197 PICCADILLY · commercial chain stores around Piccadilly Circus have not yet erased. St...

197 PICCADILLYCHURCH WITHOUT WALLS SPRING 2015 • ISSUE 7

THOMAS MERTON • PTOLEMY DEAN • MELISSA KITE Friends and Influences A Cathedral in Miniature Money Matters

Contributors

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197 Piccadilly Spring 2015

p 4 Ptolemy Dean is an architect and writer, who has been inspecting architect of St James’s Church for over ten years. Here he writes of his love of this site, in its way as complex as the better known Westminster Abbey where he has been Surveyor of the

Fabric since 2012. He was the historic buildings adviser for BBC2’s Restoration series.

p 5 Khaled Juma is a broadcaster and poet, the author of children’s books, plays and song lyrics. Born in Rafa, he now lives in Gaza city and can be followed at @khaledjuma65

p 6 Dr Zaza Johnson Elsheikh writes about interfaith issues from a Baptist-Muslim perspective. With qualifications as both a doctor and a lawyer, she now works as a mediator with Converge for Life.

p 7 Melissa Kite is an author and journalist who writes the regular Real Life column for the Spectator.

p 8 Playwright & actor Justin Butcher conceived and curated the Bethlehem Unwrapped festival at St James’s over Christmas 2013 and New Year 2014. He explores some of the issues that inspired him to write The Devil’s Passion which is being performed at St James’s in Holy Week.

p 10 Angus Stuart has written and presented widely on Thomas Merton and ‘counterculture’, including the Beats and Henry Miller. He is a priest in Vancouver, Canada and performs Mark's Gospel in North America. www.testamentofanakedman.com

p 11 Canadian academic and broadcaster Michael W Higgins has written extensively about Thomas Merton, including Heretic Blood: The Spiritual Geography of Thomas

Merton. He lives in Connecticut.

p 12 Hussain Waseem is a Student Governor and Vice President of City of Westminster College Council, where he also finds time to study. He writes about his participation in Citizens UK’s action on voter registration, targeting minorities and young people in particular.

p 14 Jennifer Kavanagh is a Quaker who has worked in almost every area of publishing. Since leaving her literary agency, she has authored six works of non fiction. Her first novel, The Emancipation of B, is published by Roundfire Books.

p 15 Head verger Ashley Ashworth has worked at St James’s Church for nearly 18 years.

Mick Twister’s daily limericks can be followed at @twitmericks. He is the author of There Was An Old Geezer Named Caesar. His Biblical limericks are exclusive to 197 Piccadilly.

p 16 Intrepid market investigator Leah Hoskin is a writer and actor who trained at the Bristol Old Vic.

p 17 Sarah Day works in the Royal Geological Society and explains why 2015 has been dubbed ‘The Year of Mud’.

“Welcome to the Spring edition of our magazine!

William Blake, who was baptised in our font in 1757, had a theory of ‘contraries’. He declared that ‘Without contraries there is no progression’ and could have been writing about contemporary Piccadilly with its paradoxes and opposites all around us.

In this spirit of contraries, we are honouring the centenary of the influential poet and writer Thomas Merton by looking at his legacy in relation to two radical writers, William Blake, who influenced him, and also to Henry Miller, who is perhaps a less obvious pairing. But these two men, so apparently opposite, had more in common than one might think.

As a comment on his play, The Devil’s Passion, Justin Butcher brings the character of Satan centre stage at Easter, and asks what an examination of the Devil has to teach a contemporary audience.

Perhaps most ‘contrary’ of all, in these times of polarising public conversations about faith, we have an interview with the remarkable Zaza Johnson Elsheikh who describes herself as a Baptist-Muslim and sees no conflict between following the teachings of both Mohammed and Jesus. Her ability to unify and fuse makes hers an inspiring life and a provocative voice.

As always, these articles are intended to challenge and to encourage debate, rather than to tell anyone what to think. We hope you enjoy it, and look forward to your comments and feedback. And from all of us at St James’s, we wish you a blessed Holy Week and Easter.

Lucy Winkett, Rector, St James’s Church

First Thoughts

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197 Piccadilly is edited by a team led by Lucy Winkett and Jo Hines. From an original idea by Sandra Heavenstone.

The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those held by St James’s Church.

This magazine is viewable online. Visit our website: www.sjp.org.uk

Twitter: @StJPiccadilly

We welcome letters and feedback.

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Volume 7 Spring 2015 © 197 Piccadilly and contributors 2015

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”

The glory of God is a person fully alive - St Irenaeus, 1st Century AD

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A Cathedral Precinct in MiniaturePtolemy Dean reflects on his long association with St James’s, and the challenges and vision that inform his approach to the development of this historic site.

Although I work with other, larger places, which may be better known to some, the challenges of St James’s and its campus are just as complex.

As inspecting architect of the church for over ten years, it is impossible for me not to form a close bond with the place. In my case that relationship began when at the age of ten I was asked to sing a solo from the upper gallery at my grandfather's memorial service. I fear the result was not as tuneful as many who perform in the church these days, but it earned an honorary mention in The Times, which was sufficient to irritate the school's music teacher - who did not rate my musical abilities.

I always think of the church not as just the single building by Wren, lovingly remade after the war by Richardson, but as a grouping of other buildings and spaces which create a special sense of place. Visiting the church is always uplifting, and it somehow represents an older flavour of London which the bland, new and expensive office blocks around St James's Square and the brash commercial chain stores around Piccadilly Circus have not yet erased. St James’s is a place to come whether you have money or not.

In our work on the church, we have been keen to return some of the old warmth of the seventeenth century back to the building with its soft red brick walls. Re-roofing in terracotta clay tiles took six years to achieve the necessary consents, but it has seemingly made the church kinder in appearance. The recent decision to make the redecorated railings along the Piccadilly frontage a dark green rather than standard (and perhaps somewhat depressing) black has also had similar effect. The eventual interior redecoration will hopefully allow similar relatively modest but transforming ‘tweaks' to enable the beauty of Wren’s light and proportions to shine out more brightly.

With the wider site planning, there is a real opportunity to extend the sense of church into the wider place. Andrew Mawson, site development adviser, has suggested it might feel more like a Greek monastery – and I think that I know what he means; a sense of the sacred, the enclosed, and perhaps also the unexpected delight of having stumbled into it.

