Seen and Unseen - When Henry Moore’s Madonna shocked Northampton

My latest article for Seen and Unseen is 'When Henry Moore’s Madonna shocked Northampton' in which I explore how a modernist mother and child stirred outrage, then lasting wonder:

'On the throne of Mary’s oversized legs and feet Jesus is vulnerable but protected and Mary’s ‘head is turned slightly to the right and she looks into the distance, acknowledging his role in salvation’. Her gaze ‘points forward into the distance, envisioning perhaps what this child is to become’. In other words, ‘She offers him to all ages and to all people who shall come to him’ as, ‘Apart from God, he is also her gift to the world.’'

For more seasonal Seen and Unseen articles see here for my piece on the art of Christmas cards and here for my piece on angels. For more on St Matthew's Northampton and its artworks, see here.

My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.

My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.

My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.

My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.

My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.

My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.

My 10th article was 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.

My 11th article was 'How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview', exploring themes from Rosen's book 'What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World'.

My 12th article was 'Blake, imagination and the insight of God', exploring a new exhibition - 'William Blake's Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum - which focuses on seekers of spiritual regeneration and national revival.

My 13th article 'Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood' was an interview with Matthew Krishanu on his exhibition 'The Bough Breaks' at Camden Art Centre.

My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.

My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history

My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).

My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.

My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.

My 19th article was entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns.

My 20th article was entitled 'Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs'. In the article I highlight folk musicians capturing both the barbaric and the beautiful in the hymn Amazing Grace and Christianity's entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade more generally.

My 21st article was entitled 'James MacMillan’s music of tranquility and discord'. In the article I noted that the composer’s music contends both the secular and sacred.

My 22nd article was a book review on Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch. 'Nobody's Empire: A Novel is the fictionalised account of how ... Murdoch, lead singer of indie band Belle and Sebastian, transfigured his experience of Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) through faith and music.'

My 23rd article was entitled 'Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion'. The article explores how popular music conjures sacred space.

My 24th article was an interview with Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention which explores why the overlooked and everyday capture the creative gaze.

My 25th article was about Stanley Spencer’s seen and unseen world and the artist’s child-like sense of wonder as he saw heaven everywhere.

My 26th article was entitled 'The biblical undercurrent that the Bob Dylan biopics missed' and in it I argue that the best of Dylan’s work is a contemporary Pilgrim, Dante or Rimbaud on a compassionate journey.

My 27th article was entitled 'Heading Home: a pilgrimage that breaks out beauty along the way' and focuses on a film called 'Heading Home' which explores how we can learn a new language together as we travel.

My 28th article was entitled 'Annie Caldwell: “My family is my band”' and showcased a force of nature voice that comes from the soul.

My 29th article was entitled 'Why sculpt the face of Christ?' and explored how, in Nic Fiddian Green’s work, we feel pain, strength, fear and wisdom.

My 30th article was entitled 'How Mumford and friends explore life's instability' and explored how Mumford and Sons, together with similar bands, commune on fallibility, fear, grace, and love.

My 31st article was entitled 'The late Pope Francis was right – Antoni Gaudi truly was God’s architect' and explored how sanctity can indeed be found amongst scaffolding, as Gaudi’s Barcelona beauties amply demonstrate.

My 32nd article was entitled 'This gallery refresh adds drama to the story of art' and explored how rehanging the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery revives the emotion of great art.

My 33rd article was an interview with Jonathan A. Anderson about the themes of his latest book 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art'.

My 34th article was an interview with 'Emily Young: the sculptor listening as the still stones speak'.

My 35th article was a profile of New York's expressionist devotional artist, 'Genesis Tramaine: the painter whose faces catch the spirit'.

My 36th article was a concert review of Natalie Bergman at Union Chapel - a soul-soaked set turned personal tragedy into communal celebration.

My 37th article was based on the exhibition series 'Can We Stop Killing Each Other?' at the Sainsbury Centre. In it I explore how art, theology, and moral imagination confront our oldest instinct.

My 38th article article was 'The dot and the dash: modern art’s quiet search for deeper meaning' in which I argue that Neo-Impressionism meets mysticism in a quietly radical exhibition at the National Gallery.

My 39th article was 'From Klee to Klein, Wenders to Botticelli: angels unveiled' in which I explore how, across war, wonder and nativity, artists show angels bridging earth and heaven.

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Mary, Blessed Teenage Mother.

