The Friday Fix

Author: inertus

  • ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ – The Velvet Underground and Nico

    Gill writes:

    I’ve been reminded this week of the Johari Window – a key tool in understanding self-awareness and self-development. In 1955, psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham, of the University of California, were exploring group dynamics. They discovered that there was some dissonance between how people thought others perceived them and how they were actually perceived.

    They developed what’s known as the Johari Window (a merge of their names) which rests on four assumptions that humans make:

    • There is information that is known to only me (hidden self)
    • There is information that is known to only you (or, whoever you’re communicating with) (blind spot)
    • There is information that is known to you and me (open self)
    • There is information that neither of us know (unknown self)

    The more self-aware you become, the more the open self and blind spot areas grow wider, and the hidden self and unknown self become smaller.

    I love the tenderness and vulnerability of this song. All of us need reassurance and affirmation of who we are and what we are capable of at times in our lives. We need some people to really ‘see’ us and know us. To reflect back who we are.

    I’ll be your mirror
    Reflect what you are, in case you don’t know
    I’ll be the wind, the rain and the sunset
    The light on your door to show that you’re home

    This is probably the loveliest love song that Lou Reed ever wrote. The Velvet Underground were managed by Andy Warhol, and consequently were part of the pop art world of challenging modernism with provocative perspectives on everyday life. The Velvet Underground’s music was dark and aggressive at times. Yet here is a beautiful, melancholic song professing unconditional love.

    Nico was a German model and singer whom Warhol pretty much foisted on the band. Lou Reed apparently found her irritating and I imagine there were times when there was little sense of love. However, after many takes that reduced her to tears, they produced this tender, reflective, and compassionate song.

    I like to think that for a moment at least, Lou and Nico were able to see and appreciate each other’s gifts – that they were able to see each other. That they were able to move past the twisted and unkind thoughts and attitudes and lay themselves open by putting down their hands.

    When you think the night has seen your mind
    That inside you’re twisted and unkind
    Let me stand to show that you are blind
    Please put down your hands
    ‘Cause I see you

    Thomas Merton said this:

    “Man [sic] is the image of God, and his inner self is a kind of mirror in which God not only sees Himself, but reveals Himself to the ‘mirror’ in which He is reflected.”  
    ​
    When we live with open hearts and minds,  we start to see God not only in the people we meet or live with; or in the places where we go and hang out. We also God in songs, film, writing and everyday interactions.

    And finally, the next time you pass a mirror and groan because that’s not how you want to look (or how you used to look). Stop. Others see you differently to how you see yourself. They don’t see what you see. They’ll see a beautiful human. And they probably get a glimpse of God too.

    Remind yourself about The Velvet Underground at https://www.velvetundergroundmusic.com/

  • ‘Pompeii’ – Bastille

    Marc writes:

    “How am I gonna be an optimist about this?”
    That’s the perpetual question I have in my calling to be part of the church, to be faithful to Jesus, and to reclaim the title “Christian” from all the negative connotations it brings up in peoples’ minds!

    When I look around and see the walls keep tumbling down of the movement that I love, grey clouds rolling over the hills, bringing darkness from above and it all looks a little bit hopeless, what am I going to do!?

    But when ‘Pompeii’ by Bastille came on in the car today, it was a different line that really jumped out at me:​

    Oh, where do we begin,

    the rubble or our sins?

    I think the problem is that a lot of the time we begin with the rubble. We begin by looking at the destruction that has been caused or the havoc that has been wreaked, and we start by sifting through the debris.

    ​Particularly with church life and church history, I think I’d be right in saying that we have often spent a lot more time trying to fix what we have ended up with rather than challenging the root cause, the neglect, the abuse, the culpable actions that we as a people of faith have inherited the consequences of and often benefitted from.

    And when we start with the rubble we can regularly discover that if we close our eyes it almost feels like we’ve been here before… like nothing’s changed at all.

    Wherever I have seen the courage to deal with the sin, the disturbances of Shalom that are as a result of our action or inaction, the courage to address the sometimes missing image of God in our collective experience and expression as disciples, the willingness to hold up our hands and be held accountable for our shortcomings, THAT is where I have seen change. That is where I have seen growth. That is where I have seen God moving and breathing.

