Faith and doubt of John Betjeman

At a funeral this week, I spoke briefly about the 'honest doubt' in the poetry of John Betjeman:

In ‘Summoned by Bells’ Betjeman wrote of how he would “ride for miles / To far-off churches” and, of how one of them so worked on him that his life was changed so that he was inspired to cycle around Cornwall in “quest of mystical experience.” In ‘Before the Anaesthetic’, Betjeman puts us inside the mind of a man waiting for an operation while hearing the bells of St Giles Church ring. The man realizes that, although he has attended church, he has not really known God and, therefore, prays, “Now, lest this ‘I’ should cease to be, / Come, real Lord, come quick to me.”

Betjeman himself wrote: “I have no memory of a blinding light striking me at the corner of a street, or of a fit of the shudders while people knelt around me in prayer. I cannot point to a date, time and place and say, ‘That was when I was converted’. I cling to the sacraments and live for the day, have many moments of doubt when the only thing that buoys me up is the thought that I would sooner the Incarnation were true than that it were not. This, at its lowest ebb, is my faith; but frequent confession and communion have proved to me, unwilling though I sometimes am to believe, that prayer works, that Christ is God, and that He is present in the Sacraments.”

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John Betjeman - Christmas.

The Painted Parish - The Mall Galleries

The Mall Galleries is currently "presenting a rare exhibition of new and recent paintings exploring Britain’s churches, chapels and cathedrals by members of the Federation of British Artists.

The Painted Parish features paintings exploring British Churches, examining notions of place and time, life and loss, as well as faith and worship.

The poet John Betjeman wrote in his poem Churchyards, 'Our churches are our history shown / In wood and glass and iron and stone'. Here, though, Britain’s ecclesiastical buildings are rendered in watercolour, oil, pastel, and more, inside and out, as places of worship, sites of construction, iconic status or desolate ruin.

Exhibiting artists include members of the country’s leading national art societies, the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA), the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP), and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI), amongst others.

An illustrated e-catalogue accompanies the exhibition, featuring a foreword by Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Reader in Architecture at the University of Kent and author of Churches: Explore the Symbols, Learn the Language and Discover the History (Harper Collins, 2008)."

While an interesting collection of images, the 'parish' is seen almost exclusively in terms of the church building rather than either the people or the geographical area. Works by Lisa Graa Jensen, which integrate area, building and people, then stand out as the primary exception to this general rule of thumb.

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John Betjemen - Christmas.

A special rapport with writers and actors

Local colleague, Fr. Gareth Jones, has posted regarding the Memorial Requiem of Prebendary Gerard Irvine at St Matthew's, Westminster last Saturday.

Irvine was a priest with a special ministry to writers, actors and politicians as these extracts from obituaries demonstrate:

"Irvine had a special rapport with writers and actors, many of whom recognised beneath his charm, hospitality and friendship a wisdom derived from his deep devotion to God. Iris Murdoch, PD James and AN Wilson were among these, as was Tony Warren, the inventor of Coronation Street, and Barry Humphries, the creator of Dame Edna Everage.

Politicians also responded to his lovable character. Harold and Mary Wilson valued him as a near neighbour when they were living in Lord North Street, during the refurbishment of 10 Downing Street. Tom Driberg had a room in the clergy house for several years, and the Labour MP Frank Field was another close friend. Several spies are said to have called in from time to time. Yet there was always space for the hungry and the homeless." Obituary in the Daily Telegraph

"He had the secret of being lovable, and of loving other people, across the social scale. His friendships ranged from spies and politicians – Maurice Oldfield, Harold and Mary Wilson, Tom Driberg and Frank Field – to literary figures like Rose Macaulay, John Betjeman, Iris Murdoch, PD James and AN Wilson. There were also popular figures like Tony Warren, the inventor of Coronation Street, and the teenagers in his youth club at Holy Angels, Cranford (then a Nissen hut overflown by the planes from the new London Airport), some of whom were still in touch years later ...

No one knows all the details of his relationships with the leaders of politics and culture of the 20th century but perhaps Irvine's joyful and thoughtful face offered something important in an age of doubt.

Rose Macaulay wrote of him: "a clever young prophet, very good company too." "  Obituary from The Independent

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The Beatles - Paperback Writer.