Between: meaning

Showing posts with label meaning. Show all posts

Tuesday, 19 May 2026

Artlyst - The Meaning Of Life Explored At Sainsbury Centre

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is on the 'What is the Meaning of Life?' series of exhibitions at Sainsbury Centre:

"Theming the Sainsbury Centre’s exhibition programme, as has been the case since 2023, around life’s big questions has proved to be a stimulating and endlessly fruitful decision. Leading up to the current big question, ‘What is the Meaning of Life?’, there have been exhibitions examining questions such as: ‘How do we adapt to a Transforming World?’ ‘What is truth?’ ‘Why do people take drugs?’ and ‘Can humans stop killing each other?’

When I interviewed Jago Cooper, Executive Director of Sainsbury Centre, about the impact of these themes, he said: “What I have loved most of all about this season is how it is attracting a new audience to our museum. People who are fascinated by the question and our approach, rather than just traditional museum-goers who always enjoy seeing incredible art …

What we have learnt is that despite the enormity of these questions around climate change and truth, people really enjoy having a museum that lets them explore these challenging topics with inspiration, hope and information provided by the artists and exhibitions we have created.” ‘What is the Meaning of Life?’ seems likely to have a similar impact."

For more on the Sainsbury Centre see here, here, here, For my interview with Jago Cooper, Executive Director of Sainsbury Centre, see here.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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Josh Garrels - White Owl.

Sunday, 21 September 2025

Big questions

Here's the sermon from this morning's service of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion at St Gabriel's Pitsea:

Two of the biggest questions we can ask in life are ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Why am I here?’ Both questions get answered in this story of Jesus being baptised and the answers that were true for Jesus can also be true for us (Mark 1.9-15).

First, ‘Who am I?’ The answer to that question was given to Jesus as soon as he came up out of the waters of baptism. As he did so, he saw heaven opening, the Spirit coming down on him like a dove, and he heard a voice from heaven saying, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.” As he was baptised, he was immediately affirmed as God’s Son.

It is easy for us to think that that only applies to Jesus. That it was a special word spoken by God the Father especially to him and, on one level, no doubt it was. But, the Bible makes it quite clear that Jesus laid down his life to make us one with God so that, as Christians, we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters, members of the same family – God’s family – and co-heirs with Jesus of everything that he has.

Listen to what St Paul says about this in Romans 8. 14-17:

“Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's children. For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, Father! my Father! God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children. Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him …”

When those being baptised are baptised, God will be saying to them, “You are my dear sons and daughters and since you are my sons and daughters you will possess with Jesus the blessings I keep for my people.” This is true, not just for those being baptised today, but for each one of us who have been baptised. Just stop for a moment to hear God saying those words to you, “You are my dear daughter or son, you are my child and since you are my child you will possess with Jesus the blessings I keep for my people.” Take a moment, to let those words sink into your hearts and minds. You are a child of God, you are a brother or sister of Jesus, you are loved, you are valued, you are blessed. Take it in and say thank you to God your Father for who you are.

The second big question was ‘Why am I here?’ and that too is answered in this reading. After he is baptised, Jesus has a time of preparation in the desert and then begins to preach the Good News from God. He had a God-given task to complete, a reason for his existence and a meaning for his life.

The same is true for us. Listen to St Paul again, this time from 1 Corinthians 12. 4 - 7:

“There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit gives him. There are different ways of serving, but the same Lord is served. There are different abilities to perform service, but the same God gives ability to all for their particular service. The Spirit's presence is shown in some way in each person for the good of all.”

The Spirit’s presence is shown in some way in each person for the good of all. So, the Spirit’s presence is shown in those being baptised in some way for the good of all. It is one of the tasks that God gives to the baptised person, to identify and nurture the gifts and talents they have been given.

And, again, this is also true for all of us who have been baptised. For each one, the Spirit’s presence is shown in us in some way for the good of all. Take a moment, to let those words sink into your hearts and minds. You have been given the abilities you need for your particular service. The Spirit's presence is shown in some way in you for the good of all. Your life has meaning and purpose because God has work that only you can do. Take it in and say thank you to God your Father for why you are here.

