crookedshore

We're moving. Want to come?

We're checking out of typepad and moving over to wordpress. As of today, there'll be no more updates at this address, but all the crookedshore-goodness is now over at www.crookedshore.com which will point to www.crookedshore.wordpress.com

I'm also moving 'frontforkfairytales', the photo-news blog of last summer's epic bike ride and 'where's me breakfast?' - reflections from a saturday morning breakfast table. Neither of these has been updated in a while, but they might be resurrected sometime.

Go on, take a moment and update your news feed.

The Skainos Blog

I'm delighted to say that a new blog on the Skainos Project has just gone live.   I don't expect you to know a great deal about Skainos, but it is how I pay the bills.

It's an urban regeneration project in East Belfast which I've been working on it for 8 years now and we're getting close to seeing it fly. The blog will  add some interactivity to the website, and allow us to tell the story and the theology of  Skainos.

Check it out, leave a comment, put it in your feedreader.

the mockingbird is about to jump

I'm astonished that what started out as an attempt to get a dozen or so people together to blog through Advent has turned into 36 bloggers, novice and hugely experienced from all over the place, intent on noticing the presence of God in his world.

In fact, posts have been flowing for some time now on the mockingbird's leap, so if you haven't been over there, do yourself a favour and enjoy some wonderfully thoughtful posts and the promise of lots more to come during the season.

the mockingbird's leap

I wonder what Advent is going to be like for you. For many of us it's a busy, busy time, and it becomes increasingly difficult to stop and listen, to watch and be present to what is going on around us. Small wonder then that when the Christ Child comes among us we are unaware, or inattentive and we miss his coming.

Not like Simeon, in Luke 2 who was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and found him in this baby.  Nor Anna, in the same chapter, who was looking for the  redemption of Jerusalem, and found it in this tiny visitor to the Temple. A lifetime of waiting, and paying attention, which led them to mark this moment;  so much so that Simeon felt he could now die in peace.

Inspired by both of these characters, and by the writing of Annie Dillard, I've set up a new blog called 'the mockingbird's leap'.

It's a special project for the Advent season. A short-term but intentional community of friends and connections from many places who have agreed to practice attention in the run up to Christmas Day, so that we can learn to appreciate the many ways we have been gifted.

We live with the awareness that often the busyness and commerciality of the season leads to inattention, and that we are constantly in danger of not noticing. Maybe this year, if we are intentional about attention, and then blogging about what we see, we might be better prepared for the advent of the Christ Child, the great Gift of God.

We begin on December 1st and end on December 25th.

If you are in any way interested in participating, we'd love to welcome you over to the site. You can get me on glenn AT crookedshore DOT COM. If you need any instructions I can get them to you and we'll see what happens.

My hope for this venture is that by the end of Advent, as we welcome in Christmas in the birth of Jesus, we can look back on all the ways in which he has been present to us, and we will be impacted by the weightiness of God in the world.

Come on and join us.

 

Some New Blogs

Four new blogs have come to my attention in recent weeks.

1. David Campton has switched from some impossible to remember url to the nice and simple Virtual Methodist. It's a miscellany including reflection, poetry and drama (his own material).

2. Bishop Will Willimon, UMC Bishop in Alabama visited the Mission some years ago as speaker at our Anniversary Conference. So memorable an event was it that the content is still discussed by some who were there. Somehow or other I discovered he is now blogging on A Peculiar Prophet (indeed) and I've put him in my feeder.

3. Peregrinatio is back here on skellig michael. And about time.

4. Finally, Ched Myers has been a personal inspiration for several years so I was delighted that he was able to make it across to Belfast after Greenbelt this year. His workshop at the Mission was magnificent. Ched recently underwent pretty serious surgery on his spine and is recovering at home. As is the way these days, progress is being blogged on Ched's Pain in the Neck Blog.

Brother Maynard & Graceland

I've enjoyed some posts over on Subversive Influence and even took part in some conversation on the issue of city versus rural and how we experience transcendence. Brother Maynard is a considerate and gentle voice worth paying attention to.

Mark, creative genius behind Graceland sent me this, which may have some perspective too. He expressed some surprise that it was to found in 'old Ossie' (his description of Oswald Chambers:

THE SPHERE OF EXALTATION

"Jesus leadeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves." Mark 9:2

We have all had times on the mount, when we have seen things from God's standpoint and have wanted to stay there; but God will never allow us to stay there. The test of our spiritual life is the power to descend; if we have power to rise only, something is wrong. It is a great thing to be on the mount with God, but a man only gets there in order that afterwards he may get down among the devil-possessed and lift them up. We are not built for the mountains and the dawns and aesthetic affinities, those are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle. Spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mount. We feel we could talk like angels and live like angels, if only we could stay on the mount. The times of exaltation are exceptional, they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware lest our spiritual selfishness wants to make them the only time.

We are apt to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching, it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz., into character. The mount is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a great snare in asking - What is the use of it? In spiritual matters we can never calculate on that line. The moments on the mountain tops are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God's purpose.

Recovering a Voice

Great to see my friend (and now colleague) Mark Houston has recovered his voice over on Graceland.

Apologies for the lack of action

Apologies for the lack of action on this blog for some time. Everything has been happening here. I've been planning this cycling tour for 2 years to raise money for the skainos project and now it's here. I'm in Boone, NC, about to tackle 80 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the company of some good friends.

Follow the adventure on frontforkfairytales.

I'll be back here soon.

Happy Birthday

This blog is one year old today maybe sometime soon I'll get a chance to reflect on the past year and maybe even continue for another.

I'm in Orlando, about to make my way to Port St Lucie, and back home my daughter is, at this moment, in her piano exam. This has been a long trip, and I'll be glad to get home.

Northern Ireland Election Blog

Stormont, originally uploaded by jackx.

Stuart Noble of Care has emailed me with a link to a new blog focussing on the forthcoming Northern Ireland Assembly elections, set for March 7 next. Yet again, another critical election (sigh!) for the province.

If you have an interest in politics, and Northern Ireland politics in particular, the blog promises to be interesting.

You'll find it on Northern Ireland Election 2007. Check it out.