This is a series of Stations consisting of pictures, readings, prayers (and in the original version, things to do) which I ‘made’ for St Matthew's Church, Oxford, for Easter 2011. In the original version the two pictures for each Station were on the walls of the church together with a number, and below the pictures there was a table with the equipment for the thing to do. The title of the Station, the reading and the prayer, together with brief details of the pictures (artist, date of production, title) and instructions for the thing to do were printed in a 16-page booklet.
The 14 things to do were (listed with their respective Station number and the equipment you’ll need if you want to reconstruct the Stations) were:
1. ‘Smell the flowers from a garden’ (a bunch of flowers that are highly scented in a vase)
2. ‘Kiss the back of your hand’ (nothing)
3. ‘Bang the gavel on the block’ (a gavel and block)
4. ‘Press the space bar on the computer once to hear the cockerel crow’ (a laptop computer)
5. ‘Wash your hands in the bowl and dry your hands on the towel’ (a bowl of water and a towel)
6. ‘Feel the thorns’ (a piece of bramble)
7. ‘Feel the weight of the plank’ (a plank)
8. ‘Feel the weight of the umbrella’ (an umbrella)
9.
10. ‘i) Throw the dice' (three dice)
ii) 'Take a nail and hammer it into the wood’ (a hammer, some nails, and a piece of wood)
11. ‘Kneel for a moment on one of the kneelers’ (a few kneelers)
12. ‘Write down the name of someone you care for on the piece of paper, fold it in half and put it in the bowl’ (some paper, some pens and an offering plate)
13. ‘Dip a bit of sponge into the sour wine and taste it’ (a sponge cut into pieces, a bowl with some red wine vinegar in it)
14. ‘Dip your finger in the myrrh and anoint the back of your other hand’ (a bowl with some oil of myrrh in it)
In the orginal version there was no fifteeenth station which I have produced only for this blog.
The readings and prayers for the Stations are from ‘Times and Seasons’ published by the Church of England (The Way of the Cross) (with one minor modification) and can be found here.
The versions of the Stations published in this blog are slightly different from the original version. In particular the more modern pictures for Stations 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13 and 14 are new.
One of my friends has suggested that the pictures in this blog should come with a 'health warning'. I did put up such a health warning for a while but have since taken it down. Let me know what you think about this.
