Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1970s

This is Part 9 in a series of posts which aim to demonstrate the breadth of engagement there has been between the Arts and religion within the modern period and into our contemporary experience. The idea is to provide a brief introduction to the artists and initiatives that were prominent in each decade to enable further research. Inevitably, these lists will be partial as there is much that I don’t know and the lists reflect my interests and biases. As such, the primary, but not exclusive, focus is on artists that have engaged with the Christian tradition.

The introduction and the remainder of the series can be found at: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s.

• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970) and Heinrich Böll (1972) are awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
• Ed Rice’s biography of Thomas Merton, The Man in the Sycamore Tree, is published in 1970.
• In 1970, Corita Kent designs the cover for Daniel Berrigan’s The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, his free-verse play about his trial and conviction for burning draft files with napalm at the Catonsville, Maryland, draft board in 1968. In 1971, she completes her monumental Rainbow Swash gas tank design.
• In 1970 Colin McCahon completes Practical religion: the resurrection of Lazarus showing Mount Martha and celebrates his long but intermittent friendship with James K. Baxter in ‘Walk (Series C)’ also undertaking set designs for a festival of four of Baxter’s plays at Wellington.
• Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell are performed for the first time in 1971.
• The Rothko Chapel in Houston Texas, commissioned by Dominique and John de Menil, is completed in 1971 and dedicated in 1973.
• In 1971, Henk Krijger paints The Annunciation. The Institute of Christian Art moves to Toronto, Canada, and the Patmos Workshop and Gallery in Toronto is opened.
• Between 1971 and 1976, Larry Norman releases his album trilogy of Only Visiting this Plant, So Long Ago the Garden, and In Another Land.
• In March 1972, the retrospective Colin McCahon/a survey exhibition opens at the Auckland City Art Gallery before touring New Zealand. The exhibition of 72 works covering the years 1938–1971 is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue for which McCahon writes the commentary. Critical reaction is positive, with the exhibition hailed as evidence that clearly justifies McCahon’s reputation as New Zealand’s pre-eminent artist.
• In 1972, Béla Kondor paints a monumental oil painting entitled 'Procession of the Saints into Town.'
• In 1972 Arvo Pärt converts from Lutheranism to Orthodox Christianity.
• Sadao Watanabe’s works exhibited in the Modern Print Show at the 1972 Winter Olympics, Sapporo, Japan and holds a one-man show at the Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.
• In 1973, 'The Icon of Divine Light' by Cecil Collins is unveiled at Chichester Cathedral.
• In the winter of 1973/74 Paul Thek is a guest of the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg and his expansive environment Ark, Pyramid – Christmas (The Manger) fills a whole room. It is a development of his installation at documenta 5 in Kassel (1972). Also, in 1972, A Station of the Cross in Essen and, in 1973, Ark, Pyramid-Easter at the Kunstmuseum Luzern.
• In 1976, Dennis Potter’s Brimstone and Treacle is broadcast.
• The Alpha Band forms in July 1976 from the remnants of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, with T-Bone Burnett, Steven Soles, and David Mansfield joining forces to create some unique, intriguing and utterly wonderful music together for three releases before disbanding. Burnett writes brutally honest and, at time, provocative and satirical lyrics deriving from a Christian worldview.
• In 1977, Tony Harrison’s The Mysteries is performed for the first time at the National Theatre.
• In 1977, Riding Lights Theatre Company is founded in York by Murray Watts, Nigel Forde and Paul Burbridge.
• In 1977, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko becomes artist-in-residence for the St Christopher’s Hospice and in 1980 married Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement.
• In 1977, the Perceptions of the Spirit in 20th-Century American Art exhibition is held at LACMA.
• The Nevelson Chapel at St Peter’s Lexington Avenue New York is the only remaining, permanent, fully intact sculptural environment by Louise Nevelson. At the Chapel's dedication in 1977, John Dillenberger, historian, theologian and Union Seminary Professor, wrote of her work: ‘This meditation chapel, however, is the only work in which she has had the opportunity to form the total environmental ambience.’ From its dedication, the Chapel of the Good Shepherd has been heralded as a jewel in New York. An “oasis,” as the artist defined it, providing solitude and respite from the harried pace of the city.
• John Tavener is received into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977.
• Based on interviews with Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, Alexsander Wat’s My Century is published in 1977. A story of spiritual struggle and conversion - describes the artistic, sexual, and political experimentation --in which Wat was a major participant-- that followed the end of World War I: an explosion of talent and ideas which, he argues, in some ways helped to open the door to the destruction that the Nazis and Bolsheviks soon visited upon the world.
• In 1978, Jackson Hlungwani experiences a vision; Christ and two figures appear to him and make three promises: that he would be healed of his then current injuries, that he would see God and that he would become a preacher. This vision becomes the defining moment of his life, and his career as an artist. Hlungwani develops a visual language that integrates traditions of Tsonga-Shangaan wood carving, Southern African spirituality, popular culture and biblical narratives.
• In 1978, the New Zealand Government marks Australia’s Bicentennial by presenting Colin McCahon’s Victory over Death 2 1970 to ‘the Government and people of Australia’. James Mollison, the Australian National Gallery’s first Director, says that Victory over Death 2 is ‘one of the most important paintings to have been made in the southern hemisphere in recent times.’
• In 1978, a stained glass window by Marc Chagall is unveiled at Chichester Cathedral, based on the theme of Psalm 150 '...let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.'
• In 1979, John F. Deane founds Poetry Ireland – the National Poetry Society – and The Poetry Ireland Review.
• Arts Centre Group (1971), Greenbelt Festival (1974), Asian Christian Art Association (1978) and Christians in the Visual Arts (1979) are founded.
• Bill Fay ‘Time of the Last Persecution’ (1971), Marvin Gaye ‘What’s Going On’ (1971), Aretha Franklin ‘Amazing Grace’ (1972), Al Green ‘The Belle Album’ (1977), The Staple Singers ‘Be What You Are’ (1973), Bruce Cockburn ‘Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaw’ (1979), Bob Dylan ‘Slow Train Coming’ (1979), and Van Morrison ‘Into the Music’ (1979) release Christian-influenced albums.
• John Berryman’s Love & Fame (1970), Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat (1970), The Abbess of Crewe (1974) and The Takeover (1976), Heinrich Böll’s Group Portrait with Lady (1971), Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time (1971), Julien Green’s L'Autre (1971), Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns (1971) and Tenebrae (1978), Peter Levi’s Death is a Pulpit (1971) and Good Friday Sermon (1973), George Mackay Brown’s Greenvoe (1972) and Magnus (1973), Alice Thomas Ellis’ The Sin Eater (1977), and Shusaku Endo’s Volcano (1978) are published.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Fay - Time Of The Last Persecution.

Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1920s

This is Part 5 in a series of posts which aim to demonstrate the breadth of engagement there has been between the Arts and religion within the modern period and into our contemporary experience. The idea is to provide a brief introduction to the artists and initiatives that were prominent in each decade to enable further research. Inevitably, these lists will be partial as there is much that I don’t know and the lists reflect my interests and biases. As such, the primary, but not exclusive, focus is on artists that have engaged with the Christian tradition.

The introduction and the remainder of the series can be found at: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s.

• Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavansdatter (1920 - 1922) and Master of Hestviken (1925 – 1927), Oskar Milosz's Ars Magna (1924) and Les Arcanes (1926), Julien Green's Mont-Cinère (1926), Adrienne Mesurat (1927), and Léviathan (1928), Georges Bernanos’ Under the Star of Satan (1927) and Joy (1928), Francois Mauriac’s Le Desert de l’amour (1925), Thérèse Desqueyroux (1927), and Destins (1928), Dorothy L. Sayers’ first novel Whose Body? (1923), Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet (1923), Alfred Noyes’ The Return of the Scare-Crow (1929) are published.
• In 1920, Maire-Alain Couturier begins studying at the Ateliers d'Art Sacré. 
• Art and Scholasticism by Jacques Maritain is published in 1920. It was in thinking of Rouault that Maritain wrote Art and Scholasticism and he also made frequent references to his artist friend in Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (1953).
• In 1920, Louis Barillet meets Jacques Le Chevalier and they begin collaborating on their first stained glass windows founding their own workshop. Jean Hébert-Stevens and Pauline Peugniez do the same in 1923. Barillet and Le Chevalier found L'Arch et les Artisans de l'Autel, (The Arc and the Artisans of the Altar).
• During the 1920s, Bernard Walke, the Vicar of St Hilary’s in Cornwall invites many Newlyn School artists to contribute works to decorate the church and also installs statues and other paintings from other sources. The majority of the new work, including the white crucifix, the pulpit and two relief works on copper is executed by Ernest Procter. Other artists include Dod Procter, Norman Garstin, Alethea Garstin, Harold Knight, Harold Harvey, Roger Fry and Annie Walke. Some of the artifacts and Walke’s Anglo-Catholic practices are highly controversial and result in a Consistory Court and a raid by Protestant activists in 1932. Items are removed, some damaged in the process, but over the succeeding years many are returned.
• In 1920, the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic is formed at Ditchling. David Jones becomes a Roman Catholic in 1921 and joins Eric Gill at Ditchling.
• El Cristo de Velázquez (The Christ of Velázquez) (1920) is a religious work of poetry by Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, divided into four parts, where Unamuno analyzes the figure of Christ from different perspectives. For Unamuno, the art of poetry was a way of expressing spiritual problems. His themes were the same in his poetry as in his fiction: spiritual anguish, the pain provoked by the silence of God, time and death.
In 1921, the poet Pierre Reverdy is baptised into the Catholic faith with Max Jacob as his godfather. Jacob publishes Le laboratoire central before leaving Paris for Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire to live in the town’s historic abbey and in nearby rooms. He attends daily Mass, writes poetry, and paints in gouache. In 1922 Jacob publishes Art poétique.
• In 1921, Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone ask Albert Gleizes to become their teacher.
• In March-April 1922 the statutes of the Maritain’s Thomistic Circles are drawn up with Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange becoming advisor of the circles. Prayer and Intelligence is to be provided by by Jacques and Raïssa. September 30 -- October 4 sees the first retreat of the Thomistic Circles preached by Garrigou-Lagrange at Versailles.
• L’Arche participate in the exhibition of Christian Art in Paris in 1922.
• In 1922, G.K. Chesterton is received into the Roman Catholic Church.
• Alfred Noyes' epic verse trilogy The Torch-Bearers – comprising Watchers of the Sky (1922), The Book of Earth (1925) and The Last Voyage (1930) – is an eloquent exposition of a religious synthesis with the history of science.
• On 5 June 1923 Jacques and Raïssa Maritain move to 10 rue du Parc at Meudon, where they will live until war breaks out in 1940. September 26-30 sees the second retreat of the Thomistic Circles at Meudon. These will continue annually until 1940, save for 1936.
• Gino Severini returns to the Roman Catholic Church in 1923, initially through Jacques Maritain.
• In 1923, Maurice Denis, Marie-Alain Couturier, and Marguerite Huré create the first abstract stained-glass windows in the church of Notre Dame du Raincy, built by Auguste Perret.
• Valentine Reyre creates Christ aux outrages for the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Wisques in 1923 and a Virgin of the Apocalypse for the church of the French Village of the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in 1925.
• In 1924, Gino Severini receives his first church commission, wall paintings for the Swiss church of Saint Nicolas de Myre in Semsales. The work is completed between 1924 and 1926.
• After befriending a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Nicholas, following his move to Nice in 1924, Igor Stravinsky reconnects with his faith. He rejoins the Russian Orthodox Church and afterwards remains a committed Christian.
• In 1925 Jean Cocteau meets Père Henrion at Meudon and three days later makes his confession. In January 1926, Cocteau’s Letter to Jacques Maritain is published and, at the same time, Maritain’s Reply to Jean Cocteau. The exchange is published in English as Art and Faith.
• In 1925, Jacques Maritain and the novelist Julien Green meet for the first time. They correspond with one another from 1926 to 1972 with their correspondence being published as The Story of Two Souls in 1979.
• In 1925, the Society of Spiritual Artists is founded in Hungary, with Barna Basilides as a founding member.
• G.K.'s Weekly, a publication by G. K. Chesterton, is founded in 1925 (its pilot edition appearing in late 1924), which continues until his death in 1936. Its articles typically discuss topical cultural, political, and socio-economic issues as well as poems, cartoons, and other such material that pique Chesterton's interest. It contains much of his journalistic work done in the latter part of his life, and extracts from it are published as the book The Outline of Sanity. Among those whose work appears in G. K.'s Weekly are E. C. Bentley, Alfred Noyes, Ezra Pound, George Bernard Shaw, and George Orwell. The publication advocates the philosophy of distributism in contrast to centre-right and centre-left attitudes regarding socialism and industrialism.
• Antoni Gaudi dies in 1926 with the Sagrada Familia uncompleted.
• Together with Dom Paul Bellot, Maurice Stolz constructs the Saint-Crysole church in Comines (North) from 1926-1928.
• In 1926, Stanley Spencer begins work on his commission to fill a new chapel at Burghclere with images of his experiences in the First World War, at home and abroad.
• In 1926, Georges Desvallières paints L’Ascension and O Salutaris Hostia for the Church of Saint John the Baptist in Pawtucket (New England).
• Hugo Ball publishes Byzantinisches Christentum (1923) and Flucht aus der Zeit (1927), his diaries covering the beginnings of Dada and his conversion. He dies of stomach cancer in 1927.
• Bernard Walke’s Christmas story play ‘Bethlehem’ is broadcast from St Hilary’s on Christmas Eve in 1927 and it was the first ever BBC Radio drama to be broadcast from outside the BBC studios.
• In 1927, Albert Gleizes establishes an artists’ commune at Moly Sabata, where he is joined by Robert Pouyaud, François Manevy, César Geoffrey, Mido, and Anne Dangar.
• Alfred Noyes converts to Catholicism in 1927.
• In 1927, Viking Press commissions Aaron Douglas to illustrate the text of James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse.
• From the 1920s through the 1930s, groups such as the Dixie Hummingbirds, who formed in 1928, become popular. Such groups sing, usually unaccompanied, in jubilee style, mixing careful harmonies, melodious singing, playful syncopation and sophisticated arrangements to produce a fresh, experimental style far removed from the more sombre style of hymn-singing.
• In 1928, T.S. Eliot announced to a startled world, and the disapproval of his contemporaries, that his general point of view could be described as ‘classicist in literature, royalist in politics and anglo-catholic in religion.’ The previous year he had been baptised behind closed doors in Finstock Church, near Oxford.
• In 1928, Rot-Blau (Red-Blue) is formed in German-speaking Switzerland, led by Hans Stocker and Otto Staiger. Together, they win the Basel-Stadt art credit competition for the stained-glass windows of the Antonius Church in Basel. Stocker becomes an innovator of church art in Switzerland and creates stained-glass for the Catholic cathedral in Kyōto which is designed by the Swiss architect Karl Freuler.
• In 1928, while attending a church service with his sister-in-law, Thomas A. Dorsey claims the minister who prays over him pulled a live serpent from his throat, prompting his immediate recovery from a two-year long depression. Thereafter, he vows to concentrate all his efforts in gospel music. After the death of a close friend, Dorsey is inspired to write his first religious song with a blues influence, ‘If You See My Savior, Tell Him That You Saw Me’.
• As Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, George Bell commissions a new play from John Masefield which is performed in 1928, an event which, in large part, led to the establishing of a series of Canterbury plays. Bell writes to the cast, ‘We have lighted a torch which nothing can extinguish and have given a witness to the fellowship of Religion and Poetry and Art, which will go on telling in ways far beyond our own imagination.’
• Sigrid Undset is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928.
• In 1929, Richard Seewald converts to Catholicism in the Collegio Papio of the Benedictines in Ascona and accepts orders for murals in sacred spaces including the chapel SS. Annunziatain Ronco.
• In his 1929 enthronement address as Bishop of Chichester, George Bell expresses his commitment to a much closer relationship between the Anglican Church and the arts.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