For this to work, the linkages between buildings and external areas need to be improved. Again, this is not dramatic reconstruction, but in some ways a radical reworking of the existing structures. At the

same time, the entrances and passageways into the site needs to define more clearly the feeling of arrival into a world slightly different to that which surrounds it.

St James’s is in effect a cathedral precinct in miniature, with the exquisite Wren masterpiece at its heart.

The church is always uplifting. It represents an older flavour of London which the bland, new office blocks around St James’s Square and the brash commercial chain stores around Piccadilly Circus have not yet erased.

Colour sketch of St James's Church From the Rectory Roof by Ptolemy Dean

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Rascal Children

Oh rascal children of Gaza.You who constantly disturbed mewith your screams under my window.You who filled every morningwith rush and chaos.You who broke my vase andstole the lonely flower on my balcony.

Come back, and scream as you wantand break all the vases.Steal all the flowers.

Come back…Just come back…

Khaled Juma

Photo credit, Mohammed AbedGaza City, February 2015


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What Conflict?At a time when the gulf between religions seems to be growing apace, Zaza Johnson ElSheikh has embraced two faith traditions with ease.

Q You have described yourself as a Baptist-Muslim. How did this come

about?

A My mother is Jamaican born and a Baptist Christian. My father is

Sudanese and a Sunni Muslim. My plural experience and teaching has not caused me any internal doctrinal dilemmas. Although the oneness of God is fundamental in Islam, and Jesus is considered a prophet and not God, being a follower of Jesus and Mohammed has enriched my spirituality endlessly.

My parents met in London where I was born. We relocated to Khartoum, Sudan when I was five years old.

I recall frequently being asked what faith I had taken. Sensing the pressure to conform, I would exclaim, ‘Muslim of course!’ although I had not yet received any teaching about Islam. The next question would be a rather more guarded question about if my mother had converted yet!

I had no Islamic teaching until secondary school. I was convinced by Islamic teachings that the Quran is the third and last edition of God’s guidance to humankind.

I chose, to my parents’ and all my friends’ horror, to wear the Hijab, which was strongly frowned upon at that time.

I came to England to study A-levels at 16. I lived with my maternal grandparents who were very displeased with the Hijab and fasting Ramadan, but we prayed together in Baptist style on a daily basis too. I had not attended a mosque in Khartoum, and Forest Gate in East London provided me with my first opportunity! I continued to attend church with my maternal grandparents every Sunday.

Q How has your dual identity affected your life?

A It has meant that I am entirely familiar with prejudice from both camps and

therefore can sit comfortably in a place of valuing ‘other’ and building dialogue between people who have extremely different views. I think communities need to move away from promoting ‘tolerance’ of others and move towards ‘valuing’ others.

Q How do other people of faith regard you?

A Challenges to my plural perspective have included that I cannot

consider myself to be a Baptist unless I rely on Jesus for my salvation rather than God, or that my belief that Jesus is a prophet and not God would also preclude me from Christianity. I believe that Christian references to the Trinity are not polytheistic but simply different manifestations of God. Interestingly, there are 99 names for Allah within the Islamic traditions!

Q How do you think efforts at interfaith dialogue have been affected by recent

events?

APlurality was envisaged and the promotion of dialogue between

different tribes and nations is endorsed in the Quran. The word Torah is

mentioned eighteen times and is confirmed as The Word Of God but cautions that it has been modified by man over time.

God also anticipated conflict within and between communities. He provides us with opportunities for personal growth and reflection, respect to be given unconditionally and forgiveness to be granted mercifully. Listening to, and valuing ‘others’, can achieve these virtues. I anticipate that as the secular voices of freedom of speech get louder, faith communities will be keener to actively collaborate with each other, so as to develop a counter-narrative to faith-driven violence. Many second-generation immigrants are feeling wary. Although they identify with being British, the indigenous population becomes awkward around them when international tragedies are linked to Islam.

Q Can you say a little bit about the effect the birth of your son had on

your views?

A I was always ambitious to become a medical doctor. However, I also

relished the prospect of early motherhood. I decided to achieve both whilst at university so that I wouldn’t be left behind by having children once I started on the career ladder. As an avid planner, I was delighted with being married and six months pregnant before sitting my final Medical exams.

Zaza at 'Knead for Peace' event at St James's Church, February 2015

Zaza with her mother in Hampstead 1972


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All was well until my second child Ali was born whilst I was completing my housemanship. He was severely disabled. We were advised that he was unlikely to talk or walk. This was not part of my plan at all! I turned away from God briefly in anger and disbelief. A few days later, I returned to him broken by helplessness, desperation and fear.

It took years of self-reflection and prayer for me to come to terms with the change that my son brought to my life. I reverted to my old habits of precise planning and taking control of my destiny.

Ali is 18 years old now and whilst he is the only one of our three children who is completely bilingual (English and Arabic), I am certain that further faith-testing challenges lie ahead of us and I pray that I will remain steadfast throughout.

Q You’re a lawyer and a doctor? How do these two professions relate to

each other and impact on your working life now?

A I worked as a medical doctor for three years and as a Clinical Negligence

solicitor thereafter. Winning defence cases for doctors and dentists satisfied my competitive trait. By 2004, I could not bear the reality that for me to win, someone else, usually a family living with disability would need to lose. I continued to live their pain and anguish and thought that mediation would make the best use of my professional skills.

I have developed a very wide practice since then and became an arbitrator too. I use my analytical and therapeutic skills to work with adults and children who are consumed by conflict.

Looking after Ali has sharpened my listening skills and attention to non-verbal communication – what a blessing!

Zaza was in conversation with Jo Hines

The Promise to St. Catherine

This is part of a charter, allegedly ratified by the prophet Mohammed, granting protection to the monks in Sinai. The

first and final sentences are critical, as they make the promise eternal and universal. ZJE

“This is a message from Mohammed ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them.

Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them.

No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses.Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God’s covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate.No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants.

No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world).”

An Ad Executive acting for a fried chicken company visits the Archbishop of Canterbury and tells him that his client will give the church £250 million if he changes the Lord’s Prayer from ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘Give us this day our daily chicken’.

The Archbishop refuses so the magnate raises the offer to £300 million. He still refuses, so the offer is raised to £400 million at which the Archbishop caves in and accepts.

The Archbishop calls the bishops together to tell them what’s happened.

‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news,’ he says. ‘The good news is that we’ve just made £400 million. The bad news is we lost the Hovis account.’

