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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…

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

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

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/

Tom writes:

Gill’s much-loved Blur aren’t the only band making a come-back this year. Another band doing so are Foo Fighters. For sure, they haven’t been gone that long, but on the back of the sudden death of drummer Taylor Hawkins (a drummer who steps into Dave Grohl’s seat and not only succeeds but thrives is a drummer who will be sorely missed!) the question was understandably asked by fans as to whether they would be back again. It was undoubtedly asked by the band too.

Yet here they are, back with a new drummer, Josh Freese, and a new album – an album I personally think is one of their most powerful to date. Understandably, it is an album that audibly processes the grief that the band experienced at the sudden and unexpected death of their great friend and drummer. It is also, as songs such as The Teacher make clear, also an album that includes Grohl’s processing of his grief following the death of his mother – a woman who played a significant role in supporting and encouraging the Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman’s career in music.

To me, the track that stands out the most when I listen to the album is ‘The Glass’, which opens with the lines “I had a vision of you and just like that I was left to live without it… I found a version of love and just like that I was left to live without it… Waiting for this storm to pass, waiting on this side of the glass, but I see my reflection in you, see your reflection in me, how could it be?”

In these words, I find something of the truth that I try to encapsulate when I am given the deep privilege and awesome responsibility of leading funerals.

The first part of that truth is that grief is a perfectly natural and appropriate response to death. In this day and age that seems always wants smiles and laughter in celebration of a life lived well, those of us committed to speaking truth must be clear that the death of a loved one or loved ones hurts, deeply, and to diminish that hurt is to deny the way in which we are left to live without the vision and love of the one who has died. As I lead funerals I hold onto my memories of funerals I experienced in South Africa where wailing and sobbing were an expected, normal part of the occasion. To misquote the oft-used, and mis-understood, lines: death is most certainly not nothing at all.

Yet, at the same time, as a Christian minister I am called to acknowledge another truth – that death is not the end nor the final word. There are, of course, numerous ways to explore this. For me, the way I have usually offered to congregations is to consider that all love is but a part of the great love of God, who is indeed Love itself, and that since there is nothing in all creation, not even death, that can separate us from God’s love in Christ then so there is nothing that can separate us, not even death, from the love of the one we see no longer, nor separate them from ours.

To grieve is to demonstrate that we love. And our love is a reflection of God’s love, which has overcome even death. So, while we see dimly through the glass, nonetheless we can rejoice in the ongoing, undefeated love we have experienced and which is reflected both in our grief and in the ways we continue to live as reflections of the love we have known, still know, and will know into eternity.

Find out more about Foo Fighters at https://www.foofighters.com/

Marc writes:

Every summer from the age of 10 to 21, I packed my bag for at least one week’s camping with a bunch of young people of my age. The Christian camps gave me a good basis for a lot of the things that make me who I am today and every year I got reintroduced to Jesus.

Every year the scene was set to learn what it is to be a Christian in the world, and at some point in the week, there would be an opportunity to respond to the Gospel and recommit myself to Jesus. In the years when I did multiple weeks in the summer, I had multiple opportunities to repent, and came back doubly sure of my salvation, at least for another year.

The youth worker in me reflects on those days with a whole range of emotions. I’m appreciative of the passion and concern that those faithful servants had to the gospel and the attention they paid to the salvation that I needed to know about and own. Yet I’m also aware that emotions play a huge part in the moment as well, and wonder how we create the same space without the fear of lost salvation lingering with those who have already responded.

How do we introduce Jesus without the hype, salvation without the guilt and shame, and response without repetition, wonder and worship without worry? The reality is that my faith was never the same outside of those “mountaintop” moments, when life rushed back in quicker than I was able to wash the week’s dirt off my dusty feet, in spite of my best intention in that moment.

Not only is this song one that sounds like summer to me, but it reminds me of those moments. It reminds me of that feeling of coming back closer to Jesus and our relationship having that much-needed “kickstart” after being a bit lax and neglected in the interim. It speaks of rediscovery, recommitment, and a desired intentionality.

I sometimes miss those days, and sometimes I forget to miss those days. I am not sure I am always that good at creating the opportunity for the love to kickstart again in my relationship with God, at recognising where I’ve got complacent. I’m saved. I don’t need another altar call. What I need is to spend time on the relationship I have.

Find out what Example os up to at the moment – https://linktr.ee/exampleofficial

What songs remind you of summer?

Are there any summer memories that as soon as you hear a certain song, it takes you right back there?

What would be on your summer playlist?

How about sharing a song and reflection with us on the Friday Fix – we love a summer vibe. Just get in touch with Gill on thomasg@methodistchurch.org.uk with your thoughts…

Gill writes:

I’ve been meaning to write a Fix about a song from The Proclaimers for quite a while, but I was spurred into action by a little snippet of news the other day. That snippet was the fact that the official ‘King’s Coronation Playlist’ had originally included a song from the duo but there had been complaints because of their anti-monarchy stance, so it was withdrawn from the playlist.

