Bowing and Respect

I was brought up from a very early age to believe that all people were equal and of value, and that therefore all people deserved respect. I learned this on my regular Sunday walks with my father, the highlight of my week. Being the kind of person I am, I took this to heart, and on more than one occasion it landed me in trouble. I remember my first day at school. The class were All told to stand to be introduced to our teacher, and we were told that when she entered the room first thing in the morning and afternoon we were to bow and say, “Good morning/afternoon Miss and then her name.” I had no objections at all to saying good morning but I had real problems with the bowing. If we were all equal why am I bowing to her I wondered? The teacher in her wisdom made no comment, but the head teacher on noticing my head upright took me aside and we had a “discussion.”


Later in life while taking part in the “crowning of the gala queen” event somebody noticed I did not bow to the gala queen and raised the issue in the local press. I have been introduced to real royalty on two occasions and on neither did I bow, but was aware that they did not take issue with its absence.

Age has made me do a rethink of many things and the more I see the diminution of respect the more  I now believe that the lesson of bowing, and what it signified is maybe a lesson we should not forget. Even if we set aside the physical action. It is said that respect has to be earned, that may be true. But if respect is offered then this could be the impetus to greater things from the one respect is shown to. At the end of all bouts in martial arts the combatants bow to one another as a mark of a shared respect. In Buddhist communities the master bows to his students to say to them, “I am merely the messenger of the teachings.” The students bow acknowledging his wisdom. From this shared respect grows even more worthy lessons.

I frequently take time out from the bustle of painting to pay my respect to the masters who have gone before. When visiting a gallery, if I come before a work that moves my inner being I stop, and though not physically, internally bow before the master. It says quietly and without fuss, “I respect you.”

No matter how great we may feel our art has become it is wise always to remember that there are those greater than ourselves. We are all equal and worthy of respect but there are those who have earned just that little bit more to which maybe a bow is appropriate. They have earned such respect.

I bow without show because this is the way of Tao.

Masters and Learners

There are a large number of cookery programmes available to view in the weekly television schedules. Many of these programmes take the format of the masters sharing their knowledge and in the process achieve the status of celebrity. The ones I prefer to watch are those where the cooks are not the masters. They cook and are judged by the masters who make comment and decide which cooks progress to the next round and who go no further. The mistake made by many of these cooks is that they try to impress too much and flood the plate with so many flavours that the palette is in a whirl. The person who progresses is so often the one who had only two or three items that could each be savoured and tasted to the full.


It is not only in cooking that this is true. I remember our annual flower festival. Flowers were arranged on a theme with each floral artist making their own interpretation. Those new to flower arranging had large numbers of blooms for their arrangements, others just two or three magnificent blossoms. One arrangement I remember vividly was one that contained only one bloom some greenery and some lovely bark and twigs. I can still see that arrangement vividly as if it was only yesterday, such was its impact.

Often at momentous occasions in life people feel the need to express their inner feelings in words. Maybe it is a poem about a loved one who has died, or a recitation about the bride or the groom at a wedding. So often these poems are lengthy and very wordy. I remember clearly though one such that spoke volumes in four lines and no rhyme.

I remember one summer when I was on vacation visiting attending a church service. The preacher was not long out of university. As we were leaving the church he recognised me and asked my opinion on his conduct of the service. I gave him my honest opinion, it was excellent but he had enough material in his children’s talk and sermon to get three of each. he needed to be more selective.

The artist so often feels the need to paint and paint. Long after they have reached the point where the painting is making a full and wonderful statement we continue to dab and change and tinker. We feel the need to add just a bit more detail another tree or flower, more grass, another pattern and often worse, another colour.

When I look at the work of Turner I see everything and yet there are so few brush strokes. The masters had that magnificent ability to express much with just the odd dab of paint. I on the other hand often feel the need for one more flourish. I am told by many other artists they have the same tendency.

Those who follow the Tao know when to be spare in what they do and to seek quality. They know that little is often more.

The Joy of Flowers

I had a trip to the garden centre, time to begin thinking about what I will be planting and growing this season. As I drove there I saw that the snowdrops are in bloom even though the distant hills are still covered in snow. I always leave the garden centre feeling uplifted by the beauty of the flowers available, especially my first love orchids. The colours, shapes and the aroma make me heady with delight. Flowers speak volumes in their silent beauty. They are part of all the great occasions and festivals. When we marry, the bride carries them the groom wears one in his jacket, When somebody dies we offer them as tokens of consolation and an expression of our loss. When somebody is successful we offer them flowers and of course they are symbols of love and romance.


