The stations are outlined below, and are here for download on pdf:maps_stations

We opened by playing Padraig O’Tuama’s Opening Collect [from his amazing album, available from Proost]

Before moving into the stations, I read the poem ‘The Centre of Another’s World’, and we played Sigur Ros’s filmclip, Glosoli.

Station one

[cut out countries from a world map, placed on black card with spaces between the countries]

There are many in our world whose map is changing
as we speak:

those who live in contested lands,
whose geography is being shaped by armies and governments
beyond their control,

those who live in countries
ripped apart by floods
earthquakes
cyclones
drought.

If you have a prayer

– peace
life
justice
hope –

for those people
and places,

write it into the space between countries…

Station two

[vials containing ripped up pages from a street directory, screwed up pages from the street directory on the ground]

There are many in our community
who have left all they know –
forced by circumstance and disaster –
and who now navigate inhospitable maps of our own country’s
bureaucratic expectations and
hostile territories.

The dreams that were their roadmap
lie ripped and torn.

Here is a space to
remember another’s dream for them,
and to pray for a different kind of world.

Take a vial with you
if you can work for the hope
that one day all will know home.

Station 3

[altered map – photoshopped to have the names taken out, replaced with new key – stuck to thick foam board, flag pins, markers]

In faith, we navigate a different world:
one where hope, promise and wonder
are flavoured with God’s love,
and where regret, bewilderment and fear
are touched by God’s grace.

Write or draw those things that make the landscape of your life
onto a flag:
the relationships that cause wonder or fear
the decisions that bewilder or offer promise
the places marked by hope or regret…

Place your prayer on the roadmap
as marked by the key.

Let your story stand next to another’s.

Hold faith for each other it is being shaped by God.

Station four
This particular space was quite amazing – I didn’t think it would work [I think i thought people would get tongue tied], but i’ve just been reading through the pages and pages of wisdom that people wrote… It’s really lovely stuff. It’s nice having it on the transparent paper – gives it a sense of non-permanence, and of not being able to ignore another’s wisdom when reading your own.

I love that in the photo below the young woman is copying the ‘rough copy’ she wrote on her hand first…

[handmade book titled ‘A book of faith’, extra blank pages, pens, copies of excerpt from Roald Dahls ‘Big Friendly Giant’]

The world we live in is complicated
and the future is unmapped territory:

an adventure of unimagined possibilities?
a journey filled with unknown threats?

Is it fear or longing you take into the future?

Write or draw your prayer for tomorrow
in the blank page at the end of the book.

Add another blank page behind it for the story still to come.

Station five
[copies of 1 Kings 19:1-8, bread, water, recording ‘Readings from the Book of Exile’ by Padraig O’Tuama]

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 landscape of fear and despair between.

And in this unmapped space
he fought to make a path to survive

alone
but for the company of unknown angels.

Have there been angels who have brought you bread
when you find yourself despairing
in the uncharted landscapes of faith?

Take some bread and eat it in thanks.

Are there spaces in your life where you need the food of the angels?

Drink some water and make your prayer.

Final blessing

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.

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?

In the leading machine the Head of the Air Force was sitting beside the pilot. He had a world atlas on his knees and he kept staring first at the atlas, then at the ground below, trying to figure out where they were going. Frantically he turned the pages of the atlas.

‘Where the devil are we going?’ he cried.

‘I haven’t the foggiest idea,’ the pilot answered. ‘The Queen’s orders were to follow the giant and that’s exactly what I’m doing.’

The pilot was a young Air Force officer with a bushy moustache. He was very proud of his moustache. He was also quite fearless and he loved adventure. He thought this was a super adventure. ‘It’s fun going to new places,’ he said.

‘New places!’ shouted the Head of the Air Force. ‘What the blazes d’you mean new places?’

‘This place we’re flying over now isn’t in the atlas, is it?’ the pilot said, grinning.

‘You’re darn right it isn’t in the atlas!’ cried the Head of the Air Force. ‘We’ve flown clear off the last page!’

