So here we go: the top 4 most awful things that Christians say about gay people. For those who have expressed incredulity about whether people still say these things in the 21st century, let me assure you they do say them and they do believe them.

#4 “But the Bible clearly says…”

Whenever I hear someone talking about any issue and coming out with the phrase “But the Bible clearly says…” I wonder whether they’ve actually read the same book that I have. There is hardly anything that the Bible says clearly. It’s a collection of writings emerging from various authors, editors and communities over hundreds of years. It contains myth, poetry, letters, aphorisms and history written from a particular community’s perspective. The writing is often ambiguous, at times contradictory and sometimes down right obscene. For one particularly bloodthirsty example see 1 Samuel 15v3 where God commands King Saul to kill every infant and nursing child of Amalek. This isn’t to say that I don’t believe the Bible is Holy Scripture, I do, but as Karl Barth is claimed to have said: “I take the Bible too seriously to take it literally”.

It would be nice to be able to claim that the only thing the Bible does say clearly is that “God is love” but try telling that to the children of Amalek, I suspect they’d disagree.

So when someone comes out with the well worn phrase “The Bible clearly condemns same sex relationships” they have plucked out the small handful of verses in Scripture that mention same sex activity and used them to conclude that every loving, mutually life-giving relationship between two men or two women is abhorrent to God.

There are plenty of writers who have dealt in depth with why the few verses in scripture that appear to condemn sexual activity between people of the same gender are not quite as clear cut as they may appear. I’d simply like to explain why I think this is such an awful phrase.

It is certainly awful to hear such an unambiguously anti-gay message preached that claims the authority of the Bible behind it, without at least giving alternative views from the many Christians who would have a more inclusive perspective on scripture. In fact, that was my experience coming into the Church as a teenager, knowing nothing about Christianity or the Bible and being told by people I loved and respected that this was clearly what the Bible said. It was only when I went to theological college that I began to discover there are other perspectives on scripture.

However, it seems to me that the most awful consequences of this phrase are for the people who utter it. Jesus reserved some of his harshest words and actions for those whose religion lacked grace. When his disciples are chastised by religious leaders for picking some grain on the Sabbath because they were hungry he effectively says to the leaders, “You don’t get it do you, God’s not bothered about nit-picking over rules. God wants us to live with an attitude of grace not condemnation.” (Matthew 12 v1-8).

So, when we read scripture, the way to do it if we’re seeking to follow Christ is to read it through a lens of grace and mercy. I have come across plenty of people who encounter couples in loving same sex relationships and would love to be able to believe that God is present with them and would bless that relationship but because of the way they have been taught to view the Bible they are trapped by restrictive views of scripture and unable to respond positively to love when they encounter it.

This seems to be the position taken by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who seems a decent guy and a wise appointment by the Anglican Church in my view. In conversation with human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, Welby said that he has come across same sex relationships “of stunning quality” and yet he still feels constrained and unable to offer blessings and wholehearted acceptance of those relationships from the Church.

So: “the Bible clearly says that same sex relationships are wrong” it’s not too awful to hear if you don’t read the Bible in that framework, but it is awful for the person who believes it because their vision of the expansiveness of the love of God is too small, boxed in by one narrow interpretation of a few verses of scripture.

#3 This isn’t homophobic…

One of the basic rules of thumb for life is that if we have to qualify one of our statements with “I’m not racist but…” or “This isn’t homophobic…” or any variations on this theme then we need to think very carefully about the wisdom of what we’re about to say.

Recently I was excluded from contributing to an event that I was due to be a part of and the opening remark from the organisers just before they uninvited me was “You’ll probably think this is homophobic but it isn’t…”. And whether it was or wasn’t is beside the point, it was for me to conclude whether this was homophobic or whether there was another more legitimate reason for excluding me.

This crops up a lot in the discussions around equal marriage with people insisting that just because they oppose the blessing of same sex relationships it doesn’t mean that they hate gay people. I have some sympathy for this. Some people genuinely want the best for gay people but, as we have seen above, feel constrained by scripture and hence feel unable to support same sex relationships.

Fair enough, they may not be homophobic but they do need to take responsibility for the detrimental effect that their stance has on gay people and own the fact that their point of view supports inequality and is far from an inclusive world view. In addition, these same arguments from scripture are used in some parts of the world where the consequences for gay people are far worse than being denied the right to get married. I’m not for a moment suggesting that most people who believe scripture is against same sex relationships also condone violence against gay people. Nevertheless, anti-gay rhetoric seeps out of churches into the wider community where it has been used to justify serious, at times violent, oppression and persecution of gay people.

Now, from the tragic to the ridiculous; sometimes a discussion about homophobia becomes farcical: “I’m not homophobic because I’m not scared of gay people and that’s what the word means” (sadly I’m not joking – I’ve heard this said by otherwise intelligent and responsible people).