Private View for 'Everyday Wonder to Revelation: an exhibition of paintings by Alan Caine'

Great to be at the Private View for 'Everyday Wonder to Revelation: an exhibition of paintings by Alan Caine' at Clare Hall in Cambridge this evening. Art historian Frances Spalding and artist Trevor Davies introduced us to the exhibition and to Alan Caine’s work. Sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld also shared reflections on Alan and his approach to art.

"Caine’s paintings delve into the core, the Neo-Platonist idea of the one-ness of the world, the nodus mundi. We see this in his depictions of everyday objects: rugs, mopheads, carpets, and bundles of cloth. Though his subject matter is humble, the deep intricacy of his draughtsmanship reveals unity and cohesion. We see it too in his expansive and luminous landscapes. When Caine blends his perceptions of space and shimmering light in the landscape with his exploration of the core in everyday things, he presents us with a vision of worlds beyond. His images invite us to step through a veil into barely imagined possibilities. Through his exploration of the small, the infinite beckons; through his exploration of the wonder of the everyday, revelation becomes possible."

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The Harbour Lights - Another Rainbow.

Seen and Unseen: Stanley Spencer’s seen and unseen world

My latest article for Seen and Unseen is about Stanley Spencer’s seen and unseen world and the artist’s child-like sense of wonder as he saw heaven everywhere:

"Spencer’s biblical and symbolic images are primarily set within Cookham, as the village itself suggested settings for specific scenes to him. The Betrayal is set at the end of Spencer’s own garden where the distinctive buildings of the maltings can be seen in the background. The Last Supper is then set in those same maltings, while Sarah Tubb and the Heavenly Visitors is set in the garden of Sarah Tubb’s home on Cookham High Street. Through this means Spencer emphasises both the universality and particularity of the Bible’s stories, in that they can be reimagined or reenacted anywhere and in the humblest of settings.”

For more on Stanley Spencer see here. See here, here and here for my articles on artists, like Spencer, in the tradition of William Blake.

My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.

My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.

My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.

My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.

My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.

My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.

My 10th article was 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.

My 11th article was 'How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview', exploring themes from Rosen's book 'What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World'.

My 12th article was 'Blake, imagination and the insight of God', exploring a new exhibition - 'William Blake's Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum - which focuses on seekers of spiritual regeneration and national revival.

My 13th article 'Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood' was an interview with Matthew Krishanu on his exhibition 'The Bough Breaks' at Camden Art Centre.

My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.

My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history

My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).

My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.

My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.

My 19th article was entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns.

My 20th article was entitled 'Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs'. In the article I highlight folk musicians capturing both the barbaric and the beautiful in the hymn Amazing Grace and Christianity's entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade more generally.

My 21st article was entitled 'James MacMillan’s music of tranquility and discord'. In the article I noted that the composer’s music contends both the secular and sacred.

My 22nd article was a book review on Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch. 'Nobody's Empire: A Novel is the fictionalised account of how ... Murdoch, lead singer of indie band Belle and Sebastian, transfigured his experience of Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) through faith and music.'

My 23rd article was entitled 'Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion'. The article explores how popular music conjures sacred space.

My 24th article was an interview with Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention which explores why the overlooked and everyday capture the creative gaze.

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Wilder Woods - Light Shine In.

Retaining a sense of wonder

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

All new babies bring new possibilities into the world. That is because each of us is unique and will therefore have the possibility of doing things that no-one else will or can do. Some babies grow up to be great – to be Winston Churchill or Nelson Mandela - but at the point of birth we don’t know what a new baby will be like or what he or she will do. Anything is possible, the future is completely open.

But in our Candlemas reading (Luke 2. 22 - 40) Simeon and Anna both knew that the six-week-old baby in Mary’s arms was God’s Messiah, the one who would bring salvation to all peoples. At that time all six-week-old babies had to be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem. How did Simeon and Anna know that baby Jesus was different from all the other babies that they had seen brought into the Temple?

It was the Holy Spirit that led Simeon into the Temple on that day so that he could encounter Jesus and it was the Holy Spirit that had assured him that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s promised Messiah. Simeon was waiting – looking out, praying for, expecting – Israel to be saved and so the Holy Spirit was with him and revealed the Messiah to him in a six-week-old baby boy. Often God’s work in the world and in other people is not easy to spot. God works in and through the ordinary and every day, through the people and things around us and we need to be looking out for signs of his activity and presence. We need to be listening for his Holy Spirit to prompt us to look at some ordinary thing or ordinary person in order to see God at work.

In the film ‘American Beauty’, Ricky shows Jane a blurry video of a plastic bag blowing in the wind among autumn leaves. As they watch he explains that "this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it … And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever."

