How often do we wonder what we have in common with people who have very different views and opinions from us?
In an increasingly polarised world, it is an important question when we ask ourselves how we can connect with those who seem to be “the other” or “dangerous” to us. Where can we turn for wisdom?
Well, yes, the Bible is one answer, but it’s not the only one. For me, the song Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Deep Blue Something has something really important to say.
The song begins with:
“You’ll say, we’ve got nothing in common
No common ground to start from
And we’re falling apart
You’ll say, the world has come between us
Our lives have come between us
Still, I know you just don’t care”
Then the writer of the song suggests the film ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s‘ can be a point of connection they still have.
It goes on to say,
“And I said, “What about breakfast at Tiffany’s?”
She said, “I think I remember the film and
As I recall, I think we both kinda liked it”
And I said, “Well, that’s the one thing we’ve got”
In this case it’s the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but it could be any other film, song, band, artist or TV show. The fact is, whilst politics may often divide us, culture can often unite us.
In looking for ways we can talk about the difficult stuff that does divide and trying to bridge the gap, finding a point of common interest can be the starting point of a conversation which can go much deeper after relationship is formed and trust grown.
So I invite you, when you’re starting a conversation with somebody potentially quite different to you, to ask a question like, “What’s your favourite film?”.
When thinking about one-hit wonders, this song popped into my head. This artist has had more hits in Australia, but in Europe, Gotye is mainly known for this song.
I’m training to be a priest, and I’ve recently had to make a video of my faith story for an evangelism module. The line ‘now you’re just somebody that I used to know’ makes me reflect upon who I am now, and who I was when I began my journey as a Christian.
I became a Christian at university, and not long after that, God first said the word ordination to me. God has done a lot in the last 15 years! That person who first took the tentative steps towards God all those years ago is very different to the person I am today.
There are other parts of the song that resonate with this theme too.
‘Well, you said that we would still be friends. But I’ll admit that I was glad it was over’.
The line above makes me think of how I sometimes want to distance myself from the person I was before I knew God, and from some of the decisions that I made along the way.
But that person and the decisions I made have led me to where I am today. Even though the person I am today would make different decisions, I can’t change the past.
I think there’s a lesson here about forgiving ourselves and remembering that we are constantly growing and changing. From a physiological level, with our cells on average replacing themselves within 7-10 years, to how we think and process the world around us, we are constantly being changed and renewed.
There are two verses that come to mind:
Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’
2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
These verses remind me that while we are constantly changing and being renewed, God remains unchanging. God is the constant in every version of ourselves, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
I hope and pray that new versions of myself that I become are a little bit more like Jesus. That the fruits of the Spirit become more evident. I also need to remember that change and growth are not linear. Sometimes we have seasons of regression, or we plateau. No version of myself is perfect, but all of those versions have led me to be the person I am today, and God is with me through all of them.
It’s another sweltering summer down here in the south-west of England. And depending on where you’re reading this, you may or may not have spent this week watching England have the rug pulled from underneath them by Argentina. Again.
Some of us are still processing. Yet another fleeting moment of hope extinguished. Our Scottish family reading this will have experienced the same feeling a couple of weeks back.
So who better than a Scottish duo, Strawberry Switchblade, to remind us about such fleeting moments? Their 1984 one-hit wonder, Since Yesterday, shone briefly in the UK top five and then, like all the best one-hit wonders (and like certain footballing dreams we won’t labour), left us with just the song and the feeling.
Like Jane’s reflection last week, it’s a song where the melody seems to contradict the lyrics. Lyrics that sit in a melancholic place while the melody chimes along cheerfully. But one look at the lyrics takes us to a more fragile place:
When tomorrow comes, you’ll wish you had today.
Sound advice dressed up as a seemingly frivolous pop song.
All we have now are our thoughts of yesterday.
The song reminds us that the present – the right here, right now – slips through our fingers before we’ve even noticed it. And underneath those jangly guitars and Rose McDowall’s beautifully clear voice, there’s a message of loss and hope mingled together. You sense the feeling of searching, of yearning, of looking for a reason to go on.
