abbotsford.org.uk

Chocolate Text Images

This weeks passage: Luke 24:13-35

Emmaus: that bakers shop that baked heaven's bread. Somehow heaven chose the place as a doorway and every time someone cracks bread there, or a crumb falls, or some yeast goes flying, glory and promise cascade into the gap. It's a bit like Dr Who and the temporal crack under Cardiff that breaks every so often and lets other stuff in.

No one knows where Emmaus is or was but we all know about it. It's a village of strangers and strange things.

A table
A stranger
A loaf
And a meal

A table
A stranger
A loaf
And a gasp of light

A table
A stranger
A loaf
And recognition in slow motion

How was it we didn't we notice before?
Buit where do we notice it now?

O Emmaus
which stranger do you welcome now?

Easter Text Images

A new text gallery has been set up for the Seasons of Easter. Here's a wee something to provoke our imagination for images for Easter Day:

Okay, so the body is gone.
Now what?

Now is the time for belief.

Everything else up to now was just a trial run:
believe I can heal you
believe I am the Son of God
believe I can feed 5000

Child's play

Now is the time for belief.

Because bodies don't rise without faith
and stones don't roll without believing
and saviours don't walk from tombs without trust

Now is the time for belief.

But dare we...?

Text Images...

Some images have been posted for Palm Sunday. Maybe this will inspire a few more.

What kind of road to a tomb is this
bedecked with cloaks and hosannas?

What kind of a road to a tomb is this
with the cries of support for a man not yet dead?

What kind of road to a tomb is this
where the sadness is hidden with undercurrents of betrayal?

What kind of road to a tomb is this
that haunts religion with resurrection?

Text Images

A few images have been added so far. Here's a wee rough reflection that may be where we go on Sunday. But then perhaps not...

the big question is
does god fit?

if god popped into church
(maybe he does already, perhaps not)
would god fit?

god would make a mess
not so much with sweetie papers and orders of service turned into planes
(though i imagine that would happen too)
but god would make a mess of communion
laughing out loud
god would stumble over the creeds
skip a few lines of our hymns
talk when we're normally quiet
during intercession
asking us how we were
praying for us by actually speaking to us
and checking up on us rather than just 'thinking' about the person
god would get angry at our ritual politeness
our culture of church behaviour rather than our culture of faith
god would be the biggest agitator
the biggest child
the most passionate protester
the keenest rule breaker

the question is
does god fit?

god didn't fit with the pharisees religion
as he healed a man born blind
why should we imagine god would fit in our religion any more comfortably?
do we want god?

seeing is a great thing
maybe we should open our eyes
and try

Text Images - Samaritan Woman and the well

waterwatereverywhereandnotadroptodrink.

but it's not for drinking
it's for living
for bringing life

waterwatereverywhereandwhoneedstodrink?

it's not for drinking
it's for living
for bringing the fullness

waterwatereverydoyouwantataste?

Text Images

Here an opening reflection on the text for this week to spark the imagination possibly for any images folk have to hep engage with the text. The Album is posted on the right hand column. Please do feel free to let these opening gambits be works in progress and so please edit them, add to them, adapt them and hone them. That would be even better than letting it just spark images.

It is at dark when the question is posed.

How often the darkness seems to deepen the questions.
Maybe in the dying of the light
we tend to live.
Hidden in the shade we lurk,
in the shadows with our anxieties
our half-truths
our worries
and lack of faith.

Under darkness Nicodemus arrives,
uncomfortably.
Under darkness, a motif for his journey?
A question of faith in a man of faith?
An ambition for newness in a religion of traditions?

Frightened by what is happening to his soul unexpectedly
he seeks the light,
and finds Jesus,
not with an answer,
but with a way.

Text Images

Here an opening reflection on the text for this week to spark the imagination possibly for any images folk have to hep engage with the text. The Album is posted on the right hand column. Please do feel free to let these opening gambits be works in progress and so please edit them, add to them, adapt them and hone them. That would be even better than letting it just spark images.

It is at dark when the question is posed.

How often the darkness seems to deepen the questions.
Maybe in the dying of the light
we tend to live.
Hidden in the shade we lurk,
in the shadows with our anxieties
our half-truths
our worries
and lack of faith.

Under darkness Nicodemus arrives,
uncomfortably.
Under darkness, a motif for his journey?
A question of faith in a man of faith?
An ambition for newness in a religion of traditions?

Frightened by what is happening to his soul unexpectedly
he seeks the light,
and finds Jesus,
not with an answer,
but with a way.

Lent Images

There's a new image gallery for Lent Texts down the side. And here's a wee thought to help inspire the photographs...

So there are loaves of bread hidden in the stones
Stones are full of the promised realm
but it's ot the food that matters
it the word that feeds

And there are voices in these stones
that will cry out of God's People are silent
but it is not the shouting that matters
its the word that speaks

And there is movement in these stones
that rolls away from an empty tomb
but it is not the rolling that matters
it's the living that comes next

By stealth
heaven is everywhere
for God had crushed promise
into rock
Every wilderness
is abounding with eternity

The temptation is
not to look