Putting part of the puzzling ecumenical picture together

My great WCC colleagues Marc-Henri Heiniger and Muriel Bataclan invited me to talk about the history of the ecumenical movement to group of people from specialised ministries who are at Bossey for some days of quite intense ecumenical formation. I haven't time now to say much about what I said - tho' I did manage to record it on my new Ipad. But our session ended in the sunshine trying to put together the ecumenical river - it's such a good metaphor - the puzzle of ecumenism.
Anyway I also have a video of the group doing this but I think I need a bit of advanced technical assistance before posting that - maybe tomorrow, it's too long as it stands now.
Anyway it was a good experience for me to speak with the group on this topic just a few days before ending my time working at the WCC. As ever it was a real privilege to speak with them and I did promise them I would try to post at least some photos before the end of the day. I also ended what I shared with quite a big plug for social media in building ecumenical capital: be authentic, be active, be nice.

Simply beautiful ...

I simply like these two paintings - both have meaning and movement - one more minimalist the other more filled and geometric. The artists worked outdoors, slowly and quietly, interrupted by our noisy visits from time to time.

Simply beautiful.

A beloved wife's name, a labyrinth of love, a scroll of peace and so much more besides

The Palm tree can be used in every part

This was the only work to be done by two people and I enjoyed its evolution and the lively way they spoke about it - as well as the creative use of collage and paint. A palm tree can be used in every part. We too need to commit our whole selves to peace and dialogue, being useful in all our parts to those tasks. A really great idea,

Hands on for meaning

I don't seem to have a picture of the final version of this work which ended up with a wonderful bunch of flowers between the open and closed hand. Each hand represents how life can be more up and down, yet will still end the same way for all of us. The flowers were not for death but for joy.

A basket of peace

The artist comes from Rwanda. I admired the lovely colours in his painting and then he explained that it is the basket of peace. In his culture women carry such baskets on their heads, filled with precious gifts - food or milk. His basket carries the very precious gift of peace, carried by women as it is more often than not the men who wage war.

"Be strengthened in your inner being ... and in community"

On Wednesday evening I stood at the back of the lovely chapel of the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, singing and praying with the students and friends of Bossey who had gathered for the closing ceremony of the graduate school. It was lovely to attend worship and simply be able to be part of the congregation, the sisters who are part of the ecumenical spirituality programme have developed a tradition of evening prayer into which this celebratory worship fitted beautifully.
The reading of Ephesians 3:14-19 came first in Chinese and I managed to pick a rather old Good News translation New Testament off the shelves next to where I was standing and follow the reading, then the reading came again then in English and I realised that "with all the saints" had been left out of the Good News version in my hands, something I must check up on when I have a moment!
Dagmar Heller who is one of the professors at Bossey preached a homily which reflected on the threefold entreaty in Paul's prayer in Ephesians. She stressed how Paul's prayer is not only individual but about community life, not just about achieving personal understanding but achieving comprehension with others:

The second concern Paul has is not just an additional wish, but it is a further step, which builds on the strength of the inner being: “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ…” – It is about comprehension and knowledge. If you have the inner strength in the power of the spirit and in the love of Christ in the community, then you can reach understanding, comprehension of what we are, where we are coming from, where we are going to … And there is an interesting remark: this comprehension is “with all the saints”. Maybe this sounds a bit strange, but this says nothing other than: you cannot reach comprehension just by remaining by yourself, in your study room – comprehension happens in community, together with your brothers and sisters in faith.

I'm sure I have never heard a sermon on this passage of Ephesians before and it's given me much to think about since listening to it - those are always the best kind of sermons. You can find the full text of Dagmar's sermon here.
I reflected how easy it is for me to get lost in my own search for being strengthened in my inner being and not to listen to those community voices around me and further afield which share a wider, deeper, higher and certainly much wiser way of understanding. So as well as giving me much to ponder on her sermon also challenged me to think about how to go about this in the "ora et labora" of daily life. Perhaps though I need to more clearly "know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge".
Thank you Dagmar for the service and the sermon.

Future ecumenical leaders encouraged to read poetry, for blessing the going out and the coming in

Towards the end of the day today two colleagues drove me out to the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey to interpret. Today was graduation day for the more than 30 students who have been living and studying together there for the past semester. It's alway a very moving and joyful event. The students come from an amazing diversity of countries and church backgrounds. There's always lots of good natured cheering and clapping as each student goes forward to get their certificate - though this part is a bit of a nightmare for the interpreter as the clapping oftens drowns out the name of the church and country!

Olav Fykse Tveit, the new WCC general secretary attended the graduation for the first time this evening and gave a humorous and heartfelt "sending out" to the students after they had received their diplomas. "You are ecumenical leaders" Tveit said to the students and mentioned that he felt he had very similar advice to share with them as he had just a week before with a very different group of leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos. There he took part in a panel discussion on what leaders read. This evening Tveit spoke passionately not only about reading but about re-reading - encouraging all of us to recognise what a huge resource we continue to have in reading and re-reading the Bible, not just reading it as individuals but reading and re-reading it with people in contexts very different from our own, listening to and being challenged by their readings and re-readings. As well as this multiple reading and re-reading of the Bible, he also mentioned reading biography and particularly emphasised the reading of poetry. there is something compelling in the brevity of poetry, it leaves you wanting more, formulating your own thoughts.
He closed by sharing two poems, the first one extremely short went something like this "Remember the enormous possibilities that lie within just a single second". The second poem was better known to his audience, fortunately the interpreter (me!) despite having come to the booth without a Bible also knew it well. The Psalms are indeed perfect poetry and Psalm 121 particularly good words with which to wish ecumenical leaders well on their homewards journeys.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and for evermore.

Later in the evening we celebrated the endowment of two new scholarships for Bossey and a Swiss pastor from Interlaken paying homage to Elisabeth Oerlemans quoted the French hymn "A toi la gloire" in various languages including Norwegian. Hymns of course are a good example of poetry in translation.