The Secret Chord

Here's the reflection that I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:

In Psalm 33. 1-4, 18-end, the Psalmist encourages us to:

Praise the Lord with the lyre;
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings.
Sing to him a new song;
play skilfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

When Peter Banks and I wrote our book ‘The Secret Chord’ we took the title phrase from the song “Hallelujah” which is now one of the most-performed rock songs in history. Leonard Cohen's song ‘Hallelujah’ makes the claim that the Biblical King David had found a secret chord which, when played, pleased even God himself.

The opening words to Cohen's song are extrapolated from the account in 1 Samuel 16: 14-23 of how King Saul asked for a skillful musician to be found so they could come and play to soothe Saul's troubled soul. It is clear that David was both a competent musician and also a prolific composer. According to the Scriptures, he would go on to curate and compose many of the 150 Psalms found in the Bible which survive in multiple translations as part of religious worship today. What Cohen surmises is that whatever David played, or, most likely, improvised, would have also pleased the Lord and the children of Israel's God, as well as calming down King Saul.

Cohen's romantic hypothesis is that David had actually stumbled across and therefore deliberately employed a particular chord that has this mysterious power. A chord is a group of (typically three or more) notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony. Arthur Sullivan in a song called ‘The Lost Chord’ wrote: ‘It seemed the harmonious echo / From our discordant life. / It linked all perplexèd meanings / Into one perfect peace.’

Music is a performance in which harmonies echoing from our discordant lives link all perplexèd meanings into one perfect peace. Music, in performance, is an unrepeatable moment in in which all things come together enabling us to feel God's pleasure. In this sense the Secret Chord, about which Cohen writes, is indeed pleasing to the Lord.

Peter Banks remembers this occurring for him on 15th September 2001 when American conductor Leonard Slatkin led the BBC Orchestra in a dramatic rendition of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings at the BBC Proms. This was a change added to the usual program of jingoistic ditties that is regularly played at the Last Night of The Proms. Proximity to the tragedy of 9/11 helped to make it spine tingling for those present in the Royal Albert Hall at the time, as well as those viewing on TV. This was not an aggressive response to 9/11, but a truly spiritual one, with everyone experiencing something of God through the pain and suffering. There was a coming together of music and context which created a performance that took on greater significance after the actual event as time passed and as its cache built through word of mouth.

As a result of this linking of the echoes from our discordant lives, Cohen’s Hallelujah includes both the sacred and the sinful – the holy and the broken Hallelujah. It doesn’t matter which you heard, he suggests, because a blaze of light is found in every word and he will be able to stand before God – the Lord of Song – presumably at the Last Judgement and simply sing Hallelujah itself because both the holy and the broken are encapsulated in the one word and one chord.

This is to say that distinctions between sacred and secular are false divides as all of life and all music is holy. Cohen once said, 'This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled, but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that's what I mean by "Hallelujah".'

That’s also why Arthur Sullivan could write:

‘I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an angel's psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexèd meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.’

Ultimately, music is a symbol of the means by which God created, and the musician is a partner with God in the creative process. Therefore, we can pray, with the singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn, to be a little of God’s creative breath as it moves over the waters of chaos to bring all things into being. In other words, to see and hear life as God sees and hears it and to articulate something of that unitive vision. Amen.

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Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah.

After The Fire: Bright Lights 1974-1983

Rupert Loydell has just published an interesting review of Bright Lights, 1974-1983, After the Fire (6CD box set, Cherry Red)

In his review he concludes: 'In retrospect, After the Fire live played a noisy, high speed new wave pop that never quite translated to record, although at times it came close. Clearly there was a desire for commercial success at play, courtesy CBS/Epic, Mack and some band members, but also room for a genuine place in the rock world, as evidenced by the positive response from Van Halen and their fans. If the sometimes questionable fashions the band at times adopted or the sustained interest in space travel as a metaphor reveals the music’s age, the songs on show here are quirky, energetic and inventive, keyboard or guitar led music that can proudly hold its head up alongside its musical neighbours from the time. The bright lights might have eluded the band, but now we can all hear what we missed out on at the time.'

The definitive collection of After The Fire, 'Bright Lights' contains all of the bands five albums as well as demos, B-sides and live tracks, with 12 recordings that are issued on CD for the first time and 14 that are completely unreleased. The project has been overseen by founding member Peter Banks who, along with members Andy Piercy and John Russell, has been interviewed exclusively for the sleeve notes and has also opened up his photo archive, providing a wealth of rare images.

After the Fire were the first British band to emerge from the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) scene and regularly make the charts. Before U2, before Delerious?, ATF went where no band had gone before. They hit the UK Top Twenty in 1979 with One Rule for You and made the US Top 5 in 1983 with Der Kommissar, in between they sandwiched three chart albums. The only fly in the ointment being that their biggest hit came six months after the band had split. 

Formed by Peter Banks in 1972, early ATF exhibited progressive rock tendencies. All that was lost though by the release of the first CBS album, Laser Love, in 1979 when, on the back of the New Wave, they transmuted into an energetic power pop outfit. Laser Love was - in the title track, Take Me Higher and Like the Power of a Jet - one of the first times when rock music worshipped God in contemporary words and music, a seminal moment indeed. It was therefore no surprise to find ATF lead singer Andy Piercy linked to Delerious? A case of passing the baton on to the then latest runners in the race for CCM visibility, surely.

I was at their final Dominion gig and also saw the Andy Piercy solo performance at Greenbelt. Laser Love, with its worship songs, pre-empts the focus that CCM has subsequently developed on worship music, the attempts by Delirious? and others to take worship music into the charts, and does so with far more original and contemporary imagery than any of the later bands achieved. Laser Love and Batteries Not Included still stand up as excellent albums. The solo Andy Piercy album also has some strong material. It was a real shame that they couldn't sustain it long enough to ride the wave of Der Kommissar. I really enjoyed getting to know Peter Banks, doing some services together with him, and writing 'The Secret Chord' together. Good times.

Writer and poet, Rupert Loydell has also written a great piece for Ship of Fools looking back to the collaborations and collisions between church culture and the wider culture in the 1970s and 80s, with a cast including Jesus Rock Music, the Greenbelt festival, Mary Whitehouse and musicians such as Larry Norman and Steve Fairnie of Writz. Read Rupert's article here.

