Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?

Here's the sermon I preached at tonight's Commemoration Service for Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II held at St Andrew's Wickford:

In the past week the doors of our churches have been open to groups including local businesses and uniformed groups as well as individuals from school children to care home residents all leaving their messages to Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in our Books of Condolence. One message in particular stood out for me; from a woman who wrote that the Queen had been “Our one constant that has seen so many monumental changes throughout the world.”

That message recognises that we live in troubled times and times of great change, specifically at present with a new Prime Minister and a new King in short succession. So, as a nation, we face hard economic challenges amidst constitutional and political upheaval. Writing about this situation for the BBC, Mark Easton has said: “There are questions about the values that underpin our governance, about what democracy and the rule of law should mean in a Britain adjusting to a new relationship with the wider world; what tolerance and fairness should look like in a country fearing severe hardship in a cost-of-living crisis; a kingdom unconvinced in some quarters that it even wants to remain as a single sovereign nation.”

We are facing some of those questions because Queen Elizabeth is no longer with us. The Queen has been a point of stability in our nation; our one constant as the message in our Book of Condolence said or, as one of those interviewed on the TV News put it, the Queen has “always been a constant, a real stable pillar” or as one TV commentator said, “We’d got used to thinking she was immortal.” For many of us, she has been the only monarch we have known. From Winston Churchill, to Liz Truss, 15 prime ministers have served the queen throughout her reign of 70 years. So, while prime ministers came and went, the Queen was always there, a point of continuity in political change to the extent, as several commentators have said, we, therefore, thought she might go on for ever. In terms of her character, she has exemplified the saying, ‘Keep calm and carry on’ and has, therefore, been a point of calm – an anchor – for many in the storms of life. In terms of her role, she has been a point of stability as representative for the traditions, freedoms and responsibilities of our history and our system of parliamentary government.

The Queen was able to be an anchor for others because she saw God as her anchor. She said, “For me, the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace … is an inspiration and an anchor in my life.” For her, “the teachings of Christ” and her “own personal accountability before God” provided the framework through which she tried to lead her life. She also spoke of the way prayer sustained her. In 1992, in a speech to mark the 40th anniversary of her accession, she thanked all those who had prayed for her and said that those prayers ‘sustained me through all these years’.

Like the Queen, King Charles III has also highlighted the inspiration that his faith provides in speaking of the Church of England - the Church in which his “own faith is so deeply rooted.” He said that: “In that faith, and the values it inspires, I have been brought up to cherish a sense of duty to others, and to hold in the greatest respect the precious traditions, freedoms and responsibilities of our unique history and our system of parliamentary government.” He then went on to say that: “As the Queen herself did with such unswerving devotion, I too now solemnly pledge myself, throughout the remaining time God grants me, to uphold the constitutional principles at the heart of our nation.” He ended by saying that, “in carrying out the heavy task that has been laid upon me, and to which I now dedicate what remains to me of my life, I pray for the guidance and help of almighty God.”

There’s a hymn that asks:

“Will your anchor hold in the storms of life,
When the clouds unfold their wings of strife?
When the strong tides lift, and the cables strain,
Will your anchor drift or firm remain?”

I am regularly meeting people at present who are essentially asking themselves that very question as life becomes more challenging and some of what we had previously viewed as certainties have been stripped away from us. When some of the basics in life, such as food and warmth, are threatened or become unaffordable, we begin to question the ability of the state and the private sector to provide and start to wonder whether God’s provision and support might actually be something we need.

In 1947, in her 21st birthday speech, Queen Elizabeth prayed, that God would help her to make good her vow to devote the whole of her life to the service of her people. She spoke often about how she asked for God’s help in undertaking her highly important role. She knew that she needed great strength to be able to serve others in the way to which she had committed.

She also saw the way in which Jesus provides an example for us of how to live an unselfish life in circumstances of adversity, saying in her 2008 Christmas Broadcast: “I hope that, like me, you will be comforted by the example of Jesus of Nazareth who, often in circumstances of great adversity, managed to live an outgoing, unselfish and sacrificial life … He makes it clear that genuine human happiness and satisfaction lie more in giving than receiving; more in serving than in being served.” His example was the reason why, in her 2020 Christmas Broadcast, she said, “We continue to … draw comfort that - even on the darkest nights - there is hope in the new dawn.”

The life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace was an inspiration and an anchor in the life of Queen Elizabeth. She was able to be an anchor – a point of stability – for others because Jesus was her anchor; an anchor that held and proved firm in the storms of life. As we face increasing storms without the example of Her Majesty, holding onto the anchor to which she held might be worth considering; doing so was certainly something she commended.

God is an anchor that holds firm not only for the present but also for the future, as Queen Elizabeth is now experiencing herself. Our Bible reading tonight (Revelation 21.1-7) speaks of the new heaven and new earth that God will create where there will be no more death, mourning, crying and pain. God’s promise is that we will inherit these things, living for eternity on earth with God’s kingdom come as it is in heaven where God will be our God and we will be God’s children. That reality is what Queen Elizabeth now experiences. Her anchor held firm in the storms of life and has drawn her through those storms into eternal rest.

“Will your anchor hold in the storms of life,
When the clouds unfold their wings of strife?
When the strong tides lift, and the cables strain,
Will your anchor drift or firm remain?”

The Queen has been “a constant, a real stable pillar,” a centre of calm, a point of stability, an anchor in the storms of life, for us. For her, however, it was the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, was inspiration and anchor in her life. May it be so for us too. Amen.

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Audrey Assad - Abide With Me.

CTiW and the congestion charge extension

Churches Together in Westminster have, along with representatives of other faith communities in central London, made representations to the Mayor of London regarding the recent extension to the Congestion Charge.

Here is a series of links to the main coverage thus far in relation to the issues we have raised regarding the congestion charge extension:

• Sunday Programme Radio 4 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000l1w1
• Church Times - https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/24-july/news/uk/london-churches-appeal-to-mayor-over-congestion-charge-rise
• BBC News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53136450
• BBC London News - https://www.jesuit.org.uk/congestion-charge-hike-farm-street-speaks-churchgoers
• Premier Radio - https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/changes-to-congestion-charges-may-force-churches-to-close

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Total praise - Regent Hall Salvation Army Church.

Central London churches and the Congestion Charge extension

As Chair of Churches Together in Westminster I have written to the Mayor of London regarding the extension to the Congestion Charge and its possible effect on churches. Other religious leaders in central London have also written along similar lines. 

