Greenbelt Festival 2010 - 'The Art Of Looking Sideways' (Or, 'Can You Have It Both Ways?')

I’ve just read ‘Consider The Lilies’, an enjoyable short comic strip from ‘While We Were Here’, the free paper from this year’s Greenbelt festival at Cheltenham Racecourse from 27-30 August, subtitled ‘The Art Of Looking Sideways’. The strip features a young man distracted by finding his car keys which he needs to drive (obviously) and meet his girlfriend, who doesn’t like festivals and whom the poor guy thinks is about to dump him. Whilst searching, he is distracted by a young girl who tries to cheer him up, yet only succeeds in annoying him. Eventually, she drags the harried fellow before a mirror and tells him he’s amazing, lovely and that he’ll be OK, even if his girlfriend dumps him. Still depressed about his situation, it’s only when the girl reveals her name, Lily, that the man ‘properly looks’ at her, as if having just ‘caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye.’ Ten years later, they’re married and he never did find his keys.

So what? Well, that simple but surprisingly un-cheesy story (based on truth or otherwise and created from hundreds of comic frames drawn by hundreds of Greenbelters) rang true for me because, good as it was, I felt diverted throughout this year’s festival; almost constantly unable to live in the moment and truly enjoy it. Initially, this was because I had been in two minds about GB10 for a while beforehand; wrestling with whether or not I should go, mainly because I felt God didn’t want me to. I’d felt the same prior to attending GB07 and 09 but fought it, putting it down to imagination, fear or cabin fever through being stuck at home a lot. The festival offered me things that ‘normal’ church didn’t and previous Greenbelts had left me entertained, edified and enlightened. They helped me think about the Bible, God and faith differently (‘looking sideways’ indeed) and introduced me to lots of different, interesting folk. Why should GB10 be any different?

This feeling, a sort of mental pressure coupled with guilt, lessened upon my arrival at Cheltenham Racecourse on Thursday evening but soon became exacerbated when I challenged a rowdy, foul-mouthed teenage girl camping next to me to turn her music (and bad singing) down at 7:30am, Friday morning. She refused, then proceeded to slag me off within earshot as I tried to sleep, feeling like I should’ve heeded that inner pressure and stayed at hom. Later, her friend came and apologised to me in person. I felt a lot better after that but the teens persisted with their inane banter at silly hours of every morning.

What bothered me most throughout the festival was the fact that our group, despite discussing it, never tried engaging with the teenagers, who seemed to have wandered into GB thinking it was Glastonbury. We just sat back and judged them for being rude and inconsiderate, which they were but, to my mind, maybe just needed to feel more included. That said, they must have noticed how open, inclusive and varied GB was and so it was there own choice to keep themselves apart with their own mini-festival. Plus, I think I was the only one of our group that the teens really got to, the others passing them off as just a casual annoyance. Like some sort of Good Samaritan, I felt compelled to talk to and maybe even evangelise the teens and so then, in perhaps a snobby way, show the hardened post-evangelicals I was camping with that the evangelical way still works. Naive? Maybe.

I’m wondering if this girl was my ‘Lily’, showing me what was of real importance amidst the contemplation, alternative worship, noise and nice people at the festival – my neighbour. The outcast. Even her own friends felt the need to apologise for her. That’s not to say that the various festival events I attended weren’t entertaining, edifying or enlightening. I’d hate to make my lasting memory of GB10 a negative one, inadvertently spoilt by a selfish brat. At least I made some connection in confronting her in the first place; making them aware they were disturbing people (for what good it did). So, in mentally focussing on the rowdy teens a lot, what did I nearly miss, only catching in the corner of my eye?  Where did I really meet Christ? Alternative worship group Vision’s Transcendent Mass? The contemplative advice of Franciscan speaker Richard Rohr? The messy, challenging performance by Applecart Theatre Co? The Dodge Brothers' set at the Rockabilly Grand Ball? What about Ambient Wonder’s Jazz ‘Improv’ alternative worship session, which, in contributing to in my own small way, got me a free festival ticket? As fun as it was and as well as it went, I think that I have to agree with our fearless curator Matt, who said that, if he had just been a punter who had seen the Jazz event in the programme, he probably would have given it a miss. It was short on numbers and under-publicised, so it didn’t get much attention.

