Faith Space

I ought to have been aware of our local University's Faith Space: it must have opened a while ago, but I only noticed it this morning, as I was cutting through Park Campus.

It presumably replaces what was the campus chapel, which always seemed - to a passer by - a singularly uninviting place, albeit part of the original Christian teacher training college complex.

Things have changed in Cheltenham over the decades, and the new pocket-sized prayer spot is rightly inter-faith. Unfortunately, it was closed today - I guess because it's the vacation, and there's nobody about to keep an eye on it. (In principle, it needs to be ever open, but that could be tricky, I appreciate.) It's certainly in a prominent enough position, and let's hope well-used.

Art of Transition

What is left of the once celebrated Cheltenham School of Art (founded over 150 years ago) is now located in the University of Gloucestershire's Hardwick Campus. I went there for the first time yesterday: Transition Town Cheltenham's Heart and Soul Group were running an Art of Transition course there. It was well subscribed, the keynote speech being by the University's Arran Stibbe, assisted by his five-year-old son. Arran's theme was that images - not necessarily artistic - can help to point the way towards a new lifestyle for communities.

This made sense to me, as a Christian member of the Group - rather like religious images as an aid to prayer. Yet, as Sara Maitland points out in a thoughtful article in this week’s Tablet, “Our God creates by speaking and most usually communicates with that Creation through words and songs – rather than direct visual appearances.”

Arran's is, furthermore, art as function, not for art's sake; though perhaps our problem is that we lose sight of things for their own sake. Certainly, it's difficult to avoid putting a price on everything: free entry to the Heart and Soul group's "heartening" event - complementary biscuits and juices into the bargain - no doubt helped those attending (myself included) to feel they were walking the talk.

The photograph shows local graphic designer, Jacqui Brown's practical art workshop: she had raided the marvellous Gloucester Scrapstore for our benefit. (On Thursday, the Gloucestershire Churches Environmental Justice Network heard Richard Walter of the local Community Energy Co-operative talk about the huge PV array recently-installed on the Scrapstore roof: it should yield £1800 a month in Summertime!)

Besides Jacqui's workshop, Pat Dannahy ran a session on The art of Communication, and Lesley O'Neill a workshop on the Artist's Way.
.

Old friends

Caroline and I got engaged to be married in East Anglia, while staying with friends of mine, who had not long been married themselves. In other words, they showed us the way.

It's a trek, to get to see them (and vice versa), but we were pleased they could drop in on us for the night yesterday, which they did, bearing lilies. John and I had a quick march round the Park Campus lake this morning, before they headed off South. They don't seem to have changed much in nearly four decades.

A touch of Galician Spring

On the day of the Royal Wedding, our very own younger version of Pippa arrived to stay – from Spain. A graduate of Vigo University, Lorena is looking for an internship here, where she can put to good use her excellent English and her skills in advertising and public relations. Meanwhile, she is completing a year at the University of Gloucestershire, and lodging with us till the end of next month.
She’s already had a good go at me for not making more of my photographs. I’m about to put her at work finding us casas rurales to stay in, on our way back to the ferry after our fortnight with Thomas in Portugal.

The Kumar at the UoG

Satish Kumar came to the University of Gloucestershire this afternoon for what he called a fireside chat: no open log fire there, unlike at Dartington Hall - though plenty of fire in the belly.

"My pet theme is about soil, soul and society - a new Trinity for the age of ecology." It avoids, he said, the dualism of the Christian Trinity; the anthropocentricity of the American life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the all too personal "mind, body and spirit".

We are not separate from nature: we are nature, that is "to be born". What we do to nature, we do to ourselves: there can be no healthy society on a sick planet. From one, bitter-tasting pip, the apple tree grows, yielding year after year an abundant harvest, not discriminating between those who enjoy its fruit, whether they be saints, sinners - or grubs.

A body without a soul is only good to be buried. We need to put the soul back into society, for its well-being. You can be rich and not be well - and many of us are exactly that. Without beauty, the soul will starve.

"I'm going to Pakistan," Satish told a fellow-Indian. "Take some food with you," came back the advice. "No, I am foremost, not an Indian, but a member of the earth community. Your parcels of food are parcels of mistrust."

"Ageing well"

The 1995 Summerfield Lecture (in our Festival of Literature) was given by Rabbi Julia Neuberger. She gave a masterly survey of "The moral state we're in", considering some of the life and death questions which Brtitish society faces - or doesn't face. Tonight, she returned to Cheltenham to speak at the University of Gloucestershire on one specific question, how we deal with ageing, and how we could do better.

Her talk, as 15 years ago, was a tour de force. "We are an ageing society, and live in an inherently ageist society," was her message. China, Japan, and even America have much to teach us: older people need to mount the barricades for civil liberties, as Raymond Tallis urges. Where are our Grey Panthers?

From ageing to dying requires an acceptance, if not an embrace. Instead, with this transition we enter into taboo territory. "We need to contemplate our mortality with a kind of equanimity."

But it was't all fine phrases. Julia's a practical soul, and throughout her lecture you could feel her (ageing) audience abuzz with "Yesss!". In introducing her, Vice-Chancellor Patricia Broadfoot was right to predict it would be "far more exciting than the Cheltenham Races."