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Cornish Fairy Festival and Glastonbury: UK Mission 2019 – Part 2

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This is the second part of a previous blogpost at the end of six weeks and six festivals in the UK this year.

Hanging with the Searle Family

After spending time at the Appleby Horse Fair, and three days with Matt and Jo Arnold, I made my way to Cheltenham, and stayed with the amazing Marc and Anthea Searle. They are like a home away from home. It is an important part of our faith that we learn to take all that we have and place it into service for God. The Searles model this as well as anyone I know.

 

From Cheltenham, I headed to the town of Glastonbury and met Diana Greenfield. She and I and Stu headed south to Mt. Edgecomb Park in Cornwall, just over the harbor from Plymouth, Devon, England.

Diana and I at 3 Wishes

I spent the next five days helping Diana and Stu as they managed the main tent and stage for the Fairy Festival. It was a second year for me to be there, and conversations about life and faith were now common with people I had come to know through the festival.

I was there right until the end helping Vicky take down the circus tent that the main stage was held in.

A crowd gathers in our little vale in the trees at Glastonbury 2019

On Monday, after 3 Wishes, I caught a ride with Sedge, Diana’s husband, and he dropped me off at Worthy Farm, the site of the Glastonbury Festival. I found my way to the site of of the Iona Community and there I spent the next full week hosting people in our little campsite in the trees. You can read more about the experience at Glasto on my travel and bucket list blog page. This year’s Glastonbury Festival was filled with discussions about faith and the person of Jesus, and in some ways had a more fruitful sense of mission than 2017 (the year of the last Glastonbury Festival). I cannot thank the Iona Community and Debbie (who organizes this group) enough for providing a space to make Christian Spirituality an accessible worldview to the festival goers at Glasto.

If you would like to support my podcasts, you can become a patron on my Patreon Page. You can also find a link on this website to donate to the mission of reaching the subcultures of this world through festival outreach, and mission to places where our world’s nomads live. 

 

 

Appleby Horse Fair and podcasts with friends: UK 2019 – Part One

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Since the last blog post about three weeks ago, I have added three more festival outreach events to the frenetic place, and have stayed with friends in Pontypridd, Cheltenham and Plaisley. I created a few podcasts. One about the travels and two of them interviewing Matt and Jo Arnold, who I stayed with in Plaisley near Sherwood Forest.

I moved on from the three festivals in Wales (Focus Wales, How The Light Gets In, and the Hay Festival). I stayed with my friends Andrew and Dawn in Pontypridd and spent a day seeing the site of the festival they are running in August – Between the Trees. It was a gorgeous location and festival worth considering. The gathering is a mashup of folk music, science and philosophy near Bridgend in a hidden little gem of a forest.

From Pontypridd I traveled up to the Appleby Horse Fair in northern England. Due to a series of weird circumstances it took me 24 hours to get there by train and bus, when it is only a five hour drive. I missed the last train to Appleby from Leeds, and had to spend the night in the late night eateries, or at the train station. The following morning the ticket machine ate my money, and I missed the first train out, and then the second train broke down, and I had to wait two hours for the next train.

I eventually arrived in Appleby, and the first person I met turned out to be a pioneer vicar in a neighboring town, and she and her pioneer vicar husband invited me to stay with them for the weekend of the festival.

Appleby 4

The Appleby Horse Fair is the largest gathering of Gypsies and Travellers in Europe. I did a podcast specifically talking about my experience at the Appleby Horse Fair, and you can find it on my Patreon page. I am hoping to return to Appleby in the future. It offers an opportunity to learn about one of the most misunderstood people groups in the UK. One of the great duties of life, and particularly of mission, is to understand the other we disagree with.

Matt Arnold at Sherwood

Following my time in Appleby, I traveled back south and stayed with Matt and Jo Arnold and their three boys. They live near Sherwood Forest and Matt took me on a Sherwood Forest tour while I was there, and we did a couple podcasts together. Matt is one of the few people who regularly works with the same demographic of people I do, and it made the podcast with Matt fun to do. Jo works for the Christian Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies, and this made the podcast with Jo a unique experience, as we talked about Christians who have experiences they cannot put into the typical Christian theology box.