People! - I Love You.

Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1910s

This is Part 4 in a series of posts which aim to demonstrate the breadth of engagement there has been between the Arts and religion within the modern period and into our contemporary experience. The idea is to provide a brief introduction to the artists and initiatives that were prominent in each decade to enable further research. Inevitably, these lists will be partial as there is much that I don’t know and the lists reflect my interests and biases. As such, the primary, but not exclusive, focus is on artists that have engaged with the Christian tradition.

The introduction and the remainder of the series can be found at: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s.

• In 1910, Georges Rouault has his first works exhibited in the Druet Gallery. His works are studied by German artists from Dresden, who later form the nucleus of expressionism.
• Wassily Kandinsky publishes Concerning the Spiritual in Art in 1911, the year that he painted his first fully abstract work.
• The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton is published in 1911, as is Saint Matorel by Max Jacob. Horace Blake by Mrs Wilfrid Ward is published in 1913.
• From 1911, Alexandre Cingria, Maurice Denis and Marcel Poncet collaborate on the decoration of Saint Paul à Grange-Canal in Geneva. The decoration of the church causes a sensation in French-speaking Switzerland and abroad when completed in 1926, because its creation and design make clear—contra popular opinion at the time—the religious possibilities of modern art and its compatibility with the demands of tradition, liturgy, and doctrine. The architect Alphonse Guyonnet builds and restores several churches in Switzerland—in Corsier, Carouge, and Tavannes—working with artists from the Groupe de Saint-Luc et Saint-Maurice (Group of St. Luke and St. Maurice), which he joins in 1926 but with whom he first worked here.
• In 1911, the Society of Saint John (for the development of Christian art) organizes at the Pavillon de Marsan a first "Modern Christian Art Exhibition", followed by many others, such as those presented at the Galliera Museum in 1934 and 1939.
• Natalia Goncharova's St. Michael of 1911-1912, recalling a popular image of the archangel from a 1668 religious lubok, the Virgin and Child of 1910, and the multi-panel work entitled The Four Evangelists of 1911, which show the influence of Orthodox icons, are among dozens of religiously themed paintings she creates in the years preceding the Russian Revolution. Goncharova’s works of 1910 to 1914 continually rely on the Russian icon, biblical imagery, and spirited Russian country life.
• Charles Péguy’s poetry - Le Porche du Mystère de la Deuxième Vertu (1912), La Tapisserie de Sainte Geneviève et de Jeanne d'Arc (1913), La Tapisserie de Notre-Dame (1913), Ève (1913) – and plays - Le Mystère de la Charité de Jeanne d'Arc (1910) and Le Mystère des Saints Innocents (1912) – are published. An earlier play, Jeanne d'Arc, had appeared in 1897. When the first world war breaks out, he becomes a lieutenant in the French 276th Infantry Regiment and dies in battle in 1914.
• Paul Claudel publishes poetry, including Cinq Grandes Odes (1910) and Corona benignatis anni Dei (1914), and plays, including L'Annonce faite à Marie (1910), the trilogy L'Otage (1911), and Le Pain dur (1918).
• In 1913, a delegation led by SPAB member Lord Curzon lobbies the Church of England to take its wealth of architecture seriously. This results in the establishment of Diocesan Advisory Committees (DACs).
• Eric Gill is 31 and had been a sculptor for just three years when, in August 1913, he is approached by John Marshall, the architect-in-charge at Westminster Cathedral, to create Stations of the Cross. Gill works on the Stations between 1914 and Good Friday 1918, when they are dedicated.
• Adya van Rees converts to the Roman Catholic church in 1914.
• In 1915, Augusto Giacometti receives his first public commissions in Switzerland: a mosaic for a fountain at the University of Zurich and a tempera canvas portraying The Morning of the Resurrection for the church of San Pietro in Coltura. It is one of the first paintings to be displayed in a Swiss protestant church.
• In 1915, Louis Rivier completes the decoration of the church of Saint-Jean de Cour in Lausanne. As a Protestant artist, Rivier manages to break the mistrust of his church. His work is found in Protestant churches as frescoes or stained glass, notably in Mex, Bercher, Denezy, Bottens or in the Lausanne churches of Terreaux, and de Villard. He is the creator of 17 stained-glass windows in the cathedral of Lausanne and also decorates the Greek Orthodox Church of Lausanne Agios Gerassimos.
• Following two visions of Jesus, Max Jacob is baptised in 1915 into the Roman Catholic church, with Pablo Picasso as his godfather. He recounts his conversion in poetic prose works including Saint Matorel and La Defense de Tartufe.
• Kazimir Malevich unveiled his Black Square at the The Last Exhibition of Futurist Painting 0.10 held in St Petersburg (which had been renamed Petrograd) in December 1915. He was keen to showcase suprematism, his new idea, and Black Square was placed high up on the wall across the corner of room in the same sacred spot that a Russian Orthodox icon of a saint would sit in a traditional Russian home. Malevich wanted to show the Black Square to be of spiritual significance.
• In 1916, Conrad Noel and Gustav Holst create the Whitsun Festival, a four-day musical festival at Thaxted. The first festival includes St Paul’s Girls’ pupils and adults from Morley College, in London where Holst also teaches evening classes to people catching up with their education. They say it was “a little bit of heaven they went to Tuesday nights.” By the second Whitsun festival in 1917, Noel had discovered the words of a mediaeval carol 'This have I done for my true love'. He pins this up on the church door. Someone complains to the bishop about Noels' use of secular lyrics in church and the bishop reproaches Noel, who is able to reply that the carol has been sung since mediaeval times. Holst sets the words to new music, and the result is one of Holst best-loved sacred works, second-only to 'In the bleak mid-winter'.
