Around the grassy slopes on all sides they began appearing looking a bit like a tatty tribe or Red Indians crawling back to base after a resounding defeat. There was plaited hair and painted faces, the clothes were strange and very colourful, babies were carried on backs papoose-style. All around there were huge crosses looking like some strange tribal totem poles since, on closer inspection, you saw that they were made from Coca-Cola tins, beer cans and barbed wire.
Some music began playing from the main stage around which they all began settling. Directly in front of the main stage a line of oak trees crowned the top of the slope and way out in the distant fields were hundreds of parked cars and small tents. A young girl in the congregation was smoking a cigarette and two boys greeted one another with a kiss.
'Good morning and a warm welcome to our communion service at Greenbelt '95. The theme of this service reflects the theme of this year's festival – dry bones dancing – and is inspired by Ezekiel's vision in the valley of dry bones.'
We were in Deene Park in Northamp-tonshire at the regular Sunday morning communion which, with hundreds of bread rolls and as many cups of wine, must be one of the biggest outdoor communion services now held in England. It kicked off with a rousing song from the stage and then an address from Gustavo Parajon from Nicaragua who told us of the hopes there in the 80's which had been followed by a cruel disillusionment in the 90's. Can the dry bones get up and dance in Nicaragua again? Gustavo hoped so; he prayed so.
There followed another reading, another prayer, another song and then an address from Frank Chikane who brought us greetings from his native Cape Town in South Africa and then told us how the dry bones there had indeed got up and danced and how the whole mighty apartheid machine had collapsed under the God-given leadership of Nelson Mandela.
Further prayers were followed by another song when everyone got up and greeted and hugged one another. There's a lot of this at Greenbelt; you can quite cheerfully wander around all day hugging and kissing almost everyone. It's a part of the peculiar innocence and gentleness of the event. A few years ago on a cold and rainy weekend a woman the size of a Baptist chapel was taken to the first aid tent suffering from hypothermia. They solved this in a very Greenbelt way by getting in twenty strapping lads to give her the rub down of her life. All the next day she was seen wandering around the site with a broad smile on her face like some lifelong sinner who had just been told that there is no hell.
The swallows were still spinning across the worshipping slopes when they all broke into small groups and the wine and bread were handed around. Those ragged crosses were carried down to the main stage. 'This is where we meet the risen Christ, flesh of our flesh, bone of our boneÉ'
But when the bread was eaten and the wine was drunk the silence was broken by a wail of a saxophone and pretty soon there were several congas being danced up and down through the crowds. Greenbelters love to dance; they love to worship God with their whole bodies. Dem bones, dem dry bones were all a' dancing again quite soon.
Tom Davies has written ten books, including Stained Glass Hours and Merlyn the Magician and the Pacific Coast Highway. Since Tom wrote this piece, which was first published in Leading Light magazine, it has been incorporated into his book Lanscapes of Glory, published in 1996 by SPCK.
Southern Comfort – Rick Dietrich is wowed by First Baptist, Atlanta.
Preaching Without Oxygen – Simon Jenkins marvels at the Wee Frees of Inverness.
Pearly Splendour – Gillian Preece visits Holy Trinity Brompton in fashionable Knightsbridge, London.
Easter with Attitude – Simon Jenkins celebrates Easter, Russian Orthodox style.
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