Leaves for Healing: The Flowering of the Crown of Thorns

Crown of Thorns (after Lee-Elliott), pastels on paper with bamboo support

Flowering of the Crown of Thorns (after Lee-Elliott), pastels on paper with bamboo support

Original version of The Flowering of the Crown of Thorns as shown at a commission4mission exhibition in St Stephen Walbrook

Leaves for Healing is a two-part exhibition organised by the artist’s and craftspersons’ group at St Martin-in-the-Fields. The theme is taken from Ezekiel 47:1-12 and the two halves of the exhibition reflect the transition from wilderness to fertile land. Several pieces have been shown in one form in the Lenten part of the exhibition and then adapted or further developed for the Eastertide part of the exhibition.

My contribution to the exhibition is one which has been altered in line with the different sections of the exhibition. My image is inspired by Theyre Lee-Elliott's Crucified tree form - the agony, a painting which is part of the Methodist Modern Art Collection. Lee-Elliott is a neglected artist who created notable Art Deco logos and painted the ballet and religious art. See here for Lee-Elliott's image.

The Lenten version of the piece was a drawing after Lee-Elliott's crucified tree form with an emphasis on thorns around the head section of the tree form. Now for the Eastertide version of the piece, I have added leaves and flowers to create the flowering of the crown of thorns, as an image of the instrument of torture becoming the means of grace. The flowers used, although indicative, are Viola tricolor, also known as heart's ease; which seemed appropriate. This is the second version I have created on the flowering of the crown of thorns. The earlier version is shown above from a commission4mission exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook.

Several other pieces in the exhibition have been developed or altered to reflect the different themes and emotions in the two halves of the exhibition overall. These include Three Hanging by Lois Bentley in which her photographic collages on sheet steel, originally hung with ‘Bruised’ taking centre stage, flanked by ‘Cubits’ and Granite’, have now been re-ordered for Eastertide. Now titled Re-United, for Eastertide the middle triangle is placed point upwards as Jesus work on the cross is finished and the Trinity are restored to their coherent whole. The colour yellow appears as the Spring of resurrection dawns. The new piece has been inspired by Jesus asking Simon for a third time - do you love me? Similarly with Ali Lyon's Down in the River to Pray, Hand-dyed fabric (linen, silk, cotton) in deepening shades of blue, with some salt embellishment. This follows the image of deepening water, the trees on the banks, the salty water, and shores of plain green. The shores were unadorned for Lent and now, for Eastertide, are blossoming with a variety of hand-stitched leaves (dyed and variously constructed).

Leaves for Healing can be viewed in the foyer at St Martin-in-the-Fields until 9 June 2019.

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Beth Gibbons / Penderecki / Górecki - Symphony No. 3 Final Movement. 

Leaves for Healing

Leaves for Healing is a two-part exhibition organised by the artist’s and craftspersons’ group at St Martin-in-the-Fields. During Lent the exhibition runs from 6 March - 20 April and in Eastertide from 21 April - 9 June.

The theme is taken from Ezekiel 47:1-12, a vision of a transformed desert landscape. 18 artists from the congregation are showing work, some of which was created in the Drawing Club and art workshops organised by the group.

Ezekiel 47:1-12 is a marvellously evocative passage using much natural imagery – water, rivers, sea, swamps, marshes, fish, trees, fruit, leaves etc. The temple, as the place where God’s presence was very real, is seen as the source of new life, water flowing out and into the landscape, transforming the barren, empty desert into incredibly fertile land. In a barren landscape the passage finishes with a wonderful vision of the fruit from the trees that grow being food and the leaves used for healing. We have here a vision of life being released into the dry desert of Ezekiel’s time and encouragement for us to imagine this life flowing into our 21st century context.

The exhibition utilises this imagery to explore themes of flourishing, growth, healing and worship. The two halves of the exhibition reflect the transition from wilderness to fertile land.

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Eva Cassidy - Autumn Leaves.

Art events & exhibitions update 2

Leaves for Healing is a two-part exhibition organised by the artist’s and craftspersons’ group at St Martin-in-the-Fields. During Lent the exhibition runs from 6 March - 20 April and in Eastertide from 21 April - 9 June. 

The theme is taken from Ezekiel 47:1-12, a vision of a transformed desert landscape. 18 artists from the congregation are showing work, some of which was created in the Drawing Club and art workshops organised by the group.

Ezekiel 47:1-12 is a marvellously evocative passage using much natural imagery – water, rivers, sea, swamps, marshes, fish, trees, fruit, leaves etc. The temple, as the place where God’s presence was very real, is seen as the source of new life, water flowing out and into the landscape, transforming the barren, empty desert into incredibly fertile land. In a barren landscape the passage finishes with a wonderful vision of the fruit from the trees that grow being food and the leaves used for healing. We have here a vision of life being released into the dry desert of Ezekiel’s time and encouragement for us to imagine this life flowing into our 21st century context. 

The exhibition utilises this imagery to explore themes of flourishing, growth, healing and worship. The two halves of the exhibition reflect the transition from wilderness to fertile land.

Pastiche Mass, Thursday 21 March 2019, 6.00pm, Chelsea College of Arts, 45 Milbank, London SW1P 4JU

Pastiche Mass is a liturgical artwork composed and led by artist and ordained minister Mark Dean.

Dean has replaced the choral parts of the traditional mass setting with video and sound, incorporating a mixture of original and appropriated film and music. The work will premiere in the context of a Eucharist in the Banqueting Hall at Chelsea College of Arts, where Dean is licensed to minister the sacraments as chaplain.

All welcome, but places are limited, so please register for a free ticket in order to attend the event. The service will start shortly after 6pm. Please stay for refreshments afterwards.

Hosted by Art + Christianity and Arts Chaplaincy Projects.



Solace at St Peter's - Lent Creative Workshops on Wednesdays: March 13th, March 27th, April 3rd. 12noon – 3pm & Saturdays: March 16th & April 6th. 12noon-3pm. St Peter De Beauvoir Town, Northchurch Terrace, London N1 4DA.

