This time of the year one glory after another tumbles into our landscapes. One of them is Cow Parsley Time, and buttercup time, which is just coming now. It should be a good season with all this rain. These two paintings record that time, one in what I remember as the Great White Year. Rory Browne, a fine Christian artist, has a richer selection of cow parsley paintings. Look him up.
Do newspaper editors, writers and owners ever consider that they might harm people? Day in, day out, the “tabloids” in some of their coverage pump out pulp stirring celebrity soup, ripping into politicians without weighing evidence, putting prejudice in people’s hearts, manipulating political issues and elections, consumerizing sex, ignoring life issues, encouraging fight talk, rubbishing other countries and stirring hate. It has been going on at least since the Daily Mail pushed the fake “Zinoviev letter” just before a General Election suggesting the Labour Party in 1924 was in cahoots with Soviet Communism for a revolution. It was a lie which slewed the election and later world politics.
For a number of elections, I looked at several weeks of the Sun’s coverage. It was tired, biased journalism, trying to persuade millions of working class people that they were better off with Tory capitalists. By and large it succeeded. But the quality was appalling. Close to the bottom of the pit was the double page spread where the “Sun” got in a clairvoyant to see how figures from the past would vote. All the heroes – Churchill etc. voted Tory, and Marx, Stalin and John Lennon voted Labour. Yes, you see it immediately. The clairvoyant was some young hack who has not heard of Lenin when he was given the list and was later probably bawled out by the Editor for giving Labour votes. When you have seen that in a newspaper you never recover. This painting says this journalism.
The Sun rubbished politicians who might dent capitalism. Kinnock got the treatment. Gordon Brown was “The Prime Monster” and was bugged when he was tired saying an unkind thing about a voter which threw his election campaign. Clegg was Cleggalomaniac. It was, and maybe is, rubbishing journalism which taints the people who do read it. And the owner, Murdoch, and the Editors know better; they are manipulating. I did another painting reflecting this, but it is in too poor taste to show. This damage in our national life needs naming.
This painting is of the Avenue at Trinity backs as Spring hits. Confess to egging the blue slightly in Cambridge’s direction. It fits the sonnet exactly. The precious metal green, the gold green of Spring oak, I’ve not painted. Each painting is merely a thank-you to God.
SPRING SPRUNG
Here, now, the Spring sprung glory of God’s year,
Reverse explosion from the bombing bud,
Each leaf exhaling new born oxygen,
Unpackaged to fragility in air.
Trees turn to green from amber, blossom white,
To go another ring unseen in trunk
From roots frenetic to the highest bough.
The precious metal green of spreading oak
Sits by the black knob ash, all fiddly now
Before the mass of leaves takes over May.
Green see acoming, every tree in specks.
What is the point of growing? Every point
Now points to God, to grow to God. You feed
For faith true, living, lime and it is so.
The intoxicating breaking of Spring is awesome, especially this year, although it varies every year. This is a Spring Come painting of Coton which sits at the top of the stairs, back view of the village.
I am the God who made the photon,
And, with your help I’m making Coton.
This is another of the Grantchester Eight, the one we have in our living room. It probably fits the Grantchester sonnet best, so, I’ll include it again.
GOOD MORNING, GRANTCHESTER.
Hello, says God, Good Morning, Grantchester.
Today we have a rose and yellow dawn.
No need to hurry. Toast and coffee time.
It took me something like a billion years
To slow the Cam, long sedimentary work,
That none of you have seen, beneath the grass.
So start the day with joy and breathe in deep.
Make this day good, whatever work you do.
Keep selfishness at bay and look around
At all this glory, meadow, willow green.
Remember I like children more than you
And greet your Coton neighbours with a nod.
Accept this day from me. Let it proceed
In mill-pond peace and kindness to the eve.
Another of the Grantchester Eight, below the mill in late summer.
Another Grantchester painting. Not always around to see the dawn, but the start of each day is always something special.
Here’s the third Grantchester painting, my biggest landscape. Looking towards the mill, early morning in late winter. Always Gods glory.
Two paintings by the Cam. Another six to follow. One Sonnet.
GOOD MORNING, GRANTCHESTER.
Hello, says God, Good Morning, Grantchester.
Today we have a rose and yellow dawn.
No need to hurry. Toast and coffee time.
It took me something like a billion years
To slow the Cam, long sedimentary work,
That none of you have seen, beneath the grass.
So start the day with joy and breathe in deep.
Make this day good, whatever work you do.
Keep selfishness at bay and look around
At all this glory, meadow, willow green.
Remember I like children more than you
And greet your Coton neighbours with a nod.
Accept this day from me. Let it proceed
In mill-pond peace and kindness to the eve.
Alan.
So, first, the experience. Away at a meeting of Movement for Christian Democracy at Scargill House deep in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales perhaps two decades ago. Winterish, but with a wind and rain cleaned sky. Good meetings during the day and a walk along the valley about a mile to the small hamlet of Kettlewell to the pub. I was delayed and set out after the main party, or tried to. It was so dark, no moon, it was impossible to see your feet. So that was why they made a fuss about a torch. It was a step at a time, a sober drunk. But you could not look down. Overhead was the Milky Way a totally new view to my light polluted eyes, the biggest spectacle of our lives. You could see a trillion km of stars and gas clouds stretched out. It was unforgettable.
I tried a painting of a galaxy, black with a very little indigo. Checked colours with Derek our church astronomer, but it failed, not enough patience, too crude. Will bin it in the big clearout. So the sonnet is there, and no painting. But, I thought, if a photo is better than a painting, include a photo. But most of the photos, to get the remote light in, pick up a lot of light pollution. They are quite disappointing, hundreds of them. So no photo. Just remember what you have seen, but not in London
BIG UNIVERSE.
So cold, beneath the wide star studded black
This God created universe, this one,
With Catherine milky wheel diagonal,
Here in its edge, one little galaxy,
All smudges in this vast immensity,
Expanding from the first great divine “Yes”,
When everything was sorted as is now,
We live and look at twinkles in the sky.
This is not ours. We have a little share,
No rent, but clouds and rain and moon rich sleep.
To you-ward only can our lives make sense,
To come and go like charmed particles,
Good as you warm our souls to look beyond
And know ourselves eternal stayed in you.