Amethyst Review: Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages

My two newest poems are being published by Amethyst Review and Stride respectively. 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages' appears today in Amethyst Review, while 'The twin poles of Rouault and Girard' will be in Stride on 21 April.

In 2020 two of my poems 'Are/Are Not' and 'Attend, attend' appeared in Amethyst Review. I also had three poems appear in Stride magazine that same year. All those poems concerned other poets beginning with the artist-poet David Jones, continuing with Dylan Thomas and ending with Jack Clemo. The third of these poems featured in a Stride series entitled 'Talking to the Dead'. These poems can be read at http://stridemagazine.blogspot.com/search?q=evens.

Amethyst Review is a publication for readers and writers who are interested in creative exploration of spirituality and the sacred. Readers and writers of all religions and none are most welcome. All work published engages in some way with spirituality or the sacred in a spirit of thoughtful and respectful inquiry, rather than proselytizing.

The Editor-in-chief is Sarah Law – poet (mainly), tutor, occasional critic, sometime fiction writer. She has published five poetry collections, the latest of which is Ink’s Wish. She set up Amethyst Review feeling the lack of a UK-based platform for the sharing and readership of new literary writing that engages in some way with spirituality and the sacred.

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Carolyn Ahrends - I Can Hear You.

Poetry for Amethyst Review and Stride Magazine

My two newest poems are to be published by Amethyst Review and Stride respectively. 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages' will appear in Amethyst Review on 8 April while 'The twin poles of Rouault and Girard' will be in Stride on 21 April.

In 2020 two of my poems 'Are/Are Not' and 'Attend, attend' appeared in Amethyst Review. I also had three poems appear in Stride magazine that same year. All those poems concerned other poets beginning with the artist-poet David Jones, continuing with Dylan Thomas and ending with Jack Clemo. The third of these poems featured in a Stride series entitled 'Talking to the Dead'. These poems can be read at http://stridemagazine.blogspot.com/search?q=evens.

Amethyst Review is a publication for readers and writers who are interested in creative exploration of spirituality and the sacred. Readers and writers of all religions and none are most welcome. All work published engages in some way with spirituality or the sacred in a spirit of thoughtful and respectful inquiry, rather than proselytizing.

The Editor-in-chief is Sarah Law – poet (mainly), tutor, occasional critic, sometime fiction writer. She has published five poetry collections, the latest of which is Ink’s Wish. She set up Amethyst Review feeling the lack of a UK-based platform for the sharing and readership of new literary writing that engages in some way with spirituality and the sacred.

Stride magazine was founded in 1982. Since then it has had various incarnations, most recently in an online edition since the late 20th century. You can visit its earlier incarnation at http://stridemagazine.co.uk.

I have read the poetry featured in Stride and, in particular, the work of its editor Rupert Loydell over many years and was very pleased that Rupert gave a poetry reading when I was at St Stephen Walbrook (an event that Sarah Law, editor of Amethyst, attended). As one or two of my early poems featured in Stride, I am particularly pleased to be published there once again.

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).

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Rupert Loydell - Boombox.

Poems to dead poets

Not the blind man with the lamp is a poem addressed to the poet Jack Clemo that has been published in the Stride magazine collection entitled 'Talking to the Dead'. Jack Clemo's work combined an uncompromising Christian mysticism with stark images of the working-class Cornwall he loved so much.

Stride have also published two other of my poems concerned with other poets; Windows into the Divine on the artist-poet David Jones and Dylan Thomas was more at home with Blake and Vaughan than Marx and Proust on Dylan Thomas.

Additionally, another poem are/are not has just been published by Amethyst Review. This is the first of two poems that Amethyst Review will be publishing, the second appearing on 13 July.

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Norah Jones - To Live.

Poems for Amethyst Review and Stride magazine

My poem 'Are/Are Not' has just been published by Amethyst Review. This is the first of two poems that Amethyst Review will be publishing, the second appearing on 13 July.

