Public Art & 'Visual Dialogue'

Just a reminder that this coming week is when I'll be doing my public art event at St John's, which culminates in the Visual Dialogue exhibition from 5th - 7th October.

From 1st to 5th October, I will be undertaking a public art project in the Parish Centre of St John's (St John's Road, Seven Kings IG2 7BB). I will publicly customise and decorate a four drawer cabinet to create a piece of conceptual sculpture that will be exhibited at St John's over our Patronal Festival weekend (5th - 7th October). This unusual public art project will involve photomontages, constructions, and paintings.

I will work publicly on the piece during the mornings of 1st - 5th (9.30am – 12 noon) and on the evenings of 1st and 4th (6.30 – 8.30pm). There is an open invitation to people to come and view the development of the piece and leave comments about the work and the project. The project will be documented photographically by the artist, Rodney Lloyd Bailey, and will also be documented on this blog where there is also the opportunity to leave comments.

This project is a precursor to Visual Dialogue, which will be open on: Friday 5th October, 6.30 – 10.00pm; Saturday 6th October, 9.30am – 5.00pm; and Sunday 7th October, 12 noon – 5.00pm. An opening night reception will be held from 7.30pm on Friday 5th October 2007 featuring: my newly created conceptual sculpture; photographs by Rodney of the public art event; and meditations and images from my earlier collaboration with fellow artist, writer and priest, Alan Stewart. All are welcome to the reception.

More information about the exhibition can be found by clicking here.

Messages of support for Visual Dialogue:

• "Your exhibition looks fantastic, thank you very much for the information. What a wonderful project to be taking part in. I'll be keenly following your progress on your blog." Lisa Bryan, Gallery Manager, The Meller Gallery
• "Brilliant - you genius. Fabulous idea, go well. I like it and it teases my imagination. All the best." Rosemary Crumlin
• "Hope this goes really well - it looks great." Meryl Doney, Wallspace


• "Great, Jonathan, all the more disappointed I'm not with you on the 7th." Revd. Peter Challen


• "This sounds fantastic, and I am sorry that I shall be in Sheffield and unable to come. Hope all goes well and you get a good response." Revd. Linda Hillier


• "Hope all goes well! Very best wishes." Revd. David Driscoll


• "Thank you for this - sounds very fascinating - it is in the diary for Friday 5th." Revd. Jennifer Potter


• "Great to hear from you. You organise some fantastic events!" Revd. Alan Perry


• "Many thanks for the invitation. It sounds really interesting and hope it goes well!" Revd. Chris Warren


• "Thank you very much for this invitation to what sounds like a fascinating and creative event. I did not know - I should have done - that you had this major dimension to your life and ministry. I do hope that it goes very well, as I am sure it will." Canon Guy Wilkinson


• "Good luck with the show." Michael Cousin, Artist

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Check out Lou Reed's Caroline Says II.

Madeline L'Engle RIP

The author Madeline L'Engle, who was most well known for A Wrinkle In Time, died on 28th September. In Walking On Water, a book of reflections on faith and art, she wrote that "to paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity." "The artist," she wrote, "is a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver":

"Stories, no matter how simple, can be vehicles of truth; can be, in fact, icons. It's no coincidence that Jesus taught almost entirely by telling stories, simple stories dealing with the stuff of life familiar to the Jews of his day. Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.

God asked Adam to name all the animals, which was asking Adam to help in the creation of their wholeness. When we name each other, we are sharing in the joy and privilege of incarnation, and all great works of art are icons of Naming.

When we look at a painting or hear a symphony or read a book and feel more Named, then, for us, that work is a work of Christian art. But to look at a work of art and then make a judgement as to whether or not it is art, and whether or not it is Christian, is presumptuous. It is something we cannot know in any conclusive way. We can know only if it speaks within our own hearts and leads us to living more deeply with Christ in God."

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Check out Thea Gilmore's This Girl Is Taking Bets.

Paul Merton - SAS

Three weeks - three films

Just received news of the new exhibition at the Wallspace Gallery:

"8–26 October 2007
Sam Taylor-Wood: Pietà, Ascension, Prelude in Air
Three weeks – three films

We're delighted to welcome internationally regarded artist Sam Taylor-Wood to Wallspace. Over the course of three weeks in October 2007, we will exhibit three film pieces which a give a decidedly 21st century take on ancient religious themes. They are Pietà, Ascension and Prelude in Air.

Often employing a wry humour, Taylor-Wood explores the relationship between the sacred and profane, fusing religious imagery informed by Renaissance and Baroque painting with the artist's own secular, urban and contemporary landscape.

The youngest artist ever to have a solo exhibition at London’s Hayward Gallery, Sam Taylor-Wood is a friend to well-known figures who occasionally appear in her work. Commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, she famously filmed footballer David Beckham asleep. And in her series Crying Men, Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law, Daniel Craig, Paul Newman and Lawrence Fishburne are displayed in various states of emotional distress. But she is no stranger to hardship, having suffered two attacks of cancer which she publicly acknowledges and has referred to in her work.

We will be showing one film each week for three weeks. Each short film will be shown continuously throughout the day. Pietà, 8–13 October; Ascension, 15–20 October; Prelude in Air 22–26 October.

Opening times: Monday–Friday 12–6; Thursday 12–7; Saturday 10–4.
Wallspace: All Hallows on the Wall, 83 London Wall EC2M 5ND. Tel: 07794 586 203."

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Check out Gillian Welch's By The Marks.

Meller Gallery & Veritasse

Yesterday, on the way to the licensing service for a good friend, I was able to call in at the Meller Gallery in Witney. The Gallery was opened by Aidan Meller, the founder of Veritasse, and shows a lively and colourful collection of secular and Christian art works side by side. Gallery manager, Lisa Bryan, gave me a very warm welcome.

Veritasse aims to glorify God through the arts and serve Him with the talents He has given. The organisation is committed to:

• Encouraging and supporting Christian artists and organisations, establishing links and forging friendships.
• Promoting Christian arts at conferences, exhibitions, festivals and events, initially in the Christian field but also moving into the secular.
• Distributing the Veritasse Magazine internationally.
• Playing an active role in spreading information about Christian arts, enabling artists to speak out God's message to their communities and the wider world.
• Supporting suffering communities in India through their charity work.

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Check out Mark Heard's Is It Any Wonder?