Leaving aside any discussion about whether or not a deep seated hatred of gay people has its roots in fear, it’s obvious that the etymology of a word doesn’t limit its contemporary usage; no one complains about the word ‘starfish’ because the creature is technically an echinoderm rather than a fish. This blustering is invariably a smokescreen to distract from getting to the uncomfortable heart of the matter in a conversation.

When someone protests too much that they’re not being homophobic I do wonder whether sometimes a bit more self awareness is called for and that underlying their principled stance is simply a gut feeling that the thought of two men* having sex is a bit icky. And whilst I would hesitate even to call this homophobia it is, at the very least, disingenuous to construct an elaborate theology to back up your own prior prejudice.

* I do mean ‘men’ rather than ‘men and women’ here. As local radio presenter and self proclaimed ‘homo-sceptic’ Alan Partridge once said: “it’s different with lesbians isn’t it, it’s more light-hearted”

#2 “Same sex relationships fall short of God’s best”

I don’t hear this a lot, but it crops up now and then, were it more prevalent then it would have made the top spot. Nevertheless the ideas behind the phrase often underlie contributions to the conversation in the church. It’s implicit in Justin Welby’s reluctance to bless same sex partnerships mentioned above. And a recent Church of England report advised that same sex relationships are “forms of human relationships which fall short of marriage in the form God has given us.”

In other words: “You gays think you’ve got such great relationships, and yes we can see that aspects of them are really good, but bless you, you don’t realise that it’s not as good as the relationships that we straight people have”.

Please don’t patronise us like that.

In my experience and self understanding, that I came to after a very long journey of prayer, meditation and deep pain (not just for me but for a number of people) my identity as a gay man is a gift from God. It may not always be an easy gift to receive, due mainly to attitudes from the church, but it’s certainly no mistake on God’s part. So for me to fully be the person God has made me to be that means celebrating the gay identity that goes to the core of my being. This doesn’t necessarily mean I have to be in a relationship with another man, but it does mean embracing the fact that when I am living fully as the gay man God made me to be I am not in some way deficient or falling short of the straight ideal.

And that’s the unpleasant idea underlying this phrase, if same sex relationships fall short of the best that God has in store then gay people are somehow less than human because they can never achieve the ideal life that God has ordained.

Now finally, the phrase at number one makes it there for its ubiquity and sheer awfulness…

#1 “Love the sinner and hate the sin”

Closely allied with this phrase is the concept of the “practising homosexual”, which is an equally awful phrase that arises again and again and the same misguided idea underlies them both: That in terms of our sexual identity it is possible to separate out the being and the doing. In all kinds of areas the dualistic idea that being and doing can be pulled apart is unhelpful and, at times destructive but we’ll focus here on the area in hand.

When someone uses the phrase “practising homosexual” I want to ask them in a manner of faux naïveté what exactly it is that they mean. When is it that I start practising? Is it enjoying musical theatre? (I don’t by the way) Is it when I start to think about an attractive guy? Or when I give someone a lingering look across the room? When we hold hands, or kiss, or get naked together, or what? All of these actions have a sexual component to them; apart from, perhaps, the musical theatre.

I suspect what they actually mean by “practising” is “anal sex” but what an individual who uses this phrase classes as two women ‘practising homosexuality’ I’m not sure. Maybe by ‘practising homosexuality’ they mean anything to do with touching genitals but then that’s a terribly impoverished view of what sex actually is because a mere brushing of fingertips together can be deeply erotically charged.

Delving into this tangle serves to demonstrate what a ridiculous phrase “practising homosexual” really is. I don’t practise being gay I just am gay, right to the core of my being. Being gay affects how I relate to every person because it is a deep aspect of who I am and I relate to the people around me in the way that I do because of who I am. This isn’t to do with sex; it’s about identity and our most fundamental sense of self.

The rhetoric of “practising homosexual” presupposes that there is a deep sense of self and then, separate from that, is all the stuff that we do. Human beings just aren’t made like that.

It’s because of the inseparability of our being and doing that “love the sinner, hate the sin” is such an awful phrase; and we hear it all the time. As I’ve talked to other gay people in the church about this list it’s the phrase that comes up the most often. I wonder whether it eases the conscience of those who hold to an anti-gay theology. They can attack same sex marriage or preach on about how the Bible condemns gay relationships but it’s OK because it’s only the activity they hate; they really love the people who they’re beating over the head with their narrow view of scripture. It doesn’t work like that I’m afraid.

Whatever your view on same sex relationships, if you have found yourself uttering any of the 8 phrases on this list, or variations on them, then my intention isn’t to make you feel guilty. If we wanted to live our lives in such a way that our words were never misinterpreted or ever hurt anyone then we would never say anything. And whilst maintaining silence may sometimes be the wisest contribution we can offer into a situation, if we are going to live in community then we need to communicate. So, rather than trying to argue people into silence all I’m doing here is reflecting back into the conversation what it can sometimes feel like as a  gay person to hear these phrases.