Loydell is a poet, painter, editor and publisher, and senior lecturer in English with creative writing at Falmouth University. He is interested in the relationship of visual art and language, collaborative writing, sequences and series, as well as post-confessional narrative, experimental music and creative non-fiction. He has edited Stride magazine for over 30 years, and was managing editor of Stride Books for 28 years. His poetry books include Wildlife and Ballads of the Alone (both published by Shearsman), and The Fantasy Kid (for children); he has also edited anthologies for Shearsman, Salt and Knives, Forks & Spoons Press.

For more on the period about which he writes, read my dialogues with musician and poet Steve Scott here, here, here, here, and here, plus my other posts on CCM. For more of my writing on music, see my co-authored book with Peter Banks, ‘The Secret Chord’, which has been described as an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief.

The book can be purchased from Lulu - https://www.lulu.com/shop/jonathan-evens-and-peter-banks/the-secret-chord/paperback/product-1pey2g67.html?q=peter+banks&page=1&pageSize=4

Covering a range of musical styles and influences, from gospel music to X Factor, The Secret Chord conveys enthusiasm for music and its transformative powers. The book asks is there really a 'Secret Chord' that would both please the Lord and nearly everybody else as described in Leonard Cohen's popular song 'Hallelujah'? 

While a significant number of books have been published exploring the relationships between music, art, popular culture and theology - many of which Peter and I have enjoyed and from which we have benefited - such books tend either to academic analysis or semi biography about artistes whose output the writers' enjoy. By contrast, 'The Secret Chord' is an accessible exploration of artistic dilemmas from a range of different perspectives which seeks to draw the reader into a place of appreciation for what makes a moment in a 'performance' timeless and special.

The Secret Chord seeks to explore a number of the dilemmas which musicians and other artists face, not so much in order to map out one route through or around these dilemmas but in an attempt to get the creative juices flowing. Our experience of creativity is of disparate and often contradictory ideas being crushed, swirled, fermented, shaken and stirred in our minds in order that the fine wine of creativity results. Our hope is that The Secret Chord, by exploring artistic dilemmas from a range of different perspectives, will mature in reader’s minds just like fine wine or a precious pearl.

Peter Banks and I wanted to write a book that would be an accessible interesting read but also with sufficient depth to engage those with an interest in academic and theological study. Peter is a successful composer and musician with mainstream chart successes in many countries in the world within his most well known musical collaboration, 'After The Fire'. As well as a musician he has worked in other creative industries and now contributes professionally to various online publications as well as his popular music and technology blog, The BanksyBoy Brief.

Rev Dr Hugh Rayment-Pickard, author and co-founder of IntoUniversity said "Secret Chord is well written, full of wisdom, great quotes and illustrations. It's great to read something about art and Christianity that embraces such diverse material."

Carol Biss, Managing Director of Book Guild Publishing, said “Secret Chord is an interesting and impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life, written through the prism of Christian belief. Covering a huge range of musical styles and influences, from gospel music to X Factor, Secret Chord conveys a great enthusiasm for music and its transformative powers, which readers are sure to find engaging.”

Heather Joy Rowe said it is a highly informative and eye-opening book: 'The writers ... are delving into the arts, mainly looking at the subject from a theological point of view and they have certainly opened my eyes as before reading this book I had a very 'one-dimensional view' of this huge subject.'

Another response noted: "For someone who treats music as art, as something to be understood as an art form within a particular context etc etc, or someone who is themselves creatively active, then it's certainly interesting and worthwhile reading. You might have an epiphany!"

Rod Williamson said: "The book gives a very thoughtful look at the artist's role, inspiration, challenge and so on. There are many examples and anecdotes from popular and classical fields, and beyond the realms of music. As one who wouldn't know the difference between a D minor and a Morris Minor it kept my attention throughout, but I'm sure it would appeal to the Monsieur Highbrow fraternity."

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After The Fire - Laser Love.

Advent change

Here's the sermon I shared at St Mary’s Runwell this morning:

Get the road ready! Turn away from your sins! Bring the right kind of offerings!

These are cries and readings about the need for change because of dissatisfaction with the present. God’s coming does not involve comfort for the complacent but instead is a challenge to change.

Malachi (Malachi 3: 1 - 4) sets out a timetable or schedule for change; first a messenger will come to prepare the way for God himself to come, then the Lord himself will suddenly come to his Temple. Neither coming though will be easy or comfortable.

John the Baptist (Luke 3: 1 – 6) is the promised messenger and he comes preaching repentance and change as the necessary preparation for the coming of God himself. Turning away from sins and being baptized is the way to get the road ready along which God will come. He calls on the people of Israel to do this, so that the whole human race – all peoples everywhere – will be able to see God’s salvation when it comes in the person of Jesus.

But, as Malachi emphasises, the coming of Jesus is also about challenge and change: “He will be like strong soap, like a fire that refines metal. He will come to judge like one who refines and purifies silver.”

How was this aspect of Jesus expressed when he came? In John’s Gospel Jesus says to Nicodemus: “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. Generally, when we compare ourselves with others, we compare ourselves with those we think are worse than or similar to ourselves. On the basis of these comparisons, we think we are ok; at least no better or worse than others, at best, better than many others around us. On the basis of these comparisons, we are comfortable with who we are and see no need to change. But 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.

The light of Christ is also about transparency. When we think others cannot see what we are doing, our tendency is to try to get away with things we know are wrong and of which we would be ashamed were they public knowledge. We can see this tendency at work in all major public scandals such as phone hacking, libor-rate fixing, MPs expenses, and so on. When we think no one can see what we are doing, we try to get away with murder but when those things become public that is when we are then contrite. This is why campaigners call for transparency in business and politics and why their calls are often resisted.

Yet God does see 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.” 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.

The Secret Chord, the book I have had published, was written with Peter Banks, the keyboard player in the rock band After The Fire. One of the best songs by After The Fire is called ‘Laser Love’ and it contains these lines:

“Your love is like a laser burning right into my life
You know my weaknesses, you cut me like a knife
You’re separating all the wrong things from the right
It’s like a laser, laser love.

Your love is like an X-ray there is nothing that can hide
You hold me to the light, you see what is inside
It’s all so clear when it’s there in black and white
Just like a laser, laser love.”

We might wonder what this kind of exposure has to do with love but it is a love which refuses to leave us in the dark and which does everything possible to bring light into our lives.

This is the light and love that we celebrate as coming into the world at Christmas. It is tough love and a searching light. When we light our Advent candles or our Christingles or sing carols by candlelight it is easy to think that what we are celebrating is traditional, pretty, unchanging and sweet. But the reality of Christ’s love and light is tough and searching because it is challenging and because it calls us to change.

