Blessed are those who carry
Posted on 29 August 2010, 5:31
Greenbelt festival, Cheltenham: At 7 this evening I went to a 15 min service of evening prayer. Greenbelt are trialling these services this year, although they’ve hidden them away in the corner of the youth area, so numbers are a bit low. Here’s a mini Mystery Worshipper report…
Where: Youth Shelter, a medium-sized white tent. No groundsheet, just the Cheltenham turf.
The cast: Revd Malcolm Doney (seen above), Chaplain at All Hallows on the Wall, London.
How full? There were nine of us, including Malcolm. The other seven were all youngsters in their early teens.
Was your pew comfortable? We sat on cube-shaped bean bags, which were surprisingly comfy.
Did anything distract you? The festival main stage was just across the grass, and the act on stage were belting out ‘My Girl’.
How long was the sermon? 4 minutes.
What was it about? There were two readings: a striking poem, ‘Those who carry’, by Polish poet Anna Kamieńska, and then Isaiah 53:2-9, ‘Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…’ Malcolm simply talked about how Jesus carried our burdens, and therefore knows how we feel with the burdens we carry. He closed with the two lines at the end of Kamieńska’s poem: ‘Blessed are those who carry / for they shall be lifted.’
Which part of the service was like heaven? We had a few minutes of silence, which Malcolm opened and closed by striking a bronze Tibetan singing bowl. I was able to open up a painful work problem I haven’t been able to resolve yet, and just be with it, rather than worry over it.
How did it end? With a prayer: ‘Night and day, free us from all fear, give us strength to survive, give us grace to be generous.’ I left the service lighter and happier than when I went in… unusual for me and church these days.
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