So What?

Burngreave Cemetery Apple Day #BAD11 #FOOD

Today is the Blog Action Day and the theme this year is World Food Day. 

It was also Apple Day in Burngreave Cemetery.  And so that is my food theme: apples. 

Let me start with Burngreave Cemetery.  It is a fantastic open space in Burngreave (which is the name of the ward, it's really Pitsmoor) in Sheffield, England.  It has an interesting history and its friends meet most Sundays in the chapel (right), which they are turning into a museum about the cemetery and the surrounding area.

This Sunday was their third apple day.  It's never been a big event.  It is an opportunity for people to bring their apples to swop for other's apples.  And there is a small display of local apples.  By local I mean grown in Sheffield.  I copied the list of apple varieties present and here it is:

In the photo, starting on the left of the back row:

Ribston Pippin

Pitmaston Pineapple

Wyken Pippin

Cider Apples (Kingston Black and Dabinet)

Golden Spire 1850

Lane's Prince Albert

Golden Noble

Newton Wonder

Cockpit

Peasgood Nonesuch

Keswick Codlin

On the front row there's a quince and a medlar and then left to right:

Worcester Pearmain 1873

Epicure

Ellison's Orange 1911

Beeley Pippin

Margil

Egremont Russet

Adams Pearmain

Orlean's Reinette 1773

Ashmead's Kemel

I've deliberately listed these at the risk of being dull because there is a point to be made.  How many of you heard of?  You will know the names of Cox's Orange Pippin, Braeburn, Spartan, Russet (perhaps) and of course the all too dreadful Golden Delicious (frequently neither), Granny Smiths and of course the Pink Lady that inevitably tastes of sweetened polystyrene.

Most of these varieties are not British apples and have been developed because they provide a consistent product for the benefit of the supermarkets.  The supermarkets are the reason so many orchards are closing and rare varieties being lost.  Today it's the odd tree in a garden or allotment that preserves these varieties.

This year I am told has been good for apples.  (So, good they could afford to squash them, right.)  I've been given more than usual and even those with all too familiar names have more flavour than anything I normally eat from supermarkets.

Pitsmoor is notable for its specialist shops, particularly grocers selling foods from all over the world.  On the last day of this month, one of the largest branches of Tesco in Europe is to open on our doorstep.  We're hoping the little shops, with the genuine choice they offer, will not be forced to close through competition. 

If we're not careful we'll lose more than our apples.

Related articles

• Burngreave Cemetery, Sheffield , Yorkshire - Free Headstone Images (ancestrycentral.wordpress.com)
• Apple day: A celebration of core values (telegraph.co.uk)

Burngreave Multifaith Chapel and Library Tree Plaque

Last year on 15 November the Multifaith Chapel and Library, at the top of Spital Hill in Burngreave (or Pitsmoor), planted a Stone Pine.  The first multifaith tree in Sheffield.  Today we unveiled a plaque to mark, as the planting did last year, the start of interfaith week.  Here are some pictures.  First, here's a couple of the tree:

The plaque was unveiled by Revd Inderjit Bhogal, Chief Executive of the Yorkshire and Humber Faiths Forum and a past President of Methodist Conference, seen here with Cllr Alan Law JP, the Right Worshipful the Lord Mayor of Sheffield and Abdool Gooljar of the Islamic Society of Great Britain.

Related articles

• Building a Learning Community (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

The View from the Balcony

Image by avlxyz via Flickr

This is extracts from the first of my contributions to the study year, from the September session.  My theme is situation analysis and development work.

Situation Analysis and Development Work

This section of the Study Year will help you analyse your situation and respond to it.  Central to this will be the Portfolio exercise and this part of the course will equip you with some approaches to analysing, planning and implementing action in your place, for your portfolio.

Over the year we will explore:

• Situation Analysis
• How to understand non-numerical data
• Development Work
• Consultancy
• Prayer and Spirituality

Whilst much of the information and ideas might seem technical, this section of the course leads naturally into prayer and contemplation.  It is profoundly about how we perceive the world.  The Christian faith does not take us out of the world but leads us into deeper commitment.  As our faith deepens we learn to see more and how to respond to what we see.