    I’ve never been to Pompeii, but it’s a place where friends have been. It appears to be a place that is resigned to the history books, lost to rubble, damage and decay. Bits still stand out to remember what was once there before the destruction, but it’s lost to life.

    I wonder if the church will end up the same way?
    I wonder whether we’ll insist on carrying on starting with the rubble and ignoring our sins?

    I hope I see the day when I can close my eyes and it feels like we’ve changed for the better, and we discover something new.

    Find out more about Bastille at http://www.bastillebastille.com/

  • Pray For Me – Ailbhe Reddy

    Jane writes:

    Oh, what joy a new song is! A new artist. A new take. Sometimes they surprise you so much and just enter your ears without invitation. This is one such song that appeared on Spotify ‘cos I’d started out with something else.

    I was initially attracted by the voice of this artist, and the simplicity and emptiness of the sound, but then the lyrics kicked in and I wondered what it was all about. Digging around, it seems to be dedicated to the singer’s Grandma. An explanation of the “wordless promises” to someone loved at the end of their lives. The hand-holding and the close affection.

    Anyone who has had the privilege of sitting at the bedside of a loved one during those days will know the profound impact of it. What to say and what not to. How to behave and how not to. What to express and what to hold in. The value of your physical presence and theirs. The need to be sure that they know you care and for me, most profoundly of all, what to pray for and when.

    Life’s circle and balances seem all too hard to navigate when time is obviously at a premium and in those precious moments maintaining communication, no matter how small or limited, is like a hidden treasure. The last vestiges of love evident in the need to keep contact through voice, or expression, or breath.

    How then do you talk to God about the situation and what do your prayers contain? Peace. Thanksgiving. Desperation. Acceptance. A need to be sure it will be the right thing, the right way at the right time. A bit of rage. A request or a deep-seated knowing. I love the way the songwriter accepts that prayer is a two-way thing here and is in need of its comfort as much as their loved one.

    Eventually, of course, the inevitable happens but for me, this song sums up those last few precious days and hours when “sitting on the edge of the bed” is what is of value, and holding a hand says more than any words can.

    No experience is the same as any other but this song touched me with its honesty – so on this occasion, it seems best to share the whole set of lyrics. Make of it what you will, but know that the value of the instinct to pray in such tough circumstances is precious beyond words.

    I’ve never seen wrists so thin

    I’ve never seen your hair without the curls that you put in

    Your eyes flutter when you talk about the places that you’ve lived

    But Dublin’s different now and you miss your best friend

    You say she’s waiting

    I sit at the edge of the bed

    Baby, I’ll pray for you if you pray for me

    The radio’s on, but the signal’s weak

    Oh, please, keep talking

    And I’ll keep listening

    I’ve not been so good at visiting

    Regretful now that time is always slipping

    You’d tell me I’ll regret many things

    This will be the least of it so embrace

    Life’s chеcks and balances

    You hold my hand

    I make wordless promises

    Baby, I’ll pray for you if you pray for me

    The radio’s on, but the signal’s weak

    Oh please, keep talking

    And I’ll keep listening

    She says she loves to hear the birds sing

    In the back of her flower garden

    She says she loves to hear the birds sing

    It’s what keeps her going

    When the day is dying

    When the day is dying

    When the day is dying

    Baby, I’ll pray for you if you pray for me

    The radio’s on, but the signal’s weak

    Oh please, keep breathing

    And I’ll keep listening

    You can find out more about Ailbhe Reddy here http://www.ailbhereddy.com/

  • A Small Hiatus…

    It’s that time of year when many of the Friday Fix writers are away, have been away or are going away, so this Friday we don’t have a Fix to share.

    Many of the usual contributors will actually be at the Greenbelt Festival celebrating it’s 50th birthday (and also the 50th birthday of Friday Fixer Kristie!).

    So – as it’s a Bank Holiday Weekend with time to listen to music – here’s the Greenbelt 2023 Playlist to get an idea of the music we’ll be listening to live at Greenbelt.

