Greenbelt 2010

I wasn't sure how my 23rd Greenbelt would be for me. For the first time, I was going completely on my own. Last year, I left Bill and the kids at home, but I knew the Off-the-Pathers would be there and I would be camping with them, even if only seeing them intermittently. This year, nobody else I knew was going, so I would be camping alone as well.

I also dithered about accommodation for a long time. In the past we have always taken our caravan, and last year I drove it there on my own but knew that there would be people to help me unhitch and push it into place. This year there wouldn't be that help, but there were other problems too. The caravan is 28 years old and not all that great any longer. The rooflight leaks and various other things don't work, but the biggest problem of all is that our falling-down garage has just been dismantled, and all the contents stored in various places including in and under the caravan. There was nowhere else to put them if I used the caravan. Our tent is massive, and I certainly can't put it up on my own. In the end, only about 3 days before going, I booked a (rather small!) pre-erected tent through Tangerine Fields. This gave me the blissful situation of not having to try and get there early enough to get near the front of the hours-long queue to get in and get a pitch not too far away from the festival village. In Greenbelts past we have sometimes been a 10-15 minute walk away, which when you've been on your feet all day, or when you want to nip back to your tent to pick up a jacket or umbrella, or grab a sandwich, is really quite a trek.

Arriving this year did present its own difficulties, however. Due to the constant rain of the previous few days, the ground was very wet so only essential vehicles were allowed onto the campsite at Cheltenham Racecourse. This meant that after getting there at about 4.30pm (yes, I really did take my time, seeing as I only live 30 mins drive away!) and waiting in a queue for about 45 mins, I had to park in the main carpark and then carry all my stuff. Seeing as I had everything for camping except the actual tent (airbed, sleeping bag, duvet, stove, washing up bowl, eating stuff, cooking stuff, food, clothes, boots, coats, books) this presented rather a mammoth effort. Fortunately two things helped. One was that Greenbelt run a series of electric golf buggies as taxis round the festival site, and I was able to find that not too far away and leave an ever-growing pile of stuff there as I made trips back and forth from my car to the taxi-stop. Secondly I praised and thanked those wonderful Citroen people who included a little pull-along trolley fitted in the back of the Picasso. This meant I only had to make 4 trips back and forth instead of about 10! Thank God it wasn't actually raining! Nevertheless my arms and shoulders ached rather by the time I was dropped off on the campsite. The next bit of bad news was that, again due to the rain, the taxi had to drop me off about 100 yards away from my tent. Doesn't sound much, but again when carrying that much stuff it took several back and forth trips to get it all there. By this time it was just starting to rain, too. I was shown to my titchy tent which was in a great position only a 30-second walk from the edge of the Festival village and really near a couple of the main venues. Actually if you take a look at this short video, that's where my tent was. Just behind that great big orange tent (from Tangerine Fields, OK?). So very near the action! Anyway, I eventually got all sorted out in my tent (discovered that one of my pillows must have dropped off the taxi trailer on the way round), went and got some food from the Performance Cafe and sat and ate, listened to some wonderful live performances and read my Festival Guide. By then it was about 9pm and I was absolutely and utterly knackered, so I just went back to my tent and went to sleep! I had quite fancied going to see Jude Simpson (stand-up poet, comedian, singer), but she was going to be at the Big Top, there would have been a big queue, and I was just too tired.

