mayBe - greenbelt

Greenbelt 2014

admin — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 15:53:37 +0000

Greenbelt 2014

mayBe were invited to be contributers at greenbelt again. It's a great tradition of ours and a place we all feel at home. Lately we've been rocking the family-friendly worship sessions and this year we were overwhelmed with the number of people who came to our session based around Sharing a Shell.

Sunday, September 28, 2014 - 3:53pm

Photos:

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The Very Hungry Consumer

admin — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:53:43 +0000

The Very Hungry Consumer

This is from our service at Greenbelt 2012. We were looking to challenge our consumer culture; looking for nourishment; looking towards transformation. It was a family service (it's the only kind we know!) that also included a reading of the Very Hungry Caterpillar, sharing discussions, and both origami and real butterflies.

The Very Hungry Consumer

In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf. Then one day, out popped a small and very hungry consumer

On Monday she consumed one pre-packaged fast-food ready meal washed down with a real-thing life-max energy drink... but she was still hungry
Lord have mercy
On Tuesday she consumed 2 new sweat-shop fast-fashion child labour produced items of clothing... but she was still hungry
Lord have mercy
On Wednesday she consumed 3 new sleek iGadgets to help her share and engage with her virtual-friends while the real people who manufactured the gadget lined up on the rooftops, ready to jump because of conditions in the factory... but she was still hungry
Lord have mercy
On Thursday she consumed 4 corporate sponsored events designed to link healthy lifestyles with brands rooted in environmental destruction and the commodification of human lives... but she was still hungry
Lord have mercy
On Friday she consumed 5 efficient cheap one-click deliveries from corporate companies just off-shore enough not to contribute to our schools, health, local communities or economies... but she was still hungry
Lord have mercy
On Saturday she consumed:
- one average day's 3,500 marketing messages
- one average day's 150 litres of water
- one degrading reality TV show
- one BOGOF offer at a giant supermarket
- one confusing insurance product sold on fear
- one hour of 24hr repeating news
- one plastic throwaway toy
- one celebrity scandal magazine
- one flight to find sunshine because she deserved a break,
- … and that night she felt sick to her stomach.
Lord have mercy on our soul
The next day was Sunday. She looked for something that would make her feel better; something that would nourish her pending transformation.

We can probably all recognise something in this story of overconsumption. What do you consume that you know does you no good; does the Earth no good; does others no good? What's your green leaf? How would you feel when you eat it? Perhaps you found something nourishing at Greenbelt? Please feel free to share your comments below.

Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 8:53pm

Greenbelt - creative collaborative challenge

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:19:33 +0000

Greenbelt - creative collaborative challenge

Greenbelt is on the horizon and we had a lively creative discussion about our contribution to the New Forms worship. Abi kept great notes for Saturday's gathering to build on, Ezra + Niamh entertained the fish + Annabel fed us all with scrumptious quiche + cake. It was also great to have some new faces. Roll on Greenbelt - always so special for us.

Monday, June 28, 2010 - 8:19pm

Yay! Greenbelt want mayBe community back for 2010

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:00:36 +0000

Yay! Greenbelt want mayBe community back for 2010

We received an email from greenbelt inviting mayBe community back to be part of the new worship plans for GB2010. We replied immediately with a whole-hearted YES.

Monday, February 15, 2010 - 10:00pm

mayBe at greenbelt_2009

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:41:51 +0000

mayBe at greenbelt_2009

Check out our other photos on our gallery page.

Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 10:41am

Greenbelt "alpha testing"

admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:23:40 +0000

Greenbelt "alpha testing"

Team GB met again. We did an early run-through of the plans to see how it felt. And it felt good! A few new ideas and lots of volunteering to take bits on left us with the following even more exciting, updated plan. Look out for a beta test coming to a community Sunday near you soon!

Visuals

Rach is going to make canopy decorations using similar materials as before. Emma is up for helping.
Rich has made "Still life in motion" videos of South Park and Port Meadow, to "bring our outside cathedral in".
Jim and Jon (mechanic) to make other projections, including key words from readings, and possibly the Lamb song. Also our contact details (see below) for at the end.

Sounds and music

JohnK will lead putting a suitable sound track together, including the Lamb song.
Rich will make recording of crowd noises.

Opening/arrival

Crowd voices sound-scape volume increases as more people come in, then shut it off suddenly to signal the start; relative stillness.
People welcomed at the door by community members and given a hazelnut (in its shell -- you'll see why later) and hand out resource sheets.
Tracey will source hazelnuts (in their shells)
ChrisW will make nut allergy signs!
JohnK will make beautiful resources (not typed, decorated). Rich can colour-photo-copy.

Welcome voice

Tell people what will happen, who we are (a community [from Oxford] exploring creative, simple, engaged playful living in the way of Christ).
Introduce theme:
- stepping back [from the pace of fashion]
- mention stillness in the eternal moment
- smallness/held-ness; hope of moving from fear to freedom in this.
Rich will write this.