• In 1916, the Cabaret Voltaire present a performance of Hugo Ball’s Krippenspiel (Nativity Play), a simultaneous poem and bruitist “noise concert” that corresponded to and accompanied readings from the Gospel accounts of the birth of Christ. During the Galerie Dada in 1917, Ball gives a lecture about Wassily Kandinsky in which he speaks about the social and spiritual role of the contemporary artist.
• Christian Rohlfs’s intense Expressionist prints reveal the impact of the First World War, yet his response to this conflict also leads him to the redemptive biblical themes seen in Return of the Prodigal Son (1916) and Mountain Sermon (1916). 
• The theologian and philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, in The Meaning of the Creative Act (1916) and again in The Destiny of Man (1936) sees "art as an important force standing against and calling into question the cultural powers of objectification".
• In 1917, a performance of The Mystery of the Epiphany by B.C. Boulter is staged at the church of St Silas-the-Martyr, Kentish Town, in 1917. By 1928, the critic of the Sunday Express thinks that plays of some sort have been produced in as many as 100 churches.
• Georges Rouault begins his Miserere series of 58 black and white engravings (1917-27), many of which are re-workings of his paintings. The series is a kind of summary expression of the artist’s concern for inward and ultimate truth.
In 1917, Maurice Storez founds L'Arche with the painter Valentine Reyre, the embroiderer Sabine Desvallières, the goldsmith Luc Lanel, the architects Jacques Droz, Maurice Brissart and Dom Paul Bellot, and the sculptors Fernand Py and Henri Charlier.
• In 1917 Alexandre Cingria publishes a manifesto La Décadence d'art sacré, which, in the opinion of William S. Rubin, ‘constituted the first serious confrontation of the problem of modern religious art’ and ‘elicited considerable interest throughout Catholic intellectual and artistic circles’. Paul Claudel responds with a famous letter in which he describes the contemporary churches against which Cingria was reacting, as ‘heavily laden confessions.’
• Piet Mondrian publishes his theory of neoplasticism as ‘De Nieuwe Beelding in de schilderkunst’ in twelve instalments over 1917 and 1918. Neoplasticism involves horizontal and vertical configurations of squares and rectangles. He was influenced by M. H. J. Schoenmaekers, a Theosophist and mathematician, who wrote in a 1915 essay: ‘The two fundamental and absolute extremes that shape our planet are: on the one hand the line of the horizontal force, namely the trajectory of the Earth around the Sun, and on the other vertical and essentially spatial movement of the rays that issue from the center of the Sun... the three essential colors are yellow, blue, and red. There exist no other colors besides these three.’ Mondrian moves to Paris and begins work on the grid-based paintings for which he has become best known, with gray or black lines as structure for blocks of white, gray, and primary colours.
• Despite a 'revelation' at Pelham, near New York, in 1918 when he is converted to belief in God, and despite his admiration for the Western Christian tradition, Albert Gleizes does not formally enter the Roman Catholic Church until 1941-2.
• On July 29, 1918, Hilary Pepler, Eric Gill, his wife Mary and his apprentice Desmond Chute join the Third Order of the Dominicans.
• Robert Bridges publishes Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1918.
• In 1919, Max Jacob publishes La défense de Tartuffe, which explores his philosophical and religious thinking.
• In 1919, a commission for Stations of the Cross is given to Albert Servaes for the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Luythagen, a suburb of Antwerp. In 1921, a decree from the Holy Office based on Canon 1399.12, which states that images may not be ‘unusual’, results in first the Stations and then the altarpiece by Servaes being removed from the church. In an effort to support and explore Servaes' spiritual vision, Dutch Carmelite friar Titus Brandsma has the images published in Opgang, a Catholic cultural review. Alongside each image, Brandsma adds his own meditation.
• During the 1914-1918 war, Georges Desvallières lost a son in action. From that moment, he devotes himself to religious painting. The flag of the Sacred Heart created in 1919 recalls the death of this child. Maurice Storez places the canvas in Notre-Dame de Verneuil church, above the monument to the dead of the Great War.
• Maurice Denis and George Desvallières found the Ateliers de l’Art Sacré in Paris in 1919. In the same year Alexandre Cingria and Georges de Traz jointly found the Groupe de Saint-Luc et Saint-Maurice to “develop religious art.” Les Artisans de l'Autel is  also founded in 1919 by Paul Croix -Marie, sculptor. Up to 1940 Denis and Desvallières carry out together major plans for church decoration, and other religious projects in which their pupils participate actively: Pavillion de Marsan (1921), the religious section created by Desvallières at the Salon d’Automne (1922), the Church of the French Village at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs (1925) for which Desvallières painted La Sainte Face (The Holy Face), the Eglise du Saint Esprit (Church of the Holy Spirit in Paris: 1935) and the Pontifical Pavilion at the Exposition Internationale (1937).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gustav Holst - This have I done for my true love.