I don't really know what happened to Saturday. I still felt tired when I woke up - I do get times like this when I've been busy, busy, busy for a while and then I just crash and barely have the energy for anything for a whole weekend. There wasn't anything I hugely fancied going to in the morning - one possible talk that would have been interesting - but in the end I decided to have an easy relaxing morning in my tent and get going in the afternoon. I ended up falling asleep again and sleeping most of the morning. I had a shower booked for 2.30pm, and so decided to make myself some lunch before going out for that, and then I heard the awesome Beer & Hymns session happening which I had forgotten about (seeing as I was fairly close even in my tent!). It's one of the most popular things at Greenbelt and is always packed out as you will see if you check out the Youtube videos here and here. If church was like that, you'd go a bit more often, wouldn't you?! Me too. Anyway, it was good to hear it even if I wasn't actually there, had my lunch and went off for my shower. Despite being booked for 2.30 I didn't actually get in till about 3pm, and afterwards again there wasn't anything I hugely wanted to go to so I wandered around, going into tents and looking at the shopping stalls. Despite that not sounding very exciting, it is one of the things I love at Greenbelt. The sellers are probably mostly the same people who go to other festivals but I really like the non-fashion, non-High-Street, handmade, alternative clothing. Yeah, me, Mrs Conventionality. But I love that people can wear what they like without being looked down on, that things are usually individually designed, have multi-ethnic influences, etc. It being an arts festival, there are loads of interesting stalls selling art and jewellery and clothing and decorative stuff, you can get temporary tattoos or braids or have a massage, and I just love the whole feel of it. There are also tents from groups like Christian Aid, Tear Fund and YMCA, who put on challenging and thought-provoking interactive displays about the uneven distribution of wealth in the world, hunger and poverty, wars, injustice and present-day slavery. These shake me out of my comfortable white middle-class lethargy, give me a different eye-view on the world and challenge my assumptions about what I can or can't do to make a difference.

So I pottered around, spent a fair while and a bit of money in the book tent (no surprise there then) but just didn't feel motivated to go to any talks, performances or events. I ended up going back to my tent, reading, eating, relaxing, and actually thoroughly enjoying myself just being quiet and on my own. I think I just needed space to unwind.

On Sunday, though, I was determined to get up and get going. First of all I went for a run! This was supposed to be Week 9, where I do 3 x 30 minute runs. The first one I wanted to see if I could do a full 5k, and ran for 34 mins 50 seconds; but the second and this third one on this day I just couldn't seem to manage the full 30 minutes and both times stopped at 25 mins. And I'm supposed to run 10k on 3rd October, yikes!

Anyway, I finished my run a bit later than I intended so was late to get to the Sunday morning communion service. I have often missed this in years past because, although the sight of 20,000 people turning up to a worship service is moving and impressive, the organisers often seem to try and do things in an 'innovative and interesting' way, otherwise known as weird, and for me at least it has often fallen flat. This year was much better. They used well-known songs rather than new untried ones, and kept the whole thing shorter than before. It was good.

Straight after that, I decided to try a talk by Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest from New Mexico. He is the founding director of The Center for Action and Contemplation. He's been at Greenbelt before and seems to be a popular speaker, so I thought I'd go and see why. This talk (one of four) was entitled "The Art of Looking Sideways at Us" (Greenbelt's theme this year was "The Art of Looking Sideways"). The blurb said "The mind thinks it can look at things directly and understand them - which is a very big assumption. There is another way of knowing ourselves and one another that Fr Richard Rohr calls "non dual thinking" or contemplation. He is convinced it is the only possible way to forgive." The queue to see him was very, very long, and I ended up not being able to get in, but I was able to sit outside near the door and mostly hear what he was saying. In essence he was saying that we are all unable to see ourselves clearly, but we are surrounded by mirrors (other people) to help us see ourselves as we really are. And that we need to receive the feedback we get from others and act on it, and also be aware that not only do we not see ourselves truly, but neither do others see themselves truly as well so we need to be as sensitive at dealing with their blind spots as we want them to be with ours. There was a lot more to it than that, but there was a fair amount of noise going on around which made it difficult to hear, and about half-way through it started to rain so I left. It did remind me of my own uncertainty as to whether the 'real me' is the way I think I am, or the way others think I am. I know there is a lot of myself that I do not reveal to most other people, so who's to say that the way that other people see me is the 'real' me? On the other hand, we are all prone to deluding ourselves and avoiding facing the real truth about our motivations and behaviours, so maybe other people do sometimes see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Now that would have been a good debate to have with a crowd of other Greenbelters in the Jesus Arms, had I known anyone to debate with!

