Sacred Seeing
Updated: Aug 16
Sunday Service, 16 August 2026
Led by Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall and Roy Clark
Musical Prelude: Manhã de Carnaval - Luiz Bonfá (performed by Georgia Morgan Turner)
Opening Words: ‘We Gather’ by Paul H L'Herrou
We gather in community to rest from our labours, to greet our neighbours,
and to open our being to insight and intuition
of that greater reality of which we are a part.
May we find in our time together inspiration and renewal.
May we touch the holy in each other
and be touched by the graciousness of life.
May we find here a calm peacefulness
that will carry us through the days ahead. (pause)
Words of Welcome and Introduction:
These words from Paul H L'Herrou welcome all who have gathered this morning for our Sunday service. Welcome to those who have gathered in-person at Essex Church, to all who are joining via Zoom (including our friends from Godalming Unitarians), and anyone tuning in at a later date via YouTube or the podcast stream. For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m Jane Blackall, and I’m minister with Kensington Unitarians.
This morning’s service is titled ‘Sacred Seeing’ – inspired by the contemplative practice known as ‘visio divina’ – looking with the eyes of the heart and receiving God’s presence through what we see. Historically, many faithful people were not literate, so their primary way into religious understanding was through icons, frescoes, sculptures, stained glass windows – they couldn’t read scripture – so they had these direct contemplative and imaginative encounters with art, visual imagery, instead. Our own Roy Clark chose our theme today, and will be offering his reflections later in the service, and we’ll also have a chance to have a go at the practice of visio divina ourselves as our meditation.
Chalice Lighting: ‘A Symbol of Our Faith’ by David Usher
Let’s light our chalice flame now, as we do each week. It’s a moment for us to stop and take a breath, settle ourselves down, put aside any preoccupations we came in carrying. This simple ritual connects us in solidarity with Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists the world over, and reminds us of the proud and historic progressive religious tradition of which this gathering is part.
(light chalice)
We light this candle as a symbol of our faith.
By its light may our vision be illumined;
By its warmth may our fellowship be encouraged;
And by its flame may our yearnings for peace,
justice and the life of the spirit be enkindled.
Hymn 172 (green): ‘All Are Welcome Here’
Let us sing together now. Our first hymn is number 172 in your green book: ‘All Are Welcome Here’. Feel free to stand or sit as you prefer.
Now open wide your hearts, my friends,
And I will open mine,
And let us share all that is fair,
All that is true and fine.
We gather in this meeting house —
People of many kinds:
Let us, below the surface, seek
A meeting of true minds.
For in our company shall be
Great witnesses of light:
The Buddha, Krishna, Jesus — those
Gifted with clearest sight.
Like them, we seek to know ourselves,
To seek, in spite of fear;
To open wide, to all, our hearts —
For all are welcome here.
Candles of Joy and Concern:
Each week when we gather together, we share a simple ritual of candles of joy and concern, an opportunity to light a candle and share something that is in our heart with the community. So we’ve an opportunity now, for anyone who would like to do so, to light a candle and say a few words about what it represents. We’ll go to the people in the building first, then to Zoom.
So I invite some of you here in person to come and light a candle and then if you wish to tell us who or what you light your candle for – please keep it brief – be considerate of others. I’m going to ask you to come to the lectern to speak, as we want people to be able to hear you.
(in person candles)
And if that’s everyone in the room we’ll go over to the people on Zoom next – you might like to switch to gallery view at this stage – just unmute yourselves when you are ready and speak out – and we should be able to hear you and see you up on the big screen here in the church.
(zoom candles)
And I’m going to light one more candle, as we often do, to represent all those joys and concerns that we hold in our hearts this day, but which we don’t feel able to speak out loud. (light candle)
Time of Prayer & Reflection: based on words by Sheena Gabriel
Let’s take those joys and concerns into an extended time of prayer. The prayer is based on words by Sheena Gabriel. You might want to adjust your position, close your eyes, or soften your gaze. There might be a posture that helps you feel more prayerful. Whatever helps you get into the right state of body and mind for us to pray together – be fully present – with ourselves, with each other, and with that which is both within us and beyond us. (pause)
Spirit of Life, God of All Love, in whom we live and move and have our being,
we turn our full attention to you, the light within and without,
as we tune in to the depths of this life, and the greater wisdom
to which – and through which – we are all intimately connected.
Be with us now as we allow ourselves to drop into the
silence and stillness at the very centre of our being. (pause)
Spirit of Love that abides in all things,
We give thanks for beauty and grace unnoticed,
which lie like un-opened love letters
strewn throughout our days…
awaiting a response.