This Lent, artists Sophie Alston and Ingrid Pumayalla (working from Peru), with students under the auspices of Arts Chaplaincy Projects (University of the Arts, London) will create: SOLACE AT ST PETER’S.

Using natural materials from around the neighbourhood and textile crafts, everyone is invited to St Peter de Beauvoir, to create a series of sculptures around the building, exploring the themes of spring and new life, and nurturing connections between congregation and community.

Sophie Alston & Ingrid Pumayalla are MA Fine Art graduates from Central Saint Martins with experience of participatory, craft-based residencies – most recently collaborating in an arts project at Princess Alice Hospice in Surrey, as recently exhibited in the Window Galleries at CSM.

They have a shared interest in the spiritual potential of art for healing and will be working with the community in and around St Peter de Beauvoir Town during Lent to create a series of sculptural installations exploring themes of spring and new life.

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Mark Hollis - A New Jerusalem.

Stations2017: Stations of the Cross & Stations of the Resurrection

Stations of the Cross brought together fourteen video works by Mark Dean that reinterpreted the medieval tradition of spiritual pilgrimage through contemplation of the path Jesus walked to Calvary on the day of his crucifixion. The videos are not literal depictions of this journey. They rely upon Dean’s trademark appropriation of film and video footage and music, to introduce visual and aural puns that generate and interrogate meaning within the work, setting up disputations between the different elements being sampled. Although the work is carefully constructed, the reverberations created by placing potent symbols side by side are myriad. The work was projected in sequence onto the circular Henry Moore altar at St Stephen Walbrook throughout the night on Easter Eve, interspersed with readings and space for meditation. Participants were invited to stay for the duration but remained free to come and go, as part of a vigil culminating in a performance of A Prelude to Being Here by two dancers from Lizzi Kew Ross & Co and an optional dawn Eucharist. 

If you would like to view these video works, they are now online at: http://tailbiter.com/art/stations-of-the-cross together with the catalogue essay and the readings used during the Vigil.

Here Comes The Sony is a twelve-screen video and sound work, installed for the first time under the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral during Eastertide (Wednesday 26 April). It reinterprets the less definitive tradition of the Stations of the Resurrection, which emerged to encourage meditation on the resurrection appearances of Jesus recorded in the New Testament. Being Here, devised by choreographer Lizzi Kew Ross and the dancers, is performed on the stage formed by the circular placement of television monitors under the dome. Five dancers emerge from the shadows around the edge of the stage and start to navigate the space, sometimes individually and sometimes in groups of far-off and nervous proximity. The on-lookers find themselves within the action of these movements. While not enacting the narratives, the dance performance is an interpretation of the moment, producing a sense of a shared journey and progression through time and space and enabling the audience to curate the tension and distance between the installation and their own responses.

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Planxty - As I Roved Out.

Start:Stop - The only way is up!

Bible reading

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb … Simon Peter … went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple … also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept … Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20. 1 – 18)

Meditation

In his great book The Gulag Archipelago Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote of the way the Siberian labour camps to which the Soviet government consigned those they deemed enemies of the state robbed him of everything that makes life meaningful: “He is robbed of his name – he is known only by a number. He is robbed of books and pen and paper – a dreadful deprivation for a writer of his stature. He is robbed of work he can do with dignity. Instead he must labour as a slave. He is deprived of sufficient food and sleep. He gets no letters. He hears no news of his family or of the outside world. He is stripped of his own clothes and dressed in verminous rags. He is robbed of his health – he succumbs to cancer.

Solzhenitsyn, robbed of everything, sinks as it were to the bottom, to the very base of being. And then he says something extraordinary. He writes of the day, ‘when I deliberately let myself sink to the bottom and felt it firm under my feet – the hard rocky bottom which is the same for all.’

On the Friday that we call ‘good’, Jesus too descends to rock bottom. He is betrayed by a friend, arrested, deserted and denied by his friends, falsely accused, wrongly condemned, beaten and mocked, before being killed by extreme torture. More than this even, scripture implies that in death Jesus descends to hell and, if hell is separation of God and the absence of all that is good, then, because Jesus cries out “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” we can understand that he enters hell.

As a result, we can say that however low you go Jesus has already been there and that it is Jesus that we find when we, like Solzhenitsyn, reach rock bottom. He is the rock that we find when we have lost everything that is ours or have reached the outer limits of who we understand ourselves to be. He is the firm foundation on which a different way of life can then be built because when you do reach rock bottom and find there a firm foundation on which to stand, then the only way to go is up.

Some of you will remember these lines from Yazz’s No. 1 song: “We've been broken down / To the lowest turn / Being on the bottom line / Sure ain't no fun ... / I wanna thank you / For loving me this way / Things may be a little hard now / But we'll find a brighter day / Hold on, hold on / Hold on, Won't be long / The only way is up, baby / For you and me now / The only way is up, baby / For you and me now”

That is what we celebrate in Eastertide and that is why this is an Eastertide reflection and not the Good Friday reflection that it has appeared to be so far. Jesus reached rock bottom on Good Friday but that was not where the story ends. For Jesus, the resurrection meant that the only way for him, following Good Friday, was up. And because Jesus dies and is resurrected as the forerunner for each one of us, this can be our experience too. Jesus went into the depths of human sin and suffering to save us, to bring us up and out from our depths of sin and suffering into new life together with him; a life in which resurrection has begun to be our experience and will become our eternal experience.

So, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Ain’t no valley low enough to keep us from Jesus, even the valley of the shadow of death. A change is gonna come. The times, they are a’changin’. We can move on up to our destination. We will rise from the ruins. The only way is up. The songs and the clichés find their truth in Jesus and his resurrection which is the promise of our own personal resurrection and the resurrection of our world itself.

Prayers

Hallelujah! Jesus is risen! He is risen indeed! May this declaration resound not only in these walls but touch the lives of all we meet and forever be the truth of which we speak. Your love, once sown within a garden, tended for your own people, neglected and rejected, now spreads its sweet perfume in this place and wherever it is shown. Hallelujah! Jesus is risen! He is risen indeed!

