Stations of the Spirit 2020

This past month has been a rather extraordinary time, when I seem to have temporarily become a video artist, curator, and project manager. After the success of the Via Luminosa online this year (now taken-down for another-time), and also the "Rumours of Hope" vigil, I started some conversations with the cathedral Precentors' network and agreed to curate something similar for Thy kingdom Come, a series of "Stations of the Spirit". Like "Rumours of Hope" the series would contain readings, prayers and reflections from a number of different cathedrals and guest speakers. Like the Stations of the Cross these "Stations of the Spirit" would form a journey, but instead of being a journey to Calvary, they would give a snapshot of the work of the Holy Spirit from the dawn of creation, all the way  through to Revelation.   I also managed to recruit a number of musicians to help me, as well as using the odd piece of my own (especially the atmospheric Byzantine-tuned harp music which seems to work so well with bible readings). As a basis I used the Stations of the Spirit that I wrote last year (see the post of the 31st May 2019 for a rough idea of the script) but this time I decided to have 9 stations rather than 10, using part of the reading from Revelation in Station 10, and the blessing from that final station. 

The cathedral Precentors were amazingly supportive and some other Canons and also Deans volunteered to give readings. I was also sent some wonderful images, notably the video footage and photographs of the fountain at Chester and the beautiful images of the icon in Bradford Cathedral's chapel of the Holy Spirit.  

Musically I wanted to reflect the beautiful music produced in the cathedrals, but also wanted to reflect the broad nature of the music on offer in various churches, by mixing the old and the new, the choral and the instrumental. The Chapter of Peterborough gave me permission to use the music of Peterborough Cathedral Choir, and the Chapter of Christ Church Oxford gave me permission to use their music too. I was also able to use a piece from St Peter's Singers who provided music for Leeds Minster for major occasions in the life of the church. Dan Sladden, succentor of Ripon Cathedral, gave me some music from the Cambridge Chamber Consort, his choral group of former choral scholars, and Peter Gunstone gave me some music from Accord, who can do wonderful classical pieces, but also do a cappella arrangements of newer songs by Hillsongs and Matt Redman. The newer styles of music were represented by Joel Payne, who writes some lovely and thoughtful new songs, and Metanoia, who run the music for Rock Mass and mix well known worship songs, with guitar riffs from secular artists.

I wanted to include a time of reflection during each station, but the nature of internet videos is that times of "silence" online can seem like the internet has frozen or the technology isn't working. Instead I decided to have a piece of instrumental music and gentle images after each talk to give a chance for people watching the videos to pray and reflect. Those watching could always pause the video for a while if they wished to have some true silence. Once again we had a wonderful variety of musicians helping with this. Tim Parsons, assistant Director of Music at Exeter cathedral,  gave me permission to use the lovely Tomkins piece that he recorded at the beginning of lockdown, just before being furloughed, but I was also given  oboe, cello, flute and piano pieces and two lovely reflective and etherial pieces by Steve Lawson, the electric bassist. Some musicians wrote their pieces especially for the event: Andrew Maries beautiful oboe improvisation matched the wonderful imagery of flying through a nebula very well, Steve Abley created a reflective piece for the station based on the woman at the well, Tim Farnhill wrote a lovely flute improvisation, and Liam Cartwright improvised upon the ancient plainchant melody "Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire." I loved the wonderful variety and beauty of these pieces. 

I was also deeply thrilled by the talent and inspiration of the artists involved in this project. Canon Katie Lawrence, Precentor of Wellington Cathedral, gave me two wonderful dances, one to accompany a song by Lacey Brown (whose liturgically-deep music I encountered whilst on placement in Seattle in 2003), and one to the gut-wrenchingly beautiful "O Magnum Mysterium" by Lauridsen. Ally Barrett volunteered not just to do a talk, but also to provide images for the station on the Baptism of Christ and the Annunciation. Richard Horton from Visions, gave me images of flowers that he had taken since lockdown, which I had originally imagined would be in the creation station, but which instead appeared in Station 2. Nic Walters provided me with a large selection of video footage from different events he has done. He shot some images of bubble blowing specially for me, and also collated together beautiful images of fountains, flames, crowds, doves, water and the "I love you" word sequence that I remember being very moved by when I was still working with the Visions group in York. 

