A Suburban English Garden

Here are some more photos of my parents' garden in England taken this summer. I have described before how they have combined the English planting methods - creating herbacious and perennial borders in which no soil is visible - with ideas inspired by Spanish courtyard gardens that they had seen when visiting that country. The back garden is a small patch of ground perhaps 25 yards square. He is divided it up into rectangular areas that are either fully planted beds, or paved with flagstones and brick and dotted with large terracotta plantpots. There is no lawn here.

It is now about four years since it was first planted. The plants are maturing and as a result the amount of work need for upkeep is minimal. The plants just grow and block out the weeds. My parents are now at a stage in life when they cannot do any heavy lifting or hours of work gardening in week. This garden is now at a level where they hire someone to come in once in the spring to romove weeds from between the flagstones and any visible in the beds and generally tidy it up . Then it just grows and looks beautiful. With perhaps the occasional afternoon of deadheading, nothing more is done until the autumn when he will come in and cut down the perennials, prune the shrubs and again remove any visible weeds. I was commandeered for a couple of deadheading sessions in my visit!

Those who might have seen past articles about this garden will see how it is matured and changed in just a short time.

Anyway, here are some photographs (some, as you will see, taken before the dead heading was complete!).

A Walk in England Along the Shropshire Union Canal

After pictures of Wales, here is different sort of experience of man's work with the land. It is a walk (definitely a walk and not a hike) along the towpath of an 18th century canal near Chester in Cheshire, England. This is just about 5 miles from where I grew up. The Cheshire countryside is prime agricultural land. Never dramatic enough to be a tourist destination, I nevertheless love the gentle charm of the lush pastureland particularly when it is used for it designated purpose and you see dairy cattle or horses grazing. The canals of Britain are an interesting man made feature that now look a natural part of the landscape. Made for transportation of heavy loads of materials they fueled the early industrial revolution and then fell into decline when the railways were established.  So over just a short period, perhaps 50 years or so, at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century a network was built across the country, each one an investment project for entrepreneurs, as the the railways were to become later. They fell into disrepair and lay stagnant for many years. Then in latter years, perhaps the last 50 were seen in a different light and have been dredged and cleaned. The old long boats which used to haul coal or iron ore have now been converted into floating mobile homes for holidays. The towpaths which were made for horses to walk along as they pulled the long boats canals are no longer trade routes, were turned into footpaths.

The canals are a product of liberal capitalism and industrialization built with none of the sort of regulation and public money that such things would very likely require today, the forces that are identified very often with all that is 'satanic' to quote William Blake, about the modern world. Yet they are now, along with the factories, mill owners mansions and workers cottages built during the period seen as objects of beauty. The canals are even regarded as positive aspects of the countryside as natural as a stream or river because of the habitats for wildlife they provide. As a Christian who believes that the work of man is natural and good (when guided by God's grace) and not automatically destructive this is no surprise to me; although it may cause a few hardline greens to hesitate for a moment and think about their worldview.

The canals were built to connect the industrial cities and their start and end points are often modern industrial towns (which can be ugly). Birmingham has, so I was told at school, more mileage of canal than Venice. The Shropshire Union Canal actually starts in a place called Ellesmere Port and is a branch of the Manchester Ship Canal. This old industrial Britain close to Liverpool on the River Mersey. I think that even the locals would hesitate to recommend it as a tourist spot...for the American readers it would be a bit like starting off in Flint, Michigan or Toledo, Ohio. While the exact point of departure, shown below has some 18th century buildings that are not unattractive, the first section does take you through some of Ellesmere Ports main features, the oil refinery and car factory...no the most photogenic.

But as you start to get into open country the scenery improves.

An old canal boat. What might have carried huge loads of coal in the past is now a holiday boat.

And another!

The lines of these old brick bridges are very attractive I think. Perhaps those who design the bridges that go over our motorways could learn from this?

I climbed up onto this one to have a look at the farm track that crosses over the canal.

The immediate scene is pretty, but the pylons in the distance indicate that we are still just coming out of a built up industrial area. The canal with the bridges and boats is as much an industrial landscape as the Stanlow oil refinery we see in the distance. We will know that Western culture has undergone the epiphany of beauty when even an oil refinery is a place of uplifting beauty... but we're not there yet!

Why the JPII's Theology of the Body says that Nude Figure Drawing is a Bad Thing

When Pope John Paul II presented his Theology of the Body and addressed artists directly, challenging them to portray the human figure 'naked without shame' and in such a way that the beauty of the human form would be revealed in an ordered way it caused quite a stir. Here was a Pope, now saint, it seemed, who was putting his intellectual weight behind the artistic tradition of painting the nude and not only excusing it, but promoting it. Finally Catholics who fancied themselves as arty and cultured could hold their heads up high at dinner parties amongst their sophisticated, non-Christian friends and happily say that although there were some puritanical elements in the Church, those who were uncomfortable with nudity were just narrow minded philistines who didn't really understand Catholic culture. It inaugurated the creation of a wave of contorted Theology-of-the-Body nudes that, the artists told us, communicated human sexuality 'as gift' by gesture.

