A litany for Her Majesty the Queen's Platinum Jubilee

This litany was written as part of a Praxis South training day with Helen Bent. We were encouraged to write a litany or collect as an exercise during the coffee break. As such I must admit I spent less time on this than I normally would when writing a litany, but I still think it expresses something of the gratitude we have for her life and service. Please feel free to use it in worship if you find it helpful.  We shared our litanies in Zoom breakout groups, and one line was missing a one-syllable word. I am grateful to Rachael Pennant for supplying the word "Posies" which sits the gap so beautifully. 

If you wish to catch up on the day the video will appear on the Praxis South Youtube Channel shortly.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIUuyQikfiWduVRYgdh34tQ

A Litany of gratitude to Her Majesty the Queen. 

For Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second,

we give you thanks and praise. 

For our country and freedom through all of her life, 

we give you thanks and praise.

For her prayers and her faith, a bright shining light,

we give you thanks and praise.

For the seventy long years of service she gave,

we give you thanks and praise.

For witness to you, the King of all Kings,

we give you thanks and praise.

For diplomats, handshakes, speeches and dinners,

we give you thanks and praise.

For quiet wise words, to guide those in power, 

we give you thanks and praise.

For her willingness to live in the public gaze,

we give you thanks and praise.

For the rules she has borne for protocol’s sake,

we give you thanks and praise.

For her service and strength, giving comfort in pain, 

we give you thanks and praise. 

For the plaques and the ribbons, the posies and smiles,

Oh ruler of all, our sovereign God,

we give you thanks and praise. 

Publishing Sheet Music on Kindle Direct Publishing - Some things I found out!

TLDR: This is a post about how I (eventually) got decent results publishing sheet music on KDP. (The Amazon self-publishing website).

At the end of 2019 I published a book called "the Rhythmic Psalter". It was basically a collection of psalms crunched into ten verses each, suitable for busy people or people who want to dip into the book of psalms. I published it via Kindle Direct, as that seemed nice and easy - and it was. I downloaded a Word template which I edited with the text in Pages (I have a Mac), after editing I converted my text to a Word document, uploaded the text to Kindle Direct Publishing, looked at the proof and corrected it, and pressed a button to publish. Easy peasy! And people could buy it from that moment onwards. 

Meanwhile I was working on a music edition of the same book. That was a totally different story. First I made the music images on Sibelius and exported them as tiffs at 600dpi so they would be good quality. Then I imported them into the same Pages template I had used before. When I was ready I made the Kindle version of the book. I tried exporting from Pages as an ebook but that didn't work so well. So then I tried using the Kindle online publishing gadget which worked very well indeed. Once again it was very easy and user friendly. 

And so, now to the hard part, and the reason why I am writing this blog post. I guess that I might not be the only person who has had this problem, and this is how I solved it. I don't know the technicalities why this worked and why other things didn't work. But this worked for me and I hope it works for you too!

First, the problem: When I converted the Pages file to (either - I tried both!) a doc or a pdf (a beautiful high resolution pdf!) and uploaded to KDP to make a print book, the music looked dreadful, like a bad photocopy with lines missing and fuzzy notes. These were not low resolution images when they went up, but they were dire when they came back down as a pdf proof. 

I read the instructions and it said that if I wanted to improve these images I would need to change the settings in Word so that the images were not compressed. I couldn't find a way to do that in Pages so I did a test with a friend who had Word and it seemed a bit better, so I got a Word licence for my Mac. Thankfully Word runs native on a Mac now without having to use Parallels so it didn't slow the machine down like it used to do in the olden days.

I also read somewhere in the small print that the Kindle Direct Publishing doesn't like Tiffs, so I went back into Sibelius and exported the images as png files instead. After doing some tweaking in Word to make everything look right, I uploaded....

...the proof came back with the images looking good (hooray!) but the formatting all wrong. Basically I had written my book in Gill Sans and the gadget (presumably because it couldn't find the Gill Sans font) substituted Times New Roman which shot the formatting to pieces. 

I read up some more, and discovered that if I embedded my font in the file that would work...I did this, and it didn't work, but I noticed that parts of the document where I had used Calibri were fine, so I just gave up and used Calibri for the whole thing. It was near enough to satisfy me, and didn't wreck my formatting. 

Then I uploaded a proof. Everything looked lovely, apart from the larger music files with accompaniments at the front of the book. For some weird reason they looked bad even though they were pngs. 