By all means come back to me and let me know if my words here seem hurtful to you, or you disagree with me. That’s the path to honest conversation; it’s how we grow together and move on rather than turning our backs on each other and not speaking. There is deeper mutual understanding if we can listen back to how our words have been heard.

If this list gives the impression that my experience of the church has been incredibly negative then I assure you that really isn’t the case. Whilst I know some gay Christians continue to have very painful experiences in the Church, and hearing those stories was one of the things that prompted me to write these posts, the Methodist Church for me has been an overwhelmingly supportive and affirming place to be. In my next post I will explore why I stick with the Church and offer some thoughts as to how we might be able to enter into fruitful dialogue, not only in this area but over any differing views that appear to divide us.

I’m aware that plenty of people from outside the church read this blog and if that’s you then you may want to skip this post. As my friend Mick commented on my talk “the majority of ordinary people don’t give one jot over this as an issue”.  In my experience outside the church I think this is quite right. Unfortunately inside the church it’s still up for debate. I know that in a liberal Western democracy in the 21^st century this can beggar belief but I’ve heard the phrases below used over and over again in a church context and wanted to point out that, however well meaning the person saying them may be, they’re still awful things to say.

If you’re part of a church you may well recognise them, if you’re not and are still reading then welcome to “churchworld” please try not to roll your eyes too much in disbelief, everything below I have either heard said or read online or in print at least once over the last year.

I’ve  ranked them in order from least to most egregious. So starting with number 8 we have…

#8 “I’m on a journey with this”

This phrase only just scrapes into the ‘awful’ list because I know that a lot of people who use it are genuinely engaging in dialogue with a generous and open mind. It tends to be used by those who come from a more conservative background but are finding that over the years their views are changing to be more open and inclusive. Without doubt this is a good thing.

Nevertheless it I’m still taken aback when I hear it, particularly when it comes from lovely people who I know well and respect, and here’s why:

If you’re straight and married to the most wonderful person in the world who you love with all your heart and you feel that God has blessed your relationship then imagine someone saying to you, “That sounds nice, but I’m on a journey with this.”  In other words the person hasn’t decided whether your relationship really is a good thing and is still open to the possibility that it might be an abomination before God. If this was a person you respected then the phrase may well smart a little.

In fact this is the position of the Methodist Church in Britain; the official line is that we are on a ‘Pilgrimage of Faith’, journeying together through the issues. I’m sure this is a good thing. but by God it’s hard work sometimes as a gay person when we’re reminded that these good people still aren’t really sure whether our relationships are valid or not.

So if you are on this journey (and I hope we’re all on various journeys of understanding in all kinds of areas) then that’s great and I commend your honesty and the fact that you make yourself vulnerable by saying ‘I’m not sure’. But just be aware of the impact on those of us who are sure. And we’re not sure because someone persuaded us, we’re just sure because it’s simply who we are.

#7  ‘The gay issue’

Hearing this phrase yet again was what prompted me to write this list. A good, open minded church leader who I respect and whose integrity I no way wish to denigrate used it repeatedly as he led a discussion looking at what the Bible says about same sex relationships. It crops up a lot: “the gay issue” or “the issue of homosexuality” and so on.

I understand that it’s short hand for a whole host of conversations that are ongoing but I don’t think I’m being an oversensitive drama queen (perish the thought!) to caution those who use these type of phrases.

When I hear ‘the gay issue’ it makes me feel that my presence, even my very existence, is seen as a problem. And indeed, I suppose it is a problem to some people.

When the phrase is used it suggests to me that the discussion has been framed in an unhelpful manner. For a start it’s not gay people who have an issue (we’re just fine thanks) it’s a certain group of straight people  who are mainly, although not exclusively, men that has the problem. In fact being gay is only an issue for us when a culture dominated by straight people screws us up. So, I had a nervous breakdown when I began to discover my sexuality  not because I’m gay but because the church culture I’d been immersed in had punched my sense of self into submission (I’m fine now by the way – thanks for asking).

In the church it seems to me that all the problems that emerge in this area aren’t because it’s a gay issue, although the presence of gay people may well bring it to the surface. It’s a much deeper and wider issue of our understanding of human nature and what it means to be truly embodied, sexual and gendered beings in all our wonderful, messy and beautiful variety. But rather than opening up that uncomfortable conversation which affects us all it’s much easier to put it all in a little box we can call ‘the gay issue’.

The conversation can then be sidelined as a minority interest because…

#6 “It doesn’t affect that many people so why waste time on it.”

I understand this, I really do. In a world where our government is running the country into the ground, where the poor are demonised whilst the rich fill their pockets I know that there are plenty of serious, important areas that anyone who cares about justice in the world needs to engage with. It comes up a lot in the political arena in the debate about equal marriage when people say that surely there are more important things to devote parliamentary time to.

