Category: 2019

Nigel writes:

The video version of the song – which I would probably give a 15 Certificate – has had a staggering 860+million views on youtube. It portrays these life contrasts vividly and graphically. 

To be honest, I have to be in the mood for dance/club music, but when I am, I love it. One of my all-time favourite tracks is We Found Love in a Hopeless place by Rhianna and featuring the master of contemporary music production, Calvin Harris. It’s a thumping track, with profound missiology at its core; missiology that has helped me grasp a little of how God is, and how God works. 

Life is so often a mix of love, hope, possibility, but also despair, dysfunctionality and an ongoing wrestling with some of the obvious, and often less obvious, demons which invade our space. 

For a long time in my faith journey, I was seduced into thinking that if things were not hunky dory and a bed of roses then I must be doing something wrong. Whilst I’m still open to the possibility that this might be the case, the evidence of my experience is that this is a way too simplistic theological stance. 

Over the years, I have found ‘love in a hopeless place’. In the work I used to do in prisons. Time and time again, I would enter the prison nervous, anxious and uncertain about the reception I and my fellow volunteers would get. Every time, without fail, we discovered God had gone ahead of us and before us and was already there – casting a shadow of love and acceptance across the lives of those most in need. Being and working in what was a very hopeless place. 

Yellow diamonds in the light 
And we’re standing side by side 
As your shadow crosses mine 
What it takes to come alive 

It’s the way I’m feeling I just can’t deny 
But I’ve gotta let it go 

We found love in a hopeless place 
We found love in a hopeless place 
We found love in a hopeless place 
We found love in a hopeless place 

In more recent ventures as a volunteer working with the refugees stranded in Calais, I found the same; a living God at work in the most hopeless of situations with the most desperate and marginalised of people. Amidst violence and oppression from the authorities, love is to be found amongst the refugees and those who seek to support them. The situation is hopeless, but the love easily found. 

Divorce, cancer, bereavement, living in a rural setting which is very hard work church-wise have all given me a personal glimpse of hopelessness, and indeed, at times helplessness. Throughout I have found it helpful to make a distinction between circumstance and situation, and the God who ‘is’ – that great ‘I am’. Rhianna talks about a division between ‘love’ and ‘life’ – I get that and find it really helpful. However hopeless things are naturally speaking – and I don’t glibly and naively proclaim this – God is still love, still there, still being; still ‘I am’. 

Shine a light through an open door 
Love and life I will divide 

 Turn away ’cause I need you more 
Feel the heartbeat in my mind 

It’s the way I’m feeling I just can’t deny 
But I’ve gotta let it go 

We found love in a hopeless place 
We found love in a hopeless place 
We found love in a hopeless place 
We found love in a hopeless place 

So a cracking, pump up the air, touch the emotions, grab you by the short and curlies dance track full of missiology and, for me, helpful theology –who would have guessed? So if you are going through some tough times, I hope this reflection might add to your understanding that God works in all and many different ways. Even when it is hopeless, God is there – even if things don’t become immediately – or even ever, hopeful – we might still discover that 

We found love in a hopeless place 
We found love in a hopeless place 
We found love in a hopeless place 
We found love in a hopeless place 

Rihanna’s website is http://www.rihannanow.com/

You can follow Calvin Harris at http://calvinharris.com/

Fidge writes:

Lucy Spraggan first appeared on our screens in X Factor 2012. She pulled out fairly early in the series due to illness, but she still managed to sign a record deal. 

This year she brought out her 5th album Today was a Good Day and whilst I would never describe myself as a fan, this album is really rather good. 

I was first introduced to one of the songs from the album, Stick the Kettle On (featuring Scouting for Girls), while on retreat. Our retreat leader was talking about seeing Lucy in concert and how moved she was by the song.  

Stick the Kettle On was released for World Suicide Prevention Day and is written to support the charity CALM (Campaign against Living <iserably). Whilst it is a song reflecting the high rate of suicide amongst men under the age of 50, it is also a song for anyone who is feeling low – essentially an invitation to speak to your family, friends, anyone – and where better than over a cuppa!  

