Between: lockdown

Showing posts with label lockdown. Show all posts

Saturday, 23 October 2021

Artlyst: George Condo Lockdown Works Hauser & Wirth

My latest review for Artlyst is of 'George Condo: Ideals of the Unfound Truth' at Hauser & Wirth:

'There is an explosion of paint at Hauser & Wirth in the latest exhibition by George Condo. The energies of emergence and encounter surge within his paintings, creating events overflowing in chaotic emotional turmoil.

Condo’s mid-career retrospective was titled ‘Mental States’ as his drawings and paintings depict states of mind reflecting the range of emotions that simultaneously occur within us, often buried deep within our collective subconscious, revealing themselves through fragmented figurative forms.

In this endeavour, each brushstroke is an event, invented characters recur, blur and blend, art historical references abound, layered paint is built up and blocked out, and Condo’s line swirls and twirls across the depths of his surfaces, bringing both clarity and confusion.'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Articles -

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Albert Ayler - Music is the Healing Force of the Universe.

Tuesday, 21 July 2020

A prayer for the easing of lockdown

God of being and doing, of waiting and renewal

your Son's disciples locked themselves in the upper room after the crucifixion

and responded in different ways and at different times to his resurrection return.
As Jesus responded to each individually, assuring each of his love and presence,

may we know your presence with us now,

each in our different places following the easing of lockdown.
For those now able to leave their homes,

we pray for wisdom in their use of regained freedoms.
For those who continue shielding at home,

we pray for a increased connection and community.
For those for whom isolation and restriction are ongoing reality,

we pray their voices and experience will now be heard, understood and valued.
As community was found in our shared experience,

so may unity be found as our experiences now diverge.

And in our diversity, hold us together within the embrace of your love.

Amen.

With thanks to Fiona MacMillan for ideas and editing.

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Arvo Pärt - Kanon Pokajanen: Prayer After the Canon.

Sunday, 14 June 2020

Artlyst: 'Your Space or Mine' and 'The Spiritual Exercises'

My latest article for Artlyst explores two initiatives - an online exhibition 'The Spiritual Exercises' and a series of billboards by Micah Purnell - that were inspired by our early experiences in lockdown.

'There was a moment, writes Mark Dean, Chaplain & Interfaith Adviser to University of Arts London, corresponding to, but not defined by the lockdown, ‘we were collectively living in a way that at least intended to put the needs of the most vulnerable first’ ...

It was during this moment that Dean’s ‘The Spiritual Exercises’ project took place with around a hundred artists responding to an open call resulting in an online exhibition that mediates memory and longing via the parameters of the present.

The moment about which Dean wrote has also been noticed by creative consultant and practitioner Micah Purnell, who has taken a lead ‘from Jack Arts wonderful ‘Community is Kindness’ billboard campaign.’ Covid-19, he suggests, ‘has exposed beauty in dark times for every day.’ ‘Community has become localised due to the lockdown,’ he notes, and ‘we’ve reached out to our immediate neighbours and they have willingly obliged with outstretched arms.’
My other Artlyst pieces are:

Interviews:

Articles:

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Michael Kiwanuka - Solid Ground.

Saturday, 23 May 2020

Artlyst: Salisbury Cathedral 800 Years Of Art And Spirit

My latest article for Artlyst is a review of the Celebrating 800 years of Spirit and Endeavour exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral, which has been taken online since lockdown:

'The exhibition was a major commitment on the part of the Cathedral for its anniversary year, so lockdown was a bitter blow but, in the spirit celebrated by the exhibition, one they were determined to overcome. In response a virtual exhibition was created which launched eight centuries to the day after the first foundation stones of this magnificent building were laid and just over a month after the real-life launch was halted by the COVID-19 lockdown.

As Dr Robert Titley, Salisbury Cathedral’s Canon Treasurer and Chair of the Cathedral’s Arts Advisory Committee has said: “Christianity is a religion of redemption and salvation. We planned this exhibition to celebrate a landmark birthday for our Cathedral and city but the coronavirus overtook us. Now – thanks to this virtual realisation – the exhibition lives anew, to bring hope and delight in a time of trouble, passing through the closed doors of isolation and lockdown. It’s a sign of what is possible when the Spirit of God fuels human endeavour.'

My other Artlyst pieces are:

Interviews:

Articles:

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Robbie Robertson - Shine Your Light.

Thursday, 21 May 2020

Let me go, because then the Spirit will come

Here's my reflection, with a new meditation, from the Ascension Day Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Imagine how the disciples must first have felt when they heard that Jesus was planning to leave them in order to return to his Father. They had had an incredible roller-coaster three years of ministry together with him which had culminated in the agony of watching him die. They thought that they had lost him and that all their hopes and dreams had been dashed. Then there was the joy of the resurrection; the dawning realisation that Jesus was alive, was still with them and was not lost to them after all.