Binding all into one whole

"My paintings are not concerned with the surface appearance of people or things but try to express something of the fundamental spiritual reality behind this surface appearance. I try to express in visible form the oneness and unity of this invisible power, binding all things into one whole. I try to express something of the universal and timeless truths behind the stories of the Bible.”

For John Reilly the unseen reality manifests itself both through pattern - “the oneness and unity of this invisible power, binding all things into one whole” - and through story - “the universal and timeless truths behind the stories of the Bible”.

Using lessons learnt from Orphism and Rayonism, Reilly constructs a pattern of rippling rays emanating from a central source of light. Within this structure he sets objects and figures composed of abstract shapes and colours that are indicative of their spiritual qualities. A picture may include, for example, a rock-like formation, an animal, a human figure and a plant shape held together, underpinned, in eternal circulation by the central point, which some may see as a pictorial device structuring a work of beauty and others as symbolic of God. In Universal Power - The Fourth Day of Creation we are shown a snapshot of creation, of the first reconciliation of shape and form. As Reilly's abstract shapes spiral out from the central point they coalesce into those same fundamental, elemental shapes of bird, plant and human life.

Reilly has made a profound use of the circle in his work in order to depict the wholeness that he finds in the world and life that God has created. His technique of colour fragments emanating from a central source enables him to suggest that his archetypal images of creation and the landscape are both, filled with the emanating rays and linked by them into a unified circle. His paintings therefore suggest the way in which we are linked both by being the creation of God and by being indwelt by his spirit.

A similar approach can be seen in the work of Vincent Van Gogh and Cecil Collins where movement, of brush stokes, line, dots, and dashes, indicate a sense of force that informs both the natural world and human beings. Van Gogh describes this as expressing "that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolise".

Such paintings recreate afresh, in modern styles, aspects of Celtic Christian thought. These artists have found a means of applying the Celtic image of the circle, with its message of a perfect wholeness, through modern fragmentary art techniques.

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Check out Iona's Treasure.

First Fruit

First Fruit is a close-knit group of social businesses, projects and hostels based in the London Borough of Newham. Their goal is to provide accommodation, employment and work-related training for homeless people and for those who are long-term unemployed.

The organisation is founded on Christian principles, but works with people of all faiths and none. They are pioneering cross-denominational approaches to making a real impact on the local community and breaking down the sacred/secular divide. First Fruit was founded in 1997 by Rev Peter and Mrs Hannah Watherston and now employ around thirty people across the organisation, and accommodate fourteen men in their two hostels.

One of these projects is First Fruit Warehousing, where unwanted office furniture sent by large companies for re-sale to community groups prevents it ending up on landfill sites and gives employment and training to previously unemployed people. The furniture consists of items like desks, office chairs, carpet tiles and filing cabinets, all in good condition and sold at a fraction of the normal cost. So if any projects are thinking of setting up an office, this would be the place to try first, rather than paying full price somewhere.

Another of their projects is called Aspire, a 'not for profit' organisation working with local churches and others to provide work opportunities for unemployed and homeless people by recycling clothes, shoes, textiles and mobile phones. Churches can participate through 'Aspire Sundays' when the congregation would bring their unwanted clothes to church on Sunday and, by arrangement, Aspire would collect them from you the following Monday or Tuesday. They will provide you with clothes collection bags and mobile phone pouches. If you want to arrange to do this, please ring Scott Gamble on 020-7511 7182. He can also discuss the siting of an Aspire Clothing Recycling Bank at your premises, if you wish.

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Check out Johnny Cash's Hurt.

Faith in Maintenance

Faith in Maintenance is a unique project that aims to provide training and support for the thousands of volunteers in England and Wales who help to maintain our historic places of worship.

Faith in Maintenance will provide 30 training courses each year helping over 6,000 volunteers to look after a variety of faith buildings across the country. One of the key aspects of the scheme is that the training courses are free and are available to any faith group using an historic building for its worship.

Faith in Maintenance is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage and the Council for the Care of Churches.

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Check out Creed's Higher.

fResource

fResource is a new website, which has been developed by fundraising consultancy Hands on Resources, and includes a database that lists publications, products, tools and websites that can help develop existing sources of funding and establish new ones. It also allows users to rate and review products.

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Check out Rickie Lee Jones' Falling Up.

The Goon Show - What Time Is It Eccles?

If relationships came first

For anyone preaching on yesterday's Gospel reading, Luke 16. 1-13, the Diocese of Chelmsford's Christians in the Workplace resource pack was invaluable. The key to unlocking the parable of the Dishonest or Shrewd Manager is to look at his work-life balance and that is what the materials on this parable in the resource consider through use of pie charts and the invitation to examine your own work-life balance.

The significant change that occurs in this manager's work-life balance is in the importance that he comes to place on relationships. In my sermon on this parable I drew people's attention to the work of The Relationships Foundation which believes that a good society is built on good relationships, from family and community to public service and business. The Foundation: studies the effect that culture, business and government have on relationships; creates new ideas for strengthening social connections; campaigns on issues where relationships are being undermined; and trains and equips people to think relationally for themselves.

Why not ask yourself what would life and society be like if relationships came first?

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Check out U2's Twilight.

A Franciscan Benediction

A Franciscan Benediction found at Pip Wilson's blog:

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships,
So that you may live deep within your heart

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort and
To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor

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Check out Satisfied Mind by Ben Harper & the Blind Boys of Alabama.

'Visual Dialogue' invitation

You are invited to the opening night reception for Visual Dialogue; a joint exhibition by Rodney Lloyd Bailey and Jonathan Evens.

The reception will be from 7.30pm on Friday 5th October 2007 at St John the Evangelist, St John's Road, Seven Kings, Ilford IG2 7BB. Also featuring in the reception will be:

• a piece of conceptual sculpture created by Jonathan Evens in the week prior to the exhibition as a public art event;
• photographs by Rodney Lloyd Bailey of Jonathan's public art event; and
• meditations and images from Jonathan's collaboration with artist and writer Alan Stewart.

Rodney Bailey trained in Visual Arts and Design and Public Art at Chelsea College. His work is concerned with identity, communication and the difficulties we face in communicating our identity and nature to each other in a respectful and sincere way. In his work he hopes to give the audience an aspect of himself that is normally hidden from view. Rodney works in a variety of media and styles. His work can be viewed on his website and he recently exhibited at the Bankside Gallery as part of the Eye Play exhibition.

