jonnybaker

listing - a gem

every so often something surprises me in a delightful way. i love it when that happens. the latest was when chris goan sent us at proost an idea for a book. it's a collection of poems and meditations riffing off lists in the bible - the beattitudes, the fruit of the spirit, a time to be born... i have fallen in love with the book. it really is lovely in every way. of course we said yes! and it's now out on proost this month as of yesterday. chris is part of aoradh - here's the foreword i wrote:

“Maybe the poet is gay but he’ll be heard anyway
Maybe the poet is drugged but he won’t stay under the rug
Maybe the voice of the spirit in which case you’d better hear it
Maybe he’s a woman who can touch you where you’re human”

This is penned by Bruce Cockburn in his song Maybe the Poet, a writer Chris cites as an inspiration when it comes to crafting words. I can’t help wondering if Cockburn had been reading Walter Brueggemann’s book Finally Comes the Poet in which he suggests that it is poetry rather than prose that we need too hear to shatter our settled world to create the way for newness to come.

This book is a little gem, a surprise that came Proost’s way over the horizon from Chris. He loves crafting words, playing with words, chewing over words, creating and re-creating worlds with words. His poems and meditations are a delight, spinning off from and opening up new takes on familiar verses of ancient wisdom from the scriptures.

It’s the second book from Chris on proost. The first is the wonderful meditation he wrote to go along with Si Smith’s images of Christ’s journey into the wilderness ‘40’.

“Pay attention to the poet
You need him and you know it…”          Proost

you can order a copy or purchase a download copy from proost

pentecost movies

pall singh is an amazingly creative guy and has been a friend for years. he is the founder and creative behind sanctuary a community in birmingham who draw on the contemplative traditions of the christian faith but fusing it with contemporary british asian culture. it's truly unique. he is now also a cms mission partner which is great. this month on proost we have three movies from east and west trust who produced a dvd (scroll down this page) a while back of 5 meditative movies which captured the flavour of what they are about. pall was the visionary behind it. natural images mix with the sounds of aradhna - tabla, sitar and so on - around the themes of fire, water and light. we've picked three that seem to tie in perfectly with pentecost. all the movies are around 7 minutes long and make an ideal meditation in their own right or visual wallpaper for the soul as background during worship and prayer.

i had a count up and there are around 40 movies now on proost which surprised me how fast we've built up that number. subscribe if you haven't or download the individual movies...

space and time and contemplative prayer

i have put together a movie with jon birch to go with our track space and time. it's a pretty simple idea - photos of empty seats, chairs and benches to invite the viewer to sit in god's presence and take some space. we made it thinking about lent being a time to focus on prayer. i also thought it would go well as part of my exhibit but having put it next to the photo have decided the photo is more powerful on its own.

jenny is doing a national series of training days for urban saints on contemplative prayer. and so we've recorded three tracks of her leading prayer/meditation exercises - an ignatian examen, a stilling exercise and a breathing prayer. these go to make up the contemplative prayer EP.

these are this month's proost releases and ideal for lent. you can watch and/or listen to samples in the media player. check the list of ideas on the front page of proost for other ideas.

am off to norway tomorrow for the first time for a couple of days to do some youth ministry training. looking forward to it...

molten meditation - movies and tracks

we add new content to proost every month.

this month's new content is molten meditation. robin vincent has been at greenbelt the last two years leading his unique approach to meditation. he describes it like this...

Finding a time and place to meditate and reflect on God's word can be a struggle. So many distractions, so many interruptions, if you do find a moment of quiet all you can hear is the chatter of your own mind trying to contain the day. Molten Meditation wants to help. The music is designed to fill your head, to blow away all the cares and thoughts of the day, and allow you to be immersed in the sound.

Each meditation is between 10 and 15 minutes long during which the world is pushed away and replaced with soothing and uplifting music. The words of scripture are introduced softly within the music, making them easy to absorb and yet leaves plenty of space for your own worship.

This is not background music, this is purposeful, participatory meditation. It's not designed to empty your head, reaching for nothingness, rather this is the thoughtful praying and meditation on the Bible to facilitate an encounter with the living God. We're not looking to be emptied, we're looking to be filled.

we have his album which consists of 5 meditations and two movies accompanying two of the tracks.

so have a look at proost and you can watch samples of the movies and listen to samples of the tracks in the media player. and of course you can buy them... i have said this before and will keep saying it, if you like our stuff then the best value is to subscribe. it gives you access to our back catalogue whenever you like to download stuff and will give you new content every month for a year - all that for just £60...!

cms in free fall

at the official opening of cms house today i was asked to lead an audio visual meditation on the hinge point in the service between looking back and celebrating cms past and looking forward to the future and the changes ahead. a few people have asked where the video etc was from so i am posting it here so i can point people to it...

