In God, 'You are Enough'

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning and will be sharing at St Peter's Nevendon this afternoon:

Sermon:  (10.00am, St Andrew’s, 22/02/26)

Standing proud in the heart of Manchester’s university district on the exterior of St Peter’s House a 22 x 13 foot billboard towered above the streets below giving a refreshingly affirming message to passing students and commuters. It said, ‘You are enough’. It would be easy to assume this is an affirmation of the kind of individualism that says ‘I’m alright, Jack’ as ‘I’m looking after No.1.’ However, as St Peter’s House is the base for the Christian chaplaincy team for the Manchester Universities and the Royal Northern College of Music, that’s unlikely to be the intended message.

The artist who created the piece, Micah Purnell, notes that, ‘Capitalist ideology aims to impart the notion that we are worthy of love and belonging - once we have bought into the product or service. Consumerism wraps things up in neat little packages and sells them as idealised gifts of perfection. Advertising props up this notion with the assumption that we are inadequate - stealing our love of ourselves, and selling it back at a price.’

He goes on to say that Brené Brown, a research Professor at Houston University, has found through extensive quantitative research that the one thing that keeps us from love and belonging is the fear that we are not worthy of love and belonging. She found that those who fully experience joy and live wholeheartedly have four characteristics in common: the courage to accept their imperfection; compassion towards themselves first; the ability to let go of who they should be in order to be who they really are, and to embrace vulnerability and unknowing. His installation, therefore, says, ‘You’re not perfect, you’re never going to be, and that’s the good news.’ You are enough, as you are.

The temptations faced by Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4.1-11) were all temptations to see his situation and his trust in God as being insufficient, or ‘not enough.’ His temptations began with the reality of his situation, the fact that he was hungry because of fasting for 40 days. He had not had enough food and the temptation was to say that there was not enough and use his power to create food from nowhere. Jesus responded by saying that the words of God were enough for him. The second temptation was in regard to his mission and his then obscurity. Jesus was on his own in the wilderness and was offered celebrity and fame because his obscurity was clearly not enough to achieve his mission. Jesus’ response was essentially saying that the path he was following was enough. The final temptation was linked but, instead of being focused on fame, was focused on power. Jesus’ mission was to save all humanity and he was offered power over all humanity as a shortcut to success and as recognition of the lack of power he possessed as an insignificant carpenter in a backwater of the mighty Roman Empire. Jesus responded by saying that God’s way was enough for him.

Jesus was tempted on the basis that who he was and what he had were not enough to achieve the mission he had been given. He was tempted to think of himself, his situation and God, in terms of scarcity and deficit. But deficit is not our modus operandi as Christians. We don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church. Jesus said, ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10.10). Living abundant life; that’s what the Father intends, the Son embodies, the Spirit facilitates. 

Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields says that, as Christians, we are called to live in such a way that gratefully receives the abundance God is giving us, evidences the transformation from scarcity to abundance to which God is calling us, dwells with God in that abundant life, and shares that abundance far and wide.

Jesus is our model of abundant life; his life, death and resurrection chart the transformation from the scarcity of sin and death to the abundance of healing and resurrection; he longs to bring all humankind into reconciled and flourishing relationship with God, one another, ourselves and all creation.

In the middle of the wilderness where he literally had nothing, Jesus received God’s abundance, the abundant life that would sustain him throughout his journey to the cross, and beyond. Also, his time in the wilderness came immediately after his baptism where God had spoken to him saying ‘You are my own dear Son. With you I am well pleased’. God had essentially said to him then, ‘You are Enough’.

As such, we can defend ourselves against temptation as Jesus did. “As God’s children,” Tom Wright says, “we are entitled to use the same defence” as Jesus himself. “Store scripture in your heart,” he writes, “and know how to use it.” When we do, we are able to see through the temptation to think of all that we have as inadequate and, instead, to view our lives and all that we have as a gift from God knowing that, in him, we are enough.

Lent is commonly thought of as being about those things we give up but Lent is ultimately about our opening up. Opening up our lives to receive more of the abundance and the gifts that God is giving to us. In Lent, we give up some of our usual practices in order to have more time for God and to be with God. More time to open up to him and deepen our relationship with him. That was what Jesus was doing in the wilderness and, like him, we too can discover that, as we receive all that God is giving to us, God is enough, God's abundance is enough, our churches and communities are enough, and we are enough. Amen.

