Between

Saturday, 13 December 2025

Windows on the world (549)

London, 2025

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dove Ellis - Love Is.

Since my last Interview Update, I have had an interview published by ArtWay with artist Neil Tye and his collaborators Randall Flinn and Bill Wade. I have also published an interview with artist, poet and writer Rupert Loydell, who has also interviewed Nick Battle and Steve Scott. As a result, I am updating this index of interviews.

I have carried out a large number of other interviews for Artlyst, ArtWay, Church Times, International Times, Seen and Unseen and Art+Christianity. They provide a wide range of fascinating insights into the approaches and practices of artists, arts professionals, clerics, curators, performers, poets and writers.

They can be found at:

Artlyst

ArtWay

Church Times

International Times

Seen and Unseen

Art+Christianity

Also see my interviews with artist Henry Shelton here and here and David Hawkins, former Bishop of Barking, here, here and here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nick Drake - Place To Be.

ArtWay - The things we carry – A collaborative exhibition by Neil Tye

In my latest interview for ArtWay I talk with artist Neil Tye and his collaborators Randall Flinn and Bill Wade:

'For the last 25 years Neil Tye has been working as a physical visual theatre performer, instructor, teacher, and installation artist, and has taken his performances and teaching skills around the world ...

Tye has worked with Ad Deum, a professional modern/contemporary dance company based in Houston, Texas, directed by its founder Randall Flinn, who established the company in January 2000. The mission of Ad Deum is to create and perform excellent and vital works of dance that serve to wash over the heart and soul of humanity with relevant meaning and redemptive hope.

At Flinn’s invitation Bill Wade also became involved in a collaborative dance performance at the opening of Tye’s exhibition in Houston. Wade founded Inlet Dance Theatre in 2001 and the company embodies his belief that dance viewing, training and performing experiences may serve as tools to bring about personal growth and development. Inlet’s ensemble-based culture intentionally focuses on craftsmanship and mastery while employing a collaborative creative process in the development of new work. All of Inlet’s repertory speaks creatively about human life issues and does so in a life-giving manner. The company presents a wide aesthetic range of works that speak to what could be, rather than only what is.

I spoke to all three about their collaboration and Tye’s work.'

For more on Neil Tye click here.

My other writing for ArtWay can be found at https://www.artway.eu/authors/jonathan-evens. This includes church reports, interviews, reviews and visual meditations.

ArtWay.eu has been hailed "a jewel in the crown of work in Christianity and the arts," and having come under the custodianship of the Kirby Laing Centre, the much-loved publication has entered an exciting new chapter in its story following the launch of a new website in September 2024.

Since its founding, ArtWay has published a rich library of materials and resources for scholars, artists, art enthusiasts and congregations concerned about linking art and faith. Founded by Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker in 2009, ArtWay's significance is reflected in its designation as UNESCO digital heritage material in the Netherlands.

In 2018, I interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker for Artlyst on the legacy of ArtWay itself.

In the video above, the ArtWay team recounts the history of this much-loved resource and looks ahead

to an exciting future for ArtWay.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ad Deum Dance Company - Be Still My Soul.

Friday, 12 December 2025

Church Times - Art review: 12 Advent Stations (Chelmsford Cathedral)

My latest exhibition review for C hurch T imes is on '12 Advent Stations' by Pansy Campbell, Mark Cazalet and Jim Leaf at Chelmsford Cathedral:

'TWELVE Advent Stations are composed of sonnets rendered calligraphically and read by actors, alongside paintings on assemblages formed by domestic utensils; they form a circular journey, the last word of each poem featuring in the first line of the next, echoing the annual repetition in the church calendar, of which Advent is the beginning; and they cover conception, John the Baptist, annunciation, Bethlehem, birth, shepherds, Magi, massacre, flight, return, Simeon and Anna, and Trinity.