Exhibitions update

POWER IN UNITY | Now-1st Sept 2021

Micah Purnell has teamed up with Wembley Park in a range of vibrant installations. 

The award-winning text based artist and designer Micah Purnell has created a new installation for the Spanish Steps at Wembley Park. Renowned for his distinctive, inspiring public messaging. Purnell lives in Manchester, and has worked with clients including the NHS, The Guardian and Elbow.

Three words spread across 180 steps in three columns set in radiating colours read POWER IN UNITY.

“It seems to me the only way to rally against adversity is together, whether in sport, in health or against injustice. It’s the practice of togetherness that we have the greatest potential for victory, healing and change. This is what the artwork is about - that some funky colourful vibes to brighten your day.”says Purnell

One fitness enthusiast on social media said “Don’t you just love running up these stairs? It’s become part of my workout now!

Alongside the installation are scores text based illuminating animations across Wembley Park. Eight messages have been created by Purnell in response to the brief ‘Against the Odds’ and underpinned by togetherness. The statements include 'Strength in Numbers', 'Community Like Never Before' and 'You and Me & Everyone', which all speak of unity, inclusivity and togetherness, in spite of difficult times.

Purnell says “The vibrant colours I use bounce out of the darkness. People are supporting one another in more tangible ways, difficult times such as these have in some way shone a light on local humanity."

ALTER US EXHIBITION

LAST SUNSET / NEW SUNRISE

Private view: 6pm to 10pm, Thursday 1st July 2021

Open to the public: Friday 2nd to Saturday 31st July 2021

Friday 5pm – 8pm, Saturday & Sunday 12pm – 6pm (or by appointment)

The Belfry and North Gallery at St John on Bethnal Green,

200 Cambridge Heath Road, London. E2 9PA

Alter Us is a London-based, multi-disciplinary art collective that questions, and attempts to offer solutions to, pressing issues at the forefront of our contemporary context. Their concerns include capitalism and inequality, individualism, connection and disconnection in human relations, sustainability, and the relationship between nature and new technologies in the age of the Anthropocene.

The group presents a new exhibition, entitled Last Sunset / New Sunrise, which takes its theme from one of the questions which form the collective's manifesto: Are we moving towards the last sunset or a new sunrise? Each participating artist has reflected on this question, exploring the complexities of our species' survival, made especially pertinent by the backdrop of a global pandemic.

The exhibition is taking place at St. John on Bethnal Green Church and is divided into two distinct spaces: a Dark Room, simulating the twilight of the last sunset, and a White Room, evoking the brightness of a new sunrise. The opposition of the spaces allows for a dialogue between the contrasting possibilities of our potential extinction and sustained future existence.

As well as contemplation on the influence of our species as a whole, Alter Us invites reflection on the impact of our individual actions and their role in the planet's future. In other words, how can we be a part of a new sunrise and not be fated to watch the last sunset?

Participating artists: César Baracca, Lorenzo Belenguer, Lois Bentley, Tere Chad, Mandeep Dillon, Paul Hindle, Margaret Jennings, Maritina Keleri, M. Lohrum, Nathalie Mei, Tom Norris, Teresa Paiva, Christopher Pearson, Ana Luiza Rodrigues, Ludmila Sigismondo, Aleksandr Tishkov and Giuseppe Mario Urso.

St Albans International Organ Festival Art Exhibition

Free of charge throughout the Festival, 6–15 July 2021

10am–4.30pm, Monday–Saturday
1–4.30pm, Sunday
Also open to concert-goers before each performance, and during intervals

St Albans Cathedral, North Transept

Artists: Carolyn Attewill, Robert Baggaley, Francis Bowyer, Tessa Cole, Virginia Corbett, Patrick Cullen, Clorinda Goodman, Lyn Hirschowitz, Diane Maclean, Juliet Nall-Cain, Katharine Newman, 
Caroline Romer, Linda Smith, Sue Thomson, Dione Verulam.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul Weller - On Sunset.

Revd Kathryn Robinson RIP

On Tuesday I attended the funeral of The Revd Kathryn Robinson at St John's Leytonstone, where Kathryn had been curate and Associate Minister. Kathryn and I worked together for four years as Art Advisors for the Barking Episcopal Area.  

When appointed as the Barking Episcopal Area Performing Arts Adviser, Bishop David Hawkins wrote the following in regard to Kathryn and her role:

 

“Historically The Diocese has a history of excellence in the support of the arts. Bishop George Bell of Chichester was a pioneer in relating the arts to Christian worship. In the thirties there was a Chelmsford Diocesan Director of religious drama.

The relationship of the arts to Christian worship, witness and ministry is not in doubt, and involves individuals and churches across all traditions. Whilst there are many examples of excellence and good practice in the Barking Area these are often uncoordinated and would benefit from support and encouragement. There would be benefit from sharing good practice and learning from other people’s experience, both good and less successful.

Last year I initiated a network of fine artists and sculptors under the title commission4mission. It has been my aspiration for several years to initiate a complimentary network of those in the Barking Area engaging with the performing arts. Over the past six years I have come across musicians, directors, mime artists and story tellers of different ages and ethnicities – including a number of clergy. I am aware there will be many more performers within our churches that as yet I do not know.

I have recently identified a self supporting clergy person, The Revd Kathryn Robinson who has experience and professional background in Research and Development and the creative arts. Kathryn is offering to the Barking Area, two days a week to help network, co-ordinate, and promote good practice around the Episcopal Area. She will continue to be supported by St John’s Church Leytonstone where she has served her curacy. She has the backing of her Training Incumbent, Raymond Draper, who is supportive of this project. It is well known that the creative arts, especially at community level, tend to flourish in times of recession. As you know Raymond Draper is our Diocesan Lead Adviser on recession and redundancies. Kathryn’s appointment would therefore complement his particular role within the Diocese. Kathryn will continue to serve at St John’s Leytonstone as an Associate Minister.”

Kathryn and I would meet at Horizon Patisserie in Leytonstone to plan arts activity. We realised early on that, if we worked with a group of churches in an area with an existing arts festival we could easily create church-based arts festivals and make use of synergies in marketing and publicity. This proved to be an exciting and effective model.