May we be mindful of the manifold gifts that come our way.
Grant us the insight to see with fresh vision
beneath the surface of things;
awake to the miracle of the lit bush,
and the gentle cadence of healing
which whispers beneath the chatter of our lives.
Help us to remember that despite
the pain and suffering that haunts our world,
amidst the fractured busyness and distractions of our days,
beauty, goodness, and human-kindness
are always unfolding – around and within us;
Scattered like seeds – growing silently
without fanfare, waiting to be discovered
as we still our minds and open our hearts… (pause)
And in a few moments of shared silence and stillness now,
may we speak inwardly some of those deepest prayers of our hearts —
the joys and sorrows we came in carrying –
in our own lives and the lives of the wider world.
Let us each lift up whatever is on our heart this day,
give thanks for all the blessings we have been given,
and ask for whatever it is that we most need. (long pause)
Spirit of Life – God of all Love – as this time of prayer comes to a close, we offer up
our joys and concerns, our hopes and fears, our beauty and brokenness,
and we call on you for insight, healing, and renewal.
As we look forward now to the coming week,
help us to live well each day and be our best selves;
using our unique gifts in the service of love, justice and peace. Amen.
Hymn (on sheet): ‘The World Needs Love’
Let’s sing again – our second hymn is on your hymn sheet – ‘The World Needs Love’. It’s to a well-known tune.
The world needs love; so many hearts are hurting.
Grace, work through us, help us to spread your peace,
bringing to all - through your forgiving spirit -
freedom from guilt, from bitterness release.
Reconcile us; help us to share your calmness,
’till anger stills and all our conflicts cease.
The world needs hope, a vision for the future,
what life might be, if all would live in you.
Help us to lead - through your transforming spirit -
lives that reflect what you would have us do,
to share our gifts, show forth your loving kindness,
encourage all to find their hope in you.
The world needs faith, a willing dedication
of all we are and all we might yet be.
Help us to serve - through your empowering spirit -
in active faith in our community.
Love for each soul, respecting and upholding,
declares the worth of all humanity.
The world needs joy, a sense of celebration
that human lives have such diversity.
Help us to see - through your dynamic spirit -
each person’s part in life’s vitality.
Sharing our joys, supporting others’ sorrows
make our small world a better place to be.
Reading: ‘On the Web of Connection through the Artist’s Eye’ by John Berger (read by Antony)
To look is an act of choice. We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves. When we look at a work of art, we are not just seeing a relic from the past; we are participating in a conversation that spans centuries. The artist saw something, felt a vibration in the world, and attempted to tether it to a surface so that we might feel it too.
This is the true 'interconnected web.' When I stand before a painting created four hundred years ago, I am meeting the gaze of another human being who wondered about the same stars, felt the same grief, and marvelled at the same light. Art is the proof that we are not alone. It is the bridge between the 'I' and the 'Thou.'
In our modern world, we are often told that we are separate individuals, competing and isolated. But art tells a different story. It tells us that our vision is shared. It tells us that the suffering of a stranger is as real as our own, and that the beauty seen by a child in another land is part of our own heritage. To look at art is to acknowledge our interdependence. It is to say: 'Your vision matters to my soul.' In the gallery, borders disappear. The labels of politics and religion fall away, and we are left with the fundamental human gesture: the hand reaching out to mark the wall, saying, 'I was here, I saw this, and it was beautiful.'
Reading: ‘On Sacred Seeing’ by Iris Murdoch (read by Brian)
I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious of my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now which is real except the kestrel. And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important.
This is an exercise in 'unselfing.' Art is the most educational thing we have, and it is also the most easily available. It enables us to see and take pleasure in what is not ourselves. We are so often blinded by our own anxieties, our own personal histories, and our own needs. We look at the world, but we only see how it can serve us or how it has hurt us.
But great art stirs us to the effort of true vision. It is a form of prayer, even if we do not use that word. It is a quietness that allows the world to exist on its own terms. When we stand before a great painting, we are invited to set down our burdens, our prestige, and our certainties. We are asked to be quiet and to attend. In that moment of attention, we find a freedom that we cannot find anywhere else. We find that the world is large, and we are part of it, but we are not the masters of it. And in that realization, there is a profound and lasting peace.
Words for Meditation: Visio Divina – Practicing Sacred Seeing
We’re moving into a time of meditation now. And we’re doing something slightly different this week.
Like I said at the start of the service, this is an opportunity to practice visio divina, sacred seeing. Formally, this practice is supposed to unfold in four stages, as you encounter an image, a work of art: Visio (Gaze), Meditatio (Meditation), Oratio (Prayer), and Contemplatio (Silent Contemplation).