Fowl Play

Zaza with her family in Sudan 1973


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Not so long ago, a play attempting to explore the nature of good and evil through the character

of the Devil might have seemed quaintly old-fashioned. Marx and Freud having delivered us (in the inexorable march of human progress) from the superstitious language of yesteryear, the Devil was surely no more than exotic metaphor for a fundamentally psychological analysis of human frailty.

Now, with the rise of new and ever more toxic forms of extremism in the Middle East and Europe, the proliferation of violence, state-sponsored and freelance, in many parts of the world, economic insecurity shaking the structures of developed and developing countries, and shocking revelations of corruption in many arenas of public life (not to mention wars, rumours of wars, pestilence and environmental devastation), perhaps the spiritual reality of evil no longer seems an outmoded and superstitious concept.

One needs to be careful, however, as there is no monopoly on such language. When the WMD charade collapsed, the ‘unique evil’ of Saddam Hussein’s regime was cited, post facto, as justification for the Bush-Blair catastrophe in Iraq. In turn, the followers of Isis, perpetrating crucifixions, immolations and other unspeakable cruelties in their ‘holy war’, view the West as the ‘Great Satan’.

Carl Jung thought and wrote a lot about the shadow dimension of the soul – the unlived forces of the psyche which, if banished or denied, can become demonic. St Paul wrote about our struggle with the ‘principalities and powers’ – spiritual entities which exercise a palpable influence in human affairs. In our own era, thinkers such as the American activist and theologian Walter

The Devil's PassionJustin Butcher rethinks the Devil for a contemporary audience in his new play about Satan at Easter.

Carl Jung wrote a lot about the shadow dimension of the soul – the unloved forces of the psyche which, if banished or denied, can become demonic.

Wink have done much to illuminate our understanding of the ‘powers’, the presiding spirits or daemons of corporations, institutions and cultures which hold sway in today’s world.

In his recent book, Tokens of Trust, Rowan Williams, grappling with the question of miracles, writes: ‘All we know is that we are called to pray, to trust and to live with integrity before God in such a way as to leave the door open, to let things come together so that love can come through.’ Of course things can also ‘come together’ in such a way that evil can ‘come through.’ The Passion – the suffering and death of Jesus – seems to me to be a moment (one might say, the moment) when absolute love and absolute evil ‘come through’, and a cosmic battle ensues.

Walter Wink criticised the widespread doctrine of ‘substitutionary atonement’ –

in which the innocent Son is murdered to placate the Father’s anger against human sin - as a corruption of the Gospel, and a contributory factor to the ‘myth of redemptive violence’ which blights our political, economic and religious life. But for the first thousand years of Christianity, a completely different understanding of the Passion obtained: the doctrine of ‘Christus Victor’, in which Christ – like Aslan in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe – ransoms himself for humanity, held captive by the powers of darkness, and wins a final victory over them, turning evil on its head.

In response to new terrors, we invariably want to erect walls, fences, barriers, new systems of surveillance – but the Passion story seems to be all about tearing them down. Jesus tears down the barriers between clean and unclean, sacred and taboo, oppressor and victim, even between life and death themselves. At the climax of his suffering, all the barriers are dissolved: the sky turns black, the graves yield up their dead and the Temple curtain, age-old separation between God and sinful humanity, is torn irrevocably from top to bottom.

The mediaeval Mystery Plays depict movingly the ‘harrowing of Hell, in which Jesus descends

to the Underworld to break down its walls and set free the captive souls. Then, on the third day, he breaches the final frontier, bursting forth from the sealed tomb into new life. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King wrote of his satisfaction at being labelled an ‘extremist’: ‘Was not Jesus an extremist for love? Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you …’

Easter is the victory of the extremist – Christus Victor, the extremist for love, on a suicide mission. ‘He only could unlock the gate/Of heaven and let us in,’ goes the old Good Friday hymn, but in fact at Easter, Jesus unlocks the gates of hell and lets us out.

The Devil's Passion is being performed at St James's Church 31st March and 1st April

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Good Friday on aGreek Island

A day of tears I was told. It will be different soon. Now we have the tears. And so we have. From the PA systems of the many churches scriptures are broadcast in sonorous, geologically patriarchal voices. Everywhere bougainvillea and lemons cascade and riot. We are in death in the midst of life. In the streets woman cross themselves fervently as if in a crashing aircraft. There is a genuine, wholly unexpected and foreign sense of anxiety.

I ask a shopkeeper about the day. He said, ‘Christ died today,’ and shook his head as if the news was fresh, and, hadn’t I heard? But also, beneath the shock: what’s to become of us? It’s as if they were in Act 1 of the Passion and had no idea there were two acts to come. And over and throughout, bells: a measured two-tone service for the dead.

After a long wait on the town’s packed quay, the lights are dimmed. Spectators and participants bear candles. From every church in succession a group arrives, the girls garlanded with white flowers. A band precedes them, stopping every hundred yards or so. It’s a very slow march. But as each group passes they are singing the same song as the previous so there is overall the effect of a canon being sung. In the midst of them is the Tomb, held at shoulder height, constructed from flowers, and in the tomb, a scripture. A simple cross too.

I took a few sound recordings. During the first a young boy burst into tears and buried his head in my thigh. I think it was mine; we were sardined. Not existential anguish at the prospect of the world barren of Christ; he’d been denied ice cream. Important though. It is on the anvil of ice cream denied that Gnostics and atheists are forged.

Aphaia

‘The devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist … ’ This quote has been attributed to many, but was first set down by Baudelaire in an 1864 short story ‘Le Jouer généreux’. Its most recent reincarnation was in the film The Usual Suspects, 1995.

One of the devil’s many synonyms is Beelzebub (II Kings 1.2) where it appears as Baal-zebub. This has been translated as ‘Lord of the flies’, hence the title of William Golding’s 1954 novel about fiendish schoolboys on a desert island.

The idea of making a pact with the devil recurs frequently in myth (see under Faust). The most famous 20th century example was the blues player Robert Johnson, apparently a mediocre guitarist until he made a pact with the devil at the crossroads of Highways 49 and 61 in Mississippi. He recorded a few stunning songs before dying at the age of 27.

Lucifer translates as ‘lightbringer’ (hence the matches) – the angel of the morning before his fall.

The Devil is in the Detail

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. Mary Oliver

Primitive Devil

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Henry Miller, controversial author of such books as Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, recognized Thomas Merton as a kindred spirit, even remarking

on their physical resemblance and saying that Merton too had the look of ‘ex-convict, of one who has been through the fires’. In 1961, he went so far as to say that he felt closer to Merton ‘than any other American author I know of ’. For his part, Thomas Merton regarded Miller as ‘a very good friend of mine’ and described him as ‘a kind of secular monk with a sexual mysticism’.