  • ‘I’m Free’ – The Soup Dragons

    Tom writes:

    I wrote recently that I’m not sure all my memories are quite what I think they are – my brain might even have made some of them up, or at least to have improved them. However, one memory I know is accurate is from the summer after I turned 16. That memory relates to an experience common to the vast majority of British kids at the end of the school year now known as Year 11 – results day! I had just moved from Shropshire to Somerset, so I couldn’t just go in and pick my results up. Instead, they were to be posted to me. Even in the days of a reliable Royal Mail, this didn’t mean I could be certain of getting them the day everyone else did, so I put in a phonecall and one of my former teachers (also a parent to one of my best friends at the time) gave me the basic idea.

    What I particularly remember about that day, though, wasn’t the phone call, but the sense of relief that I felt that morning that no longer was my life governed by the rules that said I had to go to school (law changes mean this normally applies at 18 nowadays) – whatever the results happened to be, the future was to be decided by me. To mark this moment I chose to leave my bedroom that morning and dance around our new house to a taped copy of The Soup Dragons’ cover version of the Rolling Stones’ “I’m Free”. Whenever I hear it nowadays, I am returned to that sense of euphoric release that I felt that morning.

    Of course, if I’m being pedantic, I’d want to challenge some of the somewhat hedonistic direction that the Jagger/Richards lyrics take – in particular, a Christian ethos suggests that while we have free will, a choice to follow Jesus places in a situation where we can’t do anything we want.

    But, as someone who went on to work in Higher and Further Education before ministry, and who spent much of that time engaging with young people making decisions about education, often in the light of results that might be seen as disappointing, I don’t want to focus on questions of free will, hedonism, or Christian ethics. No, when it comes to exam results I want to hold onto that sense of release and freedom I felt that morning – and felt before I knew what my results were (on this occasion they were very good, but 2 years later my initial A-Level results were a disaster!)

    We are not, any of us, defined by our exam results. Not now. Not ever. They may require us to take different and unexpected paths to our preferred destinations. They may cause us to re-evaluate our goals and make alternative choices. They may seem like an amazing blessing that take us to places we thought we wanted to go but it turns out we didn’t. I’ve seen those who struggled at school flourish at work, and those who succeeded at college struggle at university, and many, many folk find later in life that what they did at school, college or uni, is utterly irrelevant to what they’re doing and how their life feels when their teens are but a faded memory.

    As a Christian I will specifically say that the definition of who I am and who I am seeking to be is found in Christ, not my exam results or qualifications, good or bad. Yet, even without that faith aspect I will declare to anyone and everyone who needs to hear it as they open the brown envelope that holds results of whatever kind: you are free to be who you are, whatever you find enclosed in that paperwork. Exam results cannot define me, you, or anyone else. The things that define us are how we live our life, how we love others, how we engage with the rest of humanity and the wider creation. Exams? Not so much. So, open your bedroom, turn up the stereo, and dance with me…

  • Ch-ch-changes

    Hi Everyone

    As of 1st September 2023, the weekly ‘Fix’ will also be dropping on our new Facebook Page and Instagram account as well as this Blog.

    If you would like to start following the Facebook page/Instagram account then this is the logo to look out for:

    And here’s where to go (just to say it will be very quiet until 1st September!)

    The Friday Fix – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095789821782

    @the.friday.fix

  • ‘Closer To Fine’ – Indigo Girls

    Gill writes:

    Okay – so I’m a hummer. And we’re not talking about the gas-guzzling, all-terrain military vehicle that seems so popular in California. That would be a bit silly. What I mean is that those who live with me have to suffer an almost constant, almost unconscious humming of tunes. There are some that are regular tunes – so regular that they feel almost innate; and there are other tunes that are triggered by hearing a song – usually on the radio but it could be because I have overheard someone else humming or singing a tune.

    Whilst my incessant humming might be annoying to those I live with, it’s actually really good for me. And singing is too. Why? Because it stimulates our vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the body – it connects our brain to many important organs including the gut, heart and lungs. Without going too deep into it, humming is really good for your health – it helps relieve stress, boosts our immunity and improves the health of our nervous system.

