Advent Calendar - A Franciscan Advent and Christmas

For today - "Christ Child's Lullaby," recycled from my old Greenpatches blog.

All Creatures of Our God and King

St Francis of Assisi's Canticle of the Sun   (original Umbrian dialect)

Altissimu, onnipotente bon Signore,

Tue so le laude, la gloria e l'honore et onne benedictione.

Ad Te solo, Altissimo, se konfano,

et nullu homo ène dignu te mentouare.

Laudato sie, mi Signore cum tucte le Tue creature,

spetialmente messor lo frate Sole,

lo qual è iorno, et allumini noi per lui.

Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore:

de Te, Altissimo, porta significatione.

Laudato si, mi Signore, per sora Luna e le stelle:

in celu l'ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle.

Laudato si, mi Signore, per frate Uento

et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo,

per lo quale, a le Tue creature dài sustentamento.

Laudato si, mi Signore, per sor'Acqua,

la quale è multo utile et humile et pretiosa et casta.

Laudato si, mi Signore, per frate Focu,

per lo quale ennallumini la nocte:

ed ello è bello et iucundo et robustoso et forte.

Laudato si, mi Signore, per sora nostra matre Terra,

la quale ne sustenta et gouerna,

et produce diuersi fructi con coloriti fior et herba.

Laudato si, mi Signore, per quelli ke perdonano per lo Tuo amore

et sostengono infirmitate et tribulatione.

Beati quelli ke 'l sosterranno in pace,

ka da Te, Altissimo, sirano incoronati.

Laudato si mi Signore, per sora nostra Morte corporale,

da la quale nullu homo uiuente pò skappare:

guai a quelli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali;

beati quelli ke trouarà ne le Tue sanctissime uoluntati,

ka la morte secunda no 'l farrà male.

Laudate et benedicete mi Signore et rengratiate

e seruiteli cum grande humilitate.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Greenbelt 2012

or as it's becoming known: Greenbelt (the muddy one). How did it go for me? Well, if squelchilly [sp] Would I go back? Now I really wasn't expecting to write this a month ago but yes - against all my expectations, this year's festival, my first as a volunteer, surpassed my expectations, which, let's face it, after some less than positive experiences last year weren't exactly set high. Cut to a dialogue on  good old Shipoffools for some background -  basically, GB can be a lonely place if you're not there with a group or partner. Volunteering is a good way to alleviate at least some of this.

Yup, you've said it. This year's volunteering was a calculated risk for me; if it hadn't worked , I'd decided to take a rest from GB for a few years. Happily the outcome was positive. I'll Be Back. 

Agree that the dynamics change when you're not attached - to partner or group. (My other half no longer 'does' Greenbelt). With just one exception that I knew of, 

all my team were there either with their church or partner to go back to, although I felt quite sorry for the couples who were working different shifts in different venues and so hardly saw anything of each other all weekend!

I found that not having that ready-made network to fall back on I really needed to push myself forward more than I'd normally do and valued those brief meetings I had all the more because of that. Ironically I went straight on to our annual church pilgrimage soon after GB - four days of enforced togetherness - the two complemented each other quite nicely! 

Ok, that's got the navel-gazing out of the way, so what were my GB highlights this year? To be honest, between stewarding, helping on the TSSF stall in G Source, feeding, watering and resting, there weren't huge amounts of time left for galiavanting. I made it  to a grand total of two talks and half a Franciscan Eucharist, the Sunday morning mud-fest (open air communion) and Last Orders on the Monday evening. So, in no particular order of merit:

1. My one and only shower on Friday afternoon after two days on site. I felt A New Woman.
1b. Volunteer welcome on arrival by Tractorgirl. Great to see a friendly face.
2. Dave Tomlinson in Jerusalem on the Friday evening on How to Be a Bad Christian: and a Better Human Being. Never did get that half pint of Bad Christian though.
3. Veronica Zundel, Jo Swinney and Hazel Rolston talking about their experiences of depression and how our church communities can help, rather than hinder sufferers -  up against a background of the Iona Community's Big Sing and a wonky heater that couldn't be switched off! I reckon a copy of this talk should be compulsory listening for all church leaders and congregations.
4. Helping at the TSSF stall in G Source, even if this was more limited than previously because of my volunteer shifts. I just love the variety of people there; you never know who's going to pass by, what kind of conversation you're going to have: the mundane, the quirky and the totally unexpected. Chatting to the other stallholders: Who knew there was an Association of Christian Motorcyclists? Where else can you corner a (quite senior-looking) clergyman  and bore him with your pet peeve about Vocation Not Only Being For Those Who Are Called To Ordination? Or  have the chance to engage with Inclusive Church, PCN and Modern Church all in one place?

