Belle Tindall writes on "Seeking the answers to our deepest longings in a muddy field"
I’m about to head to Glastonbury Festival. Last year, I went expecting a party. This year, having been before, I’d liken it more to a pilgrimage.
I know, I know – that sounds a little silly. But hear me out: housed within the festival site are social justice campaigns, political activism, communal experiences, ritual, and ceremony. There’s a whole section of it called The Healing Fields, where every possible spiritual experience is open to you. Last year, I walked past seven hundred people singing ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ in the middle of a party field.
I’m not kidding.
This article is from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity section on Connecting with Culture (Photo credit: Anna Barclay on Glastonbury website)
The whole thing, if you think about it, is 200,000 people pressing pause on the rhythms of their lives and going in search of awe and wonder. This week, in anticipation, I listened to the festival’s organiser, Emily Eavis, being interviewed by BBC’s Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw. In that interview, they described Glastonbury as ‘communion’, with Annie Mac explaining, ‘when you don’t go to church, you need to get that somewhere.’
Now, don’t get me wrong – Glastonbury’s not church. But it’s intriguing that people want it to serve the same function, no?
I think of Paul in Athens being thrown in front of the Areopagus council – the cultural epicentre of the Graeco-Roman world – and declaring ‘Athenians, I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way’ (Acts 17:22). I reckon you’d only need to stand in the middle of Glastonbury for three minutes before you could confidently swap ‘Athenians’ with ‘people of Glastonbury’. They are spiritual in every kind of way, as we all are. How so? Well, as St Augustine said, ‘you have made us, O Lord, for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you’.
Glastonbury is a space bursting with restless hearts. As such, it acts as a powerful reminder that, actually, every space is.
People are looking here, there, and everywhere for the thing that will satisfy their deepest longings and answer their innermost questions; they have this inkling that they were made for something more, and are desperately searching for what that ‘more’ might be.
If we give people enough of our attention, we’ll be able to spot their restlessness a mile off. And then, maybe, we’ll be in a better position to point them toward the one who made them for himself, the one in whom their restlessness can cease.
Belle is a biblical scholar, writer for Seen and Unseen, and co-host of its Re-Enchanting podcast.
This article is from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity section on Connecting with Culture (Photo credit: Anna Barclay on Glastonbury website)