I have also been pleased to have three poems accepted by Stride magazine. All these poems concern other poets beginning with the artist-poet David Jones ('Window into the divine', 1 June), continuing with Dylan Thomas ('Dylan Thomas was more at home with Blake and Vaughan than Marx and Proust', 2 June) and ending on 27 June with Jack Clemo. The third of these poems features in a Stride series entitled 'Talking to the Dead' which began on 17 June and can be read by clicking here.

Amethyst Review is a new publication for readers and writers who are interested in creative exploration of spirituality and the sacred. Readers and writers of all religions and none are most welcome. All work published engages in some way with spirituality or the sacred in a spirit of thoughtful and respectful inquiry, rather than proselytizing.

The Editor-in-chief is Sarah Law – poet (mainly), tutor, occasional critic, sometime fiction writer. She has published five poetry collections, the latest of which is Ink’s Wish. She set up Amethyst Review feeling the lack of a UK-based platform for the sharing and readership of new literary writing that engages in some way with spirituality and the sacred.

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Dylan Thomas - Fern Hill.

Poems for Stride magazine and Amethyst Review

I have three poems appearing in Stride magazine this month. All these poems concern other poets beginning today with the artist-poet David Jones, continuing tomorrow with Dylan Thomas and ending on 27 June with Jack Clemo. The third of these poems features in a Stride series entitled 'Talking to the Dead' which begins on 17 June. These poems can be read at http://stridemagazine.blogspot.com/.

Additionally, I am also very pleased to have other of my poems featuring in Amethyst Review. The two poems selected will appear on 20 June and 13 July.

Stride magazine was founded in 1982. Since then it has had various incarnations, most recently in an online edition since the late 20th century. You can visit its earlier incarnation at http://stridemagazine.co.uk.

I have read the poetry featured in Stride and, in particular, the work of its editor Rupert Loydell over many years and was very pleased that Rupert gave a poetry reading when I was at St Stephen Walbrook (an event that Sarah Law, editor of Amethyst, attended). As one or two of my early poems featured in Stride, I am particularly pleased to be published there once again.

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.

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Jim Causley and Luke Thompson - Christ In The Claypit.

Two poems on poets: David Jones and Dylan Thomas

Here are poems on two poets; the first about the art of David Jones and the second on the poetry of Dylan Thomas.

Windows into the divine

Supple sensuous sinuous pencil lines combine
with sketchy swathes, swatches
and blotches of aqueous colour,
minimal modelling merging near and far,
present and past on shallow space.
Glass chalices, open windows,
flowers and thorns, still life and landscape.
The Eucharist - one reality in the form of another,
heaven in ordinary - frames and forms his making –
all human making - sacramental signification,
inutile and gratuitous; graceful, playful,
light and loving, abundant and affirming.

If we attend, the waters are freed,
aqueous light floods static subjects
as fluid flecks, flurries and washes of colour
suffuse, invade, imbue and inform;
playing freely on forms creating flux,
confusing boundaries, circling round transparent images,
blending, merging all - the wood and the trees -
bringing all within imagination’s reach.
The spiritual shimmering, shining through the material,
the universal in the particular -
seeing with, not through the eye -
for to pay attention, this is prayer.

A Londoner of Protestant upbringing,
Catholic subscription, and of particular
Welsh and English stock.
A Christian modernist chasing connection
through heritage and lineage,
interlinking, interleaving past and present;
like iconographers' writing images,
David Jones opened windows into the divine
in Harrow-on-the-Hill, Capel-y-ffin,
Pigotts, and Portslade.