So I spent 8 hours flipping between Word, and KDP proofing, and Sibelius, exporting different files with different boxes ticked on Sibelius, and doing all kinds of things with images (including conversions to various things including jpgs and screenshots - I was getting desperate!) and this was what I discovered...

Pngs for these larger pieces of music just didn't work. I don't know why, but vector graphics files did, but only with certain settings ticked. So I exported the larger music files as vector graphics files (SVG) and imported those into Word. I had to crop them a bit in image editing as they had white borders, but that was OK. I then proofed and FINALLY the music was looking OK. I also had to keep doing re-proofing because, in Word, various things kept slipping onto other pages, and sometimes there were random word breaks which didn't exist in the original file, but that was fine in comparison to my previous problems. 

Therefore in conclusion I recommend these tactics:

1 - When making a book which includes SHEET MUSIC in Kindle Direct Publishing, use Word to create your original document and set the image resolution so that it is full resolution. To help get your graphics properly lined-up tick the gridlines box (under "view")

2 - When you make your images in Sibelius export them as png files at 600 DPI.

3 - Use a set font from a book template such as Calibri to write the text sections of your book. 

4 - If png doesn't work, try exporting from Sibelius as a vector graphics file (SVG). In Sibelius export options for SVG do tick the "lines and breaks" boxes, but DO NOT tick antialiasing box or the monochrome box.

5 - When you import your SVG files to Word they will have white borders. Use the "Crop" images function to crop them down to the border of your music. (Click on your image and you will get the "Graphics format" menu). It is under there. 

6 - If you are having problems getting your text to wrap around these images the way you want it to, there is a "wrap text" menu. I set mine to "top and bottom" and I also ticked "lock anchor" when I had the image where I wanted it. I also unticked "allow overlap" when I was fiddling with the image. 

7 - I then saved the book as a Word document and uploaded to KDP, proofed and finally I was done!

The Wellerman Hymn

 This shanty seems to be everywhere at the moment, so I couldn't resist writing a hymn to the tune. Here we are. Feel free to use wherever in a worship situation. 

The Wellerman Hymn

(to the tune of the shanty - feel free to use in worship).

Cmin 

There once was a man from Galillee,

Fmin Cmin

He healed the sick and set prisoners free.

Cmin 

He preached forgiveness and healed the lame

Ab                  Gmin          Cmin

And Jesus was his name.  

Cmin

He looked for followers far and wide, 

F     C min

He had no time for those puffed with pride.

Cmin

He called some women and fishermen, 

Ab                     Gmin             Cmin

And taught of peace and love. 

             Ab min             Ebmin

Soon will the Saviour come, 

            Fmin                                      Cmin

Like light that shines in the morning sun, 

            Ab min             Eb min

Healing the grieving hearts

            Fmin               Gmin    Cmin

With life that has no end.

He welcomed outcasts and raised the dead,

He fed five thousand with fish and bread.

He was the Way and the Truth and Life,

The Son of God on earth. 

But all his talk of a Kingdom crown.

Upset authorities in the town;

So they arrested him for fake crimes

And nailed him to a cross. 

Soon will the Saviour come, 

Like light that shines in the morning sun, 

Healing the grieving hearts

With life that has no end.

But after dying he rose again

And promised life that would never end;

He died to save us from death itself

And wipe away our crimes.

He will come back here from heaven’s domain

And all our loved-ones will rise again;

Our broken world he will make brand new,

And take away our pain. 

Soon will the Saviour come, 

Like light that shines in the morning sun, 

Healing the grieving hearts

With life that has no end.

Soon will the Saviour come, 

Like light that shines in the morning sun, 

Healing the grieving hearts

With life that has no end.

Sue Wallace Jan 2021.

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. 

Via Luminosa 2020 - A Passiontide Journey to the Cross

Update: now with features about the "making of" linked to each station. 

A few years ago, when I was still working for "Visions" in York, I planned a virtual "Stations of the Cross in video art, which was projected outside in various locations in the city of York. We called it the "Via Luminosa", and gave out maps and leaflets which described the artwork. Rather than following the traditional Roman Catholic list of stations, we widened the journey, beginning at Palm Sunday and ending with the resurrection  and using only the biblical events, so that those who saw the art would learn more about the events which led up to that first Easter.  This year I picked up the project once more, and in these days of lock-down, it seemed appropriate to re-edit the stations, putting music behind, and using them as a Passiontide journey. Richard McVeigh has kindly given permission to use some of his music and the music of his wonderful consort, SW1, to accompany the visuals. This will be a time-limited project. Every day, between the 30th March and Easter Sunday, the 12th April, a new video will appear at noon (or thereabouts). The exception will be Easter Eve. I will release station 13 early, at 3pm on Good Friday.  The videos will be taken down on the 13th April so watch them while they are still there, use them for your worship and make your own virtual journey to Jerusalem. I will attempt to post links to each video here,  as they appear on a daily basis.You do not need to join Facebook to see them. When it prompts you to log in, click the blue "not now" link and the prompt should disappear. 