"Sometimes,” he says, “there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.” To encounter God as that incredibly benevolent force that wants us to know that there is no reason to ever feel afraid, we need to pay attention to the beauty of the ordinary, overlooked things in life, like a plastic bag being blown by the wind. As Saint Augustine said, “How many common things are trodden underfoot which, if examined carefully, awaken our astonishment.”

We assume because Simeon expects to die once he has seen the Messiah that he was an old man and we know that Anna was 84 years old when she saw Jesus. Many of us, after living a while and seeing a lot, become a bit bored, even jaded and, when that happens, we stop expecting much, resigning ourselves to life pretty much as it is. Simeon and Anna didn’t do that though. They retained a sense of expectation, a sense of wonder, a sense of the marvel of life and so they looked for the new thing that they were confident God would do.

The singer-songwriter Victoria Williams wrote a great song called ‘Century Plant’ in which she tells the stories of older people who do something new in their old age – paint, travel, study, join the Peace Corp or ride the Grand Rapids. The Century Tree is a cactus plant which blooms once in a hundred years and you never know when it will bloom. Her point is that it is never too late to ask God to give us a sense of wonder and expectancy about the world.

Many people at that time could not see what Simeon and Anna saw. John’s Gospel tells us that the world and his own people did not receive or recognise him but that to those who did receive him and believed in him, he gave the right to become God’s children. Simeon and Anna, although they were old and close to death, and Jesus was only a six-week-old baby, became children - God’s children - because they believed that Jesus was God’s Messiah.

The same possibility is there for each one of us. We may have become jaded and cynical because of what we have experienced in life, we may have become closed off to wonder, we may have rejected the possibility of God and the possibility of good. Jesus came as a new-born baby to reawaken all those possibilities in us and in our world, for us to truly be born again. That is what Simeon and Anna experienced and it is what we can experience to as we respond to this child that is God’s salvation for all peoples. It is never too late to recover a new sense of wonder, it is never too late to ask God for it because you never know when it will bloom.

Let us pray: Lord, keep us from an ‘I’ve been this way before’ or ‘I know this already’ attitude. Revive in us a new awareness that you are alive and awake in the world and therefore every day can be filled with good things, even surprises. Amen.

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Victoria Williams - Century Plant.

Resources for Advent

This year, in addition to Advent resources with which I have been involved, I also want to share information about ‘Wonder in the Waiting’ - an Advent Jazz Vespers which gives space to gather, stop and wait over the busy Christmas period. This candlelight and musical gathering is interspersed with carols, Advent-themed artwork and reflective readings.

NOW AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD:

• Music demonstration tracks
• Music backing tracks
• Sheet music and lyric sheet
• Script and supporting slideshow
• Leader's notes

Major Richard Mingay has provided six Christmas arrangements; five are traditional carols and one is an original song written especially for this publication. All the arrangements are set in the jazz genre and are designed to have flexible instrumentation. The songs can work effectively with just piano accompaniment or with the addition of drum kit, bass, and instrumentalist. 

'Come, Lord Jesus, Come' is an Advent devotional (booklet & slideshow) by Victoria Emily Jones based on an Advent meditation written by myself. Each line of the meditation focuses on one aspect of Christ’s coming. To promote deeper reflection on all these aspects, Victoria has selected twenty-four art images to lead the way in stoking our imaginations and to provide entry points into prayer. She has taken special care to present art from around the world and, where possible, by modern or contemporary artists so that we will be stretched beyond the familiar imagery of the season.

Victoria writes: 'Art is a great way to open yourself up to the mysteries of God, to sit in the pocket of them as you gaze and ponder. “Blessed are your eyes because they see,” Jesus said. Theologians in their own right, artists are committed to helping us see what was and what is and what could be. Here I’ve taken special care to select images by artists from around the world, not just the West, and ones that go beyond the familiar fare. You’ll see, for example, the Holy Spirit depositing the divine seed into Mary’s womb; Mary with a baby bump, and then with midwives; an outback birth with kangaroos, emus, and lizards in attendance; Jesus as a Filipino slum dweller; and Quaker history married to Isaiah’s vision of the Peaceable Kingdom.'

Through 'Come, Lord Jesus, Come' you are invited to consider what it meant for Jesus to be born of woman—coming as seed and fetus and birthed son; the poverty Jesus shared with children around the world; culturally specific bodies of Christ, like a dancing body and a yogic body; how we are called to bear God into the world today; and more.