As we celebrate baptism today, may we realise afresh the way that our deepest needs - for love and significance – are fully met through baptism into the family of God. Who are we? We are the beloved sons and daughters of our Father God. Why are we here? To use our God-given abilities to do work for God that only we can do. Take a moment to truly take it in and then say thank you to God your Father for who you are and why you are here.

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Hannah White - Good Questions.

Friday, 20 June 2025

Church Times - Art review: Finding My Blue Sky (Lisson Gallery, London)

My latest exhibition review for C hurch T imes is on Finding My Blue Sky at Lisson Gallery, London:

'THE exhibition “Finding My Blue Sky” is structured as an invitation to imagine your own paradise. The parallel title in Arabic makes this clear: “What is the World that you Dream of?”

Accordingly, the exhibition is a journey of retreat and surrender in search of a sense of longing and belonging — of home, of sacred space — by inviting viewers to participate in the creation of meaning. In the words of its curator, the art-world influencer Omar Kholeif, “‘Finding My Blue Sky’ invites spectators to indulge in the sensuous curve of artistic endeavors that exist in their own culturally situated space of dreaming — one that allows us to sketch myriad possible routes to modernity, and with this, new ways of looking altogether.”'

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writing for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Artlyst are here, those for Seen & Unseen are here, and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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Van Morrison - Remembering Now.

Wednesday, 6 December 2023

Meaning, significance, shape and purpose

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who is best known for creating a hierarchy of needs. ‘This is a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.’ At the bottom of the hierarchy are the basic needs of human beings; needs for food, water, sleep and sex. Maslow’s model works as a hierarchy because a pressing need must be mostly satisfied before someone will give their attention to the next highest need, which includes our need for our lives to be given meaning and significance.

The stories of the feeding of the four thousand and the five thousand (Matthew 15:29-37) are stories of Jesus meeting the basic needs of the people with him but are also stories about that action having a deeper level of meaning and significance.

The people who were with Jesus had been with him in the wilderness for three days without any significant supplies of food. While some may have brought small supplies of food with them, in essence they had been fasting for much of the time Jesus had been teaching them and, for those of you who have visited the Holy Land, you will know that the Wilderness is unforgiving terrain in which to be without sustenance.

Jesus is concerned for these people and, out of compassion, meets their basic need for food in that testing environment but, just as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests that once our basic needs have been met then our needs for meaning and significance come into play, Jesus’ actions here also have a deeper level of meaning, if we and they are alert to it.

We can see this if we think for a moment about the outline of this story and the extent to which it reminds us of another story. A group of Israelites are in the wilderness and are hungry because they have too little to eat. In response God provides them with bread to eat. That is the outline of the feeding of the four thousand but it is also, in essence, the story of God providing manna in the wilderness to the Israelites when Moses led them from Egypt to the Promised Land. The similarity is deliberate, whether on the part of Jesus or Mark, because through this action Jesus is seen as the new Moses for the people of Israel.

Following the parallels between these two stories through means that the people of Israel are to be seen as being in slavery once again – whether that meant the political oppression of their Roman conquerors or, as St Paul suggests, under the bondage of sin. The Exodus – the salvation of the people of Israel - began with the death of firstborn sons and, in the story of Jesus, our salvation comes through the death of God’s only Son. Jesus leads his people through water – in the original Exodus that was the path through the Red Sea, but, for Jesus’ followers, it is the rite of baptism. They go on a journey through the wilderness – where, as we have seen, they are fed and provided for – and end their journey when they enter the Promised Land – which Jesus spoke about as being the kingdom of God that he initiated but which is still to come in full.

The parallels are plenteous and very close as the people of Jesus’ day were intended to view him as the new Moses. At this deeper level of meaning and significance it is possible, from this one action, to understand the whole of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

God is also at work in our lives to bring and to reveal meaning, purpose, shape and significance to our lives too, if we are alert to this deeper level of life and our not solely focused on the meeting of our basic needs. We all have a need and a desire for there to be more to our lives than simply the survival of the fittest; the scramble to meet our basic needs. As Maslow’s hierarchy of needs recognises, when we are in genuine need and poverty, it is very difficult to think about anything else other than survival. But, when we are in the fortunate position of having our basic needs met, we have the time and space and inclination to look around us to see the way in which God can bring meaning, significance and purpose into our lives; with that purpose including the development of a compassion, like that of Jesus, which sees the needs of those whose basic needs are not being met and responds to that by sharing at least some of what we have.

