Ah me, it’s week 49. # I usually write *something* at the end of the week, but rarely (if ever) manage to publish it. For me, writing is thinking more than it is anything else and giving my thoughts on the week an extra polish in order to share them is usually too much effort….
LXI’ve always known that the JFK/Doctor Who 60th anniversaries would mark the 13-month countdown to my own encounter with 2x2x3x5. But it really started last Christmas when I was in the midst of whatever non-Covid knock-out virus that had entered me and I shuddered as I turned 58. 59 was a year a way and…
60 years ago today, my parents (who were engaged to be married) were taking the bus to get into town and had to change by the cricket ground at Edgbaston. That was when they heard the news from Dallas – on a street, in a crowd of people waiting for their bus on a Friday…
Yesterday, I said in a team meeting that I needed to be working out in the open more. Very soon after, I got an invitation to go to a thing tonight, coincidentally featuring someone who is associated with Black Elephant. Fun. But really working out loud or working in the open is not restricted to…
I can’t believe it’s four years since we went to Iceland and then I came back and started work in the church. When people say “We’ve had enough of the madness” I hope that’s true, but I know that I’ve said it about my own odd choices and divergences and it takes longer than we…
I’ve recently started working with Black Elephant, which is a movement dedicated to building connection through more open, honest conversations among truly diverse groups of people. I believe that this kind of connection, and the sense of belonging that can come from it, should be available to everyone. The basic unit of our work is…
How do you keep track of where the people you know are, right now?
I’ve found Rich Bartlett’s concept of microsolidarity really useful since I saw it a couple of years ago. It’s gotten complex fast, but the basic stuff that “groups of different sizes are good for different things” chimes with my experience of Tuttle and of other social art and community building practices and projects. I think…
You might remember a little piece I shared a few weeks ago about the idea of Black Elephants. Well, part of my re-ignited interest was in watching how some folk had taken the idea and the name and made a thing out of it. And now I’m going to work for them! First off, I…
It’s two weeks now since I finished my job as Community Worker at the local United Reformed Church and I’ve had some time to think through what I think about the last three and a half years of practicing community in an explicitly spiritual context – that’s how, when I started, I set my own…