River Dart Wild Church got off to a very special, small start on the second Sunday of Advent.
Sam and Beth started their sabbath, setting up for lunch in Dartington Village Hall. This is a well used community centre in the heart of Dartington, with all the charm of a traditional 1930’s building of tin and timber and the great added advantage of sheep’s wool insulation, double glazing and good heating!
As we are starting this new venture inspired by spirit and prayer, we really had no idea whether anyone would actually show up and join us. Invites had gone out and we had a few lines in the local Church newsletter but it was all a bit of a mystery really! So we faithfully set out cloths and candles on a long table with 8 places for our ‘bring & share’ advent lunch, left the leek & potato soup & organic roast veggies on the stove and walked off to Dartington Church.
How helpful it was to be met at the Church door by local Reader, Liz Waterson. Liz does her own wonderful work in relation to Transition Town Totnes, the Food Bank & Street Pastors and has already met Sam through Open Spirit and Beth through the Network of Wellbeing. It takes courage on the part of traditional Church to welcome and enable new initiatives that are emerging outside of the authorised forms, so it meant a lot to be welcomed so warmly by Liz and members of the Dartington congregation and to even be invited to step up to the front during the opening notices and offer our invitation to all to join us for an Advent lunch. We’ve also been warmly encouraged by Totnes Team Vicar, Debbie Parsons, who similarly spoke up for us in the notices at the previous team service on the first Sunday of Advent at Berry Pomeroy Church. So if you are reading this and feel or have found that traditional Church is not open to change… be encouraged!
Traditional Church can be a challenge for some and many would rather not go there at all! Both Beth and I have had our own struggles over the years, as well as times of nurture. Speaking for myself, I’ve sometimes experienced painful exclusion and prejudice in previous Church contexts and I’ve regularly raged at the patriarchal language and the often down right destructive marriage of religion and institutional power and oppression that is an undeniable part of the Christian heritage. It’s taken me many years to restrain myself from ‘throwing out the baby with the bath water’ in relation to the Church and Christianity. So this new Wild Church initiative is probably as much about my own healing as anything… that I finally feel the confidence and freedom to embrace both ancient and new ways of sacred celebration.
So… following a circular sharing of communion in Dartington Church, Beth and I were delighted to find that some folks and one small dog did in fact want to come along with us and we walked back to the Village Hall to find others there also ready to join us. So each of the ‘ever hopeful’ eight seats was filled with men and women, young and old, and after an opening blessing, we settled down to make new friends and share delicious food together. After clearing up, we shared poems, thoughts and readings and spent time in meditation before setting off on our silent walk. Here is a reading brought by Helen from her Catholic Advent booklet and a poem by Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn brought by Beth which felt like a perfect preparation:
‘Take off your dress of sorrow and distress,
Put on the beauty of the glory of God for ever,
Wrap the cloak of the integrity of God around you,
Put the diadem of the glory of the Eternal on your head.’
Be aware of the contact between your feet and the Earth.
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.
We have caused a lot of damage to the Earth.
Now it is time for us to take good care of her.
We bring our peace and calm to the surface of the Earth and share the lesson of love.
We walk in that spirit.
There’s something very special about walking silently together and it really does feel like a fundamental act of worship. It’s much easier, I find, to widen my field of awareness and really feel in relationship with the sacred nature of all beings when I stop talking and just walk… and to be in this way in the company of others with a similar intent is particularly powerful. We walked into the dusk and along the river Dart… greeting each other at every kissing gate and gathering round the ancient Dartington yew (close to the old Dartington Church, now only a tower) as it was getting fully dark to create an altar of autumn leaves, light a candle and chant for peace together. On the way back to our starting point we paused at Dartington Church to light candles and join in the prayer vigil for Light for Lima:
Light for Lima
This December, as world leaders meet in Lima, our future is on the line
Time is running out for our leaders to reach an agreement to save us from devastating climate change.
This is why OurVoices is organizing #LightForLIMA – a global, multi-faith prayer vigil.
On Sunday evening, December 7, around the world people from diverse faith and spiritual communities will gather for public vigils – lit by solar lamps! We want you to be involved
When world leaders come together in Lima, they need to know that we’re holding them in our thoughts, meditations and prayers. Our prayers will bring hope. Our lights will guide the way.
As people of faith we can make a difference.