The View from the Balcony

“I had a fantastic time last night at the dance.  I danced all night and everyone had a brilliant time.

“Later, I heard your experience was not quite the same as mine.  Although you danced all night too, it took you longer to enjoy yourself until you learned to avoid my crashing feet and frenetic direction changes.  But yes, you agreed, despite your injuries, we had a good time.

“Had we taken some time out to climb into the balcony however, we would have seen things quite differently.  The band was far too loud and so everyone sat a long way from the band.  Also the numbers dancing reduced as the night went on partly because of the noise and partly because of the mad couple barging their way round the dance floor.”

In any situation we can learn more by viewing it from a series of different perspectives.  There is my personal view, the views of other people and the view from the balcony.  It is not that any view is better than any other.  When we learn to consider all three perspectives we begin to have a fuller picture of what is happening around us.

We will spend a lot of time considering the views of others at future weekends.  The situation analysis is one way we obtain the view from the balcony.

Pitsmoor Walk

This walk is part of the study year and so, please take the opportunity to discuss what you see as you walk.  We will pause at various places to describe what we see, tell some stories, etc.  Use all your senses and reflect upon what you see.  You might also think about how you would plan a similar walk in your own place. 

The walk will break at the Rock Street community house for refreshments and worship.  It will resume for the short distance back to Burngreave Ashram.  The worship will be a further opportunity to reflect upon and respond to the walk.  Here are some questions you might like to discuss:

1.       How does the physical geography of this place form the lives of the people who live there?

2.       How does the purpose of buildings change throughout their history?  How does the built environment form the lives of those who live there?

3.       Are there issues or people you would pray for, insights or stories you could share in the context of worship?

Portfolio Outline

Your portfolio will be the material you gather for your situation analysis plus the other material you accumulate from other sections of the course.  It covers your reflections on experiences, papers written for the study year, pictures, souvenirs, anything you wish to keep to help you reflect on what is happening around you.

How you present your portfolio is open to you.  Here are a few ideas:

We have provided folders and you could keep all your notes in one place.  You will need to bring the folders to meetings in any event, so that you can keep all the papers together.  The simplest option would be to expand your notes into your situation analysis.

You may find this folder too much of a constraint and so feel free to develop other means of doing your analysis.  Photographs, audio and video recordings are all practical these days if you have the equipment.  You do not have to write formal essays and could use other formats such as stories, poetry, prayers, meditation or liturgy.

You might consider starting a blog.  This has a number of advantages.  It means a wider group of people can read your reflections on the course.  Each post has its own url and so can easily link to other posts, other blogs or websites.  Photos, audio and video can be included.  The main disadvantage is that not everyone has easy access to broadband.  It costs nothing to start a blog, so long as you have broadband.  Simply go to https://www.blogger.com/start , let everyone on the course have your blog address and start writing.  I will certainly follow and comment on any blog started as a result of this course, as well as other material you produce.  Blogging is a good way of receiving tutor support.

Portfolio Task

Your main task over the period of the study year is to write your own situation analysis.  We will share progress, during these sessions, in October, January and June.  The UTU Situation Analysis will provide you with guidelines that have served many people over the decades.  The Journey books may also be helpful.  Remember, you do not have to do everything.  Decide on a piece of work you are confident you can complete over the year.

For October, prepare a brief presentation of the situation analysis you plan to carry out over the rest of the year.  During the Ashram Weekend you will have a few minutes to share your plans.  Remember, this is your response to the whole study year, not just this section.

If you have time, you might like to attempt a rich picture.  This is a drawing that summarises your current situation.  The only rule is that you must include yourself in the picture.  Some people find this quite difficult to do, I know I do.  However, if a few people are able to attempt it, it will be helpful to have some examples later in the year.

We didn't quite get together in October and so this coming weekend will be an opportunity to find out how people have responded.

Related articles

• Study Year Redux (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Building a Learning Community

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, I described the study year and the possibility of developing a community of study or learning.  In this post, I'll say more about some of the ideas flowing together.  

I mentioned the Urban Theology Unit (UTU) and one of the spin offs from UTU has been a Radical Jesus Seminar.  This has been undertaken with some of the people from St Marks Broomhill.  Earlier this year we held a morning session where 30 people turned up, which rather surprised us.  We're hoping for a second meeting soon.