Your life is not simply about having enough to survive; the meeting of your basic needs. God wants you to see a deeper level of meaning, significance, shape and purpose to your life. Are you open to see the meaning and significance that he brings or does a focus of getting prevent you from seeing and receiving what he is already giving?

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Neal Morse - The Temple Of The Living God.

Sunday, 7 July 2019

Enrique Martínez Celaya: The Mariner’s Meadow

Enrique Martínez Celaya: The Mariner’s Meadow, 23 May – 13 July 2019, Blain|Southern London

The capacity of painting to create and sustain meaning is one of Enrique Martínez Celaya’s central concerns. This may be because Martínez Celaya is both an artist and also, formerly, a scientist.

As such he may well acknowledge Julius Colwyn’s recent assertion that art and science are ‘human efforts to comprehend and describe the world around us and our experience of it’. The one ‘searches for truth in subjective experience and the other in objective reality.’ Colwyn concludes that it is in the rift ‘between subjective experience and the objective reality where ‘art’ manifests.’[i]

Daniel Siedell has explored the reasons Martínez Celaya has given for ‘leaving his job as a top researcher at Coherent Medical and to begin selling his paintings in local parks’.[ii] What led him to this decision was the recognition ‘that my preoccupations, which revolved around messy and youthful questions of living, suffering, and the choices we make, would ultimately be better addressed in art.’ In other words, Siedell notes, Martínez Celaya came to believe that art, rather than science, could better serve ‘the larger purposes of understanding, self-awareness, and acceptance’. ‘It is in art’, he has said, ‘and not in religion or science, that I look for truth.’

Siedell suggests that for Martínez Celaya ‘each work is an effort to discern a stability and clarity that lies below the murkiness of experience—an order, or a structure, that he calls truth.’ Yet the order he seeks is ‘a whisper of the order of things that dismantles consciousness and suggests my place in the world.’ [iii]

As a result, ‘The impact of all paintings,’ Martínez Celaya writes, ‘exists in their uncomfortable relationship to the world.’[iv] The images in ‘The Mariner’s Meadow’ exist in an uncomfortable relationship with the sea; which is, at one and the same time, the fertile acreage in which the Mariner plies his trade and also relentless in its ability to surround and swamp all in its path.

Siedell notes a dialectical friction in Martínez Celaya’s work between the domestic and the epic, ‘the personal concerns of life played out against the backdrop of the impersonal universals of nature and time’. The stark, foreboding seascape of ‘The Generations’ Keeper’ is headed by the phrase ‘laugh at the ideals’. The darkest piece of the exhibition ‘The Returning Tale’ depicts a home circumscribed by the returning tide. The sea teaches us about our anonymity. It is ‘the end of all paths and the edge of all comings and goings.’ Our insignificance revealed in the face of nature's scale and relentless repetitions.

This dialectic of content is set within a further dialectic, that of presence and reference; ‘the presence of the painting as an artefact in the world—pigment smeared on a canvas—and its reference—the imagery or subject matter that invites memory and associations.’ The unpainted edges of his canvases indicate the limitations of painting and the existence of something beyond the image, even the image as ‘flashes from somewhere else, collective memories from a mysterious origin.’

‘The Prophet’ is an image which has undergone significant change in the making as Martínez Celaya sought a revelatory image. The edges of this painting are where traces of the earlier images are left, like lipstick on a collar. The final image sees a young girl posing with a dead shark recently washed up on the beach, one foot placed in awkward dominance on the stricken creature. ‘The Prophet’ reveals the unease of our unnatural attempts to dominate nature. ‘The Herald’ takes us deeper into our despoiling of nature by depicting an oil spill aflame; the title perhaps referencing a different maritime disaster, but one – The Herald of Free Enterprise - which named the imperative driving our dominating, despoiling actions.

By contrast with these images of our unthinking yet uneasy attempts to dominate the enduring chill of the ocean and its depths, in ‘The Name’ the sea is backdrop to the endurance of a carved wood statue depicting a prayerful angel and another depicting flowers. Here, the images endure as the sea endures; art and belief mirroring the unchanging nature of nature.

