Tag: T.S.Eliot

Witness to God

nastursiums with water droplets. Light transforming darkness.
photo: Mr G

Martyrs – God’s witnesses

We probably don’t get as excited and inspired by stories of Christian martyrs as did the early Christians.
Of course, we in England, don’t have to face persecution for our faith in the same way that they did
—though many Christians throughout the world are imprisoned or killed for believing in Jesus Christ and living their lives as Christians.

Last Monday, February 16th, the Church remembered Janani Luwum , Archbishop of Uganda, who died in a car ‘accident’ in 1977. This proved to be no accident because his death was ordered by the dictator Idi Amin, the tyrant who found the opposition of the Christian Church to his harsh rule too much to bear. Janani was a voice Amin decided to silence so his death was arranged. He became one of the countless martyrs to the Christian faith in a century in which more Christians died than any other.

A martyrs’ death always inspired the Church in the past. Not only did it remind Christians of the costliness of discipleship, it also stood as a witness to those who believe that we too are to stand firm in our faith against opposition.
Today we may not live in a country where we shall be murdered for going to Church but there are many signs that Christianity no longer holds the place in British society than it did, nor is the Christian way of life all that popular. In a sea of indifference, witnessing to God is as powerful today as it was in the face of active persecution.

One of the most inspiring stories of martyrdom comes from the early days of the Church. In 155AD, St Polycarp was put to death by a Roman Governor because he refused to renounce his belief in Jesus. He is remembered today, February 23^rd. He had been Bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor for 40 years when the Roman Emperor demanded that Christians turn away from Christ and swear that only Caesar was lord. Polycarp refused and he made what has become a classic statement of faith:

“Eighty and Six years have I served Him and He has done me no wrong.
How then can I blaspheme my King and Saviour. I am a Christian.”

Polycarp paid the price for his witness to Jesus and the account of his martyrdom swept through the Christian world becoming a strength for many others who faced persecution. He became what TS Eliot said in his play ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ – one of those who was used by God for his love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to his ways.

Though we may not be put to death or imprisoned for our faith, it isn’t true for everyone today. There is plenty of evidence that people of faith suffer for what they believe and even in countries like the United Kingdom we are still called to a life of witness against a background of indifference, ridicule, unbelief , hatred and verbal opposition.
When we are up against it and our faith is under attack it is in the martyrs lives (and deaths) that we can find a strengthening of our own faith. We are reminded that ordinary Christians with faith like ours refused to deny that faith even when it was costly to keep it.

During Lent, Polycarp can be our inspiration too. We serve God because he has blessed our lives (and so done us no wrong but rather done us good!) and so we can be proud to call ourselves Christians. If during Lent we meditate on just how much good God has done for us and resolve, therefore, to serve him as witnesses in the world, whatever the cost, then Lent will become a time in which our faith is made more strong and when we are led back to his ways—the way of self-giving Love.

[Mr G. 23rd Feb 2026]

PS> Though this article is written from a Christian standpoint, other religions are called to witness to God and also to lead costly and sacrificial lives. Let all who love and are loved by God share in showing the meaning of that love to a world so desperately in need of it, and of God.

Lunar Incantations

I have been a friend of Kay Gibbons for quite some time but recently I have also got to know her art as well. She recently produced the Calligraphy art above. I asked her if she would write something about the personal and artistic process involved

Lunar Incantations by Kay Gibbons

…..’half past three,
The lamp sputtered,
the lamp muttered in the dark,
the lamp hummed ;
‘Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners,
She smooths the hair of the grass….
The moon has lost her memory ..
A washed out smallpox cracks her face ….

T. S. Eliot, Rhapsody on a windy night.

These descriptive words about the moon inspired me to explore lunar imagery in Eliot’s poetry , especially in this poem, Rhapsody on a Windy Night.

I attempted to paint an image but was dissatisfied with the outcome and left it for a couple of days . When I returned I could see within the image ‘the moon smoothing the hair of the grass,’as in the lines of the poetry and I played along with the drawn lines and emerging image before me.

I added the words and their imprecise lines seemed symbolic of being lost in the dark of the night, partially visible by the light of the moon across the landscape. A happy accident for the Calligrapher within, to be able to add a sense of meaning to something which jarred against my need for the perfect line.

My process is one of thought and quiet meditation lifted with the joy of a babbling brook when it all falls into place and my understanding of Eliot’s words is satisfied by the art before me … tinged with a niggling desire to tweek a bit here and there as Eliot would have done too ..

T S Eliot inspires within me a creative welling response to a dialogue between word and image; between poet and artist.
I am delighted to encounter and explore Eliot’s poetry with its imagery and translate it into my own visual interpretation born out of a lively response to his own expression of feeling and emotion.

My work is a personal visual translation of Eliot’s words and intonations, the incongruities, the dichotomies, the discordant resonance inspiring a intriguing , meditative yet playful reflection on his words . Poet , Artist . Artist , Poet .

The arid dry texts of the ‘A’ level set texts transitioned during lockdown into a passion to interpret visually. Eliot’s words with my own subjective interpretation onto the artists paper .
A dialogue between words and pictures .the pouring out of creative energy in response to an emotional , intellectual stimulus.

An interplay between two destinies ..
Poet and Artist

And so in the dialogue between
La lune and Earth .

Kay Gibbons.

[] Kay is an artist who lives in Oxfordshire. She will be exhibiting there next year.
You can find lots more of her art on Instatgram – kaygibbons_art.glass.sculpture.

