This has been the last big festival weekend of the summer, the last holiday hurrah before reverting to routine. I don’t know about you Sara, but Chris has been at Carfest South and I’ve been at the Christian arts festival, Greenbelt.
Different events, same struggles; same desire for the most fun possible before heading back to school and work; same rain; same mud; same fear of extreme tent and relationship meltdown.
At my ‘home’ festival, Greenbelt, I have the happy task of introducing bands, a job I love and one which comes with the huge privilege of access – to great artists, great views and, frankly, nice loos. However, the evening before Greenbelt opened I was denied access by two stewards because I wasn’t wearing a high-vis vest.
Now, among my least appealing and charming characteristics is a tendency to get indignant and impatient if I’m denied something I think is my right. There was the time I threw one at Stansted Airport because my bag was too heavy. And the time I literally screamed at a van driver who encroached on the bike space at the lights at the bottom of Effra Road.
Sorry Check- in Lady. Sorry Van Man. Because it’s not just unappealing, it’s appalling and I was appalling to the stewards. Not shouty or sweary but snippy and a bit sarky, although they were dead right and I was dead wrong.
Sometimes I think I’m about four years old.
But as I stomped off, I thought about King David in the Bible. He was an entitled man, but he knew he had a quick temper and needed correcting so he prayed a wise prayer: ‘Set a guard over my mouth Lord…and let a righteous man rebuke me – it is oil on my head’.
So, feeling a little chastened, I went back to apologise to the righteous man and woman, the two stewards,. They couldn’t have been more gracious. It was oil on my head and the rest of Greenbelt was fantastic – even the mud.
As I head back to work and the children go back to school, I know I’ll lose it again, very soon, over something very pointless and I should remember King David and the Stewards (good name for a band). Because I reckon those simple prayers are really important – help me mind my mouth, let me be gently corrected occasionally. They can help us live not just our summer lives but our regular, back-to-school lives, in our regular communities, lovingly and well.
The image above is of Richard Wilson’s 20:50 (1987), as installed at the Hayward Gallery for the Space Shifters exhibition in 2018.