And now an artist....

One of the great things about what I do is that it cannot be defined to the nth degree.







This means that sometimes days happen like yesterday....







When I came here, I was told that someone linked with the church , but who had moved away was an internationally known artist; Andrew Gifford (google him on images. Do it. Right now).



At that time the local primary school did not know/had forgotten that link. As I make my living talking, I spoke to the arts specialist at the school, gave her a couple of books and the rest you see on pictures here.






A fully entranced year 6 were still asking for more after 2h30! They even spent 15 minutes watching him mix paints!





It was fantastic- like that feeling you get at a good rock concert where things just 'are' and just connect. I could have watched for hours more.






What I do is reflect- I look at the ordinary and try and see where God is. It is a parable of Christmas, I guess; something earth shaping happening in obscurity where people might not notice. I don't always do that very well.



So what did I learn from Andrew's excellent sermon? Just some thoughts:-





(1) Passion. It was like that Martyn Joseph day I went to a few months back (look back in September on this blog if you are so minded...)- when I came back, I believed I could one day write songs (I am not there yet, but into Reception class later today to play 2 carols). Andrew's passion shone through. Does all that bollocks (sorry there is no other word...forgive me) about the 'correct liturgical order' or as one article in the Methodist Recorder recently said about an act of worship 'It was a dignified and reverent occasion' actually mean anything unless there is passion behind it? I'm remembering Eugene Peterson (translator of 'The Message. Go google) who said after a crisis- I am called to ministry because of God and passion. Hmmm....so the six figure paycheck, the stream of luxury cars, the models throwing themselves at you not come into it? Damn- looks like I need to reorder my priorities.


(2) The detail. On the back of 'The Genesee Diary' (Doubleday, 1989 in the version I have so far borrowed from a friend for 12 years...), Henri Nouwen says 'Just as a whole world of beauty can be discovered in one flower, so the great grace of God can be tasted in one small moment.' I aspire after this; Andrew lives this. Hearing him talk, most of us who listened will never look at a branch, a shadow, a tower block, or a piece of litter in the same way again.





(3) Grace makes beauty out of ugly things (from U2. Of course. Just how long did you think it would take me to quote them?). Ok- this view is of beautiful Hutton Rudby- it is not exactly Southbank or downtown Beirut. It is pretty nondescript, average. I guess it is where the poor of Hutton Rudby live (apart from my house); those who can barely keep two Lexus's on the road and are struggling to pay the swimming pool heating on their French gite (I attempted a joke there. Humour is not acceptable in the ordained; I will go back to being mindnumbingly boring...).




Perhaps I should have said it was ordinary. But as Andrew spoke to us; we became aware of beauty in stuff we pass by on the way to something more interesting. I remember him saying something like 'If you want to paint Hutton Rudby; don't paint the Green. Look for something no one else notices'. Wonder if I have the grace to do that in everyday life? And with everyday people?
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(4) Knowledge can be accessible and live. This guy knew a lot and loved a lot. It was obvious. But he spoke in a way that you were not put off- you were invited in- not bullied and not overawed. I will never look at a picture in the same way again. I will want to go close- to look at how the artist has built up piant layers, to see the work and the passion. I'll want to stand back. I will want to spend time (brings to mind again Nouwen and Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son - how he describes spending the best part of a day, looking at a picture, living with it).

So why does the word 'theology' just sound so boring? Surely it is art, story, passionate, something living, breathing and beautiful. Er....actually it is not. Maybe I was fortunate (and arrogant) to enter theological college at age 30- I'd seen life. Some of the stuff that was put my way was plain boring, life draining; like someone has taken a butterfly, preserved it and mounted it on a board. Sure it looks ok, but you should be out there, chasing it, watching the light on its wings; not sat in some boring room arguing over its colour....

I'm going to stop there; I have just drowned something beautiful in a sea of words.

Andrew lives in Brighton- here is a Christian arty community/collective doing something imaginative with Advent and beach huts (although not to Andrew's level)...http://beyondchurch.blogspot.com/