Images and stuff
expressing spiritual stuff through art. Art: it's not just the medium, the end result, the imagination or the skill or what people think of it that defines it, it is as much the human process of human re-creation that express the indefinable essence of what it means to be human. To engage and to try and appreciate art is a journey of embracing community; trying to see beyond yourself and your own world to the world somebody else experiences. It is intensely spiritual, it is the language of God. It embodies the mission of God and the human response.
The Face of Christ
5/2/2012 Sherburn-in-Elmet Methodist Church
Preacher: Sally Coleman
Text: Isa 40:21-31, 1 Corinthians 9: 16-23, 2 Corinthians 5: 17-18
The image is based on a line from the sermon imploring the Church to look for the face of Christ in those we meet.
Leper
9/2/2012 Wesley Study Centre, St John’s Durham Preaching service
Worship leader: Christine Fox
Preacher: Phil Morton
Text: Mark 1:40-45
Phil began his sermon with references to his recent experiences with the street pastors on a Friday night in Newcastle. He used this to illustrate how the Church should be and can be like Christ to the world in touching the untouchables – ministering to the needs of those who, for example, deliberately go out to get as drunk as possible. He then turned the situation around and began to speak of how we, the Church, can be dishonest in our relationship with God, hiding our own sin and sickness of our being, how we need to be healed and set free too, just like the leper.
The image tries to capture the sense of Christ crucified by the love of money and alcohol on the streets under the spot-light glare of a street light and Christ’s nakedness adds to that sense of shame and vulnerability. I began to draw the one kneeling before him to represent the repentant recognising their need for forgiveness and it was as I did this that for the first time in the service I felt I was worshipping God, I became the one I drew.
Jerusalem
7/2/2012 St John’s College communion Service
Presiding: David Wilkinson
Preaching: Richard Briggs
Nehemiah 2:19-20, 4:1-9 & John 16:25-33
For those of us training at St John’s Richard’s sermon was everything we expect of one of our lecturers, the wisdom of one who teaches on the Bible in Christian Ministry and the Old Testament and delivered with a dry humour rooted in our common experience at St John’s. So not everyone got all the jokes. However, his exegesis of the passage and his critique of traditional christian uses of the Nehemiah passage led him to suggest a very plausible and acceptable understanding of the text.
The story of Nehemiah is essentially one of Jerusalem, the city of such hopes and dreams of the people of Israel. I fear that Nehemiah, with his vengeful prayer, doesn’t get a good review but there must be some good in a man who has vision, passion and determination to be the catalyst for renewal. If nothing else it shows that God has a place for all in building his Church. Essentially the thrust of Richard’s teaching was that Jesus is the fulfilment of all the hopes of God’s people that Jerusalem came to symbolise. For those that labour for God’s Kingdom opposition is inevitable and yet God will win the struggle because it is his fight and his kingdom. Christ says that we will face opposition but we should not be afraid because he has overcome the world. The secret of not missing those things hidden in the text is in the bread and the wine and the word.
The image uses the crown of thorns as an image of a wall. Within it, and on the crown of Christ’s head, three figures dance. The cross forms the facial features of Christ and so recognises that the New Jerusalem is founded on the cross of Christ. The image portrays the death and suffering of Christ indicating the cost Christ paid for his Church. Perhaps our reaction to those who oppose the renewal of God’s Church and the mission of his kingdom is found in the encounter with the crucified Christ, the living Word.
God is now here
2/2/2012 Wesley Study Centre, St John’s college Durham. Methodist Preaching service
Worship Leader: Liesl Warren
Preacher: Ned Lunn
Text: Luke 2:22-40
New began his sermon speaking about the process waiting and how it intensifies as the waiting progresses. Also of the sense of anticlimax that we often experience when the waiting is over. He spoke of the faithful persistence in prayer exhibited by Simeon and Anna, how they spoke of the things to come, their expectations for the one who the held but would never see grow to fulfill their visions. But what about when prayer is not answered? Ned suggested that the story is not so much about the faithfulness of Simeon or Anna but its all about the silent One around whom all the action takes place: the infant Jesus. He spoke very movingly of his own struggles in prayer over his wife’s health and how She displays such faith in God, and thankfulness for the good she enjoys as a gift from God. God is with them in the midst of the good and the not so good and it is God’s presence that makes the difference and transforms everything.
