We are a vibrant community of like-minded and differently-minded artists encountering one another and the divine through creativity. We champion art and artists of all kinds who explore spirituality through their work. We create spaces for diverse voices and perspectives, fostering authentic connections and meaningful dialogue.
We celebrate diverse and marginalised voices as we engage with our context and times. We acknowledge privilege and seek to learn from those outside
Safe Space
We aim to create safe places for people to meet, support and encourage one another. This means trying our best to contain difference, whilst working for justice
Creative Hubs
As well as collaborating across disciplines, we are developing ways for artists of the same discipline to support each other.
Today we arrive at a destination of sorts in this great unfolding that we call Easter. Many of us will proclaim the age old He has risen and hear stories about an empty tomb and a cross transcended. Whether you take this literally, or figuratively is up to you, but perhaps we can agree that Christ is indeed arising – s/he is rising every where we look. Throughout thisProost Lent journey we have heard poets and artists grappling with – and largely rejecting – the attonement theory of the cross known as substitutionary atonement. It was after all, a modern invention, but the roots of it go deep into our Christian history, perhaps even earlier than those arguments between Pelagius and Augustine of Hippo. Certainly, by the time of the writings of Julian of Norwich, sin was what mattered most. In a world (like ours) riven by war and disease, the job of the Church was to call out sin and purify all heresy, such as those known as Lollards, with their unfortunate association with the Peasant’s revolt, led by Wat Tyler. It was all there- the power of Holy Church, the poverty and overburden of landless peoples, the call…
A decade or so ago I had a brush with death. A capsized canoe left me swimming in February waters where tides swept me out into the middle of the Firth, far from safety. I swam for an hour with no wetsuit before being fished out on the end of a wire attached to a rescue helecopter. I was fortunate in so many ways, but one image that persists when I remember that day was of birds wheeling above me as I swam for the shore, wondering if they knew I was in trouble. My resurection involved treatment for severe hypothermia, after which I shook violently for days. Many of you will have similar stories of close calls, which almost ended everything. Perhaps for some of us, those near ends were also new beginnings? But on this dark Saturday, it is much too soon to talk about new beginnings. The story, as it comes to us, concerns itself with failure far worse than my flounder in the Firth of Clyde. It tells of powerlessness before a whim of Empire, whose priorities dwarfed those of the ragged radical band of love-mongers. Trouble, even good trouble, must be swatted aside lest lowly…
Today we are so grateful to The Many for sharing this beautiful offering of lament. If you can, take some time today. Light a candle and let the Many take you on a journey. Here, we will do just that. We will share communion – in a way that feels authentic – and then we will eat a hot cross bun in gratefulness for everything that carries us forward.
Today the King will toss out a few specially minted coins today as a symbol of charity to fellow man. Of course, he can afford it, and it might be a nice distraction from his troubles. The origins of the word ‘Maundy’ seems to be obscure, but one thought is that it derives from the Middle English and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” which many of you will of course already have correctly translated (!) into these words from John chapter 13; ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this shall men know you are my disciples.’ The story comes to us that Jesus gathered with his friends for a last meal together. One of them was going to betray him, another would deny him before the night was over. After all the parables and obscure teachings he offered something unequivocal. He distilled his hopes for his friends into this one simple phrase. Then he demonstrated it as well by washing their road stained feet. There are so many other things he could have said–…
Here is one of my (Chris’s) big old pots. I got excited when I made it, then when I glazed and raku fired it, I hated it. It sat in a dark corner for a while then more recently I pulled it out again and decided… that I liked it after all. I wonder if some of you other artists have had the same fluctuating relationship with your work? Perhaps this comes from the usual doubts and insecurities of most creative processes – or the way that it always feels like we are reaching for something just otside of reach. I remembed too the words we inscribed on this pot and perhaps there is a clue here too about encounter. About how it can be useful to encounter something that is ‘other’ rather than familiar, so that we can see things differently. Set me free so I might go to new places, there to meet people who disagree, whose circumstances dictate a shape I might never else encounter. We are grateful for this poem from Jim Kucher today, as we look forward towards the events of the weekend to come. It is suggesting that we look beyond what we are…
There have been so many versions of the redemption story. It is perhaps the classic Holywood story arc on one form or another. The underdog who transcends low expectations to achieve greatness. The jock who realises that the course of true love is with the mousy (yet classically beautiful) bookish outsider. Even the antihero criminal who dies a bloody death because of a persistent honour code… Perhaps this narrative trick is older than Jesus. Just a variation of the Hero Journey. It seems to me that, as this Easter journey unfolds, the story-tellers and poets will be looking at the familiar narrative once more for cracks, for new angles. For a story to retain power, it needs to be encountered afresh. Part of the problem many of us have is that religious stories – even religious hero stories – have a different life, in that one understanding of them tends to be adopted as sacred. The meaning it contains is then concreted in place and there is little room left for interpretation. Fact and myth intermingle to become scripture. Our one job is to believe it, so that redemption can happen in us as if by some heavenly magic trick.…
What we do
Community podcasts exploring art and spirituality
Connecting and supporting creatives
Artistic collaboration
Creative workshops and meetups
Digital spaces for collaboration and connection
Publishing
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Chris Goan
Community Organiser and Podcast Host
Chris is a half-English, half-Irish man who lives in Scotland. He is the author of several books of poetry and, after a first career in social work and mental health services, now makes a living through making ceramic art. He also writes a long running eclectic blog called this fragile tent. Chris has a long history with Proost as a poet and the editor of a couple of poetry collections. Chris is married to Michaela and has two adult children and now a little grandchild. He also grows vegetables.
Rob Hewlett
Community Organiser and Podcast Host
Rob first came across Proost many years ago through the Labyrinth set. Sometime in 2023, he started making tentative enquiries as to whether Proost had any life left in it, and once he started chatting more earnestly with Chris, things started to develop.
He is married, lives in Jersey and has two grown-up sons. He works in a second-hand shop for a social enterprise providing work and training for people with disabilities and long-term health conditions.
Cameron Preece
Community Organiser and Online Community Facilitator
Cameron is the Admissions and Recruitment Coordinator at Nazarene Theological College and a passionate poet based in Manchester. With a BA and MA in Theology, he has a keen interest in the intersection between poetry and prayer and the Hebrew poetry of the Bible. He loves playing piano, photography, anything to do with organising and tidying, and tinkering with computers. Cameron joined the Proost community after feeling seen by the podcast and has a deep curiosity about how poetry can inform and transform spiritual experience.
Looking for ways to explore creative spirituality?
Proost is a creative community that explores and expresses the divine through art—whether in words, visuals, music, or beyond. We embrace imagination as a way to encounter the sacred and the good, crafting spaces where faith, justice, and creativity meet.
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