I am Vicar of St John's Seven Kings and a creative artist and writer. I paint in a symbolic expressionist style and writes poetry, meditations, stories and sketches. As curate at St Margaret's Barking I helped create opportunities for local people to contribute to a public art event, a series of arts workshops, the creation of a graffiti mural and a film/photographic project and exhibition. I have written on the arts for Art & Christianity, the Church Times, New Start, AM, Strait and The Month.

Rodney is a District Leader with the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai International (which means 'Value Creating Society'). He practices the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin and seeks through SGI to build bridges through dialogue and cultural exchange. An interesting aspect of the collaboration between Jonathan and Rodney will be the dialogue between their two sets of beliefs. Rodney's link with St John's is that he is the son of one of the Churchwardens and came to services as a child.

Visual Dialogue will be open on: Friday 5th October, 6.30 – 10.00pm (including reception and performances); Saturday 6th October, 9.30am – 5.00pm; and Sunday 7th October, 12 noon – 5.00pm.

As a precursor to the Patronal Festival, from 1st to 5th October, I will publicly customise and decorate a four drawer cabinet in the Parish Centre. This unusual public art project will involve photomontages, constructions, and paintings to create a piece of conceptual sculpture that will be exhibited at St John's throughout our Patronal Festival weekend.

I will work publicly on the piece during the mornings of 1st - 5th (9.30am – 12 noon) and on the evenings of 1st and 4th (6.30 – 8.30pm). There is an open invitation to view the development of the piece and leave comments about the work and the project. Please come along and tell me what you think or follow the project on this blog. The project will be documented photographically by Rodney Lloyd Bailey.

Other Patronal Festival events at St John's include:

• Saturday 6th October - Coffee morning with stalls and refreshments in the Parish Centre from 10.00am – 12 noon;
• Saturday 6th October - Quiz Night from 7.00pm (for a 7.30pm start). Tickets for the Quiz Night are £7.00 for adults and £5.00 for those under 16 and are available from the Parish Office. They include a fish/chicken and chips supper. Teams will be eight per table;
• Sunday 7th October - Revd. Rosemary Enever (Redbridge Area Dean) will preach and preside at 10.00am for the Patronal Festival Holy Communion Service;
• Sunday 7th October - Choral Evensong at 6.30pm featuring the combined choirs of St John’s and St Peter’s Aldborough Hatch with the preacher being Revd. Clare Nicholson, Vicar of St Peter’s.

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Check out Switchfoot's Meant To Live.

How (Not) To Speak Of God

I'm part way through Peter Rollins' book How (Not) To Speak Of God (thanks again to Huw). The book is an exciting and fresh discussion of how Christianity can speak into and about our postmodern condition. Brian McLaren seems right to rave about the book in his Foreword as "one of the first and most hopeful expressions to date of Christian theology being done in a postmodern context."

Several of Rollins' arguments are synergous with ideas expressed by Nicholas Mosley and Walter Brueggemann and the theological conversation that Rollins is engaging in can only be enhanced by the ideas that Mosley and Brueggemann bring to the discussion.

Rollins writes of the way in which our approach to speaking of God:

"must be a powerless one which employs words as a way of saying that we have been left utterly breathless by a beauty that surpasses all words. This does not mean that we remain silent - far from it. The desire to get beyond language forces us to stretch language to its very limits. As Samuel Beckett once commented, we use words in order to tear through them and glimpse at what lies beneath. The desire to say nothing, to create sacred space, opens up the most beautiful type of language available - the language of parables, prose and poetry."

Similarly, Mosley writes about the need to "hear for ourselves what might be going on just behind our words, off-stage" and to:

"evolve a language which will try to deal not just with facts, with units of data, together with the patterns, connections, that such data, together with the minds that observe them, make - in particular a language that can deal at the same time both with the data and with the language that is traditionally used to describe them. By this, apparent contradictions might be held. This language would be elusive, allusive; not didactic. Some such language has been that of poetry, of art; also of love ..."

Rollins goes on to argue that the emerging conversation:

"is demonstrating an ability to stand up and engage in a powerless, space-creating dis-course that opens up thinking and offers hints rather than orders. In short, the emerging community must endeavour to be a question rather than an answer and an aroma rather than food. It must seek to offer an approach that enables the people of God to become the parable, aroma and salt of God in the world, helping to form a space where God can give of God."

Similarly, Brueggemann has argued that "the task of the Christian minister is not to construct a full alternative world but to fund - provide the pieces, materials and resources - out of which a new world can be imagined." Our responsibility, he says, "is not a grand scheme or a coherent system, but the voicing of lots of little pieces out of which people can put life together in frsh configurations":

"Over time, these pieces are stitched together into a sensible collage, stitched together, all of us in concert, but each of us idiosyncratically, stitched together in a new whole - all things new."

One of the Ikon services described in Rollins' book speaks about our experience as Christians being the experience of Holy Saturday; "that 24 hour period nestled between Good Friday and Easter Saturday, between crucifixion and resurrection." A reflection from this service by Ikon says that Holy Saturday "speaks of the absence of God and is as much a part of the Christian experience as the day before and the day after." It asks: "Who among us does not find ourselves dwelling, from time to time, or perhaps at all times, in the space of Holy Saturday?"

Brueggemann also writes of this perception of Holy Thursday citing George Steiner as writing:

“There is one particular day in Western history about which neither historical record nor myth nor scripture make report. It is a Saturday. And it has become the longest of days. We know of that Good Friday which Christianity holds to have been that of the Cross. But the non-Christian, the atheist, knows of it as well. That is to say he knows of the injustice, of the interminable suffering, of the waste, of the brute enigma of ending … We know also about Sunday. To the Christian, that day signifies an intimation, both assured and precarious, both evident and beyond comprehension, of resurrection, of a justice and a love that have conquered death. If we are non-Christians or non-believers, we know of that Sunday in precisely analogous terms … The lineaments of the Sunday carry the name of hope (there is no word less deconstructible). But ours is the long day’s journey of the Saturday. Between suffering, aloneness, unutterable waste on the one hand and the dream of liberation of rebirth on the other.”

In my In Between collaboration with Alan Stewart, from our time together at NTMTC, we used the three days of Easter as a paradigm for our own experience as Christians arguing that, in our Christian journey we experience: rebirth (an Easter Sunday experience); suffering (a Good Friday experience); and tension, from the now and the not yet of the Kingdom (an Easter Saturday experience). We structured our material non-chronologically because we wanted to leave people in the tension of the now and not yet which is where we thought we spend most of our time as Christians and illustrated this with the quote from Steiner.

