My name is Vanessa.  I am an artist, writer, spiritual director and practical theologian.

I am interested in the spaces between things…people, ideologies, religions, languages… and feel more comfortable at the edges, rather than the centre.

I read a lot.  Sometimes I feel like my closest friends and conspirators are dead theologians and poets.  Books and visual art have taught me most about life and meaning.  You can read some of my reflections here.

Spiritually, I am nourished and held by the mystical-contemplative Jewish-Christian tradition.  I was encountered by the person of Jesus whilst on a silent Buddhist meditation retreat in India in 2001.  Quiet remains something I have to cultivate daily.  

I am always curious about difference.  Jesus was a ‘border-stalker’ and never felt comfortable within one tradition or outlook.  He always seemed to open, rather than close, space.  I try to create spaces, in the midst of the noise of these polarising days, that invite people to expand, rather than contract.

I experience the practice of spiritual accompaniment to be akin to the practice of art making.  Both require full attention to what is most alive in and around you, and demand a fresh response every time.  Both are profoundly vulnerable practices.  

I live in East Sussex (in the UK), but love best being in the Cornish sea, scampering over Cornish rocks and connecting with that ancient land that knows me so well.  I adore my family and friends.  I am terrible at many things in life (particularly small talk), but am good at being alive to meaningful moments, many of which emerge when I am on the move and meeting strangers. 

I feel things deeply, and have always felt relieved that the natural world isn’t overwhelmed by that.  Nor is the canvas.  Art and nature are the places I feel closest to God and best able to express myself. 

I study Hebrew and am committed to teaching and writing about the embodied nature of Jewish scripture.  Had the Christian tradition drawn more from the Hebraic understanding of the world I suspect we wouldn’t be facing many of the social and ecological crises that we are today.

I was part of the charismatic-anglican stream of the church for fifteen years and, whilst rooted there, worked in partnership with Catholic, Anglican, Pentecostal, Baptist, Evangelical and Quaker churches and communities, always focussing on issues of justice and marginalisation.   I am by nature ecumenical.

I have a diploma in the Therapeutic Use of the Arts, and am experienced in working with art materials, and engaging with nature, as part of the process of becoming more authentic and in deeper communion with the divine.

I trained in spiritual direction at Sarum College.  The course is rooted in the Jewish-Christian tradition, but I love working with people (and groups) doing beautiful work in the world that don’t feel they have a spiritual home.  The collective challenges we face today require a deepening of our understanding of what it means to be human.  Spiritual direction can serve that growth.

I’ve been a (sometimes shaky) follower of Jesus for over twenty years, working with and co-founding a number of ministries and projects, all of which focussed on serving those on the margins of society.  I have a lot of experience of walking alongside church folk.

My deepest interest is in the relationship between beauty and justice. 

I have an MA in Theology & the Arts, an MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development, and am always exploring how the personal, social, political, ecological and structural realities in life relate. 

Spiritual practice and a deepening of connection to the divine (and to the land) can, as I understand it, impact and bring greater liberation on all of those levels.

As well as church communities, I have experience of Twelve Step communities, environmental activist groups, New Age, academic, therapeutic and artistic communities, and other groups that often have a ‘prophetic’ edge to what is going on in the world, including those that frequently experience injustice and marginalisation.

I am influenced by the work of many wise, dead writers and thinkers, including Martin Buber, Rubem Alves, Dorothy Soelle, Abraham J. Heschel, Audre Lorde, William Stringfellow, J.R.R Tolkien, Sadhu Sundar Singh, Julian of Norwich, J.W. Tozer, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Jacques Derrida, Leanne Payne and René Girard…

…and am indebted to many living ones too, including Catherine Keller, Willie Jennings, Nitza Spiro, Sarah Coakley, Bob & Gracie Ekblad, Walter Brueggemann, Rowan Williams, James Odgers, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Craig Stewart, Ben Quash, Julie Tomlin, Nicola Slee, Alan Hirsch, Roger & Sue Mitchell, Marilynne Robinson, Marijke Hoek, Julie Dunstan, Wendell Berry, Mike Love, Charles Taylor, Sharon Blackie, Chris Erskine, Steve Cole, Amanda Williams, Alastair McIntosh, Robert Alter, Wilda Gafney and a multitude of friends and peers.

(Vanessa Chamberlin, February 2024)

You can read testimonials and endorsements from clients, participants, friends and colleagues here. 

Photo credit: Lucy Cogley

Paintings: my own