So, as many of us in the UK try to find whatever passes for shade whilst we gently wilt and replay various 85th minutes of our own lives, maybe we know exactly what this feels like.
Something about this song that’s worth noticing is that it was written in the shadow of the Cold War (1984 also saw Nena’s ’99 Luftballons’ closely followed by Alphaville’s ‘Forever Young’ – there was a definite theme at the time), where we lived with an ever-present threat of a world that might not survive its own tomorrows.
I think that the context in which this song made an appearance makes the yearning even more poignant. It’s not just personal nostalgia. It’s a whole generation asking what are we leaving behind, and what will remain?
And here we are, in our own overheated summer, asking not dissimilar questions – about climate, about the world our children are inheriting, about whether we are doing nearly enough with the time we have.
Which is where I want to bring in the prophet Micah. Micah had a vision of summer too. Everyone sitting under their own vine and fig tree in a world of peace. It’s an aspirational image – sitting in shade with fruit, peace, abundance and the smell of warm earth. It sounds like a perfect July afternoon.
The thing is, what Micah describes is a promise. Something to be built, cared for, handed on and grown into for people who may never meet us, but who will benefit from the choices we make right now.
A key difference between nostalgia and hope lies in how you approach the present moment. Nostalgia clutches at yesterday – at summers that were somehow always better, at an 85th minute that still hadn’t happened yet, at a version of the past which gleams much more in retrospect than it ever did at the time. Hope, on the other hand, plants something in today’s ground that tomorrow will be pleased with.
So this summer – which for many of us is panning out to be sweaty, bittersweet and slightly apocalyptic – perhaps the question we should ask is: am I helping build something worth handing on?
A kindness that might cost you a little; a conversation you’ve been putting off; a world (no matter how small your corner of it is) where those who come after us might sit under their own vine and fig tree without fear and in peace.
One-hit wonders remind us that a single moment done well can outlast a great deal. Strawberry Switchblade had one glorious moment in the charts. The song is still here, forty years later, still asking its questions and still on my playlist. If a song can make such a lasting impact, just imagine the bigger things we can do to ensure the best tomorrow for those we pass this world on to.
In 1969, I was 5, and apparently even then I’d pretend to be on Top of the Pops using the handle from the poker as a microphone (The younger folk among you may have to look up most of what that statement is about, but you can – so that’s ok)
It was the year that this song ‘In The Year 2525’ was released, and to be fair, when I started on this little musical task, I’d never really thought about who sang it or any of the lyrics apart from the big one-liner. I definitely have no memory of what they looked like, or actually what speed it was. It’s weird ‘cos when I sing the iconic line in my head, it’s faster and definitely NOT by two guys with acoustic guitars.
You might say this blog is about music, Jane and nothing to do with what people look like, but I disagree.
This song and its relentless lyrical move to a future of doom sits in a real opposing place to its perky tune and men with sideburns and neckerchiefs. So. Ordinary blokes singing a song about futurology like they’d just invented it and tapping into the state of the world in the midst of war(s)(one of which was bloody and damaging to an entire American generation) and the aftermath of the death of John F Kennedy, which makes it to number 1. It captured a moment, and I have no idea if people needed an outlet for their lament or were just intrigued by a catchy tune. That’s the fun of it for me. I love the way people get sucked into something popular only to discover its deep socio- political ramblings. I also love that, to an extent, we are living out the predicted future at an alarming rate.
Here are some examples from the lyrics:
In the year 3535 Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies Everything you think, do, and say Is in the pill you took today
Or maybe your social media profile
In the year 4545 Ain’t gonna need your teeth, won’t need your eyes You won’t find a thing to chew Nobody’s gonna look at you
Oh, how the working from home idea has taken a turn.
In the year 6565 Ain’t gonna need no husband, won’t need no wife You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter, too From the bottom of a long glass tube
This one is quite impactful for an IVF mum
But maybe most telling for us folk of faith is:
In the year 8510 God is gonna shake His mighty head He’ll either say, “I’m pleased where man has been” Or tear it down and start again
OR
In the year 9595 I’m kinda wonderin’ if man is gonna be alive He’s taken everything this old earth can give And he ain’t put back nothing
I love a post-apocalyptic tale that makes us see exactly what humankind is doing to the created world. A story that reveals God and how people perceive what they might do to humanity in a moment of despair, despite promises to the contrary.