“Love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your heart and all your mind...love your neighbour as yourself...and the rest is commentary.” This was the (para)phrase (from Matthew 22:35-40, also in Mark and Luke) that stuck with me most throughout the festival. I heard it from the first transgender (or “she-male”, their word, although I reckon he was more “he” than “she”) I’ve ever properly met. We were introduced through Ambient Wonder’s ‘Spontaneous Worship’ session, which involved setting up chairs in a busy area of Greenbelt and enticing people to join us to “meet Christ in a stranger”. I guess I met Jesus, well, through all those good enough to come and share with people they had never met before (only at Greenbelt...) but there was something about the Bible quote that made my transgender encounter the most memorable.

Having recently met a different transgendered person and was particularly interested to meet a Christian one, guessing rightly that he had had a tough time fitting into mainstream church, as had his transgendered friends. I was not quite sure what to think or what the church would have to say (or should say) to someone like him. All I could do was ask questions, which he was only too happy to answer. I can’t remember the verses he said had been used against transgendered types but I found him to be smart, savvy, and, as he was keen to point out, well versed in the Bible. Some of his views were decidedly off-kilter, such as believing the first man, Adam, must have been hermaphrodite, since Eve came from him.  I guess the Bible’s assertion that God built her from Adam’s rib is just metaphor, then?

His point with the Matthew 22 quote was that we get so hung up on judging others (like the noisy teenagers) we don’t understand (perhaps through the dualistic “this way’s right, that’s wrong” Biblical interpretation that Richard Rohr warned against). Some might argue that a person, e.g. a transgendered or gay individual, that doesn’t fit the “norm” established by ignorant or intolerant mainstream Christianity would interpret verses (e.g. Matthew 19:11) to their own ends and to defend what they are.

Some of the sincerely expressed but leftfield views heard at Greenbelt (looking sideways, indeed) can wobble my thinking and make me feel a little bit thick. These opinions can be of the sort that non-Christians have said to me in jest before, such as my transgendered acquaintance’s idea about Adam, or the Third Way magazine article arguing that Jesus Him (her?) -self was intersex (e.g. male/female sexual characteristics). This strikes at the core idea of male leadership in the Bible (e.g. God as Father, and there’s nothing to suggest Adam and Jesus were anything other than men, well, also divine in Jesus’ case) and goes to another level beyond Greenbelt’s feminist attitude towards the Bible, such as the idea of God as a female force and this year’s talk on ‘Christa’, Jesus’ female “aspect”. When I encounter such things, my curious brain won’t let go until I’ve worked out what I think, which I can often be too busy (or lazy) to do and will probably do in a future blog.

I feel caught between not wanting to narrow-mindedly avoid others’ wacky views (impossible to avoid in life anyway, unless I lived in a cave. And even then, I’d probably meet some spelunker who thinks penal substitution is wrong, or something) and not willingly exposing myself to ‘looking sideways’ and hearing stuff that will cause me anxiety. That sounds like I want to stay safe in my little bubble (not such a bad idea) but, whilst I’m unemployed and feeling very uncertain about life in general; I just need solid truth to cling to. However, I think the worry that these views can cause me shows that I’m carrying a lot of uncertainty around anyway, as are a lot of GBers, yet they seem more comfortable with their uncertainty than me, although perhaps GB is helpful in challenging me like this. Whilst wanting to avoid dismissing the rest of the Bible as mere “commentary”, the “Love God/Neighbour/Self” laws really are the crux of the whole Good Book and the best thing to fall back on when things get confusing or difficult. On their own, these laws are enough of a mission to fulfil.