Introduction
Welcome to the Culham/REEP Easter Garden 2005
Easter is early this year, but already there are signs of new life in the earth. After the confinement and dourness of winter, it’s time to venture out into the world again.
This year’s Easter Garden features a performance of JMC Crum’s Easter hymn ‘Now the Green Blade Rises’, performed by the choir of Welford and Wickham School in West Berkshire – REEP’s official choir! – and graphics by Charlotte Hardy.
‘ Now the Green Blade Rises’ celebrates the hope of new life and uses imagery from nature, reflecting this year’s theme of the relationship between Christianity and the natural world. The Garden itself is a kind of ‘virtual’ walk though an Easter landscape. You can travel and listen to the song, discovering images, ideas and reflections related to our theme.
The four more extended essays are a chance for deeper debate and discussion. In recent years there has been a growth of movements such as Creation Spirituality, Neo-paganism and other similar ‘New Age’ groups, all venerating natural powers in some way. Such groups are often critical of Christian tradition. Are such criticisms valid? What response should be made to their challenge? These four sections consider some of the issues raised.
With sections for younger and older users, we hope that the various elements of this year’s Garden can be used by teachers to stimulate thought and class discussion or as a quarry of materials for RE and collective worship. The choral/visual presentation could also be downloaded as used as the focus for a period of quiet reflection.
So it’s time to take your first steps into the Garden...
Downloading the Easter Walk
If you would like to download the Easter Walk Flash file for use without an internet connection, you can download the offline version of the Easter Walk (SWF file, filesize approx. 2Mb, Requires Flash 6 or higher). Right-click the link to save the file to your computer.
To play the Flash file you can either drag-and-drop the file into an open window of a browser equipped with the Flash plugin or open it with the standalone Flash player from Macromedia, if it is installed, which allows fullscreen playback.