They never met, and were in correspondence with each other only for a short time (1962-1964) after Miller had sent Merton a card saying how moved he was by Merton’s satirical poem about Hiroshima, ‘Original Child Bomb’. They had been aware of each other’s work for some time. Although Merton hadn’t read

either of the Tropics, he had read The Colossus of Maroussi (‘a tremendous and important book,’ says Merton) and Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. Reading Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander and others published in the early 1960s, it is easy see why these books would have resonated with Merton. He commented on Miller’s Stand Still Like the Hummingbird, ‘All that you say seems to me as obvious as if I had said it myself and you have said it better than I ever could.’

The outward resemblance they recognized in each other’s faces reflected an inward kinship of spirit and outlook. Born 24 years apart (Miller b. 1891; Merton b. 1915),

they shared a disillusionment with the way western civilization unfolded in the first half of the twentieth century, apparent in the ambivalence towards the outbreak of war in 1939 in Miller’s Colossus and Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain. Both books diagnose the war as a symptom of the decay of western civilization, though Merton implicates himself in this in a way that Miller does not. Each rejected the world in which they had

The Ex-Con and the Secular Monk with a Sexual MysticsmAngus F. Stuart explores the unexpected friendship between Thomas Merton and Henry Miller.

grown up and sought to escape. Miller, in the 1920s, fled from New York to Paris where he remained in obscurity and poverty for ten years until gaining notoriety with the publication of Tropic of Cancer. Merton turned to Catholicism and sought sanctuary in the monastery in Kentucky.

Both however experienced a ‘turning back to the world’. For Miller, this came about as a result of his experience in Corfu as related in Colossus, as a kind of rebirth and recommitment to serve the world and a dedication ‘to the recovery of the divinity of man’. For Merton, there was a growing realization during the 1950s that culminated in his famous ‘epiphany’ at the corner of Fourth and Walnut Street in Louisville which was ‘like waking from a dream of separateness’.

Whilst they clearly admired and identified with each other, and revelled in the irony of finding so much congruence in their vision of reality, they were living

very different lives: Merton as the cloistered monk steeped in the community life and discipline of prayer; Miller living quietly as he pleased in his paradise at Big Sur, sometimes with wife and children. Merton was not so much an ex-con as a convict by choice, living in his cell as if in paradise; though on his journeys beyond the monastery in the last year of his life – to California, New Mexico, Alaska, Asia – he perhaps experienced the feeling of being an ex-con on parole. Merton’s description of Miller as ‘a kind of secular monk with sexual mysticism’ seems accurate; Miller lived his life with the conviction of a monk, but a monk very much in and of the world, and the ‘sexual mysticism’ perhaps denotes Miller’s reaching for the sublime and eternal rooted in the sensual experience of the world; physical reality as the entry point for spiritual encounter; the recovery of the divine within humanity through human life fully lived.

The outward resemblance they recognised in each other’s faces reflected an inward kinship of spirit and outlook.

Oveheard at Piccadilly: "Normally when I go into church my ears start to bleed. But I’ll hang on …" A celebrity reader at the 2014 Quintessentially concert.

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Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, poet, social critic and public intellectual (1915-1968)

was especially indebted to William Blake. In fact, Merton became the twentieth-century heir to Blake’s vision and poetics.

There is congruence of history, biography and temperament between the two: they were both poets and visual artists; each of them had a special bond with a brother who died young: Blake’s brother Robert, who probably died of consumption, and John Paul Merton, killed during the Second World War. Both Merton and Blake possessed the spiritual qualities of the biblical prophet and rebel: the capacity for righteous anger mingled with insight.

The more striking congruence, however, can be found in their shared strategy of vision. Both accepted the reality of the Fall—of a sundered humanity, riven by false oppositions—which must be overcome by a new and higher unity: Universal Man; Four-Fold Vision; Jesus

Christ. For Blake, the Fall is best seen in the fragmented state of each individual human. In Blake’s mythology every human consists of four components, each struggling for ascendency over the others: Urizen (Reason), Urthona (Wisdom), Luvah (Emotion), and Tharmas (Instinct).

Merton’s poetic and spiritual vision—best realised in his two anti-poetic Blakean epics Cables to the Ace and The Geography of Lograire—consists of his central 'myth-dream': the disunity of the word/world and its reparation by the poet; the role of silence in this lifelong act of reparation; the tyranny of intellection or cerebration (Urizen) and its

Poetic and Spiritual VisionariesMichael W Higgins explores the importance of William Blake in the development of Thomas Merton’s thought.

Both Merton and Blake possessed the qualities of the prophet and rebel: the capacity for righteous anger mingled with insight.

Blake is critical to understanding Merton

dethronement by ‘archaic wisdom;’ the ultimate realization of Blake’s Four-Fold Vision, which is imaginative and spiritual integration/wholeness.

Blake is critical to understanding Merton. The monk of

Gethsemani acknowledged as much in his Secular Journal as well as in his celebrated autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, where he noted that Blake brought him into the Roman Catholic Church—‘I have to acknowledge

my own debt to him, and the truth which may appear curious to some, although it is not really so: that through Blake I would come, in a roundabout way, to the only true Church.’ (Merton penned this during his ‘triumphalist’ Catholic phase)

But Blake didn’t figure only in Merton’s thought—the subject of his master’s thesis at Columbia University, allusions and references to Blake’s art and spirituality peppered throughout his correspondence and diary entries, his insightful review essay on Death of God theologian Thomas Altizer’s reading of Blake and the new apocalypse—he also figured most prominently, constitutively and creatively in his poetry.

The Geography of Lograire, his last poetic work—published posthumously and fragmentary and incomplete in form—was, in keeping with its Blakean inspiration, a poetic and historical-anthropological treatment of the visionary mode of life conceived as a way of redressing the perilous imbalance caused by the domination in Western society of the abstractionist heritage of Bacon, Locke, and Newton, Blake’s dread troika.

In the end, Blake helps us to understand Merton and he helped Merton to understand himself. In

short, Merton is a Blakean character, the contours of his personal geography of mind and spirit mapped by Blake himself.

