Our history and our scars make us who we are in this moment… if a part of us has ever felt broken, we can fix it, we can mend, transforming ourselves into something more precious than we were before… The cracks are where the light gets in.
The obvious illustration is “Kintsugi” (see the artwork of Ben Barnes’ latest album ‘Where The Light Gets in”): The art of repairing with gold, of highlighting cracks and being more beautiful through “brokenness”.
Or throw-away culture, and the rebellious act of going to the repair shop instead of throwing something fixable away and buying a replacement;
Or the filters we use in selfies, the tweaks we make when we look in the mirror (physical or metaphorical), and how we hide the blemishes we perceive.
Or how we talk to each other and that sometimes we’re not “fine, thanks”…
But I’ve only got 250 words…
So, an observation:
As Methodists we regularly participate in the beautiful brokenness of Jesus through his body and blood. By his wounds we are healed. We would be lost without this beautiful brokenness that lets the light in. By his scars, unconditional love and forgiveness pour into the world.
And questions:
What needs repairing? Whose help do we need?
What doesn’t need fixing but instead needs embracing and loving?
Where is the beauty in brokenness?
Ben Barnes and Jesus both “told me that I’m not the only one who feels the scars on my skin. Somebody showed me how to feel whole and how to heal where I’ve been. The cracks are where the light gets in.”
This song is nearly 60 years old now; coming out in 1968 but it still a classic track which talks of the joy of taking time out. It starts by talking about the way that neighbours of differing generations don’t get on but then moves on to say how you can remove yourself from the conflict, and noise of everyday conflicts like this, by taking a lazy Sunday afternoon where you just let yourself be and enjoy life.
The answer to life’s problems in this song is to enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon where you’ve “got no mind to worry” and you close your eyes and drift away. As the lyrics go on to say, “There’s no one to hear me, there’s nothing to say, and no one can stop me from feeling this way.” The message being that if you take time to slow down and nourish yourself by just being, nobody can complain about what you’re thinking as it’s just you and your thoughts which are none of anybody’s business.
We all need some time to just be and be nourished by taking time out to slow down and tune out of the busyness. Whilst not all of us have lives where we can take a Sunday afternoon, we can all embrace this idea of taking time to just be, without demands, and to relax.
For some it will be just for a short while whilst they take a break between jobs for others. It might be in the morning when they might choose to meditate, pray or just take time with a tea or coffee as they start the day. The principles are the same to just relax and take some time for yourself, slowing down to just be and be renewed by that relaxation.
In her book ‘What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: How to AchieveMore at Work and at Home’, Laura Vanderkam takes an ancient idea of Sabbath from the Jewish and Christian faiths and updates it for the 21st Century by talking about how we might want to spend some time, possibly a day each weekend, taking time from our phones and other devices. She says this enables us to slow down and nourish ourselves. So this time away from devices I’d argue is another way we can slow down and nourish ourselves by taking a lazy Sunday afternoon. The idea is to do what is right for you to remove some noise, chill and recharge be it on a Sunday afternoon or at another point in the week.
I feel like Paul Heaton has been forever in my life – definitely since my late teens – with his poetic, thought-provoking music and lyrics. This song by The Housemartins could be a prime example of his gift but it was originally written by Homer Banks, Carl Hampton and Raymond Jackson and was first released by Luther Ingram in 1972. No matter – this is the version that I love. I’ll Be Your Shelter when sung by Paul Heaton (to me) offers a deep, soulful reflection on the meaning of shelter.
Shelter extends beyond mere physical protection to encompass emotional, spiritual, and communal care. Our call to offer shelter aligns seamlessly with the song’s message of unwavering support and presence.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus asks ‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.’ What a perfect image of shelter that is. It reminds me that offering shelter is a radical act of love, reflecting Christ’s call for us to care for our neighbours – known and unknown. This song about being a shelter mirrors this commitment, reminding us that faith is not passive but an active, demanding engagement with those in need.
And when the tempest is raging
I want you to know got a friend that’s true
Just like a shelter, in a time of storm
I’ll see you through, that’s what I’ll do
Shelter can come in the form of a home for the homeless, a listening ear for the marginalized, or a safe space for the oppressed. It challenges us to remove barriers and nurture inclusivity, offering safety and sanctuary where and when it is most needed. Being a shelter means embodying Christ’s love through acts of kindness, advocacy, and solidarity.
