Welcome to St Mary Magdalene's Church, Rusper

 …………..Art in heaven?

Once everything was black. It was cold. There was no life. This is how God painted his universe in the beginning out of the empty darkness

When God spoke first there was white. Pure, dazzling, white. It was breathtaking, but for God’s angels it was too much; beautiful, but blinding hot, pure as snow but lifeless. No angel dared tread there.

Then God let a single tear drop from his eye. A stream of blue flowed into the light. Blue flooded, fresh into every part of this new universe.

Next God scattered seeds from heaven. Life sprouted and grew green, and God poured yellow onto his canvas of creation. Yellow warmed life into ripeness.

Life in this universe was good. Life was colour and the people God had made - his rainbow children – loved the mixing of colours of every shade.

Then out of this God’s heart came another wonderful colour – deep warm red. It was the life of God himself. But people wanted this colour for themselves and fought over it. God sent his son to show them like an artist how this life could be shared. He blended colour in new and exciting ways. But not everyone could see the picture he was creating or bear the beauty of it, so they spilt his life on the ground and once more the world became dark. No colours could be seen…

…until a glorious gold sunrise awoke the world again. The artist was alive, and promises that we can be his rainbow sisters, brothers and children!

the potential to grow, and while ‘goodbye’ may often signal growing pains, remember it is a prayer ‘God be with you’. God being with each of us means we are never alone or even truly apart from one another.

This story was written for Amen to Art Service in 2009.