We spent some time with Mark Scandrette earlier this year when he stayed with us in Oxford. A recent talk of his, available as a podcast here, talks about 5 myths of community… in which he makes some points that help question what we mean by ‘community’ and how we go about nurturing it – and he questions some of hype around the buzz word of ‘community’. It’s worth a listen, but I’ll summarise here:

1. Myth of belonging: We seem to believe that the ‘right’ community/group will meet our needs and as a result we will have community… which can mean we take community and dump all our needs into it, approaching it as what I can ‘get from’ rather than what I can ‘give’.

“Belonging and community are something that we bring ourselves to – it is a practice, we practice love and sometimes the fringe benefit is that we feel ‘it’ [belonging], but when you don’t it doesn’t mean ‘it’ is not there.”

There is often a tendency to create community around conversation, eg meals, and Mark says, one lunch like that seems to always lead to another, instead he talks of inviting people to join us to do something.

“Community is not a good goal in itself, but it is a good by-product of seeking God’s Kingdom together.”

2. Myth of the healthy sceptic: There are too many critics in the world, often armchair critics.

3. Myth of the super leader: Mark says we wrongly believe that the good community needs that special super leader.

4. Myth of flat leadership: We’ve seen the celebratory leaders, and decided we don’t need leaders, we’ll just do it all together. But community is always initiated by someone/some group of people – someone says “what are we going to do?”

5. Myth of community without conflict: We’re never going to get over the drama. The drama is where we are learning. How we are learning is in that tension. Get comfortable with being broken, admitting we’re wrong.

A couple of weeks back the Guardian had a couple of articles on co-housing and communal living… we’ve always been interested in the co-housing idea and there was some interesting stuff in the articles… mainly on how hard it is to start a co-housing project. Anyway as time is too short to sya anymore now, here are the links if you are interested:

Communal living: Grand designs on living in perfect harmony
Communal living: Love thy neighbourhood

Just watched the video of 100,000 paper air-planes being released from the roof of buildings in Michigan, while 20,000 people below sing, hum or play an instrument to the tune of sigur ros’ “olsen olsen”as part of “artprize” event. Strangely pleasing and fun!

Also this week you can watch in full Sigur Ros’ brilliant ‘Heima’ film online on Pitchfork.

Recently watched The End of the Line, which is currently available in the UK on More4 using  4 On Demand (The End of the Line – 4oD – Channel 4) and soon to be out on DVD.

It is an incredible story about the shocking decline in global fish stocks – sadly not a film about what might happen in the future, but what has happened already… well worth watching.

The film asks that consumers should choose only sustainable seafood – which means, first and foremost, that they agree to avoid eating actively endangered species, for example, the bluefin and bigeye tunas and the common skate. Details of what to do in restaurants here and when buying fish here.

Rowan Williams is in the news this week talking about the climate crisis and our human dignity and spirituality, and our connection to the earth’s rhythms. It comes as he gave the Operation Noah lecture last night, which I’m sure will be available  online soon:

“If I ask what’s the point of my undertaking a modest amount of recycling my rubbish or scaling down my air travel, the answer is not that this will unquestionably save the world within six months, but in the first place it’s a step towards liberation from a cycle of behaviour that is keeping me, indeed most of us, in a dangerous state — dangerous, that is, to our human dignity and self-respect.”

via Dr Rowan Williams says climate crisis a chance to become human again – The Guardian.

He said that Britain had to get back in touch with the “natural rhythms of the seasons … the fact that the Earth turns, things grow here and not there, now and not then”. He added: “More people ought to have allotments. It’s part of reconnecting — the sense of connectedness to natural processes.”

via Dr Rowan Williams: ‘Dig for victory over climate change and grow your own food’ – Times Online.

In this week’s Something Understood on Radio 4, Mark Tully talked to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, about his personal understanding of prayer… and it is one of the best descriptions of prayer that I’ve heard in ages.

He talks of prayer as stilling your body and imagination, which aid communion with God and make us present… practices that I’ve been exploring particularly over the past year, and which I’ve found helpfully explored in the book Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird.

But what in particular I found helpful in this interview was Rowan’s explanation of intercessory prayer, especially when viewed from this understanding of a more ‘internal prayer’. He moves us away from the ‘shopping list of prayers’ that we often find practiced in the church, and moves us towards a definition of intercessory prayer that says: “I’m going to spend ten minutes just thinking about you and Jesus.”

“You don’t send in a list of requests. You don’t bombard God with your demands. You just hold the image, the sense of a person or a situation in the presence of God, as if you want to let the one seep into the other, bringing those realities together in your mind and heart.”

That he says is how he finds intercession works, which makes much sense to me.

Inevitably our emotions move us towards asking for help for this person or to let this to happen, but Rowan says – “the bottom line is holding them there, your emotions push you to saying these things, and there is no need to be ashamed of that, but the reality is letting God into the situation.”

You’ve got a few days to listen to the programme itself on the BBC iPlayer if interested.

Greenbelt 2009 AS 1193, originally uploaded by Greenbelt Festival Official Pictures.

Another great Greenbelt this year… here’s ten things I liked:

1. Having cups of tea with lots of friends and camping with Home folk… thanks to Jim & Mary for organising the spot, and Rich & Sarah for helping us get the tent up in the wind
2. Making tea using the Kelly Kettle and cooking on our charcoal stove from Zambia… without setting the racecourse alight…
3. Ockham’s Razor performing their aerial theatre in the Big Top
4. Connecting with Chris Sunderland of Earth Abbey and getting to most of Permaculture inspired spirituality with Bruce Stanley
5. Duke Special (with Ayla asleep on my back) and The Welcome Wagon at the mainstage
6. Bumping into Jenny (fellow house244 resident) and knowing community is like family
7. Sharing a tent and the weekend with Polly and Ayla
8. L’Arche washing of the feet service
9. Despite missing so many talks knowing I can download them later (notably, Alistair McIntosh, Eugenie Harvey, Shannon Hopkins)
10. and not looking at a computer screen all weekend.

Greenbelt 2009 ED 0214, originally uploaded by Greenbelt Festival Official Pictures.

All tea lovers know that there is an art to making a good cuppa… and that art is nothing new as this little clip from 1941 shows.

Do you follow the ‘Six golden rules’?

Thanks to the Tea Appreciation Society for the link to the clip.