I didn't get around to doing the paintings, but I did believe for a long time that JPII was a Catholic apologist for the Sixties, who could see the good at its heart and was able to distinguish, deftly, between those elements that were disordered or and those that reflected an ordered view of the human person. I also believed that the study of the nude was essential in the training of the human body.

Then I read the Theology of the Body and attended an atelier in Florence in which I did figure painting or drawing every afternoon. Now I am not so sure.

First, I no longer believe that the study of the nude is necessary in an artist's training. The method I studied relied on training the eye, not anatomy. In fact we were told not to think deeply about the structure of what we were observing. Moreover, there have been great naturalistic artists who were masters of the academic method and did not train with the nude, such as Velazquez and his contemporaries in the Spanish school of baroque naturalism. I understand that even today, the Russian school of academic art in Florence, Italy does teaches today to the highest level without painting the nude.

Also, my understanding of JPII's writing has changed. What I see now in his writings about art and nudity, which include the ToB, is someone who understands the differing traditions in art very deeply and who is conservative by nature. In fact he was strongly against the portrayal of the nude in naturalistic styles that must, by virtue of their naturalism, portray Historical Man that is, man after the fall (those painting or sculpting in the style of the 19th century atelier take note).

Furthermore, he said that only when the body is shining with the 'light that comes from God' can it have dignity when naked. This is a reference to what in the context of the icon is called the 'uncreated light'. He is proposing therefore that only highly idealised representations of the human form are appropriate such as we might see in the iconographic form. In common with other Christian commentators he also sees great dignity in the nudes of ancient Greece. It is the correspondence to this idealised form, and not its naturalism, I suggest that causes him to appreciate the work of Michelangelo so highly, especially his frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. He sees each as a way of portraying the glory that was present in man before the Fall. After the Fall, dignity of Historical Man was restored by putting clothes on, not by taking them off.

We must also consider not only the effect of the image on the observer, but also how the process of creating the image affects both the model and artist. It is often stated that the etiquette of the studio, in which the model disrobes behind a screen and no one other than the studio master speaks to him or her when nude, protects the dignity of the model. In fact, if it does to some degree remove the general indignity of baring all in front of others and the erotic charge that is present when the model is attractive (and I am skeptical about that) then it does so by objectifying the person. That is, it creates a situation in which we no longer view the model as a person, but impersonally as a flesh shape, a nude. This is therefore participating, albeit in a different way, in the problem of today's understanding of the human person that the Pope is trying to remedy - it removes the dignity of the person so that they are just forms of flesh to be used.

Only the person bathed in the uncreated light of God and those artistic styles developed to portray him are appropriate for nudity, says John Paul II, for, 'If it is removed from this dimension, it becomes in some way an object which depreciates very easily, since only before the eyes of God can the human body remain naked and unclothed, and keep its splendor and its beauty intact.’

I have not formed a definitive view on this matter.  But at the moment my own position is that even if it was possible in the past, in this present age when the dignity of the human person is under attack, we must be more conservative rather than less, and put some clothes on our models.

I am open to arguments that reinforce the place of the naturalistically portrayed nude in the canon of Christian art and in the training of the artist.

This is a very short summary of a much longer article (10,000 words) that appears in The Beauty of God's House: Essays in Honor of Stratford Caldecott published by Cascade Books. I would love to hear readers' comments on this, but I ask that if you have strong views on the matter you read the full reasoning in the article above before doing so. Just in case you are wondering, I get no royalties for this. I am asking this in order that you might understand fully why I have reached these conclusions before writing.

Above and below, legitimate nudes: all the paintings above show the figure in highly stylized form and therefore come under the criteria approved by JPII, or else as a baby. The nudity of babies does not offend ever I suggest (I explore the reasons why in my article).

A Walk in Wales

Here are some photographs of a walk my brother, Rob, and I took on trip this past month to Britain. We climbed a mountain in North Wales. It was about a 3000ft climb from a town called Capel Curig. The mountain peak is Moel Siabod (pronounced Mole Shabod). The wild terrain is typical high sheep pasture. The purple tinge to the hills is the flowering heather which was not quite in full season.

It was a beautiful day and when there's no wind and the sun shines it all seems very benign. But come wind, rain and snow and its a different story. In fact we tried to climb the same route about three years ago and had to turn back because the mist was so thick that became too dangerous to continue. As you can see from the photos, the peak of the mountain is on a ridge, one side of which is a sheer drop of several hundred feet.

This is the beauty of a landscape farmed by man for centuries. No wilderness here!

The path start alongside a stream and then you start to climb up through the trees and emerge on to the fells.

Below, halfway up and time for a snackette!

