What do we hope the Wild Goose Festival can be?
The Wild Goose Festival is a festival gathering people together to enjoy each other’s company, hear provocative speakers and extraordinary music, watch dramatic performances and make art, eat together and imagine new life at the intersection of spirituality, justice, and creativity. It’s a journey of anticipation that is spreading its wings June 23-26, 2011 at Shakori Hills in North Carolina. What do we hope the Wild Goose Festival can be?
A justice and spirituality festival that feels more like a long weekend party than a conference, rooted in an irenic (and sometimes ironic) Christian tradition but open to all. As we work toward what makes for the deepest togetherness and most lasting change, we are using the lenses and gifts of art, music, and conversation to nurture a community of people connected to each other, to the suffering people of the world, and to the earth itself.
A festival that starts new conversations, and continues old ones in a fresh way.
A festival at which everyone can feel welcome, from any faith background or none.
A festival at which everyone can participate, because the traditional hierarchies between ‘teachers’ and ‘learners’ have been collapsed.
A festival that provides a platform for things to be said and heard that may not be said or heard anywhere else in the U.S.
A festival whose economic and structural values parallel those being promoted by the people who attend, speak, and perform.
A festival where once a year conversations take place that change our lives forever.
A festival that helps people live better.
These are big ideas, shaped over years of experience and conversation. We invite you to participate with us in discovering how to turn the ideas into action, the conversations into community, and the vision into art. We’re beginning now with the nurturing of community around the Wild Goose vision starting next June, with the hope of annual festivals and year-round community thereafter.
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As a seasoned Greenbelter I would love to suppport this new venture. I hope I may be able to attend, before I get to old to travel about. I expect you are already inundated with offers to speak, but if you would like me to help in that way, please let me know. Rowan Williams, John Bell, Dave Tomlinson this side of the pond would probably vouch for me, and over your side Tony Campolo, Peterson Toscano, Susan Banks of Madison Avenue Baptist New York, (all of whom you should invite before me), would put in a good word for me, in addition to the Greenbelt staff here. Please check me out, and my books especially which will tell you all you need to know. Please keep me informed. Love & Peace, and the very best of wishes and prayers for this bold new venture. John Henson.