Birth and Burden

As we’re coming into the Christmas period, a time of year when we celebrate religious festivals across many faiths, I bring you this, created when I was commissioned as the visual theologian in a book. I was one of three theologians in a book working out the origens of the New Testament. Sadly, the book never came to fruition, as one of the well known progressive theologians passed away suddenly. This image was one telling the truth that we really don’t know when Jesus was born, or indeed, when he died and showed himself again. There are many guesses based on many different interpretations of existing scriptures and secular history. What we know is that he was, as so many children are now, born into the burden of his times. The power of Empire shaped his world, the power of the scriptures shaped perceptions about who he was. In this image, the reeds which are said to have hid Moses sit alongside the architecture of power which sits alongside the commandment stones. The light shines on a manger and from a cave. People come and go, perhaps trying to make sense. Various dates hang about, unable to settle.

For any of us who say the old days were better, they simply weren’t. What history tells us is that whatever burdens we carry in our times, they will pass. Not easily, not without violence and atrocity, but they will pass. I hope, this season as we’re bombarded by capitalistic and sentimental temptations, we can stretch out our hope and grasp the power we need to love, to care, and to nurture radical hope. These times will pass. Heaven will connect with earth as shatteringly as before. There will be new and better times.

Treaty!!

It is very exciting to announce that last week, the Government of Victoria passed the law to formalise an agreement the state's First Peoples, with more treaties planned with distinct nations within the state. This is an exciting time and for many, a relief and frustration.

The ABC says, “Australia was the only developed country colonised by the British to have never signed a formal treaty or treaties with First Nations people. When the First Fleet raised the flag in 1788, there were no individual agreements — or treaties — with the hundreds of First Nations groups across the continent. The British claimed the land using the legal doctrine of terra nullius, meaning land belonging to no-one, which was overturned in the landmark 1992 Mabo case.” You can read their full report here.

First Nations peoples in Victoria have been working hard, in collaboration, for years. Their words are here.

As the First Nations site says, the beginning of what it means now is Truth Telling. And if you read no more from this post, please read about the importance of this truth.

I’ve been listening to the book, Warra Warra Wai by Darren Rix and Craig Cormick. ‘Warra Warra Wai’ was the expression called to Cook and his crew when they tried to make landfall in Botany Bay. It has long been interpreted as ‘Go away’, but is more accurately translated as ‘You are all dead spirits’. Rix and Cormick remind us that the first colonisers were considered ghost people, the dead ancestors (white, having lost their colour), come back on the wings of white birds (ship sails). Rather than there being nothing in Australia, there were 60,000 years plus of thriving habitation. When Cook wrote in his ship’s log that there was smoke near the shore almost all the way he sailed up the southeast cost, he had no idea that the smoke was alarm messaging from one nation to another.

Truth telling will allow the ancestors of the First Peoples to manage, if not, heal, their generational trauma. We pray that this is so.

Presence

This image is called Presence. It’s a digitally altered section of my painting Witness. I often start my blogs by searching my artwork to see what speaks to me. Here we are today. Presence. A day after the amazing flip from right to left politics across the USA inside states where real differences can be made. Here we are today, when the truth of Gaza is more obvious than it has ever been and suddenly (why so late???) people are calling for the world to pay attention as it did during Apartheid. Here we are today, when Ukraine disables one more infrastructure of logistics in Russia to slow down the damage to Ukraine’s sovereignty. And here we are when Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cameroon and more experience war daily. Here we are today when Jamaica searches for what can be saved and seeks healing. Here we are today. When there is tragedy and joy, worry and hope. Today is like every day. And it isn’t. Because Presence - hope, lightness of mind, hearts warming, knowledge brought to the open, courage, patience - Presence grabs us and makes us choose to live.  Presence inside us helps us choose to see the turmoil whipped up in this artwork and it reminds us of light pushing those clouds into new shapes, reminding us that clouds are only vapour. If you need it, sit with this image, let the Light work its Presence into your soul.

A church makes tea. What Power!

The top picture is a huge zoom-in to a tiny detail from my finished piece for a residency at the 2016 Rural Christianity Conference (bottom picture). I was hearing about all the things the church could and should do as well as all the barriers which people from churches believed that were in the way of growth (a sad outcome to seek in my opinion).  I heard of exciting developments and disappointments. What I heard again and again was, “well, at least we can make tea.”  Hurrah!  This is Holy living if ever we want it. We make tea, we connect, we have conversations. It’s far less expensive than any huge campaign and hits at the nub of what it means to be in community with people. It’s what seem to be the small things which make the biggest difference. Some people in the 50501 marches in the USA reported that they were in tears when all they did was walk. They realised that they were not alone. A community of people who simply walked together made more difference  than any quazillion dollar media hit. People sat, watched, cheered. Others made posters or banners because their mental health can’t do crowds. Others handed out water. Others drove by and honked.  A series of seemingly infinitesimal actions added up to a huge message for the whole planet of nations to hear. Justice for everyone with no barrier of any kind. All from a cup of tea. A smile. The small connection. That’s the big win.