I can see why, if you’re a straight person in the church with no gay friends or relatives (or at least none that you know of) then discussing the inclusion of gay people may seem irrelevant to your life. It appears to be a peripheral issue. But those of us who it does affect it affects deeply and profoundly. And this effect isn’t just on those of us whose identity doesn’t conform to that of the heterosexual majority but also our families. My family are brilliant and, because they’re not involved with the church at all, thankfully haven’t had to deal with some of the heartache that some parents and grandparents with gay children have had inflicted on them by Christian communities. So once you start to count up, not just us gays but also our families and friends in the church this begins to affect more than just a small minority of people.

Nevertheless, even if it only affected a minority of one this is still an important conversation to engage in because how we deal with this says something about our identity as a community. If there were a village populated with white people except for one family from another ethnic group who were constantly abused by the white majority it would be obscene to say ‘this community shouldn’t waste time talking about racism because it only affects a small number of people’. In fact the racist attitudes affect everyone because they say something deeply unsettling about the nature of the community and it’s only by bringing these issues out into the open that healing for everyone can begin to happen.

So it is with the church. Even if our attitudes and policies with regards to gay people and same sex relationships only seem to affect a minority we need to look deeper than the surface, utilitarian arguments. In so doing we will begin to uncover the soul of our church community. This is inevitably a painful process both as an individual and as a group because chances are that when the curtain is pulled back and we gaze into our soul we won’t like what we see.

 #5 “There’s pain on both sides of the argument”

The first three statements on this list I find easiest to forgive because most of the time they are said by people who are seeking to be inclusive but don’t fully understand the impact of their words, and in most cases would be mortified to think they might have said something that causes upset. Now in mid-table we’re starting to get to the statements that make my blood boil.

There seems to be two perspectives from which people make the point “There’s pain on both sides of the argument”, one of these perspectives is well meaning but still wrong-headed, the other is rather nasty and insidious.

One of the characteristics of the Methodist Church in this country is its ability to hold a variety of arguments and points of view together. We are a broad church which is one of the things I love about Methodism. I’m glad to be able to work alongside Christians with a wide range of views and experiences. Well meaning and generous spirited people in the church extend this to our views on human sexuality, and there is indeed a range of views on same sex relationships. In encouraging us to listen to the views of people whose opinion differs from ours (no bad thing at all and something to be actively encouraged) we are then asked to acknowledge that there is pain on both sides of the argument about the acceptability of same sex relationships.

This sounds like a nice, reasonable, liberal position to take and in some ways is true: there is indeed pain for gay people in the church who have been the brunt of anti-gay theologies and I can (if I try hard) imagine there is pain for those who feel that for the church to be more inclusive would somehow offend God. But this isn’t a level playing field.

Saying there is pain on both sides is like equating a scratch on the hand to a severed arm. For a gay person to enter into a dialogue on this there is far more at stake than for a straight person who takes a traditional view. If the church continues to hold to a traditional view on human relationships then the straight person can go home and sleep safely with their husband or wife, whilst the gay person has their very sense of self denied. If the church becomes more inclusive then the person who takes a traditional view merely has to come to terms with the fact that they have lost an argument, their sense of self has never been under attack. I don’t deny that this might be hard to take on board for them but to equate that pain with the pain of rejecting the core identity of a gay person surely isn’t equivocal.

So the ‘pain on both sides’ statement is used by people who are genuinely trying to listen to all the voices in the discussion and facilitate a fruitful conversation, which is in itself an admirable aim. However, it’s also used by those who take a more conservative view in an attempt to claim the cloak of victimhood. Archbishop George Carey is a particular offender in this area as he has equated criticism of those who hold to a traditional view of marriage to the persecution meted out by the Nazi’s to minority groups. There is so much that is obviously ill-informed, unwise and insensitive about this argument that it’s not even worth denouncing.

The Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond also wheeled out the victim mentality recently by saying that legalising equal marriage ‘vast numbers’ of people will be angered by the redefinition of marriage . Perhaps I’m very slow witted but really I’m at a loss to understand how allowing same sex couples to marry negatively affects straight couples in any way at all.

So, there may well be ‘pain on both sides of the argument’ but forgive me if I don’t shed a tear for the petty posturing and faux victimhood displayed by the likes of Carey and Hammond.

The first four points here are often made by people who already take a more inclusive view of same sex relationships or are moving towards that position and by highlighting them I don’t intend to close down open and honest debate. If you are courageous enough to make yourself vulnerable and say that you’re on a journey (for example) then I hope I can tell you why I might find that upsetting. It doesn’t mean I don’t respect your integrity or value the conversation, just that we can both be more honest about our experiences.

In my next post I’ll start to plumb the depths of some far more awful and at times destructive phrases that well meaning Christians still roll out when they’re talking about gay people. I wonder if you can guess what makes it to number 1.

And, because I really don’t want to drown in an ocean of negativity, in a third post I will then explain why I stick with the church, am hopeful for the future and also look at ways in which these conversations can be framed more helpfully for all concerned.