These Stations — created by the artist Mark Cazalet, the calligrapher Pansy Campbell, and the poet Richard Leaf, all members of the congregation of St Martin’s, Kensal Rise, where the Stations were first shown — had their own conceptions in Leaf’s sonnets, which then found complementary expression in Cazalet’s art, Campbell’s calligraphy, and the actor’s readings.

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writing for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Artlyst are here, those for Seen & Unseen are here, and those for Art+Christianity are here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

St Martin's Voices - O Morning Star.

Monday, 8 December 2025

Advent Meditation: The Prophets

Here's the meditation on The Prophets that I shared during Advent Night Prayer at St Andrew's Wickford this evening:

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of Bethlehem.
Of Bethlehem of Ephrathah, one of the little clans of Judah,
from whom shall come one who is to rule in Israel,
one whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.
When she who is in labour has brought forth,
then the rest of his kin shall return to the people of Israel
and he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God,
and they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of a sign that the Lord himself would give.
The sign a young woman with child.
A young woman who shall bear a son.
A young woman who shall name that son, Immanuel.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of a child.
A child born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority grows continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom
when he will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from his time onwards and for evermore.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of a shoot.
A shoot to come out from the stock of Jesse,
and a branch to grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord would rest on that shoot,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight would be in the fear of the Lord.
He would not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he would judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he would strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips kill the wicked.
Righteousness would be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and the little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear would graze,
their young would lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child would play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all God’s holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of a star.
They saw him, but not then;
they beheld him, but not near.
They saw a star,
a star that would come out of Jacob,
and a sceptre that would rise out of Israel.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of Egypt.
As, when Israel was a child, God loved him,
and out of Egypt he called his son.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of the Temple.
The temple to which the Lord who is sought will suddenly come.
The messenger of the covenant in whom we delight,
the messenger is coming,
coming to be like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap;
to sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,
and to purify the descendants of Levi
and refine them like gold and silver,
until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.
Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord
as in the days of old and as in former years.

The prophets dreamed.
They dreamed of people,
people who walked in darkness
seeing a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shone.

The prophets dreamed.
They saw from a distance and greeted their dreams.
They died in faith without having received the promises.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem,
a census requiring Jesus’ birth in Joseph’s home town.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of the sign given
in the child Immanuel, God with us.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of the child born for us,
the Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of the shoot
coming from the stock of Jesse
on whom the spirit of the Lord did rest.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of the star,
the star that led the Magi to worship Israel’s star.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of Egypt,
where our Saviour fled and from where he returned.
We are those on whom light has shone;
those who know the story of the Temple,
where Simeon and Anna see salvation
in the young Christ unexpectedly come.

Therefore, since we are surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses and prophets,
let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,
and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,
the one from of old, from ancient days,
the son who is named Immanuel,
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,
the one on whom the spirit of the Lord rests,
the sceptre that rises out of Israel,
the one God calls his son,
the one who refines like gold and silver,
until we present offerings to the Lord in righteousness,
that our offerings will be pleasing to the Lord
as in the days of old and as in former years. Amen.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

G.F.Händel - The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Sunday, 7 December 2025

Being rooted deep within

Here's the sermon (adapted from https://biologos.org/articles/o-radix) that I shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Catherine's Wickford this morning:

The season of Advent is a time when we are particularly attentive to images of Christ gleaned from the prophetic texts of the Old Testament, in addition to those that emerged from Jesus’ earthly ministry in Palestine. As poet, priest and musician Malcolm Guite notes, “In the first centuries the Church had a beautiful custom of praying seven great prayers calling afresh on Christ to come, calling him by the mysterious titles he has in Isaiah:” O Wisdom! O Lord! O Root! O Key! O Dayspring! O King! O Emmanuel! The hymn ‘O come, O come Emmanuel’, which we are signing today, preserves the tradition and these seven ancient, prophetic names' for the Christ.

Malcolm Guite has also given his own series of sonnets to accompany this sequence of antiphons still being used in the liturgical traditions, a litany of images that provide another way to extol Christ’s virtues and identity as Saviour week by week as we wait and remember His coming in Bethlehem. Today we look at one of those poems, “O Radix” or “O Root”, as a meditation on Christ via an image from His creation.

