Presence

Chris Thackery

Many people feel that their experience of God is characterised by absence rather than presence. They experience God as elusive, distant or unfathomable. They seek, but encounter silence. And how can we engage One who is invisible and whose mystery confounds us? 

But what if the problem lies not in God’s remoteness, but in our blindness, our inability to recognise his presence?  

Jesus healed many blind people and perhaps this points us towards his deeper desire that our spiritual eyes might be opened, to blink in the light of a newly unveiled and God-suffused world. 

We are familiar with the idea that God reveals himself through the wonders of the created world. And through the writings of the Bible, we see God-breathed truth   expressed by human beings in human words. We sometimes see enough to recognise God’s image reflected in the kindness and courage of people. This much we might expect. 

But God also chose to live on the earth with hands calloused by the chisel and the plane. Could God choose to reveal himself through the mundane, the everyday things of our lives, so easily overlooked in our captivity to the impressive?  Could God-breathed truth also be revealed in things made by human design, human hand, and human manufacture? Could God, in fact, be all around us but hidden in plain sight? 

My spiritual journey over recent years has been, in part, a journey of learning to see, to discover God’s presence in the ordinary experiences of my daily life, being jolted by joy when arrested by the familiar thing, as it suddenly illuminates the sacred Presence. 

I have tried to express a small part of the journey in this exhibition. Nearly all these photos are taken within the confines of my own unremarkable home. My hope is that you will enjoy some of the work, perhaps experience a glimpse of God, and perhaps open your inward eyes to the possibility of God’s presence where you least expect it.   

If you would like to explore the Christian faith further, please contact me by email