‘I expect that old giant knows where he’s going,’ the young pilot said.

‘He’s leading us to disaster!’ cried the Head of the Air Force. He was shaking with fear. In the seat behind him sat the Head of the Army who was even more terrified.

‘You don’t mean to tell me we’ve gone right out of the atlas?’ he cried, leaning forward to look.

‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you!’ cried the Air Force man. ‘Look for yourself. Here’s the very last map in the whole flaming atlas! We went off that over an hour ago!’ He turned the page. As in all atlases, there were two completely blank pages at the very end. ‘So now we must be somewhere here,’ he said, putting a finger on one of the blank pages.

‘Where’s here?’ cried the Head of the Army.

The young pilot was still grinning broadly. He said to them, ‘That’s why they always put two blank pages at the back of the atlas. They’re for new countries. You’re meant to fill them in yourself.’

– Roald Dahl, The BFG.

i blame jetlag, and first day back at work exhaustion, but this video of an interview with A.S. Byatt made me weep. I think it was this line:

‘The kind of map of the world that was provided by Christian belief, or other forms of religious belief… has for most people in the society I live in gone. And this means, how you say who you are has become very, very difficult.’

Mark Vernon wrote about it beautifully:

It’s an insight that I keep noticing at the moment, the sense that our own lives are too small for us, and we need something more than ourselves to be ourselves. Jung described it as the two parts of the individual – the ego, which makes our particular place in the world; and the self which is our connection to the human collective. Individuation is a synthesis of the two.

It seems that Byatt senses we live in a world that has lots of ego, in Jung’s sense, but with the loss of religion, has lost its self, again in Jung’s sense. As yet, we don’t otherwise know how to connect to it. As a substitute, we look for mirrors that play the ego back to us as if that were ‘a tune beyond us, yet ourselves.’ Though it’s not, of course.

Part of the reason is that I saw some brilliant exhibitions while I was in the UK – the Richard Long exhibition, for example, which was all about knowing where we are and seeing the world we walk through… Part of it is also coming back from the UK and finding myself unexpectedly living somewhere new.

I’m living at the moment in fitzroy, which is an inner-city suburb in melbourne. the city buildings are almost close enough to touch from my balcony. It’s a gorgeous part of town – great architecture and street art, interesting galleries and bookshops, beautiful gardens, every possible permutation of cafe, wine bar, restaurant and pub… It’s five minutes walk from pretty much everywhere you’d ever want to go, and we’ve been taking advantage of that at every opportunity.

Fitzroy’s temporary – my apartment is still being repaired, post flood. Probably three or four times a day I get the question ‘you must be looking forward to going home’. I always fumble with the answer. Truth is, I love where I am at the moment. And the other truth is, i’ve realised I have no idea what home is…

My apartment, the one that was flooded, was the first place I’ve ever lived in which belonged to me. I grew up living in other people’s houses – rental properties, church properties. We moved every few years, into another ‘somebody else’s house’. I was 37 before I lived somewhere that I had freedom to hang a picture where I wanted, or to paint a wall red – but I have no idea what to do with that freedom. I used the old picture hooks, and even now that I’m repainting we’re going with the same colour scheme that I moved into. I think that moving often, and never living in our own house has been great on one level – it’s made it much easier to survive a flood. The flip side is that I never quite learnt the skill of living like there might be a piece of the world I’m allowed to make mine. And I think there are a lot of people like me…

I’ve always resonated most strongly with those who have found home isn’t where or what they thought it would be. I think that’s why I spend my life doing this kind of work, and it certainly describes the kind of people who most easily make their way into the things that we do. I was thinking about it all today, as I found a new way to walk into work. I wonder if it comes back to how we use maps. I don’t like a map that’s given to me to tell me where I am; I like making maps of where we might go… i don’t want a map of where I live; I want a map of how people find their life living here…

All of that is a long story to point to this website. i really love that there are so many ways of looking at the world.