We began the Barking Episcopal Area Arts Festival in 2011 which involved quality events from a variety of Arts genre as a way of embracing and celebrating the performing/and visual arts and engaging with local communities, their people and arts culture. The Festival was organised annually but in a different part of the Episcopal Area each year and in parallel with already established community arts festivals. In 2011 the Festival ran in parallel with the Leytonstone Festival, in 2012 with the Woodford Festival and in 2013 with the Heart 4 Harlow Festival.The fourth Festival was called the H’Art Festival and ran in parallel to the Hornchurch Festival of Arts & Heritage.

It was a great pleasure to work with Kathryn, who was insightful, committed, caring and creative. She will be much missed by all who knew her.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Walthamstow Acoustic Massive - Express Symphony. 

Artlyst: The London Group and the Waterloo Festival

My latest piece for Artlyst previews the Waterloo Festival which includes three exhibitions by The London Group:

'St John’s Waterloo is an Anglican church with a big heart and an open door. Their mission is to be at the centre of Waterloo’s community, helping people fulfil their potential. As part of that mission every summer they host the acclaimed Waterloo Festival, which strives to celebrate their community, heritage and location on the fringe of the South Bank through arts, ideas and togetherness.'

My other Artlyst articles and interviews are:

• Bill Viola: Quiet Contemplative Video Installation St Cuthbert’s Church Edinburgh
• The ground-breaking work of Sister Corita Kent
• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Picasso To Souza: The Crucifixion Imagery Rarely Exhibited
• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Michael Takeo Magruder: De / coding the Apocalypse – Panacea Museum
• Giorgio Griffa: The Golden Ratio And Inexplicable Knowledge
• Arabella Dorman Unveils New Installation At St James Church Piccadilly
• Can Art Transform Society?
• Art Awakening Humanity Conference Report
• Central St Martins in the Fields Design Then And Now
• The Sacramental And Liturgical Nature Of Conceptual Art
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Polish Art In Britain Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields;
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar;
• Refugee Artists Learning from The Lives Of Others;
• The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg;
• The Christian Science Connection Within The British Modern Art Movement;
• Artists Rebranding The Christmas Tree Tradition;
• Art Impacted - A Radical Response To Radicalisation;
• The Art of St Martin-in-the-Fields; and
• Was Caravaggio A Good Christian?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brandon Flowers - Crossfire.

Miracles and the Christmas story

I was too busy to post this at the time but Jeanette Winterson's Christmas piece for The Guardian, The last Christmas I spent with my mother, is well worth returning to:

'The Christmas story of the Christ Child is complex. Here’s what it tell us about miracles.

Miracles are never convenient (the baby’s going to be born whether or not there’s a hotel room – and there isn’t).

Miracles are not what we expect (an obscure man and woman find themselves parenting the Saviour of the World).

Miracles detonate the existing situation – and the blow-up and the back-blast mean some people get hurt.

What is a miracle? A miracle is an intervention – it breaks through the space-time continuum. A miracle is an intervention that cannot be accounted for purely rationally. Chance and fate are in the mix. A miracle is a benign intervention, yes, but miracles are like the genie in the bottle – let them out and there’s a riot. You’ll get your three wishes, but a whole lot else besides ...

Sometimes the thing we long for, the thing we need, the miracle we want, is right there in front of us, and we can’t see it, or we run the other way; or, saddest of all, we just don’t know what to do with it. Think how many people get the success they want, the partner they want, the money they want, and turn it into dust and ashes – like the fairy gold no one can spend.

So at this time of year I think about the Christmas story, and all the Christmas stories since. As a writer I know that we get along badly without space in our lives for imagination and reflection. Religious festivals were designed to be time outside of time. Time where ordinary time was subject to significant time.'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jackson Browne & Bruce Cockburn - All I Want For Christmas (Is World Peace).

H'Art Festival - the Barking Episcopal Area Arts Festival

This year's Barking Episcopal Area Art Festival will be known as the H’Art Festival and will be held in the Havering Deanery from Sunday 1st – Sunday 15th June 2014. The Festival will be held in parallel to the Hornchurch Festival of Arts and Heritage.

commission4mission will have an art exhibition which will be spread across three of Havering’s main libraries - Hornchurch, Rainham and Romford. The exhibition can be viewed from Monday 2nd – Friday 13th June 2014 during usual library opening hours, except at Rainham Library where the exhibition can be viewed from Tuesday 3rd June. Those visiting the exhibition will be able to see painting and pottery by our artists including work by Hayley Bowen, Harvey Bradley, Jonathan Evens, Mark Lewis, Caroline Richardson, Henry Shelton, Joy Rousell Stone and Peter Webb, among others.

The H’Art Festival will include concerts, exhibitions, film evenings, flower festivals, messy church, services and street art. There will be a launch event on 1st June and a closing service at St Luke’s Cranham on 15th June. Among those planned to take part are: The Bishop of Chelmsford (Rt. Revd. Stephen Cottrell); ECHO; ESC Trust; Messy Church; Salvation Army band; St Andrew’s Church choir and Helen Yousaf.

The Festival is organised annually but in a different part of the Episcopal Area each year and runs in parallel with an already established community arts festival within the Area. In 2011 the Festival ran in parallel with the Leytonstone Festival, in 2012 with the Woodford Festival and in 2013 with the Heart 4 Harlow Festival.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Helen Yousaf - Joy Comes In The Morning.

Friends of Chelmsford Cathedral and commission4mission

The Friends of Chelmsford Cathedral was founded in 1939, and members come from not only the Diocese of Chelmsford but from all over the country. 

They hold two festivals a year, one in January and one in September. These normally commence in the Cathedral at 3.30pm with a speaker; tea follows in the Chapter House and the Festivals conclude with Choral Evensong. They normally have an annual outing. There is an annual programme of special events, informative, entertaining and devotional. New members are always welcome - contact Jackie Dryhurst via the Cathedral Office (info@chelmsfordcathedral.org.uk).

This year the Friends Winter Festival is on Saturday 18th January, beginning at 3.00pm, and I will be the speaker talking about the work of commission4mission.

commission4mission, which exists to encourage churches to commission contemporary art, has held two exhibitions at the Cathedral; a showcase exhibition in 2009 and an exhibition for One World Week (supported by the Big Lottery Fund) entitled Deconstructing c o n f l i c t. We have also held a study day at the Cathedral exploring perspectives on commissioning Christian Art. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brothers and Sisters Choir - The Times They Are A-Changin'.