Part 2 comes up next with stories from the Fairy Festival and the famous Glastonbury Festival.

If you would like to support my podcasts, you can become a patron on my Patreon Page. You can also find a link on this website to donate to the mission of reaching the subcultures of this world through festival outreach, and mission to places where our world’s nomads live. 

UK Mission 2019 – three weeks in

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I have now been as many festivals in the UK this year as weeks I have been on the ground. These first three weeks have been in North East and Mid-East Wales. First in Wrecsam, which I outlined in the last post, and then two weeks at the book town of Hay-on-Wye.

One of the boards I created for the events at the Hay Festival.

I created a podcast from the philosophy festival at Hay, and this is my update after leaving HowTheLightGetsIn and moving across town to the Hay Literary Festival. I worked as a volunteer steward at the BBC stage. I have done this over the last three years, and this group has become a family away from home. I ended up writing signs for the events, and this year we were able to move the sign making up a notch. It became a bit of friendly competition between three of the many stages who were trying to art up their upcoming event signage. I posted  boards I created, and the reason for wanting to help the festival become a better event on another of my blog pages. You can see the chalk boards I created on that page. I saw the work as a way of being a good witness in my desire to help the event be a better experience for all who attended.

I spent much of time with new and old friends talking about life, which typically includes my personal testimony about meeting God, my theological work in Wild Theology (the belief that God, the world and people are all wilder than we’ve been told), and discussions about the growing number of people who identify as “none” on religious polling and census data. I also spent a good deal of time speaking Welsh. Surprisingly, I found fluent Welsh speakers living at Hay-on-Wye. Although it is in Wales, it is on the border, and there are few Welsh speakers in the small town, and I think I have met most of them over the last five years.

This is the area I set my hammock tent at Hay-on-Wye.

I camped in the trees above the Wye river in my hammock. Each morning a young Dunnock full of peach fuzz, but able to fly flitted among the branches around my tent, and I would talk to it. On the last morning, I took down my tent and as I untied it from one of the trees, the young bird jumped on a branch as close as he could get, and stared twittering at me frantically. It was as though he was upset that I was leaving him. I wish I had taken a picture of the cute little guy for you, but Dunnocks are quite nervous and jumpy little characters that flit among the branches. So here is a Youtube video of an older Dunnock singing.

I am now in Pontypridd with Andrew and Dawn, and preparing to leave for the North of England for the Appleby Horse Fair, which is Europe’s largest gathering of Gypsies and Travelers. More news to come soon.

If you are interested being a part of these travels and outreach in festival and destination locations, please contact me. You can also support this ministry through donations at the link below.

UK Mission 2019 – first week in Wales

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Arrival in Wrecsam, Wales

Castle Dinas Bran overlooking Llangollen

At 8:30am, the Virgin Atlantic flight left Logan airport in Boston for London Heathrow. I had purchased a round trip flight for just over $350 some months previously. It was one of the best prices available this year, and I had booked it through Delta Airlines, but immediately jumped on the tickets when I saw that it was a Virgin flight. I had the row of five seats to myself.* During the flight, I met Kaliko, a man who was born on the Isle of Wight. As a young man he was adopted by a lady in Hawaii. Today he is a fluent speaker and teacher of the Hawaiian language, and an activist for minority polynesian languages. Kaliko and I will be following one another in social media from here on out, and I hope that someday our paths pass again.

Liverpool Library entrance

After arriving in Heathrow, I caught the London Underground to Victoria Station, and from there caught a £9 five-hour Megabus ride from London to Liverpool. During the bus ride, I met Alex. Alex is Russian/Lithuanian but has been living in the UK for years. He is currently homeless, and quite happy to be so at the moment. He plans to spend a few months in Liverpool working, and making some money. He has been befriending other homeless, and sharing God’s love with them for about three years. He showed me around Liverpool, and I am hoping to be able to get back there to see him again before I leave the UK in August.