Update: I didn't want to do this until after Easter Sunday, as I wanted you to simply experience the stations. But here is some information about each station.

Station 1 - Palm Sunday, 30th March.

The Palm Sunday station was originally projected onto a window which had been covered in tracing paper. The donkey footage came from Petra. Malcolm did the "donkey cam" image of his ears whilst actually riding the donkey. He is better at holding on than I am!  The image of Christ used as the title on each station came from an old performance of the mystery plays in York. it underwent a fair bit of "photoshopping" (actually I use the open source Gnu Image Manipulation Program to do that...its free!). The icon of Christ on the cross normally hangs on our staircase, although it has industrial velcro on its reverse face so that we can mount it as a processional cross.  As the days of Passiontide and Holy Week went on I found it hard to distinguish the opening frames of each station, so started to change the opening titles whist keeping this image as a repeating motif. The introductory bible texts are shown over footage of the streets of the old city of Jerusalem. We have always been fascinated by these tiny narrow passages lined with shops, and often return simply to wander the streets, explore the avenues, film people and places and soak up the atmosphere. The globe is, of course, from NASA. My budget didn't stretch to going into space, but thankfully NASA stuff is free to use. 

Station 2 - Betrayal, 31st March.

For the introduction of this station, I used Keynote to animate the crucifix icon. I used to use Adobe After Effects for this kind of thing, but find I get better results in Keynote these days (using the "magic move" transition). I used to use animation of falling notes which I made in After Effects but I was unhappy with the results, so this is stock footage from Videoblocks (who are excellent)  The rotating coins and "kisses" are also animated in Keynote and I bought my replica Roman coin in the Yorkshire Museum shop in York. 

Station 3 - The Last Supper, 1st April.

The globe behind the cross icon in the introduction to this station was very painstakingly animated in GIMP (see above) around twenty years ago. It is a collage of many holiday snaps. The foot washing footage was shot for the precentor of Peterborough this year, and underwent a little bit of processing in iMovie and Filmora. The new version of iMovie really annoys me. I think they are deliberately making it clunky and annoying so folks upgrade to Final Cut Pro,  so I have now swapped to Filmora, which I love as it has lots of quirky effects and photoshop style filters. Most of the last Supper footage itself was shot a very long time ago in my house in York, and I have recycled it for this project. The overflowing wine glass was originally shot by a curate on placement with me for a setting of psalm 23, but it is such a powerful image that we use it a lot for communion. 

Station 4 - Agony in the Garden, 2nd April.

I did the introduction to this station and the footage behind the bible verses was shot at the top of the mount of olives, in the convent garden of the Pater Noster chapel; a lovely unspoilt place that feels like a time-machine. Nic Walters shot the main part of this station for the original Via Luminosa project in York where we projected the stations outside around the city. it was originally on a number of stacked TVs inside the window of the Oxfam shop. I think it is tremendously powerful, especially when the hammer comes down and smashes the teacup. I believe Nic did the writing by actually projecting onto the cup, rather than post-processing. 

Station 5 - Arrest , 3rd April.

The crown of thorns behind the titles was bought in Jerusalem, and animated using a cake turntable which is why it is a little clunky (annoyingly). The turntable couldn't cope with having so much red fabric over it, and I didn't want to cut the fabric because it is such a lovely colour. If I see a smaller version of the same stuff I will buy a little bit and re-shoot this! The olive tree background is. a heavily processed version of the garden of Gethsemanae olives and all the rest of the figures and items come from the Yorkshire Museum in York. The original station was projected onto a cube standing in the garden of this museum and was viewed through bars. 

Station 6 - A Crown of Thorns, 4th April.