St Peter's Flower Festival and other cluster events

This week is a busy one for the cluster of Anglican Churches in Aldborough Hatch, Goodmayes and Seven Kings. Today I was at the St. Peter's Flower Festival 2013 for their choral recital (which is supported by the choir from St John's Seven Kings). Tonight at St John's we have a Murder Mystery Evening while tomorrow our curate Rev. Santou Beurklian-Carter presides at our main Holy Communion service for the first time and we will have a Bring & Share Lunch to celebrate her recent priesting. St Paul's Goodmayes have their Patronal Festival tomorrow which includes the hosting of an art exhibition by commission4mission (Monday 1st - Sunday 7th July, 10.00am - 4.00pm). commission4mission hold an opening night reception at St Paul's on Monday 1st July from 6.30pm, incorporating art talks and their AGM. The exhibition also features as part of the Our Community Festival on Sunday 7th July, 12 noon - 4.00pm,  on Barley Lane Recreation Ground (opposite Tescos). Local churches will have an information stall at the Festival which will also feature 'Praise in the Park' with a Salvation Army Band playing and leading community hymn singing from 3.30pm.

St. Peter's Flower Festival 2013
Theme – Underground - Overground
Saturday 29th June
Church open from 10am to 7pm Craft Market open from 10am to 6pm
Refreshments available from 10am to 6pm (including hot and cold drinks,
ploughman’s lunches, strawberries and cream teas)
Exhibition of 150 years of St Peter’s in the hall
The Eastbury Concert Band on the green at 11.00am
Singers from Charmas Stage School on the green at 1.15pm
‘Bells Aloud’ from St Margaret’s, Barking on the green at 2pm
Choral Music The choirs of St. John’s and St. Peter's, and friends will give a
recital in Church at 3pm
The Palmerstone Dancers on the green at 4pm
Service of Compline in the Church at 7pm
Sunday 30th June
Service of Holy Communion in the Church at 9am
Church open from 10am to 7pm Craft Market open from 10am to 5pm
Refreshments available from 10am to 5pm
Exhibition of 150 years of St Peter’s in the hall
Singers from Charmas Stage School on the green at 1.15pm
The Palmerstone Dancers on the green at 2pm
Choral Music The choirs of St. John’s and St. Peter's, and friends will give a
recital in Church at 3pm
Festival Evensong in the Church at 7pm
Monday 1st July
Church open from 10am to 7pm

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Move - Flowers In The Rain.

Stations of the Cross by Valerie Dean

An exhibition of 'Stations of the Cross' by Valerie Dean is currently at the Diocesan Office for the Chelmsford Diocese (53 New Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1AT). Valerie's 'Stations' will be in the Boardroom at Guy Harlings until Friday 26th June. Visits are by arrangement during normal office hours, as the boardroom is in regular use. Please check access before you visit by ringing 01245 294400. Valerie is keen to discuss ways of making these Stations available for any church that would be interested in having them. For more information see http://commissionformission.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/art-in-boardroom-valerie-dean.html.

 

Valerie came back to England, in the summer of 2007, after living for 27 years in Belgium. There, she studied art for six years and had various exhibitions, in and around Brussels. On returning to England, she became involved in the Kent arts scene and exhibits, regularly, in the Francis Iles gallery, in Rochester. She work in acrylics and her technique is usually to put materials and colours on canvas or board, to see what emerges. It is a dialogue between the artist and her materials. Because of her background, this often consists of figures around a religious theme. They just appear! Very often, people seem to want to appear in her paintings, a little like the pictures in the fire that she used to see in her childhood. At other times, she finds that buildings and places she knows inspire her.

 

In addition, commission4mission will be exhibiting at 20 Broadwalk  Harlow Town Centre CM20 1HT from 1.00pm tomorrow until 4.00pm on Monday 27th May as part of the Arts Festival for the Barking Episcopal Area (http://commissionformission.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/commission4mission-in-harlow.html). This exhibition which features work by 11 of our artists is a pop-up in a vacant shop giving us a High Street location for work which both explores and celebrates our faith. On Saturday 25th May we are hosting a lunchtime reception at the exhibition to which you would be most welcome. The reception follows on from the morning of Art Talks being held at St Paul's Harlow (http://www.stpaulsharlow.org.uk/) where Bishop Stephen Cottrell and commission4mission member Mark Lewis will speak about the work of Stanley Spencer and John Piper.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Switchfoot - More Than Fine. 

Blackfriars - Mal Grosch

Mal Grosch's latest collection of poems is entitled Blackfriars and derives from his fascination for the area. He writes:

"I go to a church near Blackfriars and I am often in and out the area. It is a sort of village near St Paul’s if you look at it in a romantic way. I did a bit of reading up on the area and took some photos. The idea of an anthology slowly came to fruition. It is hopefully an entertaining read as well as having a bit of gravitas; a mixture of fun and the profound."

"Take one of the turnings off Ludgate Hill near St. Paul’s Cathedral. Have a wander round. Stroll along Carter Lane and notice the faded almost Mediterranean exterior of the YMCA. Say a prayer
in St. Andrews if it is open. Have a beer in the Cockpit. Tell them I sent you."


As the mist

As the mist,
The fag smoke of the morning,
Rises from the river;
A gull flies over Puddle Dock.
So will we rise
In the vaporous dawn
To be with the saints in Heaven.

For who is this devil
This upstart king
Of the raucous
Playing his flimsy role
As lord of the decaying Earth?
Short is the time he vaunts
In his invisible reign.

Mal plays guitar and sings in a small band called Over The Hill. They are a duo or trio playing country gospel, a few old standards and vintage British and American pop songs. He has three solo CDs and also plays guitar in the dance band at Cecil Sharp House in Camden, London, home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society most Thursday evenings. As a caller, he does evenings of barn dancing which can include English/Scots/Irish/US and line dances with some worship dance.

He will be reading a selection of his poems as part of an evening of music and poetry for the Arts Festival for the Barking Episcopal Area and Heart 4 Harlow Festival. This performance evening will be at Holy Trinity Hatfield Heath, 7.30pm, on Monday 27th May and will also feature, among other items, music from Colin Burns and poetry from Jane Grell and myself.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mal Grosch - The River.

Arts Festival for the Barking Episcopal Area

The Barking Episcopal Area Arts Festival for 2013 will be held in Harlow Deanery from 23rd - 27th May in parallel to the Heart 4 Harlow Festival. As in previous years, we have a very exciting programme including the premiere of Korban – a new play on the life of Christ; Art talks (inc. Bishop Stephen on Stanley Spencer); art & photographic exhibitions; Flower Festival (Hatfield Broad Oak); music & poetry evening (Holy Trinity Hatfield Heath); and Big Lunch & Community Praise, among other events.