5. The brief meetings mentioned above: particularly the friend and her husband who offered to take me into Cheltenham to buy dry clothes after Saturday's mudbath. (Luckily I didn't need to take them up on their kind offer!) The fellow tertiary who invited me along to The Franciscans - I took shelter in their refectory during the cloudburst.
6. The volunteers' lounge: Oh the joy of having a dry, quietish place to retreat to with copious supplies of tea, coffee and biscuits!
7. The distinctly Franciscany ethos to many of  the events - even if I didn't manage to get to some of them, and others which tantalisingly took place in the venue I was stewarding in but which I wasn't able to hear properly due to noise pollution and the heavens opening: at times we wondered whether Eden should have been renamed Noah's Ark. No pics of the venue from me - only took one photo throughout the weekend - so will link readers to another blogger who did  - hello, Inverted Commas and thank you! It was a great place, and it'll be exciting to see how it develops over the next year or so.
8. The young chap who struck up a deep, theological conversation with me one evening as we struggled through the quagmire outside the Big Top. Only at Greenbelt!
9. The other venue volunteer who let me tag along with them to Last Orders on the Monday night.
10. And last, but not least - the  driver  on Tuesday morning who drove me all the way back from the gate to mainstage to collect my luggage and get me out to the car park - even as the golf carts were being called back in by taxi control. Without her, and the site steward who kept an eye on my stuff, I'd be heading to the physiotherapist by now.

So there you have it. Can't close without leaving you with another glimpse of The Mud and puddles: The Flood in G Source (thanks Banksyboy) and the err... not sure if iconic is the right word to describe it - image of Greenbelt (the muddy one) and lucky subject of last week's Church Times Caption Competition. I've been having a field day!







         

This time last year: Thunder and Rainbows - Francis and Ignatius paint the garden aka creative prayer practices

A glimpse of life in the Greenpatch household a year ago: Light my fire - Thunder and rainbows. Eeyore, Saints Francis of Assisi and Ignatius; Julie Andrews; the first Christmas crib; Every Now and Then with Jesus; flag-making; the examen;  Jackson Pollock and decorating Greenpatch dog in tasteful shades of sage green and buttermilk..  the joys of creativity...and kelly kettles.

Put another way - it's Sunday evening, I'm out of inspiration, but would prefer not to be greeted by a grumpy menopausal potato every time I log on here. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Little Portion - new TSSF magazine

For anybody who's ever wondered  what  Franciscan Tertiary (TSSF)  page  at the top of this blog refers to, I've just linked to the first issue of our province's new, colourful  magazine, Little Portion. Why Little Portion, and what's it all about anyway?

 LITTLE PORTION gets its name from Porziuncola (“little portion of land”) that was the most sacred place for the early Franciscans. It was here that the young Francis understood his vocation and embarked on his own lifelong formation and that of forming the three orders that continue to exist today. This new TSSF publication offers a ‘little portion’ of wisdom from local groups, areas and the provincial networks as a means of nurturing our members in their own personal growth as well as nourishing them in their engagement with building community both within and beyond TSSF.

                          Little Portion, Issue 1, June 2012 


 With the theme for this first issue of Prophetic Voices in our Time, I think it's  good, general reading,  whether you're of a Franciscan persuasion or none.

(And no, I'm not on commission to the editorial team, in case you wondered!)

Gazing into the mirror - St Clare

Look into this mirror of Christ daily,

ponder there your own face,

see what you need to become ready for God,

contemplate in this mirror Christ and his stupendous poverty,

look at his work on our behalf

consider his humility,

contemplate his love,

consider, look and contemplate
- from Clare of Assisi's letters to Agnes of Prague

The Three Ways of Service

Tertiaries desire to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, whom we serve in the three ways of Prayer, Study, and Work. In the life of the Order as a whole these three ways must each find full and balanced expression, but it is not to be expected that all members devote themselves equally to each of them. Each individual’s service will vary according to his or her abilities and circumstances, yet each individual member’s Personal Rule of Life must include each of the three ways.

           - From the Principles of the Third Order Society of St Francis, Day 13

Pointer to...Fr Richard Rohr: Unpacking Paradoxes

Just pointing folk over to a new series beginning  on Francisican  Fr Richard Rohr's blog Unpacking Paradoxes.  The Ego's Four Splits, based on his Franciscan Mysticism webcasts,  kicks off  this week. Part 1 - "The split between myself and yourself".  I love his definition of mysticism; one of, if not the best I've heard.

Dreaming of sunny days - Greenbelt 2012

Who'd believe we're officially in Spring? I've  the heating on, a freshly-brewed mug of coffee beside me, a bowl of porridge whirling round in the microwave ( Mr GP's shirts are probably standing to attention on the line  by now) and I'm still freezing. Time to dream of sunnier times and the annual opportunity to chill out - often in the original sense of the word (brrr!) at Greenbelt 2012; theme  Paradise Lost & Found. That's my trusty little tent pictured.