Ultimately, I’ll Be Your Shelter calls us to reflect on our role in creating a just world. It invites us to become havens of hope, sharing God’s boundless love and offering comfort to all who seek refuge. I wonder who you will be offering shelter to in the coming days?
The Housemartins might have disbanded a long time ago but Paul Heaton continues to make music – find out more at https://paulheaton.co.uk/
I’m a huge fan of Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4, where each week a well-known personality chooses 8 soundtracks that have shaped their life. I’m always amazed at how music speaks to us during the highs and lows of our lives. I wonder if you were choosing your 8 soundtracks, what music would you choose?
This week, we are thinking about music that nourishes our soul, and I think Plato summed this up perfectly saying, “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything”. What kind of music nourishes you? Are there certain tracks that bring everything to life? Songs or tunes that just make the day feel a bit brighter?
The essence of soul music is rooted in African-American gospel and blues, often sung with a strong emotional intensity and expression. This is what I hear in Nina Simone’s, Feeling Good. It’s a song that reminds us that each day is a new beginning, full of potential and possibility. An opportunity for us to start all over again.
The discipline of naming our daily gratitudes has grown significantly over the past decade as part of mindfulness practice. Taking a moment to notice and acknowledge the things we are grateful for each day improves our mental health and helps us to feel good about ourselves.
I sometimes think that we walk around like those horses with blinkers on their eyes – we don’t see clearly the world around us. We need to open ourselves up to a deeper awareness, to notice the things we often take for granted, the conversations, the experiences, our feelings and emotions. This is expressed well in this song – noticing the world around us helps us to live life more fully present in the moment:
Fish in the sea, you know how I feel
River running free, you know how I feel
Blossom on the tree, you know how I feel
It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life for me
And I’m feeling good
Perhaps this is a song that might resonate more with the new life of Easter Sunday than the start of Lent. But as we think about soul food, the invitation during Lent to think about just that – what music nourishes your soul? How might the music and words of Nina Simone’s Feeling Good speak to you this week?
Perhaps you could write down your 8 Desert Island tracks or name 3 gratitudes each day? Or just pause and notice each day what makes you feel good? The more we open ourselves up to the world, the more we begin to see and notice God’s presence in the world and in ourselves.
Seven of our contributors have written Friday Fixes for the Methodist Church in Great Britain’s Lent 2025 Campaign – Soul Food. Some of you will already be signed up to that and so will be receiving daily reflection emails. You can sign up at: https://www.methodist.org.uk/for-churches/soul-food/
Rather than find another 7 reflections during Lent, we’re going to share the same reflection that we have written for Soul Food. And to ensure that we don’t drop the reflections too close together – we’ll be releasing our Friday Fixes around lunchtime which is a little later than usual.
“Have you ever been to prison, Simon?” Asked my friend Paul.
“No mate, never.”
“Me neither. Well…” He paused to take a drag on his cigarette. “Not really…”
We were standing outside his house, weak sunshine warm but not hot, he had been tending his garden, which is his main hobby. Apart from smoking.
The smoking is not so much a hobby as a way of life, I suppose. Some of the time it’s normal tobacco, some of the time it has been ‘herbally enriched’.
“I do smoke quite a bit of green,” he admitted, “it’s like medicine for me, it helps calm me down.”
“I know mate,” I said. “I can smell it.”
Anybody within a fifty yard radius can smell it.
We were talking about a young lad we both knew, in his twenties, just sent to jail for doing something bad. He once smashed Paul’s front window and has never apologised, so Paul has no sympathy for him whatsoever.
“It’s his own fault mate, nobody makes him behave like that.”
On the radio the DJ introduced ‘Bankrobber’ by The Clash, ‘Daddy wa-as a bankrob-ber’ warbled Joe Strummer, his scratchy voice loosely imitating the Jamaican musicians he admired so much. I nodded my head, unable to stop myself. My band used to do an unsubtle version of the song. We were terrible, but it didn’t matter.