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

Mumford and Sons - Begin Again.

God's presence in cloud and fire

 Here's the reflection that I shared at St Catherine's Wickford this evening:

As they travelled through the wilderness, God’s presence was shown to the Israelites by a cloud and a fire (Numbers 9.15-end). These symbols help us to understand aspects of God’s support and presence in our lives too.

The cloud was both a guide to the Israelites and an immersive presence. When they were outside the cloud, the movements of the cloud were able to guide them on their journey through the wilderness and God continues to guide us as we pray, whether through the Bible’s teachings or through the prompting of our hearts. When they were within the cloud, they became immersed within it and surrounded by it. This provided protection for them but also, because the cloud could not be fully seen from the inside, revealed God’s omnipotence; the all-surpassing greatness of his being which can never be fully known or understood by human beings. 

‘The Cloud of Unknowing’ is a Christian spiritual classic, written in the fourteenth century, which sets out to describe a transcendent God who exists beyond human knowledge and human language. The anonymous author asserts: " We can not think our way to God. He can be loved but not thought." So, we dwell in a not-knowing where contemplation, calm, and above all, love, are the way to understand the Divine.

The fire provides light, warmth and inspiration. The light of Christ is revelatory as it reveals the good and bad in our lives and communities. Light reveals those things that have been hidden so we can see their true nature; whether live-giving or life-denying. Fire also provides a warmth that encourages everyone to gather together around its source. The fire of God’s love is what draws us to church to gather together and together receive that love. 

Finally, fire is inspiration, as was the case for the first disciples at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon them with tongues of fire giving them the gift of inspired utterance in a number of different languages so they could speak God’s message to all that were present in Jerusalem at that time. God continues to inspire and equip his people who turn to him in prayer.

Like the people of Israel, may we also know God as guide, as omnipotent, as revelation, as love and as inspiration. And may we pray that we might experience him in each of these different ways. Amen.

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

Anawim - Give Us The Peace.

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?

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

Neal Morse - The Temple Of The Living God.

Poem: A second Adam lifted up

This poem is based on today's reading from the Hebrew Scripture - Numbers 21.4-9:

Fatal snake bite inflicted in a garden;
serum spreading through the human
body, poison inflaming man
to be a wolf to man - vampiric
predator normalizing evil, unthinkable
terror routinely inflicted by militant
ignorance, the disease of legion.

Brazen serpent on a pole, innocent victim,
scapegoat, a second Adam lifted up. Venom
taken into God initiates immune system response;
antibodies - taken intravenously - bind and
neutralize. The form and flowers of evil
assumed, embraced, transformed
as antivenom, for the purposes of healing.

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

Carleen Anderson - Leopards in the Temple.

Leaves for Healing

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

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

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

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

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

Eva Cassidy - Autumn Leaves.

In the time between times

Here is my sermon from this morning's Sung Eucharist at St Anne's Lutheran Church:

We live in the time between the times. That may sound like the opening sentence in a science fiction novel but it is also an important truth for us to understand in this time of Advent when we prepare to remember Christ’s first coming and look forward to Christ’s second coming.

The things that Jesus did in his ministry on earth - healing people physically, emotionally and spiritually, forgiving sins, including the excluded and raising the dead - were the beginnings of the rule and reign of God on earth. In Jesus’ ministry we see “the signs, the dawning, the budding of the … kingdom” of God. The first coming of Jesus was a demonstration of what the kingdom of God is and will become.

I say “will become” because history is moving towards a climax with the second coming of Jesus when the kingdom of God will be fully realised on earth and, as the book of Revelation tells us, there will be no more death, no more grief or crying or pain.

So the Bible speaks about there being two ages, this age and the age to come. Through Jesus, the kingdom of God has broken into this age and when Jesus returns the age to come will begin when the kingdom of God will come on earth as it is in heaven.

Therefore, we live in the time between the first and second comings of Jesus. In the time between the times, we see signs of God’s kingdom on earth but are still waiting for the full realisation of that kingdom and we are therefore in a similar position to that of John the Baptist (John 1: 6-8, 19-28)..

John lived in the time before Jesus began his ministry and spent his life looking out for and pointing people towards Jesus. Therefore, John can give us ideas about the way in which we should live as we look out for and point people towards the kingdom of God and Jesus’ second coming.