The sea is sometimes a mirror, at other times a window, and occasionally a letter, while the birds that fly in these canvases sing songs that are messages from our forgotten places. As a whisper of the order of things that dismantle consciousness and suggest our place in the world, art manifests itself in the equivalent of the sea’s swells, the space between subjective and objective reality. These images see Martínez Celaya participating in our human effort to comprehend and describe the world around us and our experience of it. As in his life decisions, he values the subjective truth of those glimpses into identity and meaning that art provides above and alongside the exacting measurement of the material that science delivers.

[i] https://issuu.com/artsciencecsm/docs/maas_class_2019_catalogue_clean_pdf
[ii] ‘On Martinez Celaya’ by Daniel A. Siedell in On Art and Mindfulness, published in 2015 in collaboration with Anderson Ranch Arts Center.
[iii] Quoted in “The Prophet” (2009), in Enrique Martínez Celaya, Collected Writings & Interviews 1990-2010 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), p. 231-32.
[iv] Enrique Martínez Celaya, “On Painting” (2010), in Collected Writings & Interviews, p. 243.

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Corinne Bailey Rae - The Sea.

Friday, 25 September 2015

Start:Stop - Revealing meaning and purpose

Bible reading

In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, “I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way—and some of them have come from a great distance.” His disciples replied, “How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?” He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. Now there were about four thousand people. (Mark 8. 1 – 10a)

Meditation

The feeding of the four thousand is a story of Jesus meeting the basic needs of the people with him but is also a story about that action having a deeper level of meaning and significance. We can see this if we think for a moment about the outline of this story and the extent to which it reminds us of another story. A group of Israelites are in the wilderness and are hungry because they have too little to eat. In response God provides them with bread to eat. That is the outline of the feeding of the four thousand but it is also, in essence, the story of God providing manna in the wilderness to the Israelites when Moses led them from Egypt to the Promised Land. The similarity is deliberate, whether on the part of Jesus or Mark, because through this action Jesus is seen as the new Moses for the people of Israel.

Following the parallels between these two stories through means that the people of Israel are to be seen as being in slavery once again – whether that meant the political oppression of their Roman conquerors or, as St Paul suggests, under the bondage of sin. The Exodus – the salvation of the people of Israel - began with the death of firstborn sons and, in the story of Jesus, our salvation comes through the death of God’s only Son. Jesus leads his people through water – in the original Exodus that was the path through the Red Sea, but, for Jesus’ followers, it is the rite of baptism. They go on a journey through the wilderness – where, as we have seen, they are fed and provided for – and end their journey when they enter the Promised Land – which Jesus spoke about as being the kingdom of God that he initiated but which is still to come in full.

God is also at work in our lives to bring and to reveal meaning, purpose, shape and significance to our lives too, if we are alert to this deeper level of life and our not solely focused on the meeting of our basic needs. We all have a need and a desire for there to be more to our lives than simply the survival of the fittest; the scramble to meet our basic needs. Your life is not simply about having enough to survive; the meeting of your basic needs. God wants you to see a deeper level of meaning, significance, shape and purpose to your life. Are you open to see the meaning and significance that he brings or does a focus of getting prevent you from seeing and receiving what he is already giving?

Prayer

Lord God, we recognise the need and desire we have for there to be more to our lives than simply the scramble to meet our basic needs but also acknowledge that our basic needs do need to be met before we give our full attention to our higher needs. We ask, therefore, that as you met the basic needs of the four thousand, so our basic needs will be met in order that we give attention to our need for meaning and significance.

Inspire us to seek meaning and shape within our lives. Help us recognise the significance and purpose that you bring.

Reveal and bring meaning, purpose, shape and significance to our lives. Keep us alert to this deeper level of life and not solely focused on the meeting of our basic needs. Ensure that a focus of getting will not prevent us from seeing and receiving what you are already giving to us.

Inspire us to seek meaning and shape within our lives. Help us recognise the significance and purpose that you bring.

We recognise that when we are in genuine need and poverty, it is very difficult to think about anything else other than survival. Develop in us a compassion, like that of Jesus, which sees the needs of those whose basic needs are not being met and responds to by sharing at least some of what we have.

