God? from cheryl lawrie on Vimeo.

I had a call yesterday from Hannah who wanted to throw around some ideas for a service she’s doing around the Japanese earthquake.

It used to be that my first reaction to a disaster like this would be to create a space to acknowledge it, but I’ve been watching some personal apocalyptic events unfold over the last couple of months, and Japan has just felt like too much to even look at. But maybe that’s the point of creating spaces in times like this – to give us the courage to look at them and know them for what they are.

I didn’t write down notes from the conversation with Hannah – she’s going to send them to me when she creates the service – so the thoughts below are a combination of what I remember of the ideas we came up with, and some stuff I’ve thought about since.  The point of a service at a time like this isn’t to be clever, so none of the ideas were spectacularly original. Perhaps they’re comforting in their familiarity.

Some of the tactile ideas:

- using newspaper stories of the disaster and inviting people to highlight the words in the stories that make their prayer.
- having a long path of gravel [that goes around a whole room], that represents different things at different points. At one space, each piece of gravel represents someone’s story… inviting people to put tealights among the gravel in honour of those whose will not be remembered. At another point invite people to take a piece of gravel and hold it tight so the edges cut into their skin to acknowledge the hardness of the world. At another point, praying for those whose dreams and lives are in the rubble. At another point, creating a cairn as a marking point: what is it we know now that we didn’t know before?
- Having bowls of water with salt to make our / God’s tears, for the things that have no words
- Writing or drawing our fears for our own human-ness and mortality onto black fabric with black pen; writing a prayer you don’t have faith to believe or pray yourself onto a white post-it note, and leaving it for someone else to take and pray for you.

One thought: I wouldn’t use images of the disaster, at least as a central focus. I think we know what the disaster looks like, and images at this point run the risk of being manipulative and creating fear and drama that has nowhere good to go. The only place i’d potentially use them would be in a space where before and after pictures of towns were laid out [the ABC has such a good series of images on this], and a third blank piece of paper was given for people to write prayers for the future of those places [that's a twee idea! i'd want to develop that more... and find another way to do this apart from writing on paper! - but you'll get the idea]

If I were doing this with a Christian group, i’d use the story of Elijah and the cave [earthquake, wind and fire - and adapt it to include a tsunami and a potential nuclear disaster]. We used that story after the bushfires here a couple of years ago, finishing the story [which was written on big cards on the floor] in front of the video posted above, with the lines ‘Is this where we are to find you, God, and how will we know you are here?

I’ve been thinking about what the purpose of such a space would be.

- to pray or ’send’ love to those living this disaster

- to remember those who will not be remembered [not least because most of us fear not being remembered and known ourselves]

- it seems to me [or perhaps it's just that i've been thinking about this for the last two years, so I'm overlaying it onto everything] that we need to learn to be the helpless observers. It’s a bloody hard thing to do. I know we can send money [and we have to!], and for some there will be a more active role, but this is not something we can fix. I think i’d want a space that let’s me say how hard it is to be able to do nothing.

- to acknowledge that we are scared, and that we can’t deny our fear.

- to create a moment where love and compassion are put alongside fear, grief and despair

That’s enough… I’ll put up what Hannah does when she does it.

I get requests every week from people looking for like-minded people and groups, and i only know a tiny, tiny percentage of what’s happening. hopefully this will be a way that people can connect with each other.

If you’re wanting to add details and can’t, email them to me and i’ll get them up.

Before I went away I had a flurry of alt worship workshops, where I finally put together some coherent statements about how I design stations. These are my tips:

What makes a station a station?

Spaces for people to put their story next to another

Self-directed participation: people can ‘choose their own adventure’, or decide the ending for themselves

Full participation: the space is different because each person has been there

Multi-sensory: inviting the active participation of people’s minds, bodies, hearts, souls, senses

Secrets to successful stations

Be contextual: use the ‘things’ of the culture you live in

Reframe: invest the ‘things’ with multiple meanings

Use different words to invite people of different intelligences into the space: ‘think’, ‘feel’, ‘imagine’, ‘describe’

Allow different interpretations: don’t prescribe the outcome, or make blanket generalisations – remember that what gives one person peace will make another confused

The advanced class: my guesses as to what makes a station transformative

Don’t repeat: don’t have an image and words that say exactly the same thing. Leave space for people to need to invest themselves to make sense of something

Don’t worry if things ‘don’t make sense’: take a risk – the best spaces aren’t straightforward

Trust your people: take them one step further than you think they can go. People [almost] always rise to a challenge.

A final note:
Aesthetics matter! You’re inviting people into a space to ‘lose themselves’ a little, and become vulnerable. Make it easier for them by making the space safe physically and emotionally. Don’t let them be distracted by clutter…

For all the stories of journeys in the bible
we know nothing of the maps people travelled with.

journeys that would have taken days
and crossed uncharted territory
of land and mind
are condensed in the space between
a full stop
and a capital letter.

Elijah ran from Jezebel
- a refugee in a strange land
with a distant mountain to aim for
and a world of fear and terror between.

And in this unmapped space
he fought to make his path

alone
but for the company of angels.

Who are the angels who give you food for the journey
when you find yourself alone
in the uncharted worlds of faith?

take some bread and eat it in their honour

And who can you be an angel for when you leave here?

drink some water and make your prayer for grace.

