Whatsoever |
Whatsoever |
Imagine touching a window pane: what does it feel like? Cold, hard, smooth, transparent. It divides one side from the other. If it is in your home, the view through the window to the garden or nearby buildings will not change much. The light will alter, and perhaps the wind will blow some leaves but it is predictable and perhaps quite calming. If the pane of glass is the car windscreen or train window, the view changes quickly as the vehicle moves. It passes and is gone. If you are driving you have to notice and react to what you are seeing, but if you are a passenger you can let it pass by and pay attention or not. At the moment many of us spend much time in front of other panes of glass - on a computer or phone. We look through these windows for hours a day and so much flickers past - news, connections with people in emails and Zoom calls, tv, films, church services and concerts, newspapers, books, websites. We can choose where to turn our gaze but it is always through this glass screen. All of which set me thinking about texture. The hard, smooth, cold surface of glass is one texture, but is is very limiting and rather unforgiving. In this time when so much of life is mediated through a screen, and that screen can show so many different things in quick succession, how can depth, meaning be achieved? My take on this ‘pane of glass’ problem has been to think more about texture: how to deal with the ‘screen problem, the ‘pane of glass’ problem and to keep texture in life? Four ways of finding texture:TIME Just because I can do things on a computer or phone quickly and quite proficiently, doesn’t mean I have to. In the old days, not so long ago, if I had wanted to write something I would have to find a pen and paper, keeping abreast of the latest news would mean going out and buying a newspaper or waiting for the radio news bulletin; reading a book would mean buying it from a bookshop or borrowing from the library, taking it down from the shelf and finding a place where the light is good enough to read comfortably. Being in contact with friends would have meant writing letters, finding stamps and addresses, going to the post box and waiting for a reply. And photographs would be taken but then the film would have to be developed and returned and could only be shared with others if you had copies made. All that to say that the almost instantaneous jumping from one to another is very new, unlikely and can be dangerously distracting. It is not a coincidence that there are lots of apps designed to keep you focussed on your work. They essentially involve setting a timer and stopping you look at other things. Far more self discipline is now needed, if working on a digital devise, to stay focussed. Somehow we have to try and vary the pace, slow down a bit and savour what we are doing, seeing, hearing and writing. Occasionally have the luxury of going slower, taking longer over what could be very fast. Relish the minutes and even hours and sometimes just stop 'scrolling'. DEPTH Experiencing the world in three dimensions involves an appreciation of depth : the distance between that chair and the table for example. It is much harder to work out depth if it is mediated by a screen. Going into the depths of anything can be challenging but deeply rewarding. In the Bible, in Luke 5:4 Jesus said to Simon : ‘Put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch”. For the fishermen on Lake Galilee fishing the depths forced them to listen and obey the instruction from Jesus, their nets had to be cast and then, importantly, the catch of fish to be hauled in. For us sat in our room with an internet connection it is possible to 'dig and delve' . For example, while reading a novel about Panama I can quickly look at a map of the country, Google the politicians mentioned and easily find out more about the author. However having started to dig it is easy to pop back up and move onto something else. The digging is temporary. But there are ways of going deeper that are more long lasting and ‘textured’. A film is about to be released called ‘The Dig’ which is about the archeological investigation which found the Sutton Hoo treasures. That sort of digging, going into the depths took enormous time and skill and concentration. t can be scary to go deeper. But is worthwhile. It is by daring to go deep that multiple textures appear. FEEL If images and ideas scroll through too fast behind the screen of glass it is very easy to have no feelings at all. The quantity becomes overwhelming and the ‘magazine’ quality (where terrible things appear alongside the trivial’) create a weary numbness. After a while being distracted and detached is second nature. However, it is possible, sometimes, to pause long enough to let the easily-received become something deeply felt and precious. This morning I received, as part of some family WhatsApp chatter, a photo taken of twin daughters, one comforting the other as she lay on a hospital bed eight years ago after a very serious operation. Later this morning I watched on the same computer the live streaming of a church service in Brighton when a paramedic in her NHS uniform led prayers for her colleagues and a young man leaving life of addiction showed his newfound faith in Jesus by being baptised. Each of these, appearing on this screen of glass, were there to be felt, if I allowed, and that feeling brings texture. FRAME Glass can’t stand on its own. If it did the edges would cut and the pane would fall and shatter. It needs a frame. It may be quite plain in a window, sturdy but well engineered on a computer, or quite ornate and wide around a mirrors or painting. I have two mirrors that have wonderful frames, each a work of art just as much as the mirror is useful. One has rather playful cherubs, the other in copper, has an inscription that "now we see in a glass darkly but then face to face' It is possible that the two dimensional flickering distracted world of the screen can also be given texture by making a frame around it. That could mean having buffer zones of time, to frame the ‘screen hours’. It could mean being more reflective, even journaling the activities that are taking place (email, zoom meeting, news feed, drawing….) at the end of the day. Frames can also be created by prayer. What is seen and understood, what arrests or disturbs or just fascinates can be ‘captured’ and prayed about. That prayer may look like wrestling (like Jacob and the angel), or waiting in silence. It may feel like sinking or like launching out. What it will always do is bring things to our Heavenly Father. His Holy Spirit works in extraordinary textured ways to work his purposes. FINDING TEXTURE IN A WORLD FULL OF SCREENS
As I have thought about framing, feeling, finding depth and giving time, I have felt more confident that there is texture still in my life. Although my days are spent alone in lockdown and many hours in front of the computer, the cold, hard, flat glass is not all that there is.. Rather, there is subtlety, wonder, reality and life to be found even here, even now.