Everyone in the church today has been given a different image, on the back of your hymn sheet, which you are invited to use for this practice as your sacred image to focus on. And if you’re at home there were a bunch of links to 12 different images in the Friday email so you can click on one of them at random to find an image to work with. Hopefully Charlotte has pre-warned you! A few of them are classic ‘religious art’ but most are not; we can choose to ‘see’ all things through a spiritual lens.
You may or may not like the image you’ve randomly been given – try not to get hung up on that – treat it as an experiment. Even if it’s not to your taste there is still a fruitful encounter to be had.
Try not to worry about doing it ‘right’! You can just spend a few minutes reflecting on the image.
So I’m simply going to lead you through the four stages of visio divina now. I’ll leave about a minute of silence between each stage (ideally you’d take longer than this) and then we’ll take the final stage into our usual three minutes of silence, which will end with the sound of a bell, and then into music. And of course, if you’d rather not try this practice, use the silent time to meditate your own way.
So get comfortable, and put down everything you don’t need to be holding, just hold your picture. And we’ll proceed through the four movements of visio divina taken from the Contemplative Society.
(short pause)
Stage one is visio – gazing – simply look at the image. Let your eyes wander. Notice what draws your attention: a colour, a figure, a gesture, a shadow. Don't force anything. Just observe what "shimmers."
(minute pause)
Stage two is meditatio – meditation – take in the whole image. Let it speak to you. What does this image evoke in you? What feelings arise? If this is a scene, where are you situated in it?
(minute pause)
Stage three is oratio – prayer – silently, inwardly, speak to God about what you are noticing. Share what you're feeling. Ask questions. If the image unsettles you, say so. If it comforts you, give thanks.
(minute pause)
And finally stage four is contemplatio – contemplation – let go of analysis and words. Rest in silence. Listen for God's still, small voice. Allow the image to continue working in you beyond thought. We’ll take three minutes for contemplation now (which will be ended with the sound of our bell).
Period of Silence and Stillness (~3 minutes) – end with a bell
Interlude: Chorado - Guinga (performed by Georgia Morgan Turner)
Reading: ‘On the Spirituality of the Ordinary’ by Thomas Moore (read by Hannah)
We often think that spirituality is something that happens in the clouds, or in a state of high ecstasy. But the soul is actually fed by the common things of the world—the grain of a piece of wood, the way the light hits a bowl of fruit, the deep red of an old brick wall. Art is the practice of arresting life so that we can finally see it.
Most of our life is spent in a rush; we consume images and experiences like we are starving, but we never stop to taste them. To care for the soul is to find the eternal in the everyday. A painter like Vermeer or Rembrandt doesn't need a miracle to show us the holy; they only need a window, a loaf of bread, or the face of an old woman. They show us that the divine is not 'elsewhere.' It is hidden in the textures of our lives.
When we look at art, we are practicing the preservation of the soul. We are saying that this moment—this colour, this light—is worth keeping. We are learning to see the sacredness of the material world. This is the great gift of the visual artist: they provide the 'containers' for our wonder. They allow us to slow down enough to realize that the burning bush is everywhere, if only we have the eyes to see it. We don't need to go to the mountaintop to find the infinite; we only need to look at the world with the same love that an artist gives to their canvas.
Hymn 151 (green): ‘Be Thou My Vision’
Let’s sing again – our next hymn is number 151 in your green books: ‘Be Thou My Vision’.
Be thou my vision, O God of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
Be thou my wisdom and thou my true word,
I ever with thee, and thou with me God;
Thou my soul’s shelter, thou my high tower,
Raise thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.
Riches I need not, nor world’s empty praise,
Thou my inheritance, now and always;
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
Sovereign of heaven, my treasure thou art.
Sovereign of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s un.
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
Reflection: ‘Sacred Seeing’ by Roy Clark
Have you ever noticed, that when we step off the bustling pavements of London...or any big city and into the cool stillness of a public Art Gallery, something subtle happens to our posture. We slow our pace. Our voices drop to a whisper. We move from the noise of doing into the quiet of observing.
In traditional religious language, we might say we are stepping into a sanctuary. But in a Unitarian tradition where we look for the sacred not just in ancient texts or grand creeds, but in the living experience of the world around us, the gallery wall becomes an altar of a different kind. It is a place where human beings have attempted to tether their deepest longings, their grief, and their wonder onto a few square feet of canvas.
Today, we are talking about Visio Divina or Sacred Seeing. We are not here to act as art critics or historians. We are not checking off a list of famous masterpieces. We are here to ask a simpler, deeper question: What happens when we slow down enough to let a work of art look back at us?