Simply put, creative artists – musicians, filmmakers, writers – have been trying to show us the reality of our future for decades and even centuries, so that we don’t feel lectured to and hoping we will change our behaviour.
Frankly, though it appears that we aren’t taking much notice about changing. Maybe this song reminds us that now is the moment to do justice to the world we live in and the God we worship, so the future is less bleak than painted. To avoid descending into the chaos of a world with no moral compass or, indeed, respect for the scientific advances that might destroy what we see as precious.
Do sing along, but remember it may impact your psyche.
Zagar and Evans were not overly successful after. Rick Evans was hurt in a car crash during promotion for this music. Combined with the fact that ubsequent songs maintained a darker perspective on life, the universe and everything.
In the summer of 1986 this song by Owen Paul was everywhere.
It’s a classic boy-meets-girl one-hit wonder which was huge for one summer and then completely disappeared.
It’s a happy song, with a cheesy video. Owen’s jeep breaks down, he plays the guitar on the beach, windsurfs (badly) and tries desperately to impress a girl.
It’s sunny, it’s fun – and all in all, quite innocent.
In 1986, I was 14. Exams weren’t yet a thing and the biggest worry was what to wear to the Monday evening under-18s disco at the local nightclub. (The thought of going out on a Monday now feels like way too much of a commitment, but it was the best thing to do in our town back then).
The internet barely existed, social media hadn’t been invented and the disco finished at 10pm, with parents outside waiting to take us home. It feels like a different world.
Of course, there were pressures and dangers and challenges back then, just as there are now.
But this song does bring that word ‘innocence’ to mind for me.
In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus sends the twelve disciples out in pairs to villages and towns, to share the good news of the kingdom of God. He tells them to be ‘wise as serpents and innocent as doves’.
Being ‘wise as a serpent’ does not mean the disciples are being told to be cynical or negative. Rather, I think it’s about taking a worldview which seeks to see things clearly, making good judgements as a result of that clarity.
And while being ‘innocent as a dove’ could suggest naivety, maybe on a deeper level it is about exhibiting a commitment to ethical living and peacemaking, especially in challenging situations.
It seems that Jesus is encouraging his disciples to navigate the world with intelligence and integrity. And you don’t even have to learn to windsurf to do that.
‘What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me Don’t hurt, me no more‘ (Haddaway – What Is Love)
I hadn’t really thought too much about what love is until I started to teach Year 12 lessons on it. It’s always interesting to see what the young people say about it. I’ve had things ranging from ‘it’s an emotional attachment between two people’, ‘love is a feeling’ to ‘overrated and complicated’. It’s a really difficult thing to define! Like the song above, that features in a video from the lesson, it can often be associated with pain and hurt. Loving someone leaves you open to be hurt.
I think love is key to the flourishing of Christian communities and ultimately humanity, but I think it’s also something that we don’t often get right. The fear of getting hurt and struggling to love those who are different often means that we hurt people, instead of trying to love them like Jesus does. I think we often love people how we would like to be loved, but actually, that doesn’t always mean that the person feels loved!
Love languages are a good place to start and are really helpful practically, but what does the bible say about love? And how can I ‘love the flock’ better (when I say the flock, I mean the congregation of a church). This is something that I have really struggled with over my 2 years working for the church!
Love is mentioned 551 times in the bible (New International Version). As a comparison, the word sin is mentioned 415 times. It’s something God wants us to not just understand, but show through our actions. The verse below is used a lot in weddings. I use it to summarise the Year 12 lesson I teach on love and give it a Christian perspective. For me, it’s one of the best definitions of love.
I know that when I’m being short and impatient, I’m not loving people. I know that when I am selfish and cruel, I’m not loving people. I know that when I get angry and lose my temper, I dishonour God and the people around me. When I bring up past wrongdoings in a fight, I am not doing what Jesus did, who perfectly modelled love. When I have feelings of happiness when something goes wrong in the lives of people I dislike and struggle to get on with, I am not being loving. I know all of these things, but I also know that I’m not Jesus and I won’t ever do all of these perfectly. However, this is a framework around which to base how I love people, as are many other parts of the bible.