My letter began as follows:

'The churches of Westminster, on whose behalf I write, have shown full support for the lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, in some cases going beyond the Government guidance for places of worship in order to ensure the aim of flattening the curve has been achieved.

Additionally, we support the need to reduce vehicle use in central London, to improve air quality and maximise health benefits, including the expanded promotion of alternative transport, especially cycling. Many of our churches and congregation members are actively working in practical ways for the achievement of these goals and have changed their own practices as a result.

Nevertheless, the Extension to the Congestion Charge Scheme will have a significant and deleterious effect on the sustainability of our churches. Many of these churches maintain buildings which are a key element of central London’s architectural heritage drawing tourists to the capital city, deliver a substantial proportion of its cultural programming, and provide a very significant amount of its community and support services to those who are most vulnerable in society.'

The issues we have raised have been covered by the BBC at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000kkpz/bbc-london-evening-news-28062020 and

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53136450#.

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Westminster Cathedral Choir - O Magnum Mysterium.

Specks, Logs and Projective Identification

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

"Amen, you wonderful priest." The climatic scene in the BBC drama Broken had Fr Michael, the central character, sharing the Eucharist at a Mass for his dead mother, with each of his parishioners saying to him as they received, "Amen, you wonderful priest".

Events had conspired to create a crisis of faith for him at this point in the drama and he had planned to step down as a priest as a result. We presume though that the affirmation he receives from his parishioners at this low moment in his ministry enables him to continue.

Broken is an excellent example of a drama based on a good priest. There have been others in recent years; the comedy Rev and the film Calvary, for example. What they all have in common is the understanding that a good priest is not perfect.

In Broken, Fr Michael clearly struggles with his own demons at the same time that he comes alongside his parishioners to support them in their struggles. Indeed, he is enabled to support them with empathy and understanding because he is honest about his own struggles. It is this honesty and vulnerability which makes him 'good', not any sense of supposed moral perfection.

In our Gospel passage (Luke 6. 37 - 42) Jesus illustrates how easy we find it to criticise others - to see the speck in another’s eye, whilst ignoring the log in our own. Jesus is calling us to become, like Fr Michael, aware primarily of our own faults and failings (this is, after all, the point of including confession in church services) and then to use this awareness not to prevent us from acting (because we are overwhelmed by guilt) but instead to use it as a spur to acting to support and enable others out of the empathy and understanding that results from our awareness of our own shortcomings.

‘Maybe you know the saying, "When you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back to you." Jesus had a version of this wisdom when he said, "Don't focus on the speck in your brother's eye while ignoring the log in your own eye." When cruel accusations fly, we all need to hear the voice of reason that says, "Look in the mirror … You might just be talking about yourself" …

We all know what it's like to get caught up in the heat of the moment. When we cannot bear to see something painful in ourselves, we want to get rid of it. We want to relocate the ugliness we feel about ourselves and put it into someone else. We say those bad feelings do not apply to us; they apply to someone else. The fancy psychoanalytic term for this unconscious process is projective identification. We get rid of the unwanted feelings (projection) and identify them as belonging to someone else (identification).' (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/headshrinkers-guide-the-galaxy/201109/three-fingers-pointing-back-you)

Jesus is calling for us to look within ourselves for our faults before we ever start pointing them out in others. Another proverb covers similar ground: There is so much good in the worst of us, / There is so much bad in the best of us / That it ill behoves any of us /To find fault with the rest of us.

Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted this proverb when he said, ‘There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.’ In reflecting on this quote, Katha Waters, Bookstore and Resource Center Manager at The King Center, suggests that we often don’t see things as they are, but instead see things as we are. People often seem to judge others not based on the real person, but on their own prejudices. Since perception is reality to most people, we often misjudge others based on misconceived generalizations. As we have been reflecting, no one is perfect, no one is all good or bad. To understand this should be to have better tolerance for people and not let hate overcome us. So, next time we are tempted to criticise another person, maybe we should stop to think whether we are really judging them or are really looking at a reflection of ourselves (http://www.thekingcenter.org/blog/mlk-quote-week-good-and-evil-all-us).

The point of this isn’t that we become overwhelmed by guilt or a sense of failure. Instead, Jesus is calling us to become, like Fr Michael, aware primarily of our own faults and failings in order to use this awareness as a spur to acting to support and enable others out of the empathy and understanding that results from our awareness of our own shortcomings.

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Nina Simone - I Think It's Going To Rain Today.

Start:Stop - This is his commandment

Bible reading

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action … Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us. (1 John 3. 16 – 24)

Meditation

In a recent episode of Broken, the gritty drama on the BBC about a Roman Catholic priest and his parishioners, Father Michael had to mediate when one of his parishioner’s Helen Oyenusi, the mother of a son with mental health issues who has been killed by the Police, was visited by her devout brother, Daniel Martin, who then clashed violently with her gay neighbour, Carl McKenna, as all were trying to come to terms with her son, Vernon's, death. In a moving statement at the end of the episode, Helen spoke about the way in which Carl’s mother had loved her son and simply accepted the reality of his sexuality. She said that, ‘Her love was unconditional and that’s exactly how it should be.’

That is what the writer of the Letter of John also says: ‘Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.’ He also said that ‘We know love by this, that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us.’ That is unconditional love, and, as a result, ‘we ought to lay down our lives for one another’ because this is Christ’s commend to us – God’s commandment is ‘that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another.’

Jesus and his first disciples lived in a culture where there were 613 commandments in the Torah, the Law of Moses. The Pharisees had then taken these 613 commandments and multiplied these commandments by creating detailed instructions about the ways in which each of these commandments was to be kept. Keeping all of these additional rules was a heavy burden for all who tried to do so and a point of tension and conflict for Jesus and the Pharisees.

Jesus, by contrast, taught that love was the fulfilling of the Law. Instead of keeping the endless detail of the regulations created by the Pharisees, Jesus said that we should simply love God, ourselves and our neighbours and that all the Law of Moses is actually designed to that end. This was liberating teaching which brought rest for those weighed down by the burden of trying to keep hundreds of commandments and thousands of additional regulations.

As Christians we are not called to keep 613 specific individual Commandments and are certainly not called to practice the additional detailed instructions relating to them devised by the Pharisees. Instead, there is one simple command which fulfils all the Law, when genuinely practised, and that is the love of which Helen Oyenusi spoke, unconditional love.