40 hours after leaving the US, I finally arrived in Wrecsam in North East Wales for the Focus Wales event. I stopped at a pub in Wrecsam to get my bearings and try to connect with people I had contacted on the Couchsurfing network. I walked past a place called Saith Seren (Seven Stars), and saw a “Cofiwch Dryweryn” (“Remember Tryweryn”) sign, which was evidence that this could be a Welsh Language Pub. I stopped in, plugged in my computer, spoke to the bartender, who was fluent in Welsh for a bit, and got to work on the computer. After getting a bit of work done, a man came into the pub who appeared to be in charge. He talk with the bartender in Welsh, walked around the room straightening a few things up, and stopped to speak with me in English. I responded to him in Welsh, and his eyes got real big. He asked where I was from, and after a about 10 minutes of conversation in Welsh, he asked if he could take my picture. He took my picture, and unknown to me posted it on Twitter and Facebook with a comment about meeting me, speaking in English, and how I responded in fluent Welsh with a heavy American accent, and said, “Phil is from Massachusetts.” In a short time the post exploded with hundreds of likes and responses from Welsh speakers. For the next two days, people in Wrecsam would recognize me from the picture on Facebook or Twitter, and friends of mine from across Wales would respond to the posts.

That night, I was not able to connect with the my potential Couchsurfing locations on the first night, but that is not something to stop someone like me with a hammock tent. Late that first night, I met Cary. He is a homeless drug addict in Wrecsam, and has lived there his whole life. He showed me around to the hidden “wild camping” locations around Wrecsam, and the spot he has been living in his tent. We talked about what it is like to be homeless in Wrecsam, and the troubles he has with the other homeless who are heroin addicts, and alcoholics. He describes himself as an amphetamine addict, and struggles with the theft, and violence that comes from other addicts.

Focus Wales and Couchsurfing

Saint Giles Parish

By the second day I was able to connect with Katherine who had a place for me to Couchsurf in her home right next to Wrecsam’s center. I was one of three couchsurfers at her place. For the next three days, I volunteered at one of the music venues, which was St. Giles Parish Church. In the afternoons and evenings I worked with the small team at Saint Giles, and connected with people from around Wales in the music industry at other times.

I met Faith Owen on the second day. She works in Coleg Cambria in Wrecsam teaching Welsh. Turned out that her husband is a pastor of the Nazarene Church in the nearby village of Penycae. I traveled around with their family on Saturday to see some beautiful locations above the town of Llangollen like the Castell Dinas Bran (Castle Dinas Bran – see photo at the top), the ruins of a 13th century castle that looks down on Llangollen. The next day, I attended their services and experienced a beautiful and friendly group of Welsh believers.

I also spent some time with Dot Gosling, the purple-haired vicar in North Wales. Dot and I had been circling in similar orbits for awhile and finally met face to face.

During this same time, I completed a 5,000 word article for the Church Mission Society magazine, Anvil. The topic was “Spiritual but not Religious”. While I was completing the article, discussions popped up in Katherine’s home. Katherine, her partner Brian, another couchsurfer named Lauren, and I talked at various times about the nature of spirituality and religion. I’m hoping to see them all again in the future, because I had such a wonderful time getting to know them all.

All in all, this time in Wrecsam (“Wrexham” in English) has been fruitful, and relationships were developed with the festival and the greater community of Wrecsam.

* If you ever need help finding cheap flights contact me. I can give you the tips on flying cheaper than you might expect.

Wales, Cornwall, Devon, England and the Czech Republic: Part 4

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July 3-25, 2018

There are places, times, events, and even people where are hearts find comfort and feel at rest. These locations, times, events, and people represent hints of heaven. The Apostle Paul spoke of being “strangers and pilgrims” on this earth, and when we experience moments and places that feel more like home than home itself, we are also experiencing the transitory nature of human life. Our hearts seem to reach out toward that the places of possibility that are found with God. The heart that reaches out to God senses that these are the hints of heaven. This trip has been filled with festivals, friends, towns and moments that have been these kinds of hints of heaven.

A Cheltenham Home

I spent some days with Mark and Anthea Searle. Being with them is always like coming home. They always have “room at the inn”, there is a place I can leave extra gear when I need to travel lighter and quicker, and they are always as kind as can be. During this trip, I joined them at a Dyson family day (Mark works for Dyson, which is far larger and more impressive than I imagined.) I also was able to meet with Tony and Dwee Cooke, friends who are former Bridge Church Pastors, who are now doing a television show on Dream Interpretation.

