Friday, May 28, 2010
What is a creationary?
A creationary is a space to be creative with the lectionary. It is not a sermon. Rather it is what happens when a restless mind reads the Biblical text. It is the linkages that could be made between the text and various bits of the worship service, questions that could be explored, tactile ways to engage people around the text, songs and videos, poetry, spirituality2go ideas that begin to form. The creationary is a space to be creative with the lectionary.
The creationary is a regular feature I want to keep to the foreground both in my life and in the life of this blog-site.
There are some personal reasons for this. As a pastor for the last 14 years, I enjoyed (most of the time), the Sunday rhythm of regular engagement with the Biblical text in preparation for worship. The week started with reading the text and there was a creativity about that process. Alas, in the strange ways of God, I’m still in ministry, but no longer (currently) in congregational ministry. So the disciplines have begun to change. Yet in preparing for a recent Ascension service at College chapel, I realised how much I am nourished and find creativity when I engage with the text. I wonder if I can keep in that creative space, even if there is no Sunday outline.
In addition, this blog still gets lots of visits from people looking for creative worship ideas. A 2004 Pentecost worship experience got a lot of hits last week.
And there are lots of creative worship treats buried in the archives of this blog, years of ministry, which readers might appreciate.
For example, in regard to Trinity Sunday:
- a worship idea here
- a kids talk on Rublevs icon here
- some Trinitarian art reflections here
- a Trinity tryptch takeaway idea here.
All on this blog, all potentially useful.
Hence the creationary is a space to be creative with the lectionary. I’m adding a new category, and as a category that runs across the top of the blog. And every Monday I am going to seek to craft some time to read the lectionary texts for the Sunday coming, and to blog some of my thoughts. It might be a list of links as above. It might be some fresh ideas and sparks. If I’ve worked on a certain lectionary text before, I will try and engage with another of the suggested readings for the Sunday coming. I won’t promise to do this every week, but I think it will be pattern that will be good for my ongoing spiritual nourishment. And perhaps in the mercy of God, it might spark more creativity in you my readers.
Hope you don’t mind me taking a little space in your creationary to ease my restless mind, which has been mulling over Rublev’s icon….On another image of the icon the colors appear to be like this: Center person: red. Left person: gold mingled with green. Right person: green…Red could be the color of royalty. Also the head of the middle person is above that of the others and the feet are invisible, whereas those of left and right person touch the ground. Therefore, I am strongly inclined to see the middle person as the Father. ….I do like those kind of interpretations and am looking forward to more.
Comment by Ingrid — May 31, 2010 @ 9:12 am
Ingrid, Rublev did not leave a detailed explanation of the art. However commentators generally regard the middle person as the Son. Colour red links with the Son cos of blood shed. Plus the hand is pointing toward the cup, indicating the Son giving the church Eucharist – this is my body broken.
Generally in the church green is the colour attributed to Spirit, while gold to the Creator.
steve
Comment by steve — May 31, 2010 @ 10:28 am