The first thing that we can see from John’s witness is that we should point people to Jesus and not to ourselves. In verses 19-21, John is asked whether he is the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet. Each time he answers, “I am not”. John’s “I am not” is in deliberate contrast to Jesus who, throughout, this Gospel says, “I am” because I AM is actually the name of God - I AM WHO I AM (the name that God used of himself when he spoke to Moses from the burning bush).

Archbishop William Temple wrote that John is here giving us an example for our own witness because he is saying, “Never mind who I am; listen to what I say and look at the person that I point you towards.” If ever our witness begins to be about ourselves or to make ourselves very prominent something is going wrong with it. It is not ourselves but our witness for which we want to claim attention. As Paul writes, “We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” In this time between the times, our lives and our words need to point others away from ourselves and towards Jesus.

Next, John describes himself and his role by quoting from the prophet Isaiah: “I am the voice of someone shouting in the desert; Make a straight path for the Lord to travel.” John is quoting the beginning of Isaiah 40 which says:

“A voice cries out, “Prepare in the wilderness a road for the Lord! Clear the way in the desert for our God! Fill every valley; level every mountain. The hills will become a plain, and the rough country will be made smooth. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all mankind will see it. The Lord himself has promised this.”

John was in the wilderness which was also the place where the Israelites had been before they entered the Promised Land. The wilderness is the place of waiting, of preparation, for the promise of God to be fulfilled. John’s job in this place of preparation sounds like a major building project - fill every valley, level every mountain, make the hills a plain and the rough country smooth. And when this has been done then the glory of the Lord will be seen by everyone. So, John’s job was to call people to remove barriers to all people everywhere seeing Jesus for themselves.

The task that God had given to the Jewish people was to be a light to the Gentiles, to reveal the glory of God to all people. Jerusalem and its Temple was supposed to become a place to which the nations would stream to learn from God. Instead the Temple became a symbol of Jewish identity with all sorts of people excluded from worship at the Temple unless they conformed to the detailed requirements of the Mosaic Law. The Temple and the worship in it actually prevented the free access to God’s word that God wanted to see for people of all nations. Therefore, John is calling for all those barriers to God to be removed and torn down so that people can clearly see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

In the time between the times we need to do the same. To identify those things in our society that prevent people from seeing Jesus and call for their removal. I’m thinking, for example, of the consumerism and individualism in our society that lead people to live as though all that matters is themselves and their own pleasure. A few years ago an American ambassador to UN food agencies in Rome found a novel way to do that this week by consigning most of his black tie evening guests to a freezing tent with only rice to eat. Tony Hall invited guests at his walled residence to pick a card from a hat and, while those who drew one card were ushered inside for a candlelit meal, he joined the unlucky others outside. By doing this he gave people a shock demonstration of what it is like for the 60 per cent of the world’s 6 billion people who struggle to eat. Hall told his Times interviewer that he was prompted in his quest to bring world hunger to people’s attention both by what he has seen firsthand in Ethiopia and by Isaiah 58.6, where God says: “The kind of fasting I want is this: Remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free.”

Finally, John is questioned about the reason why he baptised people. John’s baptism was one of “repentance for the forgiveness of sins”. Those who were baptised by John were people who agreed with him that the people of Israel had lost their way and were not fulfilling God’s plan for their nation. John’s baptism prepared them to recognise Jesus who would faithfully carry out God’s plan for the salvation of all peoples. In the time between the times we need to do the same, to call people away from our society’s obsession with consuming more and more goods in order to bolster our own fragile egos and help people turn towards Jesus’ way of giving to others in order to see signs in our day of the kingdom of God.

Like John the Baptist we live in a time of preparation for the coming of something greater than what we know. Like him, we need to point people, not to ourselves, but to Jesus. Like him, we need to call for the removal of all barriers to people seeing Jesus for themselves. And like him, we need to help people repent for lives and a society that ignores God’s purpose and plan for our lives and turn back to God. As we learn from John, like him, we can create signs in our time of that something greater for which we wait. We can create signs of the kingdom of God which is here now but which will fully come when Jesus comes again.

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

Kings College Choir - Coventry Carol.

