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Friday, 10 October 2025

Church Times: Art review: Spiritual Britten and Darkness (The Red House, Aldeburgh)

My latest exhibition review for Church Times is on 'Spiritual Britten' and 'Darkness' at The Red House, Aldeburgh:

'This exhibition, ably curated by the Revd Dr Paul Edmondson, is based on the understanding that, although not a regular churchgoer after his childhood, Britten nevertheless created much sacred music connecting personally with the themes, people, and churches involved, while his approach to God and the music that he composed was shaped initially by the Christian values and routines of his childhood.'

See also my review of an earlier exhibition at The Red House by clicking here.

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.

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The Staple Singers - Are You Sure?

Thursday, 9 October 2025

Private View for 'Everyday Wonder to Revelation: an exhibition of paintings by Alan Caine'


















Great to be at the Private View for 'Everyday Wonder to Revelation: an exhibition of paintings by Alan Caine' at Clare Hall in Cambridge this evening. Art historian Frances Spalding and artist Trevor Davies introduced us to the exhibition and to Alan Caine’s work. Sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld also shared reflections on Alan and his approach to art.

"Caine’s paintings delve into the core, the Neo-Platonist idea of the one-ness of the world, the nodus mundi. We see this in his depictions of everyday objects: rugs, mopheads, carpets, and bundles of cloth. Though his subject matter is humble, the deep intricacy of his draughtsmanship reveals unity and cohesion. We see it too in his expansive and luminous landscapes. When Caine blends his perceptions of space and shimmering light in the landscape with his exploration of the core in everyday things, he presents us with a vision of worlds beyond. His images invite us to step through a veil into barely imagined possibilities. Through his exploration of the small, the infinite beckons; through his exploration of the wonder of the everyday, revelation becomes possible."

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The Harbour Lights - Another Rainbow.

Sunday, 5 October 2025

Windows on the world (539)


London, 2025

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Amazing Blondel - Anthem.

Faith as small as a mustard seed

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Gabriel’s Pitsea this morning:

Brother Lawrence was a member of the Carmelite Order in France during the 17th Century. He spent most of his life in the kitchen or mending shoes, but became a great spiritual guide. He saw God in the mundane tasks he carried out in the priory kitchen. Daily life for him was an ongoing conversation with God. He wrote: 'we need only to recognize God intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment.'

Brother Lawrence also said that ‘We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.' The Parable of the Mustard Seed is an illustration of this truth. In that brief parable a small action, the sowing of a small seed, leads to the growth of a large plant. Jesus says that, in a similar way, the kingdom of God has small beginnings but grows to become something much larger. In today’s passage (Luke 17:5-10), Jesus says we only need a small amount of faith – faith as small as a mustard seed – to accomplish great things, like moving a tree to the sea. As a result, we should, like Brother Lawrence says, in no wise despise small actions.

The phrase a ‘mustard seed’ has entered our language as a little idea that grows into something bigger and that is of course literally what happened with the Jesus movement itself. It was a relatively small grouping of obscure people that died when its founder, Jesus died, but which, following his resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost grew to become the largest religion in history and also within the world currently.

We also see this illustrated in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. Long centuries have come and gone but all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

The Early Church reveals the same pattern to us. Paul writes to the Christians at Corinth and says, “think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.” He says in this letter that, in the eyes of the world, Christians are foolish and the message of the cross is foolish.

The same words could actually be applied to us: none of us are major intellectuals or academics; none of us have major influence or power in terms of work or politics; none of us, so far as I know, were born into the aristocracy. The reality is that wonderful as each of us are, we are not major players on the world stage and that makes us, in human terms, one among millions of other human beings around the world. When we think of ourselves in those terms it easy to see ourselves and what we do as being small and insignificant.