Several of the meditations that we wrote for this collection also express ideas that have synergy with those developed by Rollins in How (Not) To Speak Of God:

in between

Between the action and its consequence
Between knowledge and its understanding
Between the invitation and the party
Between the longest day and the last day

The stone not rolled away
The tomb still guarded
The friends still scattered
The promise known
but not understood
The body still still

The still time
The still waiting time
The time between times
The last times
In between

Between suffering, aloneness, unutterable waste
and the dream of liberation and rebirth, ours is the long days journey of the Saturday.

are/are not

We hear you
and
do not.
We are with you
and
are not.
Through whom,
with whom
and in whom,
we are – what?
We are one
with what
we are
not.

No voice is audible,
yet we hear.
No hand touches ours,
yet we feel.
No eye has seen the glory,
yet we kneel.
What you are,
who you are
is and
is not
clear.

Knowing
and
not knowing.
In
and out
of touch.
Out of mind
yet
mindful.
Out of sight
yet
insight.

We are
in relation
to much
that is excess -
beyond
comprehension
and expectation –
being
night
and light.

These are among the In Between meditations that I will be reading at the opening night reception for Visual Dialogue on Friday 5th October.

Rollins' book comes out of and develops an emerging conversation about ways to speak of, with, and to hear from, God. Mosley, Brueggemann and In Between are part of that conversation of which there is much more still to be said. Some further thoughts on the significance of Mosley, Brueggemann and others can be found by clicking here.

A final thought is that Jim White is the bard of this emerging conversation. To see what I mean, check out the lyrics to Static On The Radio and 10 Miles To Go On A 9 Mile Road or try this video.

Gentle Fire

Interesting interview with composer James MacMillan in today's times2. Richard Morrison interviews MacMillan about his new opera, The Sacrifice, which opens at the Millennium Centre, Cardiff and has this to say of MacMillan's works:

"MacMillan’s pieces shout of revolution, liberation, resurrection. They deal in living hells: a helicopter attack on an El Salvador village; the anguish of the mothers of the Disappeared; Dunblane; the deaths of medieval saints or (in his celebrated The Confession of Isobel Gowdie) the burning of women deemed witches. Or they invest the everyday with a mystic, even mythic, quality. Only MacMillan would turn childbirth into a 50-minute choral whirlwind. Or they blaze out his fervent Roman Catholicism – his belief (desperately unfashionable in arty circles) that the power of the Holy Spirit can change lives."

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Check out The Staple Singers Are You Sure?

Divine particles and rumours

For TV dramatist and screenwriter Dennis Potter belief and betrayal became linked early on in life. He felt that he betrayed his commitment to local and working class culture through his early work in journalism, politics and television. Then the onset of psoriatic arthropathy brought to a premature end all hope of a public career. It seemed that through a combination of circumstance and choice Potter’s beliefs had led him into betrayal.

But, “all of a sudden, there was a whispering seduction within that despair, saying, 'Now you can do whatever you choose. Now you don't have to go out and fend in that way, with those people, with those things.' It took some time to start writing, but that was the breeding ground for it.” The knowledge of what the significance of his life was supposed to be - his vocation as a writer – enabled him to re-invent himself. The impact of this thinking he describes in religious terms as “physically like a visitation, and it was a crisis point, an either-or situation; either you give in, or you survive and create something out of this bomb-site which you've become - you put up a new building. That's what it amounted to."

His dramatic structures echo this thinking either by tracking the shattering of the psyche (Pennies From Heaven) or uses it as the trigger for exploring the act of re-building the shattered psyche. For Philip Marlow in The Singing Detective an acceptable cause (the onset of illness) triggers the crisis but in Brimstone and Treacle, more controversially, the trigger is an act of out and out evil, a rape committed by a devil. The trigger, then, is rarely good in and of itself in the conventional sense but may be good in its results - good may come from evil. For this good - the promise of redemption, of wholeness - to come from this evil there must be the response of seeking to know oneself through the gathering up of the fragments of one’s shattered psyche.

Potter has explained how this can take place in speaking of his intentions in writing The Singing Detective. “What I was trying to do with The Singing Detective was to make the whole thing a detective story, but a detective story about how you find out about yourself, so that you’ve got this superfluity of clues, which is what we all have, and very few solutions - maybe no solution - but the very act of garnering the clues and the very act of remembering, not merely an event but how that event has lodged in you and how that event has affected the way you see things, begins to assemble a system of values, and only when that system, no matter how tenuous it might be, is assembled was Marlow able to get up out of his bed”.

It is this examination of the past in order reassemble yourself in the present that Potter sees as the essential act for human beings to undertake. It’s result is maturity and balance – self understanding. He views this as a common aim of both religion and psychiatry. For Potter it as the only real way to deal with the guilt of betrayal. "There is no way you can discharge guilt. What is, is. What you've done, you've done. What you've lived through, you've lived through. You cannot bend the knee and say mea culpa and ask for the past to be wiped away. But you can use guilt. I don't mean by exploiting it, but you can live within it and show it, which is the only possible form of absolution. It's not a case of, 'I am guilty, therefore forgive me,' but of re-inhabiting the guilt in order to understand it."

Ultimately this act is seen by Potter as a revelation of “that sovereignty that we have … the most precious of human capacities“. “By showing or attempting to assert how sovereign you are as an individual human being, if you knew it. And that means contending with all the shapes, all the sorts of half-shapes, all the memories, all the aspirations of your life - what, how they coalesce. How they contradict each other, how they have to be disentangled as a human act by you yourself. This sovereign self beyond, behind all those other selves that are being sold things, remains the other unique, sovereign, individual.”

This description of the sovereign self and its discovery corresponds closely to his description of God. “I see God in us or with us, if I see at all, as some shreds and particles and rumours, some knowledge that we have, some feeling why we sing and dance and act, why we paint, why we love, why we make art. All the things that separate us from the purely animal in us are palpably there and you can build great structures of belief about them. The fact is they are there and I have no means of knowing whether that thereness in some sense doesn’t cling to what I call me.”

Hear Potter interviewed by clicking here and see an extract from an interview by Alan Yentob.

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Check out Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel.