The one commandment of God is that we should ‘believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.’ All who obey this commandment abide in God, and he abides in them. We know what this love is like because Jesus laid down his life for us and, therefore, this one commandment requires everything of us; that we, too, ought to lay down our lives for others.

Prayers

Your love flows like a stream into the ocean of your Grace. Your love encircles this world, displays your faithfulness. Your love is patient and kind, brings wholeness and true peace. Your love is all we desire to heal our brokenness. As all things pass and fade away love remains eternally. We pray that our lives would be filled and overflowing with the power of your love so we can make a difference in this world and bring honour to you. We ask for your help in reminding us that the most important things are not what we do outwardly, it’s not based on any talent or gift, but the most significant thing we can do in this life is simply to love you and to choose to love others. Lord thank you that your love is kind. Help us to extend kindness to others.

Lord thank you that your love is patient. Help us show patience with those around us. Lord thank you that true love is not jealous. Help us cast aside feelings of jealousy or hatred towards others. Lord thank you that your love does not brag and is not arrogant. Help us not to live with pride or arrogance, but to choose to walk with humility and grace. Lord thank you that true love does not act unbecomingly. Lord help us to extend kindness instead of rudeness towards others. Help us to lay aside the critical tone and tearing down with our words, so that we can truly walk in peace. Lord thank you that true love does not seek its own. Lord help us not to live selfishly, looking only to our own interests. Lord thank you that your love is kind. Help us to extend kindness to others.

Help us to love as you love. Fill us with your Spirit so that we can choose what is best. We are weak Lord, but we know also, that even when we are weak, you are strong within us. Thank you that it’s not all up to us. Thank you that you equip us to face each day with the power of your love, your forgiveness, and your grace. Lord thank you that your love is kind. Help us to extend kindness to others.

The Blessing

O Lord, to you we raise this our offering of praise for the love you have shown us since the moment of our birth. May we love You in all things and above all things. May we reach the joy which You have prepared for us in Heaven. And may the blessing of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest on us and remain with us now and forever. Amen.

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Victoria Williams - You R Loved.

Broken, Dibley, Rev and Calvary

Broken has rightly been called a flawless depiction of a good priest. Jo Siedlecka writes that:

'Jimmy McGovern’s pitch perfect writing and Sean Bean’s hypnotic, understated performance as Fr Michael Kerrigan did not disappoint. This drama portrays one of those many good priests, who has really taken to heart the advice of Pope Francis to bring the healing power of God’s grace to everyone in need, to stay close to the marginalised and to be “shepherds living with the smell of the sheep.”

We are used to seeing clergy depicted performing their sacramental roles. But the huge amount of pastoral work the average Catholic priest does often goes unrecognised - the visits to the housebound, those in prison or in hospital, accompanying people in times of crisis. All those deaths, weddings, baptisms and funerals. All those problems. All that listening! This series has gone behind the scenes for what feels like a very authentic portrayal of life in a run down north country parish.'

It's worth pointing out, however, that seeing the dramatic and comedic potential of 'good priests' began in recent years firstly with The Vicar of Dibley followed by Rev. Set in a fictional small Oxfordshire village 'which is assigned a female vicar following the 1992 changes in the Church of England that permitted the ordination of women', The Vicar of Dibley has all the elements which characterise the phenomenon of the 'good priest' in comedy or drama i.e. a committed but flawed priest struggling with personal failings and the demands of contemporary ministry. Rev is a grittier reworking of the comedic value of the 'good priest' in being 'a contemporary sitcom about the daily frustrations and moral conflicts of Reverend Adam Smallbone - a Church of England Vicar who was 'promoted' from a sleepy rural parish to the busy, inner-city world of St Saviour's, in East London':

'It is an impossibly difficult job being a good, modern, city vicar. And, equally, it's a very hard job being married to one. Alex - Adam's long-suffering wife - does her best to support him, but she's got her own career as a solicitor to worry about. And she is no-one's idea of a conventional vicar's wife ... Every day throws up a moral conflict for the vicar. Adam's door must always be open to urban sophisticates with ulterior motives, the chronically lonely, the lost, the homeless, the poor and the insane. All are welcome at St Saviour's and Adam can't turn any of them away - even if they're clearly lying, mad or just very annoying.'

'Heavily researched and supported by anecdotes from a number of working city vicars and Church insiders, Rev lifts the lid on how the modern Church actually functions and what life is really like in a dog collar.'

Dramas featuring good priests continued with 'Calvary, a 2014 Irish drama film written and directed by John Michael McDonagh.' 'McDonagh explained the intentions he had for the film: "There are probably films in development about priests which involve abuse. My remit is to do the opposite of what other people do, and I wanted to make a film about a good priest."' He has also said, “The idea was a good man, a good priest, and what that would entail in a modern life where everything is ironic and insincere. Let’s follow a sincere man through to the end.”

'Calvary is a blackly comedic drama about a priest tormented by his community. Father James is a good man intent on making the world a better place. When his life is threatened one day during confession, he finds he has to battle the dark forces closing in around him.'

'McDonagh has called the film “basically Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest with a few gags thrown in,” and the film name-checks Catholic novelist Georges Bernanos, whose novel Bresson’s film is based on.

Like Diary of a Country Priest, Calvary is about a good priest in a small village where attitudes toward him range from benign indifference to contempt and abuse.

Yet where Bresson’s saintly protagonist was a wan young consumptive who could be wounded by something as minor as a saucy schoolgirl impudently flirting with him, Father James — played by the physically imposing Brendan Gleeson in a grizzled beard and cassock that makes him an even more formidable presence — is a battered Celtic warrior who seems impossible to rattle ...

it is Father James, alone among the cast, who offers a persuasive, integral, authentic example of what a human being should look like: too honest for cant, too jaded for naiveté, too self-aware for illusions, too solicitous for self-absorption, too fallen for self-righteousness, too down to earth for self-importance.'

The development of 'good priest' stories has gone hand-in-hand with reality TV series such as A Country Parish and An Island Parish which, again, demonstrate significant levels of interest in the demands of the priestly role within contemporary culture. This is a phenomenon that would reward more research and review as it would seem true the case that, rightly depicted or dramatised (i.e. with a honest focus on the commitment, struggle and integrity of the priest) authentic portrayals of parish life can generate significant interest and empathy. This is, in part, as Jo Siedlecka notes, because of the huge amount of pastoral work the average priest does; the visits to the housebound, those in prison or in hospital, accompanying people in times of crisis, all those deaths, weddings, baptisms and funerals, all those problems, all that listening!

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Ray Davies - Broken.

