What else will stick in my mind from our trip to Greenbelt?
From the talks, it will probably be John Bell’s argument for the importance of making time for a regular day of rest. I also enjoyed the workshop session run by Andy Dorton, on Open Houses in ‘Not Nice’ Places. It touched a lot on community living, whether residential or people living close together making time to create open house spaces to serve others. Jane and I are settling into our new home in House244, a community house in Oxford, this week and it was encouraging to hear about other communities that have found very similar patterns of life.
In the Christian Aid tent, there was an “installation” featuring various statistics presented in terms of piles of rice (which Maggi Dawn has also written about). I also went on a couple of the food forages organised by Earth Abbey; this opened my eyes to how many edible and medicinal plants grow even in an environment like a race course.
Finally, it was a pleasure to catch up with many friends from different times and places — Greenbelt is a real gathering of the tribes. Will we be back next year? It is a very strong possibility.
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