ArtWay: A Return to Soul: Review of Aaron Rosen’s 'Spiritual Traces'

My latest book review for ArtWay is a review of Aaron Rosen's 'Spiritual Traces':

"The essays and conversations in this volume pay special attention to places where spiritual traces might appear hidden and fleeting. Rosen is interested ‘in those places where spirituality feels latent, ephemeral, or on the edge of possibility’ and has written about or interviewed artists ‘whose approach to spirituality needed to be teased out.’"

For more on Aaron Rosen see my interview with him for Seen and Unseen - 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.

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Joseph Arthur - Currency Of Love.

Images of Jesus by DANK

A second print of a painting of Jesus by the street artist DANK has been gifted to St Andrew's Wickford.

Dan Kitchener (DANK - https://www.dankitchener.com/) hails from Wickford and specialises in worldwide street art, epic scale murals, interior and exterior works of art (https://www.dankitchener.com/street-art-murals). He has several large murals in Essex including at Rochford and Southend. His murals also include images of Christ in Belfast, Vassa (Finland) and elsewhere.

He says of ‘Garden of Light’, the new image: “When I paint I need to respond naturally to my subject matter, without overthinking, over planning or procrastination - often people comment how ‘quickly’ I paint murals and canvas works - for me it’s almost like a pent up explosion of creativity that I feel welling up like a bubbling spring inside me - I went to my studio last night and put on loud, powerful music, grabbed my cans and canvas and then released all the energy in me to create this canvas - I don’t stop when I paint like this - I paint until I feel it’s finished - for me this artwork achieved my intentions - light filled, nature, flowers and plants. Trees, branches with light flickering through - a sense of peace, calm, beauty and love - I could feel that warm sunlight on me, smell those flowers as I painted (could have been the MTN94 though) and heard his footsteps on the trail ahead.”

These prints will be on display when their hanging space is not required for our art exhibitions.

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Moya Brennan - Perfect Time.

US Episcopalian priest Spencer Reece: ‘Poetry saved my life’

Church Times has published an interview with Fr Spencer Reece following his recent visit to the Parish of Wickford and Runwell.

As he explained during his visit, he says in the interview that: 'Both his poetry and now his ministry have also helped him to survive personally. “Poetry saved my life,” he says; and the Church saves it now, though in a different way. As Rector of St Paul’s, Wickford, in Rhode Island, and after the recent deaths of his parents, the church has become not just a place of ministry, but a community that sustains him.'

Fr Spencer is Rector of St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Wickford, Rhode Island, and an internationally acclaimed poet. His dream, prayer, and ultimate goal for his time with St. Paul’s Church is to continue the ongoing work of the parish in spreading Jesus’ radical love. “Let kindness be our legacy,” he has said.

It was wonderful to welcome Fr Spencer to our parish and to reanimate the links between our two parishes. We look forward to time in Rhode Island ourselves and to welcoming Spencer and others from the parish to Wickford and Runwell next year. To find out more about the historic links between our parishes and towns, see Wickford Community Archive.

For more on Fr Spencer's visit, see here and here. To read my interview with Fr Spencer for International Times see here and, for my review of Fr Spencer's more recent poetry collection, see here. Fr Spencer spoke at St Martin-in-the-Fields during his visit, see below for that service and click here for one of the services in our parish at which he preached:

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Spencer Reece - Poetry Holds Us Together.

Blessed - Address for Ho Wai-On's Memorial Service

Here's the address that I shared during Tuesday's Memorial Service for Ho Wai-On:

The teaching Jesus gives us in the Sermon on the Mount, of which the Beatitudes is part, is based on lessons drawn from his understanding of nature and creation. He looks at the cycle of existence – the circle of life - which enables all creatures to live and flourish in their way and time. We only need look at Wai-On’s music videos to see that she shared this understanding. We began our service observing the antics of a duck as we listened to ‘The Waves’ performed by her good friend Albert Tang. ‘Three Times No Less’ featured images of beautiful lotuses from Canton. Although longer pieces, we could also have included ‘Swan Beauty’ or ‘Fly Wild’, the latter incorporating images from Martin Singleton.

Jesus uses birds as a specific example in the Sermon on the Mount, possibly because they would have been prolific and yet are not reliant on human beings for their survival. The birds don’t do any of the things that human beings do to provide food for themselves – they “do not sow seeds, gather a harvest and put it in barns” – yet, in the circle of life there is a sufficiency of the food that they need in order to survive. In this way, Jesus says, we see that God the Father is taking care of them.

For Jesus, God’s provision for the birds is a sign of the worth that he sees in his creation as a whole and in each specific part. Just as the creation as a whole is “good,” so are the birds which are found within it. If that is true of birds, then is it not also true of human beings? “Aren’t you worth much more than birds?” Jesus asks. Wai-On showed that same sense of value to a woman she sought to comfort as described in a piece we will listen to later entitled ‘You Are Not Alone’.