A Statement on the Migrant Crisis

The following statement was issued by St Martin-in-the-Fields earlier today:

A Statement on the Migrant Crisis
Revd Dr Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields

The plight of those entering Europe in large numbers seeking safety, hope and a future is distressing and stirring. As a community we are made up of people who are themselves refugees, many who have known oppression, several who have themselves migrated to make a living in a new country, and a number, including myself, whose parents or grandparents came to this land fleeing persecution.

We recognise and affirm the actions many congregations and communities are taking to befriend and support migrants. Our own ministry with asylum-seekers has been a source of growth and discovery and a blessing to our whole community. We celebrate the warmth and welcome that migrants have received in several parts of Europe.

We wish to challenge some of the widely-stated assumptions surrounding the migrant crisis.

• We challenge the notion that efforts must be entirely focused on addressing conflict in the countries of origin. Intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya didn’t work; non-intervention in Syria didn’t work either. There is no simple off-shore solution.
• We challenge the conviction that Britain is ‘full’ and there is neither space nor employment for newcomers. Our own community of staff and volunteers is immeasurably enriched by people from all over the world who have made our city their home – some junior, others who have risen to senior roles; their skills and enthusiasm are a blessing to us all.
• We challenge the way immigration is discussed as a question of duty – of whether Britain is obliged to take in people who are fleeing persecution elsewhere, how one can verify that the claim is genuine, whether one has to limit the number even of the persecuted, and whether anyone migrating largely for economic benefit has any right to be here. We maintain that migrants have always, and will always, be a source of initiative and energy, inspiration and renewal. The British population is almost entirely made up of people whose ancestors were migrants for a host of reasons: the nation’s dynamism lies in the confluence of diverse cultures.
• We appreciate the drawbacks of making migration easier and the risks of thereby exacerbating the circumstances that bring it about. But we are a nation that loves to back the underdog; we are a people whose finest hour has been in standing up in the face of oppression; and we long for our country to show its true colours today.

A prayer in the midst of the migrant crisis

Wilderness God, your Son was a displaced person in Bethlehem, a refugee in Egypt, and had nowhere to lay his head in Galilee. Bless all who have nowhere to lay their head today, who find themselves strangers on earth, pilgrims to they know not where, facing rejection, closed doors, suspicion and fear. Give them companions in their distress, hope in their wandering, and safe lodging at their journey’s end. And make us a people of grace, wisdom and hospitality, who know that our true identity is to be lost, until we find our eternal home in you. Through Christ our rejected yet risen Lord. Amen.

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

Nina Simone - Ain't Got No ... I Got Life.

Temptations, needs and fulfilment

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. The other levels of his hierarchy include: safety; belonging; esteem; exploration; harmony; and self-actualization.

The temptations which Jesus faced in the wilderness (Matthew 4. 1 - 11) can be mapped onto Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The first temptation is about his basic need for food – ‘command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ Jesus responds by, in effect, saying that his basic needs have already been met. As a result, the final two temptations come higher up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, being to do with the need for esteem.

The temptation to jump from the pinnacle of the temple is about the temptation of celebrity; in this case, gaining esteem by undertaking a sensational act. The final temptation is about the gaining of esteem through the exercise of power and wealth – the kingdoms of the world and all they offer in terms of wealth, power and worship are offered with the only price paid being the worship of someone other than God.

Jesus essentially responds to each temptation by saying that God is all he needs. Whatever our human needs may be – basic, safety, belonging, esteem, exploration, harmony or self-actualization - Jesus is clear that God meets and fulfils every need as we make him central to our lives.

Maslow observed normal human behaviour and used his observations to create his hierarchy of needs. The temptation to put the focus on ourselves and our needs as we go through life is strong in each one of us. Maslow sees that and designs his theory accordingly.

George Monbiot, in a recent article, says that we have built our society on our need to have our individual needs met. He writes that individuation – the focus on the meeting of our individual needs - ‘is exploitable’ and therefore social hierarchies have been ‘built around positional goods and conspicuous consumption.’ As a result, ‘we are lost in the 21st century, living in a state of social disaggregation that hardly anyone desired but which is an emergent property of a world reliant on rising consumption to avert economic collapse, saturated with advertising and framed by market fundamentalism.’