I was struck by the way that, as with many great poets, when Martin performs one of his poems he doesn’t just use his voice but his whole body. Watching him reminded me of a phrase from the beginning of John’s gospel:

‘…the Word became flesh and lived among us.’  (John 1v.14)

As Martin performed I saw words becoming embodied. He breathed life into them and they lifted up from the page like a swarm of butterflies; lively, unpredictable and unsettling. 

We sought to play with this idea at an evening event in the theatre. John’s gospel sees the Word as the eternal. John (or whoever wrote the gospel) says ‘the Word was with God and the Word was God’. For John this Word becomes embodied and is made flesh in Jesus. At the event that night I made a figure out of clay to represent the body of Jesus and then we invited people to come and take a piece of the clay, a piece of the flesh, and mould it into a word. A word to complete the sentence: ‘Flesh means…’.

We then gathered the words together and scattered them around Martin as he sat on the stage. I felt a like the sorcerer’s apprentice collecting the raw materials for magic and offering them to the one who knew how to weave the spell.

As we watched then Martin typed and the cauldron of words became a poem. With the poem complete Martin stood up and performed, embodying (or re-embodying) the words that we had moulded and offered to him. And then we spoke the words together, the words embodied in community.

Word made flesh, we take the flesh and remake a word that emerges from our experience, we offer the word to the community, the words we offer merge and are shaped by a wise soul and then re-emerge, embodied once more.

Everyday we speak and live the rhythm: Word…flesh…word…flesh…. All the words embodied in our lives, heard by others, changed by others, re-emerging as their words to be heard again and embodied again. It is a spiral of creativity and community that I find inspiring but also challenging. Because whether I like it or not I am responsible for part of that rhythm and my part in it may determine whether this swarm of living words that changes the world spirals up into the light or elsewhere to somewhere darker and less life-giving.

Here is the poem that emerged from that night:

Struggle In my body to touch you 

                                      touch you real 

                                      so raw 

broken from sickness to death 

the pain of life 

body of life covers womb communion 

newness of  being sin reborn in transience

intimacy of un-wrappings - your gift of frailty 

Frail love payment Shylock made vulnerable 

vulnerable Immanuel

touch tomorrow real 

organic fragility 

holy touch of skin 

murder thought beyond beauty 

thought beyond (your presence) 

sacrifice mortality for mercy (in your presence) 

warm juice of body caress incarnate (in your presence) 

time covered physicality (in your presence) 

mortal mercy being beauty (in your presence)

wholeness/hope/faith alive (in your presence)

One of the talks I gave explored being gay as a God given identity. I try not to get involved in some of the slanging matches the church can sometimes engage in regarding same sex relationships and wanted simply to offer a positive reflection on my experience of being a gay Christian. People said I was very courageous to offer this talk but, in all honesty, it didn’t feel like I needed much courage to do it. My friend Lou Davis also offered a talk on her and others experiences in the area of fertility/infertility, motherhood and what it means to be a woman today. It was a sacred moment to hear someone speak so honestly and openly. 

We were both trying to be as honest about our experiences as possible and one of the things we found through doing this was the power of authentic presence.

By this I mean that once we strip away all the dross we wrap around ourselves: the presentable face, the face that is strong enough to cope and will never admit to being broken, the face that is clever, wise or good; then we enter into a different way of being. There is something so simple here that is difficult to do in practice. The moment we start to strip these masks away our ego objects, sometimes strongly and sometimes more subtly because we have mistaken the wrappings for the person we actually are and removing them feels like we are being diminished. The truth is, however, that as we remove them we move towards freedom. There’s no doubt that this is a painful process but it is ultimately liberating not only for us but for those around us.

As we are honest about who we really are, without artifice, we are offering the gift of authentic presence to those around us. Authentic presence opens up sacred space. As we are genuinely offering ourselves to others so they are enabled to genuinely be  themselves. And in that space we meet each other without pretence. I no longer need to be seen to be clever, or successful or unbroken, I’m simply being who I am. This is the reason that it didn’t feel like I needed courage to speak last week. I was, as far as I was able, simply being who I am, for good or ill. And there is no striving there or fear of failure or fear of criticism because all I was seeking to achieve was to offer myself. And transformation comes when we are able to meet people in that authentic space.

If you’re interested in what I said here is a recording of the talk. For those listening from a context outside the church in Britain you’ll have to look past some of the churchy references and asides, I was speaking in a certain context and in other places wouldn’t use some of the allusions I do here but I hope that my meaning is still clear.

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. … No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others”

I’ve just finished painting the first part of this quote from the choreographer Martha Graham on the window of the new artspace at 35 Chapel Walk.

As I painted on the inside of the glass then people would stop and watch from the other side as if I were an exhibit in a zoo. The process felt like I was offering the words as a blessing for the city.

The idea of the ‘queer divine dissatisfaction’ that she identifies resonates with the yearning that I wrote about in the previous post. An awe-full, joyful, overwhelming sadness and longing for something beyond.