    So, now I need to confess that one of the regular tunes that I hum is ‘Barbie Girl’ by Aqua. Don’t ask me why. It just seems to be part of my repertoire. Just be thankful that I didn’t choose it for today’s Friday Fix.

    Instead, I’ve chosen a song that features in the recently released ‘Barbie’ film (see what I did there?). A film, that for me married fluffy fizz with pathos, fantasy with real life, liberation with societal constraints. Some have found it a bit too preachy – or as one friend described it ‘being kensplained to’. I can understand this. Maybe the frustration comes because ultimately there is only some resolution to the patriarchy/feminist debate in the film and it doesn’t feel quite complete enough – I guess that’s just mirroring life.

    But never mind all that. Let’s get back to the song. A song that was perfect for that point in the film. The part where Barbie goes wandering and wondering. And this song couldn’t be more perfect.

    And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
    I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
    There’s more than one answer to these questions
    Pointing me in a crooked line
    And the less I seek my source for some definitive

    Closer I am to fine, yeah
    Closer I am to fine, yeah

    This is a song that’s all about questioning and seeking. Why am I here? What is my purpose? Who is going to help me answer these questions? Where do I go to get these questions answered? Are there actually answers to my questions? As the lyrics say – there’s more than one answer.

    And those answers take us along a crooked line. A reminder that life, and the meaning of life, is not straightforward at all. It’s wibbly-wobbly and all over the place. My crooked line of life is so crooked it goes back on itself more than once too.

    Life is all about wandering and wondering. It isn’t easy at times but I think part of the mystery of life is to continue finding out and learning more – about ourselves, about others, and about our world. Ask questions. Don’t take things for granted. Put a bit of effort into understanding.

    “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)

    With all your mind. Hmmm. I wonder sometimes that we might be a little bit lazy on this account. Do we really love God with all our mind? Do we wander and wonder enough?

    I think the Indigo Girls are right to go looking everywhere for their answers. The times in my life, when I have made leaps and bounds in progressing my understanding of myself, my world and my God, are when I have been alongside others who aren’t afraid to ask questions and grapple with difficult concepts and situations. I’ve been blessed by many colleagues who have nudged, poked and provoked my thinking over the years – so much so that when we were the East Central Regional Team of the Methodist Learning Network, this image summed us up:

    So keep pushing through. Seek answers about the world that we live in. Travel that crooked line. Wander and wonder. Edge closer and closer to fine.

    The Indigo Girls are still performing as much as ever and in two weeks’ time, they will be gracing the Friday Night Glade Stage with their presence at this year’s Greenbelt Festival.

    Find out more about them at https://www.indigogirls.com/

  • ‘Chances’ – Athlete

    Jane writes:

    I’m such a sucker for a first line and it’s often through that lyrical content that I get drawn into a song. This one is no different. Alongside that, the joyous sound of Athlete and their big sweeping melodies that work against what they have to say, mean that this song is one that goes somewhere and provokes all sorts of thoughts. Athlete have a home at the FF where other writers have reflected on what they have to say, especially about the harder things in life.

    Take all your chances while you can

    Never know when they’ll pass you by

    Those first two phrases are probably enough to fill any journal you write for days. It sounds on the face of it an easy instruction but what might prevent you is often more the problem. Your life context and financial stability say. Your embarrassment factor. Your lack of self-worth – possibly put there by another. Your risk aversion. Your absolute sense that you’ve no idea if it’s the right thing. I could go on…..

    And then for people of faith it’s often about grappling with whether the chance is the right one to take, given all that they know about the God they worship and love

    There’s something too about the complexity of that decision-making process that never goes away. Humanity has never been immune to such choices and throughout history, people have used all sorts of approaches and plans, and ideas to help. The toss of a coin, mind maps, strategic plans, algorithms and forecasts. In our scriptures – prayer, laid-out fleeces and other signs and wonders, chance happenings that seem to point the way, ancient writings from other believers, and clearly-heard directions. Literally and metaphorically like a sum that can’t be solved.