I’m currently doing some research with Germinate on rural isolation and loneliness. I think loneliness is one of the biggest diseases we have in our country, if not the world. And of course, it’s not just old people or rural people who get lonely, but loneliness is still something that we rarely talk about. It seems to still carry a huge stigma. So this song reminds me of the importance of just having some company and someone to talk to – even if it’s just once a week. 

Whilst on retreat, one of the things I reflected on was how important hospitality is to me as part of my faith.  

I’m reminded of Jesus saying: 

I was hungry and you gave me food 

I was thirsty and you gave me drink,  

I was a stranger and you welcomed me. (Matthew 25:35)  

Or the ancient rune of hospitality that is said weekly at Iona Abbey: 

We saw a stranger yesterday  

We put food in the eating place 

Drink in the drinking place 

Music in the listening space. 

And in the sacred name of the triune God 

He blessed us and our house 

Our cattle and our dear ones. 

As the lark says in her song, often, often, often goes Christ in the Stranger’s guise.  

For me, hospitality is not just about welcoming friends or strangers. Its more about how we make and create community. It’s about knowing who our neighbours are. It’s about picking the phone up for a chat – for no specific reason at all.  

We live in a world where there more barriers of exclusion, the higher the wall, the safer people feel. And yet as Christians we want to break down barriers and invite people in. So, who might you want to have a cuppa with this week? Who might be the lonely people amongst you and how might you connect with them?   

Just an offer of a cup of tea and chat might be a literal life saver for one and you never know, you may even find that you have ‘entertained angels unawares’. Hebrews 13:2.  

Lucy Spraggan will be performing at Greenbelt this year. 

CALM: https://www.thecalmzone.net 

Germinate Rural Loneliness and Isolation Toolkit: 

https://germinate.net/mission/rural-isolation-and-lonliness-toolkit/

David reflects:

Hidden away on my hard drive somewhere is a folder full of songs I’ve never written! One, yet to be completed masterpiece, is entitled ‘Clichéd Love Affair’. A song that seeks, tongue, very much in cheek, to use all the clichés that we hear in love songs and weave a story of the deepest love!

Hearing the opening lines of ‘Yours’ by Katie Doherty and the Navigators sent me searching into the deep recesses of my hard drive with the promise of a new verse for my incomplete song… ‘I’d give you the hills’

Yet the line continues… ‘but they are already yours’ the cliché is smashed, and my interest piqued.

She continues… ‘And I’d show you the stars, but they are brighter where you are!’ and through ears of faith I am conjuring up a love song to the almighty. ‘I’d give you the hills…’ of course they are already yours – you create them! What about the stars, silly me, they are brighter where you are in the heavens!

Yet, this is no deep hymn of devotion, no slow sweet melody – it is written to a sheep farmer, the hills and the stars all makes perfect sense now! (Shepherd? Insert your own theology!)

This beautiful and refreshingly honest song continues ‘you deserve more than my temporary smile, but it’s all I can give you for a while’

How honest do we need to be to admit that our worship is often the temporary smile (or as Paul Field describes it in ‘Make a Difference’… ‘a Sunday morning shine… a pill you take for holiness washed down by bread and wine’). A place we come to escape, where we make promises we don’t keep and where we behave very differently from the rest of our lives? A place that becomes a cliché of our love for God rather than a demonstration.

‘Yours’ concludes with the declaration of love ‘All I can say is I am yours today’. What if our worship concluded not with the grace but with the declaration ‘I am yours’?

Leading me from church into the world;

to turn the other cheek till both my cheeks ached,

to constantly walk the second mile,

to never judge,

to be more concerned with the log in my own eye than the spec in my neighbours,

to sell all I had to give everything to the poor,

to kneel at the feet of my friends while really praying for my enemies and actually put myself last all the time…

…then, I would be yours, O God.

You can find out more about Katie Doherty and the Navigators here https://www.katiedoherty.co.uk/

Gill writes: 

There’s been a bit of a backlash about the phrase ‘thoughts and prayers’ over the last couple of years.  People have got tired of this ‘go to’ phrase from our leaders that their ‘thoughts and prayers’ are with whoever has been affected when a tragic event has happened.

The words “Let’s not just pray, let’s make a change” in this song from Frank Turner (an out & out atheist) really sums this frustration up. 