I can feel it in the process of painting. Each piece of work feels a step along the journey but at the end, after the final brushstroke I step back and want to move onto the next thing, feeling that new doorways and new possibilities have opened up that I am compelled to explore deeper and further. No matter how good or bad the final painting is I always get a sense that there must be more, more to discover, more to create. Here the creative and spiritual journeys are in parallel. There is no arriving only a continual longing to move towards the ineffable that calls us: the ‘queer, divine, dissatisfaction’ that unsettles us from our stupor and prevents us from staying where we are.

Graham claims that this unrest is what makes artists more alive than others. I would say that it’s what separates those of us who are alive from those who are simply content to remain at rest in whatever rut the tides of life have washed us into. This isn’t just about artists; it’s about what it means to be fully alive and to be fully human. Anything less is a capitulation to the ever so tempting and ever so comforting glittering, plastic façade of banality.

For me their music is made more intense by the fact that their lead singer Jónsi sings in his native Icelandic, or sometimes in his own language that he calls Hopelandic (which in less proficient hands might be unbearably pretentious). Not that it makes much difference anyway as my Icelandic isn’t up to much, whatever language he sings in his voice is like an otherworldly instrument in the mix.

Without coherent words to cling to my ear seeks out the familiar melodies, rhythms and patterns in the music. Their sound is so amorphous at times that this is hard to do but then a recognisable phrase emerges from the maelstrom of sound like a bright tendril of meaning that coils around my soul to draw me onwards and out of myself.

And that’s what I found so overwhelming about the experience: an awakening longing and yearning at once deeply sad and intensely joyful. Words are not the language of the soul. The sounds, lights, and all encompassing experience beckoned to a deeper place that if I’d had the security of words I could sing along to or at least follow in my head, I would never have reached. I experienced something similar a few years ago when I walked the Camino to Santiago de Compestela in Spain. Each night I would attend mass in one of the little churches along the way. As I know very little Spanish this meant that the only way I could connect with these services was to engage with the deeper rhythm of the soul, the enacted story, the smell of the incense, the tone of the prayers and I was drawn to that place beyond words.

It is a human instinct to seek out meaning in the world; whether words at a concert, pictures in the random shape of the clouds or reasons behind the coincidences of life. We seek out stories that make sense of the random series of events that occur each day: bright tendrils of meaning to cling to because it feels as if our life depends on it. In a recent interview about his book ‘The Heretics’ Will Storr says:

“At any given moment the brain is bombarded by what’s been termed a superabundance of information. And yet it has to present us with a coherent version of the world, often by weaving an easy-to-understand story of our lives, complete with heroes and villains. But stories can have a terrible relationship with the truth. We demonise our foes and unfairly elevate those whom we admire, all the while defending our beliefs with often egregiously biased thinking”

When we grasp for these stories then that process leads some of us to religion and others away from it. For me the story that seems to make sense most of the time (although by no means all the time) is a story that includes God, particularly the God that emerges from the Jesus tradition. Sometimes the God/Jesus story makes sense as I fumble for meaning and sometimes it doesn’t but the story is only a signpost to a deeper truth and experience beyond the sparkling and enticing meaning it brings. Just as the music called me onward, outward and deeper on Monday night so I feel the same yearning here.

This relates to the ongoing dialogue between ambiguity and definition I wrote about in the previous post. Our brain needs something to latch on to in order to lead us into deeper experience. But if we stay clinging to that meaning we never get to the place beyond words. It becomes an idol, a false god that feels comforting and secure but ultimately has no power to transform us.

The mistake is to see God as a ‘thing’ to be believed in or disbelieved: just as we might believe or not believe in the existence of the Loch Ness monster or unicorns. It’s a mistake that atheists and theists alike so often make, particularly as they argue with each other. Furthermore, so much damage has been done by those who think that God is a thing that can be possessed and understood. God is no ‘thing’ and when reduced to a ‘thing’ becomes an idol; a bright tendril of meaning that distracts from a deeper truth and a deeper transformative experience.

So, even though I find the God story and the Jesus story meaning-full, which I do more and more these days, I hold those stories lightly because they are pointing somewhere else that is beyond themselves, somewhere far beyond my limited experience. And if I stay too long with these stories and comforting words I’ve fallen for the lie that I’ve already found what I was looking for.

…So said Henri Matisse when he was interviewed in 1925 (although he said it in French of course). This brings home to me that throughout the process of painting I’m often caught in a struggle between definition and ambiguity.

“Would not it be best to leave room for mystery?”…

…He says elsewhere. Yes, of course he’s right. The paintings I find most compelling have just enough definition to allow me to enter into the world of the image but then plenty of space, plenty of mystery to open up possibilities for me to revel in the ambiguity of the piece. This allows my own story and experience to come alive as I explore the piece of the artist’s soul that he or she has put on the canvas.

But this is not a comfortable process.