We stop occasionally to look at the path we have just climbed.

The heather is just coming into bloom...

As we approach the top we hit the ridge and can see the steep sided drop on the other side with the lake below

And from the top, the views are magnificent

The sheep seem to be enjoying the views too!

The Beauty of God's House - a Collection of Essays Published as a Tribute to Stratford Caldecott

Readers might be interested to know of newly published book, the Beauty of God's House, which is a Festschrift for Stratford Caldecott. It is a collection of essays edited by Prof Francesca Murphy and features contributions from the Davids Schindler, Marc Ouellet, John Milbank, Aidan Nichols, Adrian Walker, Jean Borella, David Fagerburg, Nick Healy Jr, Michael Cameron, Phil Zaleski, Carol Zaleski, Derek Cross, Mary Taylor, Reza Shah-Kazemi, and myself with an afterword by his wife Leonie Caldecott. The book covers the whole range of Caldecott's interests, from poetics to politics. Anyone interested in the field of theology and the arts will find much to intrigue them. If there is a common thread that runs through them all it is, as the title suggests, Stratford's interests is in the beauty of the cosmos and how it reflects the beauty of God.

I contributed an essay on the place of the nude in Christian art in the light of JP II's Theology of the Body (and other writings including his address at the opening of the newly restored frescoes of the Sistine Chapel​ and his Letter to Artists​). The common lore has him as a Catholic apologist for the Sixties who stripped the loin cloths and fig leaves from the Sistine Chapel. In fact he spoke very strongly against naturalistic representations of the nude and I argue that in fact he was as about as conservative in his approach to the pictorial representation of nudity as ​Pius IV (who had some fig leaves painted on the Sistine Chapel​ some years after it was first painted).

I don't explain in the essay, but the reason I wrote this arises directly from conversation with Strat and Leonie Caldecott some years ago. I was working with both at the time to organise a summer drawing school in Oxford teaching the academic method and we were looking for a model for a life drawing class that was to be included. We couldn't find one and in the end someone we all knew well volunteered, but she would not disrobe. None of us wanted her too either because we knew her and that alone made it seem inappropriate. So what we did in the end was ask her to model, elegantly dressed, for what we called a full-figure portraiture class. Realising that if I was going to establish an art school for Catholics I was going to have to address this issue head-on I decide to do some research.

At that time I had unquestioningly accepted the received wisdom that came from Catholics and non-Catholics alike that it was part of the tradition and necessary for any good training of an artist. Therefore, I was looking to find justifications for the nude and for figure drawing as a practice that I could use against what I perceived to be over puritanical Catholics. I immediately headed for JPII believing he would be my great ally here, as  well as various other authors. Strat suggested to me that I read an article that had been printed in Communio some years earlier. It was a reprint of  a piece written by a contemporary and friend of Jacques Maritain called Erik Petersen and was entitled A Theology of Dress. Here was the complementary theology to the Theology of the Body and I found that the two were founded on complete harmony of thought. As I studied these writings and the Catholic tradition of figure painting, to my surprise I came to the opposite conclusion. I felt that the place of the nude in the Catholic tradition had been greatly exaggerated latterly and also that nude figure drawing is not necessary for the training of artists. The article explains my thinking in detail.

I intend to post a review of the book when I have read the contributions of the other authors.

It is available from the publisher, Cascade Books, here.

Now you have an option of taking the painting class for college credit

From Thursday to Saturday, October 23 - 26, Columbus, Ohio,  at a special low price, this course gives you the option of taking it for either college level credit, or continuing education units. Learn the style of the School of St Albans

This A residential class teaching the English gothic style of the School of St Albans will be offered in Columbus, Ohio between October 23rd and 26th. It will start on the Thursday morning and will finish at 6pm. Those who wish to stay of for Mass on Sunday can do so. The liturgy at the local church is beautiful. There will be regular praying of the Liturgy of the Hours and lectures to supplement the practical classes.

For those who wish to take the college level credits there is an additional online element which teaches about Catholic culture and the Catholic traditions in art.

This is suitable for beginners or experienced painters and I am pleased that now students who take it will have the option of obtaining 3 undergraduate college credits or 25 continuing education units accredited by Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, whose accreditation at undergraduate level is nationally recognized. I will be teaching this course and from now on all residential courses that I teach will be done so that those who take them have the option of gaining credits (including, for example, next year's summer schools).

The painting class is offered in conjunction with an online element that has 12 recorded lectures (produced by Catholic TV in Boston) and written material about Catholic culture and art that has not be published anywhere else. The painting course in October will be supported by talks and instruction on learning to pray with sacred imagery in the context of the liturgy of the hours. I have posted examples of both 13th-century originals in the style we study, and works done by past students in these classes.