One Commandment: Love one another

Here's my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

I imagine that some of you have been watching Broken, the gritty drama on the BBC about a Roman Catholic priest and his parishioners. The series feels very real as this priest grapples with his own demons, while seeking to be with and minister to the issues and needs in his parish.

In last Tuesday’s episode, Father Michael had to mediate when one of his parishioner’s Helen Oyenusi, the mother of a son with mental health issues who has been killed by the Police, was visited by her devout brother, Daniel Martin, who then clashed violently with her gay neighbour, Carl McKenna, as all were trying to come to terms with her son, Vernon's, death.

The conflict between Carl and Daniel unfolded with horrid inevitability. Hurt feelings fed by a lifetime of bullying clashed with bigotry fed by scripture, and the result promised to be devastating. Pride—a constant theme of this series—threatened to cause yet more pain. Instead, urged by Helen and Father Michael, Carl’s magnanimity gave us a happy ending. Carl repaid Helen’s kindness and demonstrated his own by dropping the charges against Daniel, a man puffed up with faith-backed intolerance. In a moving statement Helen spoke about the way in which Carl’s mother had loved her son and simply accepted the reality of his sexuality. She said that, ‘Her love was unconditional and that’s exactly how it should be.’

That is what the writer of the Letter of John (1 John 3. 13 - 24) also says: ‘Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.’ He also said that ‘We know love by this, that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us.’ That is unconditional love, and, as a result, ‘we ought to lay down our lives for one another’ because this is Christ’s commend to us – God’s commandment is ‘that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another.’

Jesus and his first disciples lived in a culture where there were 613 commandments in the Torah, the Law of Moses, divided up into 248 positive commandments (Thou shalt's) and 365 negative commandments (Thou shalt not's). The Pharisees had then taken these 613 commandments which were to do with the detail of life - shaving, tattoos, clothing, work, food and drink, farming, money and so on – and multiplied these commandments by creating detailed instructions about the ways in which each of these commandments was to be kept. Keeping all of these additional rules was a heavy burden for all who tried to do so and a point of tension and conflict for Jesus and the Pharisees.

Jesus, by contrast, taught that love was the fulfilling of the Law. Instead of keeping the endless detail of the regulations created by the Pharisees, Jesus said that we should simply love God, ourselves and our neighbours and that all the Law of Moses is actually designed to that end. This was liberating teaching which brought rest for those weighed down by the burden of trying to keep hundreds of commandments and thousands of additional regulations.

When asked to name the greatest commandment, Jesus endorsed the summary of the Law which speaks about love for God, love for ourselves and love for others. St Paul took this teaching to heart and wrote in his letter to the Church in Rome (Romans 13. 8 - 10) saying: ‘The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.’

He repeats this in his letter to the church in Galatia (Galatians 5. 14) says: ‘the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”’ He concludes that, ‘in Christ Jesus … the only thing that counts is faith working through love.’

As Christians we are not called to keep 613 specific individual Commandments and are certainly not called to practice the additional detailed instructions relating to them devised by the Pharisees. Instead, there is one simple command which fulfils all the Law, when genuinely practised, and that is the love of which Helen Oyenusi spoke, unconditional love.

The commandment of God is that we should ‘believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.’ All who obey this commandment abide in God, and he abides in them. We know what this love is like because Jesus laid down his life for us and, therefore, this one commandment requires everything of us; that we, too, ought to lay down our lives for others.

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Bruce Cockburn - Strong Hand Of Love.

Francis Bacon: Almost a religious painter

Francis Bacon: A Brush with Violence was a 'unique, compelling film,' where those who knew him spoke freely, some for the first time, to reveal the many mysteries of Francis Bacon.

'Artist and friend Maggie Hambling suggested that “his work can be seen as a search for God,” while art critic John Richardson reckoned that Bacon is now seen “almost as a religious painter”.'

Gillean Craig explored this theme further in his Church Times review:

'“ALMOST a religious painter” might seem the most unlikely trib­ute to pay to the subject of Francis Bacon: A brush with violence (BBC2, Saturday), given his deliberate im­­mer­sion in a world of excess, his drinking, his promiscuity, his eagerness to inflict pain and (even more keenly) have it inflicted upon him­, and his production of picture after picture that, instead of hiding such proclivities, displayed them to the public as open wounds; and yet, shockingly, I think that it is true.

The images are flayed and vis­ceral, but their agony is that of a shriek de profundis. Not only is this a legitimate religious position: he was also drawn again and again to explicitly religious subjects: the scream­ing popes and the creatures at the foot of the cross, which can be, and were, dismissed as wilful expressions of hatred for Christianity.

But it makes more sense to see this continual return to Christian imagery as a profound engagement with, and deconstruction of, the impulse to faith which comes not from inside ourselves but is rather a response to the God who will not let us go.

Bacon brings us face to face with the hard stuff of Christianity: incarnation, flesh and blood naked on the canvas, sacrifice, mystery. This fine documentary told Bacon’s story through personal remin­iscences, a life scarcely believ­able in its combination of sordid, criminal depths and extraordinary creativity.'

Crucifixions: Francis Bacon will be at St Stephen Walbrook from 6-31 March 2017, 10.00am – 4.00pm Mon – Fri (Weds, 11.00am – 3.00pm), 

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James MacMillan - Seven Last Words From The Cross.

St Stephen Walbrook: Summer Newsletter 2016

The Summer 2016 Newsletter for St Stephen Walbrook has just been published. Highlights include:

• Priesting: Revd Sally Muggeridge / One of the 10 most beautiful ceilings in the world
• Discover & explore / Week of Prayer 2016
• The Life & Legend of St Stephen
• Future events & services / Partnership Service
• Spring 2016 events
• Ordinand’s Placement / Using St Stephen Walbrook / Music at St Stephen Walbrook

The newsletter can be read by clicking here.

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St Martin's Voices - Shall We Gather At The River.

Celebrating Jack Clemo's centenary

For some years the Arts Centre Group (ACG) has run a poetry competition in memory of Cornish poet Jack Clemo. Entries have just closed for this year's edition, which marks the centenary of Clemo's birth.

On Saturday 14 May the ACG will be holding a day of celebration with special guests, at the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity in Vere Street, London, culminating in the presentation of the 2016 Jack Clemo Poetry Competition prizes by the Bishop of Truro, Rt Revd Tim Thornton.

