13.09.2016
Love, Kindness and Tea – Inside Paradoxolgy at Electric Picnic by Scott Evans, UCD Chaplain (Church of Ireland)
Electric Picnic, now in its eleventh year, is Ireland’s largest music and arts festival. It features 700 acts for 55,000 people who had access to 1,315 portaloos. It’s not just a highlight of the year for people nor it just a huge operation. It’s a picture of Ireland and her culture in 2016.
On Main Stage, you can hear the musical stylings of Ireland and our global culture. At Mindfield, you can listen to and engage with lectures, debates and performances by economists, poets, chefs and comedians. In Body & Soul, you can feast your eyes and ears on art pieces, installations and performances that have to be seen to be believed. At Trailer Park, you can eat corndogs, find the caravan version of Narnia and join in a satirical Donald Trump rally. At the Hazel Wood, you can watch Shakespeare’s works remixed. At Anachronica, you can dance the night away in the shadow of a power station from a long–forgotten ancient city.
And in the woods, along the Forest Trail, you can find Paradoxology, a sacred space. A prayer tent where young adults live out their faith together and in service for festival goers and festival staff alike. 2016 was our fourth year at Electric Picnic and, just as the festival continues to evolve, so do we.
As you make your way past Hazel Wood and the Art Lot, your eyes are drawn left to an outdoor seating area bathed in light and decorated with old school TV sets, a suitcase and a dilapidated piano adorned with flowers. A line of people chatting moves slowly inward toward our bar where we serve tea and coffee at a ridiculous price — the promise to do something kind for someone else at the festival. By the time you have your drink in hand and your name learned by one of our volunteers, you turn to notice that you now stand in the shade of a bloodgood tree. Looking closer, you realise that its branches are filled with string tags and it’s explained to you that this our mental health tree. As a visitor, you are invited to write down a prayer, kind thoughts or even just the name of someone struggling with mental health issues and tie it to the tree. Once it has been tied up, you take a stone and put it in your pocket so that, whenever you feel it there, you will be reminded that you are not alone and that there are people thinking of you and praying for you.
In the corner, you find a 1940’s school desk. Opening the lid, you find instructions written on the underside, some sticks from the woods and the desk full of sand with.
1. Think of something that is bothering you.
2. Write it in the sand.
3. Use the wood slider to wipe it away and let yourself leave it behind.
From there, you might do many things. You might write a prayer and leave it in the prayer box on the door outside. You might meet make new friends or get chatting to one of our volunteers. You might take a quiet moment to sit, think or pray. You might even look to the sleeve on your cup and read a Bible verse, perhaps for the first time:
“No one has ever seen God.
If we love one another, God lives in us,
And his love is perfected in us.”
– 1 John 4:12 #LoveKindnessAndTea
This verse is at the heart of our work at Electric Picnic. We don’t have all the answers but we seek to be the answers to the prayers of those who are hurting or seeking, alone or vulnerable. We haven’t ‘seen’ God … and yet we pray that God is seen, or perhaps felt, through this humble attempt at love, kindness and service.
Beyond the event itself, what makes Paradoxology so exciting to us as a team is the team itself. Pamela Rooney from Dundrum Methodist helps us work intergenerationally and interdenominationally as she co–ordinates parishioners who serve us by baking and preparing cakes, biscuits and traybakes for the tent. Susie Keegan, DIT chaplain, oversees the design and decoration of the tent. Greg Fromholz, who runs our United Diocesan Young Adult ministry, helps lead and care for our team of 20 young adults who are reaching out to help other young adults engage with faith, prayer and church. This team of volunteers includes university students, young professionals, trainee counsellors, university lecturers, entrepreneurs and social workers, all being trained and mobilised for parish and diocesan ministry through this ground–breaking initiative.
As chaplain to UCD, Paradoxology is one of the most inspiring things that I do. It disciples and reaches out to students as well as changing the way they see the Church of Ireland when they find us loving and serving them in the woods. If Electric Picnic is a picture of Ireland in 2016, our hope is that Paradoxology is a key example of how the Church of Ireland can do ministry in an ever–changing Ireland.
Finally, we are so thankful to the Carter family who provide us with water, Rev. Alec Purser and his family who hosted members of our team, Holy Trinity Rathmines for their continued support and the Priorities Fund who play a key role in funding what we do.