But first, let us hear the original O Antiphon for 19 December:

O Root of Jesse, standing
as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer

The texts from which the “root” image for Jesus derives are both from Isaiah 11 (today’s Old Testament reading), and the root image used encompasses the full flourishing of the plant, from its origins in the ground, through renewal of a seemingly-dead stump, and towards the fruitfulness of the restored vine. The most direct line naming Jesus as the root is in verse 10: “In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.”

It is this promise of the Messiah’s advent being for the rule and benefit of the gentiles that Paul picks up in chapter 15 of his letter to the Romans, as well. In both cases, though, the conflation of the “branch,” or “rod,” or “shoot,” mentioned earlier in Isaiah 11:1, with the “root” from which it springs suggests the way Jesus, though coming at a specific time in history, was at history’s beginnings and will be at its end: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,? and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.?”

For Guite, the fact that the Radix image refers to the ‘tree of Jesse, the family tree which leads to David, and ultimately to Christ as the ‘son of David,” is important, but, he says, “the title radix, goes deeper, as a good root should. It goes deep down into the ground of our being, the good soil of creation.” In other words, it gets at both the truth of Jesus’ identity as the source of our life and salvation (He is the root, the stem, the fruit), but also as the author of the world to which we (and the Scriptures, themselves) turn to find ways of talking about and imagining our own connection, our own grafting-in to that vine. It subtly suggests that recognizing ourselves as contiguous with the world—though set apart from it by God’s grace and fellowship—begins our process of being re-connected to the King and His kingdom. Conversely, when we turn our backs on the knowledge He speaks forth through His creation, or shrink back from our call to know and cultivate the world as it is, we cut ourselves off from our roots, from each other, and even from the Lord. That we so often satisfy ourselves with the latter is one more reason to lament in this season of waiting, as we call to the coming Messiah, “Come, O Radix, come!”

O Radix

All of us sprung from one deep-hidden seed,
Rose from a root invisible to all.
We knew the virtues once of every weed,
But, severed from the roots of ritual,
We surf the surface of a wide-screen world
And find no virtue in the virtual.
We shrivel on the edges of a wood
Whose heart we once inhabited in love,
Now we have need of you, forgotten Root
The stock and stem of every living thing
Whom once we worshiped in the sacred grove,
For now is winter, now is withering
Unless we let you root us deep within,
Under the ground of being, graft us in.

Thinking about roots more specifically and “naturally” is worthwhile, too, as being attuned to functions as well as forms helps us reflect on the several ways in which Christ enables us to be connected to Him and each other. Spend time walking along a river, for instance, looking carefully at the trees that grow along its banks and you will discover that their roots have two principal functions: to take in nourishment from the water and to anchor the tree securely in place; on one hand, to seek out something that is supremely mysterious, mobile, and literally fluid, and, on the other hand, to take hold of something solid, secure and immovable. Indeed, they are complementary roles, for a tree fully exposed to the power of moving water is as likely to be washed away as to flourish—it must have a stronghold to stand in the presence of the flood. Likewise, to “take root” in the Scriptures and in the Lord Himself is thus to be always reaching out, yearning for more of His Spirit, even as we stay firmly planted in the strength and security of His steadfast embrace.

When he says that the spirit of the Lord would rest on that shoot, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, Isaiah is showing us a Messiah who is rooted in the story of Israel and in God, through his Spirit. Like Jesus, we also need to be rooted in him and see his kingdom grow in us and in our world. This Advent, let us make it our desire to be more deeply rooted in Christ and to see his kingdom take root in our community. Amen.

For more on the O Antiphons and Guite's sonnets - click here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steve Bell - O come, O come Emmanuel (with Malcolm Guite).

Saturday, 6 December 2025

Windows on the world (548)

Chelmsford, 2025

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nick Cave - Joy.