Whether you are drawn to Renaissance paintings, contemporary sculpture or immersive audiovisual installations, looking at art offer us a way to engage with the sacred.
Yet, we live in a culture of hyper velocity, and we bring that rush into the gallery with us. Recent museum studies reveal a startling statistic: on average, gallery visitors spend just 28 seconds looking at a single work of art in an exhibition and as l regularly witness, many folk spend a fair chunk of those fleeting seconds snapping a photograph of the artwork on their phones!
Psychologists tell us that our brains need three or four seconds just to register a basic emotional response, and about ten seconds to decide cognitively what we think about an artwork. But if we are hoping for an encounter that is genuinely meaningful, one that shifts something inside us, seconds are simply not enough. A real encounter takes minutes. It requires a rhythm: we must look, think, emotionally respond, and then look again.
If we try to take in an entire museum in an afternoon, we end up seeing nothing at all. The spiritual discipline of art is not about volume; it is about depth. It is far better to meaningfully engage with just two or three pieces on an arts expedition, to stand before them until they begin to speak, than to rush past a hundred masterpieces with a camera in hand.
This practice of slow, deep attention is nothing new. In the summer of 1873, a young, lonely nineteen-year-old man was living in lodgings in South London, in Stockwell. His name was Vincent van Gogh. Long before he ever picked up a paintbrush, long before he painted starry nights or vibrant sunflowers, he was just a young man walking the streets of London.
He was an avid walker. He would cross the river and spend hours wandering slowly through the rooms of the National Gallery. At the time, he thought his calling was the church; he was preparing to become a preacher, desperate to bring comfort to the poor and suffering.
Yet, ultimately the church rejected him. His zeal was too strong, his theology too unorthodox, his manner too unpolished for formal ministry. The institution closed its doors to him.
But Vincent did not lose his faith; he simply moved his altar. He realized that the sermons he wanted to preach couldn’t be spoken in words they had to be painted in colour. He took the devotion he had for the divine and poured it directly onto canvas. As he would later write to his brother Theo: “When I have a terrible need of... shall I say the word?...of religion, then I go out at night to paint the stars.”
The filmmaker Agnès Varda once captured the heart of this open-eyed practice when she said:
“I’m curious. Period. I find everything interesting. Real life. Fake life. Objects. Flowers. Cats. But mostly people. If you keep your eyes open and your mind open, everything can be interesting.”
Yet keeping our eyes truly open is it seems much harder than it sounds. The artist David Hockney who spent a lifetime teaching people how to see, frequently lamented how rare real looking actually is. He observed that most people don’t really look at the world; they just scan the ground in front of them so they don’t trip over. I agree, If we walk through our lives glancing just enough to navigate, just enough to get by, we are missing the extraordinary visual symphony playing out all around us.
This radical curiosity, choosing to lift our eyes from the pavement and look at things with intensity is the beginning of what the writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch who we heard from earlier, called “unselfing”. Most of our days are spent trapped inside our own heads. We look at the world, but we rarely see it. We judge it, we organise it, we worry about it, or we calculate how it can serve us. We see a tree in hot weather and think “shade,” or we see a stranger and think “obstacle.”
Great art interrupts that cycle. It demands that we set down our prestige, our certainties, and our anxieties at the door. When you stand before a painting like Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery, or Hockney’s A Year in Normandie currently on view a short walk from here at the Serpentine Gallery you are invited into an act of radical attention. You are asked to look at something not because it is useful, but simply because it is.
And in that quiet, three-minute or five-minute stretch of stillness, the boundaries of the self soften. We realise that the world is vast, beautiful, and terrifying, and that we belong to it... not as masters, but as witnesses. Vincent once wrote about how he used colour to express human emotion:
“To express the love of two lovers by a wedding of two complementary colours... To express hope by some star. Someone’s passion by the radiance of the setting sun. There is certainly no optical illusion in that... isn’t it something that really exists? Isn’t it a thing that expresses the soul?”
When we look deeply at a painting, we are participating in it. In his 1995 lecture ‘My National Gallery’, the playwright Alan Bennett described this exact moment of recognition, what he called “the evidence of humanity” that looking at a painting can give us. He succinctly summarised this using his special gift with words that sadly l don’t possess to describe what happens when a picture truly touches you:
“It’s as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”
That encapsulates so beautifully the true miracle of art. An artist who lived centuries ago, or who walked these very London streets a hundred and fifty years ago felt a vibration in the universe. They felt the ache of solitude, or the explosion of gratitude, and they found a way to mark it down.
