Greenbelt
Against all odds, Robin's recent arrival did not in fact mean missing Greenbelt. We decided that we could cope with a couple of daytrips so on Friday night we got everything ready and we set off quite early on Saturday morning.
Arrived with everyone hungry so quickly located Nuts Cafe for veggie breakfast. We then prioritised finding a programme and buying some T-shirts to prove we had actually made it, before heading to a panel on the subject of how reasonable is it to scare the children with shows like Dr Who (conclusion: perfectly reasonable). We also made it to a contemplative alt-worship thingy on the subject of "The Long Now" which focused on different ways of perceiving time - cosmic timescales, geological timescales etc. A couple of hours mainly vegging out in the tiny tea tent, with a little bit of appreciating some of the visual art on display at various locations, and then went to a talk on "a plea for christian piracy" which was very interesting. The point being that in the age of piracy on the high seas as depicted in Pirates of the Caribean etc, the wealthy elite had mostly effectively stolen their goods in one way or another, and most of the ships crews were effectively indentured and un-free even if not officially slaves, so they might well think it was reasonable to opt out of legality and become pirates. He talked enthusiastically about how pirate communities living outisde the rules of normal society were a lot like Greenbelt in some ways, made a good point about how human tendency is to make rules and set boundaries and define who is "in" and who is "out" which is not the sort of thing Jesus was a fan of. Highly relevant as I recently (well, over a year ago now I think) felt I had to leave one alt-worship group which did just that). He also talked about how the reason children are fascinated with Pirates is because the concept gives them an early clue about the inevitable eventual moment when they break away from their parents and because autonomous beings able to set their own moral code rather than obeying parental rule.
That was as much as we had energy for on Saturday, and we spent Sunday resting at home before doing a second day-trip on Monday. Arrived a little later so breakfast was more hurried, but then went to another talk by the same chap as did the Piracy one - this time on quantum physics and the many worlds theory as applied to religion. There was a very amusing bit where he pointed out that the Alt-Worship response to all this uncertainy was to "go very dark, play spooky music and burn stuff" which was well observed. He proposed a theory that the incarnation was as much about God needing to subject himself to the laws of physics in order to fully comprehend the human condition as it was about bringing mankind to God. Phil will probably blog more extensively on this as he was quite inspired by the idea of Jesus being subject to the Many-Worlds theory of quantum events such that there are universes where Jesus' life-story was very different. He may write a book about that one day.
This was followed by lunch with Elaine back at Nuts Cafe, a bit more viewing of the visual art, a brief sojourne in the Beer Tent (thoroughly disappointing this year, they swapped suppliers and instead of fantastic organic beer in 3 or 4 varieties as of previous years, this year the choice was Bath Gem (OK but a bit generic) or Carlsberg (not even really beer actually)) and then a talk by Jasper Fforde (a bit pretentious and rather too pleased with himself, not that interesting). The plan was then to go to an interesting-looking talk on The Narnia Code but with Robin hungry and me exhausted we ended up just grabbing some moroccan pizza (Greenbelt wouldn't be Greenbelt without it) before heading home.
So, a somewhat less full-of-interesting-stuff Greenbelt than some years, but at least we made it.
Arrived with everyone hungry so quickly located Nuts Cafe for veggie breakfast. We then prioritised finding a programme and buying some T-shirts to prove we had actually made it, before heading to a panel on the subject of how reasonable is it to scare the children with shows like Dr Who (conclusion: perfectly reasonable). We also made it to a contemplative alt-worship thingy on the subject of "The Long Now" which focused on different ways of perceiving time - cosmic timescales, geological timescales etc. A couple of hours mainly vegging out in the tiny tea tent, with a little bit of appreciating some of the visual art on display at various locations, and then went to a talk on "a plea for christian piracy" which was very interesting. The point being that in the age of piracy on the high seas as depicted in Pirates of the Caribean etc, the wealthy elite had mostly effectively stolen their goods in one way or another, and most of the ships crews were effectively indentured and un-free even if not officially slaves, so they might well think it was reasonable to opt out of legality and become pirates. He talked enthusiastically about how pirate communities living outisde the rules of normal society were a lot like Greenbelt in some ways, made a good point about how human tendency is to make rules and set boundaries and define who is "in" and who is "out" which is not the sort of thing Jesus was a fan of. Highly relevant as I recently (well, over a year ago now I think) felt I had to leave one alt-worship group which did just that). He also talked about how the reason children are fascinated with Pirates is because the concept gives them an early clue about the inevitable eventual moment when they break away from their parents and because autonomous beings able to set their own moral code rather than obeying parental rule.
That was as much as we had energy for on Saturday, and we spent Sunday resting at home before doing a second day-trip on Monday. Arrived a little later so breakfast was more hurried, but then went to another talk by the same chap as did the Piracy one - this time on quantum physics and the many worlds theory as applied to religion. There was a very amusing bit where he pointed out that the Alt-Worship response to all this uncertainy was to "go very dark, play spooky music and burn stuff" which was well observed. He proposed a theory that the incarnation was as much about God needing to subject himself to the laws of physics in order to fully comprehend the human condition as it was about bringing mankind to God. Phil will probably blog more extensively on this as he was quite inspired by the idea of Jesus being subject to the Many-Worlds theory of quantum events such that there are universes where Jesus' life-story was very different. He may write a book about that one day.
This was followed by lunch with Elaine back at Nuts Cafe, a bit more viewing of the visual art, a brief sojourne in the Beer Tent (thoroughly disappointing this year, they swapped suppliers and instead of fantastic organic beer in 3 or 4 varieties as of previous years, this year the choice was Bath Gem (OK but a bit generic) or Carlsberg (not even really beer actually)) and then a talk by Jasper Fforde (a bit pretentious and rather too pleased with himself, not that interesting). The plan was then to go to an interesting-looking talk on The Narnia Code but with Robin hungry and me exhausted we ended up just grabbing some moroccan pizza (Greenbelt wouldn't be Greenbelt without it) before heading home.
So, a somewhat less full-of-interesting-stuff Greenbelt than some years, but at least we made it.