Lord of life, you defeated death to demonstrate a love that is beyond our understanding that reaches out even to me; saving Grace to all who hear. Lord Jesus Christ, we rejoice and rejoice continually in Your glorious and triumphant victory over death. For Your victory is our victory. Help us to live by it, in it, and for it. We are grateful to our depths - grateful forever. Hallelujah! Jesus is risen! He is risen indeed!

Lord of life, you defeated death to show that we can rise from all that binds us to the world; pride, envy, anger, fear, the debt of sin that holds us here. Lord of life, we pray for all who bring your word of life as a light to those in darkness. For those who bring your word of peace to those enslaved by fear. For those who bring your word of love to those in need of comfort. Lord of love and Lord of peace, Lord of resurrection life, be known through our lives and through your power. Hallelujah! Jesus is risen! He is risen indeed!

The Blessing

God, who through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has given us the victory, give you joy and peace in your faith; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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George Frederick Handel - Thine Be The Glory.

Pascal’s God-shaped hole working its way into literature and film

“An old saying goes, in order to experience Easter you must go through Good Friday first. According to The Dark Knight Rises, the third instalment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, even superheroes aren’t immune to this tenet. The film provides a thorough examination of the themes of sacrifice and resurrection, two of the fundamental principles of the Christian life.”

The previous instalment of the Dark Knight trilogy, The Dark Knight, was the story of Batman as suffering servant. At its climax, Harvey Dent becomes Batman’s Judas as Batman decides to take responsibility for Dent’s crimes so that those sins could be forgiven and the people of Gotham saved. As a result, in The Dark Knight Rises “we meet Bruce Wayne, beaten and battered, hidden, in isolation from the world and all relationships. He has seemingly lost everything, his health, his reputation, and the love of his life. All has been lost for the sake of the people of Gotham.”

The villain of the latest film, Bane, “throws Batman into a prison described as a literal hell on earth where the suffering is not physical, but the hopelessness sprouting in the hearts of its inmates when they look up at the sky, knowing that escape is impossible. From this, our Dark Knight is resurrected, conquering “death” and then later conquering the Enemy, bringing freedom.”

“Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is a retelling of the real Messiah-hero story.” What is the significance of the story of Easter being retold in the garb of Batman?

Firstly, it shows us the continuing resonance of the Easter story. It is a real story; “real stories are ones that reflect true things about life, human nature, and the world we live in.” Secondly, it shows us that “people, whether they realize it or not, long for the gospel. There is something in the story that resonates with us, even if we are resistant to the message on a conscious level. We’re wired for it. Maybe it’s Pascal’s God-shaped hole working its way into literature and film.”

As we celebrate Eastertide together, we can reflect that the real Messiah-hero story continues to impact on the lives and imaginations of many in our world even when transposed into other stories and mediums. This Eastertide, may we come to know the real Messiah-hero deeper ourselves and step into his story of death and resurrection for ourselves.

(This post is based on material from http://www.patheos.com/blogs/schaeffersghost/2012/08/the-dark-knight-resurrects/, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/schaeffersghost/2012/07/dark-knight-rex/, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/schaeffersghost/2012/07/the-rocks-cry-out-finding-the-gospel-in-very-unexpected-places/, http://bustedhalo.com/features/a-light-in-the-dark-knight, http://thatfilmchannel.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/batman-must-die-an-analysis-of-the-dark-knight-trilogy/).

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Brice Randall Bickford - Pictures of Adolf Again (Bill Fay)

Passiontide, Holy Week and Eastertide

Our Good Friday Devotional Service will feature use of The Passion: Reflections & Prayers. These are pictures, poems and prayers by Henry Shelton and I which enable us to follow Jesus on his journey to the cross reflecting both on the significance and the pain of that journey.

Christian Art – fallacy or fusion? Eastertide course exploring approaches to and understanding of the relationship between faith and art. Tuesday evenings at St John's Seven Kings on 9th, 23^rd & 30^th April, 7^th & 14^th May at 7.30pm. Cost – £15. To book contact Liz Watson on 01245 294449 or lwatson@chelmsford.anglican.org.

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Buddy Miller - All My Tears.

Risen! Art of the Crucifixion and Eastertide

From the beginning of Holy Week until well into Eastertide, Monnow Valley Arts with the Trustees of the Methodist Church Collection of Modern Christian Art have organised a series of exhibitions exploring the life of Christ.

The Methodist Modern Art Collection has been described as the most important collection of modern Christian Art outside the Vatican. It was started in the 1960s and continues to grow, now numbering fifty works, almost all of which will be on show, supplemented by work by contemporary artists, at venues in Abergavenny, Hereford, Peterchurch and Walterstone.

For some visitors the exhibitions will offer an opportunity to contemplate Christ’s love for humanity through visual imagery and to give thanks for his sacrifice on Calvary. For others the exhibitions
will prompt questions about faith and doubt as they look at the very varied ways in which a number of remarkable artists have brought their insights to bear on the Christian story.

Included among these exhibitions is The Last Supper, a unique exhibition during Lent in a tiny former shepherds’ church on the Welsh borders (St Michael’s Discoed) which portrays an individual perspective of the scriptural sequence. The artists involved have created a sequence of fourteen subjects centred on the Last Supper. The subjects they have come up with describe things which happened before, during, and after the Last Supper, in a sequence which they hope will invite reflection and meditation.

The central exhibition Risen! is currently at the Piano Nobile Gallery in London until 12th March before moving to Monnow Valley Arts from 23rd March to 21st April. Just around the corner from Piano Nobile is the Temple Gallery which is a centre for the study, restoration and exhibition of ancient icons and sacred art. The Gallery owner, Richard Temple, has written on Icons and the Mystical Origins of Christianity (Luzac Oriental) and ICONS Divine Beauty (Saqi Books), among other publications and catalogues. In conversation he commended Daniel Neculae: Iconographer which opens at the Sacred Space Gallery in St John's Notting Hill on Monday 11th March.

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Dissident Prophet - Unconditional Love.

Christian Art – fallacy or fusion?