Prepping for Eisteddfod in Cardiff

From Cheltenham I traveled to Cardiff, Wales in order to prepare for the Welsh National Eisteddfod. I stayed with Sera Owen and Robert Zyborski, who are great hosts and wonderful people. I spent an afternoon with Lois Adams (niece to Kevin Adams the Welsh Pastor from the Baptist Church in Lynn, MA) brainstorming outreach ideas, and I spent an evening with Dawn Wood and Andrew Thomas as well. This short jaunt to Cardiff was for dreaming up outreach ideas, specifically for the National Eisteddfod coming up in a little over two weeks.

A few days with Mike and Jules

Friends Mike and Jules have been a regular stop in almost every trip to the UK. This year, they are in a new larger house with a lot more land in Kent – south east of London. As always it was home away from home to be with them, and Mike acted as a tour guide showing me around Faversham, Canterbury, and the beaches nearby.

CMS sessions on Spiritual not Religious in Oxford

Emma Moreton Teaching at CMS

I arrived in Oxford minutes before 10am, when the one-day conference at CMS (Christian Missions Society) about “spirituality not religion” was happening. I was one of the plenary speakers for the event. A number of Christian ministry friends who similarly work in New Age and Neo-Pagan settings were there. As such, the gathering felt like coming home. People who understand living in and working in strange and wonderful settings were all together to share their wisdom with those who came to learn. Paul Cudby gave a primer on Neo-Paganism. Emma Moreton shared her beautiful and difficult story, which highlighted the tension of living this kind of life of ministry. Diana Dingles Greenfield shared on ministry in places like Glastonbury and festivals. Matt Arnold gave a well-balanced talk on the principles of reaching out to Neo-Pagan culture. I shared stories and corresponding truths connected the Father Who is waiting for us to join him in the places he has already preceded us – places like Burning Man, and Salem during the Halloween season. Glyn Moreton ended the day by leading us all in a time of worship and passing the horn in a celebratory drink to the Lord.

Homelessness in the Land of Higher Education
The great wall between the haves and the have-nots

I spent the evening in Oxford, and was profoundly moved by the incredible distinction between the haves and the have-nots. Oxford is a city of higher education with ancient walled schools everywhere one goes, and at the same time, as the evening falls, the streets are filled with homeless people sleeping in doorways, and begging for change. The contrast is perhaps more extreme than any place I have seen in America, and it caused me to wonder how the world of higher education imagines changing the world for the better without looking outside its own front door.

Prague and Meziprostor

After spending a night on the streets of Oxford, I caught a plane to Prague. This was the second year that I was speaking at a spirituality and punk/metal festival called Meziprostor. “Meziprostor” means something like “the in-between space” in Czech, and the festival is designed to navigate the space between God and the world, Christianity and society, and across the spaces that divide people. Obviously, since this was the thesis for my book Burning Religion, one can see how much I might enjoy Meziprostor. This little festival, at the famous Czech Underground location, Skalak Mill, goes on my list as the best festival I have ever attended that accomplishes the task of being an “in-between space.”

I met Trey McCain at the airport in Prague, and one of the festival coordinators, Alexandr (Sasha) Flek picked us up. Trey and I spent a night at a Rainbow Gathering inspired community in an old mill just outside Prague. It is the inspiration and hard work of Sandy and his family who have been there for 16 years – oftentimes helping young single mothers with children. The next day we were off to the next mill, and the Meziprostor festival.

Sasha Flek translating as I teach at Meziprostor

At Meziprostor, I taught a morning devotion on Saturday, and held lecture about “Why We Can’t Find Ourselves: lessons on contemplation and community from the desert fathers and mothers.” I will be sending my notes out to people who have expressed interest in this particular topic, so please let me know if you would like to receive them as well. On Sunday, a spot opened up in the schedule, and Sasha asked Trey and I if we would like to fill the slot. So, we did a hands-on workshop of Lectio Divina (sacred reading) meditation, and meditation on nature as a dialogue. We gave examples of scripture meditation in dialogue, and searching for God in nature, and sent people out to do the work, then talked about it together afterwards. Trey made an incredible workshop partner, and people appeared to both enjoy it and get something beneficial from it.

