Behind the Words: "What's in a Tribe?"
Karen Thatcher
As I begin to share a few pieces of (no frills, just me to camera) spoken word on my social media channels, I thought I would pair them with an explanation of where the words came from.
And so my spoken word love began to grow.
In general, I really struggle with sharing creativity with the world… I find it really vulnerable and intrusive. When I create things that have a purpose… that can hide behind some kind of “other person” I’m much better… So a few years ago, I wrote my first ever piece of spoken word for some Easter media at Ashford Vineyard, (you can have a watch of it here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1061574874241909 ) and because I was able to kind of hide behind the AV brand, it was much easier. Sharing it as me, is a struggle, but one that I’m trying to overcome. (Because really, how can you develop and grow and get better if you don’t share your work at every stage?!)
I was then invited to share an advent thought on Radio Ashford last Christmas, and so wrote a piece for that too. And so my spoken word love began to grow.
Just before lockdown my friend Francesca lovingly bullied me into performing at a poetry slam- I had never even heard of a poetry slam… I had zero idea of what to expect. So I wrote my third ever piece of spoken word specifically for the slam. It was SCARY. I might share it with you at another point, and give you the story behind that. But this is spoken word piece number 4 in my life.
As you may have seen from previous blogs, and things that I share, I am part of the leadership team at The Beehive. During lockdown, we’ve been having lots of online social times and catching up with our volunteers, which has been a great time to get to know each other better and build community. A few weeks ago at one of our socials we were chatting about what we’d been doing in lockdown and one of our amazing volunteers shared that she had taken up poetry again. She hadn’t written in a long time, and had begun to write again during lockdown. I told her that she should absolutely share some with us… And she did. She wrote a wonderful poem about The Beehive, and shared it with us, which was such a beautiful and tender moment. And then I realised I really shouldn’t be a hypocrite and encourage her to share, if I was too scared to do it myself.
And so… Here begins my bravery, inspired by Chris, and her own bravery.
This piece “What’s in a Tribe” was partially inspired by a good friend of mine. I had begun pondering about relationships and the quality of the people we surround ourselves with. I had started to write down bits and pieces to form the basis of a poem. Then 2 Sundays ago, some very close friends had their “commissioning service” at church (online)- They are about to go and start a brand new church up north (Vineyard Lincoln), and so this was their service where our church sent them off and said goodbye. They did a little talk during the service about why they’re going, etc. And at one point, Maddy spoke about her realisation of the importance of having REAL relationships, and challenged us to think about the people we surround ourselves with. To make sure we have “A Tribe” that have positive influences in our lives.
Well, that just fed perfectly into what I already had written, and shaped the rest of my spoken word.
“A Tribe” is something that I’ve heard a lot about in the last few months and years, and so I asked myself the question: “What is IN a tribe”? This is my musing, and deciphering of that phrase, and how it relates to the relationships I have.
I hope you enjoy. Have a watch, and let me know what you think, in the comments below!