As part of the Festival commission4mission will be mounting an exhibition using a shop unit in the Harvey Shopping Centre Harlow from Thursday 23rd to Monday 27th May. Also in the Festival will be art talks by Bishop Stephen Cottrell (Stanley Spencer) and Mark Lewis (John Piper) plus a performance evening at Holy Trinity Hatfield Heath which will include a range of local musical contributions plus music from Colin Burns and poetry from Mal Grosch, Jane Grell and myself.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Colin Burns - I Wait For You.

The Holy City of vision and imagination

I’m starting with two things that I’ve seen this week. The first is the rather portly, ungainly and garish giant illuminated peace dove on a 10ft pole surrounded by symbols of world religions that is currently outside Seven Kings Station. The multi-faith lights have been chosen by Seven Kings and Goodmayes councillors to celebrate all the religious festivals between now and Twelfth Night, including Eid-Ul-Adha, Diwali, the birthday of Guru Nanak Dev Sahib, Christmas and Hanukkah.

The second is a painting entitled ‘Holy City’ by Brian Whelan which I saw when I was at St Martin-in-the-Fields for a meeting earlier in the week. The first of his ‘Holy City’ paintings resulted from a discussion in a community art workshop about the ‘Holy City’. One participant had been to Jerusalem but it was not her memories of the actual Jerusalem that the group used to create their ‘Holy City’ painting, instead, they created the Holy City, not as remembered, but as imagined! 

‘Freed from the encumbrance of memory they were able to create a city which was vibrant in every manner of diversity. Church nestled into the side of mosque [and synagogue], contrary shapes yielding to one another, colors bright and radiant as no building committee would have ever allowed, all flowed from [their] hands as they playfully built their city on the foundation of silver and gold candy wrappers, which are a distinctive element of Brian Whelan’s work.’

The member of the group who had been to Jerusalem said that “The Holy City she had experienced did not look anything like the artwork” the group were making. What they made was ‘a city that looks nothing like what we have ever seen, but is exactly that … which we have longed to discover.’

In Isaiah 25. 6 – 8, we read: ‘Here on Mount Zion [in other words, in the Holy City, Jerusalem] the Lord Almighty will prepare a banquet for all the nations of the world — a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine. Here he will suddenly remove the cloud of sorrow that has been hanging over all the nations. The Sovereign Lord will destroy death forever! He will wipe away the tears from everyone's eyes and take away the disgrace his people have suffered throughout the world.’

These verses are part of a series of prophecies in the Book of Isaiah setting out a vision of a time when the Holy City, Jerusalem, will be a focus for healing, reconciliation and peace. So, for example, in Isaiah 2. 2 – 4 we read:

‘In days to come

    the mountain where the Temple stands
    will be the highest one of all,
    towering above all the hills.
Many nations will come streaming to it,
     and their people will say,
“Let us go up the hill of the Lord,
    to the Temple of Israel's God.
He will teach us what he wants us to do;
    we will walk in the paths he has chosen.
For the Lord's teaching comes from Jerusalem;
    from Zion he speaks to his people.”

  He will settle disputes among great nations.
They will hammer their swords into ploughs
    and their spears into pruning knives.
Nations will never again go to war,
    never prepare for battle again.’

These visions then connect with the final book of our Bible, the vision given to St John, which we call Revelation. There we read (in Revelation 21 and 22):

‘Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth disappeared, and the sea vanished. And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared and ready, like a bride dressed to meet her husband. I heard a loud voice speaking from the throne: “Now God's home is with people! He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more grief or crying or pain. The old things have disappeared.”

Then the one who sits on the throne said, “And now I make all things new!” …

The angel also showed me the river of the water of life, sparkling like crystal, and coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb

and flowing down the middle of the city's street. On each side of the river was the tree of life, which bears fruit twelve times a year, once each month; and its leaves are for the healing of the nations.’

In these visions the Holy City, Jerusalem, is the place where disputes are settled between the nations, where swords and spears are reshaped and reused as tools for growth instead of death, where even the leaves of the trees bring healing to nations, where there is no more death, no more grief or crying or pain, where reconciled peoples of all nations sit together the richest of banquets.

The person who had been to Jerusalem in that community art workshop said that the picture of a diverse and harmonious Holy City was nothing like the Jerusalem she had visited. She was right! ‘During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.’ It is central to both Israeli and Palestinian nationalism yet, while both the Jews and Arabs of this region clearly have painful histories (and histories which have often made more painful by the actions of Christians), history cannot and should not be used as an excuse to sustain the conflict. For the situation to change there must be justice, reconciliation and forgiveness. In other words, the Holy City of Whelan’s painting and of Isaiah’s vision is needed, in place of the conflict between peoples, nations and religions that has characterized the history of Jerusalem.

We will hear more of this at the end of the month when at St John's Seven Kings we welcome a speaker from Christian Aid to talk about their Breaking Down The Barriers project which is all about working for peace in a Holy Land.

In his teaching, Jesus told many stories of banquets. Through his ministry he invited all around him to taste and share the banquet of the richest food and the finest wine for all the nations of the world. On the night before he was betrayed he initiated a shared meal of bread and wine for all who follow in his way of healing, reconciliation and peace. The bread and wine that we share together whenever we celebrate this meal is a reminder that Jesus lay down his life, as his body was broken and his blood was shed, to bring forgiveness, healing, reconciliation and peace to all. He died that all people everywhere might live.

When we come together as people from many nations – Barbados, England, Ghana, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, St Kitts and Wales, among others – to share the special meal that Jesus gave us, we are not simply looking back to all he did for us on the cross. We are also looking forward to the vision of the New Jerusalem, the diverse and harmonious Holy City, where justice, reconciliation and forgiveness are found. What we experience as we share together is a little foretaste of the Kingdom of God come in full on earth as it is in heaven. 

With that vision in mind, we go from this place to bring little foretastes of the Kingdom of God to others by the respect and tolerance and understanding and love that we can show in our everyday lives to those who are from another nation, part of a different culture, or believers in a different faith. That is also why, although it is ungainly and garish and replaces the Christmas Tree that we have had in previous years, it is a good thing to have festival lights celebrating all religious festivals between now and Twelfth Night in the form of a Dove of Peace.  

As a little known hymn by Joseph Swain says: 

How sweet, how heavenly is the sight,
When those that love the Lord
In one another’s peace delight,
And so fulfill His Word!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elvis Presley - Peace In The Valley.