I have spent hundreds of hours in the company of George Herbert, Charles Wesley and Julian of Norwich. I read widely, so there are plenty of others well up the frequent and regular reading list. But these three have a special place for several reasons.
Each of them has shaped my theology and spirituality, and have helped build in my mind a durable and symbiotic connection between the two. Theology is an exercise of the intellect which shapes spirituality, and spirituality as the experience of, and personal response to, the love of God in Christ, so that the two coalesce in a theological understanding best expressed in prayer.
Three years ago I completed a tapestry based on Julian's parable of the hazelnut – I've added the text below, at the end of this post. The tapestry, as shown here, was designed and worked over four months. A fuller explanation of what I was seeking to explore can be found over on this page.
That exercise in close reading of a text through imaginative and creative work with threads, colour and canvas, deepened further my appreciation of the spiritual courage, theological urgency and literary brilliance of Julian and her Revelations of Divine Love. In May 2023 the tapestry, titled 'Benedicite Domine', was included in an art exhibition at the University of St Andrews. I was understandably chuffed, but also pleased that a piece of art inspired by a 14th Century anchoress, whose writings broke the male dominance of theological discourse and constructive thought, was on display in an exhibition titled "Enfolding: a Study of Margins and Centres."
However, having completed a work on the visionary theology of Julian, that left Charles Wesley and George Herbert, and the question of whether I might attempt a visual exposition of their lyrical poetry. Of course they are very different in Christian experience, historical context, theological emphasis, personality, and ecclesial commitments and convictions. Yet over the years of immersion in their hymns and poetry I was aware of an underlying affinity in their verse, a shared emphasis on the religious affections and the synergy between theological understanding and the spiritual experience of the writer.
Both George Herbert and Charles Wesley were profoundly serious in their quest for personal holiness, and in their poetry deeply confessional about their struggles with sin, their failures of love, their self-diminishing sense of unworthiness. Yet alongside such self-disqualification there are whole poems, verses and even single lines, that flame with faith and trust in the eternal love of God, revealed in Christ crucified and risen, and in which Christians live and move, and quite literally, have their being.
At the start of Advent 2023 I started a tapestry I had been planning in my head for some time. 'Planning' is perhaps too rigid as a term, because I begin any tapestry aiming at visual exposition of a text with a broad and unresolved sense of what I want to do. Ideas evolve in the process of working it, and there are times when some part of the design doesn't work, and unexpected decisions about stitch, colour, pattern turn out surprisingly to be right.
However this tapestry was an attempt to explore two particular poems which I had in mind, one by Herbert, one by Wesley. The Herbert one I know by heart, the Wesley one is one of my favourite hymns and is also known by heart. Incidentally, that phrase 'known by heart', captures very well the intended impact of Wesley's hymns, and the spiritual longings of Herbert's poems.
In any case, the two poems were already pretty thoroughly woven into my own inner spiritual patterns, which I trust have slowly been taking shape under the loving wisdom of the Holy Spirit, the ultimate tapestry worker! I already knew what would fill the central panel, the key image in Herbert's poem and Wesley's hymn. However, creating the right context in both the image and the background theological reflection – that needed working out.
The result is a tapestry that has taken less time than I imagined. Of course, one reason for that is the less than congenial weather over the past few weeks, and therefore more time indoors to move the work along. Once the tapestry has been framed I'll do another post and try to explain what on earth I was trying to do!
Meantime, here is the parable of the hazelnut from the brilliant Julian, which inspired 'Benedicite Domine:
“And in this he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’
I marvelled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.
In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.”
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The statue of George Herbert is on Westminster Abbey, one of a series on notable Christians.
The Wesley picture shows my well used Oxford Ed. of The Hymn Book for the People Called Methodists, a souvenir mug from Gwnap Pit, and a Victorian cockle plate showing Charles Wesley, a gift from Sheila who knows exactly the right kind of gift.