Inspire us to seek meaning and shape within our lives. Help us recognise the significance and purpose that you bring.

Blessing

Revealing meaning, purpose, shape and significance, developing compassion, meeting basic needs, sharing what we have. May those blessings of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

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The Moody Blues - Watching And Waiting.

Saturday, 25 July 2015

Seeking meaning and significance

This was my sermon for last Thursday's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook, which can also be heard on the London Internet Church website:

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who is best known for creating a hierarchy of needs. ‘This is a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.’ At the bottom of the hierarchy are the basic needs of human beings; needs for food, water, sleep and sex. Maslow’s model works as a hierarchy because a pressing need must be mostly satisfied before someone will give their attention to the next highest need, which includes our need for our lives to be given meaning and significance.

The stories of the feeding of the four thousand and the five thousand are stories of Jesus meeting the basic needs of the people with him but are also stories about that action having a deeper level of meaning and significance.

The people who were with Jesus had been with him in the wilderness for three days without any significant supplies of food. While some may have brought small supplies of food with them, in essence they had been fasting for much of the time Jesus had been teaching them and, for those of you who have visited the Holy Land, you will know that the Wilderness is unforgiving terrain in which to be without sustenance.

Jesus is concerned for these people and, out of compassion, meets their basic need for food in that testing environment but, just as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests that once our basic needs have been met then our needs for meaning and significance come into play, Jesus’ actions here also have a deeper level of meaning, if we and they are alert to it.

We can see this if we think for a moment about the outline of this story and the extent to which it reminds us of another story. A group of Israelites are in the wilderness and are hungry because they have too little to eat. In response God provides them with bread to eat. That is the outline of the feeding of the four thousand but it is also, in essence, the story of God providing manna in the wilderness to the Israelites when Moses led them from Egypt to the Promised Land. The similarity is deliberate, whether on the part of Jesus or Mark, because through this action Jesus is seen as the new Moses for the people of Israel.

Following the parallels between these two stories through means that the people of Israel are to be seen as being in slavery once again – whether that meant the political oppression of their Roman conquerors or, as St Paul suggests, under the bondage of sin. The Exodus – the salvation of the people of Israel - began with the death of firstborn sons and, in the story of Jesus, our salvation comes through the death of God’s only Son. Jesus leads his people through water – in the original Exodus that was the path through the Red Sea, but, for Jesus’ followers, it is the rite of baptism. They go on a journey through the wilderness – where, as we have seen, they are fed and provided for – and end their journey when they enter the Promised Land – which Jesus spoke about as being the kingdom of God that he initiated but which is still to come in full.

The parallels are plenteous and very close as the people of Jesus’ day were intended to view him as the new Moses. At this deeper level of meaning and significance it is possible, from this one action, to understand the whole of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

God is also at work in our lives to bring and to reveal meaning, purpose, shape and significance to our lives too, if we are alert to this deeper level of life and our not solely focused on the meeting of our basic needs. We all have a need and a desire for there to be more to our lives than simply the survival of the fittest; the scramble to meet our basic needs. As Maslow’s hierarchy of needs recognises, when we are in genuine need and poverty, it is very difficult to think about anything else other than survival. But, when we are in the fortunate position of having our basic needs met, we have the time and space and inclination to look around us to see the way in which God can bring meaning, significance and purpose into our lives; with that purpose including the development of a compassion, like that of Jesus, which sees the needs of those whose basic needs are not being met and responds to that by sharing at least some of what we have.

Your life is not simply about having enough to survive; the meeting of your basic needs. God wants you to see a deeper level of meaning, significance, shape and purpose to your life. Are you open to see the meaning and significance that he brings or does a focus of getting prevent you from seeing and receiving what he is already giving?

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Delirious? - Now is the Time.

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Humanising Work: Co-operatives, credit unions and the challenge of mass unemployment

Humanising Work: Co-operatives, credit unions and the challenge of mass unemployment is a new book by Chris Beales (Rainmaker Books, published October 2014. ISBN 978-1-909863-02-6 E-book £2.49 Paperback £5.99 (+ £2 p & p) 83 pages. Available from Amazon and Kobo).

