Finding Hidden Treasure

It's been over two months since I last wrote a blog post ... the longest gap between posts for quite some time, maybe even since I started this blog: but it's certainly not as if nothing worth writing about has happened in the meantime ... 

The most significant recent event in the life of our little community was the Taize Birmingham Hidden Treasure weekend. The culmination of over a year of planning and preparation, this May bank holiday it brought together over 500 young adults from across Europe to discover and share the hidden treasures of our faith and the acts of solidarity towards which it inspired us.

I aspire for this blog to be a place where I am honestly reflective, so I'm not going to lie ... there were times along the way which were both stressful and exhausting. Helping organise an international gathering involving the churches in 9 different neighbourhoods across the city as well as the city centre churches of all denominations while still maintaining all my other responsibilities was, perhaps at times, a step too far.

But that cannot take away from what was a truly beautiful celebration and an amazing opportunity to discover, explore, celebrate and share in some of the hidden treasures which surround us. Highlights, both during the preparation, and during the weekend itself, abounded.

One of the great gifts I received was the opportunity to discover so many different churches across the city and to have the opportunity to be made welcome by so many different communities. As I met with diverse churches working together to prepare to welcome the participants, daring to open their doors to welcome the stranger: my exhortation that their role was not a convenient added extra but was at the very heart of the meeting and its purpose, was both genuine and heartfelt. 

During the weekend itself, as life was shared across denominations, generations, languages and cultural experiences, the atmosphere was one of friendship, love and possibility. In the current context and climate, this was the vision of the Europe I want to be a part of: a Europe in which we are able to see that each of us each of us has something to offer but that none of us are complete on our own; a Europe which dares to come together in order to make the world a better place for those around us; a Europe which is guided by hope and not by fear. 

And then there, in the middle of a bustling city, in the midst of all the laughter and conversation; there at the centre of it all: we prayed together. I don’t have, and maybe don’t need, the words to explain that this too, was a highlight of the whole experience. 

Most readers of this blog already know that the Taize community has been a hugely significant influence on my faith journey: the centrality of both prayer and community which I discovered there has led me on the path that has shaped how I am living my life. There is no doubt in my mind that the rich and fulfilling life I now lead wouldn't have existed without it and I am very grateful. 

It is no secret that Birmingham too, a place about which I perhaps had some initial reservations when we moved here, but a place that I have adopted, or that has adopted me and which I am happy to call home, is a place I have come to deeply love. I love it in its diversity and complexity: I love it for the beauty and possibility it offers to those willing to seek them out. 

My life here for the last three and a half years has, in many ways brought the two together. During the Hidden Treasure weekend I was pleased to be able to share that coming together with so many others.

The weekend was not, for me at least, just an end in itself. Life, now, goes on: with more free evenings and a few less emails, no doubt, but with the same vision: that as churches we can pray, work and live together and that in so doing we stand as witnesses to the possibility of a life lived in all its fullness, a life in which there are a multitude of treasures which we can uncover or help to create, a life guided by hope. 

Other adventures in the life of this city now await and I hope the relationships built by these four beautiful days will be a spring board from which we will journey onwards, together.

*Photo Credit: both by David Ash