Author: inertus

Gill writes:

Ah, here’s another song from my youth that meant a great deal to me way back when – you know that time – misunderstood teenager frustrated with adults for treating as a problem and not as a human being. It’s been playing again in my mind recently – and yes, I’ve sung it out loud too – because I’m finding the current climate bubbling up in the UK (and further afield) rather frustrating. Just like my old teenage self I guess.

I can’t understand

What makes a man

Hate another man

Help me understand 

People Are People might have been written in the 1980s, but it still feels bang up to date. That opening line—people are people, so why should it be you and I should get along so awfully?—is such a simple question, yet it cuts right to the heart of things. Why do we treat each other so badly? Why do differences so quickly turn into divisions, and dare I say, hatred?

I sense something really human in the frustration (there’s that word again) of that lyric. Most of us know what it feels like to be judged, excluded, or misunderstood. And we’ve probably also stood on the other side where we’ve slipped into those patterns of judging, excluding and misunderstanding others. The song shines a light on those wonderful contradictions we humans have: we all want to be accepted and loved, yet we can often struggle to offer that same acceptance to others.

On a spiritual level, maybe this leads us towards something bigger. If we believe that life is more than survival and counting the days we have on this planet, then I think most of us want to grow in compassion and wisdom underneath it all. This song, therefore, becomes more than social commentary—it becomes a challenge too. It asks whether we’re willing to live as though our shared humanity actually matters.

People are people.

It’s so obvious, and yet somehow we have a tendency to forget. We categorise people and assign labels, and suddenly the neighbour, the stranger, the colleague becomes “other.” We find ourselves facing the task to remember, again and again, that behind every label is a soul—complex, fragile, and longing for connection, just like you or I do.

Many traditions speak of the interconnectedness of all life: that we belong to one another, and that to harm another is, in some way, to harm ourselves. When we forget that, division takes root. When we remember it, compassion begins to grow.

Those who are Jesus followers know what is required of them. He didn’t just tell people to love their neighbour—he told them to love their enemies too. That’s radical, and honestly, it’s hard. 

Listening to People Are People through that lens, I hear more than the protest my teenage self connected with; I hear an invitation as well. What if we actually lived as though people really are people—valued, loved, created in God’s image? What if the question, “why should it be?” wasn’t just frustration, but a genuine invitation to do better?

Perhaps the invitation here is to pause, breathe, and see the person in front of us—not their differences, not their faults, but their shared humanity. So maybe next time I hear Depeche Mode’s chorus looping in my head, I could let it push me back to that central truth: people are people, and every single one is beloved of God.

What do you think?

Help me understand 

Find out more about Depeche Mode at https://www.depechemode.com/

It’s been a while since we looked at the WordPress stats – and we know that some of you are quite interested…

So here’s the latest statistics from The Friday Fix – 6 years and still growing!

…days of enjoyment to which everyone cheers. So sing Blur, quite rightly, in ‘Bank Holiday.’

With many of our contributors coming from the Methodist world and also being Greenbelters, it’s always a challenge to negotiate contributions in August when moving, holidaying and Greenbelting is on the agenda.

It’s rapidly becoming a tradition to have a break on the Friday of the August Bank Holiday weekend and so what we offer instead is the link to the Greenbelt playlist. So here’s 2025’s. Have fun playing it over the weekend – or seeing it performed live if you’re at Greenbelt.

…https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/3civc0l2wL8UYK3rbS1qsz?utm_source=generator

And if you’re prompted to write a Friday Fix for us over the weekend – here’s where to send it: fridayfixmail@gmail.com

Gill writes:

I’m travelling back from Dunbar on the train as I write this. Whilst I was there, I managed a quick visit to the birthplace museum of John Muir – a quiet hero of mine. John Muir was a Scottish-American naturalist, writer, and conservationist who championed U.S. national parks. As you walk around his birthplace, you encounter lots of his quotes, and there was one that particularly grabbed me.

“Wash your spirit clean from the earth-stains of this sordid, gold-seeking crowd in God’s pure air”

For me, his words evoked a deep connection, with this recently-released, ‘Doors-esque’ song from Kula Shaker which appeared on my ‘Release Radar’ playlist a couple of weeks ago. Both seem to speak into how I’m feeling about the current state of our world.

Yes, many folk are broke in monetary terms, but many also seem broken too. I’ve been on this planet for way over fifty years and I’ve never felt us humans being so disconnected and divided as we appear to be currently.

I say ‘appear’ because my day to day encounters with people indicate the world is still full of caring, tolerant and welcoming people. It’s just that some politicians and media barons are telling us that Britain is broken, full-up and unsafe.