Does the search for meaning in work matter? – and is it even possible to ask such a question against a backdrop of mass youth unemployment, widespread poverty and growing inequality? Drawing on the experience of the Mondragon co-operatives in Spain and other innovative models of employment and enterprise from around the world - and the visions and values derived from his faith - Chris explores how ‘work’ might be humanised and education and employment made not only responsive to what the Economy needs but also purposeful, satisfying and rewarding for people.

Also by Chris Beales: Practising Jesus. Rainmaker Books, ISBN 978-1-909863-00-2 Now available from info@rainmakerbooks.co.uk for £5.00 (+£2 p&p) pb 170 pages.

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The Clash - Clampdown.

Friday, 14 March 2014

Martin Creed: What's the point of it?

'St Augustine wrote: "How many common things are trodden underfoot which, if examined carefully, awaken our astonishment?"Augustine clearly did not have Martin Creed's screwed sheet of paper or lump of Blu-Tack stuck to a wall in view when he wrote those words, and Creed would not choose a religious frame of reference for his work; but there is, nevertheless, value in relating Augustine's thought to Creed's work.'

This is the introduction to my review of Martin Creed's Hayward Gallery retrospective 'What's the point of it?' which appears today in the Church Times. The review outlines how Creed's work opens our eyes to see afresh the common things around us.

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Martin Creed - I Like Things.

Monday, 9 April 2012

Everyone, everything, everywhere

God has a plan for all people. One where everyone, whatever their job or role in life, has meaning and purpose. Vocation is not just about church employees or priests, but about everyone, doing everything, everywhere. From those at school to the retired, whatever your age or stage, God has a place for you in his story and this day is for you!

The 2012 Vocations Day is for everyone in the Barking Episcopal Area, including those considering a call to authorised ministry in the Church of England. With inspiration and encouragement, practical insights and stories, everyone will better see their part of God’s bigger picture. There will be seminars to explore where God is in your current role. Whether you are in business, health, education or retail, from bin men or bankers all are welcome, because ‘whatever you are doing…do it for the Lord’ (Colossians 3:23).

Saturday 21st April, 9.30am - 4.00pm, St Edwards School and 6th Form College, Romford. For further information about Vocations Day 2012 please contact Justin McKenzie Tel: 020 8539 8437 justinboro@btinternet.com.

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M Ward - The First Time I Ran Away.

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

Life's big questions

Two of the biggest questions we can ask in life are ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Why am I here?’ Both questions get answered the story of Jesus' baptism (Mark 1. 9 - 15) and the answers that were true for Jesus can also be true for us.

First, ‘Who am I?’ The answer to that question was given to Jesus as soon as he came up out of the waters of baptism. As he did so, he saw heaven opening, the Spirit coming down on him like a dove, and he heard a voice from heaven saying, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.” As he was baptised, he was immediately affirmed as God’s Son.

It is easy for us to think that that only applies to Jesus. That it was a special word spoken by God the Father especially to him and, on one level, no doubt it was. But, the Bible makes it quite clear that Jesus laid down his life to make us one with God so that, as Christians, we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters, members of the same family – God’s family – and co-heirs with Jesus of everything that he has. Listen to what St Paul says about this in Romans 8:

“Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's children. For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, Father! my Father! God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children. Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him …”

When a child is baptised, God is saying to her, “N, you are my dear daughter/son, you are my child and since you are my child you will possess with Jesus the blessings I keep for my people.” This is true, not just Katie, but for each one of us who have been baptised. Just stop for a moment to hear God saying those words to you, “Linda, John, Katharine, Kristina, Geoff, Margaret, Alan, Jane, Peter, and on and on for each one of us, you are my dear daughter, you are my child and since you are my child you will possess with Jesus the blessings I keep for my people.” Take a moment, to let those words sink into your hearts and minds. You are a child of God, you are a brother or sister of Jesus, you are loved, you are valued, you are blessed. Take it in and say thank you to God your Father for who you are.

