The rockdove is the ‘wild ancestor’ of the domestic pigeon.
If a dove did appear above Jesus’s head when he was baptised, rather than the perfect white dove of Christian iconography it would, in all likelihood, have been a speckled brown and bluish-grey ‘rockdove’ from the cliffs local to the Jordan river.
When I first heard this, back in 2003 [1], I remember a shot of electricity ran through my body as I realised that the pilgrimage of faith, and in my case the following of Jesus, was about becoming real, rather than becoming good.
The idea of the simple, speckled ‘rockdove’ being a symbol for the Spirit has troubled and inspired me ever since.
From this point my work will be focussed on becoming, and encouraging others to become, more real - starting with my practice of spiritual accompaniment.
The ‘rockdove’ reminds me that Jesus is wild, and doesn’t want to be domesticated.
For the last decade, this understanding has led me to create small spaces for people outside of church, who are doing beautiful work in the world, to be resourced by the wisdom of the Jewish-Christian tradition. We are living at a complex moment and, whether we consider ourselves religious or not, may find we need access to these ancient insights and practices.
Most of these people have been artists, writers and activists. People who ‘feel fiercely’ - many of them doing work that, in the biblical tradition, would be called ‘prophetic’.
The ancient prophets in the Jewish tradition provoked their communities to ‘wake up’ and live with ‘eyes wide open’.
They weren’t interested in ‘right behaviour’. And they certainly weren’t interested in ‘right politics’. They were interested in freedom. And in beauty. In its deepest, most ruthless, liberatory sense. ‘Beauty is life’s triumph over death. It is life’s melody as it faces the Abyss’.[2]
Like those prophets, artist-types practice a ‘summons [to] wake up’ the world,[3] and do so in ways that can model aliveness to the times we are living in.
They can help us become more felt, flexible, whole hearted, discerning, risk taking, honest, willing to sacrifice forms that no longer work, hungry in our pursuit of truth and, perhaps most importantly, comfortable with the unknown and unafraid of chaos.
It seems a good time to open the kinds of spaces I’ve been hosting more widely.
The first of these is my practice of spiritual accompaniment, which I offer to individuals and to groups, of faith and none. You can find details here, read testimonials here, and make contact with me here.
The second of these will be a regular writing practice, where I will share stories and theological reflections from a life of doubt and faith in ways that I hope might encourage, challenge, console, inspire and provoke.
The third is a bible space. For the last few years, my friend David and I have been hosting bible studies for folk that may not profess faith, but want to draw wisdom from this clunky old book. We are creating a simple podcast as a means of sharing our way of engaging with the text, and will be sensing whether there is an appetite for more.
Gatherings, learning spaces and prayer spaces will follow…spaces for theo-poesis…the practice of theo-logos getting down on its hands and knees…recovering its body… in service of Beauty. You can read about previous gatherings and learning spaces I have hosted here.
‘I have always felt like a strange creature. One that traces the spaces between things…a ‘border-stalker’ as artist Makoto Fujimura would say. I hope these ‘rockdove’ offerings might draw out and affirm the work of other ‘border stalker’ types…whose capacity to understand and speak truth across divides might yet provoke some wild hope in these weary days'.
Vanessa Chamberlin, February 2024
[1] I heard this said by Lin Button in 2003
[2] Rubem Alves, The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet (London: SCM Press, 1990), p.133
[3] Abraham j. Heschel, The Prophets (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), p.5