Victoria writes: 'Advent takes us back and brings us forward. In preparing us to celebrate Christ’s first coming, it places us alongside the ancient prophets, who awaited with aching intensity the fulfilled promise of a messiah, and Joseph and Mary, whose pregnancy made the expectation all the more palpable; it also strengthens our longing for Christ’s second coming, when he will return to fully and finally establish his kingdom on earth ... May God bless you this Advent season as you ponder the amazing truth of the Incarnation.'

My 'Love is ...' meditation for Advent can be found by clicking here. This meditation ponders the love Mary demonstrated at various points along the way from the announcement of Jesus’s conception to her and her family’s resettlement in Egypt.

Additionally, I have a series of poetic meditations which draw on the thinking of René Girard in interpreting the Bible readings traditionally used in services of Nine Lessons and Carols. This set of Alternative Nine Lessons and Carols meditations can be found by clicking here.

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Richard Mingay - In This Light.

Chaiya Art Awards exhibition 2023

Chaiya Art Awards, the UK’s biggest art awards illuminating spirituality is bigger and better than ever. With a first prize of £10,000, this third biennial competition, is now hosting over 100 artists in a unique exhibition entitled AWE+WONDER.

Savour this rare but affordable art collection over 14 rooms across 2 galleries. Engage with the artists as they respond to the theme of AWE+WONDER. Their work expresses itself in diverse mediums, including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video, textiles, ceramics and installations. Immerse yourself in its multi-faceted spirituality. Give yourself time – to hover, to breathe, and let its contents kiss your space with the unexpected. Make space for uninhibited, magical journeying.

Reaching out far and wide to solely UK artists Chaiya Art Awards invited thousands to participate and over 700 submitted. Founder, Katrina Moss comments “We know that art helps us to gain a fresh perspective in times of crisis and conflict, but can also be genuinely transformative, taking the artist and the viewer on journeys of discovery. Each year’s competition is underpinned by the theme of spirituality and we invite and engage people of all faiths to enter; those with none and everyone in between. When setting each year’s competition brief, we give artists the opportunity to explore and express their response to spirituality and to the theme through their creativity.”

Joining Katrina on the judging panel for 2023 were Kaffe Fassett, Favour Jonathan, Alastair Adams, Dr Christo Kefalas, Marcus Lyon, Ann Clifford, and Alastair Gordon. The public are also invited to vote for their favourite artwork with the winning artist receiving a £1000 prize.

Alongside the exhibition is ‘AWE+WONDER’ the book which includes all the finalists’ work alongside vibrant poetry and prose. It allows profound engagement with the theme viewed through the eyes of both artists and writer.

7-16 April 2023 at gallery@oxo and The Bargehouse on London’s Southbank
Bargehouse Street, London. SE1 9PH
11-6pm (last day till 4pm)
FREE ADMISSION
Art for sale £150 - £25,000
more info at https://chaiyaartawards.co.uk

The exhibition includes several artists I know and have worked with in various ways: Deborah Harrison; David Millidge; and Ali Mulroy. David Millidge's 'The Last Supper' was included in several commission4mission exhibitions including 'Reconciliation', the exhibition I organised at Coventry Cathedral. My Artlyst interview with Chaiya Art Awards founder Katrina Moss and other pieces on the Chaiya Art Awards can be found here, here, here and here.

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Gordon Gano (featuring Mary Lou Ward) - Oh Wonder.

Chaiya Art Awards 2023

Chaiya Art Awards, the UK’s biggest art awards illuminating spirituality with a top prize of £10,000, is back with a new theme for 2023 - Awe and Wonder.

The new theme ‘AWE and WONDER’ is open for submissions now and you can enter via the competition page here - https://chaiyaartawards.co.uk/competition/. The Winners exhibition will be taking place at the OXO gallery and The Bargehouse gallery 7-16 April 2023.

Check out my articles about Chaiya Art Awards here:

• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Chaiya Art Awards 2021 Gallery OXO
• Chaiya Art Awards: ‘God is . . .’ at Gallery@OXO

Covid and the war in Ukraine has raised and continues to raise so many difficult questions. It breaks into our present and offers a horizon filled with pain and difficulty. But that is not the whole picture, the 3rd Chaiya Art Awards, the UK’s biggest art competition exploring and illuminating spirituality has launched its new theme AWE + WONDER and offers a top prize of £10,000.

This biennial theme based competition is open to visual artists of all faiths, to those with none and everyone in between. These awards invite submissions of painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, glass, textiles, mixed media, photography, video and installations in response to the theme, Awe and Wonder.

