In his book ‘William Blake vs The World’ John Higgs writes: “Five days after [William] Blake died, he was given a pauper's burial in an unmarked grave at the Bunhill Fields dissenters' burial ground, beyond the northern boundary of the City of London. With his bones underground and his spirit departed, that should have been the end of his story.
On the face of it, the story of the clash between the world and William Blake seems a straightforward one. Blake had lacked the ability to respond to the pressures and challenges of contemporary life and society. As a result, he spent his life impoverished and misunderstood, alternately mocked and ignored. He was thought of as a madman first and an artist second. This clash, had not been a fair fight, and Blake had lost.
Some 191 years later, in the early afternoon of 12 August 2018, people began making their way to Bunhill Fields. By 3 p.m., close to a thousand people were gathered to witness the unveiling of a grave marker above Blake's remains and to pay their respects to his memory. just over a year later, a retrospective of Blake's work was held at Tate Britain. It was extraordinarily popular, selling close to a quarter of a million tickets over its four-and-a-half-month run.
His current fame and the size of his audience suggest that Blake's art contains rare gold.”
Blake is an example of a prophet without honour in his hometown and among his own kin (Mark 6:1-6). There are others whose influence has been as great, with Vincent Van Gogh being another such and Jesus, himself, being the ultimate example. That is the point of ‘One Solitary Life,’ the famous poem attributed to James Allen Francis:
“He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn't go to college. He never lived in a big city. He never travelled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.
Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned--put together--have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.”
Today we can look back and reflect on all that those who overlooked William Blake, Vincent Van Gogh, Jesus, and their like missed out on at the time and all that we have gained through the understanding of them that has developed in the years since.
However, we should not be complacent as a result, prophets often go without honour in their own time and community, so we should look with care around us at those whose voice is marginalised or overlooked and, at those from our own community. This includes those, such as Emma, Mike and Steve, who have come from the congregation to be given responsibilities within the Team, but, who it can be easy to take for granted because they are known to us, rather than those who have come from elsewhere. As those from the local area and congregations, we need to treat them with special honour because of the ease with which those who with whom we have grown up can be overlooked or under-appreciated when they, like, Jesus or William Blake or Vincent Van Gogh, are actually the local prophets that we need to hear.
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Hurtsmile - Painter Paint.
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