And then the Ascension. The Jesus that they thought they had regained left them. What was that all about? There was so much that they still had to learn? There was so much that they could have done together? Why?

Because Jesus was physically distancing himself from the disciples at the Ascension, there is a similarity to the words that Jesus spoke to Mary Magdalene when she became the first to recognise him after his resurrection. As she did so, she naturally reached out to embrace him but his words to her were, “Touch me not.” Why?

There is a strand of theology which is called ‘the Negative Way.’ Within this way of thinking about God all images and understandings of God are consistently given up and let go because they are human constructions that can only show part of what God is.

So, all talk of Jesus as shepherd, lamb, son, brother, friend, master, servant, king, lord, saviour, redeemer and so on goes out of the window because God is always more than the images that we construct to understand him. In saying that, I was speaking of God as being masculine, something which is, again, only a limited human understanding of God. Ultimately, God is neither male nor female but is Spirit and the Negative Way says that in order to encounter God as being beyond our limited imaginations and understandings we need to give up and let go of all our human ways of describing him.

The Ascension and Jesus’ words to Mary seem to say something similar. Jesus seems to be saying to the disciples, “Don’t cling on to me. Let go of me as you know me because, when you do, you will gain a greater experience, less limited experience, of me. Don’t cling on to me. Let me go, because then the Spirit will come.”

To let go of what is safe and familiar and secure in order to be open to encounter what is beyond is both scary and exhilarating. Yet, it has been, in part, a key part of our experience for many of us during lockdown. It is what Jesus calls us to here and it is the way in which we encounter the Spirit in our lives.

The title of a song by the ska band Madness, ‘One Step Beyond,’ became a catchphrase in my previous parish that developed real spiritual meaning by challenging us to go further in living out our Christian faith, to go one step beyond where we are now in the way that we live as Christians. The Ascension seems to challenge us to go at least one step beyond where we are now in our understanding of God. We need to leave the safety, security and familiarity of the past in order to encounter the new thing that God is doing in the present.

The Ascension teaches us that nothing is sacred: not buildings, not books, not actions, not people; not even Jesus as the disciples encountered him! We must always move beyond our understanding of the place, space, people and realisations that we have now because that is how the Spirit comes!

Touch me not.
I am not yours
to have and hold,
in this shape
in this form.
Let go.
Let me go.
Let my Spirit come.
Divine my Spirit,
know me
within.

An absence
that is presence.
A leave-taking
that is arrival.
A loss of God
that is
being found
in God –
being in God,
being one
with God.

Touch me not
as flesh and blood.
Touch me now
in bread.
Consume me.
Let me in,
within,
as wine
divine.
Elements,
Spirit -
I in you,
and you
in me.

I ascend -
human in heaven.
Understanding,
interceding -
humanity
at the heart
of Godhead
filling the
human-shaped
space
in the very heart
of God.

Do also join us later today at 8.00pm on BBC Radio 4 for a celebration for Ascension Day. That service will be led by our Vicar, the Revd Dr Sam Wells, and the Revd Marie-Elsa Bragg, with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, The Daily Service Singers and St Martin's Voices.

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Hail The Day That Sees Him Rise.

Tuesday, 28 April 2020

Helaine Blumenfeld: Undulating Structures – Interview

My latest interview for Artlyst is with Helaine Blumenfeld and concerns her current exhibition, 'Looking Up', at Canary Wharf:

'It is a very timely show. Over the past months, I have felt increasingly concerned that society was moving towards a precipice caused by isolation, lack of empathy, the breakdown in trust, and absence of leadership. I had planned to call the show Towards the Precipice. Many of the works in the show depict broken edges, reflecting this. However, ultimately I felt Looking Up was a title that more clearly represented what I wanted to communicate. This is an incredibly important time when we will either learn to empathise, cooperate or connect, or we will have failed the challenge in front of us.

What will we learn for the future? The show is both warning and antidote, as the majority of pieces show connection and relationship. That is how we can come out of this; through the community, spiritual values, and acknowledgement that we are all human. We will have to look at the world differently. By looking up, we can see a spiritual dimension.'

My other pieces about Helaine Blumenfeld can be found here.

My other Artlyst pieces are:

Interviews:

Articles:

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The Innocence Mission - Look Out From Your Window.

Saturday, 18 April 2020

Thought for the Week: Looking Up

Here's my Thought for the Week written for the newsletter of St Martin-in-the-Fields:

The sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld has a major exhibition at Canary Wharf that opened shortly before lockdown.