The animation behind the crucifix in the opening titles is the  angel Gabriel taken from a picture of the annunciation in the Louvre, and animated in After Effects to circle a globe (which cannot be seen because it is behind Jesus). I have added a little post-processing in Filmora to give it the motion blur. The pillars behind the bible text are actually from Constantine's water cistern in Istanbul. The thorns are the ones I bought and put on a turntable, and the rest of the footage was filmed in our back yard a very long time ago. The scourging at the end comes from a very ancient life of Christ film that is now public domain because it is so old. 

Station 7 - Pilate Washes his Hands, 5th April.

This station uses quite a bit of ancient public domain footage from the Prelinger Archive. I was trying to give an impression of the environmental and human disasters that we can be tempted to wash our hands of. The central image of pilate washing his hands was shot from beneath a glass table.

Station 8 - Jesus Carries his Cross , 6th April.

The introductory footage behind the prayer was shot in Belfast on the M3. Malcolm was driving. I was pointing a camera through the window. For the footage of the carrying of the cross, Andy "Starbuck" and I got up at a ridiculously early hour to film in the high street in York (Coney Street). At the time empty shopping streets were an eery and unusual sight (not any more!). I didn't have any expensive tripod equipment, so strapped the camera to my bicycle and wheeled it down the street, following Andy.

Station 9 - Simon Lends a hand , 7th April.

The image behind Christ in the opening title shot comes from Petra. I mirrored it in Filmora and placed it behind Jesus. The fountain was taken in Strasburg and processed heavily. Behind the bible texts we have more wonderful shots of those tiny streets in Jerusalem. The hearts and hands images were various people in the Visions community, and if you look carefully in the centre from time to time, two sets of hands appear carrying the cross-bar. One of those is Malcolm, the other is Christian Salvaratnam. I can't remember which program I used to stack all the images up, but it was either  After Effects or Keynote. (It is surprising what you can do with presentation software!)


Station 10 - Weeping Women, 8th April

The footage behind "we adore you" was taken on the Nile at sunset. The other footage was taken in Jerusalem, and I experimented with morphing software, creating transitions between the ancient weeping women and the people who weep in Jerusalem today. The footage of feet and steps was taken just outside the Damascus Gate. Muslims, Jews, Christians, and those of other faiths, and from many nations all went through that gate. You could sometimes tell who they were by their clothes, but never by their shoes. Their feet all looked the same, a reminder of our common humanity, beneath all the prejudice and angst.

Station 11 - Jesus is Stripped , 9th April. 

The footage under the prayer was animated in After Effects, using space footage from NASA and solar flare effects. The stripping footage was taken in our back yard in York. it was Malcolm's idea to show each section twice (once positive, and once negative) and to add many extra layers of clothes to make the sequence longer and more dramatic. For the final shot I wrote "Naked indignity, dressed in red scars, by his stripes we are healed" on Malcolms back in lipstick. We felt that this would be more powerful than trying to fake scars that might look fake afterwards. (This is because we've had problems faking them before. But I'll tell you about that later!)

Station 12 - Nailed to the Cross, 9AM, Good Friday

The opening titles were displayed over NASA footage here. Nic Walters gave me the footage of Jesus and the nails, which was originally used in Vision services, before the "Via" project was ever conceived. The cross image at the end was also from an old set of York mystery plays, a number of stills were simply lined up as a slide presentation and exported as a movie before being processed. When I shot the slides I never considered that they would work this well when stuck together. 

Station 13 - Jesus dies on the Cross, 3PM, Good Friday

Malcolm was a star to let me shoot this footage. It is quite old, and was originally conceived as a loop for communion services. We discovered so much by shooting this! Firstly, I almost dislocated Malcolms shoulder fixing him to the cross. (thankfully I didn't, but it made me realise, when I read that the Turin shroud body showed evidence of a dislocated shoulder, that this was a point in favour of it possibly being genuine rather than a fake). The cross itself was the one St Michael le Beflrey normally use for their Good Friday services. It is actual size which is great. And we put a black curtain behind it for a backdrop. We stuck short nails on Malcolm's arms with blue tac but the blue tac melted under the spotlight and the nails fell off. There is some "out-take"footage of them falling on the ground! For the crown of thorns (this was before I ever visited Israel), I made a crown from Berberis thorn and then snipped the inside thorns off with pliers. And now we come to the story of the scars. I got into a bit of trouble about this! I decided that Marmite would be a good substitute for dried blood, and it did look good when we applied it, what I didn't realise was that it would then not come off again, and removing it afterwards was a bit like waxing legs. After that I was banned from ever using Marmite again for a photo shoot! The final section was edited this year . I took the icon of Jesus used in the opening titles and "photoshopped" it using GIMP, changing each figure ever so slightly so that they were unique, and placing them over a cross that I had drawn. I saved them as png images (as png can cope with transparency) which meant I could overlay them on stock footage of lightning which I then slowed down to be more dramatic. 

new - extra mini station "...and so we wait"

This station was made using Keynote. Once again the two images were taken from mystery plays. 