The study year itself takes place at Burngreave Ashram.  This is a complex project, based on Spital Hill in Pitsmoor.  I won't go into a lot of detail here, except to say one of the tutors organises the Multifaith Chapel and Library on the same premises.  This already runs several events each month.  Three consecutive lunchtimes per month were devoted last year to an issue based approach to interfaith conversations.  This year these sessions are looking in turn at the scriptures of the various faith traditions.  So, here is another group of people committed to learning.

The Multifaith Chapel and Library recently held a meeting with some of the local  I anthroposophists, followers of Rudolf Steiner, involved in education.  Their commitment is to education over the whole life span and so there may be potential for collaboration there.  We discussed the possibility of a learning community and agreed to meet again later this month.

It is interesting to note this type of idea is in the air elsewhere.  The Sheffield Social Centre recently ran a weekend for sharing ideas, skills, knowledge in a DIY anti-capitalist, non-hierarchical event.  This seems to be part of an informal movement across the country.  It would be interesting to find out more about them.

This post notes some of the things going on at present.  I will post again if anything of further interest happens.

Study Year Redux

Image by tripu via Flickr

I've been meaning to write about the study year for some time. Now it's becoming rather interesting, so here is an account of what it's all about.

I did the UTU study year in 1981-2.  At the time, it was the foundation course of the Urban Theology Unit (UTU).  Benefit regulations were more relaxed in those days and so it was possible, with a little help from the Methodist Book Shop, to take a year out for reflection. The study year was in 3 terms, three days a week.  I lived in a little flat above the Methodist Chapel (previously an off-license) in Grimesthorpe.

We talked a lot about 'alternative theological education', contrasting the new ideas of contextual theology (on the streets) and a community of study, with the traditional idea of theology as something done in the ivory towers of academe.  But over the years it became more difficult to uphold the vision.  UTU now focuses on formal courses, primarily related to ordination.  It is still a radical take on theology but it sometimes feels as though the fire has gone.  In a small way, the Christian Praxis Group has met since 1983 to the present and kept the flame alight!

John Vincent, the founder of the old study year, is still around and has recently started a new study year.  It is a one year course, one weekend a month.  I'm taking part as a tutor, specialising in situation analysis and development work.  Others are focusing on community, discipleship, personal development and radical Christianity. 

This is month three and it's had a bit of a chequered start but I'm hopeful something will come of it.

I wonder whether we have made a mistake, thinking of it as a course.  There's no accreditation or qualification.  Perhaps we should think in terms of a study or learning community.  This would run perhaps 8 or 9 months a year and people could opt in and out as they choose, gradually building up a portfolio.  As they become committed, they would contribute to the agenda.

Faith and the State

The Multifaith Chapel and Library meets three times a month at the Burngreave Ashram  on Spital Hill in Pitsmoor.  This eclectic group of 'believers in just about everything (including nothing)' meet to compare notes.  The three meetings are on consecutive days and at lunchtime on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  I suggested we tackle the topic of 'faith and the state' and of course I have now discovered I will be away for all three meetings.  So, I have been asked to prepare something for them to read.

The problem is, of course, I have no recollection of what it was we were discussing when I suggested this topic, so I will raise a few issues and hope the conversation sprouts wings.

My first point is about secularism and I think applies to all faiths.  To be secular is not necessarily to be against religion.  It is to believe faiths, as institutions, have no business running countries.  Generally, throughout history religious people, imposing their morality on the state, have not been terribly successful (sometimes successfully terrible).

The reason for this is the claim that certain actions are ordained by God has a tendency towards infallibility.  If God has ordained such and such behaviour, what do we do with those who disagree?  They are obviously against God and so cannot be good people.

The issue is one of accountability.  People of faith can be involved in legislation because in democracies their beliefs are subject to debate.  All is provisional; if we don't like them we can vote them out.  To remove a Catholic because we disagree with his or her politics is no attack on the Catholic Church. 

So, from a general observation, applicable to all faiths, to a focus upon Christian faith.

What we forget, perhaps because our churches want us to forget it, is that the early church was a political movement.  It was a movement against the Roman Empire and was persecuted for that reason.

