Percolating reflections

Julie Lee, Beth Rowley and 'Foreign Slippers'

We have finally landed back home after our first ever trip to Greenbelt.
There are many thoughts and feelings floating around my head about it.
The two things people have been asking me are "have you enjoyed it?" and "what were your best bits?"
It would be easy to just say yes, I have enjoyed it, which would be honest and truthful and to pick out perhaps the obvious acts or speakers which were especially good.

However, I'm not sure that that would even scratch at doing justice to it.

A bit like percolating coffee, it is going to take a while for the full flavour of the experience to be appreciated, and it has as much, if not more to do with the 'moments' that happened along the way as it has with the more obvious.

I was very struck by the fact that Greenbelt is different things to different people fulfilling different needs on many different levels. A complex formula that brings people from all walks of life and from all corners of the globe together - even on the way home on the train I was chatting to a pastor from South Dakota who comes over especially to revive and refresh.
It is a uniquely individual experience, which was so clear in conversation with people we met along the way, who shared tables with us at the beer tent, or who we just found ourselves next to. Even just observing the vastness of the site and the numbers of people and the individuals that sat listening in many different ways to the many good talks or performances that were on.

I had no idea what I should expect and instead decided to just go, and let Greenbelt find me.


Within that vastness I was conscious of a feeling and awareness of solitude aswell as of connectedness, and there was a sense that perhaps it held the possibility to be quite lonesome, maybe... apart from the fact that somehow it wasn't, and somewhere in that lies the distinction between solitude and loneliness.
And for me there is a shift somewhere within that, that occurs on a deep and personal level whilst quietly absorbing the words and the music and the atmosphere, as the initial euphoria settles and the grass turns to mud, and the rain falls, and the festival is there waiting to be discovered, tasted and savoured.

So, knowing I have only tasted, knowing I was only ever going to taste a small part of it I am savouring the small moments as much as the big ones. Perhaps thats the draw, the sense that there is far more to be savoured, that you only ever get fed a fraction of what there is on offer - and if what you taste is good, you leave wanting more. All four of us would like to return, have been left tired and satisfied yet still wanting more. And so we will.

Children were very much a part of it and very evident - whether it was tiny tots dancing freely close up to the stage to wonderful music, or splashing in the mud while Beth Rowley sang Angels flying too close to the ground.

I missed people I very much wanted to see, yet in the waiting for a bus that failed to turn up I made some wonderful connections and shared the ride into the festival with the lovely Julie Lee, which just wouldn't have happened had I not been delayed...she was wonderful, but then so often we would wander into the performance cafe to find yet another gem of a musician previously unknown to us. There were only a couple of things I turned up to that just weren't quite my cup of tea but judging by the numbers there they obviously were someone elses, and so we moved on to another tent, another opportunity.

Very very personally Brian Houston managed to touch something very deep inside with his music, which led to some emotional and hard conversations initiated by my son about his twin who was miscarried - noone said moments had to be uplifting... they are what they are, and it facillitated conversations that couldn't be contrived, or planned, they had to happen naturally... and I am grateful for that opportunity.

There were several tearful moments for various reasons throughout the four days!

However, over the course of the festival there were also the wonderful and uplifting times, including meeting people I have only ever heard about or known through the blogosphere, putting faces to names and managing to spend at least some time with them. A text from the lovely Caroline made my Monday morning, meaning that although she couldn't make it in person, she was a part of it too. Even after the day's festival had come to a close there were more people to meet and share time with into the early hours in the hotel bar. A people filled incredibly special time all round.

One of my most beautiful peaceful experiences though was probably in the calm of a place called 'the Hub' listening to wonderful poetry by Padraig O Tuama as the festival was winding down.

I wish I had seen Pete Rollins, Ikon and Philip Yancey, oh and David Dark, he was there too and I did want to see him, but they are only names I know and had planned on seeing - I got much from those people recommended to me by others as our paths crossed and have to be content with the promise and the hope of another year.

The talks can be downloaded which is fantastic.

The experience is individual and unique.

Already life here is back to full speed and meanwhile in the background the thoughts and feelings, like good coffee, continue to percolate and infuse with a warm, rich, invigorating aroma and taste that I suspect will be felt until next time.

The sun above The Jesus arms