Pupal Mush

To Sowerby this morning, one of my Deanery's churches and very lovely it was too, a nice baptism and a fullish church, a challenging sermon amd worship that connected... well that's the mystery worshipper bit over.
I am doing a lot of thinking at the moment trying to clarify and conclude from my travels.
This summer I have been a caterpiller, eating lots of good stuff ready for the the next transformation, all that knowledge turning to soup as I pupate.
Over the next few weeks I will wait for the butterfly to emerge.
No pressure then!

Aging

I'm getting old. Helping my son and his wife move into our house and deposit the remainder of their lives at Grandma's has wrecked my back and pretty much everything else as well.
Manual labour, I'm out of condition, and unused to physical activity. It wasn't always like that. I have moved house or rather council flat in a taxi... I have moved in my own van, but these days I get people to do it for me. I don't even pack these days.
Of course I have too much stuff... It's hard to travel light. It's always fun when we do move when people come into into my study, you can see them adding a few hundred pounds to the bill as they look at all my books.

Charging

Charging around getting ready for my son, his wife and twenty odd guinea pigs which are coming to live at our house whilst they are searching for a home. They are being forced out of London by the rent of over 700 a month which they just can't afford. So back home they come to a new job.
It makes you wonder how many other people are sofa surfing as they call it. I hope quite a lot still find a home with their families...
As someone said: "Home is where they have to take you in."
So charging around but not charging.

Warp Factor

It’s good to be home but there are a number of exciting jobs to be done before settling including filling the mobile home with LPG… a “little job” the man said but one which involved an exciting encounter with a nozzle that looked like something off star wars. It also came with lengthy instructions which I only got right when the man at the garage came and rescued me.
I am sad to be parted with the mobile home it was very exciting to be on the road, to cook and eat overlooking the deer of Tatton Park or today overlooking Little Morton Hall was really special and I think we will borrow a van again.
Little Morton Hall is a lovely Tutor Mini Mansion built out of wood and wattle and more or less in original state. The hall shows signs of the great skill of the Tudors who were able to adapt the wooden structure as it grew and as the wood warped they simply adapted to the warp so that by the time they put the gallery on the top it has a complete wave in the floor.
It struck me that we need that kind of adaptive building now especially in our regeneration work. Adapting what we are doing as we go along and even incorporating the warps and mistakes into the final result.

Geothernal Toilets

We've moved to a new campsite near that well known top tourist place the Nantwich Salt Museum... Second only to a museum we visited in France: the Musee de Granite, the granite museum... Which I thought was an interesting collection of gravestones but my children thought was the most tedious hour and a half of their entire existance.
Despite having the Salt Museum on offer we revisited Tatton Park and saw some ace modern scupture, more of that when I get back.
Equally impressive when I got back to the campsite the toilets were geothermal!
I was really impressed I might return but geothermal gives me the picture of a toilet on a geyser so...

Clean

So its over and back on a proper campsite it's straight to the showers and into clean clothes. Washing Greenbelt away and hoping that I don't wash the good stuff off. A growing consciousness of two needs... To bring it altogether and to discover britain.
Greenbelt has convinced me what I already suspected: that everything I have seen in other countries is beginning to happen here but needs to be scaled up. Little flashes of light need to become a grassroots movement, so that like in america regeneration becomes what people of faith do.
To scale up we will need the skills of Yorkshire Forward and their like, but they need our knowledge of grassroots and volunteers. We also need to learn from the Anglicare experience to be better at partnerships and holding on to our Christian identity.
A manifesto then is growing in my head and I am bursting for a rant... But I have two days away in my mobile home to enjoy.

leaving paradise.

So tomorrow we leave this temporary Christian community with its invisible organising authority and all of us wonder why we can't live like this all the time. As one comedian said tonight "I like greenbelt the labels fall off at the doorway." There is even a programme for atheists if they want it. There is certainly a sense that here is a place where we can air our doubts.
There is no final service or even gathering, it ends with a whimper not a bang as we all leave in dribs and drabs to our various jobs, we will be one of the last to leave.
Another notable idea I heard today: the best consultants refuse to consult but rather get people to find their own solutions and the best leaders refuse to lead so that others can take responsibility for what they should do.