At Christmas we often ask the question what will we give but before we can answer that question, we need to respond to the question posed by Advent which is, ‘How are we going to change?’ It is once we have been changed by God that we, then, have something good to give. So how will you respond to these Advent challenges to ‘Get the road ready!’ ‘Turn away from your sins!’ and ‘Bring the right kind of offerings!’ What will you change about yourself this Advent as you prepare to welcome the Christ who comes at Christmas?

One starting point in thinking this through might be to think of what you would want to change in others and then, as the saying goes, to realise that “When you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back at you.” Alternatively, you could think of what you would like to see changed within the world and then take on board the challenge of Mahatma Gandhi to “Be the change you want to see in the world”

An inherent danger in thinking about change is our tendency to assume that change begins with someone else. It is so easy to believe that “we” are doing the right things and that it is “them” that need to change but, as Eric Jensen has said, “The reason things stay the same is because we stay the same. For things to change, we must change” or, as U2 once sang, “I can’t change the world but I can change the world in me.”

So, this year, instead of focusing on Christmas Cheer, let us think of Christmas Change. What will you change about yourself this Advent as you prepare to welcome the Christ who comes at Christmas?

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After The Fire - Laser Love.

Seen and Unseen: A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics

My latest article for Seen & Unseen is 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose:

'Steiner is also very good when discussing the influence of the Bible on Cave’s work. He briefly outlines Cave’s journey with the Bible from chorister at Wangaratta Cathedral through his choice at 22 to mine its stories to inform his songwriting and on to his rediscovery of the New Testament and the “seduction of Christianity” when writing an Introduction’ to The Gospel According to Mark for the Canongate Pocket Canons. As Steiner notes, “Early on in his career Cave embraced the vitality and urgency of the Old Testament”, while the New Testament “introduced a more personal revelation … an awakening to the possibilities of self-transformation”.'

Read also my co-authored book with Peter Banks of After the Fire, ‘The Secret Chord’, which has been described as an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief. For more of my writings on music click here.

My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.

My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.

My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.

My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.

My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.

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Nick Cave - There Is A Kingdom.

Looking down the wrong end of a telescope

Writer and poet Rupert Loydell has just written a great piece for Ship of Fools looking back to the collaborations and collisions between church culture and the wider culture in the 1970s and 80s, with a cast including Jesus Rock Music, the Greenbelt festival, Mary Whitehouse and musicians such as Larry Norman and Steve Fairnie of Writz. Read Rupert's article here.

Rupert Loydell is a poet, painter, editor and publisher, and senior lecturer in English with creative writing at Falmouth University. He is interested in the relationship of visual art and language, collaborative writing, sequences and series, as well as post-confessional narrative, experimental music and creative non-fiction. He has edited Stride magazine for over 30 years, and was managing editor of Stride Books for 28 years. His poetry books include Wildlife and Ballads of the Alone (both published by Shearsman), and The Fantasy Kid (for children); he has also edited anthologies for Shearsman, Salt and Knives, Forks & Spoons Press.

For more on the period about which he writes, read my dialogues with musician and poet Steve Scott here, here, here, here, and here, plus my other posts on CCM. For more of my writing on music, see my co-authored book with Peter Banks of After the Fire, ‘The Secret Chord’, which has been described as an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief.

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Writz - Night Nurse / Luxury / Movies. 

'Art in Worship' and 'The Secret Chord'

Art in Worship is a lecture I have recorded which explores approaches to and understanding of the relationship between art and faith. The lecture highlights different facets to this relationship from the fourth century to the present demonstrating ways in which the intimate linkage which exists between the visual arts and Christianity was forged and sustained. Within this story, I explore the sacramental nature of art in worship over the years.

'The Secret Chord', my co-authored book with Peter Banks, is now available from the online shop at St Martin-in-the-Fields. The book asks is there really a 'Secret Chord' that would both please the Lord and nearly everybody else as described in Leonard Cohen's popular song 'Hallelujah'? The book is an accessible exploration of artistic dilemmas from a range of different perspectives which seeks to draw the reader into a place of appreciation for what makes a moment in a 'performance' timeless and special.

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John Rutter - Five Meditations for orchestra, arranged from sacred choral works.

The Secret Chord Evening Service

Café Musica and I led an Evening Service tonight at St Peter's Chapel, Bradwell-on-Sea, that reflected on 'The Secret Chord', the book on faith and music that Peter Banks and I co-authored. The service was a celebration of faith and music which included: 'Here is love', 'One of us', 'The Lord's my shepherd', 'Fix you', 'Hallelujah', 'I will sing the wondrous story', and 'I'll fly away'.

In my reflection I said the following:

“Hallelujah” is one of the most-performed rock songs in history. It has become a staple of movies and television shows as diverse as Shrek and The West Wing, of tribute videos and telethons. It has been covered by hundreds of artists, including Bob Dylan, U2, Justin Timberlake, and k.d. lang, and it is played every year at countless events—both sacred and secular—around the world. Yet when music legend Leonard Cohen first wrote and recorded “Hallelujah,” it was for an album rejected by his longtime record label.

Harmonies, and the place of chords as a basis of harmony, give us a significant clue to understanding the power of music. Leonard Cohen's song ‘Hallelujah’ makes the claim that the Biblical King David had found a secret chord which, when played, pleased even God himself. The opening words to Cohen's song are extrapolated from the account in 1 Samuel 16: 14-23 of how King Saul asked for a skilful musician to be found so that person, who turned out to be David, could come and play to soothe Saul's troubled soul. It is clear that David was both a competent musician and also a prolific composer. According to the Scriptures, he would go on to curate and compose many of the 150 Psalms found in the Bible which survive in multiple translations as part of religious worship today. We heard Psalm 150 earlier in a version by the Cuban poet-priest, Ernesto Cardenal. What Cohen surmises is that whatever David played, or, most likely, improvised, would have also pleased the Lord, the children of Israel's God, as well as calming down King Saul.

Cohen's romantic hypothesis is that David had actually stumbled across and therefore deliberately employed a particular chord that has this mysterious power. A chord is a group of (typically three or more) notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony. Arthur Sullivan in a song called ‘The Lost Chord’ wrote about the effect that chordal harmony can have: ‘It seemed the harmonious echo / From our discordant life. / It linked all perplexèd meanings / Into one perfect peace.’