The image attempts to capture the sense of expectation, the longing, the waiting, and that moment when Mary and Joseph entered the temple with Jesus; the eyes of Simeon watching and waiting. Is this the one? The one who would herald such great changes?
I hope it also somehow shows the small and apparently insignificant bundle of humanity is the still point of the action, the cosmic singularity at the center of all time and space; God is with us, God is now here.
Journey into God
1/2/2012 Wesley Study Centre, St John’s College, Durham. WSC community worship
worship leader: Nico Hilmy-Jones
Nico invited us explore a form of prayer she often uses and she explained how the practice evolved from her searching for ways to visualise God following a head injury that has left her with an inability to visualise in her imagination. Her practice is to do some ‘colouring in’ as a form of prayer whilst listening to worshipful music.
I decided to try just drawing an image using Graphite sticks purely by an imaginative listening to God. The image above is the result. I’m sure that I was probably drawing on my internal image vocabulary to create something but I still think it is a visual form of extemporary prayer.
The Good City
31/01/2012 St John’s College, Durham Communion service. Candlemass service
Worship Leader: David Goodhew
Preacher: Andrew Lunn
Texts: Nehemiah 2 & Luke 2:21-40
The sermon took the story of Nehemiah and considered how Jerusalem, the city of the Israelites, could be understood. First, in Nehemiah’s mind the vision of the utopian Jerusalem, a great city where all would prosper and enjoy life. Then there is Jerusalem, the city of God. The next is the city of human government, power and influence – a threat or a power for good. And finally there is the city of Jerusalem as it is in reality. This was as far as I got in listening because I was taken up with this idea and was away with my own thoughts.
Probably the image is a pretty good reflection of the sermon and I could say more about it but perhaps it is best left for you to interprete.
Event Horizon
30/1/2012 The beginning of Book 3
The image is based on an idea from a New Testament lecture on John’s Gospel. The gist of the image is that the Cross (death), resurrection and Pentecost is a single event – a fixed point in time and space, an event horizon from which everything else in creation flows. The mere idea of this is a stunning illustration and trying to capture it as an image is a challenge.
This image is a trial using carbon and chalk pencils but I think I will try this again but probably using different materials to get a more striking image with perhaps more detail.
Hallelujah
26th Jan 2012, Wesley Study Centre, St John’s, Durham Methodist Preaching service
Worship leader: Tim Cooke
Preacher: Linda Tomkinson
Scripture: Mark 1:21-28
The image reflects both the theme of the sermon and the experience of worship in the service.
The theme? Each of us have gifts but the gift is from God and we are first of all children of God.
And I might add each one of us is a gift to one another from God for our good. We get it right when we recognise this and join in with the giving instead of thinking that the gift we have been given to share is primarily for our own benefit.
Ruach
24/1/2012 St John’s college communion service, held in the College Chapel.
Preacher: David Wilkinson
Worship Leader: Kate Bruce
The chapel was too crampt to create an image so this was done much later. It was inspired by the intercessory prayers and connected with an idea that came to me about the prayers of the saints filling up golden bowls in heaven that would empty out over the earth. It occurred to me later that the image looked a little like the Aurora Borealis that has been in the news recently. Aurora is a Roman goddess and Borealis means ‘northern wind’ and that gave me the idea for the name: Ruach which often translates as ‘the Spirit of God’ where the imagery for Spirit is that of ‘wind’. I like the idea that Prayer is somehow wrapped up in catching the ‘Wind of God’.
Roots
22/1/2012 South Milford Methodist Church – Covenant Service
Preacher :Sally Coleman
Key Text: John 15
The image catches the essential point of the sermon which was very much tailored to the specific situation of the Church. The emphasis is that pruning is often neccessary if the vine is to continue and produce fruit as long as the roots are good.