After that I went straight to hear John Smith. He is the most amazing man. He's been at Greenbelt several times but not for quite a few years. He is an Australian, biker preacher, founder of the God's Squad Motorcycle Club, similar to Hell's Angels but Christians! He has worked with and mixed with outlaw biker gangs for years. He is an incredibly powerful speaker, highly intelligent, cutting to the heart of 20th/21st century culture and contemporary issues. He lives as powerfully as he speaks, being prepared to put his own life at risk to stand up for justice and truth. Years ago at Greenbelt he totally opened my eyes to what it really means to live a radical faith and to challenge structures and powers that oppress people. He's not well, having prostate cancer at the moment and he definitely wasn't looking too great, but he's lost none of his drive and insight and conviction. Loved it.

From there I went to "Self confidence for women: saying no", led by a life coach. This wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be, though that could be because my main problem isn't saying 'no', but asking for things that I want. I couldn't really think of anything much I wanted to practise saying 'no' to, except picking up the girls' toys and clothes rather than making them do it, which always feels as though it would take more energy than doing it myself. Anyway, it did get me chatting with a nice woman during the session.

Then Bill and the girls came to visit, as they couldn't bear not to see me for 4 days . To avoid paying a fortune for day tickets we met outside in the car park and I brought some food out and we sat and picnicked and chatted.

At 6.30 I went to hear Janey Lee Grace talk about "Ditch the chemicals: save cash, save your health, save the planet". That was interesting, though a lot of it I knew already, and mostly she talked about the alternatives you can get to conventional cleaners and cosmetics. I think I need to change my shopping habits because although I want to avoid these things, I still usually take the route of least resistance and just buy stuff at the supermarket.

I dashed from there to hear the psychologist Oliver James (author of They F*** You Up and Affluenza) say "It's a mad world". I can't find the notes I took at the moment, but it was along the lines of how rates of mental ill-health are rising rapidly and what to do about it. Apparently those who believe that fame, beauty and possessions are the most important things in life are 5x more likely to be mentally ill than those who have other aims and priorities. He referred to the current education system as being "a disgrace"! I liked that. In brief, he recommended bringing up children along the lines written in "Toxic Childhood" by Sue Palmer - limiting TV, computer games and designer labels, etc.

I then caught a bit of the London Community Gospel Choir on Mainstage, after which I got some food, and called in on my friend who owns the Christian art agency, Veritasse. He always has a large tent display at Greenbelt so it was lovely to see him and chat and catch up on the past year. We were joined by another ex-member of Chipping Campden Baptist Church, so that was fun too.

At 10pm I went to a session of Taize worship. This is always beautiful, quiet, contemplative and peaceful worship. A lovely quiet end to a good day.

On Monday morning I started off at 10am with a workshop on "What Greenbelt means to me". I had thought this would be a big session with loads of people, but walked into a room with only about 10 or 12 participants - yikes! No chance of sitting anonymously at the back and just listening, then, as I had intended. It was really interesting, however. A couple of researchers started a study last year into the meaning and impact that Greenbelt has on people who go, by asking 10 people to keep a journal over the weekend of how they were feeling and responding to what was going on around them at Greenbelt. The researchers introduced the background to the project and read from some people's journals, and lots of themes emerged that rang lots of bells with me. About Greenbelt being almost like a 'tribe' of like-minded people who feel more at home here than anywhere else, and to whom it is an incredibly valuable and important event each year. And how it is a very different 'tribe' than those who attend Spring Harvest or New Wine, which are much narrower and strictly defined events than Greenbelt. Greenbelt attracts a lot of people with very liberal faith views or no faith at all, as well as those with a full church-related Christian faith. I love that debate and diversity. Many of us in the workshop spoke up about our own experiences and were recorded for further use in the research, so who knows, my thoughts and comments may turn up in a research paper or even a book at some time.

By then it was about 11.30, and I didn't have anything else to go to till 2.30, so I decided to do some of the shopping I still wanted to do. I had decided on a bracelet for my niece's birthday, and Bill had asked me to get a big heavy woollen jacket similar to my red one that I had bought at Greenbelt a few years ago, so I went seeking those out. I also bought myself a couple of bracelets, (over-)spending the money my Dad had given me for my birthday, and some more books (oops!). I dropped all the stuff back at the tent and had some lunch and then went off to my next session.