'The world, where every particle of dust breathes forth its joy.' William Blake

ECONOMIES of SCALE by mick twister

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Why do so few young people actually care about the future of their country?’ Ask any of my friends that and they’d tell you that is not the case. Yet, reality

would beg to differ; less than half of 18 to 24 year olds voted in the last General Election, so it’s understandable why my generation doesn’t have the best of reputations.

A common question amongst some young people today is ‘why should I care about politics?’ As citizens, politics affects everything we care about, such as family, friends, education, salaries, our economy, poverty… war. This raises a point that there is hardly any emphasis in many schools on teaching teenagers how to engage the political system (there wasn’t in my secondary school). This should change; politics is important and should be held to a higher degree of significance.

Those of us flamboyant enough to WANT a say in how our country is run, will be made to feel completely out of place as some politicians take advantage of the lack of youth participation by giving the majority voters (pensioners/older people) better policy choices which would get them more votes

The Great Voting Turn-OffIn February 2015 Citizens UK was one of seven Third Sector organisations, also including Mencap and Operation Black Vote, to be given a grant to encourage young people to vote. Here Hussain Waseem explains why this is necessary.

while they throw young people to the wolves. I mean, you can’t blame them, politicians work for votes, but you have to consider just how disheartening this is on the young people willing to participate.

It seems that my generation is taking longer to grow up than those in the past, maybe because of all the distractions that surround us thanks to technology; it’s pretty easy to lose interest in things that don’t immediately cry out for our attention. Far too many people can mistakenly look past matters of great importance simply because they seem too tedious, uninteresting, or too demanding.

Aside from that, hardly anyone trusts politicians, even though we elect these people to essentially run our entire country. Instead of ‘vote for the party you would

like to come into power the most’, it’s more ‘vote for the party that is the least fraudulent and dishonest’. Can we really fully blame our youth in finding it difficult to participate in how our country is run when the way things are now makes any effort to do so seem futile?

‘

JC met the multitude's wishesWith only five loaves and two fishes.Five thousand were fedBut no one has saidWho ended up doing the dishes.


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My favourite parable is the one about the camel passing through the eye of a needle easier than a rich person can enter heaven.I am especially fond of repeating it to myself when I am sitting in a half-heated flat trying to break even after the usual

year-opening financial horrors.At least I’m on the ultimate guest list, I think, as I weigh up car insurance renewals and parking permit demands and all the other fiscal traumas that assail those of us in the earthly kingdom known as Middle Britain as the year gets into full swing.The Almighty is certainly not leaving anything to chance. In order to make sure I get through the pearly gates He has, in the last month, arranged for a £300 demand for unfathomable extra charges from Vodafone and a vet bill of £650 for a tiny cut to my younger horse’s hind leg.When I start feeling crushed by it all I just have to remember - the meek shall inherit the earth, which is nice, as the character in the Monty Python movie pointed out, because the meek have a hell of a time.The point about the love of money being the root of all evil is an interesting one in our times of austerity. But I do wonder.It’s all very well David Cameron telling people that what really counts is GWB not GDP - General Wellbeing not Gross Domestic Product - but is that genuinely what he thinks? Or is he telling us all to content ourselves with having our health, a smile on our faces and quality time with the kiddies because we’re all in low-paid, part-time work because he can’t make the economy grow?Also, it does seem to be the well-heeled who make these sweeping declarations about money not mattering.In my new novel, The Girl Who Couldn’t Stop Arguing, published this April (a crude plug I know, but I need the book sales) one of the main characters is a fabulously wealthy, eccentric widow who is fond of declaring that money means nothing to her.‘Like most rich people who say this she would have started caring about it pretty quickly if it disappeared,’ the narrator concludes.As I sit here at my increasingly cranky old laptop, I often wonder how I would feel if I had lots of dough. I only want enough to buy a cottage in the country with three acres and two stables, so I can save on my livery bills. That would be my official demand to God, if I were to practice the ‘golden key’ technique recommended by Emmet Fox.A friend of mine who inherited a fortune from her deceased mother after ‘golden keying’ what she wanted from her will tells me to ‘just golden key it’ every time I say I can’t afford something. I have to restrain myself from telling her where I think she ought to shove her golden key.I don’t ask for anything material in my prayers because the nuns at school always told us not to make selfish demands, on pain of damnation.In any case, receiving money you haven’t earned looks pretty dangerous. Those lottery winners always seem to end up destitute in crack dens. I’m sure that winning a ‘life-changing’ amount of money would finish me off.I suspect it is only fear of the wolf at the door that makes me leap out of bed.Consequently, I have never done the Lottery. I have Lotteraphobia: fear of suddenly coming into large amounts of money.When I was a student, and the National Lottery had just been launched, we played something in our halls of residence called ‘the lottery of doom’, whereby we all put £1 in a hat and wrote down numbers but didn’t enter the actual draw. The idea was that if our numbers came up we would want to top ourselves. But every week when they didn’t come up we felt lucky and blessed. And the person who got nearest to the winning ticket took the contents of the hat. So unlike the poor souls who actually played the Lottery, a tax on the poor if ever there was one, we were always winners in spirit. And isn’t that what counts?

A Guest List to Die ForMellissa Kite on why she won't be doing the lottery, however much the sums don't add up.


Clutter-busting FriendsJennifer Kavanagh enjoys a burst of spring-cleaning, Society of Friends style.

BILE ON THE NILE by mick twister

There was an old ancient EgyptianWho put God in quite a conniptionAnd so paid the priceWith frogs, locusts, lice,Disasters of every description.

We've been de-cluttering Quakers!

No mean task as Quakerism, like any other faith organisation, has accrued structures and practices that could be seen as muddying or diluting the power and simplicity of the original faith.

In December, a dozen Quakers from various parts of the country spent a weekend at the Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham. The main focus of our time together was on what we value, what we want to keep, so that it would be easier to see what gets in the way. During the weekend we considered worship, our business meetings, witness and service, and community. Both as individuals and corporately, we addressed the question: ‘If you were accused of being a Quaker, would there be enough evidence to convict you?’

After a warm-up speed-dating exercise of sharing what we value about Quakers, we entered into a visioning meditation. What would a transformed Religious Society of Friends look like in its pure and powerful essence? We were not seeking to go back to how it was in the early days, for we live in a different world, but trying to build on the foundations of early Friends, as if we inherited their passion, their clarity and commitment; as if we truly ‘inhabited’ our tradition. In other words, making Quakerism fit for the 21st century and beyond. At the heart of most visions were increased joy and more loving relationships.

