The tapestry

A Day of Creative Expression

We had an interesting day yesterday at our church. The women’s group, Oasis, runs occasional events specifically aimed at women. Yesterday’s was ‘A Day of Creative Expression’ involving weaving and movement (not at the same time!). There were 2 giant looms set up between pillars in the church and piles of strips of different types of material for those that fancied working in a team and creating something large and smaller looms on forked sticks for those that would rather create individually. I gravitated towards one of the large looms and we started to create… slowly at first and not quite knowing what we were wanting to make or how it was going to come about. Gradually our weaving started to take some kind of shape, an observer commenting that part of it looked like a waterfall, and so a picture emerged. Debbie spraffed extensively about the meaning behind the colours and shapes and over 2 hours a cave, a waterfall, a sun and a pool of water (complete with fish and sea weed) emerged. It was so much fun weaving and creating and I particularly enjoyed being a part of something greater, working together and chatting as we went along. Besides which, our final creation was rather wonderful! Photo to follow when my computer will allow!

In the afternoon was a ‘movement’ session… not normally my thing really and at times I did struggle not to giggle but everyone joined in and danced the routine at their own pace but all together. Relaxing and calm. A very enjoyable day.

God outside the box

I have started to read 'God outside the box' by Richard Harries this week. A friend of mine picked it up for £1 in a charity shop and has lent it to me to read. It is an interesting study into the reasons why spiritual people object to Christianity and goes through each objection systematically. This morning I have been reading the chapter on Eternal Punishment. I am finding Harries' arguments compelling, and his opinions about what he considers it means to be sent to hell. He considers that 'If, coming into the presence of perfect goodness and sublime beauty we turn in on ourselves with a mixture of self-pity and resentment, that is hell' (p22). I am agreed with him that I cannot believe that God deliberately sentences people to unending fire, but I wonder about the weight of his statement about the nature of hell being a state of mind. He says that we are free to choose and that this kind of hell is logically possible. However, I am struggling to combine this argument with the possibility and likelihood of all people choosing to be self-pitious and resentful and wonder what the saving power of Jesus has that would save us from this self-centredness?