Day 5.171: Wild Goose recap #4 (Sunday)

You can also read the other Wild Goose Festival recaps: Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

We had such a good day on Sunday. After breakfast we packed up the majority of our camp and loaded stuff into the car before going down to meet the parade as it neared the main stage for the closing ceremony.

During the closing ceremony, E5N1 adopted his approach from last year of wandering off - he fully embraced the 'fan someone nearby' and 'pass the shaker' suggestions and continued to do both long after the ceremony had moved on.  While we watched the grievance wall be dismantled, sang, danced and shared communion, I suspect almost everyone there met E5N1 and if not, he probably caught up with them later in the day!

Unlike last year, the closing ceremony was not the end of the festival.  Far from it.  Afterwards we moved the car to the parking lot ready for a quick get-away later and then embarked on a packed afternoon and evening.

It started with Lauren Winner and Over The Rhine - readings and songs.  It was a really special time.  One passage in particular that Lauren read from her new book Still was incredibly moving. Definitely a must-read!

Shortly afterward outside, E5N1 and I met Lauren - she played the age guessing game with a very wet (from the fire-truck/slip-and-slide fun) E5N1 for quite some time.  E5N1 also took up prime position to hear Melvin Bray but I don't know what he heard because apart from snapping one picture I was rushing off to do something else.

My last talking session of the festival was to hear Sarah Cunningham and Geoff Little talk about their relationships with their more-conservative-than-them family members.  It was an excellent thought-provoking and challenging session and contained one of the wisest moments for me when Sarah pointed out that we have contradictory values all the time and we have to choose which we will act on (she was talking about having a strong conviction about something being in conflict with loving her father but it applies in many circumstances).

After that, Exile #2 went to hear some more from Lauren Winner and I had one more stop, to see Aaron Strumpel and his crazy friends (including Spider-man) perform before heading down to the mainstage for the final evening of music.

We couldn't quite stay to the end, but we saw Over The Rhine - lovely - we bought two of their albums after last year so we were much more familiar with their work.  After them David Crowder came with some great music, hilarious stories and crazy hillbilly stylings. Finally (for us) Gungor brought some very spiritual moments, virtuoso musicianship and a wonderful end to our festival as the night closed in.

Then we headed off to the car and left Wild Goose 2012, drove for four hours and found a hotel on the outskirts of Richmond VA at about 1 am.

Photos from the festival (now including Sunday) are here.

Day 5.170: Wild Goose recap #3 (Saturday)

In the present day, my parents have arrived safely from the UK to visit, but now back to the Wild Goose Festival recap. You can also read part 1 and part 2.

My first session was Dave Andrews talking about inclusive community.  We discussed the advantages and disadvantages and he talked about his community of simple-living part-time employed people.  Excellent stuff.

After that I stayed where I was to hear Melvin Bray talking about the heroes (especially of the Old Testament) and the fact that there were people who God also loved on the other side of the stories.

In the afternoon, I watched The Collection produce a very pleasing sound with no less than twelve multi-instrumentalists on stage.

I caught the end of a talk by Dan Brennan and Jennifer Ould about their long-term friendship.  He is married, she is single.  Wouldn't have expected this to challenge me really, but it did - maybe it was his brutal honesty about being physically attracted to Jennifer and other women - I guess it's just a statement of fact and one that I (and probably most people) could (but probably wouldn't) make.

Cathleen Falsani was talking about her fascinating life and work as a journalist but I have to confess that my tiredness was catching up with me.

After that it was time for a second set by Damion Suomi and The Minor Prophets.  They were playing at the Coffee Barn (outdoor) stage.  They were excellent again.  E5N1 went and sat virtually on their feet and had a great time.  In the end they were asked to quieten down and did the final number unplugged - very compelling indeed.

Next, I went and bought a beer in order to take full part in Beer & Hymns.  Like last year it was moved from its scheduled time-slot.  Unlike last year I was not fooled this time.  It was great.  There are some pictures above, but you really need moving ones to get a flavour (of the singing if not the beer).



The video is a bit deceptive - there were lots of people behind me (at the bar) and on both sides of the tent (at least by the end).

After that E5N1 was completely shattered, so I took him back to the tent and pretty soon we all turned in for an early night.

Photos (now including Saturday's) are here.

Day 5.169: Wild Goose recap #2 (Friday)

You can read my Thursday recap here.

Friday was a much better day than Thursday for us, although there were some frictions caused by tiredness and heat and the fact that we had rushed the girls down there as soon as school was over for the year.

