Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the pointContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 16”
Tag Archives: openness
I am limited
Last week it was my great honour to have another ‘monk in the world’ post published on the Abbey of the Arts Blog. Here is that post: A few months ago I wrote these words in response to a series of photographs (some of which are pictured here) I made in collaboration with the KinshipContinue reading “I am limited”
old wounds
I have now begun my artist residency at the New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, in earnest. This week was moving-in week, a big enough challenge in itself. It also coincided with me having the honour of staging a ‘take over’ of the Gallery’s Instagram feed while the director, Outi Remes, was on holiday. Outi wanted meContinue reading “old wounds”
playtime is here
Regular readers of this blog will know that I was fortunate enough to have my first solo exhibition, ‘episodes’, at Farnham Pottery last summer. A surprisingly busy Autumn followed, with between 1 and 6 ‘episodes’ paintings appearing in the following exhibitions: ‘and we meet again’ at the Lightbox, Woking; in the Second Saturday group exhibitionContinue reading “playtime is here”
whole: day 26
We were spanked for each other’s sins. Spanked in syllables and by the word of God. Before dark meant home time. My grandmother’s mattress knew each of my siblings, cousins, and the neighbour’s children’s morning breath By name. A single mattress spread on the floor was enough for all of us. Bread slices were butteredContinue reading “whole: day 26”
k’s big birthday gratitude project 2
Some of you will have already come across a version of this post or an extract of its content … but there are at least two immediate reasons to repeat myself! The first reason for being especially grateful is that the Godspace blog has been central to my growing confidence as a writer and thusContinue reading “k’s big birthday gratitude project 2”
day 20
In the film Dead Poets Society, Robin William’s character, Mr Keating, provides an aspirational figure for the boys he teaches … In an iconic moment, Keating climbs on his desk, to the bemusement of his pupils, and begins to speak: ‘Why do I stand up here? Anybody … ? […] I stand upon my deskContinue reading “day 20”
day 10
Sometimes, gliding at night in a plane over New York City I have felt like some messenger called to enter, called to engage this field of light and darkness. A grandiose idea, born of flying. But underneath the grandiose idea is the thought that what I must engage after the plane has raged onto theContinue reading “day 10”
day 9
What I fear and desire most in this world is passion. I fear it because it promises to be spontaneous, out of my control, unnamed, beyond my reasonable self. I desire it because passion has color, like the landscape before me. It is not pale. It is not neutral. It reveals the backside of theContinue reading “day 9”
psalms for passiontide: Palm Sunday (Psalm 118.1-2,19-24)
Is this a psalm for a victory parade or a protest march? I can hear the cheerleaders encouraging the onlookers lining the route to join in with the passing refrain: ‘God’s steadfast love endures for ever’. I can hear the warm up act encouraging the marchers’ chants before they set off: “let me hear youContinue reading “psalms for passiontide: Palm Sunday (Psalm 118.1-2,19-24)”