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. 😊

So what IS this retirement malarky?

I’m not retired really, I say often to those who ask. Im still an artist. I’ve finished a painting this year. And what else have you produced, achieved or accomplished, Elizabeth? How are you proving your worth? How have you earned your time off? My word, all those expectations of all those years do add up. I observe that we go to school and as we’re there, we focus on our future income - if we’re part of the world’s 98%. What will we create, learn, manage, serve, help, administer, and all the rest, which will allow us to eat, be housed and clothed, be safe? How will we build and be a responsible member of family? How will we serve in our community? Do we serve in community? How will we fit in?

So many questions face us all of our lives and few of them are - how will we learn who we are? How will we find and hone our strength to breathe? What do we need to flourish as a human being rather that what do we need to fit in? Now I’m to the point where I can say that I managed to do those survival things and to be more or less productive, I’m to a point in my life where people say how glad they are that I’m resting. I’ve earned it. What?! Rest? When did that get to be part of the picture? I missed the class on what that was supposed to be. Thankfully, I’ve been forced to start figuring it out, seing as moving half a planet away has been a bit exhausting. Resting has been needed. It’s also given me time to stop and look around. I’m deeply grateful that we’re not having to keep being employed and that for many, this is quite a privilege (which makes me push the “are you earning it Elizabeth?” button). To those at my stage of life, I wish you well. I quite get the confusion.

Here’s a picture of me smiling, taken by me and, with great fun, edited on my phone with Adove Capture. I’m grinning. It’s getting a little more usual.

Environment stuff and the 'end of the world' -- Hope :-)

I’ve been doing a good deal of walking and watching in woodlands, taking in the plants and landscape, as you know if you read my newsletters. Today’s podcast listening suggested that I share much of my learning with you. As you know, I face the hard stuff head on because of historical behaviour and present commitment. One of the thoughts from from this podcast, ‘Finding hope at the end of the world”, has confirmed my predeliction to see the hard stuff. Timothy suggests that the Empire model currently in wide operation, is based on a human centric point of view where people see the earth, and all which is in it, only as resource, something over which we have dominion. That pattern, with humans in the middle like the spider in its web, is to devise an ideology, deny the reality of the consequences of imposing that ideology, then despair when it doesn’t work. Layer a shallow optimism on top and we keep going. A progressive theology from First Nations and many faith peoples around the planet is that we are intensly connected with earth (we are, indeed, made from its minerals and more; literally, from dust and to dust we’ll return). This indigenous model is that humans look into the reality, grieve if there is reason, then hope in the power of Divine/human/earth partnership to change the future direction (which we’ve caught sight of when staring into reality). I leave you to all the further reading you can find when you go to the podcast and look to its resources list.

Looking for an image, I was shocked to see the below drawing I did at a Minister’s conference 15 (!) years ago. I listened to various readings, reflections, conversations and this emerged at the end. I entitled it Word becomes Flesh. Back then, my deep self seems to have been connected to our relationship with creation, but my brain just wondered why all the land and sky was there. My title says nothing about physical and spiritual connection with the ground we’re sitting or walking or sleeping on to simply be and move in our lives. It delights me these fifteen years later that my body knew what my head and heart are only waking to.

Ebony very old ones!

Some oldies in every way!!!! A lot of you know that I’m an artist, and you know that from my visual theology days. Before I was called to ministry (right from stewarding an exhibition BTW), I’d been a professional artist since my teens. My first degree was fine art and I’d expected to teach. I was even accepted to do a teaching Masters in art. Which, I am shocked to say, I turned down. There were other things in store clearly, and not at the Columbian School of Fine Art in Washington DC. The UK whispered to me and a few years after settling, I was illustrating. These very fuzzy, very old (on so many levels) cards were for Ebony products in Milton Keynes. They wanted images of non-white people and I was delighted to oblige. Very delighted. These days, I’d say, “can’t you find a black artist?” But that was then. I see many things differently now.

Despite, We Stand

I wondered what on earth I would blog about this week, considering that our dear earth is in trauma itself from all of its changes as a consequence of rapidly changing climate. More than that, our dear earth holds the bodies of those who have died at the hands of unjust people. Our dear earth intently hears the lies of greedy people using the produce of earth for themselves and creating arbitrary boundaries that they say others can’t cross. Since I’ve lived in Australia, I have a new respect for everything earth knows about us, no matter how important we feel ourselves to be. In the battle of which of us will survive the longest, there is no battle we humans will win, though Australian First Nations people have been holding their own for over 60,000 years. Yes, that number keeps growing, if you’ve been following my newsletter and seen smaller numbers.  More and more research, in partnership with Aboriginal people and their knowledge, informs us daily.