I love the story behind the "I love you" word sequence. A group of artists gave pieces of paper to people in the Glastonbury festival, asking them to write "I love you" on those pieces of paper. They then scattered them around the festival site, and after a day collected the ones that remained back in. They had been torn, rained upon and creased, and yet the words "I love you" were still there and still readable in many of these pieces. I still find that video very powerful to watch. 

Of course, as well as collecting together all these contributions, I also did a fair bit of video editing myself. One of the reasons that I decided to make the project aspect ratio 4:3 rather than widescreen is that I have a lot of old footage collected together and edited in the days before mobile phones and widescreen were commonplace which were stored on old DV tapes. Stretching 4:3 is a lot harder than shrinking widescreen, but also I must confess to rather preferring 4:3. It makes composing an image that "works" a little bit easier somehow, although in years to come I may migrate, depending on whether I can replace or re-shoot, or successfully edit some rather precious images from the past.

It was wonderful to dig up images taken in the heart of the Jordanian desert and fountains that I shot in the palace of Versailles. (They only run water through them on Sunday afternoons in the summer holidays as it takes an enormous amount of water to make these fountains work). The flame that became the title sequence image was taken just outside the entrance to the Edicule (the empty-tomb) in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It is the Holy-fire, re-lit each year at Easter, and the melting candle which was also used in the titles was taken in the same church, but deep-down in the basement, in the chapel dedicated to St Helen. In contrast the almost single-shot image of floating past greenery came from a punt-ride in la Venise Verte in the Marais Poitevin. I have taken images from a boat a number of times, but never with the smoothness of a punt on a canal on a summers day. One day I would love to return and re-take it in HD but the lighting would need to be just right too.

The Stations of the Spirit are still available for you to view online, and they will remain online for the future. 

Station 1 - Creation. 

With Bishop Graham Cray, prayers from the canons of Peterborough Cathedral, and music from Andrew Maries, and also St Peter's Singers in Leeds. Their album is available here. 

Station 2 - The Valley of Dry Bones. 

With Revd Jeremy Fletcher, prayers from the canons of St Edmundsbury, and music from the musicians of St Edmundsbury, and also the Reverend Robb Sutherland and Metanoia. 

Station 3 - Water flowing from the Temple.

With Canon Roly Riem, prayers from the Canon pastor of Coventry cathedral, and vicar of Romsey Abbey, cello music from the Revd Thomas Wharton and an anthem by Revd Peter Gunstone and Accord. 

Station 4 - The Annunciation. 

With the Revd Ally Barrett, prayers from the Canons of Ripon Cathedral and music from Steve Lawson, and the Cambridge Chamber Consort with Dan Sladden, Succentor of Ripon. 

Station 5 - The Baptism of Christ.

With the Reverend Bryony Taylor, prayers from Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, and music from Tim Farnhill, and also Christ Church Cathedral choir. 

Station 6 - The Woman at the well. 

With the Rt Revd Bev Mason, Bishop of Warrington, prayers from the Canons of Chester Cathedral, and music from Steve Abley, and also Joel Payne, whose worship music is here. 

Station 7 - Jesus Breathes on the disciples. 

With a reflection from myself (some technical difficulties meant that Brother Stuart's reflection arrived too late to insert within this station, so instead it was released as a separate item). Also with music from Liam Cartwright and Lacey Brown whose music is available here. 

Reflection - I am sending you.  

With Brother Stuart Burns, with another piece of music, "To whom should we go" by Lacey Brown. 

Station 8 - The Day of Pentecost. 

With a reflection from Bishop David Williams, Bishop of Basingstoke, prayers from the canons of Bradford cathedral, and music from Steve Lawson, and Peterborough Cathedral Choir. 

Station 9 - The Holy Spirit Falls on the Gentiles.

With a reflection from the Very Reverend Andrew Nunn, Dean of Southwark, prayers from Truro Cathedral, and music from Tim Parsons of Exeter Cathedral, and also Accord.