This is what I did (most are represented in some way in the collage):

I caught the end of a session by Logan Mehl-Laituri about his experience becoming a conscientious-objector while serving in the US Army.  He spoke with great passion and I imagine his book is a fascinating read.

After that I went to a session on Photography and Advocacy.  This was slightly diminished by the sun beating the projector for brightness so we were unable to see the photographs.  Still, it was cool to hear someone talking passionately about photography and film-making making a difference in the world.  How much pressure trying to get a good photo of a photographer though?!

While we were getting lunch, we were thrilled to see some more of Aimee Wilson playing in the Performance Cafe.  Loved it!

I caught a bit of Christine Sine - admitting she loved the hot weather - while keeping the kids company while Exile #2 went to see Frank Shaeffer.

Somehow, I managed to catch some of both Phyllis Tickle telling forgotten Bible stories and Ian Cron on being a post-cynical Christian - both were very engaging and I wish I could have heard more.

My main session for the afternoon was Mike Stavlund talking about Integrating Our Losses.  He is about to publish a book which he basically wrote five years ago - one chapter a week following the death of his baby son.  Echoing words from one of my friends recently, he said that we have to stop trying to assign a hierarchy of loss - "Our heart doesn't know the difference it just experiences loss."  He read sections of his book which were very moving, chaired the discussion of grief and loss in a really lovely way and made me cry reading the lyrics of a song by The Cobalt Season which was based on one of his blog posts during that time (lyrics, audio). It was a beautiful and profound time.

Our evening started with Joy Ike who the program failed to compare with Tori Amos - despite her piano style being wonderfully Tori-esque.  It was an enjoyable set (not so sure about the ukulele, but I didn't begrudge her that!).

Then we headed down to the main stage where Damion Suomi and The Minor Prophets were playing.  Wow - what a lot of energy and cool instrumentation.  Combined with funny but profound songwriting.  Great!  They were followed by Jennifer Knapp who had been so engaging in the mid-afternoon sun last year.  For some reason, it left me a bit cold this year except for the sign-language performer who was excellent.

After that, we made our way back to our tent and I popped in to the Performance Cafe where the captivating Tevyn East was performing her dance-song-drama piece.  We got to see more of it on another occasion, but I'm very sorry I didn't get to see it in its entirety - it was something special.

You can see the photos (currently just first two days) here.

Day 5.168: Wild Goose recap #1 (Thursday)

I'm going to attempt to recap my experiences at Wild Goose a day at a time. We'll see how it goes. This will be the easiest one.

On the day, I wrote about our stressful journey. Both the car and my Mum are both doing OK. The car brought us back safely (and uneventfully) and my Mum will be here on Thursday for a visit.

We arrived a little later than planned in the late afternoon heat and set up camp.  With most things set-up but little thought given to the rest of the day we capitulated to the kids' requests and went off to explore the site.

This brought us to the main-stage shortly before the opening ceremony was due to start (top left).

Exile #4 quickly volunteered to sit under a blue umbrella and 'part the Jordan' in a part of the ceremony coordinated by Angie Fadel.

After the opening ceremony we returned to finish setting up camp and have some food.  Our tent was basically back-stage at the second largest performance space - the Performance Cafe.  While we were there, Shane Claiborne was talking.  I snapped a picture (top right), but couldn't stay to hear him.

Later we returned to the main-stage where we heard Aimee Wilson and Aradhna (bottom left).  It was great, but the kids were getting restless.  I think we must have left part way through Josh Garrels' set (mid right).

With the kids in bed I wandered back to the Performance Cafe a couple of times - to hear a little of a session on art in worship (bottom right).  I wish I'd been able to hear more of this (and that I knew the names of the two presenters!)

Our evening ended with a DJ set from Vince Anderson (mid left) again just a few feet from our tent.  They were having some technical difficulties, but several less-tired-than-me people were dancing nevertheless.

I went to bed hoping for a good-night's sleep and for a better day ahead...

Day 301: Karaoke

This evening we went to the garage to pick the car up and drove it home. The whole thing has cost less than the the most optimistic estimate that we had in front of us when we went to take our driving tests last week. Not that all is necessarily well - the repair was not exactly cheap and has a health warning -the engine may be damaged - but it seems to be running fine, so we hope it is actually healthy and not just biding its time.