The Clash version of ‘Bankrobber’ didn’t make it on to any of their studio albums, instead it surfaced just prior to the sprawling ‘Sandanista’, on the band’s compilation album ‘Black Market Clash’ – a home for unreleased and import tracks – combined with a dub version which was released elsewhere as ‘Robber Dub’.
The Clash had a bit of a thing about prison. Their anthemic ‘Stay Free’, perhaps the purest, finest, example of a platonic-male-love song, was about the release from jail of one of Mick’s school friends. On ‘Bankrobber’ incarceration is revisited from a different angle.
“An old man spoke up in a bar, said I’ve never been in prison, a lifetime serving one machine is ten times worse than prison,” Joe drawled.
The lyric makes you think about the nature of ‘freedom’ in contemporary society. How free are we, really? How real are the choices we make every day?
When I taught undergraduate criminology I asked my (mainly female) students to come up with an argument to answer the following question: “Which is more liberating, the bikini or the burqa?” Much interesting discussion was had, once we had got past the immediate objections.
“So do you mean, y’know, that society is a prison, then?” I asked Paul.
He narrowed his eyes, stretching out his fingers, ancient indigo dots, now smudgy but still visible, on each knuckle. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, like, do you think we’re trapped in cycles of work and consumption that offer an illusion of liberty but which are, thanks to constant social surveillance, surveillance of each other in fact, actually an effective form of imprisonment. Is that why you said you’d never been in prison ‘really’?”
“Ohhh…”
Paul looked around at the flowers, of which he’s so very proud, squinted at the pale blue sky and took a long drag on a cigarette.
“No mate, I mean… do the cells count as prison? Cos, you know, I’ve been in the cells, but that’s not prison, really, is it?”
“No mate, it’s not.”
“No, I didn’t think so.”
The music played on, Joe’s strangled voice hit the chorus: “Some is rich, and some is poor, that’s the way the wo-orld is, I don’t believe in lyin’ back, sayin’ how bad your luck is…”
I have a friend whose view is that each and every one of us has an addiction. I am not sure if I entirely agree (which is not to say I am not myself willing to accept a tendency for certain addictive behaviours – I don’t own a smartwatch precisely because I worry I am already addicted enough to my phone and the last thing I need is to have it accessible on my wrist rather than my pocket), but I have certainly seen enough of life to understand where such a view might come from. I’m certainly open to the idea that, in the Western world at the very least, addiction is far bigger problem than many of us are willing to admit.
One person who seems willing to acknowledge that challenge is Florence Welch, whose song, “Hunger”, openly explores her own experiences of addiction, not just of alcohol and drugs, but of all kinds of ways that bring emotional and hormonal highs in ways that are ultimately more harmful than helpful. It is, to my mind, a powerful song that is open about Welch’s experiences in a way that is raw and yet also hopeful – the acknowledgement that the hunger exists, and that the past attempts to satisfy it have failed, is itself a notable step in the right direction.
While I may not be entirely sold, yet, on the idea we all have addictions, I do think we all have a hunger – a hunger to be loved, to be welcomed, to be valued, to be seen and heard and enabled to fulfil our potential. As someone who believes we are made in the image of God, I might call this a hunger for our divine selves. This is not something new to Christian thinking – Augustine of Hippo probably said it best, when he said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” (Confessions) We all have a restless desire to make our way home, to know ourselves loved as those made in the image of the One who is Love.
Of course, we so often try at satisfy that hunger in the wrong places. We find ourselves wanting more and more: whether of things, or highs, or experiences, or adulation, or power, or… well, the list certainly goes on. I know when my own Black Dog is raging, when I feel swamped in the fog of depression or am wired with the adrenaline of anxiety, I think that what will satisfy it is food, or drink, or buying stuff, or the flashing lights of my phone. Yet what actually stills me and frees me, even if only temporarily, is space, and stillness, and focus on my breathing, and repeating the words of the Lord’s prayer.
Do we all have addictions? I am genuinely not sure. But I am convinced we are all hungry, hungry for love. Not the various kinds of human love (as good as they are and as reflective of the ultimate Love) but divine love, the love that made us and holds us and will go through death to give us life in all its fullness. We all have a hunger, and I pray that each and everyone us might find that hunger sated in the One who made us and in whom we will find eternal rest.
