March 2020: Space
This was the last Grace service before the Covid lockdown began a week later.
The slideshow for this service is here. Unfortunately the video loops in the slides do not play.
order of service:
welcome:
welcome/intro about what will happen - steve
then screen welcome slides
holy spirit:
'come holy spirit' loop
silence
'we sit quietly' slide
a clearing
'A clearing for Lent' meditation.
wisdom
lectio divina - explanation on slides
David Wang spoken intro:
In our lent readings Mark 5-8, there are a handful of stories of healing, for 6 people who Jesus met.
On the face of it, one miraculous healing might seem like another but we know these are pointing somewhere for us.
All of these people we imagine, suffered greatly, and reading a little deeper that suffering was added to by their separation from others, the people they met daily or were forced not to meet. That consequential suffering probably felt worse, perhaps that was the suffering.
Mark goes out of his way to say that Jesus goes out of his way to love and show compassion on these suffering people. Most people didn’t want to go near them, let alone touch… but Jesus took his time with them, the result would have been another chance to love and be loved again.
In the news now, we’ve heard almost nothing except WHO has the ‘lurgies’ and HOW to not catch them. In previous times, during the Black death and previous epidemics, before the professionalisation of health care, there was recorded a higher proportion of deaths among the priests, partly because they deliberately sought out the sick & dying to perform the last rites. In this act, the medieval church understood better than we do, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Let us learn what this means.
As we read for ourselves, be aware of the outsider/insider distinctions and what Jesus actions say to us.
people go and read:
1. mark 5 1-20
2. mark 5 21-43
3. mark 7 24-29
David closes the section with:
A deaf man and a blind man are also healed in these stories from Mark. As a child I thought these physical impairments were the worst, but as we’ve read mental and spiritual illness are equally crippling and much more ostracising and it's no different today. After these healings Mark includes comments “Everything he does is wonderful. He even makes the deaf to hear and gives speech to those who cannot speak… his sight was completely restored and he could see everything clearly.” It can also be a prayer for ourselves. Amen
silence
prayer:
smoke loop
'we remember before god her people'
sending out:
Music tracks
- pre-service: hidden circuits / tobias hellkvist
- welcome: fire lit sky / etherwood
- come holy spirit: ode / nils frahm
- silence
- a clearing: my friend the forest / nils frahm
- lectio divina: lightness / electrik cafe
- silence
- prayer smoke: atomos iii / atomos
- sending out: in the wind / etherwood
- outro: three eagles / etherwood, flesh music / london elektricity