Station14 - Resurrection. Happy Easter!

This station involved a lot of editing this year, as I wasn't happy with the original version (but I feel it was worth it). I used footage we shot whilst on a punt in Venice Verte in France, added motion blur, and put it behind the words to the first prayer. The empty tomb is in Jerusalem, in the garden of Mary and Martha's house, and the footage of Jesus spinning was filmed at the same time as the baptism footage, a very very long time ago, so actually Malcolm is a bit younger in the resurrection than in the crucifixion. The butterflies were taken in tropical world in Leeds, and mirrored because the camera wasn't steady (in days before stabilisation software). The egg was made in GIMP and originally used as part of an Easter art installation which was originally projected in St Martins in Coney street.  The funny thing about that particular projection was that the DVD player that we were using to send the image to the projector threw a wobbly one night and projected the Tesco logo all night on the wall. Drunken passers by probably thought the church had got a sponsorship deal! The dog running down the beach in Ireland was my first dog, Dougal, who has now gone. He simply loved playing fetch! The olives were taken halfway up the Mount of Olives on a windy day in 2016. There is also footage of a large plant (or small tree) placed in front of a window. This tree is a seedling from the Hiroshima peace tree. It was at the centre of the blast and looked utterly dead just afterwards, but the fact that it came back to life was a symbol of hope and peace to those whose lives had been shattered and those who had lost loved ones. It still fills me with hope now. Happy Easter everyone!

Death and hope (Advent thoughts about Stonehenge)

Because our life has been a somewhat unsettled one this year (due to mum's dementia) we never got around to taking two weeks block holiday in the Summer, so Malcolm has booked these two weeks off work and we are visiting local places of interest. Yesterday M really wanted to go to Stonehenge which rather surprised me. "Aren't you bored of it?" I asked. "You can't actually go up to the stones anymore." Then it turned out that every other time I had visited the stones themselves M hadn't actually been with me, although we had visited the visitors centre together. 

So, wrapped up in many layers against the distinctly chilly 3 degrees we set off. This time we got the audioguide (which was excellent) and took the free tourist bus to the stones with the intention of walking back, which was actually quite nice!

There have recently been two excellent broadcasts about the stones on TV and radio, which I think was what prompted our interest. The "You're Dead to me" podcast from BBC sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07qrwq7 and a Timewatch guide https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06z59g7 which was fascinating because it showed archive footage of previous theories about the stones, and was as revealing about modern history and techniques as it was of ancient history.

Me and this ancient monument have an interesting history. When I was a child I was fascinated by it; excitedly peering through the car window whilst we drove past on our way to Cornwall (we never paid English Heritage entry fees to actually go in anywhere!). But then, as I got older I became rather bored by this structure that seemed rather overrated to me. It was just a few stones, you couldn't actually go in, at least with woodhenge you could walk inside it- and not nearly as spectacular as the stones of Carnac or the Great Pyramid!

But now I have changed my mind. I never realised that the reason it was unique was because it was the only stone circle to have mortice and tenon joints and lintels resting on top, and actually that's really clever!  

I was also intrigued by the fact that the bluestones inside were thought to have healing powers and one theory is that pilgrims came to the henge as a kind of healing shrine. It turns out that they think that there were never pagan sacrifices there, because there is no evidence for them; no bones or bits left behind. What there is evidence for though, is lots of burials; ashes buried around the circle, and lots of burial mounds around the outside. 

One theory now is that it was actually the midwinter solstice that was more important than the midsummer one for these ancient people, and this totally makes sense to me. 

Imagine for an instant, that you are one of those ancient farmers. You have lost someone you love to this mysterious force of death, and life appears random and terrifying. The winter is dark and cold and you wonder if light or happiness will ever return to your world. 

And then you visit this ancient circle, and you see structure and order, and you see light return to this dark world again and again and again, structured and predictable,  and what it does is give you hope that the person whose ashes you buried might also have life once again. It gave you hope in the face of death and light in the face of emotional darkness. 

