Arrived back from Greenbelt this morning. Huge success for Blossom the campervan. Slept almost perfectly for five of the seven nights. Celebrated Christmas last night in the beer tent - the Jesus Arms - by singing carols under the Christmas tree...it really is a wierd event.
Spent most of the weekend volunteering in the press office and taking care of some of the 95 journalists that visit Greenbelt. Very interesting to meet such a diverse group of other volunteers not to mention speakers and musicians.
But at the same time as a volunteer you experience Greenbelt in a different way to your ordinary punter. And I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer to buy a ticket next year and forgo the t-shirt, food vouchers and free entry.
Having spent a week at Cheltenham race course I'm also conscious of the big world news that one misses cacooned out of sight of a newspaper or TV screen.
Does that make prayer more or less useful? Or simply different? This debate is really old of course. It goes right back to the desert fathers. Is one more immersed in society by being separated from it?
If I don't know that the Madrid air crash has happened, I cannot pray for those involved. And yet by not knowing this and a ton of other important happenings, I am also freer to focus on the little I do know.
I can turn inwards more effectively, and thus become more available to others outwardly.
Which makes it more possible that the conversations I do have are less superficial, less dominated by events external to the current encounter. Which makes us all more open to the possibilities presented to us by one another.
Is this all a load of tosh? No I don't think so. I've had some conversations this weekend that have only been possibile because I've been available. And that's not just a question of being physically available. It's also about not being distracted by the world, so that I can focus on that part of the world that is present to me here and now.
I'm still not sure whether I should keep the TV. We're about to get of Sky - should we go the whole distance?
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