When we give ourselves time, when we push past that initial 28 seconds and allow the hand to reach out from the canvas and take ours the distance of time and space evaporates. We realise that our loneliness is not unique, our joy is shared, and our searching is universal. Art becomes the bridge between self and other.
If its great art...the artist has managed to put their entire truth there in that image and your truth can encounter that to the extent to which you let it, and so you return to yourself enriched by the artists vision.
As we move on from our own visual meditations in the service today, remember that Visio Divina does not end when we leave this church or indeed walk out of the gallery doors after paying a visit.
The gallery is simply a training ground for our eyes. The ultimate goal of looking at art is not to admire the frame on the wall, but to learn how to frame the rest of our lives. So don’t try to take in everything. Pick one image, one face, one corner of light and give it your time.
May we leave this place with sharper eyes and softer hearts. May we look at the stranger on the tube, the evening light breaking through the trees in a London park, or the simple leaf on the pavement with the same “lofty and serious intimate sympathy” that Vincent brought to his canvas.
For the sacred is not confined to holy mountains or ancient stories. It is to be found everywhere, in every room, on every canvas, and in every human face, if only we have the patience, the curiosity, and the love to slow down and see it.
Amen.
Hymn 14 (green): ‘For the Beauty of the Earth’
Time for one last hymn now, it’s number 14 in your green books, ‘For the Beauty of the Earth’.
For the beauty of the earth,
For the splendour of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies:
For all these with joy we raise
This, our song of grateful praise.
For the wonder of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light;
For all these with joy we raise
This, our song of grateful praise.
For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind’s delight,
For the mystic harmony
Linking sense to sound and sight:
For all these with joy we raise
This, our song of grateful praise.
For the joy of human care,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
For the fellowship we share,
For all gentle thoughts and mild:
For all these with joy we raise
This, our song of grateful praise.
Announcements:
Thanks to Roy for offering our reflection today. Thanks to Ramona for hosting and Charlotte for co-hosting. If you’re online stay for a chat with Charlotte if you can. Thanks to Georgia for lovely music today, Andrew for accompanying our hymns, Benjie for supporting our singing. Thanks to Antony, Brian, and Hannah for reading. Thanks to Hannah for greeting and Marianne for coffee. If you’re in-person please do stay for tea and cake (it’s Victoria sponge or apple and pear cake).
After the service this afternoon we have yoga with Hannah – talk to her to find out more! – and also we have the crafternoon in the hall next door, that’s just a relaxed hangout, bring your craft projects or do some colouring in or otherwise rummage in our art and craft boxes.
Tonight and Friday at 7pm we’ve got our online ‘Heart and Soul’ online contemplative spiritual gathering – this week it’s on the theme of ‘Growing Up’ – sign up with me if you want to get the link for tonight or John if you want to come along on Friday. And I accidentally left this off the printed order of service but we also have an in-person Heart and Soul next Wednesday. Please let me know if you’re coming along to that as I’m hoping we’ll have enough for it to be viable.
This month’s Better World Book Club will be about ‘Upstream’ by Dan Heath, which we’ll be talking about on Sunday 30th August, and I still have one copy of that to loan out.
The next two weeks are a bit out of the ordinary – next Sunday (23rd August) there will only be an in-person service (as everyone who can set up the tech is away) – that will be led by Jasmine on the theme of ‘Circles and Spirals’. The following week (30th August) there will an online-only service (we would normally have no service due to Carnival but I didn’t want to leave our online congregation without a service for 2 weeks in a row! So we’ll do something on Zoom that week).
Looking further ahead, don’t forget we’ll have our ‘Gathering the Waters’ service on 13th September, so if you’re travelling perhaps you can bring back some water with you to contribute to that. And there will be a potluck lunch after our Harvest Festival service on 27th September.
Details of all our various activities are printed on the order of service, and also in the Friday email, so sign up for our mailing list if you haven’t already done so, and the summer newsletter is out (if you know anyone who might be interested in what we do then take a copy to give them for free). The congregation very much has a life beyond Sunday mornings; we encourage you to keep in touch, look out for each other, and do what you can to nurture supportive connections.
Just time for our closing words and closing music now.
Benediction: based on words by George G. Brooks
May the love that gives to life its beauty,
the reverence that gives to life its sacredness,
and the purposes that give to life its deep significance
be strong within each of us and lead us into
ever deepening relationships with all of life.
And may that be so for the greater good of all. Amen.
Closing Music: Coco-Rojão No.3 - Caçapa (performed by Georgia Morgan Turner)
Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall and Roy Clark
16th August 2026