In one of the Eucharistic Prayers that is said when the elements of Communion are consecrated, we read that in the fullness of time God made us in his image, the crown of all creation. That gives us incredible worth and value, in and of ourselves and regardless of how we feel about ourselves. Our unique position in creation - being conscious creators – speaks clearly to us of this incredible privilege of having been made in the image of God. To what extent do we appreciate this reality? Often, we can be so caught up in the busyness of daily life that we do not stop to reflect on the wonder of existence and our existence. Stop for a moment to think about the incredible complexity of our physical bodies and of our conscious existence. Wai-On clearly stopped in this way in order to create her compositions and the videos that accompany them.

Stop for a moment and think about the incredible achievements of the human race – the great art we have created, amazing technological developments and inventions, the cities we have built, the scientific and medical advancements we have seen, the depths of compassion and sacrifice which have been plumbed by the great saints in our history. Stop for a moment to think about the amazing music and wonderful videos that Wai-On created. While we are also well aware of the darker forces at work in human beings, our positive abilities and achievements reveal the reality of our creation as beings that resemble God in his creative power and energy. We can and should celebrate this reality – realising the worth that God sees in us – at the same time as giving thanks to our God for creating us in this way.

Isn’t life worth more than food and isn’t the body worth more than clothes, Jesus asks us. Often we can be so caught up in the busyness of daily life that we do not realise the wonder of our existence and do not realise all that we could achieve if we were to use our abilities and creativity more fully in his service. “We were meant to live for so much more” is how the rock band Switchfoot put it. Jesus challenges us to be concerned with more than the worries of daily life, to be “concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he [God] requires of you.” Stop for a moment and think of the unique way in which you have been created by God – the unique combination of personality and talents with which you have been blessed – and ask yourself how these things could more fully be used for the building up of the Kingdom of God on earth, as in heaven, just as Wai-On made full use of the talents with which she had been blessed.

Stop for a moment and think about the Kingdom of God as described in the Beatitudes with which Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount. The Kingdom of God is a place of happiness for those who know they are spiritually poor, a place of comfort for those who mourn, a place of receptivity for those who are humble, a place of satisfaction for those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires, a place of mercy for those who are merciful, a place in which God is seen by the pure in heart, a place in which those who work for peace are called God’s children, and a place which belongs to those who are persecuted because they do what God requires. What might God be calling us to do for him to bring the Kingdom of God to others? Wai-On chose to bring that Kingdom to others through music and imagery.

Jesus argues that the goodness and worth of all created things can be seen in the way that creation provides all that is needed for creatures and plants to live and thrive. Our worth is greater still because we are made in the very image of God having power over creation and innate creative abilities ourselves. It is incumbent on us then to use the power we possess for the good of others and for the good of creation itself. Bringing happiness, satisfaction and belonging by giving comfort, practicing humility, sharing mercy and working for peace are all powerful ways of tending and guarding creation and building the Kingdom of God on earth, as in heaven. Stop for a moment to recognise the something more for which we are meant to live. Dedicate your life to be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what God requires of you. Then you will know blessing, as Wai-On also did.

To view the Memorial Service see here. For more on Wai-On's exhibition 'From Hong Kong to Wickford' see here and here.

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Ho Wai-On - The Waves.

Receiving light and walking in light

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford yesterday:

At baptisms, we give each newly baptised person a lighted candle and say that God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and has given us a place with the saints in light. Then we say, “You have received the light of Christ; walk in this light all the days of your life. Shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father.” We do this because Jesus said: ‘I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness’ (John 12.44-end).

What does it mean that Jesus comes as light so we do not remain in darkness? The light of Christ is revelatory as it reveals the good and bad in our lives and communities. Light reveals those things that have been hidden so we can see their true nature; whether live-giving or life-denying.

Jesus is God fully revealed in human form, so shows us what God is actually like as well as revealing all that we, as humans, can become. We come into the light of Christ by comparing our lives to his. As we do so, inevitably we find that we fall short; that our capacity to do what pleases him (by living out all goodness, righteousness and truth) is less than his capacity for these things.

Jesus says to Nicodemus (John 3. 19 - 21): “This is how the judgement works: the light has come into the world, but people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil. Those who do evil things hate the light and will not come to the light, because they do not want their evil deeds to be shown up. But those who do what is true come to the light in order that the light may show that what they did was in obedience to God.”

In other words, the light of Christ is all about comparisons and transparency. Jesus, through his life and death, shows us the depth of love of which human beings are really capable and, on the basis of that comparison, we come up well short and are in real need of change. In the light of Jesus’ self-sacrifice, we see our inherent selfishness and recognise our need for change.

Our reality, as St Paul so accurately states in Romans 7 is that we are divided people: “… what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” So, coming into the light of Christ initially reveals our fallibilities and failures to be Christ-like. God sees all and Jesus, in his ministry, was able to shine a light on the deepest recesses of the human heart. The Samaritan woman said of him: “Come see the man who told me everything I have ever done” (John 4. 29). With Jesus, nothing is hidden, everything is transparent; therefore, we need to change if we are to truly live in the light of his presence. As a result, if we are to be transparent in the light of Christ, we make our humble confession to Almighty God truly and earnestly repenting of our sins.

