A season of storytelling

I'm preparing for a season of storytelling, and lots of it.

At Christ Church during lent I will be leading the theme conversation portion of our gatherings, telling the gospel stories and inviting wonder:

Earth's crammed with heaven,

and every common bush afire with God;

but only he who sees it, takes off his shoes ...

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

As for the rest of us - are we out of practice, as Jill asked us two Sundays ago? Have we lost the art of wonder - either to awe, or to ponder, which is to say, to sit with the questions that arise.

Do we allow God to lift the veil on mystery and invite us into the story?

Over the remaining Sundays in Lent we will aim to recapture this forgotten art, as those around the Esther Project table have begun to do. I will tell the gospel story for the day and we will wonder. The invitation is not to have a conversation, but to respond if you wish with a simple phrase of wonder. So we might say, I wonder if all the Pharisees were angry ... and we'll leave it hanging without explanation or comment if that's OK? And in this way, we will practice the art of wonder, of awe and of pondering without needing to pin an answer down.

this wondering might inspire your further reading or conversations or thinking through the week, but in these moments we will simply sit with the story and wonder, entering the mystery of the story, and hoping to meet God there.

And I will be telling the story of Paul and Silas in prison in Acts for Pilgrim's world day of Prayer Service on 5 March (5.15 - 6.00 pm, 12 Flinders St Adelaide).

Again with Christ Church, I'll be helping to tell the story of the Easter events on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, bringing something new to (hopefully enrich) these spaces that have much meaning for this community.

The Esther Project will be sharing with Christ Church in the lead up to Easter by curating a Maundy Thursday Space. We are finding more and more opportunities to build on the emerging relationship between these two communities of faith, and it is delightful to be part of that, and to see the way story opens up such opportunities.

In the midst of all these stories I am telling or helping to tell, I am part of the team preparing to host the Network of Biblical Storytellers' Gathering in Adelaide in September, am participating in the Spirit of Wonder and Landscapes of Desire events in a couple of weeks, and I am writing for Seasons of the Spirit.

Sarah does, indeed, tell stories, and plenty of them!

The Esther Project Story Event: Esther

contemplating this new opportunity

should clarify, I think, that I'm not yet on the team for the new Seasons product, as I've been invited to consider the opportunity, so will the team be invited to consider. just to be sure we're not jumping the gun.

however, as I continue to reflect, I notice that this is a deep joy for two more reasons.

Firstly, the decision to undertake the period of discernment that led to me discerning a call to ordained ministry was made after I had considered auditioning for the Seasons writing team about five or six years ago. As I began to fill out the audition I began to feel ill-equipped for the exegetical work required of the task of preparing resources for congregational worship. I sometimes forget this in responding to the question of how I came to be a candidate for ordination, but I think this was the final catalyst for the journey I have now been on since that time. I didn't complete the audition then, but here I am again, invited to write with this very creative team.

The other reason for the joy is that this journey towards ordination has been a journey of realisation of my identity as a storyteller. I have probably blogged before about how I spent my twenties searching for a way to live out my creative being - having discovered the poet and playwright and performer within but not quite knowing how to bring these gifts together with other important aspects of who I am, empathy, spirituality, desire to share the hope I find in God. As I have undertaken the studies and formation process, God and I have been refining the call or the way I might live out my call to serve the body of Christ as a storyteller. The Esther Project, a community of faith, creativity and sacred story, is one way. The opportunities it presents for a storyteller to lead this community and also be, with the community, a gift to the wider church as storytellers, sends shivers down my spine. I don't know if it will be realised - the process of calling ministers to a placement is complicated in the Uniting Church.

But what if The Esther Project grew to being able to offer a placement for a minister? What would it look like for this community to have a minister who worked, say half time within the community, helping to guide the encounters with sacred story and the sharing of our own stories. And what if this minister then worked the rest of her time with other congregations, or a theological college, or writing resources, taking the innovative and creative approach to encountering the story from The Esther Project and inspiring others to value the gift of effective proclamation of the foundational story of faith in their gathered communities?

I have been called to a shape of ordained ministry that doesn't yet exist, or at least, not to a traditional shape of ministry within a congregation maintaining the shape of gathering and congregational life that has been the norm in Western Christianity for half a century. So I must imagine - what if ... ?

a new writing opportunity

I'm pretty excited this afternoon, having just been invited to consider contributing to a new shape of congregational lectionary based worship resource.

Seasons of the Spirit is an amazing resource, used around the world week in and week out in all sorts of worshipping communities. I'm thrilled to think it might be possible for me to offer my creativity to such a source of guidance and inspiration!

There's lots still to work out, of course, but I love the direction in which the team is seeking to take Seasons, and am looking forward to helping reshape it.

Who would have thought that in giving up one dream (higher degree in English Literature) I have actually found an even more fulfilling way to live as a storyteller! Ah, but the journey of life takes you in some unexpected directions, doesn't it, especially when you let yourself be guided by the Creator/Wisdom/Spirit. *giggles with delight at it all*

don't underestimate the power of story

isn't it amazing that an introvert can say that an evening with a bunch of people, and more than that, an evening with a bunch of people for whom this introvert is facilitator of our gathering, gives me more energy than it takes?? how amazing. i don't know what to do with it other than marvel at it, enjoy it each and every week, and love love love the Spirit whose doing it must be! 

perhaps it might help readers to have some context - briefly, then, each week The Esther Project community gather for Sacred Story spaces (sometimes it is an encounter of wondering and discovery and other times it is a story event in which we bring together our discoveries and wonderings in a response of gratitude for the story). I am usually the facilitator of these spaces, as the leader of The Esther Project (we do hope as we grow to invite others from the community to also facilitate the spaces). I usually get more energy from time alone, silence, reflection, space. Time with people I enjoy, but it takes energy, often quite a lot of energy. 

However, I find that after facilitating an Esther Project space I am not drained, but rather filled with energy, even though quite a bit of work goes into the preparation and leading of the spaces. The day after is, I will admit, usually a day of retreat and solitude to replenish. But right now, in the time after the gathering, I am buzzing with joy, gratitude, love of the story, God revealed in the story, and the people with whom I have shared the story. 

And all I can do is smile and say thanks. 

The power of story - don't underestimate it! 

Art and Community

Blackwood Uniting Church invite artists to participate in an exhibition on the theme of Community,to be held from 16 - 18 April 2010.

The theme has been chosen to encourage artists to reflect on the nature of Community and to represent this in some way, through the media of painting, sculpture, photography, textiles, ceramics or glass.

More information and entry form available via their website.

[re]generate

tenuous wholeness

beneath a sepia sky

of rainclouds reflecting

streetlights

my cheeks are wet, not by rain,

but by the profound

discovery

of wholeness, however tenuous,

painted against a black

backdrop,

scars an etching of regret, edges

faded and worn, colour

stretched

and yet - 

piercing through to the heart

eyes that shine despite it all

for a precious  tenuous 

moment