When Peter Banks and I wrote our book ‘The Secret Chord’ we used the image of discordance to explore a number of the dilemmas which musicians and other artists face and harmony to propose a way of understanding the image of the Secret Chord. The dilemmas that we explored were Sacred v Secular, Muse v Market, Play v Plan, Medium v Message, Chaos v Connection, Heart v Head and Search v Stasis> We explored these not so much in order to map out one route through or around these dilemmas but in an attempt to get the creative juices flowing. Our experience of creativity is of disparate and often contradictory ideas being crushed, swirled, fermented, shaken AND stirred in our minds in order that the fine wine of creativity results. Those disparate and often contradictory ideas are a little like the grit in the oyster which eventually produces the pearl or possibly, in this instance, the Secret Chord. Our hope was that the book, by exploring artistic dilemmas from a range of different perspectives, would mature in people’s minds exactly like some fine wine or that pearl.

In the book we argue that the Secret Chord posited by Leonard Cohen is actually a recognition of coinherence (the coming together of things) and coincidence (the unexpected coming together of things in a providential way). Recognising and welcoming these coincidences is a means of keeping 'in step with the Holy Spirit.' Scott Peck calls this the 'principle of synchronicity' and views it as an expression of God’s grace. In their song entitled ‘Synchronicity’, the rock band, The Police, describe this phenomenon as a connecting principle which is linked to the invisible. If we share this sense of synchronicity then we are able to dream Spiritus mundi (Spirit of the world – a sense of the interconnection of all things).

Peter remembers this occurring for him on 15th September 2001 when American conductor Leonard Slatkin led the BBC Orchestra in a dramatic rendition of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings at the BBC Proms. This was a change added to the usual program of jingoistic ditties that is regularly played at the Last Night of The Proms. Proximity to the tragedy of 9/11 helped to make it spine tingling for those present in the Royal Albert Hall at the time, as well as those viewing on TV. This was not an aggressive response to 9/11, but a truly spiritual one, with everyone experiencing something of God through the pain and suffering. There was a coming together of music and context which created a performance that took on greater significance after the actual event as time passed and as its cache built through word of mouth.

Music is a performance in which harmonies echoing from our discordant lives link all perplexèd meanings into one perfect peace. Music, in performance, is an unrepeatable moment in which all things come together enabling us to feel God's pleasure. Cohen once said, 'This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled, but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that's what I mean by "Hallelujah".'

So, the Secret Chord is always a performance, an unrepeatable event in history, with a date and a time, in which harmonies echoing from our discordant lives link all perplexèd meanings into one perfect peace. It is in those unrepeatable moments in history in which it all comes together that we feel God's pleasure. The Secret Chord, as Leonard Cohen stated, is indeed pleasing to the LORD.

Arthur Sullivan wrote:

‘I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an angel's psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexèd meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.’

Details of the remaining services in the Summer series at St Peter's Chapel are as follows:

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Arthur Sullivan - The Lost Chord.

Café Musica & The Secret Chord

It was over one of the Mersea Art Café’s delicious cappuccinos that James Weaver and Peter Banks discovered their mutual pasts, treading the boards on the professional music trail, were both similar and so very nearly collided. Now, teamed up, the combination of their two voices provide a rich emotion, drawing out the best in both the quirky covers and original songs they perform. With an essentially acoustic multi-instrument approach, Café Musica are captivating audiences and listeners alike. Café Musica's take on music is classic, yet fresh and they appeal to such a broad spectrum. They definitely have the cool factor, along with a respect for music which makes them popular across multiple genres and audience ages.With the backing of GingerDog Records, they have now released their first official album 'Learning to Breathe’. Featuring a surprising mix of songs, you can't help but get hooked on Café Musica.

Café Musica and friends are providing the music for an Evening Service this Sunday, 6.30pm, at St Peter's Chapel, Bradwell-on-Sea, which will focus on 'The Secret Chord', the book co-authored by Peter Banks and I, which is an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life, written through the prism of Christian belief.    

Covering a range of musical styles and influences, from gospel music to X Factor, 'The Secret Chord' conveys enthusiasm for music and its transformative powers. While a significant number of books have been published exploring the relationships between music, art, popular culture and theology - many of which we have enjoyed and from which we have benefited - such books tend either to academic analysis or semi biography about artistes whose output the writers' enjoy. By contrast, 'The Secret Chord' is an accessible exploration of artistic dilemmas from a range of different perspectives which seeks to draw the reader into a place of appreciation for what makes a moment in a 'performance' timeless and special.

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Café Musica - Little Help From Our Friends.

Light the Well and The Secret Chord

I will be giving the reflection for Bread For the World, 6.30pm, at St Martin-in-the-Fields on Wednesday 28 June. Everyone is welcome at our weekly informal Eucharist, an evening service with prayer, music, word and reflection. 

I will be reflecting on our ‘treasure in clay jars’ project, a community art installation. ‘Light the Well’, is a community art project which Anna Sikorska is undertaking together with the artists and craftspeoples group. The project involves making porcelain lanterns (glazed ceramic globes). The size, surface decoration and character of each lantern will differ, although the base material - and overall look - is consistent white ceramic, roughly made. The lanterns are made by laying strips of porcelain onto a round support. Porcelain clay glows with a transparency individual to itself. Once made, they are fired and the lanterns are then suitable for being outside. They develop cracks in the firing, through which the light inside will also be seen. In the Light Well at St Martin's these lanterns will be joined together with cord covering the stone floor in a random constellation. The cord also connects a light bulb within each lantern, so each one will shine from within. There will be a lantern-making workshop with Anna Sikorska after the service.

In my reflection I will refer to Leonard Cohen's 'Anthem' which includes the line 'There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.'

I will refer to another Leonard Cohen song on Sunday at St Peter's Chapel Bradwell-on-Sea at 6.30pm, Peter Banks and I will lead an Evening Prayer based on themes drawn from our co-authored book, The Secret Chord. The book takes its title and key theme from Cohen's 'Hallelujah'. 

James Weaver and Peter Banks are Café Musica, who will provide music for the service. The combination of their two voices provide a rich emotion, drawing out the best in both the quirky covers and original songs they perform. With an essentially acoustic multi-instrument approach, Café Musica captivate audiences and listeners alike.

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Café Musica - Dark Side.

Music for the Soul: where music flows from heaven to the soul

St Peter’s Chapel, Bradwell-on-Sea, is a uniquely spiritual place that is the focus for people all over the world. 

During July and August, the evening services at Bradwell-on-Sea are held in St Peter's Chapel, at the place where the land meets the sea and the sky comes close. A place where the distance between heaven and earth is tissue thin. All services start at 6.30 pm.