Highlights of the day's programme include:

11.00 Coffee and arrivals
11.25 Norman Stone introduces his 1980 BBC TV drama on the life of Jack Clemo "A Different Drummer”
12.30 Q and A with Director Norman Stone
13.00 Lunch
13.45 Keynote speech from Dr Luke Thompson, author of the new Jack Clemo biography, “Clay Phoenix. The Life and Writing of Jack Clemo”
14.30 Panel discussion with special guests including poet Steve Turner
15.30 Presentation of 2016 Jack Clemo Awards and reading of winning poems
16.45 Event ends

Tickets are £10 for the whole day including lunch/refreshments etc or £5 for either the morning or afternoon session with refreshments included. To help plan catering etc, ACG need you to book by FRIDAY 15th APRIL at the latest and send your payment by the end of April. The easiest way to pay is via the website - www.artscentregroup.org.uk, or call the office between 11.30 and 5.30pm on the following days: Monday 11 and Friday 15 April – (0207 407 1881).

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Jack Clemo - The Broadening Spring.

Disaster response: Lahore bombing

A powerful bomb blast rocked Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore on Easter Sunday evening. The blast is believed to have killed over 60 people and to have injured over 200 local police have said.

In Pakistan Christians have a long running tradition of celebrating as a family at local park fun fairs after their morning devotions. This practice has never been a secret and after the Lahore Twin Church bomb attack took a low death toll due to the tight voluntary security workforces at both churches, a pernicious Taliban splinter group targeted Christian women and children at a popular Easter venue at Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park. The bomb that was packed full of ball bearings was set of near the children's area with intent to pick off the most vulnerable of visitors to the park. A large number of families, especially women and children, were present when the blast took place Many of these are believed to be Christians as it is a common tradition for families to go to a local funfair to celebrate the birth of Christ after their Easter devotions.

The British Pakistani Christian Association has initiated an immediate disaster recovery and calls for as much help as can as be given as number of fatalities and casualties are increasing by the hour. Donations will be used to support victims with funeral costs, medical fees, rehabilitation of those injured, trauma counselling and restoration of families who will have lost a main bread-winner or will be laid of work for some time. Details of how to donate can be found by clicking (here). The BCPA's petition can be signed here (click here).

Casualties have been taken to local hospitals including Lahore General Hospital which does not have a special burns unit. It is believed the attack took place during the celebrations of Easter in an attempt to target Christians. Distraught family members have gathered outside local hospitals and the government has announced a three day mourning period. Read full story (click here).

Also see the BCPA's story on the BBC documentary 'Thailand's Asylum Crackdown,'. Chris Rogers has been undercover in Thailand to expose how the country treats its asylum seekers. Pakistani Christians fleeing extremist violence are among the second largest group of asylum seekers in Thailand. Many are routinely rounded up and sent indefinitely to immigration detention centres or locked up in jails. Their crime: to be seeking asylum, in a country which does not recognise refugees. Wilson Chowdhry Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association helped Chris Rogers, and organised direct contact with victims being helped by the BPCA. Read full story and watch video (click here).

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Ooberfuse ft Archbishop Warda of Iraq - We Are One.

Reflecting on family life & climate change

Tomorrow, at St Martin-in-the-Fields, we host BBC Radio 4 Sunday Worship. The occasion is Mothering Sunday and the theme is ‘A sword will pierce your own heart also.’ The preacher is Revd Anna Poulson, whose daughter had Aicardi Syndrome and died aged three.

Then, at our 10.00am Eucharist, I will be preaching on the theme of What constitutes family life? Remembering Jesus and his Mother, with reflections drawn from our 'Praying with Dementia' evening and my own experience of extended family life.

At our 5.00pm Issues of our Time service, Revd Dr Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, explores the Church’s perspective on the themes of our time. Tomorrow's theme is Climate Change: Crisis Management or Full-Scale Repentance? While ecology is always among the leading concerns of our time, two events happened in 2015 to give it an especial focus. The first was the publication in June of the papal encyclical Laudato si'. The second was the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris in December. The two events map the territory of the ecological crisis in contrasting ways. In his sermon Sam intends to dig inside both the Pope’s thinking and that of the Paris delegates, and identify what the ecological debate is really about, and where we can focus our energies in responding faithfully to it.

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Sergei Rachmaninoff - Ave Maria.

The religious art of the Pope of Pop

"Andy was a Catholic
The ethic ran through his bones
He lived alone with his mother
Collecting gossip and toys

Every Sunday when he went to Church
He'd kneel in his pew and he'd say
It's work, all that matters is work"

('Work' from 'Songs for Drella' by Lou Reed & John Cale)

"To believe the envious Truman Capote, Andy was a Sphinx without a secret. In fact, he did have a secret, one that the kept dark from all but his closest friends: he was exceedingly devout - so much so that he made daily visits to the church of Saint Vincent Ferrer on the Upper East Side of Manhattan... Although famously thrifty, he was also secretly charitable. Besides giving financial support, he often spent evenings working in a shelter for the homeless run by the Church of the Heavenly Rest. It was not soppy social consciousness or guilt that prompted Andy's good works; it was atavism as personified by his adored and adoring mother, the pious Julia." John Richardson [from "Warhol at Home" in Sacred Monsters, Sacred Masters (London: Pimlico, 2001), p. 247-8]

"What was Warhol's religious affiliation?

His family was from the Ukraine, and his mother spoke Czech only. She was extremely pious. It was a form of Catholicism, sort of between Catholicism and the Byzantine Rite church. Warhol concealed it from people, but he never left home without saying prayers with his mother.

Often, he went to the church that was near his home. I interviewed the prior there, and he told me how Warhol would come in every evening and sit in the back pew, in the shadows. He didn't want to be recognized as Andy Warhol. He just prayed and sat there. Sometimes he would come to Sunday services, too.

How did his religious practice influence his art, do you think?

Mostly it seems to have influenced his work in the last two years of life. That's when he painted many, many different versions of "The Last Supper," some of which were ravishingly beautiful. The way he manipulates the medium, the application of the paint on the silk screen so that it isn't flat but has contours to it. It's really lovely."

(Berkeley art historian Jane Dillenberger on creativity, prayer and the spirituality of Andy Warhol)

"Two images of Andy Warhol exist in the popular press: the Pope of Pop of the Sixties, and the partying, fright-wigged Andy of the Seventies. In the two years before he died, however, Warhol made over 100 paintings, drawings, and prints based on Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. The dramatic story of these works is told in this book [The Religious Art of Andy Warhol] for the first time. Revealed here is the part of Andy Warhol that he kept very secret: his lifelong church attendance and his personal piety. Art historian and curator Jane Daggett Dillenberger explores the sources and manifestations of Warhol's spiritual side, the manifestations of which are to be found in the celebrated paintings of the last decade of Warhol's life: his Skull paintings, the prints based on Renaissance religious artwork, the Cross paintings, and the large series based on The Last Supper."