After Meziprostor, Trey and I stayed in a Hobbit Hut designed for Tall Skinny Kiwi, Andrew Jones on the land of Mathias and Carrie. Cat Camissa, from Austin, who also came all the way for Meziprostor was there, and we spent a couple nights in Prague with Sasha and Katka and a host of friends in their circle. On Monday night, we went to a third mill, which is a pub on the river in Prague, and Tomos Sedlacek, the writer of the best-selling The Economics of Good and Evil was there. He joined the group, and there was a wonderful high-intensity debate over a pile of different topics between Sasha, Myself Tomos and a handful of others. I love a good hot debate with a hug and new-made friends at the end, and that was exactly what it was all about. We debated God, and science, and faith, and the state of Christianity, and a host of other topics late into the night, and rolled into bed around 2pm. These are the kind of things that regularly pop up in this traveling ministry.

Next Up: Cardiff and the Welsh National Eisteddfod

If you would like to support this mission, you can scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and find a link to give securely through Paypal. You can donate once, or with a small monthly amount. Thanks for hanging out with me on this page for awhile.

 

Links to previous episodes of this 2018 Mission to Wales, Cornwall, Devon, England and the Czech Republic:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

From California to Cornwall

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The last two months have been a whirlwind of travel, work, relationships and festivals. After working with Joshua Hanson from Kingdom Promotions, and helping dream of social justice art dealing with the injustices of the for profit prison system in the US, I was quickly off to the UK. I have now spent a week in Caernarfon, Wales, which most people who know me well know is my favorite place in the world, and then I followed that up with five festivals in a row.

So, at this point in the travels through the UK, I have been at HowTheLightGetsIn Philosophy Festival in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, The Hay Festival (in the same town), Burning Nest (a UK regional Burn in Devon), 3 Wishes Fairy Festival in Cornwall (over the water from Plymouth), and Stonehenge during the Winter Solstice.

Desanka has been a part of three of these events. Papy Fisher, Jake Humphrey, and Michael Buchanan were at HowTheLightGetsIn, Burning Nest, and Stonehenge. Jake joined me for the Fairy Festival as well. Along with Desanka, whose work in festivals is growing at an amazing rate, Vicar Diana Dingles Greenfield is doing amazing work in places Christians usually don’t hang out, because she does such a great job of contextualizing the Gospel in the wild and wonderful places most Christians avoid. Along with Papy and Diana, friends such as Andrew Thomas and Stephen Simmons are making God appearances at places like Hay-on-Wye as well.

Please pray for us, and for the momentum of the Gospel in the festival settings.

Rainbow in Ocala, FL, Coming in April: Coachella

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Last week, I spent five days with the Rainbow people, at the Ocala Rainbow Gathering in the Ocala National Forest in Florida. Hundreds of hippies, “dirty kids” (as they call themselves) and other nomads and their related friends met in the forest camped, ate, and lived together. I was one of those gatherers, and joined some of my friends at the Jesus Kitchen. It was a a great time to love on people, feed people, and spend hours talking about deep spiritual issues with incredibly intelligent wanderers.

Coming up next is a trip to Texas, and some time in Austin during SXSW (South By Southwest), and then to California, and hopefully some time working with my friend from the Rainbow Gathering, Joshua Hanson, who provides volunteer staffing at Coachella. Below is a video with Joshua. He describes briefly the kind of work he doing at music festivals. You can check him out at KingdomPromotions.org

 

June and July in the UK and EU

Micro-Church Planting Mission, UK and Europe, Summer 2017

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Mid-June through mid-July in the UK and mainland Europe were a whirlwind of activity. From the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge with Christopher Gaston and the Browns from Brownwood, TX, to sleepless same day travel to the 250,000 person Glastonbury Festival, to joining Andrew and Dawn and helping set up/run events/take down for Between the Trees, to flying to Prague for a 4 day heavy metal/punk/hardcore festival called Meziprostor it was a busy month.