When I interviewed Helaine, as part of an exhibition review for Church Times, I expected major disappointment, yet she has taken the setback in her stride.

This is, in part, because lockdown demonstrates the timeliness of the exhibition. Over recent months she has felt increasingly concerned that society was moving towards a precipice caused by isolation, lack of empathy, the breakdown in trust, and absence of leadership. Many of the works in the show depict broken edges, reflecting this.

But the show is both warning and antidote, as the majority of pieces show connection and relationship. That is how we can come out of this, she thinks; through community, spiritual values, and acknowledgement that we are all human. We will have to learn to look at the world in a different way. By looking up – the title of the exhibition - we can see a spiritual dimension.

This is, she says, an incredibly important time when we will either learn to empathise, cooperate and connect or we will have failed the challenge in front of us. Through her words and her works, she is picturing resurrection for us.

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Victoria Williams - Why Look At The Moon.

Thursday, 16 April 2020

We are those who do not touch and yet are blessed in not so doing

Here's the reflection I shared today in the Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Christianity is a touchy-feely faith. That is because of the incarnation, in which God became flesh and blood and moved into our neighbourhood. Touch was a key part of Jesus’ work as a carpenter, just as it was, too, of his healing ministry. Jesus was himself touched by the woman who was healed of a flow of blood and touched, as brutally as one can be touched, when he was arrested, tortured and crucified.

Touch is a key part of his life prior to his resurrection and here (Luke 24: 35-48) we read of his saying to his disciples, ‘Touch me and see.’ He did the same for Thomas, who had said unless I touch I will not believe, but, in this same period, he also said to Mary, ‘Touch me not’ and used his encounter with Thomas to bless those who believe without touching or seeing. In the story of the encounter on the Emmaus Road, as soon as he was recognised, and before his disciples could touch him, he disappeared from their presence. In the resurrection stories we read often of his suddenly appearing to and then disappearing from his disciples.

The visible Christ was shortly to become, following his Ascension, the invisible Christ. Those who believe in him, after the disciples, would be those who believe without touching or seeing him. Just as he prepared his disciples for his crucifixion, although they struggled to understand, so, in this period, he was preparing his disciples, who again struggled to understand, for his Ascension and a life in which they could not touch and see him physically.

This mirrors our experience in this time of lockdown. We have gone, almost overnight, from an experience of daily life in which shaking hands, hugging and kissing were all ordinary, everyday, acceptable forms of face-to-face, in-person encounter to a world in which we are isolated one from the other, only able to see each other virtually and where touch is the most dangerous action for one and all. We are like the disciples in suddenly transitioning from communing with the visible Christ to communing with the invisible Christ.

One thing is clear, though, from the Emmaus story and from the wider experience of the disciples: as the visible Christ became the invisible Christ, he was no less present to them. The invisible took shape in the disciples, as it does in us, the death and resurrection of Christ becoming the DNA of the Christian; by this shall everyone know that you are my disciples. It is what is called grace, the God-shaping of us by the invisible divine goodness.

I would suggest, therefore, that our experience of virtual church is similar; in that it is different but no less valid. There is much that we have lost, but also much that we have gained. We are separated one from the other and we are physically isolated, but, in many respects we are more in touch with one another than we were previously and are, for many of us, able to be part of more at St Martin’s than was previously the case. The nature of our experience and gathering has changed but its meaning and value have not. We continue to support and shape one another as we did previously, but have found different ways in which to do so.

That was the experience of the disciples after Christ’s Ascension but it has also been the experience of the Church at other times and in other places. The Stations of the Cross, that we experienced so powerfully in a virtual presentation on Good Friday, are an example; being devised by St Francis of Assisi for all who could not physically walk the Way of the Cross in Jerusalem.

The disciples needed to touch and see Jesus in order to be witnesses to the reality of his resurrection. We do not need to touch and see in order to believe and Jesus, himself, tells us that we are blessed as a result. Our experience of the invisible Jesus, our relationship with him, is different from that of the disciples with the visible Jesus, able to touch and see, but is no less valid, no less deep, no less life-changing for that difference. Our experience as the body of Christ at St Martin-in-the-Fields is different from what it was when we could touch and see each other and our building, but is no less valid, no less deep, no less life-changing for that difference. We are those who do not touch and yet are blessed in not so doing. Amen.

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Deacon Blue - Keeping My Faith Alive.

Sunday, 12 April 2020

CTiW Easter Message

Here is my Easter message sent as Chair of Churches Together in Westminster:

Alleluia! Christ is risen. So what?

This year, unlike any other year in our lifetimes, the reality of the resurrection may seem harder for us to grasp. As a global community we have lived the events of Lent and Holy Week like never before in the form of lockdown and the Covid-19 pandemic. Here in the UK, and in many other parts of the world, we are still in that place and will be for weeks to come.