A prestigious judging panel: world renowned textile artist Kaffe Fassett; portraitist and President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Alastair Adams; International photographer Marcus Lyon; distinguished curator Dr Christo Kefalas; and multi-disciplinary artist and winner of Sky Arts ‘Landmark’ prize Favour Jonathan will be looking for originality and technical excellence, theme interpretation and emotional impact.

For the finalists Chaiya delivers a ten-day exhibition in central London. Owing to the success of the two previous awards, it will not only display work at London’s prestigious gallery@oxo, but also the huge Bargehouse alongside it. So more artists and bigger pieces can be seen by the thousands of visitors who come to the Winners Exhibitions. There will be a Press Night the eve before the opening to announce the winning artists.

The Chaiya Art Awards is not only passionate about elevating artists’ work into the public arena and encouraging emerging artists, it is also ardent about ending modern day slavery and trafficking. As a charity a percentage of all art work sold goes to UNSEEN UK. Full details on the competition: https://chaiyaartawards.co.uk

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of every day life.” ~ Pablo Picasso

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The Innocence Mission - You Chase The Light.

Wonder of wonders

 

Wonder of wonders,
mystery of mysteries.
The brightness of Christmas
lies on its weather-beaten face.

Look at the cradle!
Look at the child!
Look at the face!
The body of Jesus Christ is our flesh.
He bears our flesh.
Where Christ is, there we are.
It is all our “poor flesh
and blood” which lies there
in the crib.
What happens to Jesus,
happens to us.
He became human,
that we would become
divine.
He came to us that we would
come to him.
He took human nature
that we might be eternally
with him.
Where the body of Jesus Christ is,
there we are;
we are his body.
In the body of this little child,
in the incarnate son of God,
our flesh, our distress,
anxiety, temptation,
our sin, all,
all is borne,
forgiven and healed.
We are accepted,
not despised.
God bears in his body
all our flesh and blood.

All Christian theology
has its origin here.
Without this holy night
there is no theology,
no Christology.
No priest, no theologian
stood at that cradle
and yet all theology arises
from those on bended knees
who do homage
to the mystery
of the divine child
in the stall.

Wonder of wonders,
mystery of mysteries
to know God in the flesh.
Wonder of wonders,
mystery of mysteries.
The brightness of Christmas
lies on its weather-beaten face.

(Adapted from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writings on Advent and Christmas)

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Who Am I.

The four wonders of Christmas

The four wonders of Christmas: A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on December 24, 2021 at Midnight Mass

Three miracles or wonders come together on Christmas night. First, the miracle of carrying a baby. The wonder of new life growing within the life and body of a mother. A shelter within the womb in which dependent life can grow towards independence, a life providing all that is necessary to nurture hidden growth and development.

Second, the miracle or wonder of birth itself. The contractions that signal the inevitable, shuddering and painful (for the mother) descent down the birth canal and out, gasping tiny lungfuls of air for the first time. Then the marvel for the parents of holding this tiny being who is flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone; wholly theirs and yet wholly itself.

Third, there is the reaction of others; friends, family, hospital staff, others on the maternity ward, all of whom gather round to share their congratulations and point out those features which confirm that this is a baby that is the child of these parents and these alone. As the saying goes, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’, and that village begins gathering from the moment of birth.

These three miracles or wonders were all present on Christmas night. The miraculous conception of Jesus led Mary from Joseph’s initial rejection and his dream-based acceptance, to the support of her cousin Elizabeth and the recognition of the Messiah by Jesus’ cousin John while still in Elizabeth’s womb, and on to the journey to Bethlehem because of the census, the lack of room for them to stay, with the stable at the inn becoming their resting place in preparation for the birth. Mary was the God-bearer, the one who carried Jesus through his nine-month gestation and who delivered him into a world that neither knew him or particularly wanted him.

That delivery happened on the night that we celebrate tonight. Without midwives and for the usual length of time involving all the usual birth pains, the birth took place of a child about whom prophecies had been spoken and through whom the world itself had come into being and yet he came into a world that did not know him and did not accept him. While born into obscurity, living and dying in obscurity, many, throughout time, have come to see this moment, the birth, as the central moment in human history, the moment around which our wellbeing, salvation and future happiness revolve.

And then others began arriving; first, the animals in the stall, then angels sending shepherds, then a star leading Magi to find the baby born Kings of the Jews. There was celebration and singing, wonder and awe, gift-giving and more dreams providing warnings and directions. A hastily assembled village bringing affirmation, guidance, and protection for the new family who were a long way from home and shortly to become refugees.

