Paying Attention: Events

Here is my first address from the Silent Retreat at the Retreat House, Pleshey, organised for the communities of St Martin-in-the-Fields and St Stephen Walbrook. Entitled 'Paying Attention', we are exploring ways of paying attention to people, creation, events, emotions, absence and mystery. Earlier, at St Martin's, I spoke about paying attention in terms of the Arts.

Paying Attention: Events

The Bible is full of encouragement to reflect. The words, reflect, consider, ponder, meditate and examine, crop up everywhere. God encourages us to reflect on everything; his words (2 Timothy 2.7), his great acts (1 Samuel 12.24), his statutes (Psalm 119.95), his miracles (Mark 6.52), Jesus (Hebrews 3.1), God's servants (Job 1.8), the heavens (Psalm 8.3), the plants (Matthew 6.28), the weak (Psalm 41.1), the wicked (Psalm 37.10), oppression (Ecclesiastes 4.1), labour (Ecclesiastes 4.4), the heart (Proverbs 24.12), our troubles (Psalm 9.13), our enemies (Psalm 25.19), our sins (2 Corinthians 13.5). Everything is up for reflection but we are guided by the need to look for the excellent or praiseworthy (Philippians 4.8) and to learn from whatever we see or experience (Proverbs 24.32).

Clearly all this reflection cannot take place just at specific times. Just as we are told to pray always, the implication of the Bible's encouragement to reflection is that we should reflect at all times. We need to make a habit of reflection, a habit of learning from experience and of looking for the excellent things. How can we do this?

One of the ways, I would suggest is that we use all that is around us – what we see, do and experience. Everything around us can potentially be part of our ongoing conversation with God, part of which is reflection. The Celtic Christians had a sense of the heavenly being found in the earthly, particularly in the ordinary events and tasks of home and work, together with the sense that every event or task can be blessed if we see God in it.

David Adam, who has written many contemporary prayers in this style, says that: “Much of Celtic prayer spoke naturally to God in the working place of life. There was no false division into sacred and secular. God pervaded all and was to be met in their daily work and travels. If our God is to be found only in our churches and our private prayers, we are denuding the world of His reality and our faith of credibility. We need to reveal that our God is in all the world and waits to be discovered there – or, to be more exact, the world is in Him, all is in the heart of God. Our work, our travels, our joys and our sorrows are enfolded in His loving care. We cannot for a moment fall out of the hands of God. Typing pool and workshop, office and factory are all as sacred as the church. The presence of God pervades the work place as much as He does a church sanctuary.” (Power Lines: Celtic Prayers about Work, SPCK, 1992)

Other examples of similar styles of prayer include, Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica, a collection of Gaelic prayers and poems collected in the late 19th century, which “abounds with prayers invoking God’s blessing on such routine daily tasks as lighting the fire, milking the cow and preparing for bed.” Many of George Herbert’s poems use everyday imagery (mainly church-based as he was also a priest) and are based on the idea that God is found everywhere within his world. People like Ray Simpson and Ruth Burgess have provided series of contemporary blessings for everyday life covering computers, exams, parties, pets, cars, meetings, lunchtimes, days off and all sorts of life situations from leaving school and a girl’s first period to divorce, redundancy and mid-life crises.

Similarly, Martin Wallace suggests that: “Just as God walked with Adam in the garden of Eden, so he now walks with us in the streets of the city chatting about the events of the day and the images we see.” (City Prayers, The Canterbury Press, 1994) He wants to encourage us to “chat with God in the city, bouncing ideas together with him, between the truths of the Bible and the truths of urban life” and, “as you walk down your street, wait for the lift, or fumble for change at the cash-till … to construct your own prayers of urban imagery.”

One helpful way of beginning to do this is to identify the times and spaces in your normal day when you could take time to pray in this way. Before ordination, when I worked in Central London I used to use my walk to and from the tube station in this way and also had a prayer on my PC that I would pray as I ate lunch at my desk. As a result, since being ordained I have been sending emails to working people in the congregation of which I have been part with a brief reflection and prayer that they can use in these ways.

