jesus and menas and me

The Jesus I need to be reminded of.

I copied this from a 5th Century Egyptian Icon, 'Christ et son ami', which is in The Louvre.

When I came across this (posted by Ian Adamas here) I found it very moving. Drawing the icon helped me meditate on the challenge that Jesus, as friend, presents. A quick bit of internet research revealed that it was originally called 'Christ and Abba Menas'. I have no idea who the abbot Menas was. But the fact that Jesus friend has a name was even more deeply challenging: in the image and the friendship there is an intimacy, a connection, a compassion, an openness that I always need to be reminded of.

The way I have drawn this, it could also be called, 'The long arm of the Lord', which communicates a different theological truth (one that it is equally important for me to grasp).

priestly duties

So, when I tried to get into the spirit of drawing a response to the Leunig figures I like so much (looking for a kind, human figure) this is what came out. I am not so surprised that he is a priest. I am surprised that he looks so traditional. I like that he has bare feet.

Around the time that I drew this I was reading Ben Myers' posts on William Stringfellow, which gave me a lot to think about. In particular, this piece on ordination. I agree that there is a lot of confusion on the role of priests/pastors/vicars - particularly around their full time status, which can make the rest of the church sound like lukewarm amateurs. One of the distinctives from my Baptist past that I recently became aware of again is 'the priesthood of all believers.' Although there was a paid pastor, the church I went to in my teens and twenties rarely had the same person preaching at consecutive services. I benefit from this even now.

All of that said, I have a very high view of priests as partners (priest being shorthand for someone who has been formally ordained) and remembered this Stewart Henderson poem while I was drawing. I am also posting this today because the the poem turns to reflect on The Priest Jesus, remembering him in the garden, 'beside himself'.

PRIESTLY DUTIES

What should a priest be?
All things to all -
male, female and genderless.
What should a priest be?
reverent and relaxed,
vibrant in youth,
assured through the middle years,
divine sage when aging.

What should a priest be?
accessible and incorruptible,
astemious, yet full of celebration,
informed, but not threateningly so,
and far above
the passing souffle of fashion.

What should a priest be?
an authority on singleness,
Solomon-like on the labyrinth
of human sexuality,
excellent with young marrieds,
old marrieds, were marrieds, never
marrieds, shouldn't have marrieds,
those who live together, those who live
apart, and those who don't live anywhere,
respectfully mindful of senior
citizens and war veterans,
familiar with the ravages of arthritis,
osteoporosis, post-natal depression,
anorexia, whooping-cough and nits.

What should a priest be?
all-round family person
counsellor, but not officially because
of the recent changes in legislation,
teacher, expositor, confessor,
entertainer, juggler,
good with children, and
possibly sea-lions,
empathetic towards pressure-groups.

What should a priest be?
On nodding terms with
Freud, Jung, St John of the Cross,
The Scott Report, The Rave Culture,
The Internet, The Lottery, BSE and
Anthea Turner,
pre-modern, fairly modern,
post-modern, and, ideally,
secondary-modern -
if called to the inner city.

What should a priest be?
charismatic, if needs must,
but quietly so,
evangelical, and thoroughly
meditative, mystical, but not
New Age.
Liberal, and so open to other voices,
traditionalist, reformer and
revolutionary
and hopefully, not on medication
unless for an old sporting injury.


Note to congregations
If your priest actually fulfills all of the above, and then enters the pulpit one Sunday morning wearing nothing but a shower-cap, a fez and declares "I'm the King and Queen of Venus, and we shall now sing the next hymn, in Latvian, take your partners please",-
Let it pass.
Like you and I
they too sew the thin thread of humanity.
Remember Jesus in the Garden -
beside himself?

So, what does a priest do?
mostly stays awake
at Deanery synods
Tries not to annoy the Bishop
too much
visits hospices, administers comfort,
conducts weddings, christenings,-
not necessarily in that order,
takes funerals
consecrates the elderly to the grave
buries children and babies
feels completely helpless beside
the swaying family of a suicide.

What does a priest do?
tries to colour in God
uses words to explain miracles
which is like teaching
a millipede to sing, but
even more difficult.

What does a priest do?
answers the phone
when sometimes they'd rather not
occasionally errs and strays
into tabloid titillation
prays for Her Majesty's Government.