On Saturday night, we had a game of Room 101, when we all had a chance to discard anything that we felt got in the way. We plucked bits of paper out of a basket and discussed each in turn. After successfully binning ‘smugness’, ‘consultation over everything’ and ‘the meeting house clock’, an evening that was meant to be a bit of light relief

plunged us into the depths of Britain Yearly Meeting (the organisation of British Quakers) and our nominations process. Only lack of time saved central committees and meeting houses from the scalpel of our discernment …

But in laughter as well as serious discussion, what the evening and the weekend did enable us to do was to open up consideration of how some fundamental processes and structures might be revised.

On the final morning we re-visited our visions, and each read out what for us would be the next step in getting it realised.

So that's Quakers sorted. Next?

Both as individuals and corporately, we addressed the question: ‘If you were accused of being a Quaker, would there be enough evidence to convict you?’

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Oh God, and I mean oh yes please God, who art the author of spring and lover of summer, in the certain knowledge that autumn will follow, whose service will

end in winter, send down upon us, Lord, the weather – without Tomasz Schafernaker.The policemen look younger, the technology gets more dangerous, I know I’m immaturing towards retirement, so – is it me, or have we completely lost it as a grown-up country with regard to meteorological forecasting?

I know global warming is a reality, but anyone with half a brain must by now have inured themselves to every colour code of weather warning, every dramatic sweep of the weather men and women as they pose in tasteful arabesques beside rampaging fronts or whoop over a chart of swirling arrows and vortices – A CHART THAT WE ALL KNOW ISN’T EVEN THERE! I’ve been invited to stare at raindrops and snowflakes in globes, sombre figures, smiling suns peeping from behind cartoon clouds, potent signifiers to be solemnly consulted like animal entrails for signs of how the climate may affect the moral purpose of my day, and from which even my dog is capable of discerning that today will be wet and cloudy, or sunny and cold. But something further is afoot in the murky, some say arcane, relationship between the Met Office and the BBC. The inanity threat level has been raised to high; the intelligence pressure has dropped like a stone, and we are at present threatened by a whole weather system of unctuous chumminess, startled

Weather Warningearnestness and hysterical shrieking, as giant black spiders with red eyes assault the beaches and landing stages of our island nation, waved on by the fearless forecasters in hitherto unprecedented displays of Tai Chi. To be followed by your favourite holiday snaps of a clear blue sky over dead trees, and a suitably gender-neutral couple under a red umbrella as they survive trial by weather because – hey, a problem shared is a problem doubled.

What next – ‘Weather Forecast – the Movie’?

I pray for the day when the sun will lie down with the raindrop, and the moon makes its peace with the tide, and we are granted eternal rest – from the weather forecast.

Until then – do take care out there.

Rant-Anon

We did a quick and totally unrepresentative vox pop to discover what St James’s might usefully consign to ROOM 101

The pew lights

People banging on about the 1662 prayer book all the time

Worship songs

Our stained glass window. And incense

Our stained glass window. But not incense

My neighbours upstairs (disqualified)

Any meeting with a power point presentation

Unrepresentative vox pops about Room 101

Overheard at Piccadilly: Leadership is the art of disappointing people at a rate they can cope with


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Piccadilly PeopleAshley Ashworth comes to the end of his time as head verger and reflects on what nearly two decades at St James’s have meant in his life.

Who am I without St James’s? That’s a really exciting thought. And I want to find out.

When I started work here, the only experience I’d had of church was a couple of years

with a charismatic/evangelical church in my early teens, which was a painful experience: a whole list of do's and dont's which weren’t liveable. And because I couldn’t live up to it, I was a ‘bad’ person. Doomed. Somewhere in my gut I realised, that’s not right, even though for years after I carried on believing it. That kind of Christianity is so about Right and Wrong and there’s no room for grey – and actually the spiritual life is all about the grey. They put being a gay man down to being demonically possessed – a destructive and foolish thing to say to an impressionable teenager. I just walked away.

I went to drama school and did well there, but it didn’t work out. I ended up working in the box office of Raymond’s Revue Bar in Soho for about three years. Towards the end it was a tough time, personally. But once a week I worked a split shift and had three hours to wander round London. I stumbled into this place. I also found the caravan for drop-in counselling and I started to visit one of the counsellors regularly. One of the things I would do during this time was to go into the church and light a candle. And I said to God – because I always believed in God – I don’t really know what to do, but all I know is that however shit life is, I’m just going to come here and light this candle and say life is shit. There was something in that ritual – because ritual is important to me. Things got quite sharply worse for me personally. I was really struggling to cope, and then circumstances changed because of my work with the counsellor, and I gradually started to feel a bit better.

I met Richard, one of the vergers here, when I used to sit in the prayer corner. And then one day he said, there’s a job here going, would you be interested in applying for it? I’d had enough of working

in Soho, because when you work there for a long time you see behind the facade. There’s a lot of people who are on the rough end of life in Soho, and the sex industry is ultimately quite a bleak place. I thought, yeah, I’ll apply.

And it was the same gut feeling that’s now telling me to leave. As I leave – I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years – I realise I’m leaving a huge part of my life. I’m leaving home. I’ve grown up at St James’s.

I hadn’t a clue what was in store for me. I never thought I’d be here for nearly 18 years. I never thought I’d discover

my faith in the way I’ve discovered it while I’ve been here, and which is obviously ongoing for the rest of my life.

My mum died a few years ago and I remember thinking that was the beginning of a big sea-change for me. We had a strong relationship and there were sensations of acute grief and also a sense of new beginnings. And there’s a strong

link there with leaving Mother Church and my mum no longer being here, wanting to step out into the world and stand on my own two feet. It’s safe, and I want to be a bit unsafe.

One of my thoughts today was, Who am I without St James’s? And that’s really exciting because

part of my identity is tied up with being head verger and being with all you lovely people. And I want to find that out.

But I do have doubts. Someone said to me, it’s funny that you’re leaving at a time when everything is functioning really well, there’s a huge development about to happen, once again it’s moving up another level. I’ve noticed that in my time here, it’s constantly been moving and getting better. Every year, it’s grown. I’ve never found this place stagnant, never.

People have asked me, will I come back as a punter? Maybe. But there is also a feeling of needing to separate. I do need to go. For my sake, for the sake of the people here. And also for the sake of the next head verger. But I will always be a St James’s person.

I’ve found working with Lucy an inspirational experience. I’ll miss that. I’m not likely to have another boss like her again.