We may not like to think of ourselves as being foolish, as well as insignificant, but that is how Paul describes the Corinthian Christians from the perspective of those considered wise in their culture. It is no different today, Richard Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion that God is a “psychotic delinquent” invented by mad, deluded people and our faith in God is a “process of non-thinking,” “blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence.”

BUT what Jesus demonstrates through his life, death and resurrection and what Paul states in his letter to the Corinthians is that “the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.” The Message, a contemporary paraphrase of the Bible, puts it like this:

“Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.”

So, the kingdom of God is a place of multiplication. The kingdom of God is a place of exponential growth. The kingdom of God is a place where the tiniest seed can become the biggest plant. The kingdom of God is where faith as small as a mustard seed can move a mountain. The kingdom of God is a place where a grain of yeast can make a whole batch of dough rise. The kingdom of God is a place where a child’s lunch can feed 5,000. The kingdom of God is a place where the salt of our behaviour can flavour the community in which we live. The kingdom of God is a place where the little we can offer can be used to the praise and glory of God.

Just as in the parable of the mustard seed, our small inputs can have a big effect and, just as with Jesus’ words about faith here, the influence that one person can have can move a mountain. We could respond to this by thinking what small thing can I do today that will have a big effect but the reality is that we are rarely able to accurately predict future effects. Instead, we can learn, like Brother Lawrence, to value small, mundane actions in the knowledge that, if well done for the love of God, these actions can have significantly larger impacts.

And, because we know of this process or pattern or plan of the small, the insignificant, the foolish, being used by God to achieve great change, we can trust that our lives also have meaning and significance as we put our faith into practice in small acts of compassion here and little words of witness there; at home, in church and in the community. We don’t know what God will cause to grow from these actions and words but we trust that they will take root and grow because that is the pattern that we, and Christians throughout Church history, have observed in practice. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Randy Stonehill - Strong Hand Of Love.

God's presence in the everyday






Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine's and St Andrew's this morning:  

God calls us, in prayer and contemplation, to see his presence in the everyday, our everyday lives, tasks, activities, and the people and things we see around us. With spiritual insight we will see Christ in all these things. In Philippians 4.4-9 we read: whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. We are, therefore, encouraged to go through life looking for God and the good in all that is around us. 

Today, therefore, we are going to pay attention to one of our Harvest donations. This humble jar of Branston Pickle. I wonder what we can see of God in this jar when we spend time with it and think about it. How might we see something of Christ in a jar of Branston Pickle?

Does anyone know what is in Branston Pickle? Branston Pickle is made from a variety of diced vegetables, including swede, carrots, onions and cauliflower pickled in a sauce made from vinegar, tomato, apple and spices. Reflecting on this aspect of its manufacture can lead us to give thanks to God for the wide variety of vegetables he has made and for those farmers who grow them.

Does anyone know where the recipe for Branston Pickle was created? We can give thanks, too, for the human creativity – another gift from God – that resulted in the recipe for Branston Pickle, which was first made in 1922 in the village of Branston near Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, by Crosse & Blackwell.

For those who like it, Branston Pickle enhances certain meals by adding zest and flavour. Giving thanks to God for tasty and nutritious meals is what we do when we say Grace. We can certainly do this in relation to enjoyment of Branston Pickle. A partly consumed jar, as this now is, is a reminder to us of the many occasions and people who have enjoyed this food to date. Each of them has received something good from God for which we can give thanks.

There’s a part-used jar of Branston Pickle in the art installation we currently have in church. Usually, we might simply toss a part-used jar of Branston Pickle way without a further thought, however, in this Season of Creation we are specifically thinking of how we can reuse waste items. Including everyday items like this jar in this installation provides us with the opportunity to stop, to look, to think and to pray about humble, everyday items. If we are open to that possibility, there is much for which we can be thankful as a result of contemplating such an object.

