Summer Wanderings: Bikes, Buddhists Bunting and Birds

Welcome back to the blog after the Summer break. And what a Summer it was this year! Sun, sea,  soggy sand, (which Mr GP had to pull me out of!) and...silliness. Well, not the last, but  I had to find something else beginning with the same letter. Here's a quick tour of what I've called the Summer of the volunteer.

Souvenir from LEL 2013 - Control Eskdalemuir

First off, we caught two  trains  and a bus to  the wilds of Eskdalemuir in Scotland to join the doughty team of volunteers supporting thousands of cyclists riding the LEL London-Edinburgh London cycle event. How do you begin to describe such a mammoth undertaking? Mr GP rode in this four years ago; this time he wanted to experience it from the other side. We'd deliberately chosen this remote location, because of it being one we'd passed through several years previously on our Durham-Iona walk. Also due to to the nearby presence of the Samye Ling Buddhist monastery and Tibetan centre: a wonderfully peaceful place to wander round between shifts; the fact that they have a great coffee shop is neither here nor there... I'll keep you any  longer, but in true Blue Peter style, pass you on to something somebody else made earlier -  by Peter, a fellow volunteer who captures the whole experience far better than I ever could.

Siloth on Solway - Milennium mosaic

From there we hurtled back down to Carlisle and out to sunny Siloth on Solway. What a discovery there, too! Simple, honest to goodness unspolt seaside with wonderful views from  the Solway back over to Scotland in one direction and towards the 'proper,' Lake District in the other. Somebody told me that you've not visited the true Lake District until you've been to Keswick.

Home Comforts: A little corner of Greenbelt 2013

Then on  - for me at least - to Greenbelt Festival where I was volunteering again  in one of the worship venues. I've said before my personal experience of the festival  seems to alternate between one good and one bad year. 2010, good, 2011, less than positive, 2012 much better. 2013? I'd say it was the year of change and challenge - for many of us, I'd guess, as we came to term with the challenges of a re-configured (because of the damage done to the racecourse during last year's floods) and much smaller site. Apart from the inevitable noise pollution which was unavoidable with several major music venues Big top and beer tent all located up one end of the festival village, and the loss of several much-loved venues to the downscaling, I rather liked it myself. It seemed much cosier and less intimidating to this dyed in the wool introvert, whilst as a hard-working volunteer I found that with the smaller distances between locations, I actually managed to get to more than one talk this time round. Sue Pickering's first talk on the Friday evening on the spirituality of ageing, Hopeweaver's creative morning prayer, Steve Chalke, Abbot Christopher Jamieson's breathtaking session on contemplative prayer - I was stewarding for this one, but it was so popular that we had the doors open. I'll never forget standing there watching what must have been over 300 people, deep in silent prayer, some I guess, for the first time ever,  whilst the hullaballoo of the festival was all around them. Plenty other memories too - many of them came with the volunteer experience. A classic being helping to steward a long, long queue of folk queuing for the Goth eucharist whilst a silent eucharist was being held just across the hallway. Surreal isn't in it!

That pesky 'inner parrot!'

Finally, last weekend, I'd a great time introducing some groups to the Sybil MacBeth colouring prayer methods as part of a series of interactive workshops over the county border. Pictured here is that pesky 'Inner Parrot,' (inner critic), who played a walk-on part being ceremoniously binned at the start of each session! I fancy he looks suitably  subdued now, don't you? 

So, on with the autumn with many changes forecast in my little corner. Fasten your seatbelts now...

Colouring your Prayer

Here's another right-brain creative way of praying with colours that I've found both helpful and fun. "What? Prayer?...fun?? Tsk!" I hear you say. Why not? When fellow fidget Sybil Macbeth was feeling  particularly  overwhelmed by friend and family prayer needs she stumbled across a simple method of drawing and colouring your prayer. No artistic ability needed whatsoever: if you can doodle you can bring your concerns before God this way. Simply draw a shape write the name of the person you're praying for inside this, add whatever embellishments, twiddly bits and colours you fancy, whilst holding the person in prayer. Repeat for the next person. Carry the picture with you in your pocket or just in your head and revisit your prayers during the day.

As the author says, this prayer style combines the  active, visual and meditative, "Active because you draw your prayers, visual because you see your prayers,

and meditative because you revisit your prayers throughout the day." I love it because although I'm fine with silence, and can come to physical stillness no problem, underneath I  struggle with the mental fidgets. I tend to live in my head overmuch,  easily filling  my prayer session with anything from planning my diary, writing the shopping list or worse still, worrying. 

Nor am I in any way  articulate either: what I call the "Dearly Beloved, we are Gathered Here," style of intercession doesn't work for me, and the alternative "Father God we just lift up Mrs Bloggs who is currently in Ward 4b, Bed 3  of St E's district hospital...be with her, the surgeons, nurses and the ward cat.  Lord, we take dominion over the ingrowing toenail of our beloved sister in Christ...." and so on plain brings me out in a nervous rash!


Check out some inspiring  examples  at the Praying in Color site and blog. Doodling like this can easily be adapted to other aspects of prayer like Lectio Divina, discernment, reflection and simple sitting in God's presence. I've posted one of these last of my own here: