For those of you interested in the interface between spirituality, art and social justice, perhaps this might be worth hearing about. Chris has been involved in a project to revive an old publishing organisation called Proost. It will become a community interest company soon, but at present, the work is more to build community. As part of this, Proost is pulling together an exciting meet up in Glasgow. If you want to know more, sign up on the proost site on the link below, or get in in touch with us and we can full you in. Here is a quick update on the Proost meet up for artists in Glasgow. First, the key details;

PROOST MEET UP, 2025 Date: 3rd October 2025 (6:00 PM) to 5th October 2025 (4:00 PM) Location: St Oswald’s Episcopal Church, King’s Park, 260 Castlemilk Rd, Glasgow G44 4LB Hosted by: Proost, in partnership with local Episcopal and Church of Scotland Churches Cost: The gathering is free, with the aim of making this gathering as accessible as possible for all. Accommodation: Informal hosting options are available for those who need them, and we’re happy to provide guidance on nearby accommodation options to help you make your stay as comfortable as possible. Let us know how we can assist you!

 

  WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? Many of you will remember Proost as it used to be- a publishing platform established on the edge of what we used to call ’emerging church’ or ‘missional groups’ or ‘alt worship’. It gathered a community of creatives who made poetry, art, video, music, liturgy and much more. For many of us, it gave a sense of belonging and connection – and ways to collaborate with other artists in both gathered and dispersed events. We live in different times now, but if anything, creatives need these connections more than ever. We need art that engages, that challenges, that allows us to go deeper. We need to hear from people who are otherwise marginalised. We need to speak of justice and peace, so challenge where appropriate. We need to take allow our art to connect with the deep spirituality of the earth. The landscape of faith and culture has changed a lot in the decades since Proost first came on to the scene. Communication technology has made publishing easier, yet at the same time so much harder because of the sheer volume of content being produced. Funding streams and generating income is a massive challenge. Against all this, we have a powerful tool called community. This is our dream for a new Proost- the means by which we combine our voices, our creativity and our resources to transcend the limitiations imposed by our context in service of justice. We think this is a holy pursuit, made ever more urgent by the crises gathering around us- wars, climate breakdown, inequality and political/economic impotence. Much of this discussion has been taking place via two podcasts… The main feed The poetry feed … and we have made a start with some collaborations around Advent and Lent. But we feel that community also needs to make physical connections. We need to come together in one place, to share stories, to make plans and art together.   WHAT WILL WE DO? The idea is simple- choose a theme and then invite people to respond to it using their art – music, poetry, painting, dance, pottery, photography, animation, video – or anything else. We will make space for as many contributions and expressions of creativity as we can comb together in the form of installation or performance. The only limitation is that you need to bring those contributions in person! We are so grateful to St Oswald’s Episcopal Church (King’s Park, 260 Castlemilk Rd, Glasgow G44 4LB) in partnership with local Episcopal and Church of Scotland Churches for generously hosting this weekend. Installation space will be in and around the St Oswalds. (This will include a large mushroom-related ceramic offering!) Performance opportunities will be via 1. A great big Ceilidh on Saturday night – dancing, hopefully interspersed with all sorts of other poems, songs and stories. 2. Sunday afternoon event. Both will be open to local people. We want to keep Saturday day-time for discussion and chat amongst Proostians – working out together what seems important, and how this project might progress. There will be themed discussions led by different members of the team.

WHY MYCELLIUM? This is the theme we have chosen for our meet up. Some of the reasons for this will already be in your heads, but here are some ponderings that might help unleash your own creative responses. Soil science is advancing rapidly – we now need to stop thinking of soil as just inert dirt. It might be more accurate to regard it as a living entity all on its own – but if that is a little fanciful surely we need to understand that it is a complex ecosystem- one which almost all other land based life on the planet depends upon. Without soil, we die. Crucially, the role of mycelial networks in connecting, communicating and making communalities is increasingly being understood to be so much more important than previously thought. Mycelium is the way that trees ‘talk’ to one another. Think about that- one life form relies upon another lifeform in order to share nutrients, warn of disease and so much more. We modern humans tend to think about the natural world as being characterised by competition, the elimination of weakness and ‘survival of the fittest’. We have taken Darwinian ideas, misunderstood them and used them to justify our economics, our politics – even our spiritualities. The more we understand about mycelium, the more we need to think again. Perhaps the ‘survival of the fittest’ might better be understood to mean that we survive best when we seek to fit with our context – when we seek connection and community. What are we connecting with? Does mycelium only represent a way to understand human interrelatedness – with both each other and with the wider natural world? I would argue however that we might consider this connection to be much deeper than that. These ideas have always been at the heart of the Christian story, not least the mystical traditions and the Celtic wisdom traditions, both of which have long emphasised that it is through God that all things live and have their being. In the Celtic understanding, God is to be found at the centre of everything, even us. We encounter him by going deeper. Richard Rohr, in his magnificent book ‘The Universal Christ’ show us a different window into this way of understanding, in which the Christ is ‘another name for everything’ – the cosmic consciousness through which the universe expanded and came into being. We are all held in this commonality and invited to participate according to the deep truth of love. As followers of Jesus, there seem to me to be so many other resonances here.

• Unity and Oneness:

Jesus called for a unified community, where individuals, despite their differences, are “perfectly joined together” in their minds and judgments.

• Body Analogy:

He used the image of a body with many parts, each playing a vital role, to illustrate the interconnectedness and interdependence of his followers.

• Love for Neighbour:

Jesus emphasized the importance of loving one’s neighbour as oneself, which encourages cooperation and mutual support within a community. Compassion and love are a natural law that we need to be drawn towards.

• Serving Others:

He demonstrated the importance of serving others, highlighting the value of helping those in need and working together for a common good.

• Collaboration and Partnership:

Jesus encouraged his followers to work together, emphasizing the importance of partnership in living as agents of the Kingdom of God.

  HOW TO GET INVOLVED? We need ideas, songs, poems, film, images, dance, liturgies. We will ‘curate’ these in advance and include as many as we can. HOWEVER- this is about community, so we need you to bring your ideas, not just to send them. We will make the event together. We have some very limited funding, and the offer of some accommodation. We don’t want money to be an obstacle for anyone.   This is the start of a new thing. Come and help shape it. On saturday we want to explore ideas together- to talk of Poesis and dream of how art and spirituality move togther and miight lead us forward. If this is interesting to you, what you can do is SIGN UP VIA THE PROOST WEBSITE This will not commit you to anything- we will keep you informed, that is all. If you have ideas you want to talk through,or want to know more, or have questions, we would love to hear from you- you can get in touch via the website, or drop me a message via the comments below, or send me an e-mail at thisfragiletent@com