Sick Kids Memorial Service 16

2016 saw the 13th year that Chaplain Carrie Applegath and I have collobrated on the annual Sick Kids Memorial Service for Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital. It is a privilege to be part of this. The service is for those of faith or no faith and is for all ages. Numbers have grown steadily since we began moving from 40/60 people to around 150. This has meant having to adapt our use of space and how we do things, not least when we found out we could no longer light individual candles. However the service has remained predominantly the same.

Each year the service has a different theme. This year it was ‘Butterflies’ – for fleeting moments we see their colour and beauty and then they are gone. The simple structure of the service consists of several poems, specially written, that acknowledge the pain of grief and loss, enable quite refection and hope to offer light for the journey. Two central parts of the service are the twenty minutes of making – decorating / writing on the butterflies – and the reading of the names of those to be remembered

It was lovely this year to meet a family just a day prior to the service – they have been regularly for the past few years – who said they were looking forward to it. It seemed an odd thing to say, but I was glad to hear it. On the one hand no one wants to really be there because they have lost a young loved one, but it is a sad reality that exists for many. Thus, it is important to have a place to remember, to hear a name spoken aloud and to celebrate beautiful young lives however short. To do this corporately with friends, family or simply to be with others who understand is what this service hopes to offer.

 

 

Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, St Andrews. Away Day Workshop.

5th November 2016

A Day that included worship, creative conversations, particaptive making and dreaming dreams with the congregation of St. Andrew’s, St. Andrews. Co-facilated with Rev. Steve Butler of St. James the Less, Edinburgh. The day intended to model creative uses of space for worship, throughtful theological thinking, participative making and the dreaming of dreams.

Carol facilated the opening worship based on Luke 5 reflecting on stepping-out further personally and as a Body, trusting and following Jesus with a faith that calls us to change.

14991468_1306592496058838_141579117933729966_o

Steve’s talk on ‘camping,’ participation and the Body.

dsc03748

15003310_1306592562725498_5583345319238763145_o

Creative conversations lead by Carol

 

dsc03754      14917182_1306592912725463_5611224739792644704_o  dsc03757

dsc03758

dsc03760

Participative making

dsc03776

dsc03777

dsc03770

dsc03768

dsc03786

dsc03787

Final sewing, continued conversation and dreaming

dsc03793

Final worship  – the work of the people – under our sewn canopy gradually unfurled to create our space.

img_2504

img_2506

img_2509

img_2510

img_2511

img_2514

img_2512

Sunday Morning worship in St. Andrew’s lead by  rector Rev. Prof. Trevor Hart.

14976673_1306590852725669_7734631351780534731_o

15000706_1306590832725671_941414703136755479_o

with thanks to Rev. Prof. Trevor Hart, Rev. Diana Hall and the congregation of St. Andrew’s.

 

Art and Spirituality Course LSA 16-17

The Art and Spirituality 16-17 class has begun. We are now two weeks in with an interesting and enthusiastic group of students. The Theme at LSA this year is ‘Landmarks’, taken from the book by Robert MacFarlane. We began with a meditation of images considering and reflecting on the many landmarks that are made or represented by stones, their possible metaphors and symbolism.

Stones

Cairns

Ruins

Peebles

Mountains

Walls

Boundaries

Dams

Fossils

Buildings

Towers

Homes

Shelters

History

Geology

Throwing

Casting .. The first

Caves

Carved

Ancient

Millstone

Touchstone

 

Crosses

Altars

Tombstones

gravestones

Standing stones

Ring of Brodgar

Stonehenge

Patina

Fortress

 

Walls:

Adrian’s

Antonine

Great wall of China

Jerusalem

To prayer at

To keep out

To separate

 

Dust

Stour

Jacob’s pillow

(and many more)

 

Week 1.

Celebrating the Ordinary

We began simply by drawing stones – ones that had been brought by the group form favorite places, found on walks and pocketed for their beauty – looking intimately, trying to get to know the ordinary yet extra-ordinary small part of creation in front of us.

Week 2.

At the Cathedral: Intimate and Monumental/Immanent and Transcendant

In week two we visited St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral to enjoy the beautiful exhibition by Monica Guggisberg & Philip Baldwin and explore the cathedral stone and space through drawing in our sketchbooks.