The options for those who take this course are:

Audit the class and learn to paint: to take the course without obtaining credit, as has happened before cost is $370

Continuing Education Units: to take the painting course and obtain 25 hours continuing education units cost is $49+$370 = $419

Undergraduate College Credits: to take the course for 3 college level credits the cost is $1,050 + $370 = $1,420. In order to obtain the credits, as well as taking the residential class, students will do the online element which requires a short test after each lecture and appropriate reading, and a written 'mid-term' and a written final exam which will be submitted for marking. You can audit the online element immediately, here. The tests and examinations will be available when the painting class starts.

Online only for Continuing Education Units: in addition the online part can be taken without the practical element and without taking the tests and exams and this will qualify the student for 25 hours continuing education units. Suitable for all teachers or those wishing to design a curriculum such as homeschoolers, the cost is just $99. To register now go here. Learn about Catholic culture and transform you world!

In the online element, there are case studies on great works of art from the liturgical artistic traditions of the Church plus coursework on traditional harmony and proportion in detail not offered before, that goes right back to the original sources such as Plato, Augustine and Boethius. There is also an examination of how an education in beauty has its place in general Catholic education.

To register for the painting class contact Gina Switzer at gina.switzer@gmail.com  To register for the online course for a preview of the online course go to   Edevate.com here 

You will be able to register for college level credit from the first day of the class on October 23rd or if you wish to audit if for continuing education units you can register right now. For more information about the course feel free to contact me, emailing me through this website on dclayton@newliturgicalmovement.org .

Pictures above and first two below are of images from the Westminster psalter. Below that you can see work by past students.

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Suburban Garden in Boston that Transforms the Community

In his book Second Nature, A Gardener's Education, Michael Pollan suggests that the reason that Americans are so noticeably disinterested in flower gardening (in comparison with the counterparts in Western Europe and especially Britain where I come from) is due to their veneration of Henry David Thoreau and the influence of his book Walden. It is noticeable how it is not just those with land who grow flowers in Europe, even apartment blocks have window boxes filled with plants outside them and courtyards are routinely filled with planted pots. It is not absent altogether in the US but it is less prevalent. A walk around the suburb in the town of Nashua in New Hampshire where I live will reveal much less careful cultivation for the beauty of it than you would see in its British equivalent. In my experience, the American mindset is one that perceives 'unspoiled' nature and wilderness as the model of beauty, and anything affected by man as unnatural, and therefore less beautiful. The assumption behind this is that man is not 'natural', or modern man at any rate, and so his work with nature is almost automatically detrimental and destructive to some degree.

This is not the orthodox Christian view of man and his relationship with the natural world, though I have met orthodox Christians who believe it. As I have described before, man is made to work the land and not only for cultivation for food, but also for beauty. You can read it here in the article, Come out of the Wilderness and into the Garden.

At our very beginning Adam was a gardener in Eden, the risen Christ was mistaken for one and the New Jerusalem our final city dwelling described in the Book of Revelation contains beautiful gardens. In the Song of Songs the lover describes his love as a 'garden enclosed'. The beautiful garden is here used to illustrate the depth and passion of love between man and woman, which is in turn an allegory for the love of God and his Church. Ultimately this points, as all consideration of love does, to Love itself in the mystery of Trinity, whom Augustine characterizes as Lover, Beloved and Love.

In his encyclical on Catholic social teaching Leo XIII stresses the importance of man having access to the land and cultivating it. One surprising consequence of this is to create a fashion among Catholic academics for keeping chickens in their back gardens. Make no mistake, those who wish to do so for whatever reason, are free to do so and if by following this hobby it fulfills that desire to work the land then all the better. But I am not the least tempted to follow suit. I do love to eat chickens, but thank goodness the local and much beloved supermarket chain Market Basket sells eggs year round and has delicious, ready roasted chickens for under $5. This allows me to eat chicken for a fraction of the cost, effort and inconvenience that would be involved if I had a coop in the back garden.

I do accept what Leo says, though and feel that he describes me when he says: 'Men learn to love the very soil that yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them.' (Rerum Novarum, 47). Where I live now does not have land that I am able to cultivate, but I do not feel so deprived as many might think. I love to go out into farmland walking (as many Brits do) and enjoy seeing the beauty of the land responding to the labor of man's hands. This is something that, again, is much easier to do in Europe where people have much freer access to privately owned land for walking. Also, in accord with the Leo's quotation, I love to grow flowers in the house - growing 'good things for themselves'. This is a passtime with a contemplative end which even my two-year-old enjoys. She delights in the appearance of leaves and flowers in the household plantpots. So much so that we have to make sure in her enthusiasm to look at them she doesn't pull them apart.

I have just returned from a trip to England and as always when I return it makes me feel nostalgia for beautiful countryside and gardens. As a result you are going to see string of articles with photos of Britain in the next month or so. I hope readers will forgive my self indulgence. Also as a reminder to myself that good things are possible in the the US here are some more photographs about a tiny little garden in Boston that has a great impact.