Dylan Thomas was more at home with Blake and Vaughan than Marx and Proust

Dylan Thomas was more at home
with Blake and Vaughan than Marx and Proust.
He had one foot in Eden, the other in Babylon,
one hand on the Bible, the other under bedclothes,
knowing the actual world’s deplorable sordidness
and the invisible world’s splendour.
One who didn’t believe in God
wrote poems in praise of God’s world,
knowing the godhead, the author, the milky-way farmer,
the first cause, architect, lamp-lighter, quintessence,
the beginning Word, the anthropomorphic bowler-out and blackballer,
the stuff of all men, scapegoat, martyr, maker, woe-bearer.
In the beginning was the word, the Christ-word,
the word that from the solid bases of the light
abstracted all the letters of the void.
He, on top of the hill in heaven, wept whenever,
outside that state of being called his country,
one of his worlds dropped dead,
vanished screaming, shrivelled, exploded, murdered itself.
And, when he wept, light and his tears
glided down together, hand in hand.
So, the Christ was dipped breast-deep in the descended bone.
The one child who was priest and servants,
Word, singers, and tongue.
The Christ born thorny on the tree,
whose blood touched the crosstree.
This was a saviour, rarer than radium,
commoner than water, crueller than truth;
children kept from the sun, assembled at his tongue
to hear the golden note turn in a groove,
prisoners of wishes locked their eyes
in the jails and studies of his keyless smiles.
This was a saviour, the serpent’s
night fall and the fruit like a sun.
The flesh we break, the blood we let,
were born of the sensual root and sap;
his wine we drink, his bread we snap.

See http://murmurmethis.blogspot.com/2010/12/jesus-poems-of-dylan-thomas.html for the inspiration of this poem, which incorporates phrases from Thomas' poems and prose as well as Andrew Sinclair's Dylan The Bard.

 

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Dylan Thomas - Altarwise By Owl Light.

The mystery of the resurrection body

still
be still
be still and know
God
born
still God
still man
still born
still born among us
God
in flesh appearing
defenceless
helpless
needing us
all-knowing
un-knowing
all present
confined in space
a child
God child
incarnate
incarnate still
be still
be still and know

still

be still
be still and know
God
dead
still God
still man
still buried
still buried in the ground
God
in flesh appearing
defenceless
helpless
killed by us
falling
buried
germinating
growing
a seed
God man
incarnate
incarnate still
be still
be still and know             

John 12:23-25
"Jesus answered them, “The hour has now come for the Son of Man to receive great glory. I am telling you the truth: a grain of wheat remains no more than a single grain unless it is dropped into the ground and dies. If it does die, then it produces many grains. Those who love their own life will lose it; those who hate their own life in this world will keep it for life eternal."

1 Corinthians 15. 35 - 44
"Some skeptic is sure to ask, “Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this ‘resurrection body’ look like?” If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.

You will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning. Just as there are different kinds of seeds, there are different kinds of bodies—humans, animals, birds, fish—each unprecedented in its form. You get a hint at the diversity of resurrection glory by looking at the diversity of bodies not only on earth but in the skies—sun, moon, stars—all these varieties of beauty and brightness. And we’re only looking at pre-resurrection “seeds”—who can imagine what the resurrection “plants” will be like!

This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!"

Researchers at the University of Warwick have devised a novel way to recycle discarded mobile telephones - bury them and watch them transform into the flower of your choice.

They have designed a mobile phone case made of biodegradable polymer which breaks down on the compost heap into a pile of soil nutrients. And then, because the engineers have included a tiny transparent window in the case in which they embed a seed, the final touch is that the case flowers.

The seed lies dormant in its plastic window until the phone cover gets dug into the ground. The phone cover then breaks down allowing the seed to germinate and, as the flower grows‚ to get additional nutrients from the biodegrading phone cover.

This story reminded me of Jesus’ words from our Gospel reading: “a grain of wheat remains no more than a single grain unless it is dropped into the ground and dies. If it does die, then it produces many grains.”

Just like the mobile phone case which is hard but biodegradable and which contains a seed, “a grain of wheat has a hard, glossy husk within which its life is contained. But if it falls into the ground, then its husk softens and rots and breaks open, and from inside the seed the power of its life begins to push outwards, and the pattern of its life begins to unfold. Roots go down into the soil, and a shoot comes up into the light where it grows stronger and taller and produces an ear of corn.”

