What is in Kelvin's Head?

Top tips from a Greenbelt Virgin

31/08/2015

I was a Greenbelt virgin until this weekened. I’ve not no good reason why I’ve never been to the festival of arts and spirituality which takes place at the ennd of August each year. However, this year I made it and I had a ball.

Here are my reflections.

1 – The Weather

Yes, Greenbelt is terribly affected by the weather. Saturday was a fine day and ended with a glorious red sunset. However, the shepherds were telling porkies. Sunday certainly wasn’t a delight. The rain started a bit drizzly and turned into a downpour just as i was starting to give my talk. (I did apologise to the crowd – ask a gay person to do anything and you get hurricanes and floods after all). However, the rain didn’t dampen spirits. If anything it just made the atmosphere in the tent in which I was speaking all the more electric.

When I first tweeted that I was a #greenbeltvirgin and asked for tips, most people welcomed me with messages that included the word #wellies. Now I know why.

2 – The Seating
It would have been handy to have brought wellies but it would have been even better to have brought a fold up camping chair. Old stagers knew this. Young stagers and #greenbeltvirgins sat on the grass or later stood in the mud. Having a chair with you is a great idea.

3 – The Organisation
I was really impressed with how it all ran. Even when it did rain, it wasn’t a disaster. Things were run fabulously efficiently. I got to my venue to speak and there was someone to look after me, someone to introduce me, a couple of BSL interpretors and someone making all the audio equipment run well. I can’t always manage this in a cathedral, never mind a field. Full marks to those who have learned how to do this.

4 The Crowd
I found the crowd of people I was speaking to the most receptive audience I think I’ve ever spoken to. They were committed and intereted and up for being challenged to think. People didn’t now quite was coming from me and I suspect that’s what they like. I have to admit to being nervous before the event, but I found people generous, interested and interesting throughout. I did remark during my talk that I was surprised that Greenbelt was not more ethnically diverse and it seems to me that there might be a good conversation to be had about what diversity actually means. (I’m familiar with people thinking something is diverse because they are a bit odd themselves but feel welcome and so presume that diversity has been achieved – there’s more to be said than that).

5 The Surprises
There’s a lot of surprises at Greenbelt. After we cleared out from an OuterSpace (ie overtly gay friendly) Eucharist on Saturday evening which was full of joy, the space was taken over by the Goth Eucharist. Now, that’s not particularly for me, but I loved being in a place where it could happen. Same with the gay drinks reception, which was a hoot. Whole bunch of gay people thinking “I never ever thought I’d be at a gay singles event at a Christian thing and look at all these people – there’s lots of us!” A red straw in your drink meant that you were available. Some had multiple red straws.

6 Churchmanship of Greenbelt
I’ve heard a few people say, when asked whether they are high or low or evangelical or liberal that they are none of those things but are really a Greenbelt Christian. I get that now. This was an event where the ethos would have been very familiar to many who come to my congregation, who just don’t fit into the old fashioned ways of characterising churches and Christians. For a lot of people I sensed that Greenbelt is where they are their most authentic selves and it gives them a boost each year which means that they can cope with the church in all its strangeness the rest of the year. For this itself, Greenbelt is doing a great work.

So, will I be back.

You bet.

Oh and PS – you can do Greenbelt without camping. I can recommend a good B and B.

23 responses to “What if this is the end of the Eucharist?”

Thomas Scott

06/05/2020

Just noticing here that DGD (of happy memory) seems to have left out of his catalogue of joyous, sad, perilous, and solemn occasions any instance of celebrating during a plague or pestilence. I’m not worried about the mass. The eucharist need not be celebrated as though it were a car battery, as if not offering it now would somehow allow the power to run down. It is not at risk, we are, which I think is your point. The questions asked are worth asking, of course.

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Mo Nicholson

06/05/2020

Mo Nicholson. This is an intriguing discussion and what I would like to add to it is the observation that I have had to learn the hard way that participation in the Eucharist being made impossible in no way diminishes an individual’s ability to worship God or be in fellowship with other believers. I am barred from receiving Holy Communion in the Catholic church because allergies make this impossible for me. The pain induced by this has little to do with feeling separation from God, in fact nothing at all as I do not feel that. It comes from feeling excluded from the community, different sections if which regard it as desirable or tolerable that a member of the community should be excluded in this way. This experience has made me understand as never before that if we place prime value on liturgical celebrations, ir indeed anything else, above charity, compassion, welcome and inclusivity, in other words love, then we have become the sounding gong which St Paul warned against. If we truly believe that God is love, as I do, then it is obvious that it is love for one another which makes us true children of God our Father, and in light of this we could begin to look at these present challenging circumstances as simply an opportunity to love more, to reach out to one another in whatever way possible in the knowledge that this is what actually matters and always did. Only perhaps we were tempted to almost make a fetish of our rituals, sacraments and so on. And perhaps this can show us a better way more adapted to the world we are supposed to serve.

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Lynsay Downs

06/05/2020

You and your conversation with Dave Roberts prompted me to write this. Does it resonate for you?

https://astonishing.community/2020/05/06/conversations-in-coronatide/

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1. Kelvin
  
  06/05/2020
  
  Thanks Lynsay – yes, it does resonate with me very much.
  
  I’ve shared it on facebook. I think it is really helpful.
  
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Fr Keith

06/05/2020

Thanks again for such a thoughtful piece. With the Eucharist central to much of, at least Anglican/Episcopalian, worship in recent generations, we perhaps forget that the Church in these islands was, between the Reformation and the liturgical revivals of the 19th and 20th centuries, sustained by Mattins and Evensong as the regular diet of worship on Sundays. I’m not advocating a return to such times, but there is, as you suggest, work to be done on non-Eucharistic worship (though not defining it as a negative). Thanks again.

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Fenland Boy

07/05/2020

For the record, I’m not in favour of lay presidency at the Eucharist. I believe, for better or worse, in an ordered church.

Why are you concerned about lay Presidency?

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Chuck

08/05/2020

May I say respectfully, lighten up. Many Anglicans/Episcopalians lived on the edges of civilization in the nascent U.S. and various elements of the British Empire. Priests to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and to baptize were seldom seen, at most twice a year in many areas. (Bishops, only every several years.) The Church carried on in this manner decade after decade. If circumstances require, the Church will carry on again despite our profound sense of loss.

I should add, to those who grew up under threat or reality of war, persecution, oppression, famine, other disease, etc, the present difficulty is not unfamiliar in many respects.

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Miriam MacCarthy

08/05/2020

Thank you! It is wonderful to read these serious, personal thoughts about the Eucharist. My feeling is that it has become celebrated to the point of boredom. Church, and what we do in it, is in danger of becoming simply a habit. It could just as well be crackerjack for a fast-asleep congregation. My heresy is that the direction Jesus gave is to “do this in remembrance of me”, and that means everything we eat at any time, whether alone or with others, in thanksgiving. If that is seriously done, it has vastly more meaning. It really gets ones attention and requires preparation. Would not become popular or usual, I predict!

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