Those little snowdrops as they poke their little heads above the ground and the snow, call to us to prepare for the coming of spring. The lotus tells us to reach above the muddy tarnished part of life to see greater things. Then we have the rose, with its bud, opening with a wondrous glory of layer upon layer of petals. Walking into a room and smelling the strong aromatic scent of the hyacinth.

They speak to us of how we can brighten the lives of others by bringing a pleasant sense of peace into every corner. They tell that there is nothing that cannot be made better. Think of the poppy, it manages to bloom in the barest of positions. It also reminds us of the frailty of life and how each moment should be grasped and lived to its full.

The gardener tends with care his plants encouraging them to give of their best. He feeds them, waters them and in windy conditions he helps by giving them support. In return they reward him with all that they have.

The artist can capture the beauty that is so fleeting and ephemeral, and allow that beauty to last for years to come. The poet will strive to find the words to express that inner joy that the sight of a flower can bring. Consider the words of William Wordsworth.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Such is the way of the Tao.

Work and Play

The number of times in my life that I have been told,” All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Maybe this is because for the biggest part of my life since leaving school I took little time to play, it was all work. For the first five years of my ministry I hardly ever took a holiday and if I did, much against the wishes of my family, I was always available to return to conduct a funeral. It is equally true that we cannot on the other hand have all play and no work. There has to be the discipline of toil but there has to be room for play. Fun and play are an important aspect of our lives. It can be claimed that it is through play that we open ourselves to the wonderful moments that come to us when we have “switched off.” My friends have always been amused when I tell them that I do all my best thinking in the bath, in fact I used to “write” all my sermons in the bath. I was always amazed that they found this so amusing; after all Archimedes had his “Eureka” moment in his bath, a moment that had long lasting effects on us all. Many of the momentous moments of history have happened to people when they were relaxed and at play.


I know so many people who eat and sleep their work. They have a dedication and are probably very good employees, and good at the occupation they have chosen. Sadly they tend to be people who are less than stimulating conversationalists or people who never set you afire with great emotion.

There are artists. I have met some, who have given all to their art, every minute of every day. They paint or think paint seven days a week. Yet if you take time to read the life stories of the “greats of art,” you will very quickly notice that their lives were full of play and intrigue. So often their best art was very closely linked to those moments of life where they were enjoying life to the full. One example, Edgar Degas, he had a great love of ballet and this love led to some of his best works. It could never be argued that he only loved ballet because it stimulating his art.

Those who follow the Tao know the need to also be participants in play. To be ,”good” to be “great” to be “inspiring” we have to be prepared to leave the borders, to step over the line of work into the world of play. We all have those things in life we consider “crucial” and “important.” It may be though that if we wish to touch the heights of our creative spirit we need to learn how to “play” and so experience Tao without having to “work at it.”

Youth, Age and the Journey.

I have spoken of it before but I repeat. I remember when I thought my parents knew nothing. My father worked as a painter in a shipyard and my mother well she was just my mother. What could they know that I already did not know? It was later, with wisdom, that I knew the truth. My father had not ended up there because he had no brains but because he had eight brothers and sisters and a father who was a coal miner. At the age of fourteen he had to leave school to play his part in earning money to put food on the table. My mothers’ father had been killed in the war and her mother (my grandmother, who strangely I thought knew everything) had struggled to raise two girls in difficult times so she had left school to work in the jute mills of Dundee.


When we grow older it is easy to look at youth and remember when we were just like them. The next step is to wish that we could go back there and take with us the knowledge we have gained over the years. To have the fire of youth and the wisdom of age seems such an attractive proposition. The trouble is we would be aware of all the pain that cannot be avoided. We would be aware of exactly what was ahead in terms of the ageing process. To know there would come a time when I was still fit enough to run up the stairs but to then stand and wonder why I was there.

When I was teaching I looked at the young and became aware of how far they yet had to travel. I saw the adventure, the excitement the new possibilities with the speed of modern development. They as yet did not have the scars and the pains of life. Thankfully they were also blissfully unaware of the journey before them. When I see a baby in a pram I feel all of this, but I also worry of what lies ahead if we older ones do not start behaving differently in terms of our planet.

Life is indeed a journey and we are all at different stages of that journey. What is yet to come is a mystery. We all have greater wisdom that we did in our younger years. But there is still the mystery, that mystery brings with it a sanity we would not have if we knew the future.

The artist is aware of the world with its pains and it joys, its beauty and its disgrace. We have an inner urge to share this with others through our chosen mediums, and we are fortunate in that we have the ability to do just that. We also have an obligation to share it with others. The young may look at the older and wonder what if anything they have to teach but we strive to express in art what we do indeed know. We do not paint only for our own pleasure but to share the gained insight of the years. We also know that the young will one day be the elders and what we have taught them will begin to bear fruit. So we do not share in vain.

This is the way of Tao.