QuartzNews, information, and personal reflections from members of the Quartz community. If you could like to contribute, please get in touch. We also have a WhatsApp “Glimmers” group where people post photos, thoughts and phrases that mark moments when they sense the presence of God in their daily lives. (Statements etc. reflect individual authors perspectives, […]
On the first Saturday in May people worldwide will be thinking, and walking, about labyrinths. These are a very ancient tool which we have used in a lot of Quartz activities! This video gives an idea of just how global labyrinths are: The closest to Dumfries in I saw in the video was Renfrew. Ann […]
A picture, or a poem, is the death of possibility. A great and terrifying cloud of potential, collapses. The dead scales of art are experienced, while the artist struggles to shed skin. To hold a cloud of unknowing in tension, and sense the moment of rain. All are able, Some have skill, Make the time.
Artists can help us stretch our minds. This exersize can take effort. Making the effort has rewards though. Just as a runner trains for a race, we can train our minds to be flexible and resiliant. There is Truth in the solidness of stone, but a skilled artist can make it look like a pillow. […]
We will meet on Monday the 28th of April at 19.30 at Simon and Kate’s house. If you are unsure where that is, please get in touch. The theme will be preparing for Pentecost!
Easter 2025 Quartz Forest Church Walking out from St John’s on Sunday I wondered about how long we have been doing this, and whether we should continue. The weather was was certainly great! But it had been a long day starting at 20.30 the previous evening, with an 08.30 gathering the next morning and then […]
Without relying on artificial light and clocks, does the new day start at sunset or sunrise? The Banners we have been working on will be unveiled at an Easter Vigil this Friday. It will be held at 8.30 pm on the Saturday before Easter Sunday in St Johns. There is also a Dumfries Christian Network […]
3rd Sunday, Easter Sunday, 20th of April This Sunday is Easter Sunday! We will gather for Forest Church by the River Nith, just downstream from the car park at the end of Nunholm road. There is a beach opposite Lincluden Abbey. We have been gathering there on Easter Sunday for quite a while now! (not […]
In Dumfries we are nearing the end of a time when people say goodbye to the barnacle geese who visit from Svalbard. This has been curated into a “Wild Goose” festival which WSC contributes to in various ways. There is another Wild Goose – and this is the Wild Goose publishing of the Iona Community […]
Quartz Easter Weekend 19th/20th April 2025 Easter Banner This Easter, as Quartz and the wider community, have been using visual arts to explore contrasts inspired by early medieval crosses. Visually there are contrasts between stone and vegetation, the overflowing of life and containers that hold things together. The banners will hang in darkness, like burial […]
Easter is a time of contrasts. We will be exploring themes of stone and vegetation, structure and chaos, overflowing of life and containers that hold things together. Help make a banner after the 11 O’clock service on Palm Sunday (13th of April) in St Johns. We will also be working on it at the contemporary […]