Hymn of the Big Wheel - week 3

Last night I read through the section of the liturgy called "List of Poverty". It takes about 10 minutes to read aloud and everyone who's spoken to me about it says that the experience is overwhelming and just difficult to get a grasp on what it contains.

That's the point.

Some of what is contained in it is as follows:
Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
$50 Billion (USD) is spent on cigarettes in Europe each year.
$9 Billion (USD) is required to provide water and sanitation for all.
(you can read the whole thing from http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats)

Previously I've heard it being read, and last night I read it through for the first time. It was everything that people say it is: overwhelming and difficult. Probably more so when you can actually see the words and numbers on the page.

I've been each week to the Hymn of the Big Wheel and plan to continue doing to. I suspect that as I do, each week the experience will be different, building up to a challenge that I hope won't be overwhelming for me personally, but quite possible to do.

It's easy to get lost in the weight of the enormity of the world's problems. I'm using this time each week to ask the question, "what's my response? what can I do?" For now those are some questions I can manage.

Hymn of the Big Wheel - Week 1

The Hymn of the Big Wheel had its début last week; and it worked!

The Hymn of the Big Wheel is a 1 hour contemplative service with a social justice theme. It's focus is a reading of a list of statistics concerning the magnitude and issue surrounding world poverty. It's a list that can't be rationally absorbed when heard; it's more of an emotional thing. Then we contemplate the hope that Jesus brings.

Elements of the service include sitting in silence, listening to music (mostly contemporary), lighting candles, praying together and a few random elements.

Stu and me wrote it to give us a really different contemplative experience. It's great for Lent, but we hope we can put it on any time of the year.

The first week went well, though I was nervous! We noticed that there was a lot of silence, so we've made some changes to allow people to recite prayers together earlier and to make a personal response earlier. We tried a bit of drumming, but it was too much to ask, so we're replacing that with some candle lighting instead. Week 2 should be even better.

One of my favourite moments is when we pray Wesley's prayer, and then the prayer supporting the Millennium Development goals. One prayer is from the start of the industrial revolution and is in archaic language, the other is at the end of the industrial revolution. The prayers have similar sentiments; but are coming from really different contexts. Both ask that we commit ourselves to something different from the pursuit of our own prosperity whilst ignoring the plight of others.

8pm Wednesday nights in Lent, Fairfield SPACE, 88 Station St Fairfield.