What does the reality of Christ's resurrection and our celebration of Easter Day mean in that situation? Our situation has parallels to the experience of the first disciples. For them everything changed while, within their society, nothing apparent had changed. Through their encounter with the risen Christ they went from being frightened disciples, hiding behind locked doors afraid of the authorities, to the sharing of communion and good news, having all things in common, and care for others that characterised the Early Church in Jerusalem.

Nothing had changed in wider society at that point; the Emperor was still Roman and no one other than the disciples accepted Jesus as Messiah. Yet everything had changed for the disciples, whose encounter with the risen Christ brought the revelation that Jesus was the promised Messiah and, therefore, Lord of all; a challenge to all the powers and authorities of their day.

This change in the disciples led to the acts of sharing and caring that characterised the Early Church and, in time, through the power of Christ's Spirit in them, wider society was impacted and changed.

That is where we are today. We celebrate resurrection at a time of continuing lockdown and isolation, which our society can only see continuing at this time. In response, we need to be among those coming alongside others to be with them in their time of need. This Easter we are asked to publicly commit - through a pledge at YourNeighbour.org - to supporting our local communities, bringing a message of hope, that no-one will be alone, without the help they need, during the Covid-19 crisis.

As wider society sees the hope we have because of the resurrection motivate us to support others in every community in the here and now, the good news of resurrection will be shared and change will come. That was the experience of the first disciples. It can and will be our experience too.

Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

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Now the green blade riseth.

Tuesday, 31 March 2020

HeartEdge: March Mailer

The March Mailer from HeartEdge is a slightly plumper, Covid-19 edition this month. Read it by clicking here.

What a difference a month makes. With the spread of Covid 19, our mailer finds many of us in lockdown, routines upturned, imagining alternative futures to those from just a month ago.

The pandemic presents huge challenges for life, vocation and mission, even as many of us find ourselves in impossible contradictions - how to express compassion while maintaining social distancing? Ways to 'do church' and renew congregations, as crisis piles up - redundancy, bereavement and loss. How to grow community, respond to need, as we self isolate? How will business survive - what will our commercial activity look like locally as economies tank? How will culture flourish as artists struggle ever more precariously? Even as we confront our own fears about the virus.

Central to HeartEdge is a belief that Kingdom communities are built on wisdom and faith found in exile and rejection. Our default is church and our cultural, charitable and commercial projects nourished from a place of exile, abandonment and adversity. And here we all are.

In our context of lockdown, quarantine and exile, a rapidly shifting global pandemic and a static front room, kitchen-office or one-bed flat.Here, our emphasis turns to making connections, sharing insight and growing solidarity online.

We've had a few Zoom workshops (we're getting used to it). 100 of you joined the HeartEdge Practitioners page on Facebook. We share frustrations, find encouragement, be listened to and find resource.

Following an online workshop last week one Church-of-England vicar wrote: "As the only priest in the parish here, it feels like having some colleagues... It was just so helpful to sit with others, with uncertainty, to reflect together... in a space that I didn't have to hold, plan, prepare for, know all the answers... I could participate in, be nourished by. Just thank you."

Here's to more of this solidarity and usefulness.

Normal service is unlikely to be resumed. So, we are all working out the implications and changes together. We are trying new things and using social media, and our website to engage, equip and resource in this changed landscape. Plus our regular mailer, a slightly plumper, Covid-19 edition this month. Lockdown and our emerging way of life will remain a theme.

Let us know ideas or topics you want covered and we'll get onto it. Got articles or blogs to share? Be in touch via the website.

In the midst of these strange days, we hope you will make contact, share insight, find solace and join in.

The HeartEdge Team

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Sixpence None The Richer - Down And Out Of Time.

Saturday, 28 March 2020

Artlyst: Art And Faith - A Time For Seeing

My latest article for Artlyst reflects on the possibilities that lockdown provides for contemplation through art:

'Works of art create their own space for contemplation and come alive when they are contemplated; firstly by the artist in their creation and secondly in their viewing by those who come to look. Art galleries are, therefore, places of contemplation and are generally constructed to facilitate this purpose, i.e. as minimalist white cubes containing little that will distract the viewer from the art ...

Whether we see connections or disjunctions between art and faith, this would seem to be a time for seeing – for insight – whether creating or contemplating. How will the art world create cells of contemplation now the galleries are closed and how will the cells we create teach us everything we need to know?'

My other Artlyst pieces are:

Interviews:

Articles:

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The Blind Boys of Alabama (featuring Justin Vernon) - Every Grain Of Sand.