I left Sanctus1 last night to encounter police dresses in full riot gear. There was a tangible sense of tension in the air and level of nervousness on the streets. I'd been in the city centre since 17:00 and it was heaving with 100,000 Rangers Fans. I'd cleaned up vomit from the toilets of Nexus, shut Nexus early because of the threat, had water stolen from us, seen people skinning up on the front step, been in a crowd where bottles were being thrown and witnessed horrific sectarian abuse. I'd received many messages throughout the day telling me how 'bad' the city centre was and yet I was still excited about the prospect of entering the city.
As a church, and as a church leader in the city centre, I/we are called to reflect on our context and ask the question: Where do we find God in this? Where is God in 100,000 pissed football fans rampaging through our city centre? I cannot believe that God is not there and therefore I will not. Yet, at the same time we are called to be critical, we cannot blindly affirm all that is happening without criticizing the destructive force that is at work.
Being a church in the city centre means that this is your context - this is where we outwork our Christian faith. Last night we were exploring three different positive Christian approaches to the environment, finishing with Matthew Fox's Creation Spirituality. I finished with a quote from Fox:
Creation spirituality, a path that we choose to take that is distinct from other ways offered us, begins with creation and the cosmos. Only later does it get to the human story, which then attracts us like jewel set in the larger drama of creation itself.I read this and then 20 minutes later I left Sanctus1 and saw blue flashing lights and riot police. Are we really the jewel in the cosmos? I still believe that we are...
3 comments:
Hey bud, i loved stepping outside into that. Right into the centre of the mayhem. Especially after what we were talking about. A couple of things struck me. First, terror and panic are powerful emotions. Second, remaining calm when the world about you seems to be loosing their heads is a hard thing to do!
Still, it taught me that i take my safe & peaceful life way too much for granted. i was reminded that there are people who face violence and terror on a daily basis in ways i couldn't even imagine. And apart from God there ain't much hope for any of us.
Encouragingly tho, i guess that's not the whole story! Hopefully, all of last nights expereinces will help me to grow a bit more in the right direction ;o)
Cheers fella
Is "wrong" to think that God was in us last night in the midst of that? Not soley of course but... we were some of that spark of the divine in the riot.
I say that because:
we told at least one lost fan how to find their hotel;
we chatted to two others about us being a church group meeting at Nexus and just locking up;
and had three other pedestrians join us for safety-in-numbers walking the back streets and alleys homewards.
Maybe not great peaks of the divine but equally I know I prayed walking home as hard as any other time I can recently recall...
Do you see 100,000 pissed football fans or do you see 100,000 fallen people trying to make sense of a nonsensical world?
For them, they're there because they all believe and hope in one thing - their team winning. They've traveled many miles just for the glimpse of it. If only there was that kind of dedication in the christian world things would be a lot different, I think.
btw. I was scared last night, and I think the whole thing was handled badly by the council overall.. they seemed to have no middle ground between 'let anyone do anything' and 'send in the riot police'. They lost control, and the rest was inevitable.
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