All these wonders occurred in less than ideal circumstances, bringing into question our current yearning for Boris to ‘save’ Christmas. To save what and for what, when as we’ve already seen God is always most fully experienced and encountered in adversity, rather than comfort!

Three Christmas wonders, but we have yet to experience the full wonder of Christmas night. There one more wonder, I want to share. I want to encourage you to look more closely into the manger. If you do, looking more intently and closely at the child lying in the manger like new parents seeing their new-born child for the first time and recognising their features in their child, you will see yourself looking back at you.

This insight was first expressed in 1939 by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor who directed an underground seminary in Germany, an intentional Christian community that practised a new form of monasticism. The seminary was closed down in 1937 by the Gestapo and more than two dozen of its students were arrested. Bonhoeffer, too, was arrested in 1943 and executed in 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II. Earlier, while still at liberty, he wrote circular letters to his students encouraging them to pursue and maintain fellowship with one another in any and every way possible.

In his circular letter sent at Christmas in 1939 Bonhoeffer wrote this about the nativity:

‘The body of Jesus Christ is our flesh. He bears our flesh. Therefore, where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; that is true because of the incarnation. What happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. It really is all our "poor flesh and blood" which lies there in the crib; it is our flesh which dies with him on the cross and is buried with him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. So the Christmas message for all … runs: You are accepted. God has not despised you, but he bears in his body all your flesh and blood. Look at the cradle! In the body of the little child, in the incarnate son of God, your flesh, all your distress, anxiety, temptation, indeed all your sin, is borne, forgiven and healed.’

That is the great insight of Bonhoeffer’s letters; where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; what happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. He became a human being like us, so that we would become divine. He came to us so that we would come to him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. Like new parents seeing their new-born child for the first time and recognising their features in their child, so, when we look in the manger, we see ourselves looking back at us.

‘How shall we deal with such a child?’ Bonhoeffer asks. How shall we respond to so many Christmas wonders? These wonders, these miracles, are all wonderful points of connection with the God who connects with us in and through the Christ-child on Christmas night.

I wonder with which of the four wonders of Christmas night you most identify? I wonder how you will come and connect with the Christ-child this Christmas night? As one who has carried a baby and given birth, as one who has gathered in support of a new family, or as one who has seen something of yourself in the new-born child.

Bonhoeffer also asks us, ‘Have our hands, soiled with daily toil, become too hard and too proud to fold in prayer at the sight of this child? Has our head become too full of serious thoughts … that we cannot bow our head in humility at the wonder of this child? Can we not forget all our stress and struggles, our sense of importance, and for once worship the child, as did the shepherds and the wise men from the East, bowing before the divine child in the manger like children?’ Will you look in the manger this Christmas night to see not only Jesus, but also yourself, and bow your head in humility and worship at the wonder of this God-given child.

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Jennifer Hudson - O Holy Night.  

The desert in the city: Sabbath

Here's my reflection on Sabbath for tonight's Lent Course session at St Martin-in-the-Fields, based on Richard Carter's book 'The city is my monastery':

‘Living God’s future now’ will be the title for the next HeartEdge conference, but it is also a very effective description of what Sabbath is all about.

Discussions about the Sabbath often centre around moralistic laws and arguments over what a person should or should not be able to do either the Jewish Sabbath or on Sundays in the Christian tradition. Those of you who are my age or older will recall what Sundays were like before the introduction of Sunday trading in 1994. Sunday’s then commonly began with church worship, followed by roast lunch with the family and time at home together. Some people now miss the fact that Sunday is little different to other days in the week and the enforced slow down and battery recharge that the old Sundays had. For some the introduction of Sunday trading has eroded family time with a consequent deleterious effect on society. Others remember detesting Sundays as everything was either closed or seriously curtailed and think it's much better now with everything open and little curtailment. A French novelist in the 1950s had a retired British Army officer character declare that: ‘If England has not been invaded since 1066, it is because foreigners dread having to spend a Sunday there.’

Such debates about ways to keep a particular day are ultimately distractions from the deeper meaning of Sabbath. In tonight’s Word from the Edge (Hebrews 4. 1-10) we hear repeatedly the assertion that the promise of entering God’s rest is still open, it remains open for some to enter God’s rest and that a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews is saying that the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian practice of gathering for worship on Sunday are no more than stages on the way to the real Sabbath which will be experienced in heaven. They are rehearsals for the reality that we will experience then and that is why we can talk about seeking to live God’s future now.

In order to understand how to really live Sabbath as a rehearsal for the reality of heaven, we need to understand key characteristics of heaven itself. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews highlights particularly the idea that those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from his.