Little Gidding & Nicholas Ferrar

You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid

These often quoted words about Prayer come from a poem by T. S. Eliot in a sequence known as the
Four Quartets.The poem is called Little Gidding and it takes its name from a hamlet of that name in Cambridgeshire just north of Huntingdon.
It was here in 1625 that Nicholas Ferrar founded a community to live a life of prayer.The Church of England commemorates him this weekend (December 4th)

The community consisted mainly of his family who had lived in London as merchants with mixed success and fortunes. In 1625, an outbreak of the Plague led them to leave the city and move to Little Gidding.
But it wasn’t simply to escape the plague nor to escape bankruptcy.One reason they l;eft London was for the sake of Nicholas’s health.
The family were particularly drawn to a closer walk with God and along with friends, sought a deeper life with God which was found by devoting themselves to worship and to prayer.
In the words of Isaiah they were waiting on God in order to receive salvation.

Waiting on God is at the heart of the Advent Call to all of us. We are called to be still and seek to know Him as we prepare again to welcome the Christ Child into our hearts and minds and lives more fully – the surest sign we have of God’s Love for us.

The Ferrar family together with companions numbering about 40 set about creating, at Little Gidding, a Lay Community devoted to this waiting and watching for God and learning to be held and loved by him.

When they arrived there, they found the church in a sorry state and their first task was to clean and repair the building, to make it fit for the worship of Almighty God.
Together, they then consecrated it with prayer.

This prayer was based on the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, known as the Prayer Book of Edward the 6^th. This had been compiled by Archbishop Cranmer.
From it the community prayed Morning and Evening Prayer together with reciting the Psalms. They also maintained ceaseless intercession.
They also set up a school for local children who, having learned the Psalms came on Sundays to recite those they had learned in church.
This was not quite a display of deep devotion it seems. For each recitation the children received a penny. Today we often ponder how we might grow our congregations.
Well, they always say the old ways are the best ways. Perhaps it’s time to re-introduce the Little Gidding Penny Service!

Nicholas Ferrar was made a Deacon by Bishop Laud but he had no desire or sense of call to be a priest.Those duties were performed by the Vicar of Great Gidding who, once a month came to preach a sermon and celebrate Holy Communion with the community.
He regularly led a round of devotions and taught people how to recite the Gospels.The community flourished in love and zeal, in holiness and kindness to all.

Nicholas died on the day after Advent Sunday 1637, at 1am in the morning, the usual time he rose to pray. He was buried at Little Gidding.
The Community continued for a time but it was in the midst of the political upheaval of the Civil War and whilst King Charles sought refuge at Little Gidding, it became an unsafe place for the Monarch.
The Puritans prevailed in the struggle and amidst sweeping changes in the practice of Anglicanism they eventually broke up a community that they feared was too demonstrative of faith. Yet another example of fear leading people to act irrationally and cruelly.

The Little Gidding community became a memory but what they did achieve was the consecration of lives making God more accessible and, by their prayers they made Little Gidding, Holy Ground.
If you visit it today you will sense immediately that this is indeed, as Eliot put it in his poem, a place where prayer has been valid. A place, in fact which touches hearts and raises joyful faith in the lives of the visitors.In simple quietness the little church stands as it has gone on standing as a beacon of prayer.
You cannot fail to sense that this is one of those thin places as Celtic Christianity liked to call them, where the divide between heaven and earth is paper thin. It is easy to sense God’s presence and to reach out and be touched by him.

One of my criteria for whether a Church is worth joining is whether God can be found there easily. Is it, in other words, showing signs of being a thin place. It was easy to say yes to that at Little Gidding,
There is a stillness and holiness and tranquility which enfolds those who visit.
Over centuries it has borne witness to the love of God meeting the halting love of the human heart which reaches towards the Divine and is held.
Thin Places are also places with corners to weep in, where filled with whatever need, you can be enfolded in the arms of God.

Thin Places are also places of intersection where, as Mother Mary Clare of the Sisters of the Love of God, put it, you can stand at that intersection where human pain, hurt and conflict meet and are held by the transforming love of God.
They are places of Transfiguration as well as spiritual affirmation.

Holy Places are also therefore, places of real struggle because in seeking God we seek a reality which is not always peaceful but frequently demanding.
We are called to walk with God in darkness as well as light; in pain as well as quiet joy; in struggle to make good in a world which constantly seeks to drag us down.

Living out our faith means we are to love and to care; to forgive and to seek forgiveness; to make peace and be made peaceful, and all those things we have to go through if we are to understand the costly love God pours upon us; a love which though present since God created the world, comes, in Bethlehem, with a blaze of angelic light and a display of sheer glory – even if only a few saw it.

Advent today is not seen by many in its true meaning, but even in the lights and decorations and heightened expectations there is always a glimmer of the true Joy of Christmas.

None of it is bad. It just isn’t as good as it should or could be if focused in the right place.

Which is why we can draw inspiration from Nicholas Ferrar and those who kept God at the heart of things and for whom God in Jesus taught them the one thing we need to keep remembering.
To bring the Holiness of God before people and to light up lives with hope and kindness, love and mercy , there is a cost.

In the poem Little Gidding, T S Eliot coins a phrase,

Costing not less than everything,

This is a reminder that people like Nicholas Ferrar in places like Little Gidding, or us in our holy places understand that cost to be everything. Nothing is held back and Advent is when once again we take the spiritual pilgrimage through Bethlehem to Calvary.

This reminds us that the cost has already been paid – by God in Jesus Christ!

[Mr G]