Some readers will remember the wonderful story of my friend Nancy beginning a flower garden in the tiny patch of land available to her in her Boston city home. Here is a low income complex which was changed because she decided to plant flowers. As a result, the neighbours would see her doing this and talk to her and then they started to do the same. The manager of the complex was so pleased in the effect on the beauty of the place and the connections made in the community that she instructed that the common areas be planted too. So she walked the men who mowed the grass around the cul-de-sac and taught them to distinguish between the weeds and unwanted plants, and the flowers which were to be preserved. This act alone runs counter to Thoreau, who said that there was no real difference between weeds and flowers, it was all just in the subjective perception of man. You can read about the story here, How Small Household Flower Gardens Have Helped Transform a Boston Community.

All this and not a chicken in sight (although there is a very good supermarket round the corner selling ready-cooked ones). The photographs below are of Nancy's garden this summer and you can see, if you compare with the photos from the previous article, how the plants have matured very quickly.

I hope we see more of this! I would love to see the status of the profession and passtime of gardening raised once more to the degree that one might confuse Christ for a gardener when we see Him face to face!

Discerning My Vocation as an Artist

How I came to be doing what I always dreamed of

Following on from the last piece, as mentioned I am reposting an article first posted about four years ago. In connection with that, it is worth mentioning that one's personal vocation can change as we grow older. I am not necessarily set in the same career or life situation for life. What was fulfilling for me as a young man may not be right for me now. So I do think that regular reassessment is something that should be considered.

I wrote this originally because people regularly ask me how they can become an artists. One response to this is to describe the training I would recommend for those who are in a position to go out and get it. You can read a detailed account of this in the online course now available. However, this is only part of it (even if you accept my ideas and are in a position to pay for the training I recommend). It was more important for me first to discern what God wants me to do. I did not decide to become an artist until I was in my late twenties (I am now 52).  That I have been able to do so is, I believe, down to inspired guidance. I was shown first how to discern my vocation; and second how to follow it. I am not an expert in vocational guidance, so I am simply offering my experience here for others to make use of as they like.......

I am a Catholic convert (which is another story) but influential in my conversation was an older gentleman called David Birtwistle, who was a Catholic. (He died more than ten years ago now.) One day he asked me if I was happy in my work. I told him that I could be happier, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. He offered to help me find a fulfilling role in life.

He asked me a question: ‘If you inherited so much money that you never again had to work for the money, what activity would you choose to do, nine to five, five days a week?’ One thing that he said he was certain about was that God wanted me to be happy. Provided that what I wanted to do wasn’t inherently bad (such as drug dealing!) then there was every reason to suppose that my answer to this question was what God wanted me to do.

While I thought this over, he made a couple of points. First, he was not asking me what job I wanted to do, or what career I wanted to follow. Even if no one else is in the world is employed to do what you choose, he said, if it is what God wants for you there will be way that you will be able to support yourself. He told me to put all worries about how I would achieve this out of my mind for the moment. Such doubts might stop me from having the courage to articulate my true goal for fear of failure. Remember, he said, that if God’s wants you to be Prime Minister, it requires less than the ‘flick of His little finger’ to make it happen. If wanted to do more than one thing, he said I should just list them all, prioritise them and then aim first for the activity at the top of the list.

I was able to answer his question easily. I wanted to be an artist. As soon as I said it, I partly regretted it because the doubts that David warned me about came flooding in. Wasn’t I just setting myself up for a fall? I had already been to university and studied science to post-graduate level. How was I ever going to fund myself through art school? And even if I managed that, such a small proportion of people coming out of art school make a living from art. What hope did I have? I worried that I would end up in my mid-thirties a failed artist with no other prospects. David reassured me that this was not what would happen. This process did not involve ever being reckless or foolish, but I would always need faith to stave off fear.

Next David suggested that I write down a detailed description of my ideal. He stressed the importance of crystallizing this vision in my mind sufficient to be able to write it down. This would help to ensure that I spotted opportunities when they were presented to me. Then, always keeping my sights on the final destination, I should plan only to take the first step. Only after I have taken the first step should I even think about the second. Again David reiterated that at no stage should I do anything so reckless that it may cause me to let down dependants, to be unable to pay the rent or put food on the table.

The first step, he explained, can be anything that takes me nearer to my final destination. If I wasn’t sure what to do, he told me to go and talk to working artists and to ask for their suggestions. There are usually two approaches to this: either you learn the skills and then work out how to get paid for them; or even if you have to do something other than what you want, you put yourself in the environment where people are doing it. For example, he suggested that I might get a job in an art school as an administrator. My first step turned out to be straighforward. All the artists I spoke to told me to start by enrolling for an evening class in life drawing at the local art school.