What does a priest do?
Tends the flock through time,
oil and incense,
would secretly like each PCC
to commence
with a mud-pie making contest
sometimes falls asleep when praying
yearns, like us, for
heart-rushing deliverance

What does a priest do?
has rows with their family
wants to inhale Heaven
stares at bluebells
attempts to convey the mad love of God
would like to ice-skate with crocodiles
and hear the roses when they pray.

How should a priest live?

How should we live?

As priests
transformed by The Priest
that death prised open
so that he could be our priest
martyred, diaphanous and
matchless priest.

What should a priest be?

What should a priest do?

How should a priest live?

Stewart Henderson

from Limited Edition

We are all called to be priests.

black & white & colour

I bought this beer for the first time last week. Very tasty. I like the label, so drew a quick sketch. I have not been happy with most of what I have drawn recently. Not taking enough time to work on things and not drawing often enough. This was part of a more concerted effort to draw at least one thing every day. The proportions of the bottle are clearly a bit screwy but I feel a certain attachment to the drawing. It feels like the bottle of beer even if it does not look exactly like it. The placing of the lettering on the bottle is all wrong too.


So I thought I would have another go - and this time in colour. The shape of the bottle is both closer and further from the look of the actual bottle. And the label lettering is further off. The whole feels less like the bottle I drew than the original drawing. But the whale tail is close to what you would see looking at the actual bottle of beer.


I am trying to get at something else with all of this. I am not sure what that something else is. Something about passing frustration and accepting happy drawing mistakes. Or just that I like good beer and a well-designed label.

a kind of steve mcqueen

So...this does not actually look like the portrait of Steve McQueen, the artist and director, who was featured in the New York Times this past weekend - but I get attached to these drawings. And, as I said when I was painting it, 'It looks like someone', which is often the most that I am able to say about my pictures. In this one I particularly like his right hand.

I just started reading The Gospel According to America, by David Dark. I think I'll be quoting from him a lot for a long while. The following is from the first page of the introduction (actually, Instead of an Introduction), where he writes about his father:
'The Bible was always in the back of his mind. Like a leather-bound black hole, it pulled on his thoughts, painted the matter-of-fact a different color, called into questions whatever anybody nearby described as common sense, and uproariously unsettled the agreed-upon obvious of every scenario. It was the measure of authenticity for all speech, and speech that presumed to have its backing ("It's biblical," "According to the Bible," "God says...") was to be viewed with particular scrutiny and suspicion, because the Bible belonged to everyone and no one. It was nobody's property. Always dangerous, a double-edged sword. Like absolute truth, it's out there, but anyone who presumed to own its copyright was criminally insane.'

And from the second page, an inherent challenge that I need to hear and that encourages.
'He spent too much time exchanging jokes and anecdotes at our near-by Waffle House and holding forth in conversation with Muslim gas station attendants for the public/private distinctions in political and religious matters to ever really hold absolute sway. And in the deepest sense, he didn't think it polite or even friendly to pretend that certain elephants aren't in the room; that Jesus of Nazareth has very little to say about a nation's wars on terror or that the demands of Allah or Jehovah upon humankind can be conveniently sequestered with the "spirituality" section of the global market. Without a costly commitment to candor among family and potential friends, the possibility of truthful conversation (a preprequisite for the formation of more perfect unions) begins to tragically diminish, and responsible speech that communicates what we're actually thinking and believing has become a lost art.'

always start with a warmed teapot

My relationship to time has been all out of whack for a while. A constant sense of time passing makes it hard for me to settle down to really enjoy things, pray, be with people (in the moment, mindful...that sort of thing).
I have been trying to get better about this. Sometimes the trying only makes things worse. I love the times when I forget myself and find myself just doing things. Drawing has been a part of this. I see it as a way of giving thanks. A form of prayer. There have been occasions when I have forgotten that time was passing.
This happens with spoken prayer as well - but more rarely (for me at least).
I did not really take time to wonder if there was a lenten discipline that I should follow but have decided to steal an exercise from Jim Gordon, a Scottish Baptist, that I will at least try and follow throughout lent. The different ways of seeing that come for me in prayer and art only seem to seep into the rest of life for moments at a time. I want a whole huge change at once but, as I have been learning and forgetting and learning again for a long time, the change comes in regular practice and incremental progress.