I spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons of the Forge Grassroots Festival based at the UCA Hub in Little Collins Street, Melbourne. Cheryl Lawrie (of [hold :: this space]) (right below), Sam Charlesworth (middle) and Blythe Toll (left below) worked with a team to transform a corporate car park into Holy Ground : : Holy City. I was there to talk with interested people about alternatives to standard models of worship - a conversation deeply enhanced by the environment in which we met.
The burning bush/sacred ground experience of Moses was juxtaposed with the glimpses of God’s redeeming, transforming, hope-giving presence in the cities. iPods hanging from the ceiling showed video clips of the Tianenmen Square protester, the monks protests in Burma, and the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Around the walls and ceilings were projected films and photographs of pedestrian traffic in Melbourne. This was an invitation to explore the small clues to life, including the nature of concrete, cigarette butts and shoes.
In the middle was a space surrounded by security tape, with the words “Do Not Enter”, alongside phrases connecting the sacred ground experience of Moses with our experience.
Out on the wall outside was a chalk outline of the cityscape, with the words “New Earth”, and the invitation to dream of a future life for the city.
Phil used to blog at Pyromaniac but found the pressure to produce so great that he closed the site in January 2006 and started a team blog, Pyromaniacs.
Encounter, the ABC Radio National program, this week explores the paradoxes of postmodernism in a post-September 11 world. Are irony and relativism sapping the moral strength of the West - with potentially dangerous consequences? Or is uncertainty fundamental to ethics, and to religious faith?
David Rutledge talks with guests James Franklin, associate professor, School of Mathematics, University of NSW, Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, senior editor of Tikkun magazine, Carl Raschke, professor of Religious Studies, University of Denver, Colorado, and Mark Taylor, Cluett Professor of Humanities, Williams College, Massachussetts. Also featured are the voices of postgraduate students Gail Hastings, Pol McCann, Demelza Marlin, Chris Mayes, Annette Pierdziwol and Shane Waugh.
The program aired on Sunday 12 March at 7 am but will be repeated on Wednesday March 15, 7.10 pm and Thursday March 16 at 4 am. If you miss those, the program can be listened to online in Real Audio format. The full transcript is online at ABC Radio National.
