University of Twitter - political Philosophy by Alain de Botton

Clever stuff from Alain de Botton via twitter so I combined them with 'avatar' pics mainly from

alaindebotton Alain de Botton The University of Twitter: a short course in Political Philosophy in 7 parts:

1: Plato: We should be ruled not by leaders chosen by a majority, but by those who are most intelligent.

2. St Augustine: We should not try to build paradise on earth. Aim for tolerable government, true government only possible in the next life.

3. Machiavelli: Politician must choose between serving the interests of country and theinterests of Christian morality. Can't have both.

4. Hobbes: Rulers not appointed by God, but by people and if they can't guarantee their security, they can be legitimately kicked out.

5. Smith: The market cannot alone create a moral community. Civil society must nudge capitalists to be good through emulation and honours.


6. Karl Marx: The 'profit' of a capitalist is in essence theft, the stolen life and labour of the proletariat.

7. J.S. Mill: Governments should not tell people how to live, they should give them the preconditions to make their own choices.

The Great Wave'

Hokusai's The Great Wave, a woodblock print (c 1830) was part of a series of 'Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji' (Fugaku sanjūrokkei). It was featured in Neil McGregor's 'A History of the World in 100 Objects'

The Great Wave became a symbol of the changing times, as Japan opened up to the West after a policy of splendid isolation. This was just before Admiral Perry and his US gunships enforced trade with the West in the 1850s.

The Great Wave dwarfs Mount Fuji, the symbol of Japan, and is about to engulf the 3 fishing boats and their tiny crew. It represents the inevitable onslaught of modernity. McGrregor suggests:

It also, I think, shows a peculiar Japanese ambivalence. As a viewer, you have no place to stand, no footing. You too must be in a boat, under the Great Wave, and in danger. The dangerous sea over which European things and ideas travelled has, however, been drawn with profound ambiguity'

I was inspired to do an impressionistic version as a result of the 'Sendai Earthquake' in Japan and the consequent Tsunami. Seeing video/ movies of the onslaught of that great wave, sweeping away everything in its path cars, houses, ships, planes, trees, people - brought to mind this picture. What struck me as I was drawing was a macabre thought about the similarity between the wave and a rack of spare ribs! And how the people in the boat looked so small and ant-like.

Inevitably, I'm not the only one to have made the connection between the picture and recent events, as this cartoon suggests:

One newspaper article suggested that the Tsunami was humbling for all who think mankind is in charge. What fools we are to think we can tame the wrath of nature Robert Hardman "it has served as a brutal lesson that, in the scheme of things, homo sapiens is not so sapiens after all. We are just ants with cars"

Abdul Masih - Henry Martyn's convert

I decided to do a drawing of Abdul Masih, based on an Oil Painting we have in the office. It is a picture that has fascinated me for a while. I wanted to know more about him. I had found a couple of pages on a book some time ago, which I had photoed and now have typed up. But I cannot remember the title, which is most unhelpful. Still it tells something of his story. He is remembered on 4th March . . . . .

Abdul Masih’s name was until his baptism Sheik Salih. As that implies he was a Mohmmedan, and was in fact the first member of that faith to be converted by the Anglican Church in India and ordained to the Anglican Ministry

He was born into an orthodox and respectable family in Delhi about the 1765 and was brought up with a good knowledge of Persian and Arabic. As a young man he had a somewhat varied career until the time when he was staying with his father at Kanpur and happened to hear Henry Martyn preach. He was deeply impressed. Through copying Persian manuscripts for Martyn, and when Martyn had finished his Persian translations of the N/T. it was given to him to bind. Whilst doing this he read the book carefully and became convinced of the truth of Christianity. However he did not open his heart to Martin at once, but waited till Martyn was about to leave for Calcutta in the autumn of 1810

Martyn was not fully convinced that Sheik Salih was ready for baptism, se he took him to Calcutta and, when he himself sailed out for Persia early in 1811, left him in the care of David Brown who was then in charge of the Old Mission Church. The enquirer was baptised in that church on Pentecost Sunday 1811 with the Christian name of Abdul Masih, servant of Christ. He lived for some time longer in Calcutta and at Shinsurah, working as a preacher and catechist, showing not only his considerable ability but also a wonderful humility and zeal in the face of much opposition and persecution.

When Daniel Corries was posted to Agra as Chaplain at the end of 1812, he told Abdul Masih with him as catechist in the pay of C.M.S. Their joint ministry at Agra was so greatly blessed, both among the Christians of all races and in preaching to non-Christians, that when Corrie left for England in 1814 he left him in charge of the congregation jointly with an Anglo-Indian catechist. Abdul Masih received Lutheran orders at Calcutta in 1820. Four years later Bishop Heber was so impressed by his work at Agra that he brought him to Calcutta and gave him Episcopal ordination in St John’s Church in November 30, 1825. Though he was under 60 years of age he health was already failing and he died at Lucknow on March 4, 1827

The report of the Calcutta C.M.S committee for 1827 includes a ling and laudatory notice of his work including the following words, “He had laboured in the service of the CMS for upward of 14 years, during the whole of which period he had uniformly adorned the doctrine of God our Saviour, and greatly endeared himself to Christians of all classes in society. By patience and meekness under persecution and reproaches for Christ’s sake, and by persevering endeavour to return good for evil, even his enemies had become at peace with him”

We thank God for Abdul Masih’s witness to his Master both by his work and he Christian character. Let us pray that all who bear the name of Christ in our day may follow his example.