I also think that one word isn’t enough to describe what love is, and I think the Greek language does a much better job with 8 words that describe different types of love. I think the media focuses way too much on Eros and leaves the other types of love out. Just think about the plot line of many classic Disney films!
Wikipedia describes Agape as “the love of God for man and of man for God”. It’s the highest and purest form of love. It’s why God sent down his only Son. I think heaven will have an abundance of this type of love. I think the world now lacks this kind of love. I love the verse below. It describes the great love of God, but it also gives us direction and instruction. We can bring heaven down to earth by loving one another. I can bring heaven to earth by loving those around me like it describes in Corinthians. I also need to remember that first and foremost, I am unconditionally and fiercely loved by my almighty father. I pray that you know God’s love now and always.
1 John 4:7-21 (ESV) – God is Love – ‘Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.’
Nizlopi were/are a massively underrated folk-pop duo. Only in very recent times have they had a little bit of a resurgence due to Ed Sheeran claiming they were an influence for him and inviting them on tour. And their album “Half These Songs Are About You” was brilliant. I loved it. I played the cassette on loop in my little VW Golf for the next year.
Only one song was properly respected from the album though… and even then, it was treated like a bit of a joke and a quirk due to its re-release being two weeks before Christmas in 2005 (having flopped during a June release), and making it to number one on the 18th December 2005, only to be kicked off the top spot a week later!
“JCB Song” is about a boy who finds solace in the presence of his dad in his JCB. It’s not a fast-paced life as they hold up the traffic, who are getting “all impatient and angry, but we don’t mind”. Because it’s safe. Safe from “the bullies, and the teachers and their pets”. It’s a relief from the “bloody hard day”.
Slow and safe. That matters in life. That matters amidst the fears and the busyness. That’s something that is often missing in my life.
What if, very simply, in its innocence and sincerity in naming the fears and the busyness, this one-hit wonder is calling me to rediscover a slow, safe place with my father?
Even if God isn’t “B. A. Baraccus, with a JCB and Bruce Lee’s nunchuckas”, and I’m not going to “transform into a Tyrannosaurus Rex” to deal with my problems, maybe slowing down a bit and being safe with my dad, maybe “having a top laugh” or maybe just sitting in silence, is enough to see me through whatever comes next.
I can’t remember the particular date and time when I first heard it, but I remember the experience. I was a kid, it was Christmas, or Easter, or some other Bank Holiday, and we were flicking through the TV channels to find something to watch, when we struck upon what looked like some kind of cowboy film (it’s a Western, but at that age, all Westerns were cowboy films), and there was Lee Marvin, and Marvin was singing. Singing! Well, I say singing, but growling is closer to it. The film was, of course, Paint Your Wagon, and the song was “Wand’rin Star”.
I didn’t know that at the time, and we only caught just a short part of the song, let alone the whole film (I admit that I still, even having done Film Studies as part of my first degree, haven’t watched the full thing), but somehow, even as a child, the song struck a chord with me. We were living in Shropshire at the time. We’d moved a little, but not in a way that meant I didn’t feel like I belonged where we were. I sang, but as a treble chorister. I’ve no idea why it felt like my kind of song, but it has stuck with me.
Every so often, I find it winds through my mind. Nowadays, I’ve lived at something like 17 addresses in my less than 50 years. Nowadays, I’m a baritone who can comfortably drop down onto the growl register to sing along with Marvin – and who rejoices whenever popular songs are not sung in the tenor range! Nowadays I smile at the fact that this really is a proper One Hit Wonder – it made it all the way to #1 in the UK chart, and Marvin never released another song so there isn’t even some Top 75 or Top 100 release lurking in the background so someone can say, “Ah, well, it’s not really a proper One Hit Wonder”.
And if the hard-man, anti-hero playing Lee Marvin scoring a #1 hit about a 19th Century gold prospector’s feelings about settling down isn’t remarkable enough, it also beat The Beatles’ “Let It Be” to the top of the British charts, thereby denying them yet another UK chart-topper with their final single before the band broke up!
