’Wood is our passion’

A relationship with an organisation which helps people through creativity and the arts has benefitted a West Lothian church inside and out.

Working with Artlink and part-funded by the Church of Scotland’s Go For It fund, a group was brought together to create a garden of remembrance and peace in the grounds of Bathgate: Boghall Parish Church.

The group took the name Sanctuary; and the garden was launched last October with musical performances and a talk on the herbs planted there.

However there was an unexpected spin-off from the project when three of the group – Alisha, Diane and Ian – discovered a love of working with wood while cutting and shaping the recycled timber beams for the garden.

Deciding to tap in to this new passion, the church asked the group if they could design and make a new lectern reflecting the building’s unique architecture. The church, which opened in 1965, has a unique hyperbolic parabaloid roof (described as being shaped like a Pringle crisp), and stained glass in the style of the early 20th century Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.

Taking inspiration from these features, and working with the guidance of Glasgowbased furniture maker and designer Susan Harper, the woodworking group produced a lectern which seamlessly fits into the environment. It was presented and dedicated at worship on February 24.

Diane, a member of the wood-working group and now also a member of the congregation, said: “Wood is our passion. And trees are like a little community. Their roots intertwine and feed off each other. This is what it is like working in our group together.”

Bathgate’s minister, the Rev Christopher Galbraith, said: “It’s been a long relationship with Artlink and the guys coming to do the garden, and some of them found a real passion for woodworking, so it seemed a good idea to commission them to do something specific and unique, and I think they got a lot out of that creative process.”

The church hopes to use the Sanctuary garden for outdoor worship and performance. Christopher said: “We have got plans for various events. Hopefully we’ll get some of the musicians from the high school to do some concerts and we are looking at whether we can do plays in the garden, storytelling, outdoor learning, entertaining and worship. We had a meeting last week with people from various churches and it was really nice to see their reaction.

“It’s just a terrific space, but the process has been amazing as well.”

Artlink gives people experiencing disadvantage or disability opportunities to get involved in creativity and the arts in Edinburgh and the West Lothians. Their Leylines project, which the garden is part of, builds creative connections for mental health across West Lothian.

WCC REJECTS ISRAEL BIAS CLAIM

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has dismissed Israeli press accusations of bias as ‘unsubstantiated accusations and false innuendo’.

A Jerusalem Post report on February 20, one of several in the paper that have been critical of the WCC in recent months, described the ecumenical organisation as ‘biased’ and ‘anti-Israeli’.

It said participants in the WCC’s Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) had posed as tourists to gather information about Israeli Defence Force operations in Jerusalem; and on their return home had spoken about the Israel-Palestine situation in terms ‘loaded with antisemitism’.

It also accused the EAPPI of working with a spokesperson for a Palestinian terror group, and quoted a spokesperson for NGO Monitor (an Israeli group which investigates the work of non-governmental organisations in the country) describing it as ‘a political project in disguise of human rights’.

In a statement released on March 5, the WCC said that the EAPPI had been established in response to an appeal from Palestinian churches, and provided ‘a protective international presence for members of the communities they visit’. It said that there was no evidence provided for the accusations of antisemitism or for links with terrorists. The statement added: “The WCC is confident that its activities in Israel are in no way illegal under relevant Israeli laws. Certainly there has been no court ruling or official sanction against EAPPI or its activities by Israeli authorities.”

It also reaffirmed the right of the State of Israel to exist ‘within its internationally accepted borders’, but added that the WCC will continue to criticise Israeli government policies and practices that obstruct and impede the rights of the Palestinian people. The WCC is an organisation of 350 churches worldwide, including the Church of Scotland.

NEW RESOURCE WRITTEN BY CRASH VICTIM

A resource rooted to the congregation level of churches’ engagement in ecological and economic justice was launched during a public event at the World Council of Churches (WCC) headquarters in Geneva on March 12. The publication is the fruit of a long work led by the Rev Norman Tendis, WCC consultant for Economy of Life, who was one of the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10.

The “Roadmap for Congregations, Communities and Churches for an Economy of Life and Ecological Justice” is an invitation to join a pilgrimage for an Economy of Life and climate justice, to commit to make changes in the way people live, to share successful ideas and to encourage one another.

Tendis, who also served as a pastor of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Austria, was on his way to the 4th United Nations Environment Assembly, in Nairobi, Kenya, where he planned to launch the roadmap. WCC general secretary the Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said the loss of Tendis still feels like a shock. “We are a bit shaken, all of us, still, and that is quite okay. That is how life is,” said Tveit. “I’m still convinced that what we do now is important. What he was committed to, is what we are committed to together. We can use the roadmap not only as a discussion starter but also as a way to act immediately.” (WCC)

TAJIKISTAN CRACKDOWN

Tajik authorities implementing a new religion law are barring children from attending religious services and have burned thousands of calendars with Bible verses.

Amendments to Tajikistan’s Religion Law came into force in January last year, giving the state greater control over religious education, and increasing the amount of information religious organisations must pass on to the state.

The State Committee for Religious Affairs and Regulation of Traditions, Ceremonies and Rituals (SCRA) now demands “all kinds of information on the number of members, finances and activities”, a member of a religious community told Oslo-based news agency Forum 18 anonymously.

They also gather information about the number of children under the age of 10 attending religious meetings, using the Religion Law and the Parental Responsibility Law to put pressure on parents and religious communities.

In December 5,000 calendars with Bible verses, which were imported by the Baptist Church, were confiscated by customs officials and destroyed. The Church also received a fine of about four months’ average wage for “producing, distributing, importing, or exporting religious literature and items of a religious nature which have not passed through the compulsory prior state religious censorship”.

The Central Asian country is 29th on the 2019 Open Doors World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to live as a Christian.

(World Watch Monitor)

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