You can read more in an article which mentions him by Eugene Stock

and a downloadable pdf by Graham Kings called Abdul Masih: Icon of Indian Indigeneity

consider the birds of the air

Consider the birds of the air (Matthew 6:25-33) I came across these words as I was surfing the net as part of a sermon someone had preached on this text. I have simply copied them in a non-prose format. I think they speak quite poetically The picture is another of my Oil pastel drawings.

"Look at the birds of the air;

they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them….

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;

they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you,

even Solomon in all his glory

was not clothed like one of these.”

“Look at the birds of the air,” he says.

Playful, free birds, full of song, quick to move,

colourful cardinals and goldfinches.

“Consider the lilies of the field, clothed in glory,” he says.

Fresh, vibrant lilies, waving on slender stems

as the breeze moves among them.

Like the birds of the air,

like the lilies of the field,

you are created and loved by God.

Like the birds of the air,

like the lilies of the field,

you are provided for.

Let go of the anxiousness,

let go of fearful grasping,

let go and breathe.

God knows your deepest needs.

(Diane Blanchard)

Now that's what John Stott calls 'Orna-theology'

'Dusk to Dusk' - Afghan poems

The painting is inspired by one I found on the internet of an old Afghan man.

I originally came across the poems in a booklet produced in Coventry by Afghan Refugees called 'Dusk to Dusk'. These are Pushtoon poems - 'By blood...' by Amad Shah Durrani (1747-73) and 'The knowing man' by Khushal Khan Khattak (1613-90) There is a timelessness about both the picture of the old man and the poems ....

BY BLOOD by A.S.D.

Sta pa lara ke biley zalmey sarona

Kaharo da dunya malkona der shi

Zama her na shi da sta khokaley baghona

Da Delhi takht herawom chi rapa yad shi

Da khpal khukaley pakhtoonkhwa da ghra sarona

Da raqeeb da jhwand mathah ba tar pa tar kram

Chi pa thoro pakhtana ka guzarona

Ka thamam dunya yaw khwata bal khwa ye

Zama khwah de sta khalee tash dagarona

Ahmad sha ba sta qader Kher na ka

Ka wana si da thamam jahan malkona

By blood, we are immersed in love of you.
The youth lose their heads for your sake.
I come to you and my heart finds rest.
Away from you, grief clings to my heart like a snake.
I forget the throne of Delhi
when I remember the mountain tops of my Afghan land.
If I must choose between the world and you,
I shall not hesitate to claim your barren deserts as my own.

THE KNOWING by K.K.K.

The knowing man knows

About himself

From inward looking comes

The knowledge of the Most Holy

Ignore the person

Reciting verses from the Qu'ran,

But lacking in a fearing heart

And fellow feeling.

i am a little church

The painting was done on holiday in Austria in summer 2010, inspired by one I saw by Reinhold Stecher in a small booklet called 'Der Rosenkranz, ein kleines Plaedoyer'

The poem i am a little church is by e e cummings. I thnk they go together rather well

i am a little church(no great cathedral)


far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities


—i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,


i am not sorry when sun and rain make april



my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;


my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving


(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children


whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness



around me surges a miracle of unceasing


birth and glory and death and resurrection:


over my sleeping self float flaming symbols


of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic


world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature


—i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;


i am not sorry when silence becomes singing


winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to


merciful Him Whose only now is forever:


standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence


(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)



"Poem 77" from 95 Poems (1958), p. 749

An Impression of Madonna and Child

I was inspired to draw an 'impressionist Icon' whist at Hillfield Friary in Dorset.

It is based on a print they had on sale in the shop.

It was also inspired by the sacred:space evening in Woking when Anton Ponamarev from faith2share came and spoke on Windows on Eternity: Orthodox spirituality of Icons

Icons are used by Orthodox churches around the world, with c 25o-300 million believers. That makes them probably the most common Christian art form. They are not idols that are worshipped, but are used as a means of 'veneration' - to focus the mind on the subject of the icon. A window on heaven.

Perhaps the most famous icon is the Vladimir Madonna and child

which acts as a sort of prototype for other icons .

interesting how the Christ child always looks like a 'little man'

in our sacred:space, we discussed about what is the difference between an Icon and a painting and looked at various examples. Sometimes it is unclear. But Icons are genearlly two dimentional, flat, no shadow.

There are conventions in painting an icon none of which I followed. My picture is more impressionistic in style so maybe it is neither a painting nor an icon. But it was insprired by faith....

It seems appropriate to end with an orthodox version of the Magnificat, the Song of Mary (in English) as it anticipates the 'upside-down Kingdom'

The Song of Mary English (Eastern Orthodox Divine Service):

My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;

For he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden.

For behold, from this day all generations will call me blessed;

For the mighty one has done great things to me, and holy is his name.

And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts;

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has exalted the holy;

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent empty away.

He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

as he spoke to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his seed forever.