The Lent & Eastertide Schools are a collection of education, training and skills events across the Diocese of Chelmsford during Lent and Eastertide each year. A series of short courses running across the diocese between Ash Wednesday and Pentecost with a wide variety of themes and costing £15 per course.

This year, as part of the Eastertide School, I will be running 'Christian Art – fallacy or fusion?' which aims to explore approaches to and understanding of the relationship between art and faith. In this course participants will explore approaches to engaging with and looking attentively at art in addition to exploring the history of art and faith plus definitions of Christian Art. As we do so, we will also look at contemporary art exhibitions, public art and church commissions.

The course will take place on five Tuesday evenings beginning 9th April, then from 23rd April - 14th May at St John's Seven Kings (St Johns Road, Seven Kings, Ilford, Essex IG2 7BB). For brochures and booking forms please contact: Liz Watson. Diocesan Office, 53 New Street, Chelmsford, Essex. CM1 1AT. Tel: 01245 294449, email: lwatson@chelmsford.anglican.org.

I have been thinking about books to suggest to participants for further reading as, while many books have been written on the arts and faith, a relative paucity exists of books giving reasonably accurate, comprehensive and unbiased summaries or surveys of the modern period. The resources I am likely to commend include:

Rosemary Crumlin's Beyond Belief: Modern Art and the Religious Imagination, the catalogue from a 1998 exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. While not being "a survey of religious and spiritual images of the century," the works included and the accompanying essays do nevertheless span the twentieth century. The earliest, Maurice Denis' The Catholic Mystery and James Ensor's Christ calming the storm "hover at the edges of a century of revolutions, wars and new beginnings" while "at the other end of the century, and of the exhibition, are Francesco Clemente's meditations on his journey up Mount Abu in India and Audrey Flack's huge head of the goddess Daphne, with fruit and branches for hair and, on her forehead, a skull, a reminder and warning of the destruction of war."

The foreword by Timothy Potts contains a particularly focussed summary of religious and spiritual influences on twentieth century art: "The pervasiveness of broadly religious and spiritual themes in twentieth-century Western art may at first seem to stand in contradiction to the secularization of so many aspects of life and culture during our times. The religious underpinnings of so much Western art before this century - from its subject matter to its sources of patronage and its devotional purposes - are obvious and uncontentious. With the art of our own century, however, the religious dimension is altogether more subtle, often more abstract and inevitably more personal. From images created with a clear message and usage in mind, we move into a world of individual spiritual discovery, personal visual languages and images which seek to explore and evoke rather than to define and prescribe. Some artists employ familiar religious iconography as convenient signifiers of an earlier culture and mind set - artefacts to be used in a quintessentially modern image-making of juxtaposition, anomaly and incongruity. Others eschew icons altogether to explore more mystical spiritual concerns in images of diffuse abstraction. The visual languages, the spiritual purposes and the artistic results are infinitely varied, but all are united by an absorption in the confrontation between art and religious experience. In this exhibition, these pervasive currents of religious experience and thinking can be traced running through the work of many of the twentieth-century's most important artists and schools."

Art, Modernity and Faith: Restoring the Image by George Pattison provides a survey of modern theological approaches to understanding the relationship between Christianity and the visual arts (Forsyth, Maritain, Gilson, Ruskin, Tillich, Wolterstorff etc.) together with a critique of these approaches leading to his own proposals for a theology of Art. While not fully comprehensive, as there is, for example, no discussion of the significant work of Hans Urs von Balthasar or Calvin Seerveld, Pattison is nevertheless asking many of the right questions - "What sort of theology of art, then, will work best for our time? What will enable theologians to bring to their engagement with the visual arts the great (yet ceaselessly debated) resources of the Christian tradition - but in such a way that the artist is recognised and affirmed in his or her autonomy of working?" He emphasises that the "dialogue between art and religion is to be just that: a dialogue, with each partner seeking to appreciate the specific contribution of the other."   

Rowena Loverance’s Christian Art is both an accessible introduction to Christian Art and a stimulating exploration of the way in which art from the Christian tradition can speak to our condition today. To achieve both within the pages of one book is a considerable achievement. Loverance’s scope is broad, covering Christian Art from its inception to the contemporary in a way that is genuinely global and which takes in the decorative as well as the fine arts. She begins with a brief chronological survey in which she notes the way in which different aspects of Christian Art emerge from the different periods and cultures of Church history. The majority of the book, however, explores Christian Art thematically, noting the way in which the visual arts have engaged with the themes and imagery of Christian scripture and tradition. While necessarily concise through covering a lot of ground, Loverance writes with the sensitivity to art that one should expect of an art historian and with a similar appreciation of theology that comes from one writing, as a Quaker, out of her own faith tradition. Loverance has written an engaging, accessible survey of the diversity of Christian Art in which she clearly identifies the relevance of such art to our contemporary condition and identifies fruitful new avenues in the Christian tradition for possible exploration by contemporary artists. Well illustrated and designed, this is a book to inspire both the creation of new Christian art and appreciation of the wonderful heritage that we already possess.

Finally, I am also likely to commend the series of lectures given by The Rt Revd Lord Harries at the Museum of London on Christian Faith and Modern Art. The last century saw changes in artistic style that were both rapid and radical. This presented a particular problem to artists who wished to express Christian themes and these illustrated lectures looked at how different artists responded to this challenge whilst retaining their artistic integrity. The lectures in the series are: The Explosion of Modernism; Distinctive Individual Visions; Catholic Elegance and Joy; Post World War II Optimism; Searching for new ways; and Contemporary Christian Art.

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James MacMillan - Credo.

The Writing on the Wall (2)

Excellent day spent with Maggi Dawn at St Margaret's Barking today exploring the multiple layers of meaning opened up by the interaction between the Arts and the Bible. Click here for a summary of the material Maggi took us through; all linked to the theme of her most recent book, The Writing on the Wall.

This was a day for exploring connections and intereptations rememberiung that the Arts do more than simply decorate, illustrate or communicate Biblical narrative as part of the engagement between the two. Our differing responses to the images we viewed and the poetry we read reminded us both of the multiple layers of meaning contained in Bible stories and artwork which explore such stories and also the differing perspectives that we bring to our interpretations of these stories and artworks.