This was the third year at the 4-day Solstice Festival and going to Stonehenge with nearly 15,000 people on the Summer Solstice. During the day, Sandi Chai Brown and Christopher Gaston interpreted dreams at the festival, and I occasionally joined them, but more frequently I might have been found discussing life and spirituality with people from around the UK and Ireland. There were a number of faces we have come to recognize, and people with whom we are developing deeper relationships. Many of those we have come to know are following a New Age spirituality filled with hopes of aliens and psychedelic drug use. Please keep these people and this outreach in your prayers.

When the Sun rose at Stonehenge, we traveled back to the camp, and after about an hour of shut eye, I said goodbye to Christopher and the Brown family, and grabbed the bus without air-conditioning, to the train without air-conditioning, to the next train without air-conditioning full of hippies and camping gear, to the hippie bus without air-conditioning to the Glastonbury Festival and a long walk with all my gear on the hottest day we had experienced in what has been a hot summer in the UK. Grabbing the first bus at 11am, I finally found a placed to hang my hammock tent around 8pm with the help of Diana Dingles Greenfield and the Iona Community. I spent the next four days at the largest, loudest rock festival I’ve ever experienced. We spent our days in the Iona Community camp talking to people about life and God, and sat around the fire at night doing more of the same. We hopped from concert to concert, and joined the hundreds of thousands moving from show to show. This was my first Glastonbury, and I am hoping to return and join the Iona Community in two years when the festival next occurs. They are in a season of developing some new plans for their outreach after 17 years of working in the festival.

I returned to the town of Glastonbury after the festival for a few days. It am hoping that this wonderful little place, which feels so much like being at home in Salem, Massachusetts becomes a wonderful new haunt of creative outreach. The doors appear open, and Diana has been working among the variety of New Spiritualities found there for some time now.

Early July, it was time to return to Cardiff and prepare for Between the Trees – a small music festival in the valleys just outside Caerphilly. Charlie and Becky were back again. After having spent time with them at Burning Nest, once again I helped set up lights for the festival. Charlie was busy moving out of his apartment, so Becky and I became the lighting masters for the festival. I taught a class on poetry writing, performed some music to fill a slot in which someone was unable to make it, and led a well-attended philosophy discussion in the evening.

After we worked to take down lights and do the clean up after the festival, I had a day to prepare for the next trip: a train to a bus to a train to the eastern edge of the UK to catch a flight to Prague. After a day in Prague, Sasha Flek took our small crew of Americans out of the city to a festival he has been helping organize for a few years now. Meziprostor is a hardcore/punk/metal festival with a Christian Spirituality edge. I taught on the subject of the changing dynamics of sexuality in our culture (under the title “Uncomfortable Sexual Positions”), played a little more music, led a morning devotional and got to know people as best I could through the often challenging language barriers. I discovered a wonderful set of new friends from Poland and the Czech Republic and hope to return to this event and perhaps to Poland as well next year. Please keep the team that is building Meziprostor in your prayers. This festival has created one of the best environments I have ever seen for Christians and their non-Christian friends to hang out together in a life affirming way.

After Meziprostor and spending a morning with Cathryn Camissa and some of the Jones family and friends, I caught a bus to a train to another 3 trains, and arrived late at night in Kaiserslautern, Germany. In Kaiserslautern, I spent the next few days with Jeff and Barbara Cox. And here life slowed down a bit, and I washed away a month of weariness. I also left Germany with an iPad Pro which the Cox’s donated to me. (Thank you, thank you, thank you! This will make traveling much easier in the future.) After spending a couple days with them, I sat in the airport in Cologne waiting about 5 hours for my late flight back to the UK.

I stayed with Ben and Joanna, my new friends from the Iona Community Outreach at the Glastonbury festival, and had a lovely time with lovely people in Manchester, which is an amazing city. I am back at Mark and Anthea Searle’s home in Cheltenham now, and will head back to North Wales in the next day or two to start prepping for the Eisteddfod.

I am in the last phase of travel, meeting people, and working in my final festival of this trip – the Welsh National Eisteddfod, where I anticipate a little over two weeks living and working in the Welsh language.

Phil Wyman
Micro-Church Planting, Summer 2017