Dave Andrews is another amazing man who lives out his faith in real practical action among the world's poorest and most marginalised people. Check out the website for some of the stuff he's done. It's impressive. He spoke about his "Be the Change" campaign, taking the words of Gandhi that we should "be the change we want to see in the world". It started in a small unassuming way with Dave thinking about and meditating on the Beatitudes (Be-Attitudes, he calls them) that Jesus spoke of and deciding to live them out in his own life. His daughter told him she "liked the person he was being now", one thing led to another and the word got out, and it turned into a major campaign. Check out - it's interesting. As the website says, "Many of us desperately want to change our world. But it is an illusion to think we can change anybody else but ourselves. The truth is that we cannot change them - we can only change ourselves. We need to remember the alternate version of the Serenity Prayer, and repeat it regularly: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it is me!”

After that, it was time for a bit of light relief, so I headed off to Mainstage for Sing-a-Long-a-Grease. That was great fun! Grease is the only film I've ever been to see at the cinema more than once - when it first came out and I was a spotty teenager I went 3 times, and know all the words off-by-heart of course.

Then, there was a talk about challenging the over-commercialisation of childhood. More scary statistics about the number of adverts and product placements and sponsorship ads that our children see and the targeting of children by advertisers and marketers which goes against the code of practice they're supposed to adhere to. The campaign website is at www.byebuychildhood.org though there's not much there at the moment until the campaign is properly launched in a couple of weeks.

Next I went over to Mainstage again to catch a bit of Jars of Clay, a band I've heard a lot about but never actually heard so I thought I'd check them out. Thought they were OK but not amazing. Later I saw a poster suggesting that the line-up had been rearranged and Jars of Clay hadn't played till later on. I wonder who I'd watched then? Wish I'd seen the real thing!

Then I caught the second half of a talk by Pip Wilson entitled "Sometimes the Cheese is falling off our Cracker". I have no idea what that title meant - here is the rest of the blurb. "We all need tools in our life toolbox for the times we are sharp with the ones we love or for 'difficult' relationships at work. Level 5 is a tool, a skill to have ready for emotional moments. It is about managing emotions and learning the ability to avoid regrettable outbursts. A workshop to get tooled up." I missed the first half, and joined while people were getting into groups of 3. I joined an older lady and a young man and we joined in the exercises of practising talking and listening at different levels. Level 1 is cliche or small talk. Level 2 is fact. Level 3 is opinion. Level 4 is feelings. Level 5 is total, uncompromising honesty. Unfortunately Levels 1-4 took too long and we didn't have time for a proper discussion of Level 5, which is what the thing was supposed to be about. So I still don't have a new tool in my toolbox except for realising the obvious of talking about something with others at the level of total openness and honesty. Of course, he may have explained a great deal more during the first bit that I missed. Fortunately talks can be bought and downloaded from the Greenbelt website if desired.

After that I went off to a 'musical comedy showcase' with the lovely Jude Simpson referred to earlier, the Rev. Gerald Ambulance and Jenny Lockyer. There was more but I had to leave to catch my final appointment for the evening. Jude Simpson was great, the other two not so much, but I still enjoyed my one comedy gig of the weekend.

Finally, I went to a film called "Grizzly Man", a film about a strange man called Timothy Treadwell who lived among the grizzly bears in Alaska for 13 summers and was eventually killed by one. Interesting and strange.

So that was my Greenbelt. I would have preferred to spend it with other people I knew around. I want plenty of you reading this to book for next year, so that there are people I can meet at the Tiny Tea Tent, chat over breakfast with and chill in the Performance Cafe with. Even if you have no Christian faith you can have a good time at Greenbelt. But even without other people, I still had an amazing, inspiring and challenging time, and I wouldn't miss it for the world. I have already booked my ticket for next year while they're at the cheapest price. See you there?