One image which generated a range of responses illustrating the essential ambiguity of art to which viewers return repeatedly was Banksy's Christ with Shopping Bags, which could provoke reflection on the religion of consumerism, the death of consumerism, the commercialisation of Christianity, and the gift that is Christ, among other possibilities. Maggi noted that good art produced by non-believing artists is better than poor art produced by believing artists. This is, I think, because good art contains the ambiguity which derives from multi-layered meaning whereas poor art functions only at the levels of decoration, illustration or communication.

Through the works we explored, we saw that there is an ongoing dialogue between the Biblical text, its influences and interpretations through artworks and other cultural influences, and the way in which each artwork that we encounter which derive from or make use of Biblical stories or images then affect our responses to those same stories and images when we next read/see them.

A particularly interesting insight from Maggi came in reflecting on Igor Mitoraj's The Annunciation door at Santa Maria degli Angeli e Martiri in Rome which strips the traditional imagery back to the barest minimum and fragments and truncates the protagonist's bodies. Gabriel's wing contains a face which can only fully be seen when the viewer looks at Gabriel from the perspective of Mary. My recollection is of Maggi reflecting that one possible interpretation could be that God's messenger's do not simply bring a message about God but, because God is the content of the message which they bring, also bring God himself. In this instance then the medium and the message were one.

Other fascinating material included a sustained reflection on the life of Abraham based primarily on the Andrei Rublev's Icon of the Trinity and Caravaggio's The Sacrifice of Isaac.

One overall reflection for me was the sense that much of the Bible leaves great scope for imagination because, unlike a novel or contemporary biography, it does not give detailed descriptions or explanations of character's contexts, emotions or thought processes. This then enables artists and readers alike to imagine what these may have been for themselves, as in the marvellous Annunciation poem from Noel Rowe's Magnificat sequence.

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Franz Biebl - Ave Maria.

The Writing on the Wall

Looking forward to Saturday's Writing on the Wall day at St Margaret's Barking which I'm introducing and where Maggi Dawn will show how art, music, poetry, sculpture and film have been influenced by the Bible far more than we usually realise and how the arts do more than merely illustrate bible stories and characters: they also open up possibilities for interpretation.

The day will open up some of the theological and devotional adventures that become possible when the riches of the Bible are recognized within the world of the arts, and offer all kinds of inspiration, for teaching, preaching and personal spiritual growth.
 
Maggi Dawn is an author and theologian. She began her professional life as a singer-songwriter, but later after reading for a degree and a PhD in theology turned her creative talents to writing books. Maggi is currently based at the University of Cambridge where she is Chaplain and Fellow in Theology at Robinson College.


Her current publication, The Writing on the Wall (Hodder and Stoughton, June 2010), explores the way in which the Bible has become one of the building blocks of Western culture. If you love art, music and literature, and want to understand the hidden layers of meaning that derive from the Bible, this book is essential reading.

Maggi ran a similar day at the Cathedral Chapter House in Chelmsford in March, also as part of the Diocese's Lent & Eastertide programme - see here and here for feedback.

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Maggi Dawn - I Will Wait.

Living the Story / Writing on the Wall

I spent part of yesterday planning Living the Story, the Lent course I'm running as part of the Diocesan Lent and Eastertide programme together with Philip Ritchie and Paul Trathen.

We've taken as our starting point Tom Wright's description of the Bible as being like a five act play containing the first four acts in full (i.e. 1. Creation, 2. Fall, 3. Israel, 4. Jesus) and the writing of the New Testament as forming the first scene in the fifth act which also giving hints of how the play is supposed to end. We are then called to live in this story improvising our part in the play on the basis of what we know of the story so far and the hints we have of how it will end.

Living the Story in this way is something that Christian artists and writers have tried to do throughout Church history and continue to do today. So in this course we will be examining a selection of contemporary uses of the Bible and the Christian story in popular culture and considering whether or not they can be said to be 'living the story’. We plan to cover film, music, novels, poetry and visual arts.

Also included in the Lent and Eastertide programme and covering similar ground are two sessions by Maggi Dawn based on her book The Writing on the Wall.

2011 is the 400th anniversary of the publication of The King James Version of the Bible. But just how well do we understand the Bible, and its relationship to our culture? Maggi Dawn, author of The Writing on the Wall, will show how art, music, poetry, sculpture and film have been influenced by the Bible far more than we usually realize. But the arts do more than merely illustrate bible stories and characters: they also open up possibilities for interpretation.

This day will open up some of the theological and devotional adventures that become possible when the riches of the Bible are recognized within the world of the arts, and offer all kinds of inspiration, for teaching, preaching and personal spiritual growth.

The Writing on the Wall is on Saturday March 26th at Chelmsford Cathedral Centre and Saturday May 7th at St Margaret’s Church, Barking. Both are from 10am – 4pm.

For details about dates, times and venues of courses go to Lent Schools 2011 and Eastertide Schools 2011 for the full programme. Contact details for booking at Lent and Easter schools 2011.

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Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Brompton Oratory.

Presence & Engagement Network update

Here is the latest update from the Greater London Presence & Engagement Network:

PEN work and events

We are just putting together the promised resource pack. This has become a CD-ROM rather than a folder of papers. It updates the pack given out at our 1st June launch and is being sent to clergy in all four of our sponsoring Dioceses with the intention that every parish will have access to at least one copy. So for lay colleagues who would like one please let me know or badger your nearest incumbent and make sure they make good use of it please. (Those in Southwark Diocese will receive theirs through the monthly clergy mailing.)

Living with other faiths: to help those who would like to familiarise themselves with this material or get pointers on how to put together a course that a fits particular context, there is a training morning on Thursday 11th February in the Chapter Room at Southwark Cathedral (very central for transport, right next to London Bridge). Starting prompt at 10 am until 12 noon (with a midway coffee break), the session will be lead by the author of the material, The Revd Jonathan Evens. There will be a £5 charge payable on the day. Please let me know if you are hoping to attend.