The rest of the evening was spent with most of our church-planting core team. We had a really good time and I think turned a corner in our mutual understanding. One of the issues that we discussed was dualism - how we allow things to be labelled as sacred/holy/religious and other things secular/profane and how that plays out. I want a faith that is relevant to my everyday life and a life that is informed by my faith in every part - not to become like the Fast Show character at a party who turns 'How's the wine?' into 'You know that reminds me of the blood of Our Lord Jesus...' but more like Ryan in The Cobalt Season's "Help me out here" who, tired-out by saying one thing and living another, launches into a tirade about love and consistency in personal and world affairs that ends with this:

Still we choose to tell each other lies / That the kingdom could never be realised / The master never could have meant the words he said / I'm getting tired...would you help me out here?

Just maybe church could be a place where we believe that Jesus did mean the words he said and where we help each other out when we're getting tired. I like that idea.

Oh yes - second consecutive cheap pun post title...would you help me out here?

Day 292: The Cobalt Season

This evening I left Exile #2 with the unenviable job of getting three children to bed on her own to go out to another gig. It couldn't have been more different from the last one. The band were The Cobalt Season - Ryan (shadow) and Holly (shadowed). The background is a fantastic blend of a film the band projected as their light show and the wallpaper of the house where the gig was. They are halfway through a two month US tour playing concerts in homes and other small venues, staying with friends and strangers and moving on. They also have their one-year-old son with them - quite an undertaking.

The music was great as were the discussions - the event was hosted by our nearly-church and people were curious about it. The band are in a similar spiritual place to me at the moment I think - longing for truth and consistency and for their faith to mean something for themselves and those they meet. Immediate catch was "Careful not to draw your maps in pen and ink" - You are going to change your mind some day... Also, if this is, as iTunes informs me, 'Folk', I may have to redraw some of my musical maps too. It is beautiful and heartfelt and flawed and gritty - I hope that they would like that description because I intend it as high praise.

Day 278: Size matters

So, it's Blog Action Day - I have been advertising it over there on the right somewhere for a while. So what does an exiled Brit in the US have to say about the environment on a day of blogging action?

Things are bad here. But not as bad as I might have feared. When it comes to the 3 R's of environmental action: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, two of the three are not far away from our UK experience. Recycling is curbside and fairly comprehensive and reuse is difficult, but I'm not sure the UK is far ahead. Reduction is the problem. This is not a culture of reduction. And why is that? - well just look at this picture (it's a month old and largely pre-fall by the way). This is a big place - and this is crowded New York, parts of the country are nothing but space. After finding out we sometimes use washable nappies/diapers, one of our friends said "We don't really have a problem with finding landfill space, we just use Idaho." He was joking (I think), but - hey why not? - there's plenty of space.

Closer to home, in fact in our home, almost all my good habits have disappeared. Leaving aside the cost of heating (and cooling) a much larger home than the one we lived in in the UK, I find it increasingly difficult to remember to switch off appliances as I walk the mile and a half from the kitchen to the bedroom at the end of the day and our lighting is all incandescent bulbs (I will save my non-environmentally-PC blog about this for some other time). On top of this we drive two cars a total of something like 1800 miles per month compared with pre-Exile when our one car sat largely unused on the drive during the week whilst I cycled and Exile #2 walked most places.

So, I have become part of the problem. Could try harder. Then again, couldn't we all?

As someone once said "Let him who is without energy wastage cast the first stone." And they all slipped away, starting with the frequent flyers until no-one was left. "So, US - has no-one condemned you?" "No-one." "Neither do I condemn you, go and do better." Or something like that anyway.

Day 131: All who are thirsty

On our way home from church yesterday we passed another church which had a large sign outside: What part of "Thou shalt not" don't you understand? We were astonished. I can't begin to list what I think wrong with this sign. OK, actually I can.
1) It leaves them wide open to the reasonable answer, "I'm not really sure about 'shalt' for a start".
2) It is profoundly unwelcoming.
3) It implies that the main thing the church cares about is telling you not to do things.
4) It is entirely at odds with the way that Jesus related to people. He welcomed all: weary, broken, thirsty. He battled the religious authorities when they tried to condemn a woman caught in the act of adultery. And even when he quoted the law he said (paraphrasing) "Love God and love your neighbour" (he used UK spelling of course!) - not a "thou shalt not" in sight.

I wonder what that church is trying to achieve. Perhaps they thought it would catch people's attention - if so it worked for me. Perhaps they hope that a murderer or an adulterer or someone who covets his neighbours belongings will drive by and realise their wrongdoing and change. Perhaps they think it will draw people into their church. Perhaps if people do go they will receive a warm and loving welcome from people who care for them rather than about their behaviour.

The picture is from our walk on Sunday afternoon - Exile #3 managed to get some water from this pump. We didn't sample it though. If we had been thirsty we'd have looked for a more inviting place to drink.