Call & response

Use our Christ is coming - keeping the rhythm of our regular community life.
Emma will adapt this.

Chant: come Holy Spirit...

Jim wants to lead the singing on the day!

Wisdom

Read by different community members around the room (microphones allowing). These are all about scale (vastness, depth, eternity...).

Vastness: Psalm 8 (Message remix?) macro skies... micro self... Why does God bother with us tiny things? [yet God does].
Eternity: John 1, 14-18 ish (eternal presence of God,“He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” John 1 v15)
Depth: Julian of Norwich: In this vision he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought "What may this be?" And it was generally answered thus: "It is all that is made." I marvelled how it might last, for it seemed it might suddenly have sunk into nothing because of its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: "It lasts and ever shall, because God loves it."

Chant: Gloria, Gloria, Gloria...

Reflection space

Community voice introduces. Rachel will write this, based on her similar improvisation with the clover leaves that we did on Angel & Grayhound meadow.
We will use Lamb song "Small" (see the YouTube video but we won't use the video at GB) we'll let this play through to time the meditation.

Mingling/improvisation

Community voice encourages people to say "Hi" to the people near them, and share something of their thoughts.
Tell people that we do this sort of thing quite a lot and sometimes we just turn to each other and talk about our day: it's a space to share, saying something profound is optional!
Possibly using inviting people to put their hazelnut on a circle marked-out on a bit of paper.
Provides relief for people who like to share after all that reflection!
Jim will write this.

Lead-in to sacred act

Towards the end of the mingling/chatting/sharing, we'll turn up the crowd noises again, then cut it dead and community voices will read pre-prepared statements of people expressing how they feel about being so small.
We'll do a run through of this "service" at a mayBe Sunday soon, and ask community members to write their thoughts for this. We want to select a range of different views.

Sacred act

Invite everyone to bring their hazelnut to the middle and place it along an infinity symbol ? which will be marked out.
symbolism: you are held; you have a place in God's eternity.
visually nice.
We will also invite people, if they would like to, to go to one of five(?) community members stationed around the room to receive a blessing (possibly anointing with oil).
We thought we would ask people for their name, and use it in the blessing.
Andrea will write what to say, how to mark out the ?, and words for the blessing.

Bye byes

blessing Emma will write this
invite people to find their nut and take it with! [for a laugh]
keep in touch: cards with mayBe details on? (ChrisW will design these. Possibly use moo.com?) should include
- website maybe.org.uk
- twitter.com/mayBeCommunity
- hellomaybe@maybe.org.uk
- 07870 988 904
community members clearly around to be chatted to.ChrisW will design and print badges.

And spontaneously...

Sam is planning our spontaneous act of worship! Do talk to her if you have ideas or want to help. All comments welcome!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 8:23pm

update from gb on the new forms space

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:43:32 +0000

update from gb on the new forms space

This just in from gb:
Tibetan Prayer Flags (image:wikimedia)

The bean bags are no longer with us...

We will be having an on-going installation within the venue in response to the festival theme 'Standing in the Long Now' - this is still forming in the creative minds of the venue managers and technical team - though at the moment we are working with a Christian interpretation of some images of tibetan prayer flags. The hope is that we will have an on-going vibe in the venue that will not interfere with your contributions but will hold the venue together visually and provide participants (you and those attending the worship sessions) with a sense of the how the venue sits in relation to the festival as a whole.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009 - 11:43am

Greenbelt: emerging shapes

admin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:09:41 +0000

Greenbelt: emerging shapes

pic by dave

We met at Topsy, Jon & Isla's to crystalise all the great ideas we've had from the three GB discussions so far. Still lots of questions, but exciting to see potential shapes coming out; ideas finding a home in the structure. Oooh, don't look at this, it's out-of-date! Look at this instead! Here's the plan. Bits that need community members to take forward are »in bold«.

Throughout / venue

Need decorations. Drapes again? ("Freedom" "Fear" "Micro" "Macro" "Eternal"...) »creative types step on up!«
Need suitable sound track »got good tunes?«
Projections: "still life in motion" »film the outside to bring it in« slow zoom on tiny candle? other pictures? »your ideas here!«

Opening/arrival

Crowd voices sound-scape volume increases as more people come in, then shut it off suddenly to signal the start; relative stillness. »someone to record pub/cafe sounds«
How to welcome people at the door?»ideas« Give people a hazelnut (in its shell -- you'll see why later)? Hand out sheets?

Welcome voice

Tell people what will happen, who we are (a community [from Oxford] exploring creative, simple, engaged playful living in the way of Christ).
Introduce theme:
- stepping back [from the pace of fashion]
- stillness in the eternal moment
- smallness/held-ness; hope of moving from fear to freedom in this.
»someone to write«

Call & response

Use our Christ is coming - keeping the rhythm of our regular community life. »someone to adapt«
»words on sheets? projections? both? Needs preparation«

Wisdom

Read by different community members around the room (microphones allowing). These are all about scale (vastness, depth, eternity...).