Jonathan is also leading a five week course using the material as part of the Diocese of Chelmsford Lent and Eastertide School 2010 on five Fridays in Lent (February 26th, March 5th, 12th, 19th & 26th); 10am until 12 noon, The Chapter House, Chelmsford. The five week course costs £15 and can be booked through Liz Watson at the Chelmsford Diocesan office. Email lwatson@chelmsford.anglican.org or telephone 01245 294400. (This is module Lent 13 of the CCS course.) The Revd Angus Ritchie (Director of the Contextual Theology Centre) is running the course for five Mondays in Eastertide (April 19th & 26th, May 10th, 17th & 24th). ; 7.30 – 9.30pm, University of East London Stratford Campus. Cost and booking as above. (This is module Easter 4 of the CCS course.)

Also using these materials but slightly differently, Churches Together in Balham and Upper Tooting Lent course will run five Wednesdays in Lent (February 24th, March 3rd, 10th, 17th & 24th)7.30 – 9.00 pm at St Mary’s Church Balham High Road. (Balham station and Northern line underground are close by) please let The Revd Wilma Roest vicar@stmarybalham.org.uk, or myself, know if you plan to attend. The course is being led by PEN Coordinator, Susanne Mitchell and local church members.

Learning and Growing: this one of the series of Autumn seminars was postponed. In the next few weeks I will be in touch with “providers” about their latest courses and materials to put on something late Spring early summer. I would welcome suggestions as to what you would find helpful by way of an event to encourage the practice of Christian Learning and Growing and developing confidence in being able to explain our faith to others.

A recommendation: I recently met with Jane Winter and David Grimwood of Zedakah. Zedakah (http://www.zedakah.org.uk/) is a faith based work consultancy which provides a range of services to support individuals and local community groups through the processes of project planning and management. Staff have considerable experience of Christian based social justice, community ministry and consultancy. I will be adding details to the website soon but if you are thinking of embarking on a project why not take a look at what they can offer by way of support.

Other news and events

The Three Faiths Forum is looking for an education officer for Christianity, interns, and volunteer speakers for their workshops in schools and colleges. Training is given for speakers in dialogue skills and public speaking. Ideally they want volunteers under 30. Details about this and the education office post are on their website: http://www.threefaithsforum.org.uk/.

The Just Share Lectures continue at St Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside. Wednesday 27th January at 6.05pm ‘The City of God and the City’ The Revd Canon Dr Nicholas Sagovsky, Canon Theologian at Westminster Abbey.

Jewels in His Crown Day Conference Saturday 23rd January 9.45am – 1.00pm Which Way the UK Asian Church? Which models are working in London? At St Peter’s Church, Vere Street, London W1G 0DQ. Details of their national conference in June 2010 will be added to the PEN website soon.

The Christian Interfaith Practitioners' Association will be holding their Annual Consultation from the 18-20 May 2010 at Luther King House, Manchester. Face to Face and Side by Side: Who is in? Who is Out? www.cipa-uk.com for more details.

Community Mission a partnership between Tearfund and Livability (formerly Shaftesbury Society) are hosting Mission in multi-faith communities on 10 March in central London. The day is facilitated by Richard Sudworth, author of Distinctly Welcoming. Richard also runs a community project in a diverse part of Birmingham. The day will focus on evangelism in a multi-faith context and how to maintain a distinctive Christian approach. It is £20/person including lunch. To book, contact Jill Clark or phone 020 7452 2018.

Contextual Theology Centre event for the Week of prayer for Christian Unity. Thursday 21st January, 7.30-9pm at St Paul's Church, Shadwell E1 Christian Unity - for a Change Hear the Revd Ric Thorpe (St Paul's , Shadwell), Capt Nick Coke (Stepney Salvation Army), Sr Una McCreesh (Ursuline Sisters) and Pastor Wayne Brown (NT Church of God) speak about the impact of community organising on their congregations and neighbourhoods.

And still with a Social Justice theme Insidegovernment Tackling Race Inequality: Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society on Tuesday 23rd February, Central London, 09:00 - 14:00 more details at http://insidegovernment.msgfocus.com/c/1iK09ym24tI4QrFOZ).

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Curtis Mayfield - Keep On Keeping On.

Present & Engaged

Archbishop Rowan Williams preached and presided at a Eucharist to launch the Presence and Engagement Network (PEN) on June 1st. PEN brings together those ministering in multi faith contexts, and those who train and equip them, in the Church of England dioceses covering Greater London.

The launch event, which included Bishops from each of the participating dioceses, was part of a day of reflection, prayer and celebration on the witness of Christian congregations in multi faith contexts. The Archbishop also gave the keynote address at this study day, organised at the Contextual Study Centre, which looked at the characteristic practices of Christian congregations - and the distinctive opportunities and challenges of multi Faith contexts. Materials from the day will be posted online shortly and I will include a link to them when they are.

I was part of the day as one of CTC's tutors and the author of the 'Living with other faiths' resource pack which was promoted as part of the PEN launch and a copy of which will be sent to every parish in Greater London. My particular part to play was to response to a excellent paper on Reading scripture in Presence & Engagement contexts which was given by Michael Ipgrave, Archdeacon of Southwark.

Michael's paper, which will be included in the materials to be posted online and is well worth reading, considered the four themes of ‘handling’, ‘opening’, ‘revisiting’, and ‘engaging scripture’. In my response I affirmed what he said by adding some stories from my own experience:

I have just finished using the PEN ‘Living with other faiths’ resource materials in one of two courses looking at these issues as part of the Chelmsford Diocese’s Lent & Eastertide courses.
As in previous years it was the realisation by the course participants that the contexts in which Israel, Jesus and the Early Church lived and ministered were multi-faith which really opened up the issue to them. There is a palpable change in the group and their understanding when they see, for example, that, by commending the Good Samaritan, Jesus is challenging people of one faith to receive from someone of another faith.

When that realisation comes, the course participants recognise, as Michael expressed, “that the people of God have already known and grappled with the challenges of living amid religious plurality.”