For those of you of a Franciscan persuasion, I've noticed that Ian Cron, author of, amongst others,  Chasing Francis - A Pilgrim's Tale, is down to talk this year. It's not clear what his topic will be, but I'd like to go along and listen anyway. Cron's novel about Chase, the megachurch pastor who loses his faith then rediscovers it after a pilgrimage to Italy is a good and accessible  introduction to the saint, supplementing the 'meatier' writings about Francis rather well IMO. 

Procrastination rules - Them pesky widgets

Procrastination of course, being a practice that your typical Franciscan tertiary never indulges in; especially of the more 'techy' variety. I gave up IM'ing years ago; multitasking gets me into more of a tangle than a game of cat's cradle. Tweeting I leave to the birds, (those few who've the guts to venture into GP dog's domain), and, as for the dreaded Facebook timeline - "Did she fall or was she pushed?" I vowed to hold out until the last possible moment, but it's just amazing what a girl will do to avoid getting to grips with Excel.

All this being a long-winded prelude to my confession to having succumbed to the lure of the 'Popular Posts' gadget. Do I have any popular posts?  I'm trying to keep NGP slimline; the old Greenpatches blog was beginning to develop more extraneous bulges than Yours Truly's burgeoning spare tyre. I may belong to a bells and (occasional very occasional) smells church, but for my own peace of mind, I'd prefer to keep my corner of the blogosphere as free from bells and whistles as I can. Popular posts looks to be a more than acceptable substitute for the Linkwithin widget on the old blog. The latter's logic came over rather hit and miss to me. I wonder what its MBTI profile might be?

I'll  make an exception for  the nifty little Friend's connect gadget, even if  its title conjures up an 'Upstairs Downstairs' scenario for me, with some aristocratic employer shrilling "Absolutely no followers allowed!" at the assembled household staff!

Heigh ho... simplicity is a strange beast. Would Christ have bothered with 'Followers,' I wonder?

Grain of Wheat

                                              -  Dorset, May Bank Holiday 2009

...unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. - John 12

God's call to any individual is the most perfect for that one, and our integrity stands or falls by our endeavour to be true to that call.

 - Elisabeth CSF in“Corn of Wheat - the life and history of the Community of St Francis” 

Becket Publications Oxford 1981 

Falling Upward

                                            Interview with Richard Rohr OFM about his book Falling Upward

‘[T]he task of the first half of life is to create a proper container for one’s live and answer the first essential questions: “What makes me significant?” “How can I support myself”? and “Who will go with me?” The task of the second half of life is, quite simply, to find the actual contents that this container was meant to hold and deliver… In other words, the container is not an end in itself, but exists for the sake of your deeper and fullest life, which you largely do not know about yourself! Far too many people just keep doing repair work on the container itself and never “throw their nets into the deep” to bring in the huge catch that awaits them’…” 

  - From Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Much to get my head round at the moment; not easy when said head is still recovering from  the riches of our Rome visit. There was a lot to take in for all of us in our joint TSSF Area meeting yesterday, with a challenging talk and discussion on 'Adult Spirituality,' or, to be more exact 'Spirituality in the Second Half of Life,' by one of the contributors to the recent Chronicle magazine on faith journeying.  When are we ever not on a journey? We're always in process,  a work in progress I guess. I know my own personal 'inner landscape' has had its fair share of twists and turns; not all ones I'd have chosen either. But looking back over the ground I've covered these last many years, I now realise that one of the most significant concepts I've had to let go of is the assumption that all progress is linear. The image of the spiral is one I've found helpful. You can tell I'm a fan of TS Eliot, can't you?

Yesterday's speaker used several popular models which aim to  draw together knowledge of life and faith stages to offer us helpful ways in which we can try to understand our own and other's journeys: mainly those of Richard Rohr and, one which was new to me, the model outlined in Hagberg and Guelich's Critical Journey.  Another one mentioned, that of  Alan Jamieson's  Chrysalis I'm more familiar with and is my favourite, maybe because I'm increasingly finding myself respond more to visual imagery as I get older.  This isn't unusual, apparently a renewed, (or even a new) discovery of personal creativity is common to the second half of life.

Either way, I've found some of these ideas  invaluable as my life's grown and changed, especially when  I struggled with the church as an institution, it's been like a lifeline for me to know that where I was  wasn't all there is ; the pastures of Christianity are far wider and greener than the field I happen to be in.  Neither does it do anybody harm to realise that the way of living of the cows across in the neighbouring ones are as valid as those of your own, however exasperating you may find them!

To return to TSSF - or indeed any religious grouping or community, the challenge is maybe, to reflect on we can prayerfully use tools like these (and they are tools, not the be all and end all) to resource and support each other wherever we happen to be in our Christian walk. Useful to reflect too, that just as individuals grow and change, so institutions and religious orders too, mature and change.   Though the message and ethos of our founder is timeless, the way in which we live that out in response to society and culture we find ourselves merits  a re-think.

A challenging day...