When I paint I always have an instinct to be definite, to paint a hand that looks like a hand, or a face in the right proportions. I fear this is my ego expressing itself, trying to prove to the world that I can do it. But then the sense of freedom, the extravagant spontaneity of ambiguity fights back and I need to find a way of bringing chaos and unpredictability into my carefully constructed image.

I love the work of Gerhard Richter, particularly the way in which he smears paint across the surface of the canvas. So, inspired by him, I take a rubber squeegee and drag it across my neatly constructed painting; the oil colours blurring together in a way that is organic and satisfying:

But soon the instinct to define returns and I attempt to corral the chaos of smeared paint back into a coherent image.

Back and forth between ambiguity and definition.

So, if “exactitude is not truth” then where does truth lie?

Last year I was fortunate enough to be able to take a trip into the Sinai desert to visit St Catherine’s monastery. This is a small cluster of buildings at the foot of Mount Sinai. To get there we had to travel for hours through endless tracts of desert. The wilderness was awe inspiring. Sand, stones and mountains seemed to stretch forever and without the road we would have been truly lost, with no sense of place or direction.

Experiencing this wild space without boundaries was a deep moment of the soul for me, I felt elated and free, as if anything were possible. I often find Orthodox Churches to be beautiful and affecting places so was excited as we arrived at St Catherine’s. But for some reason the building left me feeling empty and cold (metaphorically if not physically – this was the middle of the desert) and I found myself longing for the vast emptiness outside the walls.

The ambiguity and limitless possibilities of the wilderness versus the stone walls and long history of ancient tradition: whilst my instinct longs for the former, I sense something important too in the richness of the latter.

On reflection I think both are important. Just as in my painting the interaction between ambiguity and definition, at its best, is a creative one. So the tension between the wild spirit of the desert and the safe walls of the monastery can result in a fruitful and life giving dialogue. The desert may seem wild and exciting but I wouldn’t last long as I wandered without structure or boundary and the Monastery is so beautiful, its ancient rhythms offer a deep holding space for the soul but if all we have are the walls and structure then life is suffocated.

This is the season of Lent when the Jesus tradition remembers his time in the wilderness. In my painting during this time I’m aiming for more ambiguity and openness. But I’m trying not to forget that the walls are there for a reason, rather than being a prison they may well be just what is required for life to flourish.

Matisse is right, exactitude is not truth but sometimes we need it to point the way towards the Truth that is beyond anything we could ever imagine.

St Kevin was a hermit who lived in Ireland in the 6th century. Some of the legends and stories about him that survive are starting to inspire the way that I make art and explore what it means to do the strange task that the church has given me here in Sheffield.

Kevin was a man who constantly sought solitude. He would go out into the forests of the Wicklow Mountains, particularly in the area known as Glendalough (the valley with two lakes) and then, amidst the deep dark mossy green, in the womb of the forest, he would pray. And as he prayed people would come to him. His fame spread and soon so many people sought him out that he ended up founding a monastery in the valley. From the stories that surround him you get the impression of someone unsettled by the limelight, whenever he is able to he retreats deeper into the woodland’s heart.

One of the stories told of his life tells of the time he went to pray in the forest with his arms outstretched. In the stillness a blackbird flew and alighted on his open hand. As he held that place of gentle meditation the bird laid her eggs. And so he held his palm open, cradling them, holding that still place, for the two weeks it took for the eggs to hatch.

I love this story of stillness beckoning and nurturing life. It’s the opposite model of Christianity that many churches seem to espouse today. This isn’t a faith that goes out and shouts about itself, urgently and eagerly trying to persuade people to a particular system of doctrines and beliefs. It’s a faith that takes an inward journey towards stillness; withdrawing into quiet. But that withdrawing isn’t a retreat from the world, instead it is a deep engagement with the world. It’s only in stillness that the timid creatures of the forest can emerge.

And so if we can find a similar stillness in our own souls then that enables us to be with people in such a way as to encourage their hidden riches to emerge. So often when we engage with others our own ego is to the fore: we’re thinking what to say next, how too look clever, cool or funny and how to forward our own agendas. It’s a discipline to allow our ego to withdraw from the shared space so that we can genuinely and deeply engage with the other person. If we can hold a space in that way, with St Kevin’s gentle outstretched hand, then all kinds of surprising life and wonders will come out of the shadows. Whatever does grow there we can be sure it will be outside of our control and that the moment we try to grasp it in order to own it we will destroy it as surely as a hand clenching around a little blue egg.

That’s what I’m aiming for in the space at 35 Chapel Walk in the heart of Sheffield, a place where all kinds of people hurry by each day. The desire is to create a still space, a sacred space, a beautiful and creative space. And in that stillness in the midst of the city who can tell what life might emerge from the shadows?

Even today, as I walked to the artspace in order to make the image to accompany this piece I was pondering on how to enable the premises to be used by art students in the city for their exhibitions. Who might we need to contact? What publicity might we need to produce? It turns out all I needed was the hand of St Kevin. When I arrived at Chapel Walk a handwritten note had been pushed under the door. It was a message from an art student who had been passing by and had looked through the window at the space inside. She was asking whether she and some of her fellow students would be able to show some of their work there for an arts festival this spring.