'Visual Dialogue' Myspace page

Check out photos and information for Visual Dialogue at Myspace by clicking here.

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Check out Lavine Hudson's Intervention.

Ken Leech & Terry Waite @ CTC

On Thursday 27 September, 5-6.30pm, Fr Ken Leech will be speaking at the Contextual Theology Centre about his book on working as a community theologian in East London — Doing Theology in Altab Ali Park. The event includes a drinks reception. You may book in for dinner afterwards for £10.

On Tuesday 16 October, 7.30-9pm, Terry Waite, who was an adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury and was taken hostage in the Lebanon from 1987 to 1991, has agreed to speak on
Survival in Solitude to raise money for the Contextual Theology Centre’s work. Tickets for this evening event will cost £10—book yours now! You can book in for a buffet supper (at 6.30pm) for a further £10.

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Check Sabrina Johnston's Peace (In The Valley).

The Trumpet Child

New in from Image Update is this on Over The Rhine's new album, The Trumpet Child:

"Included on Paste Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Living Songwriters, Over the Rhine’s Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler have courted an ever-increasing list of admirers. With the recent release of their seventeenth album, The Trumpet Child, the band’s popularity seems primed for a sizeable increase. Filled with confidence and joy, the album takes an exuberant—though not necessarily light-hearted—romp through themes of the heart. Detweiler comments: “On this project, I think we returned to the quintessential stuff that’s always interested us in our writing: spirituality, sexuality, living vividly, challenging the status quo and subtly taking power away from those who have too much and transferring it to people who have too little.”

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Check out Buddy Miller singing the Julie Miller song All My Tears (Be Washed Away).

Capacity Building toolkits

About a year ago in my consultancy role with Faith Regen Foundation I prepared a step-by-step, activity-based ‘Toolkit’ on consultation and representation aimed at voluntary and community groups across London.

This toolkit is part of a set of six that are available from Enfield College as part of a project delivering free Capacity Building Training and Support for Voluntary and Community organisations.

The six toolkits will be ‘how-to’ guides on topics linked to the project's training units but dealing with specific aspects of a more general topic. They are stand-alone guides although they could underpin some of the mentoring and consultancy provided by the Project. The toolkits cover:

• Developing and Running Training Programmes


• Policies and Procedures


• Consultation and Representation


• Conference and Event Management


• Appropriate Work:Life Balance


• Sustainability Planning
  

Typically, each toolkit comprises:

• An overview of the topic


• Checklists


• Flowcharts and other organisational aids


• Suggested activities


• Sources of further information and useful contacts

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Check out Carleen Anderson's Leopards in the Temple.

'Visual Dialogue' invitation

You are invited to the opening night reception for Visual Dialogue; a joint exhibition by Rodney Lloyd Bailey and myself.

The reception will be from 7.30pm on Friday 5th October 2007 at St John the Evangelist, St John's Road, Seven Kings, Ilford IG2 7BB. Also featuring in the reception will be:

• a piece of conceptual sculpture that I will create in the week prior to the exhibition as a public art event;


• photographs by Rodney Lloyd Bailey of this public art event; and


• meditations and images from my collaboration with artist and writer Alan Stewart.
  

Rodney Bailey trained in Visual Arts and Design and Public Art at Chelsea College. His work is concerned with identity, communication and the difficulties we face in communicating our identity and nature to each other in a respectful and sincere way. In his work he hopes to give the audience an aspect of himself that is normally hidden from view. Rodney works in a variety of media and styles. His work can be viewed on his website and he recently exhibiting at the Bankside Gallery as part of the Eye Play exhibition.

I am Vicar of St John's Seven Kings and a creative artist and writer. I paint in a symbolic expressionist style and writes poetry, meditations, stories and sketches. As curate at St Margaret's Barking I helped create opportunities for local people to contribute to a public art event, a series of arts workshops, the creation of a graffiti mural and a film/photographic project and exhibition. I have written on the arts for Art & Christianity, the Church Times, New Start, AM, Strait and The Month.

Rodney is a District Leader with the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai International (which means 'Value Creating Society'). He practices the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin and seeks through SGI to build bridges through dialogue and cultural exchange. An interesting aspect of the collaboration between Rodney and myself will be the dialogue between our two sets of beliefs. Rodney's link with St John's is that he is the son of one of the Churchwardens and came to services as a child.

Visual Dialogue will be open on: Friday 5th October, 6.30 – 10.00pm (including reception and performances); Saturday 6th October, 9.30am – 5.00pm; and Sunday 7th October, 12 noon – 5.00pm.

As a precursor to the Patronal Festival, from 1st to 5th October, I will publicly customise and decorate a four drawer cabinet in the Parish Centre. This unusual public art project will involve photomontages, constructions, and paintings to create a piece of conceptual sculpture that will be exhibited at St John's throughout their Patronal Festival weekend.

I will work publicly on the piece during the mornings of 1st - 5th (9.30am – 12 noon) and on the evenings of 1st and 4th (6.30 – 8.30pm). There is an open invitation to view the development of the piece and leave comments about the work and the project. Please come along and tell him what you think or follow the project on this blog. The project will be documented photographically by Rodney.

Other Patronal Festival events at St John's include:

• Saturday 6th October - Coffee morning with stalls and refreshments in the Parish Centre from 10.00am – 12 noon;


• Saturday 6th October - Quiz Night from 7.00pm (for a 7.30pm start). Tickets for the Quiz Night are £7.00 for adults and £5.00 for those under 16 and are available from the Parish Office. They include a fish/chicken and chips supper. Teams will be eight per table;


• Sunday 7th October - Revd. Rosemary Enever (Redbridge Area Dean) will preach and preside at 10.00am for the Patronal Festival Holy Communion Service;


• Sunday 7th October - Choral Evensong at 6.30pm featuring the combined choirs of St John’s and St Peter’s Aldborough Hatch with the preacher being Revd. Clare Nicholson, Vicar of St Peter’s.

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Check out Over The Rhine's I Want You To Be My Love.

The Clean-Up King - Part 6

The explosives were placed in the cavity formed by the demolition ball and were held in place by the children. The detonator was pressed. Bricks flew. The blast rocked the crane throwing it down into the sea of water. A rain of rubble fell.

Then, as the smoke and dust cleared a large gap appeared in the compact, regular pattern of the city wall. Water began to heave as it moved towards the gap and then poured through tumbling outside the wall and out of the city.