Jesus encouraged us to be like salt in our everyday lives (Matthew 5.13). Salt is an ordinary, everyday object which is used sparingly to flavour and preserve food. A little salt has a significant effect. Just like salt, Branston Pickle enhances and flavours meals. Perhaps, if he were teaching today, Jesus might have taken a jar of Branston Pickle as his illustration to encourage us to be people that provide zest and flavour to the lives of others and to our community.

Today’s New Testament reading from Philippians encourages to look for good in everything around us. To pay attention to the things we see and to contemplate them. In this way, we can have a Harvest Festival every day of the year by celebrating the good things we see around us and remembering that they are all good gifts from God for which we should give thanks.

Just as we have done with this jar of Branston Pickle, why not go through your cupboards or rooms at home on a regular basis to reflect on what you can see of God in the everyday objects you have around you. If you do then you will be putting today’s reading into practice and will see the ordinary things around you in new ways as a result. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Peter Mayer - Everything Is Holy Now.

Friday, 3 October 2025

Visual Commentary on Scripture: Bible and Art Daily

The Visual Commentary on Scripture is launching a brand new daily email exploring the Bible through art. Through concise but vivid day-by-day encounters, Bible and Art Daily will take you on a series of journeys through the world of Scripture and the history of art.

The VCS have spent the last year bringing together experts in theology and art history to carefully curate a treasury of week-long series, each exploring a particular theme, an artistic medium, or a biblical character. Find out more and subscribe here.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed hereherehere and here.

My first exhibition for the VCS was 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's 'Nebuchadnezzar', 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree', 1969, and Peter Howson's 'The Third Step', 2001.

My second exhibition was 'A Question of Faith' and explored Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

My third exhibition was 'Fishers of People'. This exhibition uses Damien Hirst's 'Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) and (Right)', John Bellany's 'Kinlochbervie', and Paul Thek's 'Fishman in Excelsis Table' to discuss Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20. These artworks give us what is essentially a collage of the kingdom whereby we are invited to imagine the kingdom of God as a body of water in which Christians are immersed and through which they are raised.

The fourth exhibition I curated for the VCS was 'Before the Deluge', a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6 looking at 'The Flood' by Norman Adams, 'Noah in the Ark and a Church' by Albert Herbert, and 'Noah's Ark' by Sadao Watanabe.

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The Ocean Blue - Sublime.

Thursday, 2 October 2025

Launch event: What Music Means to Me


Great to be at the launch today, at local care home The Grange, of Cathy Sahadevan's 'What Music Means to Me'.

Back in 2018, Cathy founded the One Voice Choir, a dementia-friendly choir created to bring joy, connection, and confidence to residents through the power of music. What began as a simple idea soon transformed not only the lives of the residents but Cathy’s own, as she witnessed first-hand the remarkable impact music could have.

Cathy shared that: “Through the choir, residents developed confidence, built friendships, and enjoyed unforgettable opportunities, including meeting Tim Howar from Mike and the Mechanics, and forming a connection with national treasure Tony Christie. I was inspired to write the book because I wanted to share my story and bring the power of music to people living with dementia.”

Cathy decided to share her story in book form, with encouragement and support from the choir members themselves. She hopes her journey will show others that you don’t need formal music training to make a difference, just passion, enthusiasm, and the belief that music can reach people when words cannot.

"This book is a heart warming memoir that celebrates a tale of success and the spirit of giving it a go. It's an inspirational tale that shows the joy that music can bring to the hearts and minds of people living with dementia."- Tony Christie.

The choir’s journey has created a vibrant culture both within and beyond the The Grange Care Home, earning awards, supporting charity work, and attracting the backing of organisations such as Music for Dementia. The choir continues to evolve, spreading happiness and creating magical moments wherever they perform.

Peyton Miles, Foundation Manager at Music for Dementia, praised Cathy’s work, saying: “What happens when one person decides to ‘give it a go’? In this touching GIAG story, a care home is transformed through music, as a once nervous choir blossoms into a source of pride, purpose, and joy for residents and staff alike.”

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One Voice Choir - You Raise Me Up.