Vastness: Psalm 8 (Message remix?) macro skies... micro self... Why does God bother with us tiny things? [yet God does].
Eternity: John 1, 14-18 ish (eternal presence of God, “Before the world was created, the Word already existed”.)
Depth: Julian of Norwich: In this vision he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought "What may this be?" And it was generally answered thus: "It is all that is made." I marvelled how it might last, for it seemed it might suddenly have sunk into nothing because of its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: "It lasts and ever shall, because God loves it."

Reflection space

Community voice introduces. »fancy writing this?«
Look at your hazelnut for 5 minutes a la Rach's improvisation with the clover leaves we did last Sunday?
Use Lamb song "Small" (YouTube video)?
Hear different voices expressing different feelings about being small? Freedom / fear? »would this work here? earlier?«

Mingling/improvisation

Community voice encourages people to share their reflections with a person near them.
Needs to be done right: not cringy, not difficult ("turn to the stranger next to you and tell them something really hard in your life..") - you know the sort of thing we normally do well fairly naturally. »could you do this?«
Provides relief for people who like to share after all that reflection!

Sacred act

Invite everyone to [optionally] move to put their hazelnut in some sort of pattern (a line? a snake? a circle? circles? use ribbon to mark out something?) »want to take this on?«
symbolism: you are held; you have a place in God's eternity.
visually nice.

Close

blessing »someone to write/find« »«
invite people to find their nut and take it with! [fun]?
keep in touch: cards with mayBe details on? »design/print them« (use moo.com?)
website / twitter / email / phone nos on projections.
community members clearly around to be chatted to. »make badges like Kate's last year?«

So what do you think? Please comment below, or email the community and email me (Rich) if you're interested in taking any of this forward. Next chat: mayBe weekend away.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 - 9:09pm

Greenbelt: More Ideas

admin — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:34:04 +0000

Greenbelt: More Ideas

A summary of Greenbelt ideas shared in the cafe after Eucharist. We considered being small in time and space and how we each react to this. Can we move from a reaction of fear to freedom? Can the scale of all things actually bring us stillness and peace? We shared written wisdoms. Psalms that spoke of how God was mindful of (tiny) us within the universe. C.S. Lewis wrote how creation was "sung into being". The Gospel reminds us of the eternal presence of God, "Before the world was created, the Word already existed". The celebration of the hazelnut by Julian of Norwich, "God made it, God loves it and God keeps it." We thought of some improvisations. Cupping ears. Lighting candles. And we reflected on some images. A pinpoint of light surrounded by darkness.

Sunday, June 7, 2009 - 6:34pm

Planning our "Fashionable Pace" greenbelt worship

admin — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:34:06 +0000

Planning our "Fashionable Pace" greenbelt worship

Cara, Jim, Rich and Tracey met to go over first ideas for our Greenbelt 2009 New Forms worship (7pm Saturday). A long way to go yet, but it was great to get out what we felt could be the main themes.

Our fist planning scribbles

Here's how it will be billed:

Fashionable Pace

Stepping back from the pace of fashion, looking to the Gospels to see the bigger picture.

In our discussions we explored the ideas of the long now, the eternal moment, the vastness of life, the smallness of each of us (and marvelling at "how held we are"). Big concepts, but little old us. We felt that there were many things of our previous greenbelt "services" that still feel important: it should be friendly; it's just us, not a performance; it should have no obvious leader/front or centre. The eternal moment is the idea that instead (as well?) as considering time stretching out sideways, each moment has an infinite possibility of God, an eternal depth in itself. We liked this and it was key to our thinking that stillness will be the most important theme for our session. Thanks to Liza for the eternal moment phrase. We also discussed our smallness: it can be liberating to realise how tiny we each are, but it can be scary too. We liked the Lamb song "small" that explores this. We thought there could be mileage in the face the scale idea. We had several other ideas including:

showing videos of "still life in motion" to bring the outside (it's a cathedral to us) into the venue.
turning up a recording of chitter-chatter (from a pub? or recorded internal monologues?) as people come in -- so they won't realise it's not them making the din, then cut it off suddenly as our start, instantly bringing a sense of space and quiet (although greenbelt is never really quiet!).

Finally we started work on a structure:

open with our un-noticed sound-scape creschendo.
call & response
wisdom (gospel readings)
space for personal reflection
mingling improvisation
sacred act (poss part of mingling)
close, blessing, going out.

So look out for our next discussions (Thurs 4 June at community meal, and Sunday 7 June in cafe after Eucharist). And we'd love to hear from everyone on the ideas so far.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 8:34pm