Things are stirring

Below is a photograph of hands taken by my Pete at a Greenbelt workshop where I was Artist in Residence. I was drawing what was happening, then later, I digitally altered the image (Vector) to make it concise. It speaks of peaceful conversation as there are no hands raised in opposition to others. It speaks of agency as people are close to each other and relaxed about it; they all made a personal choice to be there without coercion. It speaks of acceptance, as there are multiple hues of skin. It speaks of collaboration, as those whose hands are resting on a shared surface of shared documents, seem to be doing something together.

It’s a nice image. Because I digitised it, it looks a little like an illustration of what could potentially be possible in some part of the world at some time in the future. It looks like I made it up.

I didn’t. The image below it is Pete’s photo of my witnessing the peaceful conversation between people with agency who accepted each other. They were agreeing together about how to include people who felt no agency, no acceptance, no peace. The apparent imagined picture is real.

I stress the reality of this because, though Greenbelt is a moment outside of other moments and nothing like the battlefields of the countries we can name, there are real conversations as I write this and as you read this. People are taking their time to use their agency for those who have had theirs stripped from them. People are not sitting idly by while other people are maimed, starved or killed. People are not twiddling thumbs while our planet gasps. Our planet is not idle about repairing itself and life on it. Media is filled with protests across the planet for people and earth. Some media is filled with reportage of formal acts and judgements which curtail the greed and overreach of leaders. Not all people are focussed on peace and repair, of course.  But so many are.

If you are one of the actors for renewal wherever you are, Bless you. Take heart. If you support those actors, Bless you. You are needed. If you wish you could do something and have no idea what, sit awhile, breathe, listen. You’ll find that small thing. It could be something like choosing to hope. Adopting hope will change the way you have your next conversation. Things are stirring. Feel it.

A year!!!

Today, we celebrate a year in our new home country.  This date last year, we arrived exhausted after two exhibition tours, organising leaving the UK, sorting and packing for Australia and travelling what seemed a lifetime and back around the UK during all of the exhibiting, sorting and leaving.  Now that we’re a year in, we can say it was utterly wonderfully worth it and we’d have gone through more in the UK to be able to celebrate the life we have now. If you ever worry about big changes and all you’d need to go through to make them, all I can say is… Leap!

Here we are, mid leap at Singapore airport. Fabulous.

Upside Down

So, Halloween is coming at the end of next month. For northern hemisphere people, it’s going to be dark and magic for All Hallows Eve. Ours will have that special night probably in glorious sun, with families gathered on community corners and gardens all enjoying the costume spectacle.  Last year, we arrived in time to wander around the neighbourhood and felt so alien! Well, we’re now where the seasons and events are upside down.  It takes some getting used to. 

In December, I wrote to you about how to decorate for Christmas when we take away all the references to deep midwinter.  As we enter Spring, I realise that this is the first time it won’t be associated with Easter. Back in cold Autumn April, I found it truly difficult not to rely on the usual Spring associations for new shoots from the dark earth, having to archive my favourite ‘Now the Green Blade Rises’ hymn. A few weeks ago, we watched an Aussie period drama where the core scenes were a Christmas in June celebration. It’s not just hard for just us, but for all the settler immigrants who come from the northern hemisphere.  

Me being me, I remind myself of a truth I use whenever I have to figure out something difficult; “the reverse is also true.”  In the midst of a horrific event, there is goodness working in and at the same time. As people experience trauma, there is strength working at the same time. We make it through awful times because treasuring life is active as well. The glorious events we celebrate are shared by people feeling anything but glorious, but the celebration carries them.

Down under, we’ve been working on seeing so very much in new ways. These upside down celebrations, turned inside out and taken from the seasons in which we’ve known them, have new things to say. What is also true is that so many people have only known these celebrations in the seasons of their homeland. In this new life of ours, we’re taking time to see what has also - always - been true. To find the stories underneath creation’s seasonal associations is helping us see deeper truth in relation with creation in new and significant ways.

Lighten up, Elizabeth. Here is a little slice of my painting One, digitally simplified and turned upside down.  Even a painting we know well can be seen completely differently. 😊