If you would like to pay more attention to events in this way, why not start by making a list of all the things that you see and do in a typical day? Then think how you could use these to reflect and pray. Then, as Martin Wallace suggests, you might like to try writing your own prayer, reflection or blessing using some of these things as your starting point.

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The Jam - News Of The World.

Art interviews - Bishop of Barking (3)

JE. You are also a painter yourself and the walls of Bishop’s Lodge are decorated with your work. Can you say a little about your own art; its styles and motivations?

DH. I am inspired by landscape. Most of what I paint has its inspiration in landscape. I can’t help but be influenced by landscapes and townscapes. As early as I can remember I have enjoyed walking in the countryside. I also enjoy mountain climbing and grasp any opportunities to get out into wide open spaces. My ministry has mainly been urban and time in the countryside is a counterpoint to where I’ve tended to live in my ministry. But I’m also inspired by colourful, busy townscapes and the quirkiness of that as well.

JE. Your interest and engagement with the Arts has public and private aspects to it. Do you see a kind of synergy there with the public and private aspects of faith?

DH. I am at my most integrated and feel most myself when I am painting. I find painting challenging and demanding but extremely therapeutic. It is a spiritual activity but too much romance can be talked about painting and prayer. Essentially, I feel most fully myself when I am painting.

JE. It is often suggested that the contemporary Church has not engaged with the Arts well. Through your ministry as a Bishop you see a broad range of ministry being undertaken in parishes and at the diocesan level. Do you see an interest and engagement with the Arts as you travel around and have you found ways of encouraging that engagement where you have found it?

DH. I think there is a big need to re-engage with the Arts. The Church has had a lengthy and happy marriage with the Arts in the past but this has eroded in recent times.

A good example of what can be done is The Last Supper murals I commissioned for the Chapel of St George’s Crypt in Leeds. This is an example of taking ‘high’ art into a project that was for homeless people. We were juxtaposing art with those who are excluded in Leeds society. Steve Simpson, the artist, painted The Last Supper in the round such that the paintings of the Apostles would be on the wall next to contemporary worshippers. He worked from photos of some of the homeless people so there was a sense of the present day inhabitants of the Crypt being points of reference for the Apostles. This is taking art into a public space and enabling daily interaction from those using the space. It was also part of creative writing workshops that encouraged creativity in those using the Crypt.

I also designed a stained glass window for the 150th Anniversary of St George’s. As part of a re-ordering of the Church we took out some gallery seating and uncovered clear glass in the base of a lancet stained glass window. We then needed to complete the window and the challenge was to create something contemporary but that was also fitting in terms of colour, tone and leading so that the window would read as a piece and have integrity.

JE. How could a greater engagement with the Arts be encouraged by the Church and what would be the value of such an engagement?

DH. I agree with Rowan Williams that the Church needs more artists and “that artists are not special people but every person is a special kind of artist.” I think that there is great scope in the Church encouraging creative expression in everyone as this is a way of helping us to be fully human. Where appropriate that flowering of artistic expression can be expressed in Church as, for example, an outflow of worship. We are fellow-creators with God and need to remember that he is creator as well as redeemer.

The relationship between Church life and music has sustained through the centuries but the connection been Church and theatre has suffered. There is great scope for dance and drama in Church, as well as the visual arts. There is great scope for recovering those connections that have fallen into decline.

There needs to be a toughness of regulation as to what objects of art become permanent features in a Church. Hence the proper activity of Diocesan Advisory Committees whose responsibility it is to ensure that the heritage of our Churches is enhanced over the decades. However, there is great scope for pieces of art and scripture to be located in Church as well as dance and drama. There is a particular challenge when art is to be a permanent fixture in church buildings but you can do anything temporarily!

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Aretha Franklin & Mavis Staples - We Need Power.