel woman. I am passionate about the story of the Tomb Quitter, the Name Caller, the Life Giver. So that this the core of my RB.

It is not the case that I have never used the Hebrew scriptures for RB. There's some illustration using the book of Ruth as a basis for RB in Word of Mouth, and that's a story I have often used in multicultural Britain. I have sometimes used other bits depending on the context. It's great to hear about more people doing RB. Please share the stories of your rememberings.

Word of Mouth is still available from www.ionabooks.com