And sometimes I think I’ll miss what I sometimes hate. Sometimes I come into work and everyone is, ‘AshleyAshleyAshley!’ But that’s part of the job, and I will miss that.

And I’ll miss the rector’s dog!


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Two stalls, one featuring 19th century pub signs and the other fossils from 500 million years BC, have more in common than one might think: both stall-holders are keen to preserve entirely different aspects of our heritage.

As increasing numbers of pubs close each month, pub signs might one day be all that remains to witness their existence. And fossils! How else would we know that the Trilobites were the earliest form of recognisable life to have eyesight?

Colin Busby is an enthusiast about the origin of his brightly-coloured pub signs; not decorative merely, they offer a glimpse of London’s history. For instance, the sign for The Dirty Dick was originally displayed in 17th century Liverpool Street. After Richard Bentley’s fiancée died, he refused to clean either himself or his warehouse. Legend has it that letters addressed either to ‘Dirty Dick’ or to ‘The Dirty Warehouse’ were delivered successfully. The alehouse which was later established there apparently also cultivated cobwebs and dirt; the pub still exists but its relics are confined to a glass case.

The Jack the Ripper changed its name to The Ten Bells as perhaps more inviting , there are signs depicting The Cutty Sark at Greenwich, The Charles Dickens,The Churchill, a tongue-in-cheek sign for The Honest Lawyer, and a sign for The Nags Head depicts a woman bridled as a scold!

If you feel you are familiar with ammonites, wait until geographer and geologist Kate Coulter takes apart an ordinary looking stone about the size of a small child’s fist and displays within each half an ammonite trapped in stone, black but shining like gold. Then examine a larger more familiar ammonite impressed in stone: beautiful, yes – but when it is described as the Golden Ratio beloved by geologists and a muse for sculptors, it takes on yet another dimension, a marvel in Nature.

To handle a Jurassic period shark's tooth, to gaze at a tower of sparkling amethyst crystal or touch fossilised plants which have a character now totally their own, is to wonder at the ongoing process of creation.

As anyone who has children, plays sports or enjoys long walks in the countryside will know, mud gets everywhere. It flows in rivers, turns into rock, and is used to manufacture all manner of household objects. Ancient mud deposits can preserve evidence of past life, or even become sources of petroleum.

In 2015, mud is taking centre stage in the first of the Geological Society of London’s themed years, providing the subject matter for a range of meetings and events.

‘The Year of Mud is an opportunity for us to celebrate mud in all its forms’ says Professor David Manning, the Society’s President. ‘Mud is a fundamental part of the geological system...We pay attention to the way in which it forms, through weathering and hydrothermal processes, and then how it works its way through the system through erosion and deposition.’

‘It is a source of materials that we value – petroleum, metals, bricks, fine china, paper....’

A Market in HistoryHolding the past in your palm. Leah Hoskin talks to two stall-holders in Piccadilly Market whose wares lead us back in time.

Glorious MudSarah Day explains why MUD is taking centre stage at the Royal Geological Society this year.

There are many places in the UK to see evidence of the role mud plays in our geology. From the glacial till exposures on the Northumberland and County Durham coast, to the mudstones of the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, mud is all around us in various stages of being lithified – turned into rock. And there are still many unanswered scientific questions surrounding mud, from the chemistry of clay mineral formation to the process by which clays and muds become mudstones.

As well as providing the subject matter for a number of our scientific meetings this year, from fossil preservation to shale gas exploration, mud will be the topic of several of our public talks at Burlington House. Wellington boots not required!

To find out more about the programme of events, visit www.geolsoc.org.uk/mud15, or visit our blog (blog.geolsoc.org.uk) for interviews, podcasts and mud themed articles

Overheard in Piccadilly: In the Church of England ‘confidentiality’ means only telling one person at a time.

PICCADILLY EYE

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Music Across the Divide

On Thursday 4th June St James’s Church hosts a concert of works from the Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions. The Berakah Project was set up by a group of distinguished musicians to promote dialogue and understanding, and to cross boundaries of race, religion and culture through the arts.

Woven Echoes

During London Craft Week, 7–14 May, weaver Catarina Riccabono will set up her loom in St James's Church and weave a series of samples in response to the Grinling Gibbons carving behind the altar. Catarina is one of seven craftspeople taking part in the Made in Mayfair project. Each has selected something made in the area that has contributed to Mayfair's rich history. They will share stories, objects and processes as they work in public places during the week. The carving at St. James's fascinated Catarina because it seemed incredible that wood could look so light and airy.

A City ‘Forest’

During Advertising Week Europe, 23–27 March, a fragment of woodland is moving into the courtyard of St James’s Church, courtesy of Heart of England Forest. Felix Dennis’s ambitious vision of creating England’s largest woodland close to centres of population is set to grow and grow.

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MAP DATA© 2014 GOOGLE

Further information at www.sjp.org.uk • 020 7734 4511

SERVICES & EVENTS Sunday 29th March - Sunday 5th April 2015 Palm Sunday 9.15am Eucharist in the side chapel 29th March 11.00am Parish Eucharist with donkey procession and drama of The Passion 6.00pm Choral Evensong • Preacher: The Revd Lindsay Meader Monday 12noon Holding the Silence 30 minutes, in the side chapel 30th March 1.10pm Music for Holy Week: William Dutton violin • Mariko Brown piano. Programme includes Bach - Sonata No.4 in C minor 6.30pm Eucharist with meditation on Mary of Bethany Tuesday 12noon Holding the Silence 30 minutes, in the side chapel 31st March 1.05pm Eucharist in the side chapel 7.00pm The Devil’s Passion or Easter in Hell • a divine comedy in one act written & performed by Justin Butcher • Tickets: £15 (£10 concs) • Tel: 0800 411 8881 • thedevilspassionstjames.bpt.me Wednesday 12.00noon Holding the Silence 30 minutes, in the side chapel 1st April 1.10pm Music for Holy Week: Hüseyin Gündoğdu cello Bach - Cello Suite No.2 • Britten - Lament (from Cello Suite No.1) 7.00pm The Devil’s Passion (details as Tues 31st March) MAUNDY 8.30am Eucharist in the side chapel THURSDAY 12noon Holding the Silence 30 minutes, in the side chapel 2nd April 6.30pm Eucharist with foot-washing • Preacher: The Revd Hugh Valentine GOOD FRIDAY 12noon - 3.00pm The Three Hours service with Scripture, 3rd April music and silence in contemplation of the Crucifixion 7.30pm Music for Holy Week: New London Singers Allegri - Miserere • Rutter - Requiem • Brahms - Geistliches Lied plus works by Lotti, Macmillan, Tavener • Tickets: £28, £24, £10 Tel: 0800 411 8881 • www.brownpapertickets.com

HOLY SATURDAY 7.30pm Vespers 4th April 10.00pm Compline then all-night vigil EASTER DAY 6.10am Easter Dawn Eucharist in the garden 5th April 11.00am Parish Eucharist for Easter Preacher: The Revd Lindsay Meader

HOOOOOWL!