But the light of Christ does not just expose and make visible our fallibilities. Jesus came into our world as the Word of God to live a life of self-sacrificial love as a human being. He shows us what true love looks like and he shows us that human beings are capable of true love even when most of the evidence around us seems to point towards the opposite conclusion. In 1 John 5. 20 we read that “the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we know the true God.”

When we learn what pleases our Lord (which is all goodness, righteousness and truth; or, as our confession says, intending to lead a new life by following the commandments of God, walking in his holy ways and living in love and charity with our neighbours) we are then illuminated by him and become a light to others. This is what Jesus means when he tells us to let our light shine before others, that they may see our good deeds and glorify our Father in heaven.

Just as with those newly baptised people receiving a lighted candle and being reminded that God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and has given us a place with the saints in light, today we too hear Jesus say ‘I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.’ Like them, we have received the light of Christ and are called to walk in this light all the days of our lives. So, may we shine as lights in the world to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

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The Call - The Morning.

Windows on the world (568)

London, 2026

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Joseph Arthur - Thank You Is My Mantra.

St Catherine's Wickford - £162,000 to raise through 150th Anniversary

This year St Catherine’s church in Wickford is 150 years old (https://www.wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/st-catherines.html & https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/wickford-st-catherine).

150th Anniversary events for St Catherine’s Church, Wickford:

• Saturday 9 May, 2.00 - 4.00 pm, St Catherine's Church - Art workshop.
• Saturday 30 May, 7.30 pm, St Andrew’s Church – Ladybirds Singing Group – Fundraising concert for St Catherine’s.
• Sunday 31 May, 10.30 am, St Catherine’s – Joint Eucharist for 150th Anniversary. Preacher: The Ven. David Lowman.
• Saturday 6 June, St Catherine’s – Flower Festival with Coffee Morning and Cream Tea Afternoon.
• Sunday 7 June, 11.00 am, St Catherine’s. Anniversary Eucharist led by Archdeacon of Southend.
• Saturday 13 June, 2.00 pm, The Rectory – Parish Garden Party.
• Saturday 20 June, 3.00 pm, St Catherine’s – Rumatica - Fundraising concert.

Art Workshop

Help us to celebrate 150 years of St Catherine's Church in Wickford as part of Bas-Arts-Index upcoming Art& series of events through May.

9th May 2-4pm at St Catherine's which is on Southend Road in Wickford.

The event will start with a workshop about the history of the church, encompassing your thoughts, feelings and memories. We'll then move on to an activity where you can create a stained glass window collage.

Bring yourself, your thoughts, your memories and your feelings. You can also bring anything you think might be interesting for us to see regarding the church herself, or her history. Weddings. Baptisms. Funerals. Celebrations of any and all types. All are welcome. We look forward to seeing you there.

No booking required, just turn up.

Under 18s must be accompanied by an adult



Ladybirds Song Group in concert

Saturday 30 May 2026, 7.30 pm

St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN

We are celebrating the 150th Anniversary of St Catherine’s Wickford with a fundraising concert as subsidence has caused cracks in the walls requiring underpinning - a retiring collection will be taken.

The Ladybirds Song Group are a voluntary community group spreading joy through music, performing in care homes, clubs, and other local venues.



Flower Festival. 6th & 7th June.

Featuring local clubs. schools & the community.

St Catherine's Church 150 Years.

Donate a pew end in memory of a loved one £10.00.

Saturday all day. Refreshments and stalls in the

church hall.

Contact: Caroline: 07821195388.



Rumatica in concert

St Catherine’s Church Wickford

Saturday 20th June 3pm

A Ukulele Band with a Difference! Playing a wide range of Rock, Pop, Country, Swing, Indie, Blues and Folk Music

https://www.rumatica.co.uk/

We are celebrating the 150th Anniversary of St Catherine’s Wickford with a fundraising concert as subsidence has caused cracks in the walls requiring underpinning - a retiring collection will be taken.



Fundraising Campaign - St Catherine’s Church, Wickford

Due to the long dry summer of 2022, the foundations of the NW corner of St Catherine’s Church subsided. This caused large cracks to appear in the walls. In 2023, we completed Phase 1 of our campaign involving safety and weather protection work costing £20,000, with funds raised by donations, events and grants. In 2024 we began Phase 2 involving groundwork investigations and design of an underpinning solution. This cost £13,560 and is essential to design a long-term solution. Phase 3, for which we are now raising funds, will cost £162,500.00 + VAT and will enable the NW corner of the church to be underpinned.

If you wish to contribute, please go to https://givealittle.co/c/CXlEMNUoerIeTUtbQmvYS to donate online.

Send cheques to Wickford and Runwell PCC to The Rectory, 120 Southend Road, Wickford SS11 8EB or phone 07803 562329 / email jonathan.evens@btinternet.com for bank details for a transfer.

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U2 - Resurrection Song.