We arrived at the bandstand on this first cold misty autumn morning to be greeted with the sight of a table groaning under the weight of hundreds of conkers.

   So what is it all about?

We had been asked to bring along something that represented harvest to each one of us. To Paul conkers said it all. The wonderful shiny harvest of conkers reminded him of his childhood. This was the time of year when as a child he would find a huge shiny conker and take it into school imagining he was going to be a conker champion. As an adult seeing conkers each year reminds him of God’s good and wonderful provision.

Home grown vegetables, flowers, apples, cider, Fairtrade Coffee and a special watercolour painting were added to the table by others at the bandstand. Each of us saying how these things remind us of what God provides and blesses us with.

Paul then talked about the goodness of God on the one hand and the darkness of the human spirit on the other. We were challenged by his authentic look at our real natures and we thought about strife, challenges and down right evil things happening in our world. Spending time walking or sitting in the park we went away to pray.

To aid is in our prayers and to illustrate how God can cleanse and heal situations that we pray for Paul gave us two containers of liquid.  One containing red fluid and another clear fluid. *

As we prayed we added the clear fluid drop by drop, prayer by prayer, to the red fluid and watched it change to a clear fluid.

Sharing our Companions Liturgy for bread and wine brought our time at the bandstand to an end.

Coffee and a warm café awaited us

* PAUL ASKED US TO WEAR GLOVES FOR PROTECTION.

Paul used a popular chemistry demonstration that is often called turning water into wine or water into blood. It’s really a simple example of a pH indicator. A few drops of Phenolphthalein  was added to a glass bottle containing an alkali.  This resulted in the solution turning pink/cerise.  When hydrochloric acid was added to the pink solution it turned colourless once more.