Yet that’s not the reason the song lives with me, of course. No. Little did I know it when I first heard it all those years ago that I would grow to be a nomad. It seems I was, indeed, born under a wand’rin star – though unlike Marvin’s character, Ben, and the lyrics of the song, I don’t feel I’m without a place to call home. My online moniker, MendipNomad, speaks of the place I know I am attached to by some strange harness that stretches at each move that I make, but never snaps, even though I only lived there 3 years, and not until I was 16. I’m tied now, too, to the Eastern Edges of the British Isles – having lived in the land of my ancestors on the Essex shore of the Stour Estuary, having a grandson who is part of an Ipswich family through and through, and loving living in the city of stories that is Norwich.
Yet wandering, and wondering, is very much a part of who I am, and if you ask me for a theme tune then, while it might not make the final choice, Marvin’s growling recognition of wanderlust, and that for some it is the journey that matters rather than the destination, would definitely be in with a shout.
Those of us who are of a certain age will remember Spirit in the Sky as an iconic song of our teen-aged years when (at least in the rural communities) there were village discos where you could buy pop, crisps and perhaps a chocolate bar if you were really lucky, where alcohol was banned (but occasionally slipped in via cunningly devised routes) and where we would stand around in circles head-banging to this song. My mother, who nursed at the island hospital, would mutter darkly about brain injuries, but was unusually unable to back this assertion up with work-derived illustrations.
It took an embarrassing number of decades for me to realise that this banger of a tune was a song that thought it was making a statement about Christians. Having grown up with the concept of the Spirit living in me and thus having never thought of God as a “Spirit in the Sky” in the first place, it didn’t occur to me that anyone else might.
So who is right? Me, who thinks it’s okay to start not just a sentence, but a whole paragraph with “so” or Norman Greenbaum, who wrote a part of the soundtrack to my youth? The ancient Hebrews believed that it took three elements to create a baby. They understood about male and female – after all, they were mostly farmers – but they didn’t understand why sometimes conception happened, and sometimes it didn’t. The Holy Spirit made sense to them as the missing element. If we follow that thought to its conclusion, it would suggest that not only do our bodies contain the DNA of both of our parents, but also that we contain the Holy Spirit. Some of you may think that this doesn’t account for the events of Pentecost, but bear with me.
When I was a child, the house was predominantly heated by a coal fire. This was in the sitting-room, and had a back boiler where water was heated. If the fire went out overnight, we not only woke up to a very cold house, but no hot water and a long wait for the fire to be re-lit and the fuel to become a warming influence, and not just a crackling light. Of course, we also didn’t want a spark to fly out and set the house on fire and there was a trick to balancing these two needs. It involved letting the fire burn down to glowing embers and carefully covering these with a small mound of ash. This was called “banking in the fire.”
The following morning, the first person up would have to rake through the ash, so that it fell down below the grate, was then scooped up and thrown away, and the embers were gradually coaxed back into a full flame with the addition of initially small pieces of wood and coal, and then as the fire took hold with larger bits.
I wonder if the Holy Spirit in each of us is banked in, tamped down with sin, fear, worry, anxiety and so on and when we confess our sins and add in to our lives the things that Wesley called “the means of grace”: Bible reading, prayer, Communion, gathering together with other Christians for fellowship and debate, then we are performing the spiritual equivalent of the early morning routine of raking through the fire and bringing it back to life.
The song says “Never been a sinner, I never sinned” but then goes on “I got a friend in Jesus”, perhaps suggesting not that the singer has never sinned, but that Jesus has wiped those sins away. For me, thinking of sin as the ash that damps down the fire of the Holy Spirit in me is a helpful way of understanding why it might matter so much to God, and also of interpreting my day. Imagining the means of grace as adding fuel to the fire of the Holy Spirit in me gives me an image that calls me back to Bible and prayer when the daily routines have become difficult to follow.
In the end, perhaps we are both right, Norman Greenbaum and me. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is in each one of us, a well-fed fire, or a banked in, scarcely there ember, and also outside of us, in the world at large, God’s Spirit in the sky and in the very air we breathe.
The Friday Fix 