Jesus equates that picture of the hard outer husk which has to rot to release the life inside to our choice in life to be either people who love our own lives or people who hate, lose or give away our lives. Those of us who love our own lives reinforce our hard, outer husk. We put up barriers between ourselves and others in order to protect and enjoy what we have for ourselves.

Jesus says that when we live life selfishly, protecting ourselves and what we have, then we have actually lost the essence of life itself. We are dead to the world, its peoples and its wonders because we engage with what is other not for its own sake but only for our sake. When we cannot appreciate other people and God’s creation except in terms of what we can get for ourselves then we are dead to the world and all that is in it. Not only are we dead to the world and all that is in it but we are sterile as well. If we live just for ourselves; if we give nothing away to others but keep all for ourselves; then everything we have dies with us and what we have had is lost forever.

But says Jesus, if we are like the grain of wheat that dies, then we will know what it is like to really come alive and really live. If we allow our protective shell to rot and be removed; if we are focused not on ourselves but on others; if we disregard our own life in this world and follow Jesus in serving others; then we gain, then we come alive, then we see a single grain of wheat multiply and produce many grains.

And the same point is made by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 in relation to death itself. Death comes to all of us and to all things. It is part of the natural cycle of life that we need to accept and understand. Try as we might we cannot ultimately hold onto this life and so, ultimately, we must be ready to let go of this life in trust that death itself is the ground in which the seed of our life, and those we remember today, will grow into new life.

When my Dad slipped into a comatose state for several weeks at the end of his life, I found myself praying for his release from this life. I was reminded on DylanThomas’s poem - “Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” – and found myself praying for the exact opposite:

Go Gently

The lifeforce runs deep within our veins.
After conscious actions become involuntary,
after eyes become unfocused,
after hands become still and lifeless,
the heart still beats and lungs inhale,
breaths are snatched as something precious
and coughs battle secretions
to obtain air.
I pray, let go,
lose life to love life.
I pray, surrender,
from striving, for serving.
I pray, release,
returning, reviving, resting.
I pray, knowing that,
from fisticuffs at Grammar School,
you have been a fighter.
I pray, knowing that
throughout trials and tribulations,
your spirit has stayed strong.
I pray, knowing that
the lifeforce runs deep
in your veins.
I pray that,
you go gentle into that bright light. 

As Christians, we believe that we will grow into new life through death because of Jesus. Jesus was a seed sown into our world which died and was buried only to live again. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15, “the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.” The tomb therefore becomes a womb, a place of new birth, not just for Jesus but, through Jesus, for each one of us as well.

So, let us in faith, conclude with St Paul that,  “This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!”

Let us pray ...

Lord, we would grow with you
New shoots reaching out
Hands stretched upward
Like leaves newly formed
Soaking up your light and warmth
Lord, we would grow with you

Lord, we would grow with you
In sunshine and rain
In darkness and light
In cold days and summer days
From Springtime to Winter
Lord, we would grow with you

Lord, we would grow with you
And bring forth fruit
That is pleasing to you
Fed by your living water
Giving sustenance to others
Lord, we would grow with you

(John Birch)

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Sam Phillips - I Need Love.               

Beyond 'Airbrushed from Art History' (10)

Fr. Roy Mathew Thottam, a Jesuit artist-priest in Kerala, suggests that the role of Christian artists in India has changed :

"There was a time in the Church when the written Bible was not available to the people. The themes were depicted through paintings, so that common people could understand the Bible and Church teachings.

In modern times, artists deal not so much with the description of the Bible but are more concerned with the interpretation of the Word. They take the ‘word’, reflect and meditate on it, and explain or interpret according to the socio-cultural reality they live in, according to each one’s experience of God."

He calls his own artistic search a "pilgrimage, journeying through the interior world, lives of the people, and the reality I live in. It is to do with a spiritual quest. In fact, every art is spiritual; it is something like meditation."

Angelo da Fonseca and Alfred D. Thomas made serious efforts during the 1930's to find Indian roots for Christian painting in India. They sought to create authentic Indian images of Christ retaining the universalities of Christ. Christ was often portrayed in Indian clothes, as talking to typical Indian villagers and set in typical Indian landscape.