Christians became church once Christianity was adopted by the Roman Empire.  Before that, although perhaps trends were towards institutionalisation, the Christians were more like a movement.  People who were identified as opposed to Emperor worship, were united by faith in Jesus, who had shown the way of opposition through the cross.

His conquest of death meant his followers had no fear of death and so had the courage to stand up to Rome in its more tyrannical periods.  Their aim was not power but to carve out a place for an alternative to empire.

Since then, there have been many movements of Christians.  Some relate to the state by supporting it, some attack it, creat alternatives to it, learn to live within it, contribute ideas to it, become obstacles to progress ...

This may seem random and perhaps it is ... but it is important to see what unifies them all.  The Spirit uses churches to introduce what is new into the world not by force but by example.  When we complain of secularisation, meaning change, too often we forget the source of those changes.  Because Christians have an uneasy relationship with the state, they are pre-eminent amongst those who contribute new ways of doing and being.

It is the conversation between state and church, which leads to change in both institutions - or should do if only people were not so entrenched in their views.  Life in a multi-faith nation, introduces new voices to this conversation.  As we learn to collaborate, new possibilities will open up for all of us.

Lent 11: John J Vincent

What can be meant by calling this a "secular" Gospel?  From our summary even so far, we see that Mark's purpose has been plainly to show that the life and ministry of Jesus on earth contained more than appeared on the surface - naturally, for Mark writes for those who, thirty years after, had never known Jesus "after the flesh"!  Consequently, what we might call the nonsecular references are already beginning to be heightened.  But the whole story is not about God, or heaven, or eternity, or ideas, or goodness, or providence, or anything else not available to ordinary man using his ordinary senses.  His whole story is about Jesus, walking, talking, getting into boats, doing controversial things, healing, getting into arguments, evading opponents, securing friends, explaining himself, explaining his teaching.  His whole story is about a secular event, an event within this world, which presupposes the limitations and opportunities of living in this world.  (From Secular Christ (1968), page 78)

John Vincent chose to live this story in Pitsmoor, Sheffield and has had a teaching ministry there ever since the late sixties, soon after this book was published.  For me, it is always John's teaching that springs to mind as I preach and exercise my own ministry.  I am one of what must amount to many thousands who have been influenced by him down the years.  I would certainly say his teaching has been more influential than his writing and indeed, I suspect his earlier writing has more significance than his later publications.  This in no way detracts from his, often controversial teachings, although it raises the question how influential he will be in 50 or 100 years time.  John has been responsible for several initiatives in Pitsmoor, the photo is of his latest, developed since his retirement.

Like Winstanley , John sees the Gospels from the point of view of the ordinary people who passed on the stories of Jesus.  John started as an academic and has remained an academic in the place he found himself, inner city Pitsmoor.  Perhaps his most profound teaching is that putting down roots in a particular time and place makes sense of the Gospel.  Perhaps we all need to reflect upon how engagement with what is real is central to our own faith. 

How to get out of Pitsmoor

When I was in the sixth form, between 1970 and 1972, I joined the Conservation Society.  This was one of the earliest environmental groups, which gave way to later organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Green Party.

At the time the big name in environmental groups was York 2000, a group set up to oppose the York ring road and its country-wide offshoot Transport 2000. 

This provided the inspiration for one of Sheffield Conservation Society's campaigns; opposition to the building of a dual carriageway across Wicker to link up the ring road in Sheffield.  I think our campaign must have been a success.  The plans for a dual carriageway cutting across Wicker on stilts were never implemented. 

We might have been better off with the stilts as now not one but two dual carriageways cut across Wicker.  They encircle the main access routes into Pitsmoor.  If anyone wanted to cut Pitsmoor off from the city centre they could not have found a better way to do it.  Access to Pitsmoor is now an obstacle course on foot or by car. 

Any attempt to explain access by car is doomed to failure.  I know how to do it and usually navigate the labyrinthine route without getting lost too many times.  On foot it is a daunting prospect of seemingly endless streams of speeding traffic.  Whilst the basic principle of the dual carriageway is that cars travel from one direction, these junctions are so complex it takes great presence of mind to remember where to look.  A matter further complicated by frequent malfunctions in the crossing lights.