But change is a funny thing.  We know it needs to happen but we just seem to struggle with making changes – perhaps because we think it needs to something big.  And big things require lots of effort and a good deal of time. We get caught up in things needing to change dramatically.  Huge gestures.  A complete overhaul. 

Shane Claiborne, the American Christian activist, once said ‘Get ready friends….God is preparing us for something really, really…small’.  

And when you think about it, Jesus wasn’t about big gestures to bring about change – it was all about small things.  Walking an extra mile; a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread; mustard seeds; grains of wheat; a women at the well and a cup of water; a Samaritan; a father and his two sons;  a loaf of bread and a cup of wine;  a cross. 

This song is all about making little changes in your life.  Frank wrote it as a reflection on his experience of cognitive behavioural therapy where he learned that he can significantly change aspects of his life just by making small changes in his behaviour.   

I love the honesty of his words and music.  I could have chosen so many of his songs to share but I think that this song seems to capture my own personal mood at the moment – it definitely speaks to me when I think about climate change, but it also reminds be about living a healthier, fruitful life just by being a bit kinder to myself and therefore, kinder to others.

“Giving up too easy when we could’ve tried a little bit harder 

Standing to the side as the neighbourhood went to the dogs 

We spend our energy getting angry instead of being kinder 

Singing hymns of praise in a city given up on by the gods” 

So instead of feeling frustrated and blaming others, we can pray & reflect (ooh –thoughts and prayers) on what change we want to see in the world and make little changes to bring about that bigger change.  

I’m looking forward to seeing Frank Turner at Greenbelt this year and of course, I’m hoping he’ll be playing this one.

If you want to know more about Frank’s music, visit http://www.frank-turner.com&nbsp;

Jane writes: 

The Time is Now – the current slogan for Climate Change activists – is a tough reminder that there’s no time to lose around issues of Global importance.   The feeling of crisis sharpens the senses to the needs, not only of the planet itself, but of all those creatures living on its surface and if ever there was a time to stand up and be counted – it is now.   

It’s not the only issue either facing us as people of faith.  The political and social climates are increasingly hostile, the word ‘Brexit’ is never far from our lips and even within the church we find ourselves polarised on a number of issues leading us to the edge of a crisis of our own. 

The stories we read of Jesus consistently remind us that his attention and intention in any given moment were critical.  Healing the woman who was bleeding; healing the sick; conversation with the woman at the well;  careful answers to provocative questions; making the political point: I could go on.     I wonder if this is another call to grasp the current moment and pay attention to what’s happening right now in a God-filled way. To pay attention to the people in need right now. 

So this track of the same name, that has long been in my consciousness, seems a fitting commentary for the moment.  An out and out declaration of the urgency of love, connectivity and seizing the day – it suggests that the all-consuming nature of relationship is just like breathing in.  Its value comes not in tomorrow but in the current and grabbing it for all its worth. 

God offers fully committed love to us and indeed invites us to respond.  Not in the future but now.  Who knows what that might look like for each of us but “giving ourselves to the moment and realising the time is now” might just enable us to make the positivity of the moment last.  To make a long term difference.  To do what is right at any given point in time. To realise that the Kingdom of God is quite literally for now. 

You kind find out more about Moloko and the work of their lead singer Roisin Murphy here 

https://www.roisinmurphyofficial.com/

Gareth reflects:

Where to start on picking a song that represents something powerful and poignant to you? The list is endless and so dependent on the mood you’re in, who you’re with, what has happened in your day. Then add to that songs that speak into your understanding of your faith and what God is saying to you – it is a difficult, if not impossible, choice.  

I think I am quite lucky in that I have not been blessed with any musical talent whatsoever. What I lack in talent and ability, I try to make up for in volume and because of this completely talentless ignorance, it gives me that space to simply listen to the music. Take in the words. Follow and enjoy the melody. Find the beauty in so many instruments and techniques coming together. 

I am not a big fan of singing worship songs – one reason for this is as noted above. If I tried singing as a means of attempting to offer something to God, at best it would be received as a pair of socks at Christmas. I often, therefore, listen to sung worship. In this Foo Fighters song, and so many like it, I hear of connection with the God who is alive and moving in every facet of what we do.  

