Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Looking a bit wonky

I have been inspired by Ric Stott's Lent discipline of 2011 with his Children of Clay ("I ask for wonder" is his excellent blog).
I took the idea and used it as one of three elements for a women's 24 hour residential I was leading earlier in February. As part of the closing worship I invited the women to take a lump of clay and challenged them to make their own 'child of clay' and play it somewhere in their community.
So I took the challenge I gave to them to heart, and with the remaining clay I made 3 little sculptures, and they sat in the kitchen looking a bit wonky, and to be honest a little but scary; indeed Child no. 2 said "what are those weird things doing in here?"
But I lived with them for a few days, and the longer they sat there the more concerned I became about letting them out into the big wide world by themselves.
They were representing to me the journey I have been on and blogging about - how to live the life I long to live, how to know the right place to be. Where would I put these little sculptures? How could I be sure I put them in the right place? I was becoming so unsure where to put them I nearly let them stay in the house where at least I knew where they were and that they were OK.
But of course this was the reason I need them to go out. They are representing for me my own need to be fully involved in the world. And like me, maybe there is no right or wrong place for them - maybe where ever they end up is the right place. Some of those places will be riskier than others.
On the first day of Lent I put them in a plastic bag and took them out with me - as one went in the bag it's head fell off and wouldn't go back on again; it was the first one I made and the next two were better designed so I decided I wouldn't use this one. So with two remaining I set off. One I have put about 3 metres from my front door, in a little corner in front of the Polish CornerShop run by an Asian man and which sells lots of 'british food' - a funny shop, not quite managing to be the heart of the community, but which has real potential to be.
The second one I took to work, and after an hour or so decided to take it out to the main square in Lancaster - which had been 'occupied' for a brief while before Christmas a part of the 99%, and which on Easter Saturday will host a HOPE for Easter festival. So my last sculpture is standing in a corner there - watching over the people having their lunch on the benches, the homeless drunk people hanging around by day, the night time revellers drunk by night, and the skaters wilfully ignoring the 'No Skating' signs.
So I had done it. They were out there.
And this is my Lent discipline.
I had no idea what I was going to do about this now!
So I waited to see what happens.

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