To what extent will these perspectives feature or inform BBC Four Goes Pop: A week-long celebration of Pop Art across BBC Four, Radio and Online?

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Lou Reed - Dime Store Mystery.

Lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles

The Observer suggests that this summer bigger crowds than usual are set to travel up the long driveway to see the decorated furniture, flamboyant fabrics and wall paintings of Charleston, the Sussex home once shared by artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, where key scenes in the lavish BBC2 drama Life in Squares were filmed. Also on the tourist trail will be Monks House at nearby Rodmell, where Virginia and Leonard Woolf lived, and Berwick church, which the group decorated at the request of Bishop George Bell.

I visited Berwick Church as part of my sabbatical art pilgrimage and my report of this visit can be read by clicking here. This commission was the first time in the twentieth century in the UK that a modern artist of national standing undertook a complete decorative scheme for an historic rural church. Bell and others involved believed that if the project was successful, 'it would stimulate demand for commissions in churches all over the country to alleviate the plight of many artists.'

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Frédéric Chopin - Concerto pour piano n° 2 (Larghetto).

Lord, disarm violence and begin with me

Last year a poster for the children’s Horrible Histories stage tour attracted protests from parents. Horrible Histories, as many of you will know, describes itself as 'history with the nasty bits left in.' It is a series which has inspired millions of children to discover history because the books have ‘got ALL the yucky bits and foul facts that other books leave out.’

The posters, advertising the 'Barmy Britain' tour, featured a big picture of an executioner holding an axe and a bloody head and were labelled as being in 'shockingly bad taste' by furious parents in the wake of the beheading of Western hostages by ISIS militants. A father-of-two from Chelmsford, said: 'The posters are shocking in light of the recent events in the news and in really bad taste. The pictures are meant to be showing events in history, but sadly beheadings are still going on and are all too real.’ Neal Foster, director and producer of the show, said: 'It is unfortunate and we are sympathetic to anyone who is offended by the poster, but it was designed in July 2013, a long time before these recent incidents came to attention.’

These responses were interesting because they seem to suggest that as long as the nasty events of history are kept firmly in the past we can enjoy history with all the foul facts left in but as soon as those same events feature in our present we have a problem with showing and viewing them.

I wonder whether the same holds true for similarly violent Biblical stories such as today’s Gospel reading about the beheading of John the Baptist. This and other similar stories, such as that of Judith and Holofernes, have inspired graphic and gruesome images by great artists such as Botticello, Caravaggio, Guercino and Veronese, among others.

A recent visit to St Martin’s by Merchant Taylor’s School Choir to lead Choral Evensong coincided with a lengthy Old Testament reading in which Samson killed large numbers of Philistines, tortured animals and slept with a prostitute. How do we understand such passages? Should they be censored, as happened to the ‘Barmy Britain’ posters? Do we find the blood and gore attractive, repulsive, or are we immune to it?

The recent BBC1 drama A Song for Jenny focused on Jenny’s mother, Julie Nicholson, an ordained priest who quit her position because she could not forgive the suicide bomber who murdered her daughter. Sam Wollaston wrote in his review that the drama shows ‘the aftershocks of the blast – the tearing apart of the bond between a mother and daughter criminally prematurely, as well as of an underground carriage … It’s about the damage it does to other relationships, Julie’s with her husband, Julie’s with God. She too is not just a Christian, she’s a priest. But there is no forgiveness, there’s anger. Plus a desperate bleak emptiness that no faith, or family or friends can fill. And, though she never actually uses the word, it’s about hatred’.

In last Sunday's Radio 4 worship from St Martin-in-the-Fields, Barbara Brown Taylor spoke about ‘those who keep deciding not to hate the haters, who keep risking the fatal wound of love and teaching others to do the same—because that is how we prepare the ground around us to receive the seeds of heaven when they come.’ Our Autumn Lecture Series will explore both these perspectives reflecting on how faith can become both the cause and perpetrator of conflict and persecution, and also the victim. God can often appear impotent in the face of violence but is also perceived, in the Old Testament in particular, as the perpetrator of violence.

The first thing I want to say in the light of all this is that the Bible does not give us a sanitised version of violence. If anything, the reverse is the case and the Bible can easily be seen, like the Horrible Histories, as full of blood and gore. There is realism in our Scriptures about nature, and human nature in particular, being red in tooth and claw. This realism sees each one of us as having the potential for violence, whether we ascribe that to sin or the survival of the fittest. As studies examining complicity in the Holocaust tend to show, those involved were not monsters, ‘beasts or aliens’ and the overwhelming brutality involved appeared to arise easily ‘in the context of 1930s Germany, with its background of economic depression, political disenchantment and frustrated nationalist sentiment’. This suggests that we are all actually at different points on the same continuum between peace and violence and the saying, 'there, but for the grace of God, go I' carries a profound truth about which we need to be honest and repentant.

Our complicity with violence often leads us to make God over in our own violent image. Bob Dylan described this tendency well in the song ‘With God on our Side’. We begin with the belief that the land that we live in has God on its side and from there we interpret every change and challenge in our history as indicating that God is truly on our side. This, as Dylan notes in the 5th verse, can lead to the confusions of changing sides in war and peace. So, during the Second World War we believed that the German nation did not have God on their side but once the War ended and there was reconstruction with the German nation becoming our allies that changed and they now had God on their side, despite all that had previously occurred during the war.

Our human tendency to believe that God is on our side pervades the Old Testament and can be described as the core testimony about God. As this core testimony sees God as being on our side, it legitimizes and justifies our national interests. In this way of thinking our enemies are God's enemies and we petition him in prayer to smite and destroy those who are our and, therefore, also his enemies.

Also found in the Old Testament, however, is a counter testimony which, at times, can seem overwhelmed or submerged by the core testimony but which is, nevertheless, a thread running throughout scripture. The counter testimony says that God, rather than being about power and rather than being on the side of those in power, is actually most concerned about those who are crushed by the power-mongers of this world; those who are victims, those who are poor, those who are powerless, those who are excluded, those who are scapegoats.