Jesus turns this on its head by putting the focus on God. Maslow says that what matters is that our needs are met; making us the central players in our own drama. Jesus says that God has to be central. It is when we put him first that everything else falls into place and we have the sense that all our needs are met in him.

In the wilderness, Jesus was hungry, was living in obscurity and was both poor and lacking in influence. Although his basic needs and his need for esteem were not met in human terms, nevertheless, because God was central to his life and being, he was fulfilled despite his evident lack of food and esteem.

In his second letter to the Church in Corinth (2 Corinthians 1. 3 - 11, 4. 8 - 9), St Paul writes of being so utterly, unbearably crushed that he and his colleagues despaired of life itself, but were consoled in their affliction by God. As a result of this consolation, though afflicted in every way, they were not crushed; though perplexed, they did not despair; though persecuted, they were not forsaken; though struck down, they were not destroyed. In the same way as we have seen with Jesus and his temptations, the testimony of Paul is that despite their needs not being met humanly, the centrality of God to their lives meant that they were fulfilled nevertheless.

So where is our focus in our lives? Do we do what Maslow observed was common to human beings and focus on the meeting of our needs - putting ourselves and our needs first - or are we turning Maslow’s hierarchy of needs on its head and making God central to our lives, our thinking and our actions? Our choice will determine whether we, as consumers, continually chase fulfilment throughout our lives never fully finding what it is we seek or alternatively, as Christians, come to know fulfilment even when the needs which Maslow noted are not met as he envisaged.

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

Vineyard Worship - Jesus, Be The Centre.

In the Wilderness: Preparing for Public Service (2)

Malcolm Guite is publishing on his blog the sequence of seven sonnets which have been commissioned to go with a sequence of paintings by the artist Adam Boulter on the theme of Wilderness. They will form part of the exhibition ‘In the Wilderness: Preparing for Public Service which will be installed for the whole of Lent in St. Margaret’s Westminster. 

The paintings and poems are a series of meditations on key turning points in Biblical and Church wilderness experience. Malcolm has described the way in which he and Adam worked on them as follows: 

'First he sent me the scriptural or patristic point of inspiration together with a sketch he had made, in situ, of the wilderness episode, for he is a chaplain in Amman in Jordan and has been able to journey through the desert himself and visit these sites. Then I composed the poem, drawing on both the scripture or church history and the sketch, and sent him the poem. Then he completed the painting having in mind both the initial sketch and the poem. It has been a remarkable and I think fruitful long distance collaboration, and I can hardly wait to see the paintings themselves when he and I meet for the opening night on the 17th of this month.'

In the meantime Adam has given permission for Malcolm to share the initial sketch book images he worked with, as well as the sonnets, so these are being posted in a series on his blog. If you want to see the finished paintings then do go to the exhibition which is open 9.00am - 4.00pm every day in Lent, at St. Margaret’s just next to Westminster Abbey and across from the Houses of Parliament.

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

Malcolm Guite & Steve Bell - The Singing Bowl/Birth Of A Song.

In The Wilderness: Preparing for Public Service

In The Wilderness: Preparing for Public Service is an exhibition for Lent featuring paintings by Adam Boulter and poetry by Malcolm Guite which will be St Margaret's Church, Westminster Abbey, from 17th February to 2nd April 2015.

The Biblical wilderness with its rocky mountainous desert has been a place of sanctuary and transformation for prophets and holy men since the dawn of history. Here Abraham and Jacob encountered the divine, Jesus confronted the diabolical, St Paul and the early monks learnt to speak the truth to those who would listen, and contemporary Christians seek refuge from the wars that are ripping apart this region. Here many stories and cultures that have shaped civilisations are layered onto the land. These paintings by Adam Boulter and poems by Malcolm Guite uncover some of these stories and tie them into our lives and times.

Adam Boulter’s work has revolved around landscape and religious themes. It is concerned with a sense of belonging and of the sacred in places as diverse as the inner-city and deserts, and in ancient stories, myths and sacred texts. Adam has exhibited frequently in and around London, and currently lives in Jordan, where he is the Mission to Seafarers Chaplain to the port of Aqaba.

Malcolm Guite is a poet and singer-songwriter living in Cambridge. He is a priest, chaplain, teacher and author. He also plays in Cambridge rock band Mystery Train, and lectures widely in England and USA on poetry and theology.

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

Mystery Train - The Ragged Light Of The Evening.