The theme of this year’s services is Music for the Soul where music flows from heaven to the soul.

Peter Banks and I are contributing with a service based on themes drawn from our co-authored book, The Secret Chord.

Summer Services 2017

JUNE

• 11th Confirmation Service with the Bishop of Bradwell

JULY

• 2nd The Secret Chord with Revd Jonathan Evens and Café Musica and Friends
• 9th Evening worship with Lynne Creasy, Harp and Harvey Nightingale, Baritone
• 16th Taizé Service
• 23rd Evening worship with John Glynn. John is a singer and a songwriter – A former Roman Catholic Priest in the United Kingdom with a talent that spans the world.
• 30th Revd Dr. Jenny Williams. Following the Quiet Day on July 29th Jenny will lead our worship reflecting on the words of the Aramaic Lord’s prayer.

AUGUST

• 6th Evening Worship with Canon Ivor Moody – Songs for the Soul
• 13th Reflective Worship with Music for Healing led by The Asaph Ensemble with support from the Asaph Christian Trust
• 20th A service of Music & Healing with Revd Brigid & Laurie Main
• 27th Music for the soul. A celebration of the summer evening services

Come as individuals or as part of a group. Bring a picnic and enjoy the peace and beauty of this ancient Holy Place.

Further information from Revd Brigid Main - t: 01621 776438 e: stpeterschapel@outlook.com w: www.bradwellchapel.org

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Cafe Musica - Time To Think.

Greenbelt: Gentleness, Care, Spirituality and Vocation

I had a great day at Greenbelt today seeing friends from my cell group and from current and former churches. I caught part of Nadia Bolz-Weber's talk on Accidental Saints (especially her modern Beatitudes), Harry Baker presents ... (with Caleb Femi and Vanessa Kisuule), and Drew Worthley. I also got to whole sets from Josie Long, the majestic Mike Peters, and the wonderful singers and dancers from Alrowwad Cultural Centre as part of Cafe Palestinia (which also featured Peter Banks, co-author of 'The Secret Chord', performing with Garth Hewitt). Click here and here for more information about the issues and campaigns featured in Cafe Palestrinia.

I first saw The Alarm in 1983 at the Hammersmith Palais as support to U2 on the 'War' tour, so seeing Mike Peters at Greenbelt (reprising The Alarm's slightly later 1986 UCLA gig) was both a reminder of the Hammersmith Palais gig and also of how affirming and anthemic is the music they made.  

Michael Ramsey Prize winner John Swinton spoke on 'Gentleness, Care, Spirituality and Vocation'. He told a story about Jean Vanier calming another person with a look, a touch and shared movement. As with Kosuke Koyama's Three Mile an Hour God, gentleness involves slowing down. He highlighted the second creation account in Genesis as being a story about care for our environment and each other. Receiving care is therefore a key part of what it means to be human. In Western culture, our focus in terms of spirituality is often self-actualisation but spirituality is communal. Inclusion is belonging and people need to miss you when you are not there. We are called to knowing Jesus, rather than know about Jesus, and that is the work of the Spirit in us. Our identity is found in Christ. We are hidden in Christ and remembered by God. In answering the question, 'What does it mean to be a disciple or have a vocation while having dementia?', he told the story of Beatrice and the chaplain at her nursing home. Beatrice began to pray herself when the chaplain started to prayed for her. Beatrice then prayed for 15 minutes and her chaplain commented that she hadn't thought of Beatrice as a prayer warrior until that point. Sometimes our vocation is to do absolutely nothing but to offer communion - silence, attention, space etc - in order to encounter the spirit (nephesh) of the person, spirit to spirit. We need to open our eyes and mind, so we can see the situation differently, remembering that when Jesus sits with the marginalised, the margins shift.

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The Alarm - Walk Forever By My Side.

Hallelujah: The Holy or the Broken & The Secret Chord

The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah"
by Alan Light is 'a fascinating account of the making, remaking, and unlikely popularizing of one of the most played and recorded rock songs in history—Leonard Cohen’s beautiful and heartrending “Hallelujah.”'

'Today, “Hallelujah” is one of the most-performed rock songs in history. It has become a staple of movies and television shows as diverse as Shrek and The West Wing, of tribute videos and telethons. It has been covered by hundreds of artists, including Bob Dylan, U2, Justin Timberlake, and k.d. lang, and it is played every year at countless events—both sacred and secular—around the world.

Yet when music legend Leonard Cohen first wrote and recorded “Hallelujah,” it was for an album rejected by his longtime record label. Ten years later, charismatic newcomer Jeff Buckley reimagined the song for his much-anticipated debut album, Grace. Three years after that, Buckley would be dead, his album largely unknown, and “Hallelujah” still unreleased as a single. After two such commercially disappointing outings, [Alan Light asks,] how did one obscure song become an international anthem for human triumph and tragedy, a song each successive generation seems to feel they have discovered and claimed as uniquely their own?'

Light quotes Cohen as saying, 'This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled, but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that's what I mean by "Hallelujah".'

This quote essentially sums up the content of The Secret Chord, the book written by Peter Banks and I. The Secret Chord seeks to explore a number of the dilemmas which musicians and other artists face, not so much in order to map out one route through or around these dilemmas but in an attempt to get the creative juices flowing. Our experience of creativity is of disparate and often contradictory ideas being crushed, swirled, fermented, shaken and stirred in our minds in order that the fine wine of creativity results. Our hope is that The Secret Chord, by exploring artistic dilemmas from a range of different perspectives, will mature in reader’s minds just like fine wine or a precious pearl.

The Secret Chord is an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life, written through the prism of Christian belief. Covering a range of musical styles and influences, from gospel music to X Factor, The Secret Chord conveys enthusiasm for music and its transformative powers. In the book we ask, is there really a 'Secret Chord' that would both please the LORD and nearly everybody else as described in Leonard Cohen's popular song 'Hallelujah'? And are there some people who just don't get music, as in the next line in Cohen's lyric?

While a significant number of books have been published exploring the relationships between music, art, popular culture and theology - many of which we have enjoyed and from which we have benefited - such books tend either to academic analysis or semi biography about artistes whose output the writers' enjoy. By contrast, The Secret Chord is an accessible exploration of artistic dilemmas from a range of different perspectives which seeks to draw the reader into a place of appreciation for what makes a moment in a 'performance' timeless and special.

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John Cale - Hallelujah.

James MacMillan and Van Morrison

There is a great selection of music on BBC4 tonight with the premiere at the Proms of James MacMillan's Fourth Symphony, Laura Mvula on Nina Simone, and Van Morrison's Cypress Avenue concerts.