Several outstanding modern Indian painters, such as Jamini Roy, Ravi Varma, Nandalal Bose and M. Reddeppa Naidu, while not Christians, nevertheless painted pictures of Jesus or chose Christian themes in order to portray the nature and predicament of humanity in society. As a former student of the Madras Christian College, K. C. S. Paniker was familiar with the Bible and when he wanted to depict suffering and pain he chose to paint Christ.

Alphonso Doss writes in his article ‘The Image of Christ in Indian Art’:

"Mr. S. Dhanapal and Mr. P.V. Janakiram made bronze and metal sculptures depicting the image of Jesus in 1962 - 65. "Christ carrying the cross" was a popular composition done by S. Dhanapal in bronze which was selected for a National Academy award in 1962. The other sculpture named "Christ carrying the cross" is a group sculpture, in which Christ carrying the cross with his followers depict and express grief and sorrow. In both these sculptures one can see the face and the figuration following Indian contemporary style of expression. The eyes and elongated face of Christ convey a deep sense pf compassion and tolerance which are the characteristic portrayal of Christ ...

Internationally reputed sculptor P.V. Janakiram, aged 72, disciple of K.C.S. Panicker and S. Dhanapal has also been influenced by the suffering of Jesus Christ. He made several figures of Christ, Madonna, Crucifixion conveying the Christian spirit in his work. The most striking one is the sculpture showing Christ stretching his hands expressing love, unity done in copper sheet metal. Welding is employed to fix the copper rod to suggest hair and beard. The whole sculpture is oxidized except the centre area where the brass sheet is welded in the front portion on which decorative elements are found with geometric pattern to beautify the sculpture."

Francis Newton Souza, born in the Portuguese colony of Goa to Indian parents, was brought up as a strict Catholic. In 1949, having become a well-established artist in India, he moved to Britain. After six difficult years living in London, he began to build a considerable reputation as a writer and painter. Souza was the first of India's modern painters to achieve high recognition in the West. His work is in major museum collections around the world including the Tate. As with those mentioned above images of Christ form an important strand within his work.

Among modern and contemporary Indian painters who are Christians are the following, whose work commonly addresses experiences of mixed religious backgrounds and has more recently led to the Indian Christian Art Association and Indian Christian Artists Forum:

Dr. Jyoti Sahi studied art at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and gained a Doctorate in Divinity from Serampore College. Over the years he has taught art at various institutions and centres in India and worked free lance, at the Kurisumala Ashram with Dom Bede Griffiths and Laurie Baker, designing works for Indian Churches. Coming from a mixed religious background having Hindu and Christian roots, Jyoti has spent the last forty years trying to see how it is possible to bridge/integrate these religious and cultural divides through art. He is particularly interested in the relation of Christian symbols and stories to the sacred images that are found in other faith traditions, particularly in the Indian tradition. As an artist, he has been actively involved with various non governmental groups in India concerned with social change.

Frank Wesley was born in Azamgarh, U.P., India in December 1923 into a fifth generation Christian family. His first art exhibition was in 1935. He studied at the government school of Arts and Crafts in Lucknow from 1943 to 1948 . Further studies included four years at the Kyoto Art University in Japan (1954-58) and two years at the Art Institute of Chicago (1958-60). His work has been internationally recognised. He designed the urn for Mahatma Ghandhi's ashes. Five of his paintings were included in the 1950 Holy Year Exhibition at the Vatican. "The Blue Madonna" was used as the first UNICEF Christmas card. In 1973, he emigrated to Australia with his family. He continued to paint prolifically until his death in 2002. In 1993 Naomi Wray published "Frank Wesley: Exploring faith with a brush", (Auckland, Pace publishing), a book that explores Frank's Christian painting.