I recently led a project, through a network called Faiths in London’s Economy, which developed a ‘Shared Faiths response to the credit crunch’; a document that now features on the Faiths debate page of the G20 London Summit website. What was fascinating about that process was the way in which dialoguing with people of other faiths sharpened my understanding of my faith.
One particular debate was with a Muslim member of the group over a statement that in some faith traditions human beings are seen as co-creators with God. Initially, this appeared arrogant in the extreme to him but over email exchanges and telephone conversations we found common ground in the idea of human beings as representatives of the divine on earth. Michael said that these kinds of encounters sharpen our “awareness of the way in which churches handle the Bible.” And that was certainly my experience in this instance.

Finally, in the ‘Living with other faiths’ pack we give several scenarios in which people are asked to think of basic information about other faiths that it would be useful for them to have before making initial contact. One of these scenarios involves an approach from a Muslim group to use Church accommodation for an Islamic Study Circle. Most people’s initial reaction is that Churches should not get involved. That is until we give them a case study of one church that has engaged with such a group. Allowing the group to use their premises led to the building of friendship which led to shared study of their respective scriptures.

While that church was not formally engaged in a Scriptural Reasoning process they also found their Scriptures speaking to them when they were brought alongside the sacred texts of other religions and that experience developed considerably the building of friendship, trust and understanding in their local community.

Michael ended by saying that when we engage with one another’s scriptures “we can sense our human interactions with one another being caught up in, and transformed by … dialogue with God.” The centrality of dialogue to interfaith engagement can, I think, be an entry point for us into understanding the way in which dialogue informs Christian faith. The idea that the form of scripture sets texts in dialogue with each other; that dialogue or exchange is at the heart of the Trinity; and that God seeks to draw us into that dialogue and that Jesus is the self-communication of God.

As one paraphrase of John 1 puts it: “It all arose out of a conversation, conversation within God, in fact the conversation was God. So God started the discussion, and everything came out of this, and nothing happened without consultation. This was the life, life that was the light of men, shining in the darkness, a darkness which neither understood nor quenched its creativity.” If, as that paraphrase would have it, interfaith dialogue is an aspect of that broader dialogue with God then my motivation for getting engaged is all the greater.

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Van Morrison - And The Healing Has Begun.

The Bible - essential cultural luggage

Children should be taught the Bible throughout their education because it is an "essential piece of cultural luggage" without which they will struggle to fully understand literature, according to the poet laureate, Andrew Motion.

Motion made this argument in an article published in today's Education Guardian and his full argument can be read by clicking here. Also at the Guardian website, Andrew Brown has posted an interesting comment on Motion's argument while Philip Ritchie has kicked off a discussion on the issue at his blog. You can also check out your Bible knowledge with a Guardian quiz which can be found by clicking here.

Failing to understand or acknowledge our inherited language and imagery from the Bible and from Christendom is a common problem that bedevils much contemporary cultural comment. One of my earliest posts was on this issue and used interpretations of songs from Bob Dylan as an example of the way in which such lack of knowledge affects cultural interpretations.

In a Lent/Eastertide course called The Big Picture that I am involved in running in the Diocese of Chelmsford, together with my friends Philip Ritchie and Paul Trathen, we briefly survey the history of how our culture has inherited much of its language and imagery in this way in order to pose the question of how we can hope to understand our culture without understanding the biblical/Christian language and imagery that informs it.

Motion thinks that:

"Too many students arrive at university to study English literature barely knowing who Adam and Eve were because teaching of the Bible and its "great stories" is disappearing from the school system, he said. He was not arguing for religious indoctrination, but for people to learn historical stories which have influenced writers. "I am not for a moment suggesting that everybody be made to go to church during their childhood. But what I do think would be worth thinking about [is] how there could be some kind of general treatment of this all the way through a child's schooling," he told the Guardian.

People cannot expect to understand much of literature - from John Milton to TS Eliot - without learning the Bible first, he said. The sermon on the mount and the crucifixion are stories which have influenced story structures ever since, while the book of Ruth is essential because of "the beauty of the writing". Children should read the Bible, he said, "simply because it is full of terrific stories. They speak to us about human nature and the recurring patterns of human behaviour."
Motion, who is professor of creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London, said that all humanities undergraduates at university level should be given crash courses in the great stories. "I would start with Christian stories, Qur'anic stories, Greek and Roman stories, but it could be refined depending on what the subject is: a little history for people doing English, a bit of English for people doing history, for example."

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Neal Morse - Heaven In My Heart.

Learn for Lent (and Eastertide)!

Philip Ritchie has posted a timely reminder of the Diocese of Chelmsford Lent & Eastertide Schools 2009. Information about the courses on offer can be found at Lent Schools 2009 and Eastertide Schools 2009.

Courses on offer cover subjects including: The ministry of the Evangelist; Dance and worship; The faith we share; Churches together today; Children, community and church; The Reformation in Essex and East London; Is the Old Testament Christian? Mission shaped ministry; Walk thru' the Bible; Christian poetry; Old Testament lucky dip; Signposts into life (vocation); Pastoral care; Christian art; Myers Briggs refresher; Prayer workshop.

I and some of my blogging colleagues are also running courses. These are:

• The Big Picture 2: Exploring the engagement between Christianity, Christian Artists and Popular Culture. Led by Jonathan Evens, Paul Trathen and Philip Ritchie.
• Let Us Be Human: How might we put our theology, our global questions and our choices of lifestyle into a constructive dialogue? Led by Sam Norton and Paul Trathen.
• Living With Other Faiths: Exploring why Christians should engage with other faith communities and how we can go about doing this. Two courses, one led by Angus Ritchie and Sean Connelly, the other led by Jonathan Evens and David Driscoll.

The Lent and Eastertide Schools are a collection of education, training and skills events across the Diocese of Chelmsford during Lent and Eastertide each year. The courses are open to all.

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Innocence Mission - Black Sheep Wall.

The most rapturous activity

I was in Chelmsford today for the start of the Eastertide Living with other faiths course, which got off to a very positive start, and picked up, second hand, a book on the Hungarian ceramacist, Margit Kovács.

