Chinese Pearl From The British Crown
~day 176: all things bright and beautiful~
Image by theroamincatholic
Step into Colomb Art Gallery, at 52A George St, in Marylebone, London, and you’ll find that all things truly are bright and beautiful. There we met our friend Stephen B. Whatley, a devout Catholic and expressionist painter whose work is on show in the gallery’s spring collection. His paintings bounce off the walls and into your eyes with colourful brilliance, filling up the front window and oozing off the plain white walls with radiant life.
As an expressionist, Stephen paints instinctively from the subconscious, giving real subjects a poignant abstraction that allows the viewer to ‘enter in’ to the heart of the work in a deep and personal way. My favourites among his works, of course, are his paintings of Jesus, Mary and the saints, Christian works of art that have the ability to penetrate the soul even of the unbeliever, and for the believer, are a moving witness to God’s ineffable love and living presence.
But Stephen also has the ability to paint architecture like no one else—making dead buildings come alive and giving still-life’s movement and vitality. The secret to Stephen’s work lies in the fact that his greatest talent is not the ability to paint, but the capacity to see—to see God everywhere and in everything. He brings a Franciscan quality to his view of the world, a view in which even the most ordinary features of our surroundings are kindled with colour and brilliance; the world he paints is permeated by, and alive to God. Like St. Francis, Stephen is an optimist at heart who truly believes God is at work in everything and in everyone. However, this optimism certainly hasn’t arisen from an absence of suffering in Stephen’s life, but rather from the endurance of personal tragedy, from the ‘living out’ of suffering for love, with love, and through love. For Stephen, everything life offers—even suffering—is intensely valuable and beautiful, when seen in the light of God’s love.
I would like to talk about just two of the paintings on show at the Colomb. The first is his ‘Tribute to Royal Love,’ a grand portrait of Prince William and Catherine Middleton painted just ahead of their upcoming nuptials. Although I did, in fact, swear allegiance to the Queen when I became a British citizen, as an American (with dual citizenship!), I’m still often mystified by the natural affection of the British for the institution of the monarchy and especially for the current Royal family.
So, it was an even bigger accomplishment on Stephen’s part to touch me with this portrait of ‘Wills and Kate.’ What Stephen draws out is the human story of loss, hope, and love that shines out in William’s life. This is most evident in the inclusion of the sparkling blue engagement ring, originally Princess Diana’s, that Kate wears. Like the prince, Stephen also lost his beloved mother in his adolescence, and for the artist, this is the point of entry into William’s heart and the story of his love for Kate Middleton. Most of us will be all too able to identify with the grief of loss, and the sense of hopelessness and desolation experienced long after. Stephen’s message is that where there is love, there is hope; he shades Kate with deep blues that shine from her eyes in correspondence to the shimmering gem, while these same spiritual, sapphire tones are again picked up as a sort of ‘aura’ (as one journalist put it) around William’s head. Subconciously, what Stephen has actually portrayed is both the eternity of love and the hopefulness of life; blue is both symbolic here of Diana, and of eternity itself. Diana’s love for her son still enfolds him, reaching out from eternity to bring love into his life again. The tone of blue used to portray this is the same hue we usually associate with our Blessed Mother, ‘Mary blue’ as I often like to call it. So, with a few strokes of the paintbrush, Stephen has told both a human and heavenly story of maternal love. This painting, and an interview with Stephen, is currently featured in the latest edition of Hello! Magazine, an issue dedicated to the Royal wedding.
My favourite picture in the gallery is actually—surprisingly for me—a still-life entitled ‘Tulips and Anemones.’ (See it here: www.flickr.com/photos/stephenbwhatley/2298485502/). This painting was actually created on Easter day in 2007. What many may not be aware of, is that Stephen devotes himself to prayer before commencing any work—whether it’s one of his Christian paintings or a commissioned portrait. He sees himself as an empty vessel, painting only with God’s help in ‘poverty of spirit.’ Holy feasts like Easter are times are special inspiration and heightened creativity for him, so this still-life of spring flowers is much more than at seems at first glance.
Viewing this painting in ‘real life’ is actually a powerful experience. Here he takes a pot of flowers and, for me, turns them into a vision of the Resurrection of Christ. From the darkness of the earthenware pot (stone and earth being symbols of the tomb), small buds painted in spiritual blues give rise to brilliant tulips bursting forth with warmth and life. These triumphant flowers, in the spring of life, are radiating light; light rises from darkness as life triumphs over death. The thoughtful viewer may notice the Holy Spirit breathing life and light into the main tulips—a simple white line, giving texture to the petals, actually forms the shape of a white dove in flight…and, on closer inspection, you’ll find a tiny cross in the midst of all of this…between the darker lower portion, and the more radiant heights of the picture, stands the Cross. It’s not just a picture of spring flowers, but a picture of the eternal spring God’s love has destined us for.
One of the most beautiful but hidden uses of symbolism in this work is the triangle in the middle of the painting. The shape has been used to represent the texturing of a leaf (in itself, a symbol of vitality and life), but the white triangle is actually symbolic on several different levels. The triangle, representing the Trinity, is painted in pure white, ‘kissed’ by a light smattering of ‘Mary blue.’ The colour white is not only a deeply spiritual colour because of its virginal associations with purity and especially with the Holy Spirit, but white is also not actually a colour in itself. It is the ‘coming together’ of all colours. So, in a sense, white is the ‘communion’ of colours—just as the Trinity is the communion of Love.