Water drained through the gap keeping the level constant across the city until, finally, the storm began to end. With the ending of the storm, the sewers slowly began to reduce the water level. The gap in the wall was widened and deepened and, in time, the water cleared and the city people could begin to assess the damage.

Now they could see their foolishness and arrogance. Now they demolished the wall leaving only a final layer of rubble to remind them of what they had done.

In time this random collection of stones became covered with wild grasses, weeds and flowers. The countryside that the children had loved began to invade the city. Now, though, the city people had learn to welcome the wildness of nature. They knew little of the Clean-Up King and less of the children but they had taken the first step towards the other beautiful country.

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Check out Kings X performing King.

Rouault: Suffering & Salvation

The other week I found a secondhand copy of William Dyrness's Rouault: A Vision of Suffering and Salvation in a good little secondhand bookshop on the way to Ditchingham. It is the first book I have found that takes a detailed look at the way in which Rouault's faith and art were intertwined. As well as that, I find that Rouault's work and this book have inspired certain artists to work among poor communities in today's world.

Joel Klepac is a US artist living and working in Romania who has created a blog called "Art in Community Among the Poor" that displays some of his work as he engages life and creates art among the poor. On his blog, together with links to other artists doing similar work, is the story of how he has been inspired by Rouault and Dyrness's book.

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Check out Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3 Part I.

Patronal Festival

The Patronal Festival at St John's from 5th – 7th October promises to be full of variety and interest.

As a precursor to the Patronal Festival, from 1st to 5th October, I will publicly customise and decorate a four drawer cabinet in the Parish Centre. This unusual public art project will involve photomontages, constructions, and paintings to create a piece of conceptual sculpture that will be exhibited at St John's throughout the Festival weekend. I will work publicly on the piece during the mornings (9.30am – 12 noon) and on Monday and Thursday evenings (6.30 – 8.30pm).

There is an open invitation to view the development of the piece and leave comments about the work and the project. So please come along and tell me what you think! The project will be documented photographically by the artist, Rodney Lloyd Bailey.

Rodney and I will jointly exhibit paintings over the Patronal Festival weekend (5th-7th October) in an exhibition called Visual Dialogue. This exhibition will also feature the newly created piece of conceptual sculpture.

On the evening of Friday 5th October there will be an opening night reception for the exhibition (from 7.30pm) during which Rodney's photographs and public reaction to the public art project will be displayed. I will also perform meditations and display images from a collaboration with artist and writer, Revd. Alan Stewart. Please put this date in your diary as there is an open invitation. Visual Dialogue will be open on: Friday 5th, 6.30 – 10.00pm (including reception and performances); Saturday 6th, 9.30am – 5.00pm; and Sunday 7th, 12 noon – 5.00pm.

Other events on Saturday 6th include a Coffee morning with stalls and refreshments in the Parish Centre from 10.00am – 12 noon and a Quiz Night from 7.00pm (for a 7.30pm start). Tickets for the Quiz Night are £7.00 for adults and £5.00 for those under 16 and are available from the Parish Office. They include a fish/chicken and chips supper. Teams will be eight per table.

Then on Sunday 6th we will welcome back Revd. Rosemary Enever (Redbridge Area Dean) to preach and preside at 10.00am for our Patronal Festival Holy Communion Service. In the evening there will be a Choral Evensong featuring the combined choirs of St John’s and St Peter’s Aldborough Hatch with the preacher being Revd. Clare Nicholson, Vicar of St Peter’s.

Many people at St John's are taking part in our Bring Me Sunshine fundraising campaign to raise money to repair our church roof using solar panels. Those who have accepted the £5 challenge and are busy turning a profit on their £5 seed fund will bring their donation to the Patronal Festival and tell us what they did to make a profit.

St John’s is a fantastic community, congregation and church and I hope that our Patronal Festival will be a showcase for all that is life affirming and heart warming about St John’s. Please support all that goes on and bring friends and family along too. We would love to see past members too, if able to return for this special occasion.

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Check out 16 Horsepower's Black Soul Choir.

Back to Church Sunday

More than 17,000 people are expected to return to church in September as Back to Church Sunday expands to take in 1,700 churches across England. With 19 dioceses taking part this year, the 1,700 churches involved is a tenfold increase on the 160 churches that took up the venture when it began, in Manchester, in 2004. On past records, participating churches welcome back an average of 10 former worshippers each, meaning that 17,000 people could come back to church in one day in September; equivalent to 1% of the total monthly attendance of the Church of England.

Recent research revealed nearly three million people would consider going to church with ‘the right invitation’. Churchgoing in the UK found that “there is a clear opportunity for churches to attract new members by tapping into the 2.9 million people (6% of UK adults) who are likely to go to church in future. The personal touch is a major trigger. A personal invite, family or a friend attending or difficult personal circumstances, are most likely to encourage people into church”.

The Bishop of Manchester said: “Inviting people into church is as important as taking the Gospel out to them. With three million ready to consider a personal invitation, the growth of Back to Church Sunday could prove one of the most effective aspects of the Church’s witness.”

At St John's we are inviting people to come Back to Church for our 10.00am service on Sunday 30th September.

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Check out Moby's Natural Blues.

Faith and excellence in employment

The Church Urban Fund has created an online resource to promote excellence in employment by faith-based social action organisations.

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Check out T. Bone Burnett's River of Love.

People traffiking is wrong

Last night, the young people at St John's led a service on the theme of STOP THE TRAFFIK. This innovative and exciting service used DVDs, drama, music and prayer stations to help people reflect on and respond to the campaign to stop people being bought and sold. During the response time in the service, the congregation were invited, among other activities, to: sign the global declaration and fix it to a freedom wall; send a letter to retailers of chocolate about fairtrade; and break a paper chain and write a prayer on it.

During the service Sian Evens said: "People trafficking is the world’s fastest growing illegal trade. People are trafficked across borders at the rate of one every minute of every day. We hope that this service will show the evil of people trafficking and that stopping it is God’s will."

Rachel Page said: "God is concerned about the suffering of people who are trafficked and wants to send people like us to rescue them. We might feel a lot like Moses when we hear that and wonder who are we to change things but God says to us just what he said to Moses, “I have sent you and I will be with you.”

Richard Guest said: "If we are prepared to call for the sale of people to be prevented, for traffickers to be prosecuted, and for those trafficked to be protected then we can see that freedom and release come in our generation and will know that we have walked in Jesus’ footsteps."