In his writings about being with, Sam Wells has introduced us to the four categories of: being with, being for, doing for and doing with. He has challenged us and others with the thought that we spend much of our time, effort, energy and activism on doing things for or being for others, instead of being with others. When we are being for or doing things for others, we are in problem solving mode because there are things that we think we can fix and it is our activity that will provide or contribute to the solution. Heaven challenges our propensity to do and be for others because in heaven there is nothing to fix. In heaven God wipes every tear from our eyes, death is no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more. In heaven there is no being for or doing there is just being with. We cease from our labours as God did from his and simply enjoy God, each other, the world around us and ourselves for who we are.

We prepare for that reality, as Sam says, by learning to live with everybody now and receive their unexpected gifts with imagination and gratitude in recognition that these are the people with whom we’ll be spending eternity, lucky and blessed as we all are to be there. So, we’d best use these earthly years as a time for getting in the mood.

That means that Sabbath moments are primarily those times of appreciation, revelation and understanding towards God, others, creation and ourselves. ‘The City is my monastery’ is a book that gets us in the mood for heaven by taking us deeper into moments of realisation and wonder. Richard Carter writes that 'Rest is given to us as the culmination of creation’ and that the ‘whole of creation moves towards this time of Sabbath, and our lives have no meaning simply as cycles of survival without this arrival at the place of wonder and rest.’ The rest that is ultimately the culmination of creation is that which we will experience in heaven. Sabbath is our anticipation of that experience in the here and now.

‘Creation is not complete,’ he writes, ‘until God rests on the seventh day and contemplates all creation.’ Therefore, 'God blesses time’ and ‘consecrates it as holy.’ The whole of creation is moving towards this time of Sabbath, ‘and our lives have no meaning simply as cycles of survival without this arrival at the place of wonder and rest.'

‘When we rest, we imitate God - we enter into the rhythm of God's time,' but, more than that, 'if Sabbath is God's time, it does not end in the keeping of the Sabbath - the Sabbath enters into all our time.’ ‘When we keep Sabbath, everything we do can be infused with that sense of God's presence.'

He describes a day on holiday in Kefalonia where he pays attention to every moment of the day – the bread he buys from the bakery, the person who serves him, the wrapping in which it comes, the feel and taste of it. Later in the day, he writes, ‘I sat on the beach and watched people playing in the sea … I swam, ate bread and ripe tomatoes, and these actions were like a prayer.'

The poet Mary Oliver wrote that ‘Attention without feeling is only a report.’ To fully feel life course through us we must befriend our own attention, that ‘intentional, unapologetic discriminator.’ The philosopher, Simone Weil wrote that: ‘Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’

That is true Sabbath - not a particular day or a particular set of actions (helpful as those can be) – but absolute unmixed attention presupposing faith and love. This is a style of prayer originally practised by the Celtic saints in this country and passed down the generations in Gaelic regions, in prayers said while undertaking daily tasks. In more recent years a renewal of interest in Celtic Christianity has revived this style of prayer for many.

Richard writes in ‘The city is my monastery’ that this is possible even in the midst of trouble, difficulty and challenge. He writes of time spent in hospital and says, 'It's sometimes only when we are a little stripped down, like this in your hospital night-gown, and tubes coming out of your arm, that God’s presence is once again uncovered.' He then tells of a conversation with a homeless man who was coming regularly to Morning Prayer:

‘Have you always been so faithful in your prayers?’ I asked him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘only when I am in trouble.’

‘Where did you learn to pray?’ He is silent for a moment. And then he tells me quietly: ‘In prison that’s when I realized I needed him most.’

‘Well,’ said Richard, ‘I learnt to pray again in hospital.’

I wonder whether, as with Richard and that homeless man, our current troubles – this enforced Sabbath - could be a moment in which we learn to pray again living God’s future now by practicing faith, love and thankfulness through prayerful attention. There is an unattributed poem circulating currently on facebook which suggests this might be so:

For years our land has groaned beneath the grind
Of work, work, work, of pounding feet, of churn;
For years we stopped our ears and would not mind
The gentle voice that urged us all to turn
From endless slog and strain that warps and rends
The sinews of the Spirit, toward rest:
The Sabbath's breathing wisdom God intends
For human flourishing and the land's best.
Now cafes rest, deserted and the shops,
The bank, the bustle, bargain, building, bar,
The tube's hot haggling hustle: it all stops.
Forced into stillness, now we breathe, we are.
Such tragic loss of love, of breath, to prove
How much we need to rest, to breathe, to love.

