Greenbelt 2007 - Part One

Greenbelt was amazing, as usual. For us as a family it ran really well. We got there set on Friday morning, get set up and had time to look at our programmes. I registered Callie for the Children’s festival and put her to bed while Nettes looked around and listened to Billy Bragg.

I slept really well and spent the next morning, after a coffee at the Tank – Greenbelt's Cybercafé – exploring the exhibitions and shops and stumbling across a guy teaching some kids how to do graffiti. And in the afternoon I went to a service on the grass at the arena – the sort of second/overflow stage. We sat in groups and were given numbered envelopes with instructions which we followed to the numbers on the screen. There were icebreakers, discussion questions and activities including breaking of bread.

In the evening I went to Soul Space - a room at the highest point of the festival for some evening prayers in the theme of the four seasons. Then after failing to get into Bassline Circus I decided to go to ‘The God Delusion’. Although very philosophical and not easy to get my head round it was presented in a way that kept my interest – with stories, puppets and a giant woman with wearing woollen clothes that were unravelling – a picture of how your faith can unravel with doubts and questions but rather than lead to nothing can be re-knitted into something new. Picture by Becky Garrison

Normally I would head off to the tent at ten o’clock but somehow I was awake enough to listen to a gig by Lies Damn Lies and go to the start of Christian Aid’s candle lit vigil for climate change. Of course this meant I was tired the next morning. But we still got to the main communion service albeit the overflow in the arena. I got us a couple of cups of chai from the Tiny Tea Tent and enjoyed the graphics on the screen which we would have missed if we had been in the mainstage area.

To be continued...