Kovács was born in Győr and a permanent exhibition of her works can be found in the town. She trained in Munich under Karl Killer was influenced by the religious pathos of his work. Her own work treats many religious themes in a style that was influenced by both Byzantine and folk art.
Kovács was part of a movement in Hungarian art that saw religious and hiostorical appearing more frequently from the 1920s onwards. She herself had many significant ecclesiastical commissions including the portals of the Saint Emeric Church of Győr (1939-1940) and the Stations of the Cross at the St Ladislaus Church of Hollóháza.

Reviewers felt that her religious pieces were "imbued with the piety that pervades works by old masters." She appreciated "the human dramas of the Bible" and projected "her own problems and emotional crises" in religious themes. Ilona Pataky-Brestyánszky wrote that Kovács "created for herself a poetic mode of expression with brightly coloured lavish decorations; with nervous, sensitive, undulating, whirling lines; with new rhythm and symbols and with a new mysticism."

Kovács understood her work in Biblical terms saying that "Clay is my daily bread, my joy and my sorrow. At first touch, it became an organic part of my life. And ever since, this material, making its way through my bloodstream, whirls me to heights of delight and, at times, plunges me into the valley of despair." Handling clay was, for her, "the most rapturous activity" and she felt that ceramics served ornamentation, beauty and joy. It's aim, she said, "can only be, and has to be, to express good cheer and joy within the possibilities of the medium."

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Erkki-Sven Tüür - Architectonics VII.

Eastertide courses

The LENT & EASTERTIDE SCHOOLS are a collection of education, training and skills events across the Diocese of Chelmsford during Lent and Eastertide each year. Subjects covered are as diverse as art & theology, pastoral care, leading small groups, healing & wholeness and evangelism. The courses are open to anyone.

Module Easter 5: The Big Picture 2

How can Christians respond to controversial art: protest or engagement? How have Christian artists expressed their faith through popular culture? How has Christianity influenced popular culture? How does popular culture portray or critique Christianity? These are some of the questions the course will explore using multi media resources with plenty of opportunity for discussion and practical response. Tutors: Revds Philip Ritchie, Jon Evens & Paul Trathen. Tuesday Evenings 7.30-9.30pm. St Lawrence, Ninefields, Waltham Abbey. April 15, 22, 29, May 6, 13.

Module Easter 8: Living with Other Faiths

This course helps people explore why we should engage with other faith communities and how we can go about doing so. The course objectives are to identify biblical principles for engaging with other faith communities; to develop an understanding of the beliefs and sensitivity to the practises of other faiths and to consider a range of ways of engaging with other faith communities and to identify particular approaches appropriate to your situation. Tutors: Revd Jonathan Evens & Canon David Driscoll. Friday Mornings 10am-12pm. Cathedral Learning Centre, Chelmsford. April 25, May 2, 9, 16, 23.

Module Easter 11: Living with Other Faiths

The course uses Bible studies to explore reasons why we should engage with people of other faiths and ideas on how we can do this. It gives brief desciptions of the beliefs and practises of the main faith communities in the UK. Information on their locations and advice about making initial contact. It includes ideas/case studies for a range of ways in which people can engage with faith communities. Tutor: Revds Sean Connolly & Angus Ritchie. Monday Evenings 7.30-9.30pm. St Margaret's Catholic Church, Barking Road. E16. April 14, 21, 28, May 5, 12.

For brochures and booking forms please contact: Liz Watson. Diocesan Office, 53 New Street, Chelmsford, Essex. CM1 1AT. Tel: 01245 294449 email: lwatson@chelmsford.anglican.org .

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Eric Bibb - Angels Singing.

Stations of the Cross

Lent and Eastertide 2008 will see a significant number of innovative Stations of the Cross projects in UK Churches.

Some have been many years in planning and execution as with the Stations by Chris Gollon to be unveiled at St John’s Bethnal Green on Good Friday. The commissioning process for these works began eight years ago and developed as funders were drawn in over the period to enable completion of the series. Gollon’s dramatic and moving paintings are site specific, feature his own son as the model for Jesus, and have been used in previous Good Friday services at St John’s.

Similarly, Stations of the Cross by Iain McKillop were dedicated by the Bishop of Dunwich at St John’s Bury St Edmonds on 2nd February after a commissioning process that had included their temporary hanging in St John’s during Lent 2007, where they became a theme for the town’s ecumenical Lent course. After seeing how the Stations were developing, a local benefactor commissioned a Resurrection to complete the scheme. Like Gollon’s Stations, McKillop’s are representational and are strong on the suffering of Christ.

Ghislaine Howard walked the streets of Liverpool in the early mornings to sketch and photograph spaces vacated by rough sleepers. She has used these images to situate her painting of The Empty Tomb in the “reality of lived experience” and to bring to “this spiritual subject a simple human dimension.” This painting is the culminating piece of the series Stations of the cross: the captive figure which was made for Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral in 2000 and has been touring British cathedrals since, returning to Liverpool every two years. The Empty Tomb is being exhibited at the Anglican Cathedral from Lent onwards and is being joined by the full set of Howard’s Stations from February to March.

St Andrew’s Fulham Fields sponsored a Stations of the Cross competition for students at the Slade, part of the University of London. Nine artists entered the competition and the winning proposal was by Aishan Yu who has created paintings on ‘found objects’ that blurred the edges between representation and reality. All but one of Yu’s works is painted on natural found materials to reflect the idea that God creates all matter and is omnipresent. She has chosen to combine realistic figures with abstract backgrounds to convey the key message of each Station, while leaving a degree of ‘imagination space’ for viewers. The fifteenth and final Station, representing the resurrection of Jesus, takes the form of a projection of moving clouds on the ceiling of St Andrew’s, which interacts visually with a sculpture in the church depicting the ascent of Jesus to heaven.

Finally, Hertford stns will combine Stations painted by local artists with six Stations created through art workshops held in Lent organised by Hertford & District Churches Together. During Holy Week the complete set of Stations will be sited either in different places of worship throughout the town or in public, civic and outdoor locations enabling people to make a pilgrimage from station to station with accompanying meditations to aid their spiritual journey.

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The Harbour Lights - Sweet Hand of Mercy.