STOP THE TRAFFIK is a global coalition fighting against people trafficking, which is the world’s fastest growing illegal crime. The global declaration says 'People trafficking is wrong. I support STOP THE TRAFFIK in its call to: PREVENT THE TRADE OF PEOPLE; PROTECT THE TRAFFICKED; PROSECUTE THE TRAFFICKERS.' This Declaration will form part of a global petition to the United Nations and National Governments.

Young people at St John's are taking the lead in highlighting the evil of people trafficking to our church and community. Our events have been designed to raise awareness of this issue and to call for changes that will prevent the trade of people, prosecute the traffickers and protect the trafficked.

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Check out The Innocence Mission's Bright As Yellow.

The Clean-Up King - Part 5

Then it began to rain. No ordinary shower or thunderstorm that passes. This was hard, driving, persistent and torrential rain like the spray of continual machine gun fire. It forced the people off their streets into their homes, offices and factories, wherever there was shelter. It fell without let up. It fell relentlessly.

As time passed the rain began to make the rubbish mountains slither and slide. Avalanches of cans, wrappers, carriers, fag ends, bottles and papers began. The detritus of the rubbish mountains floated down the streets silting up the drains, clogging the overflow pipes. As the sewers blocked, puddles formed in the streets and spread. Water rose to kerb level and began to seep into homes. Rain continued to fall as time began to blur. Tomorrow turned into today and the waters lapping at the city wall continued to rise.

The children, though, were not in love with the wall. They hated the imprisonment that the wall had imposed. They had longed to break free and now they seized their opportunity. Splashing, stumbling through the rising water they made their way to a large construction site where the foundations for what was to be the third largest building in the city were being laid.

“A hole in the wall! A hole in the wall!” they shouted to the builders who were beginning to climb their cranes in the hope of avoiding the rising tide. One began to operate a demolition ball. With repeated swings it smashed against the city wall making the firmly fixed stone splinter and small pieces fly. Others ran to find explosives.

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Check out Olivier Messiaen's Louange à l'éternité de Jésus.

Stopping the Traffik

A small group from St John's Seven Kings and St Laurence's Barkingside collected signatures for STOP THE TRAFFIK's Global Declaration on Seven Kings High Road today. Wearing 'I am not for sale' banners to highlight the issue of people trafficking, we encouraged 219 local people to sign the global declaration opposing people trafficking.

Tomorrow evening the young people at St John's will lead a service (starting at 6.30pm) on the theme of STOP THE TRAFFIK. An innovative and exciting service has been planned using DVDs, drama, music and prayer stations to help people reflect on and respond to the campaign to stop people being bought and sold.

Young people at St John's are taking the lead in highlighting the evil of people trafficking. Today one woman, man or child is trafficked every minute. Our events are designed to raise awareness of this issue and to call for changes that will prevent the trade of people, prosecute the traffickers and protect the trafficked.

STOP THE TRAFFIK is a global coalition fighting against people trafficking, which is the world’s fastest growing illegal crime. The global declaration says "People trafficking is wrong. I support STOP THE TRAFFIK in its call to: PREVENT THE TRADE OF PEOPLE; PROTECT THE TRAFFICKED; PROSECUTE THE TRAFFICKERS." This Declaration will form part of a global petition to the United Nations and National Governments.

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Check out Lifehouse's Hanging By A Moment.

Friends, Strangers, Citizens? Life in Britain post 7/7

‘Friends, Strangers, Citizens? Life in Britain post 7/7’ is a new DVD discussion resource, produced by South Asian Development Partnership.

The DVD is the latest module in the Masala BridgeBuilders series and features community leaders, young people and people on the street giving their views on issues such as the threat of terror, the role of religion, multiculturalism and freedom of speech. It is split into 5 short sections (approx. 6 minutes each) covering the following topics:

• What happened on 7/7?
• Is religion the problem or the solution?
• Is multiculturalism dead?
• Freedom of speech vs respect?
• What kind of Britain do we want?

Worksheets with further material and discussion questions are included on the DVD and can be photocopied freely.

The resource can be used in a range of contexts, including schools, community groups, youth groups, and carer and toddler groups. Its aim is to help people talk and listen to each other, a key step in promoting understanding between people and building bridges - part of the long term solution for damaged community relations. It can also be used by church groups who want to explore the issues for themselves and for those who want to reach out into their local communities.

Clips from the materials can be watched by clicking here and from the South Asian Development Partnership website.

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Check out Marvin Gaye's What's Going On / What's Happening Brother here.

Prayer for Racial Justice

A prayer for Racial Justice Sunday:

Heavenly God, we praise your name and thank you for your glorious goodness and mercy.
Lord Jesus, we pray a blessing for all those actively engaged in the struggle for racial justice.
Holy Spirit, we beseech you to enter into the minds and hearts of all those in authority in the Church. Grant that they may:

Hear the voices crying out for justice
Engage in developing a better understanding
Act to bring about change
Lead and inspire others by their good example.

We ask this through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The love of God is greater than all evil. We pray for racial justice:
In our own lives
In our parishes
In our dioceses
In our land.
Amen.

A prayer written by Betty Luckham for the Catholic Association for Racial Justice.

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Check out the video for Mavis Staples' Eyes on the Prize.

The Revelations of Divine Love

Just back from a conference at the St Gabriel's Conference Centre in Suffolk where the chapel contains a marvellous painting by the Australian artist, Alan Oldfield.

A reproduction of the painting The Revelations of Divine Love can be seen by clicking here. The painting is the largest of a series of paintings which are meditations on Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love and was purchased by the Friends of Julian following a exhibition of the series in Norwich Cathedral in 1988.

Oldfield, who was twice winner of Australia's Blake Prize for Religious Art, said that this painting was his way of paying back what he had learnt from Julian of Norwich. The painting can best be summarised as follows: "Through his Passion, Julian sees Christ's glory. It is his love for Creation which brings about the resurrection of a perfected mankind."

Friends and Heroes

Over the past few years Alison and David Dorricott have been working hard on a Children's TV Series called "Friends and Heroes". It is an animated action-adventure story which introduces stories from the Old and New Testaments to ages 6-10. You can discover more about Friends and Heroes on their web site and on their Children’s website.