My experience since has been that I have always had enough momentum to encourage me to keep going. To illustrate, here’s what happened in that first period:  the art teacher at Chelsea Art School evening class noticed that I liked to draw and suggested that I learn to paint with egg tempera. I tried to master it but struggled and after the class was finished I told someone about this. He happened to know someone else who, he thought, worked with egg tempera. He gave me the name and I wrote asking for help. About a month later I received a letter from someone else altogether. It turned out that the person I had written to was not an artist at all, but had been passed the letter on to someone who was called Aidan Hart. Aidan was an icon painter. It was Aidan who wrote to me and who invited me to come and spend the weekend with him to learn the basics. Up until this point I had never seen or even heard of icons. Aidan eventually became my teacher and advisor.

There have been many chance meetings similar to this since. And over the course of years my ideas about what I wanted to do became more detailed or changed. Each time I modified the vision statement accordingly, and then looked out for a new next step – when I realized that there was no school to teach Catholics their own traditions, I decided that I would have to found that school myself and then enlist as its first student. Later it dawned on me that the easiest way to do thatwas to learn the skills myself from different people and then be the teacher.

I was also told that there were two reasons why  I wouldn’t achieve my dream: first, was that I didn’t try; the second was that en route I would find myself doing something even better, perhaps something that wasn’t on my list now. When this happens you will be enjoying so much you stop looking further.

David also stressed how important it was always to be grateful for what I have today. He said that unless I could cultivate gratitude for the gifts that God is giving me today, then I would be in a permanent state of dissatisfaction. In which case, even if I got what I wanted I wouldn't be happy. This gratitude should start right now, he said, with the life you have today. Aside from living the sacramental life, he told me to write a daily list of things to be grateful for and to thank God daily for them. Even if things weren’t going my way there were always things to be grateful for, and I should develop the habit of looking for them and giving praise to God for his gifts. He also stressed strongly that I should constantly look to help others along their way.

As time progressed I met others who seemed to be understand these things. So just in case I was being foolish I asked for their thoughts. First was an Oratorian priest. He asked me for my reasons for wanting to be an artist. He listened to my response and then said that he thought that God was calling me to be an artist. Some years later, I asked a monk who was an icon painter. He asked me the same questions as the Oratorian and then gave the same answer.

What was interesting about all three people so far is that none of them asked what seemed to be the obvious question: ‘Are you any good at painting?’ I asked the monk/artist why and he said that you can always learn the skills to paint, but in order to be really good at what you do you have to love it.

Some years later still, when I was studying in Florence, I went to see a priest there who was an expert in Renaissance art. It was for his knowledge of art that I wanted to speak to him, rather than spiritual direction. I wanted to know if my ideas regarding the principles for an art school were sound. He listened and like the others encouraged me in what I was doing.  Three years later, after yet another chance meeting, I was offered the chance to come to Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire, to do what precisely what I had described to the priest in Florence.

In my meeting with him the Florentine priest remarked in passing, even though I hadn’t asked him this, that he thought that it was my vocation to try to establish this school. He then said something else that I found interesting. He warned me that I couldn’t be sure that I would ever get this school off the ground but he was certain that I should try. As I did so, my activities along the way would attract people to the Faith (most likely in ways unknown to me). This is, he said, is what a vocation is really about.

Why the Benedictine Rule is Psychological Training for a Joyful Old Age

I once heard a discussion on the radio about preparation for old age. The focus was on making sure that you had sufficient financial resources and so there was talk of the need for people to start making contributions to pension plans early. One person offered a slightly different approach. While putting money away for the future was not a bad idea, he said, people should think about what they are actually going to do when they retire, furthermore they should avoid getting into the trap of living the whole of their working lives as though its only purpose is to provide for retirement. Why not try to find a way of earning money that you enjoy, he said? Then you will want to work after the age of 65 because you enjoy it and so reduces the amount of money that one needs to save; and makes the time both before and after retirement more enjoyable. As he pointed out, there is danger of being so fearful of being able to support yourself after 65 that the whole of you life prior to it becomes a waiting game in which retirement is a sort of 'secular afterlife', a reward for the drudgery of work. He had a point, I think. Firstly, pension schemes are not guaranteed however prudently one saves. Also, it is good to think about what we can do to enjoy life, before and during retirement, as well as having the money to do it.

Given that my physical capabilities are going to decline with time, shouldn't I be ready to change what do as I get older so that life is always interesting. I am 52 and so am aware of this happening already. I am reminded of my grandpa here. While he did the same job all of his working life which he enjoyed until he was 65, he always had strong recreational interests as well. He was an nationally known rugby player until he was thirty, when I he gave up rugby and took up tennis and golf. For the next 20 years he played for the local tennis club and got a golf handicap of five. Then at the age of 50 he gave up tennis and golf and took up the even more sedate activity of bee-keeping, which he did until he died at the age of 83 (at the end he was recruiting neighbours and family members to help him move the hives onto the moors for the heather-honey season). Bee-keeping was the hobby that he followed for the longest time and which occupied him during all of his retirement.

