Archive for December, 2007
Thursday, December 13th, 2007
In September 1992 the youngest of our three children, eighteen month old daughter Kristen, died on the road outside our manse, hit by a car. I was in my first year as a minister, serving in the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand in Tokoroa, a town of 16000 people connected with dairy, logging, pulp and paper industries. A month later, the twenty one year old daughter of the church secretary was killed in a horrific car accident.
As you can imagine we were struggling to deal with multiple layers of grief, as a family, as a congregation, as a community. Coming into Christmas I remember the struggle of being responsible for communicating the love, joy and hope of the season. As I preached through the nativity stories I was attuned to the down-to-earth struggle of a young couple as they grappled with an unplanned pregnancy and an arduous journey away from home. I took comfort in God’s engagement in our suffering through becoming one of us, in the flesh.
Lloma, the church secretary who shared our journey of grief, was inspired to reach out to others who were feeling lost and alone over Christmas. Together our families gathered a team to host a Christmas Day dinner for people who were away from their families. The community responded magnificently. Farmers, butchers, and bakers donated food for the meal. The local newspaper featured our plans on the front page and challenged readers to invite their neighbours to their Christmas meals.
Celebrating Christmas without Kristen was painful. It wasn’t the memories of past Christmas that we grieved for – it was the lost opportunities of the future. But as we connected with our community we discovered others with similar experiences. Together we made God’s connection of fragility and joy.
An article I wrote for the back page of Journey, December 2007
Posted in NZ, Spirituality | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
I’ve just published a couple of articles in Journey, the monthly magazine published by the Uniting Church in Australia, Queensland.
Jingle All The Way focuses on the role of advertising around Christmas - how do churches respond? I look at ways in which companies have used the Christmas story - what some would call the secularization of Christmas. And then I look at how Christian organisations have used the festive season to develop a connection of good will with the wider community. My concern is that Christians can become possessive of the Christmas celebration rather than seeing an opportunity to build relationships of trust.
Cheryl Lawrie, of [Hold] This Space, has an excellent article in The Age, Melbourne’s newspaper, titled “Away with the Manger“, suggesting that churches not try and compete for popularity over Christmas.
My second article for the month told the story of our first Christmas after the death of our daughter Kristen, in 1992. Lloma and Ken Harnett, fellow grievers in Tokoroa, pulled together a team to host a Christmas Day lunch. I’ll post the article here shortly.
Posted in Advertising, Australia, Uniting Church | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
A Google-Earth-view of Biblical events was presented at an art installation in Miami last week, showing the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the crucifixion of Jesus.
The project, God’s Eye View, was produced by Sydney-based creative team The Glue Society, commissioned by Eric Romano of Pulse Art, New York, for its Miami art fair.
The Sydney Morning Herald quotes Glue Society’s co-founder, Jonathan Kneebone, as saying God’s Eye View was not intended to be a theological statement. “Art has always depicted religious events and this is simply a new way to do it,” he said. “We’re playing with the whole idea that if you can capture something from a satellite it must exist.”
Kneebone described the four pictures as digital “jigsaw puzzles” made by piecing together real satellite images. The picture of the Red Sea, for example, uses photographs of Niagara Falls to create the impression of tonnes of foaming water. The Garden of Eden photograph uses images from Belgium.
Creative Review: The Bible According to Google Earth, quotes James Dove from Glue Society:
“We like to disorientate audiences a little with all our work. And with this piece we felt technology now allows events which may or may not have happened to be visualized and made to appear dramatically real. As a method of representation satellite photography is so trusted, it has been interesting to mess with that trust.”
Posted in Art, Bible, General | 3 Comments »
