Monthly Archives: October 2014

disquiet beauty

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I attended a stunning exhibition last night.
Disquiet Beauty ‘brings together the work of four artists who all explore notions of beauty and alienation, attraction and repulsion and the otherworldly in their use of materials and form‘.

10421289_10152560675709818_7275683706225052838_nTessa Farmer’s fairy sculptures were amazing to see … and you could not help but smile at the antics of these superbly created beings. They are a real highlight of the exhibition.

The particular highlight for me, though, was 10698426_10152291338312531_7730716856270076618_nPersephone, sculptured by good friend Zara Carpenter. The gathering went to see Persephone when she was being exhibited in Whitstable. I’d forgotten how amazing this sculpture is. It is easy to stand for hours and discover something new minute by minute.

There is something very alluring in this exhibition that pulls on a possible relationship between beauty and mortality … the desire to leave an impression and not be forgotten. I both inwardly smiled and was mildly disturbed in some measure by the paradox of beauty and death adjacent to each other.

So …. if you are in Rochester pop into the visitors centre to see this beautiful exhibition …. actually go out of your way to see it !

Thank you Zara ….. your time and amazing effort and curating this collection have given us all a little bit of joy!

mission talk

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missionI kind of unexpectedly enjoyed my experience of lecturing at SEITE last night. I say unexpectedly because I cannot remember the last time I was so nervous before I did anything. I suspect the last time was deaconing for the Archbishop in Coventry less then three months after being ordained … with 10 mins notice … name dropping I know … but last night felt just as scary.

Lecturing is probably an over-elaborate term for what was, in reality, a long conversation about mission. But … then I believe the best way of learning is to listen and pull things apart together.

I enjoyed working with my group last night. The people come from a variety of backgrounds, but when we spoke about hopes for this module there was quite a strong vein of thought that people wanted tools to increase their confidence enabling to engage with their community in a more meaningful way. I can work with people like that!

Last night we talked about mission. We argued about what mission is. We asked ourselves whether we were being influenced by a background of a redemptive or an incarnational model of theology. We mused over which parts of our culture we should encourage and which parts we should challenge. Essentially, we asked ‘what does it mean to be a Christian?’ …. and we could not agree … on any of the above really!

That encourages me … as a reflective practitioner who a lot of the time uses a synthetic model of theology to underpin his work … it is important to me that we realise that a lot of stuff is not so much a choice of ‘either or’, but more of an acceptance of ‘both and’ as we look at our response in different situations.

Looking forward to taking the conversation on next week.