In the meantime, we have life crafted by our Divine to live preciously with earth. Part of that living preciously is paying attention to where life in all its forms is not regarded as precious. We are urged by Love itself to face the facts of brutality, cruelty and more. But fact? Where can we find that? This blog is to give you some links to who and what I follow/read to give me facts – if you feel you need help.  I read daily, but only until my body says, “enough for now.” I listen for the enough. We’re not called to hold it all, but to hold what we can, to speak truth with whomever will engage and to continue to feed hope. Here’s my list:

1.       Substack, particularly the subscriptions pages of Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Reich, Robert Hubbell, and Marianne Budde.  I also read my Substack homepage, as it contains important information from a wide range of people.  To state the obvious, I also check who I’m reading if I’ve not heard their name and like what they say.  I use a search engine and enter ‘Name Name’ Reviews. That tells me relatively quickly if I can trust their media.

2.       My homepage on Bluesky because I post articles from Substack which will point Bluesky in the direction of things I’m interested in.  But as you’ve picked up, that could keep in me in a silo, so I also read headlines (at least) from

3.       News outlets Washington Post, New York Times, The Guardian, Sojourners, the BBC and Al Jazeera.

4.       Podcasts (when I’m at the gym): Nomad, The Rest is Politics [US and UK], Soul Search.

I keep up with politics and progressive religion (the Nomad podcast with Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Pastor and theologian was eye opening). 

This picture is a little postcard size from the Twitter Art Exhibition in 2017. It was meaningful for me in the first full year of D J Trump’s first “presidential” term and the first full year of dealing with Brexit. Titled Despite, We Stand, it means far more now:

Appreciating Church

Every now and then, I let you know of commissions I’ve done. This particular one was a fabulous partnership between Appreciating Church and Appreciating People. The United Reformed Church had wholly adopted the principles of Appreciative Inquiry and as an artist and project manager, I’d been doing work based on the principles for quite some time.

The happy collaboration culminated in a book and website in 2016, designed for people in churches who wanted to change the narrative of future planning to future possibilities. Looking rather to what are the strengths of groups of people instead of looking at difficulties, Appreciating Church helps people tell true narratives of their past and apply those truths to dreaming new futures. I was privileged to illustrate concepts and ideas - my very happy place!

The below images are just snippets from the whole book. Appreciating Church itself continues to offer training and support to people who want to practice positive organisational development in church environments. A member organisation meets online monthly to share information and good practice. You can contact them here.

Torch, Victoria, Australia

I’ve writeen a lot in my newsletters about the work of Torch, but realised that it would be good to share their work more widely. Torch says of itself “We provide art, cultural and arts industry support to First Nations people currently in, or recently released, from Victorian prisons. Our aim is to reduce the rate of reoffending by encouraging the exploration of identity and culture through art.” Torch has put on two exhibitions which have taken our breath away by their truth and the evidence of the transformations from their work.

The first experience we had was seeing the Blak In-Justice Exhibition at Heide Gallery, just on the eastern outskirts of Melbourne. We were speechless, often in tears, as the artwork told the story of person after person who experienced prison and who, in the middle of that experience, were encouraged to tell their stories. I encourage you to read through the website to undersand the spelling and meaning of the word Blak. This painitng, Brush with the Lore, is the best illustration I’ve ever seen of the negatice impact of Colonial Missionary work:

For some who are incarcerated, contact with the Torch program has helped them trace their ancestry; a significant number ot people in Australian jails are First Nations People. The website reports, “First Nations Australians make up 3% of the Australian population yet represent 32% of the national adult prison population. Indigenous men are 17 times more likely to go to prison than non-Indigenous men and First Nations women are 25 times more likely to go to prison than non-Indigenous women. Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991, incarceration rates for Indigenous Australians have more than doubled and deaths in custody have continued to increase.”

The work of Torch helps people connect to their own First Nation, connect to their country, connect to their totems and to their hope. If you visit Victoria, please find an exhibition . We await We Sit in Circle.