The month of May saw two connected events: one local and one worldwide. The first was the Young Person’s Art Show in St Mary’s church. The second was Pentecost Sunday, (otherwise known as Whitsun).
Pentecost – remembering the coming of the Holy Spirit to the first disciples – is associated with many Christian ideas, above all else God and God’s love working in our own lives and inspiring us. And creativity is behind artwork and behind art is inspiration – which is why the church, when it is working well, has always been a patron of the arts. (When it is not working well, it supresses art and creativity – a very good book and film on that theme is The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco).
The best-known poem I know about God’s creativity and Pentecost is by my old favourite – RS Thomas. It is difficult, but I think it is reflecting on the way suddenly, when we feel dry and withered, something starts humming and off we go. I also like it (and indeed the poet himself) because he often refers to “the machine” referring to modern technology in negative terms – I too think so much modern technology can be stifling and yet he writes three lines from the bottom as he does – reminding me I too might on occasion be guilty of supressing creativity!
Suddenly
Suddenly after long silence
he has become voluble.
He addresses me from a myriad
directions with the fluency
of water, the articulateness
of green leaves; and in the genes,
too, the components
of my existence. The rock,
so long speechless, is the library
of his poetry. He sings to me
in the chain-saw, writes
with the surgeon’s hand
on the skin’s parchment messages
of healing. The weather
is his mind’s turbine
driving the earth’s bulk round
and around on its remedial
journey. I have no need
to despair; as at
some second Pentecost
of a Gentile, I listen to the things
round me: weeds, stones, instruments,
the machine itself, all
speaking to me in the vernacular
of the purposes of One who is.
All of which takes me back to our Art Show. As I write, it is not yet set up: but I have seen at least some of the artwork at our Primary school – and there is much evidence of creativity. May God’s Spirit of love work in all our lives, may we be addressed from a “myriad of directions” and find that inspiration in the beauty, the people, the goodness and the love which is all around us.
Peter