The Wild Goose Festival experiment began with big dreams and big hopes. In the festival program organizers wrote: "we want to change the world, of course; but that will only happen when we change ourselves."As the inaugural festival wrapped up Sunday, many of the more than 1,500 who made the trek to Shakori Hills Farm, not far from Chapel Hill, may not have noticed global changes, but most left with a sense of mission accomplished.
Wild Goose dreamer and founder Gareth Higgins, who has been part of the Britain’s Greenbelt Festival -- Wild Goose’s British mother goose so to speak -- satisfied a lingering question for skeptics: “Would U.S. Christians support a gathering as eclectic and diverse as Wild Goose?”Organizers wondered, in the U.S. -- where less tolerant, less inclusive manifestations of Christianity are abundant -- would there still be room for a festival that championed religious diversity, pluralism, the inclusion of gays and lesbians, and many open mic events where people could simply tell their stories of love, pain, rejection, faith, joy and hope?
The answer was a resounding, “Yes,” said Wild Goose board member Karla Yaconelli, who dreamed of a U.S. version of Greenbelt ever since she first travelled to England from the U.S. to attend that festival 25 years ago. Yaconelli said the task of making Wild Goose a reality “almost seemed like an impossibility.”
Besides the logistics of putting on such a huge event, Wild Goose organizers had another difficult task -- getting renowned speakers and artists to come to North Carolina at their own expense, and for no compensation. Yaconelli outlined initial reasons why she thought Wild Goose wouldn't fly in the U.S. “There are so many divisions in the church here in the U.S. that are so much greater or seem so much greater [than in Europe].”“Our culture is not ready for something like this.”
“And then, of course, there is the Christian Industrial Complex that is so already established.”“We began to wonder if it would ever be possible to have an event in the United States that could possibly be the beginning of the end of political and theological polarization and rigidity, dogma, where everyone had a seat at the table … with a willingness to have their own mind change in unexpected ways.”Well, Wild Goose happened, and what emerged from the stories people told over four days was the gathering delivered a safe place for them to tell those stories, but it was also a place for people to rise up out of their tombs of pain, despair and loneliness for the purpose of reconnecting with a God of love. Many people who have suffered as a result of “bad religion” never return to the scenes of the crimes. Wild Goose was for those people, now hoping to find something better.
“I was raised in fundamentalism. Women couldn’t even pray out loud in front of men in the tradition I was raised in, but I left that form of Christianity 25 years ago,” said the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran theologian and mother of two who officiated at Saturday’s Wild Goose liturgy, and spoke at several programs.
“I have scars; I just don’t have wounds anymore. And a lot of people have wounds, and I understand that, but I think it’s good for them to see someone who has scars instead of wounds,” said Bolz-Weber. “I’m profoundly fortunate that I’ve been given the support and encouragement that I have to do what I’m doing.”
When she decided to go into ministry, Bolz-Weber -- whose arms include multiple tattoos depicting the church year, Lazarus rolling out of a burial cloth, and Mary Magdalene -- said she received a blessing from her parents.
“I just don’t know that I’ll ever get that from my parents,” a young, aspiring minister told Bolz-Weber while tears streaked his face. Her advice was that he seek a blessing from another source. “If your parents cannot give you the blessings, you need to find somebody who can,” said Bolz-Weber. “You need it. You need that kind of freedom instead of being in bondage. I think a lot of people here have been in bondage, and what they’re taking away from this is a blessing instead.”Wild Goose also included a small contingent of Native American Christians who introduced their audiences to diverse worship styles that interwove various tribal traditions into the program.