Writing & Reflections
Writing & Reflections
Two books I published in 2023
02/09/2024
Thanks to the support of two publishers, I was able to produce a couple of books at about the same time. One made use of small sketches and paintings. The other played with imagined monolgues of characters known and unknown in the New Testament.
As it seemed increasingly likely that the UK was going to be locked down in the face of the approaching storm of the COVID-19 pandemic, I bought three little sketchbooks, measuring just 15 by 20 cm. My vague idea was to aim to paint a picture each day and share them via Twitter (now 'X' - find me as @neil_thorogood). Working in pen and then adding water colour, well over 100 images emerged during those strange days and months. The books were put away and might have been forgotten were it not for some conversations about using art to evoke thoughts. In 2022 I returned to those drawings and wondered if there might be a book in them; an afterlife for each image. Having approached several publishers, it was my own denomination, the United Reformed Church in the UK, who kindly accepted the risk. We took 101 of the pictures and I revisited them, letting them inspire fresh reflections which always concluded with a very short prayer. I imagined it as a sort of visual theological diary; a thought for the day in word and picture. Writing in her very generous Foreword, Prof Anna Rowlands, St. Hilda Professor of Catholic Social Thought and Practice at Durham University, says:
"What Neil Thorogood succeeds in doing in this remarkable collection is sharing his own pandemic journey, chronicled and captured, archived and now narrated, as an invitation to reflect on our own journeys - personal, social and spiritual. He helps us to dwell in that time and not to take flight, but to move into this next phase of our lives carrying its truths on our backs. It is fitting that art would be the entry point for this process, not only because Neil is an artist and writer, but also because of the ways in which art enables us to capture experience which seems to us somehow mysterious or wordless."
The book also contains many suggestions for further reading and exploration around imagination, visual art and faith. It includes suggestions for individual and group use.
Talking Pictures: 101 lockdown sketches evoking fresh thoughts and prayers is published by the United Reformed Church and can be bought here: Buy it here...
Even as Talking Pictures was coming together I was blessed with the opportunity for another work. As a preacher and worship leader I have devoted much of my life to delving into the texts and contexts of the Bible. I have tried to understand and to interpret, attending to God's word within the words and the world. I've tried to encourage congregations to do the same. One way I have sometimes done so is to imagine the internal conversations of biblical characters, and of those who might have been on the sidelines of the Bible's accounts. Taking the Christian year as a framework, from Advent through Lent and Easter, on to Pentecost and beyond, I imagined 40 characters telling something of their story as it is touched upon and hinted at in the four Gospels and the Book of Acts. Each text is short enough to be read within public worship. But there are also ways in which they can be used for small groups and individual devotions.
I was delighted that Prof Anna Carter Florence, Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in the US, agreed to write the Foreword. She writes: "What Neil Thorogood has done in Gospel Voices: Forty New Testament Characters Telling Their Stories, is to take us to Palestine in the time of Jesus and pick up the story at some key junctures. Through his beautiful, imaginative retellings, we go straight to those 'wanting more' places, each of which results in some deep, midrashic listening. We hear, for instance, from Joseph, Jesus' father, about how he fell in love with Mary, the most spirited young woman in the village... No matter how many times you've heard these Gospel stories, you'll hear them afresh with Thorogood as your guide... In the end, it's Thorogood's decision to write these stories from the point of view of each character that makes this book a treasure."
Gospel Voices: Forty New Testament Characters Telling Their Stories is published by Resource Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers in the US. It can be bought here: Buy it here...
Thank you to everyone who has shared their reactions to these efforts. If you are coming to them afresh, I hope you find something helpful in them.
"What Neil Thorogood succeeds in doing in this remarkable collection is sharing his own pandemic journey, chronicled and captured, archived and now narrated, as an invitation to reflect on our own journeys - personal, social and spiritual. He helps us to dwell in that time and not to take flight, but to move into this next phase of our lives carrying its truths on our backs. It is fitting that art would be the entry point for this process, not only because Neil is an artist and writer, but also because of the ways in which art enables us to capture experience which seems to us somehow mysterious or wordless."
The book also contains many suggestions for further reading and exploration around imagination, visual art and faith. It includes suggestions for individual and group use.
Talking Pictures: 101 lockdown sketches evoking fresh thoughts and prayers is published by the United Reformed Church and can be bought here: Buy it here...
Even as Talking Pictures was coming together I was blessed with the opportunity for another work. As a preacher and worship leader I have devoted much of my life to delving into the texts and contexts of the Bible. I have tried to understand and to interpret, attending to God's word within the words and the world. I've tried to encourage congregations to do the same. One way I have sometimes done so is to imagine the internal conversations of biblical characters, and of those who might have been on the sidelines of the Bible's accounts. Taking the Christian year as a framework, from Advent through Lent and Easter, on to Pentecost and beyond, I imagined 40 characters telling something of their story as it is touched upon and hinted at in the four Gospels and the Book of Acts. Each text is short enough to be read within public worship. But there are also ways in which they can be used for small groups and individual devotions.
I was delighted that Prof Anna Carter Florence, Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in the US, agreed to write the Foreword. She writes: "What Neil Thorogood has done in Gospel Voices: Forty New Testament Characters Telling Their Stories, is to take us to Palestine in the time of Jesus and pick up the story at some key junctures. Through his beautiful, imaginative retellings, we go straight to those 'wanting more' places, each of which results in some deep, midrashic listening. We hear, for instance, from Joseph, Jesus' father, about how he fell in love with Mary, the most spirited young woman in the village... No matter how many times you've heard these Gospel stories, you'll hear them afresh with Thorogood as your guide... In the end, it's Thorogood's decision to write these stories from the point of view of each character that makes this book a treasure."
Gospel Voices: Forty New Testament Characters Telling Their Stories is published by Resource Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers in the US. It can be bought here: Buy it here...
Thank you to everyone who has shared their reactions to these efforts. If you are coming to them afresh, I hope you find something helpful in them.