Ashrafi S. Bhagat writes in ‘Of light, signs and symbols’ that:

"Within the terrain of the Madras Movement internationally acclaimed Alphonso [Doss] is a familiar name. An alumnus of the Government College of Arts and Crafts, he taught painting there and retired as a principal in 1997 ... His depth of knowledge of Christianity in tandem with the philosophy of Hinduism and Buddhism posits him as an artist who can traverse freely across both spheres with these symbols to contextualise his works within a cultural milieu marking it as individual and universal as well. Though his concepts and ideologies transcend the national boundaries to be almost global, there is in Alphonso's works a strong hint of the nativist agenda that was engined by K.C.S. Paniker in the early 60s to establish the face of the Madras Movement within the larger framework of the national milieu."

Joy Elamkunnapuzha drew an original design for Christ the Guru in 1977 and V. Balan executed it in mosaic style on the facade of the Chapel at Dharmaram College in Bangalore, India: "Christ is presented as a yogi in meditation under the sacred peepal tree. He is seated in padmaasanam, the lotus posture. The calm and compassionate look on the face depicts the image of the ideal guru , spiritual teacher, in the Indian scriptures. The hand gestures show jnaanamudra, the sign of imparting knowledge and wisdom that dispel darkness (the Sanskrit term guru is a combination of gu, "darkness," and ru, "that which dispels"). The red color on the hands and feet shows the nail marks from crucifixion. They are the signs that St. Thomas, the Apostle of India insisted on as proof of Jesus's resurrection (Jn 20: 24-29). The equal-armed cross is presented in the form of a flower. The flame represents both Christ and the devotee alike; it is a reminder of two complementary sayings of Jesus: "I am the light of the world" (Jn 8:12) and "You are the light of the world" (Mt 5: 14). The two halves of a coconut, often placed at the forefront during religious rituals in India, is a symbol of self-sacrifice. The chalice with bread and grapes represents the sacrificial gift of Jesus in the holy Eucharist."

Alle G. Hoekema writes, in a review of The Poor Man’s Bible, that:

"Dr. P. Solomon Raj, a Lutheran theologian and creative artist from India … became a school teacher, then studied theology at Gurukul, Madras, served as a minister and as a student chaplain and after that fulfilled a wide range of positions in India, at Selly Oak, Birmingham UK and other countries before settling down again in his own country. In the meantime he published his PhD dissertation in Birmingham and was active in the Asian Christian Arts Association. Since a number of years he is the spiritual father of the St. Luke’s Lalitkala Ashram in Vijayawada, Andra Pradesh.

In the 1950s he discovered his gift as an artist, first specializing in linocuts and wood block printing (black and white, later coloured ones as well) and then also in designing batiks, and — though to a lesser extent — acryl paintings. Serving in the field of modern mass communication as a means of propagating the Gospel, he discovered the possibilities of using visual art in explaining the biblical narratives. Most of the art works which he published in separate booklets and books are accompanied by brief, often surprising, poetical meditations which remind one of the work of Rabindranath Tagore and others.

In an unpublished paper Solomon Raj himself speaks about the prophetic role of the Christian artist. Like prophets, the artist is an instrument of inspiration, a visionary and fore-teller who uses symbolic language. And, ‘he is aware of the problems in the society in which he lives, he speaks the vocabulary and the idiom of his time and he wakes up people of his day to some of the things that agitate his mind.’"

US-based Goan painter-scholar Jose Pereira has said that he sees himself "as a product of two traditions: one is the Latin-Christian tradition and the other is the Indian Hindu tradition." In order to bring to expression these traditions, he says he has had to do extensive research. In 2010 paintings by Pereira depicting Hindu Lord Shiva dancing with six naked maidens and Krishna in sexual ecstasy in the midst of several women were withdrawn from an exhibition of Pereira’s paintings at The Xavier Centre of Historical Research in Goa following threats by Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (Hindu Awareness Forum) to decapitate the 89-year-old painter.

In 2006 Edwin Parmar turned a huge canvas into a monumental work of art in which Christ, Hindu gods and Indian traditions blend. He got the idea for this larger-than-life painting from a question: "What would be Christ's life if he had been born in an Indian village?" Parmar found his answer in a synthesis of Indian and western cultures. Thus, in his painting Mary wears a sari and Hindu God Rama interacts with Christ.