Let’s face it. This song is not particularly deep and meaningful. It’s not the sort of song that you pop on when you’re feeling like a bit of navel-gazing or contemplative reflection. So apologies if you were hoping for deep lyrics this week. Instead you have fun, frivolity and love.
Sometimes our everyday life is so full of trying to unpack what an earth is going on around us, we need music to divert our attention for a little while. For me, this song does just that. It not only diverts, it energises too.
It transports me back to that point in time when the 80’s turned into the ‘caring, sharing 90’s’ when I was in my early twenties. A time when spending time with friends was paramount in my life. A time when we would get in a car and just drive – not quite to a funky little shack – but to a different town for a change.
It also transports me to a time when I found the USA exciting and vibrant. I could totally believe The B-52s driving a big American car along the sunlit Atlanta highway to this fun place called The Love Shack. The land of the free to be who you want to be – that’s what I thought the US was all about.
It’s a song that was a dance floor filler. My whole group of friends would be straight up dancing – usually pretending to drive a car; definitely ‘bang bang’ banging on the door baby! It’s quirky, camp and full of energy just like the band singing it.
It celebrates life, being together and having fun. Its lively, colourful nature suggests that love is not just about serious things, but also about joy, spontaneity, and embracing imperfections.
So perhaps this song is both fun (and frivolous) with something to ponder too. After all the Love Shack is a little old place where everyone is welcome. It’s an inclusive space – regardless of who you are. All you need do is bang on the door. Love and being included await.
Happy Valentine’s Day from the Friday Fix. You are loved – whoever and wherever you are.
I love this track. There is no other way of starting this reflection. It’s a real favourite. And I’ve lived with it a very long time.
If I go to see a concert that has any remnant of my beloved band Genesis in it, or frankly any kind of halfway decent tribute, the conversation with my equally geeky Genesis buddy turns to what we want on the playlist.
We always want ‘The Cage’ but very rarely is it played. We like ‘The Carpet Crawlers’ and are often satisfied. He’s a ‘Cinema Show’ fan whereas I’d rather have ‘Blood on the Rooftops’ (no comment on my personality please).
But when the first few bars of this song plays, an inner peace and warm glow descends on an audience, and the shared audible sigh of appreciation is heard and felt. It’s a track from an album which has within it all sorts of stories and, for me, it is a great way to end an album.
It’s also a song that, even without spiritual resonance or lyrical value, matters somehow. (You can tell by now, not only does the song matter to me but the band does too. It gels me with a certain kind of people. It connects me to dear friends. It takes me back to the days when I wrote out the lyrics of songs in my best handwriting so I still had them when I returned the vinyl back to its owners and listened on my dodgy cassette recording. Being a Genesis fan is a shortcut to understanding the other without any extra comment.)
This is a song where its subject is looking and searching. So clear about how things were. What was of value and the impact of having lost it all. It has a level of lament and deep honesty in it. Anyone who can openly say:
I miss you more Than the sun reflecting off my pillow Bringing the warmth of new life And the sound that echoed all around me That I caught a glimpse of in the night
is expressing pain and love and loss.
For me it is a song about yearning. A deep desire to find the missing piece. It speaks of grief – there’s a lot of it about in my world at the minute – and a recognition that it won’t ever be the same, and that dents the soul.
I’m never really sure why our closeness to God often comes when we are in a spot. When we express our lament. If only we could be as open with God as this song writer is with the invisible hearer of these words.
I know it can be hard when there is so much to be thankful for, but I truly believe telling it like it is, in an emotionally true way, builds connection with others and the God we love. It settles the soul and an expression of what we feel and need – even if it can’t come to pass – helps us find a way through.
I often wonder if the ‘Afterglow’ in the title comes just from having listened to it (or sung it of course) and then settled into the fact you’ve said what needs saying for the moment.
I wonder what it might do for you today…….?
Bizarrely its quite hard to find an official website for Genesis these days and those that claim to be are a bit unusual.However you could try this https://thegenesisarchive.co.uk/ and see what you find.
The Friday Fix 