Tuesday, 24 December 2013

Supporting the RNLI

SURVIVING THE STORM – DAVID PAIRPOINT



In supporting the RNLI in their fund raising efforts I came across David Pairpoint’s painting ‘Surviving the Storm’.
Since then I’ve been considering ways in which the sea, through the arts, captures the imagination.
I wouldn’t begin to describe myself as comfortable being ‘at sea’; more a case of being ‘all at sea’, given my manic lifestyle.
Apart from having once spent six months at sea enjoying the relative comfort of several RFAs, and a disastrous cruise on board Concordia, just weeks before it sank, I’ve not been much of a one for wet, windy weather. I can’t swim either; too afraid to be in water where my feet can’t touch the bottom.
I can therefore only begin to imagine the terror of those fearing for their lives, and the sheer …… bravery of those who willingly, and often without pay, risk their own lives in order to save others.

As a regular church goer I am familiar with the refrain of the hymn ‘Eternal father strong to save’,

The sea has often provided fuel subject matter for some of our most noted poets over the centuries –
Over the Sea our Galleys Went by Robert Browning
A Sea Dirge by Lewis Carroll
The Sea And The Skylark by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Sea Took Pity by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Sea And the Hills by Rudyard Kipling


The Old Man and the Sea is a novel written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cuba, and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon Santiago, an aging fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.The Old Man and the Sea was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and was cited by the Nobel Committee as contributing to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Hemingway in 1954.


Turner exhibited his first oil painting at the academy in 1796, Fishermen at Sea: a nocturnal moonlit scene of The Needles, which lie off the Isle of Wight. The image of boats in peril contrasts the cold light of the moon with the firelight glow of the fishermen's lantern.

The fighting temeraire

The power of the aea to capture the imagination

Films about the sea

Hornblower

fascination with the changing landscape of the sea

He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
Who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth; who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the surface of the earth— the Lord is his name.
Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea.
The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so.
The birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.
When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire. He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. ...
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; ...
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood ...
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in wint


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