A Guardian review describes MacMillan's Symphony well: 'Donald Runnicles’s second Prom with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra opened with the world premiere of James MacMillan’s Fourth Symphony, written to celebrate Runnicles’s 60th birthday, which fell late last year. MacMillan describes the symphony as “essentially abstract” rather than programmatic, though it also anchors itself within traditions of Scottish sacred music by paying tribute to the Renaissance polyphonist Robert Carver, whose 10-part Missa Dum Sacrum Mysterium – MacMillan sang it while a student – is liberally quoted in the score.

Lasting around 40 minutes, the symphony is effectively a single-movement variant on traditional sonata form built round a cluster of ideas heard in succession at the outset: ritualistic timpani throbs; a fanfare-like chorale; thickening string dissonances; and spiky, aggressive rhythmic figurations from woodwind and piano. Carver’s Mass is then introduced by low solo strings, and the development weaves its way through and over it, the textures alternately clotting and clearing, the mood turning increasingly tense.

Eventually serenity is achieved in a slowly unwinding cello melody accompanied by the exquisite yet eerie sound of overtones on eastern temple bowls. At this point, the emotional trajectory feels complete. But MacMillan pushes on to a big coda, complete with a series of grandiose climaxes that feel curiously forced after all that has gone before. Densely, at times exotically scored, it was grandly played. Runnicles conducted it with great affection and dignity.'

Stephen Johnson writes that: 'MacMillan is Roman Catholic by birth, and today his faith remains central to his life. His early involvement with Marxism was strongly coloured by Latin American Liberation Theology, and its impact can still be sensed in his work today, right up to his latest opera The Sacrifice (2005-06). At the same time MacMillan is keenly aware of the divisions partisan religious thinking can cause. While his works often draw on Catholic liturgy and chant for their basic formal and melodic material, he can also include elements from the Jewish Passover rite in his second string quartet, Why is this night different? (1998), or instrumental colours associated with the Japanese Shinto religion in Symphony No.3: ‘Silence’ (2003).

The result is music that embraces a startling variety of musical styles. Dense, thorny atonal textures can suddenly yield to soaring tonal melodies, reminiscent of Wagner (another crucial early influence). Jagged, complex, muscular rhythms may similarly melt into free-floating improvisatory lyricism, or fine-spun polyphony recalling Bach and the renaissance church composers. Thrillingly garish or abrasive colours sit alongside delicate, fragile patterns or velvety warmth. Hymn tunes, folk laments and brash marches float as conflicting layers in vibrant musical tapestries. One may be reminded of the teeming orchestral kaleidoscopes of the pioneering American composer Charles Ives, or the Russian ‘polystylist’ Alfred Schnittke.

What draws all this together is MacMillan’s deeply ingrained feeling for musical storytelling. Today grand narratives are often derided as outdated, irrelevant. MacMillan however has proved through works like Isobel Gowdie, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel and the massive orchestral trilogy Triduum (1995-97) that this kind of spiritual journey in music, as exemplified by Beethoven in his symphonies and Bach in his great ‘Passions’, can be recreated in terms which speak both to sophisticated musical intelligences and ordinary music lovers.'

Van Morrison recently returned to Cyprus Avenue, the quiet, leafy street in east Belfast that inspired two songs on one of the greatest albums of all time (Astral Weeks), to perform two concerts on his 70th birthday.

This was particularly appropriate for Morrison as a key theme in his work is the importance of memory. As he wrote in 'Got To Go Back' - a song in which he recalls gazing out of his classroom window in Orangefield and claims that the love he carries within from his childhood meditations remains within him and carries him through - 'we've got to go back ... for the healing to go on with the dreaming.'

Earlier in the year, the March edition of Uncut explored the making of many of Van Morrison's best albums from Astral Weeks (Lewis Merenstein - '... it was immediately clear to me that he was being born again') to Back on Top (Walter Samuel - 'I'm not sure how he does it... it just comes out of him. It just happens'). From the musicians who played on these albums there is much talk about 'looking for the spark,' 'channelling,' 'transcendental telepathy,' and 'intuitive communication'. When he channelled or connected with the spark Morrison set everyone else on fire so that the atmosphere was truly transcendental.

In his interview Morrison described this as 'creating space.' The key to the creation of space - the stretching out of time - is listening, watching and absorbing. Most musicians, he says, don't understand this. They 'might be great technically; but they don't have the feeling;' the ability to listen in order to be in the same space and have 'a collective experience,' The phrase he regularly used for the times 'when he felt it was working' was, 'I think it's all coming together.'

My co-authored book with Peter Banks, The Secret Chord, is essentially an extended exploration of this experience common to artists and musicians, which is often described in spiritual terms, of things coming together - gelling, coalescing - into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Jef Labes, a longtime associate of Morrison, notes that: 'He once said to me that he sees all his work as variations on one piece of music that he channels. He doesn't sit down and work on songs, he gets a rush of energy. He'll grab a guitar and start playing, switch on a recording device, and whatever comes out, he'll write down. It arrives as almost a complete work ... when that goes away he's sad and exhausted, and when it's there, when he's visited by the spirit, he's compelled to get it out. It's scary. He has no idea where it comes from.'

At their best Morrison's songs blend memories, visions, literature and musical genres (blues, folk, jazz, gospel, r&b, soul and pop) in order to take us to a point of silence, a moment of communion, a spiritual core. He has spoken about this in terms of switching off what's referred to as the constant voice: "That's what meditation is supposed to do - turn off the constant voice, all them thoughts you have, y'know, the refrigerator hum, did I leave the lights on? Or, is the dog crossing the street? What about my tax problems? When you switch off all that, that's what I mean by transcendence."

In Summertime in England, for example, the orchestration and vocalising circles the song's core, ebbing and flowing with the movement between ecstasy and silence. Lyrically, we are on a journey from the Lake District through Bristol to Glastonbury picking up on the literary and spiritual references as we travel. We have a companion who could be a human partner or, to quote T S Eliot, "the third who walks always beside you". Our journey ends, or begins afresh, in the Church of St John with a revelation of Jesus as the one who underpins spiritual life. "Can you feel the light in England?" Morrison asks. Have you felt it in Wordsworth, Coleridge, Eliot, Yeats? Have you felt it in memory, in landscape, in church, in drug induced visions, in the gospel music coming through the ether? And, as the music stills and the vocalising pauses, he asks us to touch the silence, the core of revelation. Don't touch, don't question, don't disturb, he pleads, just experience;

"It ain't why, why, why, why, why
It just is."