John Russell, St James’s member, is taking part in the gruelling Wolf Run in Warwickshire, Saturday 11 April, as part of a team from Mirfield College of the Resurrection in Yorkshire (he points out the he’s the oldest of the Holy Hounds). John says, ‘If you can support us, then any amount big or small would be very welcome at http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/holyhounds.' The money raised will go to Kirkwood Hospice in Huddersfield.

Another Day Lost

A moving installation inspired by his country’s refugee tragedy is to be displayed at St James’s in July by Syrian artist Issam Kourbaj. Issam writes, ‘This work reflects on the scale of the refugee camps and the story of endless waiting, and not knowing when – if ever – my fellow Syrians will return home.’

From a Newsagent’s Window

Piccadilly Market at St James’s Church

Arts & Crafts • Antiques & Collectables Open Tuesday - Saturday 10.00am - 6.30pm

Good Food Market every Monday

11.00am - 3.00pm

www.piccadilly-market.co.uk

St James’s Church, 197 Piccadilly, London W1J 9LL • 020 7292 4864

• Antique and contemporary jewellery • Ceramics • Glassware • Kitchenware • Knitwear • Leather goods • London souvenirs • Postcards and greetings cards • Prints • Silverware • Soaps and essential oils • Watches

Friday 24 April at 7.30pmA concert to commemorate the centenary of the Armenian GenocideThe SinfoniettaJohan Katz conductorAni Batikian violinChobanian - Komitas: The Tortured SoulHovhaness - Prayer of St GregoryArutunian - Violin ConcertoKomitas - KrunkKhachatourian - Ballet musicMiorzoyan - Symphony for timpani and strings

Saturday 25 April at 7.30pmJOLY BRAGA SANTOS: A PORTUGUESE PORTRAITfeaturing Silk Street Sinfonia PlayersAna Beatriz Ferreira pianoPablo Urbina conductorSchubert - Impromptu No. 3 in G flat Major D.899 Tchaikovsky - Souvenir de FlorenceJoly Braga Santos - Piano Concerto Op.52 (UK & international première)Tickets: £16 (advance) / £18 (on the door) / £8 students

Saturday 16 May at 7.30pmLund University Academic OrchestraPatrik Andersson conductorBeethoven - Fidelio: OvertureNielsen - Little Suite, Op.1Brahms - Symphony No.1

Thursday 21 May at 7pmSPRING SONGSPhoebe Haines sopranoAlison Langer sopranoLawrence Thackeray tenorKeith Beresford pianoTalent Unlimited artists present a life-affirming programme of songs from film and musical theatre inspired by Spring; featuring music by Ivor Novello, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Lerner & Loewe, Franz Lehar, Sigmund Romberg and Michel le Grand

Saturday 23 May at 7.30pmCorinthian Chamber OrchestraBrahms - Tragic OvertureDvořák - Serenade for StringsBrahms - Symphony No. 1Tickets: £17, £15, £10 (NUS, over 60s £3 off)

Friday 3 April at 7.30pmIvor Setterfield conductorAllegri - MiserereMacmillan - Videns DominusTavener – Svyati; As One Who Has Slept; Funeral IkosLotti - Crucifixus a 8Tavener - SvyatiBrahms - Geistliches LiedMacmillan - Mitte Manum TuamRutter – Requiem

Friday 10 April at 8pm (doors open 7.30pm)Chaps ChoirDominic Stitchbury conductorSinging sensation Chaps Choir present a genre crossing set of their best arrangementsTickets: £16, £14 (concessions available)Phone: 0800 411 8881

Saturday 11 April at 7.30pmTredici Choir 10th anniversary concertHandel - Dixit DominusMonteverdi - Beatus VirMozart - Missa Brevis in D (K194) Bainton - And I saw a new HeavenTickets: £15 - £5 (unreserved within each price band)Phone: 0333 666 3366 (booking fee £1.50)

Saturday 18 April at 7.30pmLondon Lawyers’ Symphony OrchestraPablo Urbina conductorAndrew Blankfield pianoBeethoven - Piano Concerto No.5 in E flat, Op.73 ‘Emperor’Nielsen - Symphony No.5, Op.50Tickets: £12

Thursday 23 April at 7.30pmOrchestra of the CityChris Hopkins conductor/pianoProgramme to include:Shostakovich - Festive OvertureBeethoven - Piano Concerto No.1Shostakovich - Symphony No.1Tickets: £12, £8 (advance); £15, £12 (on the door)

Friday 3 April at 7.30pmMUSIC FOR GOOD FRIDAYNew London Singers

MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTSWe mark Holy Week with three concerts which are themed around stillness, contemplation, suffering and loss. The young violinist William Dutton (winner of the string section of the 2014 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition) plays works by Bach at a lunchtime recital on Monday 30 March. On Wednesday 1 April, cellist Hüseyin Gündoğdu plays another lunchtime programme that includes Bach’s Solo Cello Suite No.2 and David Wilde’s intensely moving work ‘The Cellist of Sarajevo’: in 1992 during the Bosnian conflict, 22 people in Sarajevo were killed by a mortar shell as they queued for bread. After this tragedy, Vedran Smailovic, a cellist with the Sarajevo Opera went daily in full evening dress to the spot to play to the memory of the dead, ignoring the risk of sniper or grenade attacks.

On Good Friday at 7.30pm, one of London’s finest choirs, the New London Singers, perform a programme that includes Allegri’s Miserere, works by John Tavener, and Rutter’s sublime Requiem.

Full details of these, and all our concerts, can be found on the events section of our website www.sjp.org.uk, and in our monthly diary.

APRIL AND MAY EVENING CONCERTS

Lunchtime recitals are held on Mondays, Tuesdays an Fridays at 1.10 PM

** PLEASE NOTE THERE WILL BE NO LUNCHTIME RECITALS ON 6 APRIL & 4, 25 MAY **

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