The second big question was ‘Why am I here?’ and that too is answered in this reading. After he is baptised, Jesus has a time of preparation in the desert and then begins to preach the Good News from God. He had a God-given task to complete, a reason for his existence and a meaning for his life. The same is true for us. Listen to St Paul again, this time from 1 Corinthians 12:

“There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit gives them. There are different ways of serving, but the same Lord is served. There are different abilities to perform service, but the same God gives ability to all for their particular service. The Spirit's presence is shown in some way in each person for the good of all.”

The Spirit’s presence is shown in some way in each person for the good of all. So, the Spirit’s presence is shown in a child at baptism in some way for the good of all. How will that be? We don’t yet know. It is too early to say. But it is one of the tasks that God gives parents who are bringing children up in the family of God, to nurture their gifts and talents so that it will become clear in what way the Spirit’s presence is shown in lives of their children.

And, again, this is also true for all of us who have been baptised. Doug, Kathy, Bob, Pauline, Tony, Renny, Keith, Charity, and on and on for each one of us, the Spirit’s presence is shown in us in some way for the good of all. Take a moment, to let those words sink into your hearts and minds. You have been given the abilities you need for your particular service. The Spirit's presence is shown in some way in you for the good of all. Your life has meaning and purpose because God has work that only you can do. Take it in and say thank you to God your Father for why you are here.

May we realise afresh the way that our deepest needs - for love and significance – are fully met through baptism into the family of God. Who are we? We are the beloved sons and daughters of our Father God. Why are we here? To use our God-given abilities to do work for God that only we can do. Take moment to truly take it in and then say thank you to God your Father for who you are and why you are here.

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Martyn Joseph - One Of Us.

Friday, 24 September 2010

Celebration of Christian Poetry (2)

This year at St John's Seven Kings we have another engaging and interesting Patronal Festival programme at the beginning of October, which includes a Sixties Night (Saturday 2nd October, 7.30pm), Choral Evensong (Sunday 3rd October, 6.30pm), a Festival Communion with our guest preacher Revd. Alan Perry, Headteacher, St Edwards School (Sunday 3rd October, 10.00am), and a Celebration of Christian Poetry (Friday 1st October, 7.30pm) - this event is part of the London Borough of Redbridge's 'Word of Mouth' Festival.

Poetry is an aspect of the Arts where the influence of Christians has been felt particularly strongly. In thinking about why that might be and also why you might want to come to our Celebration of Christian Poetry event, the following thoughts from the US poet Gregory Orr may be of interest:

“The making of poems is the making of meanings. To write a lyric poem is to take the confusion and chaos inside you and translate it into words. Those words get organized onto a page; and if they’re being organised into a poem as opposed to a novel, they’re organized into an intense pattern, a concentrated coherence. When you suffer trauma, you mostly do that passively, as a victim. But when you translate that experience into words and shape it, you become active. You are no longer a passive endurer of experience, but an active shaper of it. You’ve redeemed something from that chaos.”

“We, as readers, most need poems, during our crises. We need poets when we’re deliriously happy, and the delirium threatens our stability, when we’re crazy with love. We need them when we’re crazed with grief and despair – then they’re a momentary stay against our confusion, a momentary clarification. Then they have the power to re-stabilize us. Wordsworth has a beautiful insight when he defines poetry twice in his “Preface to the Lyric Ballads”: first as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” – that would be a poem written in crisis – and than a few pages later as “emotion recollected in tranquillity” … “trauma revisited when it’s safe to remember it.”

For all these reasons “writing a poem can save your life, and reading a poem can show you that you are not alone. Someone else felt this. Someone else went through what you are going through and they survived, even triumphed. The poem is the proof of that survival and triumph.” Orr quotes a wonderful line about lyric poetry from Stanley Kunitz: “It’s the voice of the solitary that makes others less alone.”

If you are being drawn to poetry, as a reader or a writer, then he suggests finding out about your imaginative relatives – your poetic family – including “Great-great-grandfather Wordsworth, or mad Great-great-uncle William Blake, or strange and amazing Aunt Emily Dickinson.” Our Celebration of Christian Poetry event will be that kind of evening - an introduction to a poetic family tree offering the opportunity to “find your spiritual kin” and be “reborn into poetry” – through readings of poems from featured poets, favourite poems introduced and read by local clergy, and choral recitals of well known poems.

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Christina Rossetti - Love Came Down At Christmas.