Yes, things could be better. Things could definitely be fairer. And some of our systems really do need fixing but there’s a part in this song that reminds me, like Muir’s words, that beauty and nature and love and God are not broken. They are still very much there, and this is what offers us hope and connection.

But when I see the sunlight in the trees

When I hear the buzzing of the bees 🐝

When I see my children running free

Feel God’s love shining down on me

The gospel reading this Sunday takes us down the path of contemplating division amongst us.

Like the pioneering spirit of John Muir, I think we can claim Jesus as the ultimate pioneer — blazing the trail, warning of dangers, urging us to keep going, and he makes it clear that following him can cause division, even within families. Why? Because his teaching challenged the status quo.

Jesus exposed injustice. Through his parables, he revealed how some leaders amassed wealth at the expense of the people, bending or ignoring God’s law when it suited them. He confronted hypocrisy head-on. And whenever someone dares to say, “this isn’t right,” division is almost inevitable. Those who benefit from injustice will always resist change.

Noticing glimmers of hope and glimpses of God are what can keep us going. We can draw strength from it, even when our world causes heartache and anguish. It can give us the courage we need to face the challenges that we are experiencing.

So on this Friday, along with John Muir and Kula Shaker, I invite you to take heart, have courage, look for the glimmers, find joy and meaning when faced with adversity.

Jane writes:

This week I’ve been to see ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ It is quite a tough watch as musicals go and the current political landscape only goes to reinforce that. Amidst the political and many family narratives there’s this lovely song that arises at the wedding of two characters. Parents wondering about the passage of time, life’s pattern and all that lies before the newly weds:

Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

The advent of a new life in our family has brought me to the same set of wonderings. Both for the parent I raised and the new little bundle of love and joy that changes every time I meet them.

What words of wisdom can I give them?
How can I help to ease their way?

The passage of time in life as a person of faith, as a friend, as a daughter or parent (nanna or otherwise) really changes your perspective. What you thought was a definite truth becomes more blurred, and things you thought
didn’t matter really do.

I feel certain God calls us to navigate who we are in the changing seasons. In Ecclesiastes we are reminded that “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven” so this thinking about life and what
does/should happen when is hardly new, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it becomes easier. Maybe today you might wonder what you can do to ease the way of those around you that you love. They may be facing very tough times or very joyous ones. They may need wisdom…. The days flow swiftly so what we offer may be the most precious gift we can give before the sun sets again.

Fiddler on the Roof is touring at the moment https://fiddlerontheroofuk.com/tour-dates/

You can find out about its history here https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatre-news/news/learn-about-the-production-
history-of-fiddler-on-the-roof

Marc writes:

Mindlessly scrolling my socials at a community youth group (is it still called that if there’s only one young person!?) and this comes on in the background.

As tends to be the way, any mention of Jesus and my ears prick up.

“You’re scared it’s movin’ quickly

Oh, now you’re crying, you’re in pieces

‘Cause the only love you’ve ever known is Jesus”

It got me thinking… and here I may waffle… when we experience the love of Jesus, what is that like?

At times it can be raw and visceral and real. It can be something life-changing, and deep, and incomparable. It can be transformational and fast moving, full of potential and excitement and adventure. But I wonder if that’s always the case for everyone? Maybe it was like that at the start, but since there have definitely been times where the love I’ve known from Jesus is just slow and steady. Sometimes I’ve wondered whether it’s just static, or even there. What if it’s just something I’m imagining?!

And what does it look like to compare our experience of the love of Jesus, whatever that looks like for us, with a fresh experience of love from others? How does it compare to the tangible love we might experience from community and church, or somewhere else?

Maybe sometimes we can come on too strong in our attempts to love like Jesus, and maybe we need to slow it down. Maybe we overwhelm people who have always been loved by Jesus, but it’s never been an overly “real” or radical experience, but instead a steady background thing.

Conversely, maybe we need a bigger experience of Jesus’ love, one that brings us to our knees, and to tears, and overwhelms us when compared to the love we receive elsewhere and simultaneously makes us want both more and less.

What if Jesus’ love was a real measure for us by which everything else fails in comparison? That’s the sort of love that will see us “not drown in dirty waters full of hopeless doubt” but will “pull us out and hold us now.“

Find out more about Benson Boone’s music at https://www.bensonboone.com/

Gill writes:

If I’m really honest, metal is not my favourite genre of music but it is for plenty of my friends, which just goes to show how amazingly diverse music is in touching our hearts. It was one of said friends who introduced this song to me back in the 80’s – a classic break-up song from Ozzy which starts rather pertinently with the words ‘time has come to say goodbye’ – words that take on a new meaning this week when we heard about Ozzy’s death.