At the edge of every map
is a thick grey line

in the absence of any sign
there is a world beyond it,
it’s easy to believe
that the line is a solid wall
for us to butt up against
and rest our weight on;
to reinforce with concrete
ideals and
beliefs

it’s easy to forget that the
centre of another’s world
lies there
on its other side.

is the gift of faith
for you
knowing where the edges of your map
exist
or stepping beyond them
into another’s world
and life?

we leave today
going into a future
as yet unmapped

take faith with you as you go;
into the parts of your life not yet travelled by love
into the parts of the world unexplored by grace

let compassion and hope be the roads that you follow
today and always
amen.

As promised, these are the links I mentioned at the end:
Proost [for resources, available on subscription or pay-per-download]
my book on proost
Jonny Baker’s worship tricks 1, 2, 3
Alt worship portal [links to dozens of alt worship communities around the world]
the smoke and water clips came from istockphoto.com
other clips came from vimeo.com
If you’re searching for resources and ideas on this blog, click on ‘alt worship’, ‘installations and spaces’ and ‘worship in prison’ at the top of this page.

[I didn't mention Jonny Baker's new book because my copy hasn't arrived yet, but I think it's going to be well worth a read]

I’m running a workshop on alt worship for the CTM in Parkville on August 14. Details and a registration form are available here:
Alt wship wshop Registration form

[photo stolen shamelessly from Christop]

I am back in Melbourne which is deliciously balmy after Christchurch. I had a fabulous time. It’s really good to be home.

Just Worship was a great event. Thanks to Mark Pierson for making it happen, and for enticing an amazing group to come together for the weekend. I was inspired by the stories of imagination and creativity from all over New Zealand and Australia, and from the passion of those who hadn’t yet begun but knew they were ready to. It was a reminder – if we needed one – that the imagination and creativity lies at the heart of each of us.

It was lovely to be able to tell the story of what’s happening here. The danger, as we kept saying on the weekend, is that it can sound much grander than what it is, and much more difficult. Stuff only sounds creative when it’s something you never thought of doing, or never thought you could do. If i were to highlight only one of the things that i said on the weekend again, it would be that you can’t actually tell if you’re ‘creative’ until you start trying to be creative. I didn’t know I could write until just a few years ago. Most of the time now I still don’t know if I can write, but the only thing that ever stops me from writing is the idea that maybe i can’t. So now I just say ‘yes’, and see where it goes.

I remembered again how the most disheartening comments in any conversation are ‘but that wouldn’t work for me’ and ‘we couldn’t do that with our people’. When those comments come up, it feels like we haven’t communicated the most important primary principle behind alt worship / sacred spaces: that what works for me – or my people – will not be what works for you and yours.

[actually, I know that I said that over and over on the weekend, so perhaps my question is 'why can't people hear that?'.]

As you might have seen here, I curated a space on the last night. It’s always an honour to be asked to do that, and also one of the most challenging tasks. It’s really, really difficult curating worship that isn’t a showcase, with a group of people you don’t know. When I ‘design’ worship, I do it with a person in mind – it’s the singularity of the person that gives me inspiration [I'm reminded again of Kurt Vonnegut, and his great line 'If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.']. I remember conversations I’ve had with the person, the moments of resonance where I’ve caught a glimpse of a bigger story in their story. Honing in on that gives me a reference point for curating the worship, where i find the connection between what’s human in them [and, most often, me] and the story. My instinct, otherwise, is to create worship that’s too big, too proclaimatory, too generalised [what everybody 'needs' to hear/experience]. It preaches rather than entices.

As always, the best part for me was the conversations with people that go beyond our best ideas, and start to bring to light the questions and provocations that each of us encounter. I’m so grateful for the few interactions I have each year that push me into that different space – that let us bring the unanswered questions to the surface, with no expectation of resolution; the moments that aren’t about ego or expectation, or things we’ve done, but simply an enjoying of the shared inarticulable longing for something beyond us. There’s a lovely comfort in those conversations. In that vein, Jemma Allen’s stuff about invitation and risk was really important. I also really enjoyed Mike Crudge’s presentation from his masters’ research, in bringing to light the perceptions that people outside the church have about the church, and the factors that lead to those perceptions. I think i’ve got more to learn from Dean – what is your surname Dean? – who works in one of the less advantaged areas of Auckland, who obviously really loves the people in his community, and creates experiential moments with them that seem simultaneously understated and amazing. Spending time with Mark is always food for the soul. I loved meeting some of the prison chaplains in Christchurch, and finding some like-minded souls there, which in turn gave me some confidence in the thinking around prison stuff we’re doing here. In fact, the entire conference was filled with amazing conversations and people – I learnt a lot. thanks.

I stayed in Christchurch for a few days after the conference. I set aside three days after the weekend to write, deciding that if I couldn’t get a decent start on a book about the stuff we do in prisons, then I needed to let the idea go. It worked brilliantly as a motivation; as did the rain / hail / freezing weather which made doing anything outside very unattractive. I deliberately rationed my internet use last week in order to not get distracted. Apologies if you’re waiting on email from me – i’m not quite game to look at them yet…

At the limits of our capacity to make sense of the world
at the edges of our grace, energy and love
lie this:

bread and wine.

Take and eat.

If nothing else, it will keep you alive.

the pdf of the stations can be downloaded here: rpf_nz