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Van Morrison - Cypress Avenue.

Combining business with humanity, without neglecting either

On Thursday I had the opportunity to visit the Rothschild Archive and learnt about the ethos which underpins this famous company's success.

The success of the Rothschild family business owes much to the solidity of the original partnership of the five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who developed businesses in five European capitals: Frankfurt, London, Paris, Vienna and Naples. Working in close harmony, the family rose to prominence in a number of business sectors including bullion, government bonds, railway and mining finance.

Mayer Amschel believed that forming a partnership would sustain a strong family business into the future, a belief that proved to be correct. The agreement ensured that the reputation that Mayer Amschel had built up for himself, through a lifetime of innovative trading, could be passed on to the next generation. By remaining true to the principles and rules of the partnership and by staying in close communication, the brothers went on to create a business that has remained at the forefront of global finance.

The formal structure of the partnership agreement survived into the twentieth century, though the family business subsequently adopted more sophisticated corporate structures. Profit sharing was built into the agreement. Mayer Amschel intended that his sons should share out the profits of the partnership, ensuring that the brothers were committed to the well-being of each other, and the partnership as a whole.

This ethos is demonstrated by a letter of thanks sent by Sir Siegmund George Warburg after spending time in 1926, as a young man, at New Court, under the tutelage of Lionel de Rothschild and his brother Anthony. His time at the London house obviously made an impression, as his gracious thank-you letter shows:

"At the moment of leaving London I wish to tell you how grateful I am to you for the time I was allowed to spend at New Court which I consider a great honour. You provided me with many opportunities to learn. I learnt quite a lot of details of business-machinery. But I learnt something also which will be far more important to me in my future life. This is the fine tradition of New Court which combines business with humanity, without neglecting either. To learn such a combination is particularly valuable to somebody from the continent where so often humanity is killed by business."

Warburg was later to become a senior City figure who firmly believed that financial integration of Europe was an essential step in the development of the European economy. He managed the firm he created, S.G. Warburg & Co. until the 1970s. S.G. Warburg & Co. was later acquired by UBS AG, creating UBS Warburg, which then became UBS AG.

Despite the depredations of time and occasional bouts of over-enthusiastic destruction, a high proportion of the records of N M Rothschild & Sons have survived across nearly two centuries of continuing business, in good physical condition and carefully preserved order, looked after by generations of clerks in the Archives Department of the London Bank.

In 1999, the Board of Directors of N M Rothschild & Sons Limited, under the Chairmanship of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, formally gifted the contents of the Archive Department to the newly established Rothschild Archive Trust. The Trustees of The Rothschild Archive Trust administer the Archive as an independent charitable trust in purpose-built premises made available for the purpose within the offices of the London business.

In 2011, the Rothschild Archive moved into new premises at New Court in the City of London. The latest building to stand on the New Court site was designed by OMA, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, headed by the eminent Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. OMA’s vision for the fourth version of New Court was inspired by the idea of ‘heritage in the City’ The Reading Room is a key feature of the dramatic modern glass and steel design.

The Reading Room bookcases and furniture were designed, crafted, and installed by the prestigious North Yorkshire company, Robert Thompson’s Craftsmen Ltd, also known as ‘The Mouseman of Kilburn’.Thompson’s use only the best quality sustainable oak and skill to create the finest pieces.The bookcases alone used 19 English oaks, took 5,500 hours to produce, and over 1,000 hours to install, and all the pieces in the Reading Room feature Thompson's trade mark mouse motif.

The Archive now houses, alongside the records of the London banking house (which themselves include often detailed correspondence from the continental houses in Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna and Naples), records of the different branches of the businesses in England, France, Germany, Italy and Austria. The Archive is also responsible for a large collection of papers of the French banking business, held on deposit with the Archives Nataionales du Monde du Travail, Roubaix, France. The Archive also holds collections of private papers of members of the English, French and Austrian Rothschild family.

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Mathilde de Rothschild - Where lilac blows.

Who Is The Sender?

In the latest edition of Uncut several musicians speak about the spirituality of music.

One of the feature articles explores the making of many of Van Morrison's best albums from Astral Weeks (Lewis Merenstein - '... it was immediately clear to me that he was being born again') to Back on Top (Walter Samuel - 'I'm not sure how he does it... it just comes out of him. It just happens'). From the musicians who played on these albums there is much talk about 'looking for the spark,' 'channelling,' 'transcendental telepathy,' and 'intuitive communication'. When he channelled or connected with the spark Morrison set everyone else on fire so that the atmosphere was truly transcendental.

In his interview Morrison describes this as 'creating space.' The key to the creation of space - the stretching out of time - is listening, watching and absorbing. Most musicians, he says, don't understand this. They 'might be great technically; but they don't have the feeling;' the ability to listen in order to be in the same space and have 'a collective experience,' The phrase he regularly used for the times 'when he felt it was working' was, 'I think it's all coming together.'

My co-authored book with Peter Banks, The Secret Chord, is essentially an extended exploration of this experience common to artists and musicians, which is often described in spiritual terms, of things coming together - gelling, coalescing - into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Jef Labes, a longtime associate of Morrison, notes that:

'He once said to me that he sees all his work as variations on one piece of music that he channels. He doesn't sit down and work on songs, he gets a rush of energy. He'll grab a guitar and start playing, switch on a recording device, and whatever comes out, he'll write down. It arrives as almost a complete work ... when that goes away he's sad and exhausted, and when it's there, when he's visited by the spirit, he's compelled to get it out. It's scary. He has no idea where it comes from.'

The song 'Who Is The Sender?' on Bill Fay's latest album is about this same phenomenon, which Fay sees as 'songfinding' rather than songwriting:

'Ask Bill Fay about his relationship with his instrument and he says something revealing, not "Ever since I learnt to play the piano", but "Ever since the piano taught me..."

What the piano taught him was how to connect to one of the great joys of his life. "Music gives," he says. And he is a grateful receiver. But, it makes him wonder, "Who is the sender?" ...

joy and sadness are indeed deep in this material, which Bill describes as "alternative gospel". Though it clearly stems from his belief, he doesn't seek to proselytise or convert anybody, but just hopes to share the concerns he puts into the words and the feelings that he receives from the music: 

"Goodness, beauty, comfort. If something gives in the world, that's a good thing, isn't it? Maybe that's what music wants to do."'

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Van Morrison - Listen To The Lion.