Stephen’s paintings radiate with life, because his vision of this world is always touched by an awareness of the God who made it, His love that pervades it and His life He wants to share with us. We can personally respond to Stephen’s work precisely because that’s what his painting is in itself: the artist’s personal response to his Creator.
Thanks Stephen, for a lovely and memorable day!
Chinese Pearl From The British Crown
The official name of this place now – the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, though the word Hong Kong comes from the southern dialect that has no official status. The today authorities of China like the Beijing dialect more, and therefore prefer this place to be called Xianggang. To understand its particular role in the geography and history of China, it is enough to have a look at the map. Several rivers, among them full-flowing Beijiang, flow into the South China Sea, forming a long and wide bay Zhujiangkou. The bay ends with two peninsulas jutting out far into the sea – the western one is called Macau, and the eastern – Kowloon. Kowloon is the edge of a new autonomous region of China. Then it spreads to Hong Kong Island and many small islands. The attractiveness of these places for explorers of the past is more than obvious: it is here where their months-long journeys from Europe ended.
Till relatively recently Macao belonged to the Portuguese and Hong Kong – to the UK. However, the pioneers of those lands (China) were also he Portuguese, who arrived here in the beginning of XVI century – the Age of Discovery. Local inhabitants had no thoughts about transoceanic trade and active smuggling – inhospitable, sparsely populated islands, with scattered here and there fishing villages, appeared in front of the explorers.
Europeans quickly appreciated the dignity of this place. Profitable trade with Chinese goods began here.
By the end of XIX century, authorities of China began to sweat because of the arrogance of Europeans running their businesses here, and in 1840 the first English-Chinese war broke out (it is called the Opium War: a pretext for the outbreak of hostilities was the order of the Government Commissioner Lin Zexu to destroy stockpiles of opium belonging to the British), which finished in 1842 with the signing of a peace treaty, according to which Hong Kong passed into “eternal possession” of Great Britain, in other words it turned into its colony. At the border between China and British territory a rather strange settlement has appeared – something like a fortress with a name Kowloon Walled City. By the end of 1980s there lived more than 50000 people on the land with sizes 100mx200m. Neither Chinese authorities nor British ones didn’t will to accept them as citizens. In 1997 the United Kingdom finally gave back the colony to China, giving to the population a possibility to get British citizenship and move where they want.
Article from articlesbase.com

Narconon Drug Rehab Centre Crosses Continents To Address UK Ethnic Addiction Crisis
(PRWEB) May 20, 2009
Narconon Nepal rehab director flies to UK to lecture the Gurkha community to help reduce rising youthful drug abuse.
“Drug abuse and addiction miseries migrate with populations,” says Basanta Raj Kunwar, director of Narconon Nepal. This may be what unfortunately has happened with the Gurkhas, more than 100,000 of whom moved to England after a 1997 UK court decision approved that ex-Gurkha soldiers who served for the UK could receive citizenship along with their families. Speaking to Nepali parents in London, Kunwar said, “Our kids brought their drug problems along with them and found new ones here.”
Kunwar, a 23 year police force veteran and former Senior Superintendent of Police in Nepal, travelled from Kathmandu the first week of May, invited by the UK Nepali Association, to deliver drug education and awareness lectures across Greater London, from Basingstoke to Swindon, Harrow to Oxford. In a whirlwind 8 days, he delivered 9 presentations to 3,110 people and reached another 525,000 through Nepali radio, TV, and newspapers.
“We know that worldwide our communities share common drug problems,” says the energetic Kunwar, “and with our growing Narconon network, 150 centres in 50 countries, we have workable solutions. I should know.” It was only a few years ago, he says, that he researched for better drug rehabilitation solutions for Kathmandu. Since his retirement from the police, he had attempted to provide drug rehab to Nepali youth with his “Pratigya” (pledge) charitable foundation, but to poor result. Then he found the Narconon® drug rehabilitation program and got himself, his staff, and family trained up in its techniques. Now he has a 100-bed program in Kathmandu, operating from 5 different buildings. He is also constructing a new 150-bed facility in the mountains nearby, with funds donated by the International Association of Scientologists. Narconon bases its methods on the research and philosophy of humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard. The program itself is fully secular and non-religious.
In an interview by BGWS, a British military radio station, Kunwar advised Gurkha parents “you must not hide your drug addiction problems. Drugs will destroy your children if you do not educate yourselves. Happily, I can attest that Narconon can give you real help.” He recommended Narconon Hastings, England and other centres nearby in Denmark, Sweden, and Holland, as well as Nepal itself.
From time immemorial, alcohol abuse has been endemic in Nepal, but has been addressed no more successfully there than in Russia or China. Although “ganja” (hashish) has been smoked in Nepal for centuries, the drug problem escalated only in the 60s with the influx of the western hippie culture. Now there are serious heroin and other drug problems.
Kunwar showed Nepali parents how to recognize drug use symptoms and how to use urine screening kits. Within hours of returning home, four parents called him, he says, to say they uncovered drug use in their family. Kunwar himself is running a collaborative drug screening program with Kathmandu high schools. “I estimate 4,000 Nepali youth are taking hard drugs in the UK,” he concludes. “I have advised families to form up collectively to make a strategy to protect their communities.”
For more information on Narconon community awareness programs, please see Narconon Serving the Community, a brochure available online. To ask for help in the UK, go to http://www.drugrehab.co.uk.
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What a stunning review you have honoured me with Erin- it was a real pleasure & insight to have you & James view my work ‘in the flesh’ – most of all to meet you in sun-bathed London. James took a great photograph too- a lovely memory. God bless you both this Easter. Thank you!
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