Alison Blackbourn 19th May 2024
Toronto Uniting Church
This particular piece of calligraphy was, in some ways, a long time in the making. So – a brief background resumé for you. I have taken up calligraphy twice in my life – once in Sydney, briefly, and then when we retired and moved here to Lake Macquarie.
From about the time I was 4 or 5 I was taken to Sunday School. Now, Sunday School was held in quite a large room. There was a creche, where I sat on a rug or in a beautiful little chair. Those in the older classes, sat on BIG chairs around their class TABLES. I saw, too, that everyone had a Bible on the table in front of them. As is normal for young children, I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to have a chair at one of those round tables.
From that time, I learned about prayer. And, if it was silent prayer, there was no-one to overhear and ‘correct’ me. It gave me a love of being able to talk freely with God.
Later, when I was in my early 30s, I went to an Anglican church for the first time and there I experienced my first Service of Holy Communion. So much was explained! Really brought to me the way everything I had learned, in bits, wove me to God, Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit – and to Jesus’ disciples.
Then, here, one Sunday several years later, an announcement was made about a forthcoming Understanding the Sacraments course. Oh, YES, I thought – YES thank you Lord! Quite a lot of work, study and written homework ….. t h e n towards the end of the course we were given a project.
Paper, pencils, etc were supplied and, individually, we were asked to depict, in art form, what we had discovered about the Sacraments. My mind flew to a red canvas I had painted a few months before. (As a calligrapher, you keep a supply of canvasses you’ve painted in case you get a wonderful idea.) So, as I was saying, I immediately thought of that red canvas and I knew just what I could do with it! It did, of course involve words – not part of the original task set by the Team, however …
This is what I produced. My idea was to convey the all-encompassing path Christ Jesus shows us and leads us on. In every part of our lives, we are loved by God and that love, justice, repentance, compassion, joy … – all these things, qualities resonate in our lives.
Now, I entered it in the Newcastle Show and the Judges’ criticism was that there was not one single word that claimed attention as the main focus of the work. Of course the Judges did not know that it was done in response to a particular task. Sometimes I ponder – is there a word I could have used to satisfy that requirement by the calligraphy judges? I think not.
However, I’d like to ask you to ponder that too: what one word captures for you the essence of Christianity?
Alison Blackbourn
19th May 2024