I’m sure Charlie and Craig (The Proclaimers) probably don’t care a jot as to whether they were included or not. Newswise, it was just a storm in an espresso cup but for some of us, it grated a little bit – perhaps because it feels a bit symbolic of our times. There appears to be a rise in intolerance of views and actions that might ‘rock the boat’ or that question the system. Wouldn’t a King’s playlist that included musicians with differing views be an example of how to embrace difference?

It seems ironic, really, that the reason why I chose to reflect on this week’s song is because of The Proclaimers’ ability to write songs that bring people together. So anyway…

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to see The Proclaimers perform live, you’ll know that this song really takes on a life of its own. This song, and ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’, are when the crowd really takes over in the singing stakes. And something curious also takes place. The whole crowd develops a Scottish accent. It really does. Try singing this song without pronouncing ‘worth’, ‘earth’ and ‘you’ with a strong Scottish brogue – and you’ll see what I mean.

We’ve covered the unifying elements that music and lyrics can bring in previous Fixes before. The power, passion and healing that collective singing can bring is remarkable. It can gather together people from vastly different backgrounds and create a connecting point that transcends any barriers. Music really can be the catalyst for peace and solidarity.

In my humble opinion, it is songs about love that offer a great opportunity to tap into emotions and understanding that most of us can relate to. The simplistic narrative of this song takes us on that complex journey from a broken heart, upset, or trauma:

My heart was broken
My heart was broken
Sorrow, sorrow
Sorrow, sorrow

And it starts to reveal the effect that the power of love can have…

My heart was broken
My heart was broken
You saw it, you claimed it
You touched it, you saved it

My tears are drying
My tears are drying
Thank you, thank you
Thank you, thank you

My tears are drying
My tears are drying
Your beauty and kindness
Made tears clear my blindness

This doesn’t mean that everything is sorted and life is all hunky-dory; it means that you are not on your own. That someone- a friend, family member, partner, carer, God – is with you and helping you to see the way ahead. It may still be bumpy, but a bumpy ride with a passenger is way better than one travelled on your own.

The beauty of this song is that it encapsulates more than the romantic love that many ‘love songs’ allude to. It’s inclusive, not exclusive. It can be about anybody or anywhere that has touched your heart and enabled you to glimpse hope; that the beauty of people (or places) and kindness shown to you can clear my blindness.

And then the song climbs to that gentle crescendo which just requires a good bellow from the top of your lungs. There’s a sense of relief and release, of humility, of recognising that we’re of worth, and of accepting that life is a gift.

While I’m worth
My room on this Earth
I will be with you

And that gift of life comes from something much bigger than us. Love, Lifeforce, God, Chief – however you want to understand it. We’re gifted precious time in a wonderful world alongside some incredible human beings (and lots of other beings too!) and it’s not us that has control over that.

Some of my ‘most favourite lyrics ever’ lie within this song and capture a sense of divine intervention in a musical nutshell –

While the Chief puts sunshine on Leith

and goes on to a great little prayer of thanksgiving

I’ll thank Him
For His work
And your birth
And my birth
Yeah, yeah, yeah

Of course, those of us who have ever lived on the east coast, like those who live in Leith, will know that sunshine can often be smothered by a cold, dank and gloomy sea fret. There’s many a time when I have driven back to a home close to the North Sea and thought “It’s a lovely warm evening here in Lincoln/Morpeth – I can sit out when I get home,” only to be welcomed by a major drop in temperature and misty cloud which scuppered any such plans.

Maybe that’s a good analogy about life sometimes – spiritual and otherwise. The sun is always there – sometimes you can see, feel and enjoy the benefits of it, and sometimes others are enjoying the benefits whilst you are enveloped in a cold fog (and vice versa). The sun is always there, behind the fog – trying to break through. The fog may persist for longer than you want it to but it will eventually lift, and at least for a few minutes you’re more appreciative than usual of that lovely sunshine.

A couple of years ago, our family of three had been on a bit of a ‘bumpy ride’ together and we decided on a fairly spontaneous short break to the Cairngorms to help reset. We arrived in Edinburgh around 0900 to break the journey and walked up Arthur’s Seat to stretch our legs. It was pretty dull weather, with a chill in the air as we set off, but as we neared the summit, the sun broke through and as you looked down, you could see the sun shining on Leith. It brought a smile to our lips, a tingle down the spine, and a sense that everything was going to be alright.

And for the rest of that day (as it is for other challenging days), this song was all that I needed to hear (and sing).

I took a photo of The Chief shining sunshine on Leith!

The Proclaimers are still performing and you can find out more here – https://the.proclaimers.co.uk/

Having provided the Good Friday Fix, here’s a follow-up that can be used as an Easter Day Fix if you would like: https://spotify.link/h5OWQJIaRyb. Courtesy of Tom Osbourne.