the video was dayvan cowboy by boards of canada which i did make a worship trick a while back. you can download it from warprecords free or get the dvd free with the EP that you can order from the same page. the text of the piece was as follows. i read it such that the line about looking into the future is before the parachutist comes through the clouds, and the baptised line fitted with him falling into the ocean...

god crossed a border, a boundary
left his world to go on a journey into ours

the word became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood
dwelt among us

we stand in a long line of ancestors
of pioneers
of risk takers
of improvisers
of those who dared to take the adventure
of following christ
to leave their known world
step off its edge
free falling with god
crossing borders
into unknown futures
and new worlds
to share the story of christ
and plant the seed of the gospel

as the father sent me so i am sending you

the story has been passed to us because of those
who dared,
who risked,
who dreamed
who followed,
who improvised

now we stand looking out into the future

will you dare?
will you dream?
will you risk?
will you follow?
will you leave your known world?
will you freefall with god?
will you join christ in the adventure?
will you be baptised into god's mission?
will you rise to surf with god into the future?
will you trust the spirit?

far we have come far must we go
here we are send us

worship trick 2 series 3 - ignatian examen

at the london mind body spirit festival there was a new meditation space. each hour thropugh the day someone would lead meditation. unlike the workshops which cost a lot of money this was free. we were delighted when we (dekhomai) were invited by festival organisers to lead one of the meditation slots for the festival. jenny was on the stand at that time and agreed to lead it.

the room was full (about 30 people) and she led them through an ignatian meditation based on the examen. the theme for the meditation space was unity which is why it has that slant to it. the examen was one of the postcards that we had created for the festival so we were able to give everyone who attended something to takeaway so they could practice the examen at home.

jenny has added the text of the examen meditation to the dekhomai site and i am adding it as a worship trick. there is already one examen as a worship trick but that is an examen reflecting on the previous year.

it went really well. fantastic to be able to lead that in a space like the mind body spirit festival and trust and pray that god will be meeting people there outside of the walls of church where we tend to confine christian spirituality.

worship trick 200 concluding the second series

so the second series of worship tricks comes to a close. the 200th worship trick is a series of dekhomai spiritual exercises. next week we are back in action running a dekhomai stand at the london mind body spirit festival. we will be offering a space for welcome, listening, healing prayer, massage and other ways of praying from the christian tradition. we'll be using the jesus deck for the first time - more about that another time. we have a set of 5 postcards to give away that a few of us have worked on (ian, jen, gareth, me). 4 of the images are my photos which is kind of neat. anyway i am making these 5 cards and exercises worship trick 200. the next question is what next - series 3?! we have also been invited to lead a meditation session at the festival for the first time - jen will doing this on saturday 5pm so pray for her...

the 5 are:

prayer beads

the examen

blessings

labyrinth

forgiveness

worship trick 74 [series 2] - set sail

last week at the cms residential mark berry led a couple of worship/reflections. one was based around his recent pilgrimage inspired by saint brendan. it was fabulous... mark makes all his stuff available free via his blog. various componenets that went to make it up are
deep calls to deep (mp3 about 6mb) | st brendans prayer | st brendan meditation | sir francis drake prayer

together with his filming of the place where brendan set sail mixed in with other things on arkaos this was inspirational stuff... i love the drake prayer and am taking the liberty of pasting it in here so i have a record of it.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

mark berry podcast - a man of many talents

following the popularity of mark berry's desert meditation, he has started a podcast of his meditations. no 2 is dreams. due to the complications of copyright and music mark has created his own chilled track to go with it and it's excellent - a man of many talents! along with the outlines of what mark does at their midweek contemplative space it's a great resource.

the podcast is also a way mark hopes to generate a bit of support for his ministry so once he adds a donate button go and give him some support...

i have added the feed to his podcast into my list in the sidebar. (note to self: update the worship trick with his meditation so it includes the podcast feed)...

worship trick58 - desert meditation

mark berry put together a desert meditation on CD for the worship event he helped at last weekend. he has now found someone to upload it online for him - see desert audio 1 and desert audio 2. it may only be there for a short season so go and download it now. ideal for lent obviously...

mark's meditative stuff is proving a great resource - he has since added ideas on dreams

[update: mark has set up a podcast with a feed of his meditations]

epiphany meditation - worship trick 53

it's the time of year called epiphany - a season of revelation.

it was good to see mark berry today and catch up on what he is up to in telford. he has posted on his blog an epiphany meditation which i am making worship trick 53...

Technorati Tags: epiphany

worship trick 97 - kiss of God

What kind of kiss is the kiss of God? - reflection by maggi dawn