Open my heart that I might contemplate your presence in everyone and everything you have made; all that is good, all that is beautiful and all that is true. May wonder and awe at your goodness draw me closer to you and lead me to a sense of eternity now. Amen.

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Bruce Cockburn - No Footprints.

Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder

A transformer links together two or more electrical circuits in order to transfer electrical energy between the circuits. Similarly, ley lines are believed by many people to be metaphysical connections that carry natural or supernatural energies and link a number of sacred sites around the world.

This exhibition views artists as transformers, being those who, through ‘shamanism, technology, speculative realism, energy transference, intimacy and healing,’ enable ‘the singular to become multiple and prismatic.’[i] Such artists render the binary defunct.

The exhibition takes place in 180 The Strand which the curator Jefferson Hack believes, following site and historical surveys, to be intersected by London’s main ley lines and on the edge of an ancient holy well at St Clement Danes. This information has been ultilised in structuring the exhibition as a grid at the centre of which is Evan Ifekoya’s ‘Prophetic Map I: Toju Ba Farabale.’

Ifekoya’s multisensory and sonic installations are drawn from the practices of consciousness exploration and multi-faith research. So here, at the heart of the exhibition space, is a gold-coated steel Merkaba, studded with orgonite, which offers the visitor a space in which to unite spirit with body, while surrounded by light. The Merkaba, which takes the shape of a star with divine energy expanding in all four directions at all times, is designed to connect the spirit and body to higher realms.

This cavernous installation into which we descend on entry is where we ‘find true connection,’ a space in which ‘to escape to commune, contemplate and conduct emergent ideas and identities.’ This is art as religion. This is the art of tomorrow fueled by the beliefs of the ancients; a not dissimilar experience to the birth of abstraction fueled as it was by a variety of mystical strands including Anthroposophy, Christian Science, Eastern philosophy, Rosicrucianism, Spiritualism, Theosophy, and various Eastern and Western religions.

Such root influences on modernism were for many years suppressed by those who advocated formalist or rationalist readings of modern art. However, from the 'The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985’at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art onwards the religious roots of modern art have increasingly been acknowledged - albeit with a focus on esoteric spirituality rather than institutional religion - along with the recognition, as in this exhibition, that an astonishingly high proportion of visual artists have been and continue to be involved with these ideas and belief systems.

The journey in to ‘Transformer’ is via work by Donna Huanca, Doug Aitken, Lawrence Lek, Chen Wei, Quentin Lancombe, Korakrit Arunanondchai and Jenn Nkiru. The journey out takes in works by Juliana Huxtable, Harley Weir & George Rouy, Dozie Kanu, and Sophia Al-Maria and Victoria Sin. The show takes visitors on a subterranean journey through a series of worlds that explore themes of ritual, identity, magic, political reality, social transformation and the role of the individual in relation to our collective future.

Donna Huanca’s multisensorial work focuses on the idea of the collective body as a transmitter and vessel for change. Doug Aitken shows an expanded version of his ‘New Order’ artwork, which features an interview with Martin Cooper, inventor of the cell phone, whose reminiscences about the first call made in 1973 are transposed over haunting and desolate images of landscapes. VR artist Lawrence Lek recreates the interiors of a glossy nightclub – a virtual version of which is projected on screens above, accompanied by an electric soundtrack. Korakrit Arunanondchai’s three videos invite us into an uncanny spiritual realm of Thai folklore, music culture and animism. The diaristic observations and assertions of Juliana Huxtable highlight a critical engagement with interdependence, care and community. Held in the safe at 180 The Strand, Harley Weir & George Rouy’s works speak to the eternal cycle of energy and the transcendence of experience beyond flesh, time and space.

The title of the show is inspired by beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s ‘I Am Waiting’, which comments on the societal problems of America in his day and time, and calls for a change of consciousness – the rebirth of a new wonder: ‘I am waiting for my case / to come up / and I am waiting / for a rebirth of wonder / and I am waiting for someone / to really discover America.’ Ferlinghetti ‘s impassioned call for social change through a new sense of wonder continues to ring true in today’s fractured political landscape. Jefferson Hack sees these ‘Transformer’ artists as contemporary equivalents to Ferlinghetti: ‘They are world-makers,’ who ‘look deeply into the present and see the future.’ To visit is to engage with the spirituality of consciousness and change, as much as with their creative, political and social sources.

[i] Jefferson Hack, ‘Introduction’ to ‘Transformer: A rebirth of wonder’, 180 The Strand, The Store X & Vinyl Factory, 2019.

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Lou Reed - Satellite Of Love.