And so it seems to me, writing from a Christian point of view, that this watching for the return of the sun is itself prophesy: A prophesy from two thousand years before Jesus was born that a different Sun/Son, the Son of God eternal, would return from death and would break the power of death forever for us, which is one of the main themes of this Advent season. 

As it says in some of the Advent Antiphons, texts which were addressed to Christ and traditionally sung in the Evenings leading up to Christmas:

O Key of David,

opening the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom:

come and free the prisoners of darkness!

O Radiant Dawn,

splendor of eternal light, sun of justice:

come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the

shadow of death.

O Emmanuel, our King and Giver of Law:

come to save us, Lord our God!

Rhythmic Psalms - The words Edition is here

The Rhythmic Psalter (words edition) is now available to buy from Amazon here 

The journey which began this collection of 150 short psalms started in 2010 when I first moved to Leeds Minster. In my time they had a service of short morning prayer in the church every day at 9.45, which often used a short psalm. However, there weren’t many of these psalms and I made a resolution to edit a few more to use in this service.

In my psalm edits I tried to get a sense of the whole journey of the psalm within ten brief verses, but I put down the task after a few months and let it lie to one side. It sat there for rather a long time... Eventually I picked up the text in 2019 because I was concerned that the psalms were not being used enough in public worship, which diminishes both our biblical knowledge and our vocabulary in prayer. I wanted to help churches to learn different and creative ways of using these wonderful texts which encompass the whole spectrum of human emotion. 

This was when I realised that what was actually needed was a more rhythmic psalter that could be used in churches where bands, drum circles and percussion are used to accompany the worship.This is why the rhythms are very tight in this collection. I also hope that the strong rhythms within these psalms will help those who read them to memorise some of the texts so that they can carry them with them throughout their daily lives. I have given the “music” to the rhythms of the psalms as a guideline, however, many of these psalms will work to different rhythmic patterns, so do not feel “bound” by these suggestions. Some words can be said to different rhythmic patterns. (eg. heaven, violence or glorious); in these cases I have used dashes to indicate how to split the word, and an apostrophe above a word if it is to be said on one syllable.

I must also give a confession in this introduction. I am not a Hebrew Scholar, but I did study translations of the psalms which stick very closely to the Hebrew whilst writing this book. However, due to the rhythmic constraints of my task, some of these psalm verses have had to be paraphrases. I have used the Anglican numbering of the psalms and the verse numbers within this book so that clergy (if they wish) can look up the more “traditional” version within the Common Worship psalter which is freely available online here . I cannot aim to properly do justice to every psalm within a mere ten verses, and in the case of psalm 78 I really felt that I had to write another ten verses. Psalm 119, however, despite it’s length, is consistent in its theme declaring the blessings of God’s law.

The texts within the book come with full permission to photocopy, project or disseminate the texts within an act of divine worship. and permission for musicians to create their own tunes to the texts if they feel inspired to do so.

Psalm 11

I I hide and take refuge in my God;
how then can you say before my face,
‘Go fly like a bird, and seek the hills.’

2 Now see how the wicked bend their bows.
They fit their sharp arrows to the string,
to hide and shoot at the true of heart. 

3  When all the foundations are destroyed,
what can those who love God’s justice do? 

4  The Lord in his holy temple dwells;
God has made the hea-vens as his throne.

5 His eyes look down and behold the world, 
his gaze probes through every human heart.

6 God judges the just with wicked ones, 
yet those who love vi-o-lence he hates.

7 He sends burning sulphur on the vile;
he punishes them with scorching wind.

8 For our God is just and loves just deeds;
and those who are upright see his face.

Psalm 69

1 Please save me, O God, for the waters reach my neck. 
2 I swim in the swamp where there is no foothold.

I come to deep waters and the flood swallows me. 
3 I’m weary with crying; my throat skinned and raw;

Now my eyes are failing from searching for my God. 
10 I love your Great House, scorning you insults me. 

11/12 I fasted in sackcloth, they turned and taunted me.  
22 Their taunts broke my heart; I am filled with sadness.

22 I looked for some comfort,  but no-one pitied me. 
23 They gave gall to eat, vinegar for my drink.

28 They persecute the one that you have stricken down,

and increase the sorrows of him that you pierced. 

24 Make their meals a trap, and their sacred feasts a snare. 
30 Blot them from your book, don’t list them as righteous. 

32 I praise God in song, and proclaim in gratitude. 
34 The humble are glad, seek God, and your heart lives. 

37 For God will save Zi’on and rebuild all Judah’s towns
38 and God’s loving children, they will live in them.