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Hands: How important they are in helping us understand God’s love for us and our response to him. I look at my hands and can see the years imprinted there. I can still feel the slightly swollen joint of the middle finger of my right hand where my pen pressed while answering exam questions. My fingernails are rather lopsided as I used to nibble the side of them when I was a child. My hands are no longer elegant. The fingers seem to be much thicker now and the veins stand out over the thin inelastic skin on the back of each hand. I wear wedding rings: mine and my late husband’s that I can’t bring myself to remove. My hands remind me of the life I have lived. They also challenge me about the potential of the rest of my life. Have you ever tried describing your own hands to yourself? If you dare, try and draw them. It is extremely difficult but if you try, however strange the result, it will make you look at this part of your body very carefully. Hands link with others. Try and bring to mind a particular time when you have held another’s hand. It may be someone very old or very young. It may be a family member or friend. It may be long or fleeting occasion. Capture that image in your mind’s eye and hold the memory for long enough to pray. If you can, find a photo of yourself with another person with your hands linked with theirs. Your could draw or write about this image. You could also try looking carefully at some paintings. Talented artists over the centuries have painted pictures about the Christian faith. The artists, if they were any good, thought carefully about how to depict their subject. It is easier now than ever before to see these images and we can ‘claim’ them for our own as a way of understanding, thinking and praying. You can find paintings in books and very easily on the internet.
Calling hands I get much pleasure from visual art and have discovered several paintings focussing on hands, all made around 500 years ago, that still ‘speak’ so profoundly. They have helped me to visualise truth. A painting that is a special favourite of mine is on the wall of a dark wood panelled building by a remote canal in Venice. It is by Vittore Carpaccio and shows Jesus calling Matthew to be one of his disciples. It is set, as so many paintings were at this time, in the streets of Renaissance Italy rather than first century Palestine: the clothes and buildings are incongruous and potentially distracting. But right in the centre is a marvellous detail. It is of a most tender moment - Christ reaching out his hand to call this worldly-wise tax collector to come and follow him. It shows the love, compassion, understanding and leading of Jesus, calling someone away from everyday demands to follow him. Tiny hands There are many paintings of the nativity. In all of them, there is a very small baby with very small hands. This was what Jesus’s hands were like when God came to be with us. You may have had the privilege of holding a newborn’s hand: it grips tight, you can’t really believe how small the fingernails are and the skin is so smooth, soft, new. Jesus had hands like these. Try searching with the word ‘nativity’ on one of the websites and find an image that helps you to consider the wonder of ‘God with us’ afresh. Suffering hands There are also many depictions of the crucifixion. One of the most harrowing is by Grunewald, part of an extraordinary altarpiece on display in Colmar in France. This shows the terrible agony of Christ’s death with hands pierced by hard sharp nails, through flesh into wood. Here the hands have no power, all control is stripped away and muscles are tortured in agony. These taut, fractured muscles and bones show the meaning of Christ’s words :’ this is my body that is broken for you’. It reminds me of the words ‘hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered’. They are in the middle of a song by Graham Kendrick which honours and expresses praise for Jesus, the servant king. It is an almost unbelievable fact that the hands of God, which created the universe, should have chosen to have the hands of his Son pierced by rusty Roman nails. Open hands Yet that is not the end for ‘Christ is risen, he is risen indeed’. There are fewer resurrection paintings and drawings than one might expect. In many Christ is triumphant. An artist called Bramantino however, painted a most unusual depiction of the risen Christ. It hangs today in a museum in Madrid. Christ stands pale and sombre with his hands outstretched. This moves me greatly: the look on his face, his white body just freed from death, and above all his scarred hands open in a gesture of love. The wounds are still there; there for the world for all time until he returns. The hand of God in the world is a ‘hand that speaks of sacrifice’ God who came and died and is risen still holds the pain of the world. These entirely powerful hands are also so gentle full of care and offering blessing. Ruth Rogers image speaks of this so beautifully, as well as the open hands we need to receive God’s blessing. Praying hands Finally hands can be used to focus our prayers. Praying hands lifted to God was a common way of praying in the early church. On the outskirts of Rome, underground in the Catacombs of Priscilla, there is a painting made in the third century on one of the cave walls. It is of a woman praying with arms extended and palms open and facing upwards. This ancient posture can be a way for us to pray. It may feel strange : a mixture of being exposed and confident. But it may help you focus on God and your precious hands. Psalm 63 expresses this so well. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands I cling to you; your right hand upholds me (Psalm 63:4,8) . This article by Gillian Phillips was originally published in Woman Alive magazine.
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WhatsoeverThe posts are 'postcards' on my journey through faith and art. The name 'Whatsoever' comes from Philippians 4:8 in the Bible : Categories
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