Susheila Williams "is the president of the Indian Christian art association. She is also the founder secretary of the Chitrakala academy in Coimbatore. The Indian Christian art association is an association of Christian artists in India. This association conducts workshops and organizes exhibitions of paintings. It also brings out a quarterly news letter called ‘Pratima’. Mrs. Williams founded the Chitrakala academy, in coimbatore in the year 1978 and from its inception this artists association has been functioning well. She underwent her training in New Delhi under Mr. Anand Micheal from the Michigan University. She travels extensively and participates in art exhibitions at the national and international level."

She "specializes in oil painting and terracotta sculptures. Her oil painting titled ‘THE SAMARITAN WOMEN’ adorns the pope’s official residence at Vatican. Some of her theme paintings on UNITY IN DIVERSITY have found its way into posters thus ensuring that the message has effectively reached the society. Her speciality is in using Christian themes in the Indian context so that the message of the scriptures is understandable and acceptable by the community."

The Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India reported in 2010 that:

"A group of leading Christian artists in India under the initiative of the CBCI Commission for Social Communications has established a national network called the Indian Christian Artists Forum. Artist priest Dr. Paul Kattukaran of Trichur Archdiocese, has been appointed as the national coordinator for the Forum. Fifteen renowned artists from various parts of the country attended the first meeting of the Christian artists in India convened by the CBCI Commission at the CPCI Centre, Bangalore, August 4.

Those who attended the meeting included renowned artists and theologian Jyoti Sahi, Chennai based artist and former principal of Madras College of Fine Arts Mr. Alphonso Doss, former director of Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, and well known sculptor Robin David, Bangalore-based artist C.F. John, artist Edwin Parmar, Ahmedabad, Sr.Vincy, Bongaigaon, Assam, Fr. Roy M. Thottam SJ, Kochi and others.

The Forum is intended to bring together Christian artists from different parts of the country to foster greater collaboration and professional support and exchange. It intends to promote study and appreciation of Christian art among various sections of the people- clergy, religious and laity in the church, and the wider society in India, and to encourage a deeper understanding, appreciation and application of Indian Christian art in theology, liturgy and architecture in the Church in India."
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George Harrison - My Sweet Lord.

The Big Society

Last week Paul Trathen and I were at the Big Society – what does it mean for the Church? conference on 'The Big Society' organised by the London Churches Group, Mission in London’s Economy and the Diocese of Southwark Public Policy Group.

We began with some excellent input and debate from Andrew Stunnell, Jon Cruddas and Debra Allcock Tyler. Jon Cruddas was, as is usually the case, particularly good value. He supported several initiatives with which I was involved in Barking & Dagenham, including the launch of the Faith Forum. More recently, of course, was the General Election campaign in the borough and in his remarks he paid tribute to the involvement of the churches in the Hope not Hate campaign which contributed to the defeat of the BNP.

These are some highlights from what he said:

• Big fan of the Big Society which could become the cornerstone of a new politics; the new centre ground? But a somewhat elusive concept.
• Irish Catholic, working class, Labour background -communitarian disposition. Therefore, Big Society not new.
• Change in Dagenham. Church has been central - held the line in tensions of change.
• Big Society - sphere between ineffective markets and over-heavy state. Notion of 'good' society fundamental critique of market-led economy. More than earning and money.
• Big Society - critique of statism. Labour has become statist and secular as opposed to being, in Dylan Thomas' phrase, "parochial and magical".
• Aristotle spoke about the release of virtue - just institutions that allow human flourishing.
• People in the community are currently struggling because of the withdrawal of 'safety nets'. the least well off are paying the price for the recession. Where the axe is falling is making the Big Society less likely.
• This is a radical Government, although I disagree with their decisions. It could be a vehicle for ther unfinished business of the Thatcher era. An exercise in economic and cultural disenfranchisement.
• "Aspire not to have more but to be more." - Oscar Romero.

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