the fiesta festival in earlsfield was great - it was so good to meet amd learn from the wisdom of alastair macintosh. grace curated a space to reflect on hope and grief - flip sides of a prophet's imagination - or flip sides of the road to newness perhaps. i have added some photos in an album here. it was good to suspend a block of ice for an installation on grief - last time we did that was 2001 apparently!
tomorrow night i am going to see harry's new poetry show i am 10000 (which he will be performing at edinburgh along with harry and chris new show). come along if you are in london and you get to see chris' solo show as well - weird i know. harry and chris but not harry n chris or something...
super proud of harry - just saw today that he has 2 million hits on his exteter tedX talk - wow. i am generally delirious if i get over 50 likes on an instagram photo! i need to up my game clearly though inspired by harry i worked out i will be 20000 days this year on the same day as joel's birthday.
i should also add that the rejected eurovision song contest entry of harry and chris - sorry! - is out today...
i'm looking forward to fiesta in london in july - a festival for pioneers, activists and others wanting to make their community a better place. it's being hosted by earlsfield friary and will be great food, music, spirituality, conversations and the like. book in here . grace are taking part on the sat night and i see harry and chris will also be performing. i am a big fan of alastair mcintosh who is going to be the resident wise elder for the weekend.
had a wonderful day off yesterday - the weather is amazing at the moment - sadly probably global warming! but i visited two exhibtions and went to see massive attack in concert in the evening. one of the exhibitions was life death rebirth with bill viola video installations and michael angelo drawings. i'd actualluy seen a lot of the viola installations at various exhibitions over the years but it is amazing. i am convinced my heart rate was slower when i came out - i think we took getting on for a couple of hours going round. his work is very spiritual drawing on religious themes. i found the curators comments next to some pieces quite annoying though! one of things that was strange was how the view of spirituality seemed to buy into a negative view of the world and the notion of getting the soul out - it's kind of a platonic view of the world that has informed some bad what i call escaplogy theology over the years. the worst case of it was next to a drawing by michael angelo of the resurrected christ which was a really great drawing of a body bursting out with energy and the curator had sai something like a suprising embodied drawing of the resurrected christ - duh! what exactly did you think the resurrection is if not a body???!!! anyway that aside it is a fantastic exhibition. this photo is of the piece fire woman which is amazing - possibly my favourite piece. of course there are no photos allowed by i took this photo years back at an exhibition where i got thrown out for taking photos which is the only time that has ever happend to me.
massive attack were great as ever - i have no idea how many times i have seen them - a lot! but just as in the manchester international festival adam curtis was doing the visuals. it was a wide ranging set of visuals of life in our crazy world - once again he was opening up the idea that we are stuck in our own past rather than able to imagine a different future as we are fed things based on feedback llops - you like this so you'll love that. one memorable sequence was a series of projected slogans from politicians that sounded great in their own right but when projected together came across as hollow slogans which is what we have got used to. it was pretty bleak... but i found it also woke me up - it's so easy to be numb.
it's so great living in london!
it was a wonderful evening at grace with a new labyrinth designed by adam baxter and made in the afternoon from some cloth and gaffer tape. st mary's in ealing is a wonderful magical space for it and with candles flickering and a playlist of ambient tunes a prayerful meditative evening ensued... if you click on this link and scroll through you'll see some of the labyrinths we have made and run over the years. i think the first was back in 1998 or 1999. this labyrinth web site has lots of info if you're wondering about labyrinths
next grace we are delighted to welcome friends from the table in southall. the table is a fresh expression of church that fits perfectly into southall's context gathering around the table over food and conversation and hospitality. friends from the table will be coming and helping lead grace and cooking up some food southall style - one not to miss. don't eat before you come!
because we'll be catering we could do with knowing numbers so let us know if you are planning to come (if possible).
had a lot of love for this photo on instagram so thought i'd post it here too! it's a piece of art by tracey emin that was part of the london lumiere festival
i was at the opening of home community cafe in earlsfield last night. it was wonderfully done and such a joyful celebration. this idea has been 3 years in the making. i got to share in the story because meg whose dream it has been and whose work has made it happen trained with us at cms on the pioneer course for a year. she brought this idea to make good, a module we run on missional entrepreneurship, 3 years ago. so it was wonderful to see this dream realised and it will be a great hub for community gathering and transformation i am sure. it was actually the same week that clean for good was brought to as an idea so it's been so exciting this month to have the joy of going to two launches of projects we have seen develop from idea to reality. well done meg!