Ultimately, our happiness in life rests on more than having hobbies, of course.; but the principle of anticipating how we change as we get older applies as much to consideration of doing what is right and good, I suggest. This is where, for the Christian, consideration of one's personal vocation comes in. If we find out what God wishes for us to do then we will be fulfilled and He will give us the means by which we can do it.  I have written a number of articles on guidance that I was given and will repost one of these in the next couple of days.

In recent years I have seen a number of people approaching their last days and suffering from debilitating illnesses. This has made me think about the lives of those who cannot do anything without great help, cannot concentrate long enough on anything they observe to derive mental stimulation from it and cannot communicate with others easily. Is Christian joy on offer to them too? One has to believe so...but how?

It is distressing to see someone dying of cancer unable to do much more than watch television and eat when fed. I saw someone whom I loved slowly decline so that she was not able to concentrate or draw on her memory sufficiently well to engage in conversation. What made it worse was that she was aware of the decline in her mental abilities and was getting frustrated at not being able to respond and say what she wanted to. Unable to move without help, she was chair bound most of the day and would fall asleep periodically (perhaps under the effect of the pain controlling medication) and so could not even watch a television program long enough to follow what was going on and enjoy it.

I could not help trying to put myself in her place and imagine how life must be for her. How does one cope when there is little pleasure and continuous discomfort? It was a difficult question for me to answer, so I prayed that she could know that her family loved her. I prayed also that her capacity to respond to God's grace was always present, even as all other faculties decline in power. Then, I hoped, even in this last stage of life Christian joy can be hers too. Like the joy of the Christian martyrs who can inspire us, that there is a joy for her too that transcends the physical suffering and increasing isolation.

I have reflected also on what may be the future for me. Like any of us, it is quite possible that I will have to face such a situation myself. How would I fare? Is there any preparation anyone can make?

The only answer I could think of was a life of prayer, meditation ordered to participation in the liturgy. The Rule of St Benedict sets out one approach to such a life. As a Benedictine Oblate (of Pluscarden Monastery in Scotland) I have studied the Rule a little and have tried to adapt it a lay life.

A spiritual life should be focussed on the worship of God in the sacred liturgy and be a balance of participation in the liturgy itself, (the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours); quasi-liturgical prayer, which is structured prayer that echoes the patterns or content of the liturgy, such as praying the psalms, repetitions of the Jesus Prayer or the rosary; and personal prayer. The liturgy is the activity from which all other human activity is derived and to which it ought to lead us.  When this is understood, it makes all our everyday, common-or-garden activities fulfilling, while at the same ensuring that they don't become our primary goals in life.

In this context we can see that as we get older and our physical capabilities decline we will be forced to do things that are less physically demanding. If at this point we have developed the habits, then we will reach naturally for things that are in harmony with the principle of ordering our lives to union with God; and the activity of worship and prayer itself will start to occupy a greater proportion of our time, through default as well as desire.

For those I saw who were in their last days, even prayer becomes more difficult, they could not read a psalter, for example and gain anything from the text. What then? I remember being told of a lady who silently prayed the rosary all day in her chair. She could do this because the memory of it was indelibly imprinted on her mind through years of habit, so that her prayer was second nature, almost unthinking. This highlights the value of memorizing some set prayers when you can so that they are there to draw on later. I would go for some short psalms and the gospel canticles and the Jesus Prayer.

What if even the ability to do this has gone? It seems to me that contemplative prayer is what remains. Contemplation is a passive state of mind by which one is receptive to God's grace.  In his Rule, St Benedict insists on the regular practice of lectio divina (you can read about how to do it in my book, the Little Oratory or in more detail in a great book on the subject by Dr Tim Grey). St Benedict describes the fourfold process: three are active - reading, meditating (thinking) and praying and the fourth is contemplation a passive, receptive state of mind that we are lead to by the practice of the first three. We do not judge the success of this, incidentally by how feel during the process or even by the number of good ideas that might, occasionally, jump into our heads. Grace is not felt directly.

For Benedict,  the 'work of God' in which we participate is the liturgy, and so I have always understood lectio divina as a discipline that is part of a training that deepens our participation in the liturgy and so allows for a fuller union with God. In praying the liturgy we move from moment to moment engaging in one or other of these four processes and these constitute the dynamic of the exchange of love that is our goal.

It may be that the people who I have described and in whom even the possibility of active prayer and worship is reduced, that contemplation is the natural activity that occupies most time. I would like to think so, at least. I do not know of any reason to believe that the power of the faculty of the passive reception of God's love in contemplatio is impaired by old age.

There is no accounting for who will respond to His grace but, to the degree that any of us can develop that faculty, the answer seems to be to include the regular practice contemplative prayer in your prayer life now, would be an important preparation for a joyful old age.