They are delighted that the first Series of 13 episodes is to be broadcast on the BBC2 on Tuesday mornings from September to December. The output is largely targeted at schools and The Stapleford Centre have worked with them to provide free lesson plans and pupil worksheets so that teachers will be able to use these programmes as part of the National Curriculum for all the countries in the British Isles.

They have worked hard to ensure that our programmes are not branded as "religious", so that they are accessible to the widest possible audience - whatever their faith. That said, they are sure that many folk in churches will be eager to make the most of this unique opportunity to see a positive representation of Bible Stories on National Television.

Save Community Champions

The Community Champions Fund has supported literally thousands of individuals across the country to get exciting and creative new projects off the ground in their communities. The fund will end in March 2008, and there are no plans to replace it. The Scarman Trust is campaigning to save this unique programme.

All the Community Champions have done extraordinary things, building positive community activities from the grass-roots and reaching literally thousands of people. My friend Mandy Fenn became a national Community Champion because of the funding that she received through the scheme which enabled her to begin self-help groups for people who were self harming. Mandy's work was featured as a Case Study in the Scarman Trust report Learning Power:

"Mandy Fenn started harming herself from the age of eight until 29. With support from the Scarman Trust, she set up three Cutting out the Pain groups in Barking & Dagenham to help other selfharmers. She produced leaflets, materials and ran groups to raise awareness. She didn’t realise how big the issue was until people started contacting her from across the borough and the UK. “Getting support from health services was difficult at first, because people didn’t want to know. Self-harm is a scary and confusing. But now they understand and are helping.” Mandy is doing a survey of self-harm with the hospital and setting up an anonymous help-line. She has shown a great deal of courage by speaking up and show people her badly scarred arms to raise awareness. By taking a stand Mandy is giving hope and help to many others, reaching through the hurt to start the healing."

Please sign the petition to Save Community Champions (on the Number 10 website) - and encourage as many others as possible to do so. Click here to sign the petition which reads: 'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ensure Community Champions awards continue to give active individuals the opportunity to do extraordinary things and make a real difference in their communities.' Support the campaign further by writing to your MP.

Rugs not drugs!

Afghanistan comes to Wanstead on Tuesday evening 11 September for a display and sale of beautiful, traditional and modern hand-made carpets - proceeds of which go towards running Afghan Action, a unique social enterprise training and employing young carpet weavers, including some disabled people, in war-torn Kabul. Anyone who lives, works or shops in Wanstead will be welcome at Wanstead Church School, Church Path, Wanstead E11 2SS on Tuesday 11 September from 7 - 9pm.

“You can buy a carpet or support a trainee” says Chris Beales, Afghan Action’s Chief Executive. “We have 120 young men and women training and working in Kabul. Each carpet takes a weaver about a month to make – and will last for 100 years!”

Commenting on the problem of opium production, Chris adds: “Over 90% of heroin coming into Britain originates in Afghanistan – so it’s in our interests to support real alternatives. Proper, sustainable jobs and businesses are the best way to eradicate the growth of poppies”.

Carpet prices start at £200 and a range of traditional and modern designs will be on display and for sale on Tuesday evening. For more information on Afghan Action, visit www.afghanaction.com or call Chris Beales on 07957 135593.

Peace and reconciliation seminar

Latest news and prayer requests from Agape Christian Youth in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"Last week we had a nice seminar on Peace and Reconciliation only for the ladies. We went with all those ladies from three Archdeaconries so far in the forest where there is silence. We were more than 100 people. We invited the ladies from Hema tribe, Gity tribe, Lese tribe, and Bira tribe from Bunia. Really all those tribes had a conflict here in Ituri District.

For the first day in that place called Mafifi, every lady had fear. After praying together with them, really God did the great things to them. Also after the teaching on conflict resolution, each lady started coping with other. Really, that seminar helped many ladies to give testimony about their previous life, and now they asked God to forgive them because of having fear of staying together with those who were fighting them. 70% asked for forgiveness. Praise the Lord.

Now they would like us to organise such kind of seminar again, please pray for us. Also we need to do the same seminar in Boga."

Map Man at Eye Play

I checked out Rodney Bailey's work in the Eye Play exhibition at the Bankside Gallery today. There are two pieces in the exhibition - Map Man and Self Portrait 1992 - both screenprints.

Both utilise map references to suggest the way in which the outline of our identity is partially formed by the locations where we are born and choose to live. The sketchy nature and minimalist colouring of these works suggests that our personal map references, while affecting our make-up, still do not define us.

Eye Play, as a whole, is an eclectic showcase for printmakers. A playground for the latest prints in town in which practitioners who are chalk and cheese in style and normal practice but who use printmaking in their work rub shoulders with one another.

The Clean-Up King - Part 4

The city people, though, were just too busy to pay any attention to two small children and their fanciful ideas. Theirs was a city full of enterprise, endeavour, efficiency and urgency. A city where targets were met and commitments honooured. Trains ran to time, buses traveled at twelve minute intervals precisely three miles apart, repairers and deliverers told you when they would arrive and then did so.

The city people were so sure of themselves and their effective, economic, enterprising city that they decided to become completely self sufficient. They decided to build a wall around their city. Not an ordinary wall with gates, windows and doors. No, there were to be no comings or goings through this wall. It was designed to keep the outside, outside.

Outside was what the city people feared. Outside was wildness - exuberant, lavish growth – where life went on with no apparent purpose and to no apparent order. Birds flew where they wished, wild flowers and grasses seeded and grew in every nook and cranny, and the weather – well, there was no controlling the weather!

So the city people built their wall. They built it thick and they built it high. They built it so that it cast the whole city into shadow, so that they could not feel the breath of the breeze on their faces, so that birds, animals, insects and plants were excluded. What they planned for was complete control. So they walked on concrete, worked in artificial light and mass produced their food.

The two children were saddened by the building of the wall. They asked the Clean-Up King about it but he just talked about the storm before the calm. It didn’t seem quite right and wasn’t very encouraging. They had been used to making the long journey to the edge of the great city. They had loved to lie in the long grass feeling the heat of the sun and the vibration of the crickets around them. They had climbed gnarled, knobbled trees bent with age and swum in the sparkling, bubbling, racing waters. It had helped them think about the other beautiful country.

Now all of these pleasures were denied them. All they could see were the grey tones of prefabrication and concrete. The city people, however, were proud of the independence they had created. Their pleasure came from meeting all their own needs by the creation of their own hands and they could see no drawbacks to the isolation in which they were living.