Ozzy Osbourne’s life was always a paradox — the so-called “Prince of Darkness” whose music and antics once scandalised polite society, yet who, underneath the wild exterior, revealed moments of startling vulnerability and longing. This song from 1983, So Tired, is a striking example of this softer side to him. Behind the grand, almost theatrical arrangement, Ozzy sings not about devils or bats, but about weariness, loneliness, and the ache of giving so much of himself away.

“So tired, so tired / And I can’t wait for tomorrow…” he laments — a simple line that could also be a quiet confession from a man whose public persona often hid a desperate, human need for rest and peace. Ozzy’s life was a relentless ride of excess and survival: the poverty of his youth in Birmingham, the dizzy heights with Black Sabbath, addiction, scandal, reality TV fame, and countless near misses with death. Through it all though, I can’t help thinking that there’s a spiritual search for him — not in a pious way, but in the deep human desire for something more than the chaos our lives can seem to have.

Many of us might not know that Ozzy was raised Anglican, and despite his stage persona, faith and questions of the soul run through his work. Songs like So Tired show us a man who knows that even fame and fortune can’t quiet a restless heart. “I’m so tired of waiting for you” is a lament for lost love, but maybe it’s also a cry about something bigger — a hope that beyond weariness there might be a welcome, a home, a forgiveness not found in fame or intoxication, but in something transcendent.

In many ways, I think that Ozzy’s life embodied the messy truth that spirituality doesn’t always look neat. It can be loud and broken and contradictory. And yet, in the quiet corners of his music — such as the weary sigh of So Tired — we hear a glimpse of the same longing that our faith traditions try to answer: the hope that, one day, the tired will find rest, the lost will be found, and even a self-proclaimed madman can be embraced by grace.

Rest In Peace Ozzy. You were a legend in my lifetime.

Find out more about the late Ozzy Osbourne at https://www.ozzy.com/.

Gill writes:

For quite a number of years, before I ventured into the world of learning and development, I was a full-time Youth & Community Worker managing youth centres and a range of youth projects in various places around England. At times in that role it felt like I was constantly on the phone or at community meetings advocating for the young people I worked with, in particular the young men who the community had a real struggle with.

I often wondered (and still do) why so many young men had such a hard time from all angles – family, neighbourhood and society in general in their teens. Having walked alongside my son during those years recently (he made it to his 20’s – yay!), I have reached the conclusion that as a society, we’ve not really learned how to embrace and understand young men as well as we could do – probably because a significant number of previous generations sent them off to war. In a sense, the tracks on how to engage with young men haven’t been firmly laid and so we don’t know how to cope with them very well. 

This song, Kids Off the Estate from Rotherham’s ‘The Reytons’ immediately made me sit up and notice – defiant anthem that it is. I was introduced to it by my son who was 16 at the time, for whom it really resonated. It gives voice to young men who’ve grown up in places too easily dismissed, especially overlooked housing estates, where promise and despair live side by side. Beneath the catchy indie riffs and blunt northern drawl, there’s a sense of aching to this song: a cry for meaning, belonging, and redemption that could easily go unheard.

I think you’ll agree that it’s not an overtly religious song, but for me it has an unmistakable spiritual undercurrent. It points to how society struggles — and often fails — to hold young men with care and hope. Instead, they’re labelled troublemakers, written off as “wasted potential.” Perhaps this song is a lament for young people boxed in by postcode prejudice and a broken system, but somehow there’s a resilience here too.

For me, Kids Off The Estate stirs some deep questions about the Kingdom of God. Where is grace for the ‘kids off the estate’ for example? If Christ walked those streets, I think he’d stand alongside them — not judging but inviting them to belong, to be seen as wonderfully-made humans rather than headlines and statistics. The faith that I have doesn’t believe that we should be preaching at them, but listening more and standing alongside when and where needed.

The song hints at the need for transformation: not just of individuals but of the structures that confine them. It asks us to see young men not as threats but as human beings with potential. Their frustration, bravado and longing for escape reveal hearts that yearn for purpose, acceptance, and a future not determined by their birth.

In the end, I think that Kids Off the Estate is more than a song — it’s a mirror. It reflects a society that needs to nurture its sons better, and a spiritual call to see Christ in the overlooked corners of our own towns.

You don’t have to hate

The kids off the estate

Mates after a fate

And they called them Reytons

P.S. – The Reytons’ name originates from Yorkshire slang. Specifically, it’s derived from the phrase “right ‘un” which is used to describe someone who is a bit of a “scally” or mischievous. 

Find out more about The Reytons at https://thereytons.com/