we run that week in november and april each year so if you have an idea to work up come along - it's an amazing week.
it was so brilliant this evening to be at the launch of clean for good. clean for good is an ethical cleaning company paying cleaners the london living wage and committed to treating them well. the idea for this was thought up by miriam goodacre and guy treweek when they were at st andrews by the wardrobe church in the city. they had noticed how poorly cleaners were being treated and figured that it would be good news to create a different kind of business. miriam brought the idea to the cms pioneer missional entrepreneurship week 3 years ago (now called make good) and from there a team have worked on the business plan, gaining investment, setting up a board and so on. they have their first managers in place and first cleaners on board with contracts up and running. we heard from a couple of cleaners who told tales of ppreviously being paid around 4 pounds an hour and working 72 hour weeks. through clean for good they now have a fair wage and a contract. so simple but so good. a fuller article is here
if you are in london then have a think about your company or church or whatever and ask yourself if you know #whoismycleaner and see how they are paid and treated. time to shine a light on this sector and do some good!
the photo above is a mix of the team who dreamed it up, the people running it and the cleaners.
[update: good to see the guardian published a piece on it]
Jeremiah 29:7: Work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.
Proverbs 11:11: Good people bless and build up their city, but the wicked can destroy it with their words.
What does good look like, in Ealing, in London, in the world? How does Grace support good and how do we support one another as we do good? What is God saying to us at this time? Join us for Communion, conversation and prayer.
i already posted a photo on my phone of ecce homo by mark wallinger but i had to go back with a decent camera as i love the statue so much - here's a few photos...
i was delighted to see mark wallinger's ecce homo statue is back on display in london. i loved it when it was on the fourth plinth in trafalgar square. it showed christ as a human size figure, looking like one of us and in the context of all the other pompous statues made a big statement.
it's now reappeared at the top of the steps of st paul's cathedral - christ with eyes closed, life size, in front of the crowd at a time of trial with a crown of thorns made of barbed wire. you can go and stand next to him and have a selfie if you want (kind of weird thing to do?!). but again this is christ downsized from the pomposity of st pauls cathedral. it's sponsored by amnesty international. christ was beaten, tortured and executed as someone who spoke truth to power - in his case religious power. there are many many people tortured, imprisoned, and killed in the world today so i hope this statue serves to draw attention to those people.
when i took a photo of the statue on my phone i got chatting to a woman taking a photo. her opening question to me was 'who is this?' . i assumed she meant the artist but suddenly realised that she had no idea that the statue was a representation of jesus christ and indeed she had no idea who jesus was and is. she was american. so i tried to tell the story briefly. but i found it a wake up call that she is probably one of many who simply don't know the story of jesus christ. there are four stories of his life told by matthew, mark, luke and john. today, good friday, is the day when his death is remembered. why not read one of those stories of his life? we went on to discuss photography as it turned out she had just bought an expensive camera but had no idea how to use it so i gave an impromptu camera lesson...
if you are passing st paul's cathedral go and take a look - the statue is there until the end of may i think. i don't know how long it will be before they are forced to protect the statue but currently you can go right next to the statue.
i love anthony gormley's work so it was great to visit his fit exhibition which is currently on at white cube gallery bermondsey. as ever he mainly explores the human form. it's fabulous and amzing that it's free to get in.
the photo above is taken from inside a long body shape tunnel that you walk down. because it's a phone camera it couldn't handle the light which makes for a pretty interesting photo. the photo is actually jenny's head exploding with light rather than mine but didn't make such a good title for it!
i loved a room of 500 plus figures on the floor making human shapes from blocks. this one is curled in the foetal position withdrawing, vulnerable filled with shame perhaps...
london lumiere was wonderful - a huge success, only troubled by its popularity. as ever it's a challenge to photograph in the dark but here's a few pics...
starting today and running for four days is a free festival in london with artists working with light - london lumiere. it looks great. i am in town friday evening so will check out a few - am a big julian opie fan so looking forward to his installation for example... the programme is here
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