These two testimonies about God are both present throughout the Bible with the core testimony often appearing dominant. But, we believe, at a particular point in human history God himself entered human history in the person of Jesus in order to show us in actions and words just what God is actually like. In Jesus, the counter testimony becomes prominent as Jesus lives, teaches, dies and rises not only as an example of compassion toward those who are victims, excluded and scapegoated but also becomes a victim, becomes excluded, becomes a scapegoat himself. When God is revealed in human history it is as a victim of violence, not as a perpetrator of violence.

God's revelation in Jesus continues a subversion of the human story of violence that actually began in the Old Testament. René Girard suggests that the story of Cain and Abel reveals the way in which we consistently act as human beings. We desire something that is possessed by someone else and become disturbed through our longing for what we don’t have. We resolve our disturbance by creating a scapegoat of the person or people who appear to have or prevent us from having what it is we desire. When the scapegoat is killed we can gain what we desire and also release the sense of disturbance that we feel.

This is what we see acted out in the story of Herodias and Salome. The privileges that Herodias and Salome enjoy seem to be threatened and they identify John the Baptist as the threat to their continued enjoyment of their desires. John is therefore scapegoated and killed to remove their sense of threat.

This pattern becomes expressed in religions involving human sacrifices as scapegoats to appease their gods. It is out of such religions that Abraham is called to form a people who do not sacrifice other human beings, but instead use animals as their scapegoats and sacrifices. Jesus is later born into this people who have subverted the existing practice of scapegoating and he further subverts this practice because, as he is crucified, God becomes the scapegoat that is killed.

The crucifixion is, therefore, the logical outcome of the incarnation. To use the language of our Vicar, Sam Well's, Nazareth Manifesto, God is not simply for victims. God is with victims, because God is a victim. God is not simply for the excluded. God is with the excluded, because God is excluded. God is not simply for those who are scapegoated. God is with scapegoats, because God is a scapegoat. When God is scapegoated, there is no longer any god to appease and the necessity for scapegoating is superceded, subverted and eradicated.

This is the reality in which Christianity calls us to live. A world beyond Horrible Histories, beyond scapegoating, beyond victimisation and beyond exclusion. A world in which the mechanisms for justifying and acting out our violent desires have been dismantled and rendered null and void. A world, as Barbara Brown Taylor said, in which we ‘keep deciding not to hate the haters, … keep risking the fatal wound of love and teaching others to do the same — because that is how we prepare the ground around us to receive the seeds of heaven when they come’.

‘Violence did not surprise Jesus. He was prepared for it, and he tried to prepare his followers as well but few of them had ears to hear.’ ‘Even before the violent had come for him, he knew what had happened to God’s messengers in the past: silenced, exiled, outlawed, killed …Then King Herod threw John the Baptist in prison … and Jesus had to say it all over again: expect violence; prepare for it; never underestimate the harm it can do.’

Are we similarly prepared? Do we know ‘the power to resist the deadly force of violence’ by doing what Jesus taught and practised: ‘turn the cheek, pray for the persecutor, love the enemy, welcome the stranger. In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.’ Are we willing, like John the Baptist and Jesus, to be prophets who can see and name what does not belong with us and can shine the light of God’s truth in the night-time of fear and oppression?

If we do then our prayer must be: Lord, disarm violence and begin with me. As Barbara Brown Taylor noted last week, ‘Sometimes [the power to resist the deadly force of violence] actually works to disarm the violence in others, which is why we know the names of Gandhi, Tutu, and King. But that is not its main purpose. Its main purpose is to disarm the violence in us, so that we do not join the other team.’

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Sinead O'Connor - Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace.

When the boss is away ...

Last night the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev'd and Rt Hon Justin Welby preached at a service celebrating the Ascension which was broadcast live on Radio 4 from St Martin-in-the-Fields. Led by The Revd Dr Sam Wells, the service featured the Daily Service Singers and the Choir of St Martin's singing the music of GF Handel, who inaugurated the original St Martin's organ in 1727. Excerpts from Handel's 'Utrecht Te Deum' and 'Messiah' - including the Hallelujah Chorus - reflected the majesty of Jesus' Ascension into Heaven to reign as King of Kings. The Archbishop's sermon can be read by clicking here and heard by clicking here.

My Ascension Day sermon preached at St Stephen Walbrook follows and will be available shortly to listen to on the London Internet Church site:

How do we respond when the boss is away? That was the scenario for several of the parables that Jesus told, including one of the best known; the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25. 14 - 30). In this story responsibilities are delegated to three workers, two of whom shoulder their responsibilities and develop the business so that it grows. The third, however, is so paralysed by the responsibility and the possibility of failure that he does nothing with the responsibilities that have been entrusted to him and consequently there is no development and no growth. When the boss returns the first two are rewarded and the third is sacked.

Jesus told this and other parables where the boss is absent, in order to prepare his disciples for his death, resurrection and ascension. He was the one who was going to leave and when he left them, at the point of his Ascension, he was entrusting them with the responsibility of continuing his mission and ministry in his physical absence. It has to be said that this was and is an awesome responsibility and we can readily understand why the third worker was paralysed by fear at the prospect. However, it also shows the value that Jesus saw in his disciples and sees in us. It is amazing but true that God believes in us enough to entrust us with working towards the coming of his kingdom, on earth as in heaven.

Like the third worker in the Parable of the Talents we often shy away from responsibility, although we don’t actually have that choice. Peter Rollins reminds us that ‘the famous philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote that we are “condemned to freedom”.’ For Sartre, he says, ‘this meant that we are responsible beings. However we are not merely responsible for the decisions we make ... we are also responsible for the decisions we postpone or fail to act on.’

‘This means that we are not only responsible for what we do, but also for what we don’t do. Like a poker player in the middle of a tournament, even doing nothing is an act that will help decide the direction of the game. In this way we are constantly wagering on our existence. Every move, and every failure to move, closes down an infinite range of possible worlds while opening up an entirely new range.’

The choice for Sartre ‘was not between taking responsibility or not, but rather between acknowledging our inherent responsibility or attempting to deny it.’ ‘Instead of the impotent and impossible attempt to flee our freedom Sartre encouraged us to face it, embrace it and make resolute decisions in light of it.’

Jesus’ parables and his Ascension make clear to us the reality of responsibility. The one that we think is in charge and responsible is no longer there which makes us aware of our own responsibility. As Rollins and Sartre suggest we always had that responsibility but our tendency is to avoid or deny it. Our responsibility is huge as the parable suggests that we are responsible for using all that we have for the benefit of the world. If the Boss represents God then his property is the world and we, his workers, are placed in charge of his world and given responsibility for its change and development.