Slowly I’m beginning to trust that life will emerge if we take the time to find this stillness and to live with Kevin’s patient, open hand.

“Portraiture suggests a parallel memory in the universe in which all things persist. Photography touches us so mysteriously because we have an intuition that all things are remembered in some invisible place beyond dreams, where everything that was exists in a sort of universal, divine amber.”

Ben Okri, A time for New Dreams

Very rarely a book will bring me to tears, when I read this passage from Okri’s sublime collection of essays I was cut to the heart. It made me cry because, as much as I might like it to be true that somehow, somewhere all things persist, I suspect that this isn’t so. Endings are real and the past no longer exists.

Okri is right that photographs speak to that longing. This is one of my favourite pictures of me:

It was over 6 years ago just after I had experienced a nervous breakdown. I was signed off work with depression, and with nothing else to do I embarked on a last minute holiday alone to Luxor in Egypt. I visited the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile and as I emerged from one of the tombs a guide took my camera from me to take the photograph.

And here I am, the moment preserved, emerging from the dusty darkness. When I look into my eyes I can remember who I was and what I was experiencing and then I think of who I have become and how vibrant and joyful my life is now and I want to tell him that everything will be alright. But that moment is gone and that person no longer exists except as a photograph on the wall and a series of 1’s and 0’s on my hard drive.

One of my art works saw its end recently as well. The street art angel in Parson Cross, Sheffield was demolished to a pile of rubble:

The sadness at its ending is also filled with a deeper and stronger joy. An ending means a story has been told and is now complete. Then I suppose a story lasts as long as it is retold before it fades from the collective memory just as a person’s life fades in the same way.

It seems to me that because of the endings, because nothing persists, then that gives all that we have right now a deeper value. A story that never ended wouldn’t be worth telling. Beauty is found in the fact that it is fleeting and will soon be gone forever.

But grief is real and the sharp pain of loss is real. Maybe that’s why we need to keep faith with the longing that Okri describes: the human instinct that everything somehow is preserved forever.

I don’t know what to believe and who can ever know for sure? This is a place where certainty and self-delusion go hand in hand. But I do know which version of reality is the most painful. Perhaps the joy and tragedy of the universe is that the realisation that endings are real, no matter how much we might long for things to be otherwise, may also be the most beautiful truth.

It is a destructive view of human nature that sees the body and spirit as two separate things, they are continuous. Hence, s exual desire is one of the tributaries of the soul that leads to the wider desire for God; that is a longing to connect with the transcendent and infinite and to be united with another. If we follow desire’s leading, deep into the dark night, so we move beyond ourselves. 

The desire to be close to another draws us into the unknown and as we follow that yearning then we begin to touch, taste and smell s/he who we draw near to. In the Christian tradition the Eucharist (sharing bread and wine) is the most intimate act of worship. We taste, touch and smell the bread and wine that symbolise the body and blood of Christ.  

In that meeting, that touching and mutual exploration that consumes all the senses, there is the scary and overwhelming sensation of energy building. A blazing fire from within when lover and beloved meet that is the fire of life in the base of the abdomen. We are still separate but this energy pushes us together urging us to become one. Wanting to enter the other and at the same time to be open and receive. This is the slow opening up for the lover and the intensity of penetration as his energy enlarges and merges with yours.

Thus, in Christ, God yearns for us to come close to share Godself with us. I open my mouth and consume the body of Christ. The boundaries of self dissolve into the total giving of all I am to another. Energy flows with the soft caress of care and yearning and the feeling of another moving within. The energy is shared and becomes more than the sum of its parts. And in that moment of intense and deep connection there is transformation as life and energy overflows and can’t be contained.

As we allow ourselves to be penetrated by the Spirit of God with a fearful aching, opening up to accept Him/Her this giving of our bodies to someone else is an infinitely creative act. But joyful as this deep communion is the desire is never fulfilled. No matter how close we push, how deep we penetrate or are penetrated we are still separate. Hence the desire always leads us further and deeper into love, further and deeper into self-giving.  

This is the creative transformation of desire surrendered to.

St Teresa of Avila was a contemporary and friend of John of the Cross and she describes such an all consuming encounter with the Spirit of Christ that Bernini depicts in his ‘Ecstasy of St Teresa’: 

“Beside me, on the left, appeared an angel in bodily form…. He was not tall but short, and very beautiful; and his face was so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest rank of angels, who seem to be all on fire…. In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he pulled it out I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one’s soul content with anything but God. This is not a physical but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it—even a considerable share.”

Our body does have a share in that intense experience: nerves fire, muscles tense, hormones flow, blood rushes and the brain sparkles with sensation. Boundaries blur and the spiritual and physical are one, just as they were always intended to be.