Paying attention to sacraments and epiphanies

Tonight I led the evening service at St Peter's Bradwell with Peter Webb of commission4mission and Café Musica led by Peter Banks, with whom I co-wrote The Secret Chord. 70 - 80 people filled the chapel to participate in a liturgy which celebrated the Arts, view artwork by commission4mission artists, and be led in song by Café Musica. Click here to see photos of the artwork in the Chapel.

Here is the sermon that I preached:

Take a look at Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus by clicking here and ask yourself three questions: What is central in this picture? How does the artist point us to what is central? Why are those things central?

At the centre of this picture and at the centre of the story it depicts is a very simple and ordinary action; breaking bread or tearing a loaf of bread into two pieces. Although it is a simple and ordinary thing to do, it becomes a very important act when Jesus does it because this is the moment when Jesus’ two disciples realise who he is. They suddenly realise that this stranger who they have been walking with and talking to for hours on the Emmaus Road is actually Jesus himself, risen from the dead. They are amazed and thrilled, shocked and surprised, and we can see that clearly on the faces and in the actions of the disciples as they are portrayed in this painting.

Something very simple and ordinary suddenly becomes full of meaning and significance. This simple, ordinary action opens their eyes so that they can suddenly see Jesus as he really is. That is art in action! Art captures or creates moments when ordinary things are seen as significant.

When our eyes are suddenly opened to see meaning and significance in something that we had previously thought of as simple and ordinary that is called an epiphany. Caravaggio’s painting is a picture of an epiphany occurring for the disciples on the Emmaus Road but it is also an epiphany itself because it brings the story to life in a way that helps us see it afresh, as though we were seeing it for the first time.

The disciples realise it is Jesus when the bread is broken because Jesus at the Last Supper made the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine (the Eucharist) into a sacrament. A sacrament is a visible sign of an inward grace and so it is something more than an epiphany. In a sacramental act there is a connection between the symbolic act and the reality being symbolised, which does not need to occur in an epiphany. So, an epiphany is a realisation or sign of significance, while a sacrament is a visual symbol of an inner change. For Christians the taking of bread and wine into our bodies symbolises the taking of Jesus into our lives. As a result, art (or the visual) can symbolise inner change and be sacramental.

This understanding of epiphany and sacrament is based on the doctrine of the Incarnation; the belief that, in Jesus, God himself became a human being and lived in a particular culture and time. Jesus is an epiphany because he is the visible image of the invisible God. For the Church this has been the primary reason why we have such a strong tradition of figurative art. As Rowan Williams has written, ‘God became truly human in Jesus … And if Jesus was indeed truly human, we can represent his human nature as with any other member of the human race.’ But when we do so ‘we’re not trying to show a humanity apart from divine life, but a humanity soaked through with divine life … We don’t depict just a slice of history when we depict Jesus; we show a life radiating the life and force of God.’

Williams goes on to write that it is when ‘we approach the whole matter in prayer and adoration’ that ‘the image that is made becomes in turn something that in its own way radiates [the] light and force’ of God. He is implying therefore that an important element of prayer is paying attention.

In 2007, the Uffizi Museum in Florence lent Leonardo da Vinci’s The Annunciation to the Tokyo National Museum for three months. More than 10,000 visitors flocked to the museum every day to see the renaissance masterpiece. A number which, when divided by the museum's opening hours, equates to each visitor having about three seconds in front of the painting - barely long enough to say the artist's name, let alone enjoy the subtleties of his work.

By contrast, a well-known art historian, observed as he entered the first room of the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery, went nose-to-nose with Leonardo's The Musician (1486), and there he stayed for about 10 minutes, rocking backwards and forwards, before moving from side-to-side, and then finally stepping back four paces and eyeing up the small painting from distance. And then he repeated the exercise. Twice.

The 10,000 visitors per day visiting the Tokyo National Museum during those three months wanted to see Leonardo’s Annunciation, but did they really ‘see’ it? They certainly didn’t see it in the same way that the art critic saw Leonardo's Musician.

Art historian Daniel Siedell has said: ‘It is a cliché, but I would suggest that one must approach contemporary art with an open mind … Attending to … details, looking closely, is a useful discipline for us as Christians, who are supposed to see Christ everywhere, especially in the faces of all people. If we dismiss artwork that is strange, unfamiliar, unconventional, if we are inattentive to visual details, how can we be attentive to those around us?’

The Bible is full of encouragement to reflect. The words, reflect, consider, ponder, meditate and examine, crop up everywhere. God encourages us to reflect on everything; his words (2 Timothy 2.7), his great acts (1 Samuel 12.24), his statutes (Psalm 119.95), his miracles (Mark 6.52), Jesus (Hebrews 3.1), God's servants (Job 1.8), the heavens (Psalm 8.3), the plants (Matthew 6.28), the weak (Psalm 41.1), the wicked (Psalm 37.10), oppression (Ecclesiastes 4.1), labour (Ecclesiastes 4.4), the heart (Proverbs 24.12), our troubles (Psalm 9.13), our enemies (Psalm 25.19), our sins (2 Corinthians 13.5). Everything is up for reflection but we are guided by the need to look for the excellent or praiseworthy (Philippians 4.8) and to learn from whatever we see or experience (Proverbs 24.32).

Clearly all this reflection cannot take place just at specific times. Just as we are told to pray always, the implication of the Bible's encouragement to reflection is that we should reflect at all times. We need to make a habit of reflection, a habit of learning from experience and of looking for the excellent things. We can do this by paying prayerful attention to all that is around us – what we see, do and experience. Everything around us can potentially be part of our ongoing conversation with God, part of which is reflection. This is a style of prayer that seems to go back at the very least to the Celtic Christians, who had a sense of the heavenly being found in the earthly, particularly in the ordinary tasks of home and work, together with the sense that every task can be blessed if we see God in it.

David Adam writes that, ‘If our God is to be found only in our churches and our private prayers, we are denuding the world of His reality and our faith of credibility. We need to reveal that our God is in all the world and waits to be discovered there – or, to be more exact, the world is in Him, all is in the heart of God.’

Attending to details in the way Daniel Seidell suggests is the outworking of St Paul’s words in Philippians 4. 8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things” (Philippians 4. 8). We are called to look for and look at these things as we go through life. This is an excellent approach to bear in mind when also looking at art.

Then, as Rowan Williams writes, visual images will be to us ‘human actions that seek to be open to God’s action’ and which can ‘open a gateway for God.’ If we pay prayerful attention, art can truly be epiphany and sacrament to us.

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Tom Jones - My Lord Did Trouble Me.