How will we respond to the challenge of Jesus’ parables and his Ascension? In the story, the faithful workers are those that accept this responsibility and act on it. The unfaithful worker is the one who does nothing, who does not act. Are we faithful or unfaithful workers? Are our lives dedicated to working for the benefit of others and our world?

It is important to also note that in the parable, and following the Ascension, we have been given the resources needed for this responsibility. In the parable the Boss gave out resources (the ‘talents’) alongside responsibilities. After the Ascension, the Holy Spirit came to empower Jesus’ disciples.

Do we recognise that each of us has much that we can give; that we are all people with talents and possessions however lacking in confidence and means we may sometimes be? We all have something we can offer, so how can we, through our lives and work, benefit and develop the world for which God has given humanity responsibility? What resources - in terms of abilities, job, income and possessions - has God given to us in order to fulfil our responsibility to benefit and develop the world?

Through his Ascension, Jesus challenges us as to whether we will be faithful or unfaithful servants? How will we respond? If we accept the responsibility we have been given, we should then pray for quiet courage to match this hour. We did not choose to be born or to live in such an age; but we ask that its problems challenge us, its discoveries exhilarate us, its injustices anger us, its possibilities inspire us and its vigour renew us for the sake of Christ’s kingdom come, on earth as in his heaven.

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G.F. Handel - Utrecht Te Deum.

Spokesperson for the silent throng of things made by the human hand

The Evening Standard has four pieces written in appreciation of Neil MacGregor following the announcement that he is to step down as Director of the British Museum. This is fitting because "he has popularised the extraordinary riches of the museum in such as a way as to make them part of an intelligible human story, accessible to the ordinary public."

Michael Prodger writes that MacGregor "sees no conflict between popularity and scholarship and instinctively grasps that the public wants information as much as entertainment."

Antony Gormley described MacGregor as "the spokesperson for the silent throng of things made by the human hand, heart and brain over all time. Like no other before him, he has helped us see, empathise and interpret the huge diversity of humanly made things, allowing us to understand what they are and the world from which they come."

I was pleased to see that his future projects "include working with the BBC and the museum on a new Radio 4 series on faith and society." His series 'A History of the World in 100 Objects' was, in part, an inspiration for my short story The New Dark Ages, which can be read using these links - Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

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The Band - Don't Do It.

Paul Nash: Truth and Memory

Andrew Graham Dixon gave a compelling portrait of Paul Nash in the first programme of the BBC series British Art at War. Graham Dixon argued that:

‘Nash was scarred by the war and the ghosts of those experiences haunted his work throughout his life. A lover of nature, Nash became one of Britain's most original landscape artists, embracing modern Surrealism and ancient British history, though always tainted by his experiences during two world wars. A private yet charismatic man, he brought British landscape painting into the 20th century with his mixture of the personal and visionary, the beautiful and the shocking. An artist who saw the landscape as not just a world to paint, but a way into his heart and mind.’

Nash’s work currently features in Truth and Memory at the Imperial War Museum; ‘the largest exhibition and first major retrospective of  British First World War art for almost 100 years.’ Using artworks drawn mainly from IWM’s national collection and including work by some of Britain’s most important artists of the twentieth century, this exhibition assesses ‘the immediate impact and enduring legacy of British art of the First World War.’

Truth explores ‘how artists encountering the front lines experimented with new forms of art to capture the totally unfamiliar experience of the First World War.’ Through the work of CRW Nevinson, Paul Nash and William Orpen, amongst others, the exhibition considers ‘British artists’ quest for an authentic or ‘truthful’ representation of modern war.’ 

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Ivor Gurney - Severn Meadows.

Robert Plant on The One Show

Thanks to my nephew, Paul Loftus, I saw Robert Plant on The One Show on Friday. Plant is a great collaborator and makes stunning music in a variety of different styles when, as he says in the interview, he experiences a communion of souls. I particularly loved the albums he made with T Bone Burnett and Buddy Miller but his new album, though very different, sounds equally wonderful. Seeing him perform and talk, his enjoyment of the music and where it takes him is just massively evident.

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Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters - Rainbow.

Out and About

One Equall Light was an exhibition themed on the “Sermons and Holy Sonnets of John Donne” was held from 30th June - 20th July, 2014 at St Giles, Cripplegate and St James, Piccadilly. Christian Arts collaborated with Art and Christianity Enquiry on the exhibition organisation and the ACE International Conference was held during the beginning of the exhibition period. The exhibition coincided with the City of London Festival. The exhibition included selected work from Christian Arts members and work from invited artists, Susie Hamilton at St. James and Margot Perryman at St. Giles. Link to the exhibition catalogue here - Catalogue. I attended Sam Wells' talk on 'Art and the Renewal of St Martins' at St Giles Cripplegate (which was part of the ACE conference) with Jean Lamb and Wendy McTernan and then visited the St James Piccadilly half of the exhibition with Wendy again and Hayley Bowen.

Art and Life at Dulwich Picture Gallery: Ben and Winifred Nicholson were at the forefront of the Modern British movement and produced some of the most memorable works of the period. Discover ten years of artistic exploration by the couple in this exhibition curated by their grandson, Jovan Nicholson. It provides a rare opportunity to see their views of the same landscapes, seascapes, still lifes and portraits alongside pieces by contemporaries Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis and the potter William Staite Murray. I thoroughly enjoyed this excellent show when I visited on Friday.

Can't Tell Nathan Caton Nothing is a Radio 4 comedy that mixes stand-up with re-enacted scenes from comedian Nathan Caton's family life. Regarded as one of the best young comics in the UK, Nathan's award-winning combination of personal and topical anecdotes has lead to appearances on BBC2's Mock The Week, BBC3's Russell Howard's Good News, BBC Radio 4's Now Show, News Quiz. I watched part of the recording of the third series with Paul Trathen.

The sheer variety of work presented each year is what makes the RA's Summer Exhibition an annual highlight of the cultural calendar. I went with Christopher Clack who has 'Teenage Boy', one of his portrait photographs, included in the show. Alongside Chris' marvellous image, in a room which also includes work by James Turrell, is a wonderful video by Everton Wright which was, for me, one of the best things in the show. I also particularly enjoyed work by John Bellany, Peter Freeth, Kaori Homma, Anselm Keifer and Wolfgang Tillmans.

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Gene Clark - Ship Of The Lord.