The first photo shows the carriageway between the Wicker Arches and Spital Hill, see photo and post here to get orientated.  Despite being a dual carriageway, there are three sets of lanes for the pedestrian to navigate as well as the junction with Spital Hill, which used to be the main route through the area.

The second photo is the actual ring road.

Despite its run down nature, Wicker  was designed on a grand scale and was a fitting entrance to Pitsmoor and the Lower Don Valley.  Recently several new curry houses have opened or been refurbished with insurance following the floods in 2007.  They are now cut off from Pitsmoor.  The city had the sense to ditch these ridiculous and unnecessary plans in the seventies, why on earth were these roads built 30 years later?

Sheffield's Brandenburg Gates

Sheffield's geography depends not only upon its rivers but also its prevailing winds.  The wind blows from south west to north east.  So, over the years, the wealthy moved to the south west, where the winds blow from the Pennines, leaving the poor to live in the north east where the winds picked up industrial pollution. 

Therefore, you will see from the diagram, the Lower Don Valley was the most polluted area.  Of course, much of this was remedied during the 1960s when Sheffield boasted it was the cleanest industrial city in Europe.

The main access to the Lower Don Valley is along Wicker and through the Wicker arches.  (Wicker has no definite article, but the arches do!)  These symbolically access not only the main industrial area but also the poorer areas of Sheffield.  They form a symbolic line between the richer and poorer areas of the city, just as the Brandenburg Gates, between 1961 and 1989, formed a barrier between east and west Berlin.

These arches actually comprised over 50 arches of various sizes and original functions.  Sadly some have been demolished but at the time this was a significant piece of architecture and even today once you twig its extent, it is still impressive.  The arch in the picture carried the railway line from Sheffield's Victoria Station (long gone) and Manchester's station of the same name.

If you look through the main arch, behind the bus, you will see the road forks and the left hand fork is Spital Hill.  This is the main route into Pitsmoor, so it is not unreasonable to to see this arch as the gateway to Pitsmoor.

Where is Pitsmoor?

I suppose many cities, like Sheffield, have their own myths.  Sheffield was built on seven hills (like Rome), it used to be the cleanest industrial city in Europe (no longer industrial and probably not as clean these days), and of course it is the country's biggest village.

If there is any truth in the last claim, it is in the sense that Sheffield is made up of many villages.  It is a mosaic of small communities, sometimes one inside the other like Russian dolls.  The boundaries are rarely clear; reference to a map doesn't really help, as the name is written in the general area and boundaries are rarely shown. 

So, Burngreave is a ward and its boundaries can be found on maps.  Pitsmoor is somewhere in Burngreave and there are some places in Burngreave that are definitely not in Pitsmoor, eg Fir Vale.  There are other places such as Woodside and Pye Bank which despite their names seem to be part of Pitsmoor.

My diagram shows how Pitsmoor relates to local geography (click on it to see a larger version).  The confluence of the the River Sheaf with the River Don is visible from the gents (see photo above) on Blonk Street.  It is possible to see the confluence over the wall to the right  (from where the other photo is taken) but I am told the best view was from inside the Gents.  Sadly the Gents has been closed for many years.  If the confluence were worth seeing, as you can see from the photo below, it is not, then there would be an argument for reopening the Gents as an observatory.  Wicker crosses the Don close by the confluence and links the city centre to Pitsmoor.

The rivers tell the story of Sheffield in their geography.  Remnants of the old grinders' wheels can be found along the tributaries and the earliest industrial development was along the Sheaf valley.  The later developments along the Don Valley marked the time of the growth of Pitsmoor, which was until then a small village on the edge of Sheffield. 

Most of the ward is on a hill, surrounded to west, south and east by the Don.  The Sheffield floods in 2007, worked their way down the Don Valley.  They started in the north east and rapidly propagated along Wicker and down the Lower Don Valley.  This lasted a few hours.  Floods further downstream in Rotherham and then Doncaster, persisted for longer.  During the floods Pitsmoor was surrounded by a moat.  Property was not affected  but residents outside Pitsmoor had difficulty getting home.

If you would like a rough idea of what Pitsmoor looks like, there is an aerial photo.  In my opinion, this photo does not show all of Pitsmoor and some of the distant areas are not a part of it.