This song, and in particular the acoustic version, I remember first hearing it with a real chance to listen to it properly sat on the train to London and I must have played it four or five time in a row to try and absorb as much of it as I could. There was a simplicity, vulnerability and honesty to it that I think is rarely found and few musicians are willing to fully engage in. Much like in church life, I believe that this is where and when music has a real opportunity to impact us. 

The chorus sings;  

And I wonder 
When I sing along with you 
If everything could ever feel this real forever 
If anything could ever be this good again 
The only thing I’ll ever ask of you 
You got to promise not to stop when I say when 

One of the theological writers that I enjoy reading speaks of their thoughts of God. They describe the challenge of imagining God and instead liken Gods presence in the world as being like a song. A song that has been sung since creation and is continuously sung still. They describe our challenge as being to try and sing along with the song. A song of connection, a song of grace, a song of love and so many other things.  

Occasionally, I feel as though I get a few notes right and in these times, I do wonder, as the chorus sings, If everything could ever feel this real forever, If anything could ever be this good again. These are times of real connection with God and the relationship that we have with the Holy Spirit seems to be one that sings the tune in perfect harmony.  

I would like to think that the more aware we are of that song, as our eyes are opened to the places that song is being sung, as we become more aware of the people who are singing the song, the more chances we have to sing the same notes. 

Follow Foo Fighters at https://foofighters.com/

Jane writes:

I love a good song lyric but even I find there are times in your life when words are just not helpful. 

It may be that I have lots to do and need the comfort of music to help me along. 

It may be that the words are a distraction to my own thought processes and I might actually disagree with a lyricist. 

It may be that I just need to settle into something that takes me away from life. 

All this said then, Lux Arumque is a piece that seems to resolve all those things for me.  The choral music takes me to a different place where I am lifted beyond where things can bother me. 

Our tradition, as Methodists, is for our faith to be wrapped in song but even our Christian hymn writers can cause a ripple or two around what we’re willing to sing.  Maybe the option on occasion is just to rest in the glory of God, letting music form a bridge between our human experience and something farther beyond that.  To experience something that’s almost indescribable. Let the music take us to places we weren’t expecting.   

Much of Eric Whitacre’s writing does that for me and it does have words but often not ones I need to hear or understand. 

You can find out much more about Eric Whitacre’s work here  https://ericwhitacre.com/

 

Gill reflects… 

Oh how I still love this song.  The words resonate as much now as they did back then in 1991 when I was a young twentysomething, just breaking out into the world after years of education and beginning to find my feet as a proper grown-up. 

When this song struck up in clubs and parties in the early nineties, it generated a strong sense of unity.  People would sit down on the dancefloor and sing at the tops of their voices “Those who feel the breath of sadness, Sit down next to me. Those who find they’re touched by madness, Sit down next to me. Those who find themselves ridiculous, Sit down next to me’.   

This was also a time when my faith grew and matured a bit more.  It’s when I began to understand that part of following Jesus was about having empathy and serving those in need of justice and peace.  Standing up against oppression.  Sitting down in protest.  Being alongside those who needed support.  Speaking out for the powerless.   

This song helped to put into words those strong emotions I felt (and still feel) about needing to recognise the pain and turmoil of life, to show grace and share empathy in any way that I could and to help empower people in dealing with their struggles and removing their own barriers.

You’re not alone.  I am with you. 

You can see what James are up to these days by visiting their website at https://wearejames.com/

This week, Alison shares a very personal reflection… 

I asked him “why are you packing your toothbrush?”. He looked at me and I knew from the look in his eyes why. He was leaving me. “What about your birthday?” I asked feeling rather foolish. It was his birthday the next day and we had planned to take the children, aged 8 and 5, on a day trip to a local Bank Holiday village fair.  

One of ‘our tunes’ had been Soft Cell’s Tainted Love. We minced around dance floors together being dramatic, singing along at the top of our voices. The tune is upbeat. The words are devastating. Our marriage looked good to many people, but inside that relationship it was in fact a tainted love. Tainted by his cheating; tainted by us both being young and not knowing who we really were; tainted by poor mental health; tainted by self-medication of poor mental health by illegal drug use. 