    Like a sum a mathematician cannot solve

    Like me trying my hardest to explain

    But the songwriter then has something much more emotional to link to. Cries and kisses. Something much more about the feelings that lead to action and not regret. Emotions that plot a takeover and win. Emotions that link us to ourselves, others and the divine. Emotions that enable us to express our faith not just in language and ideas but in instinct and belief.

    It’s all about your cries and kisses

    Those first steps that I can’t calculate

    I need some more of you to take me over

    This song is a lovesong of course – there’s not many songs that aren’t in their own way – but it also encourages us to contemplate a whole lot of other big life questions. Life questions that God is interested in for us. Life questions that rise out of a deep sense of knowing who we are as unique and precious, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Life questions that tap into our emotions and thought processes. Life questions that just may encourage us to take the holy risk, and alongside that, all our chances while we can.

    Athlete split in 2013 and, although their members are busy doing other things, the only remnant seems to be a Facebook page and fabulous music

    Oooh – and this track was used at the end of a Dr Who episode – you can see a bit of that here – https://youtu.be/ubTJI_UphPk

  • ‘Summer’s in Bloom’ – Reef

    Tom writes:

    There are many songs that take me back to parts of my childhood summers, but the one that really gets me smiling is Reef’s “Summer’s in Bloom”. When I hear it, I’m immediately back in Somerset, hanging out at Greenbank outdoor pool, or in the beer garden of the Street Inn, or up the park with cider from the local farm. Or maybe the memories are from further back, of cycle rides through the local estate (the kind with gamekeepers, not council houses) with my cricket bat on my back to get to the club I played for, of evening adventures up the Wrekin with the youth club or Scouts, or camping out in the field behind my mate’s house. There’s a million and one other memories it brings flooding back as well, all of them bringing a smile to my face.

    Yet, here’s the thing: the album Glow, from which this song comes, wasn’t released until January 1997, when I was already 18 and part way through my third year of A-Levels while of my mates had already moved off to university or found jobs. And so the song that has me bathing in memories of glorious childhood and teenage summers didn’t come out until I was almost 20 and those days were behind me! Why is that? Well, in part it’s because it’s Reef, and the couple of places it mentions in the lyrics are places I can identify – indeed, my sister lives not far from Cinnamon Lane in Glastonbury. I never went swimming there, but a Westcountry accent singing about summer swimming is just bound to take my mind back, isn’t it, even if it’s to a pool rather than a river? And from there, the mind does the rest!

    Of course, the reality is that not only is it strange that a song not released until the end of my childhood should so strongly remind me of the childhood it played no part in, but the reality is that I don’t think my summers were ever quite as glorious as I remember. I’m pretty sure it’s a case of rose-tinted (sun)glasses! While I can’t describe my childhood and teenage years as bad (I know I have friends whose childhoods are genuinely entitled to that description and stronger), they were far from perfect – I was both bullied and a bully, who struggled at times to fit in socially and who developed physically quite late. I’m also pretty certain that I only went to Greenbank a handful of times, and I definitely only camped in that field the once! Yet, I definitely look back with fondness to those summers, whether amid the wheat fields and playing fields of Shropshire, or amid the play parks and beer gardens of Somerset.

    I suspect church life is very much like this too. When we look back we remember with fondness the full churches on a Sunday, and over-flowing Sunday Schools, and gloriously sunny picnic outings. I’m sure those things existed, but I am not convinced they were a weekly occurrence in most of our churches most of the time. And even if they were I suspect we weren’t yet old enough to experience quite how much energy they required of the leaders and organisers, and that it was a good 30-40 years ago at least!

    Honestly, fond memories of the past are a good thing, even if they are heavily filtered through pink prisms. Yet we have to be careful that the memories that make us smile don’t catch us in the trap that is nostalgia. Time is a one-way road and we can’t go back. And anyway, the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. We are where and when we are. So, as I listen to Reef sing of past summers in bloom, I’ll continue to smile about those that happened when I was younger than now I am, but I’ll also make sure I put my focus on enjoying the summer that’s in bloom right now!

    You can find Reef at a handful of festivals this summer – find out more here https://www.reeftheband.com/