“All Heaven Shouted for Joy”

Job 38:7

There are two major celebrations in the annual church calendar … Christmas and Easter. These celebrations are shared with the wider culture and they address the mysteries that surround birth and death. We need a poetic language to address these mysteries. At St. Ives Uniting Church we have established two major arts programs and invited artists to address these mysteries on our behalf. ‘All Heaven shouted for Joy’: Stations of Creation, has invited 15 composers each to compose a special piece of music in relation to the commentary offered below. These especially composed works will be performed in concert at St. Ives Uniting Church on Friday November 28th at 8pm and Saturday November 29th at 8.00pm.

In the Stations of the Cross program at Easter we invite 15 leading artists each to respond to a commentary on the Franciscan Stations of the Cross for an exhibition in the church. The works for 2007 and 2008 can be viewed here.

Stations of the Cross 2007

Stations of the Cross 2008

Rev. Dr. Douglas Purnell

(with help from Rev. Elizabeth Raine and Margaret L. Hammer, Giving Birth, W/JKP Louisville 1994.)

In this commentary many of the Biblical stories are seen as having been written retrospectively, that is, looking backwards to address the mystery of being.

Station 1. The Creation

Composer: Jessica Wells

Genesis Chapter 1.

A poetic story that speaks of the mystery of creation.

When we consider the mystery of our origin, metaphoric story enables a knowing beyond rational speech.

What is creation?

What is the ‘nothing’ from which creation comes?

Station 2. A song or paean of praise to the creation

Composer: Daniel McCallum

Psalm 104.

When we spend time in or attend closely to the creation we are moved/compelled to song.

What in creation evokes the song?

What song is evoked by creation?

Station 3. Joy expressed in creation

Composer: Judy Pile

Ruth 4:13 – 15; Genesis 21:5-7; Psalm 127:3-5

Childbirth is seen as blessing, as a source of joy and a sign of God’s presence. To give birth is to be one with God the creator, one with the forces of creation.

There is laughter and joy at the idea of bearing a child.

How do we hold the tension between the anxiety and fear, and the ecstatic joy, associated with birth?

Station 4. The risk

Composer: Anthony Dunstan

Job 38-39

There is risk in childbirth, a risk in creation. There is always the risk of barrenness, the closed womb. There is the risk of life itself. Life in its beginning moments is fragile and vulnerable. There is the risk of imperfection, illness and death. The birthing mother is very vulnerable in childbirth.

To seek to conceive and give birth is to enter a vulnerable and risky place.

What is fear when associated with conception and birth?

What is fear for the life of the child?

And what is the fear of the mother for her own life?

Station 5. The fear of barrenness

Composer: Alex Garsden

Genesis 18:9-15

Joy tinged with fear. In Biblical times to give birth to a son was to provide economically and socially for the family. In the present, infertility raises deep questions about whether a women is fully a woman, and whether a man is fully a man. These questions are not always addressed openly or publicly.

What is the fear of barrenness that inhabits so many birth stories?

How do we acknowledge the pain of those, who for any reason, are unable to share in the birthing process?

Station 6. Conception

Luke 1:26-45

The Song of conception, the hymn of joy; being at one with the forces of creation. Rejoicing in the ability to give life.

How great is the joy, the song that is sung in conception. At the same time we need to recognize that sometimes conception is unwelcome and that it foreshadows major disruption, sometimes socially disproved disruption.

What is the anxiety of, and, the joy, in conception and how do we acknowledge these feelings?

We can see conception as a miracle that links and gathers us into the mysterious and divine forces of creation.

At the same time can we acknowledge the disruption that conception may bring?

Station 7. Muteness

Composer: Dan Walker

Luke 1:5-24, 57-80

Zechariah, the father becomes mute beside his wife’s pregnancy.

Often the possibility of new birth takes away our capacity to speak, for the mystery is beyond words.

In what ways does pregnancy, imminent birth and birth itself take our words away?

Station 8. The quickening

Composer: Claire Jordan

Luke 1:39-45

The Quickening (consciousness of new life within) as the child grew and ‘leaped’ in the womb.

What is the mysterious miracle that enables a woman to conceive and grow in-utero a child?

What is the experience of the mother who feels her child growing as part of her?

What is the joy of feeling one’s child move in the womb?

What song is shaped by that mysterious miracle?

Station 9. Gestation

Composer: Scott Sanders

Psalm 22:9-10; Psalm 71

The patient waiting. The concern for the health of the growing child.

How do we come to terms with the tiredness and tediousness of waiting, the challenges of changing self image and the anticipation of creating a safe and healthy place for this new creature?

How do we address the anxiety or fear of birthing an imperfect child?

Station 10. The birth

Composer: Alex Pozniak

Psalm 22:9-10; 71:6

Jesus is born in the working stable with all its mess and smells.

The birth moment, the birth experience of every mother needs to be valued, the story told and heard, the experience acknowledged.

What is it to give birth?

What is it to be birthed?

What is it to hear the first cry of the newborn?

What is it to cry the first time?

What is it to hold that newborn child?

What is to be held outside the womb for the first time?

What is it for a mother to suckle or feed her child at the breast?

What is to be fed or suckled the first time?

Station 11. The mothers’ song of joy

Composer: Benjamin MacDonald

Luke 1:46-56

Mary’s undiluted joy at conception and birth. Mary’s song of joy.

What is birth?

What is/how do we acknowledge the joy of the new child who breathes and cries, and promises so much?

How do we contain the hope that this new, innocent, unshaped life promises for an as yet, unseen future?

Station 12. Awe. The angels sing

Composer: Simon Charles

Luke 2:13-14

The mystery and drama inherent in childbirth evokes awe. There is an ecstatic joy in birth. A song to be sung. The whole of creation joins to sing the joy of each new birth. The angels sing in the heavens.

What is the joy of being one with the mysterious life force that we sometimes name as God the creator?

What is breath – the first breath, the continuing breath?

What is the gentle fragile body that holds breath and life?

What is the innocence of this new life?

What is the song we sing when we see new birth?

Station 13. The naming

Composer: Christina Abdul-Karim

Luke 1:26-33 and 59-66

How does a child live into and become the name that is given? Jesus was given the name Emmanuel which would mean “God is with us and will save the people from their sins.” A big order to put on any newborn!

What is it to give a name to such a child that the child lives into and becomes the name?

How do we name that which is born?

What name, what language, does this encounter with the beauty of birth call out in us?

Station 14. The divine/human connection

Composer: Kevin March

Psalm 139

Respect for the dangerously intimate associations of divine and human in childbirth.

Words soar beyond the limit of logic. The baby knit together in its mother’s womb, and, (at the same time), wrought in the depths of the earth.

How do the imaginative arts enable us to move beyond concept bearing words to express the mysterious connections that we have with the mysterious forces of creation?

How can we express in music what cannot be easily spoken in words about creation and birth?

Station 15. The circle of creation

Composer: Andrew Batt-Rawden

Colossians 1:15-20; John 1

Every birth, every life, is reflected upon and interpreted. It is more than itself, it becomes part of the whole of humanity. Creation somehow moves in a cycle, a circle. We who have been born give birth, and we watch those whom we have birthed give birth too. We die and the creation continues. These texts reflect the fullness of this circle and the desire of humans to put words on it.

How do we mark and celebrate the emergent life?

How do we acknowledge the first grasp, the first sound, the first look, the first smile?

How does birth shape human hope?

What part does the divine have in the birth process?

How do we acknowledge the divine in birth?

How do we celebrate the mystery and the miracle that is birth?

How do we name birth when we know about death?

http://www.stives.unitingchurch.org.au/stationsofcreation2008.htm