This was all 15 years ago. If we skip ahead to May 2019, I am on a train coming home from work in London and I am reading the Methodist Conference Report ‘God in Love Unites Us’ – the report of the Marriage & Relationships task group 2019. As I read, I am overwhelmed by a sense of what a good marriage can be; that it could be in the words quoted at the start of the report of a Nat King Cole lyric  

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return” 

and I simultaneously grieve that first marriage and celebrate my second marriage, whilst praising God for the expression of possibilities expressed in this conference report. Love is mentioned 210 times in the report. 

15 years ago, I didn’t feel the church was offering anything to me except for a booklet called ‘Endings & Partings’ which was some solace as I felt maybe someone had trodden this path before me. 

I read books on being a Christian and divorce and they all made me feel like a failure. I remember a married woman at church coming rushing over when she saw me talking with her husband and claiming him back from me. I remember how lonely it is to arrive for worship on your own, or as the only adult. Church felt absent from me in this huge time of change in my life. Inside I was hurting and the words from ‘Tainted Love’ were my song now not our tune  

“you take my tears and that’s not nearly all” 

I felt like he had also taken my standing in community, my ‘normalness’, my dignity.  

About 12 -18 months after my first husband left, I went to my minister at the time and said that the church had marked all the big things in my life – my birth, baptism, becoming a member, a local preacher, my marriage. And now I am at a huge life moment, and I want to church to be there for me and my children again. I asked if I could write a liturgy to mark our new family and give a testimony as to what God was doing in my life at this difficult time. He looked a bit terrified but said yes.  

Standing there facing the congregation, telling my story in my local church community was really important. I needed people to know me and my experiences, and to know that they can talk to me about this stuff because I know God is in this with me and I won‘t crumble. It felt ‘right’ to stand there and share some of the pain of what it is to sing some of the words from ‘Tainted Love’ and use them as a prayer of lament  

“I’ve lost my light, I toss and turn I can’t sleep at night” 

Equally it was an act of healing to be standing at the front of church with the children and being blessed as a new expression of family. The next day I woke up, healed enough to make a positive step and I filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery. 

But being divorced in the church is tough. So much emphasis is put on marriage, and love and family. So much of the service within the church depends on being a 2-person parenting team to be available to play one’s part. It was tough one AGM when someone stood up, in response to a question about what should our mission be, to say we should mission to the single parents and their dysfunctional children. I wasn’t ready for that one as I had felt fairly safe in my own church community. Boom! That hurt.

And that’s it, in local church we rub along with one another and sometimes we get it wrong and sometimes we get it right. But the institution of church has a power I feel we rarely name, and the power to ignore, as all children who have bullied in the playground know, is a big one. As a divorcee there was something about being a bit weird, a bit ignored. Because the institution of church hasn’t really engaged with this part of my story except to say that some people disapprove and can opt out of remarrying me. But now, reading this report, I feel seen. The report says  

“3.2.6 We therefore recommend that liturgical texts be produced and commended for use at the ending of a marriage, not to glorify divorce but to acknowledge its reality and enable the partners and other people affected (and also the Church) to offer and open themselves to the gracious love of God as they go through it. The availability of such a service would be an expression of our belief in God’s grace and healing and show that nothing is beyond the care of God and the Church.” 

I still go dancing sometimes, and I still dance to ‘Tainted Love’ by Soft Cell (although I think I like the original by Gloria Jones better now) and know I can do so mincing around, hurling myself unrhythmically around the dance floor, singing at the top of voice and the song is redeemed for me – as indeed I have been renewed through the love of God, my family and friends and local church, and I thank God that now it is possible that the institutional church might be able to be part of this story of healing and redemption too.  

PS: I know that most people are focused on this report because of the same sex marriage elements of it, and rightly so. I want to be clear that my experience of a sense of ‘ignoredness’ from the church is nothing in comparison to the pain caused to gay people by the church. This musing of mine is not to be in competition but to share some of my story as part of the East Central Learning Network #FridayFix 

If you want to see what Soft Cell are up to these days, you can visit https://www.softcell.co.uk/