I have been doing lectio divina daily this since I pondered over these things. I also try to put aside time when I can be 'alone with none but thee my God' - these are periods when I just try to sit and be aware of and enjoy being alive, devoid as much as possible from stimulation. It occurs to me that it would a useful to develop such as skill when there is discomfort and lots of distraction going on around me so that I can learn to cut it out.  I will not always be able to control my environment and I might have to try contemplatio in a nursing room lounge when the television if showing Wheel of Fortune at a loud volume.

Another point is that the limitations I describe are not the preserve of the elderly. Some are born with severe physical and mental handicaps and it seems to me that they too might be unsung, natural contemplatives among us whose presence brings untold graces into the world for the benefit of all. As I understand it, God is not constrained by the sacraments and neither is He bound to act in ways that require mediation of the senses for us to benefit from them.

When all is said and done, we may be surprised to discover who has contributed the most to the good of the world and who has lived a life of Christian joy.

Baroque Landscape: Chinese Baroque!

This is another in the series about baroque landscape…and its not about baroque landscape, but bear with me. It is relevant to the topic. I am fascinated by the beauty of Chinese landscape. Once I started to learn about the baroque style I noticed that the same basic features are present in the form of Chinese art too. Further investigation revealed that the traditional Doaist understanding of the natural world and man’s relation to it, as manifested in Chinese art, are in accord in many ways with the Catholic worldview. Considering form first: if we look at any of the paintings shown here we see these features. There are a limited number of principle foci of interest which are more detailed and more coloured. The areas in between these are muted in colour and rendered in monochrome, usually black and grey ink washes. In fact in Chinese painting the contrast in the treatment of the focal points and background areas is even more pronounced. The areas between the foci are often no more than a hazy mist. However, there is always a unity to the painting. It looks like a single scene not painting containing three unconnected scenes.

I began to investigate a bit and read a book called The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting. This was written in China in the 1600s (which, coincidentally, is the baroque period in the West). What struck me is that their understanding of the natural world and how man relates to it is in accordance with the Christian worldview. The Daoist worldview does not include God, but it does recognize heaven, a place that is non-material. The natural world reflects a heavenly order and the task of man and his work is to act in harmony with it. Therefore, just like the Christian painters of the same period, they saw the beauty of the natural world as something that pointed to a place beyond it that was non-material. When we apprehend the beauty of nature, we perceive intuitively the harmonious relationships that exist between the parts; and the harmonious relationship of the whole to God (for the Christian), and to heaven (for the Daoist). As a Catholic I say that all harmony is derived from the harmonious relationships that are intrinsic to God, between the persons of the Trinity.

Compare, for example, two quotes that follow. The first by St Thomas Aquinas and the second by the Chinese sage, Lao Tzu:

‘The order of the parts of the universe to each other exists in virtue of the order of the whole universe to God’ St Thomas Aquinas (Questiones disputatae de veritate, 7,9)

‘Man’s standards are conditioned by those of Earth, the standard of Earth by those of Heaven, the standard of Heaven by that of the Way [Tao] and the standard of the Way is that of its own intrinsic nature.’ Lao Tzu, (from Tao Te Ching, XXV, 6^th century BC)

It seems strange to me, that with their view of an ‘empty’ heaven they did not, historically at least, welcome the revelation of a God. It is though they had already deduced the existence of heaven but with an empty throne, and Christianity could provide the only King who is worthy to sit on it. Christ even told us that he is ‘the Way’ (John 14:6)

So, coming back to painting, when they painted a landscape they sought to capture its beauty by mimicking the way that man observes nature. Again, this is just like the baroque method.

The landscape tradition is much older in the China than in Europe, and I would say that this representation of the balance between the particular and the whole was at a much more mature in Chinese art than in the baroque landscapes of this period. Part of the training of any artist should be the study of the work of Masters in their tradition. Any artist wishing to specialize in landscape could benefit from the study of Chinese landscapes, I suggest, even if the ultimate aim is a Western form.

This has happened in the past. There has always been an easy crossover between Chinese and Western naturalistic landscape painting. Nineteenth century French landscape artists, especially the Impressionists, were fascinated by Chinese and Japanese landscape and incorporated many compositional elements into their own work.

It works the other way too. To demonstrate the point, I should now come clean and explain that not all the paintings in this article were painted by a traditional Chinese artist. The second is, but the first and third are by a classically trained Italian artist, who was also a Jesuit missionary to China in the mid-eighteenth century, called Giuseppe Castiglione. He was admired in China for his work and was patronized by the Emperor. I first came across his work at an exhibition at the Royal Academy a couple of years ago.

The first painting below is by Castiglione again. The others are by a contemporary artist, Henry Wo Yue-Kee, based in Alexandria, Virginia. He was sitting in a shop front working one day when I walked past and noticed him. He told me that he had moved here from Hong Kong where he was trained.

I found this link through to short description of Castiglione's life and 40 images of his work (as reproduced on the stamps of China, Taiwan and Korea!)