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Tom writes:

This piece was going to be very different, and based on a very different piece of music, but such is life. As I sat and thought about the theme of love, that great Advent and Christmas theme, and wondered what I might write, I paused the song I was going to write about and searched my many, many playlists to see if anything else stood out. And it was Eagles of Death Metal’s (EODM) ‘I Love You All The Time’ that jumped out at me.

Now, I am the first to acknowledge that this band and this song is not necessarily the most obvious choice to reflect on the love encountered at Christmas – although it should be noted that EODM don’t actually play death metal, they play good ol’ heavy-blues-inspired rock. But even with that, “I love you all the time” is inescapably a love song in the standard type of that genre – a reflection on unrequired romantic love.

 Yet, it is what this song represents that I think caused it to jump out at me and say, “This, this is the song that works for this theme”. If you’re not aware, EODM were playing to a sold-out crowd at the Bataclan Theatre, Paris, on the night of 13th November 2015 when Islamist terrorists entered the building and killed about 90 people in the crowd as part of a co-ordinated attack targeting numerous sites that evening.

As part of their response, the band encouraged other artists to cover this particular track, and that all royalties generated would be given to Josh Homme’s (a founding band member) charity, Sweet Stuff Foundation, which in turn would pass the monies to victims of the attack.

 

In the song, the lyrics include the lines:

 

I can tell by that look in your eye

You’re looking and all you see is another guy

I can tell you’re gonna take your love away

I can tell by that look in your eye

You’re looking and all you see is another guy

I would beg you if I thought it would make you stay

 I wonder whether this is how God sometimes feels when looking at humanity. God loves us more than we can possibly imagine, and yet our propensity is not to return that love but to cast our eye around for other objects to love – whether people, power, money, and other things beside. Yet God does not beg for our love. No. Instead, God comes to us as one of us, born a tiny child and laid in a manger, growing up to walk the earth as one of us, before dying a brutal and ugly death on a cross prior to revealing the love that will not ever die in the resurrection. From the his first breath to his last, Jesus is God’s saying to us, “I love you all the time”.

 The responses to the Play It Forward campaign, as it became known, are gathered together on a playlist (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2m1wKfQbPfHxDypBycFyUo?si=e29efced718c4e67) that currently contains 68 versions of the song – produced by everyone from the legend that is Sir Elton John to the choir of St Lawrence Primary School, plus artists covering every genre from rock through electro-pop to folk. That’s quite some response. One song, representing the way in which love will always overcome hate, that however small and inconsequential love can feel in the face seemingly all-powerful, all-encompassing, all-destroying hate, love will find a way to speak out, to reveal itself as unvanquished – whether in the singing of a song, or in the cry of a baby.

 So as we journey towards Christmas in a world that so often seems challenging, let us rejoice that God loves us – All. The. Time!

Jane writes:

A few years ago I asked a friend, who really loves music, to recommend a track that would offer some energy in the early mornings of a busy work weekend. They responded with this track as a suggestion (saying they liked it and it might be the kind of thing I was looking for).

I liked it from the start as it’s one of those tracks that builds through to an exuberant chorus time after time. I’ve danced around the kitchen to it. I’ve bounced along in the car to it. I’ve recommended it to, and shared it, with others. I’ve sung it at the top of my voice and it has indeed brought me great ‘Joy Joy’ – real Joy.

I have though, a sneaking suspicion that the joy this band sing of is somewhat artificially induced. Maybe chemically. Maybe money. I could be overthinking the lyrical content but it seems likely that, despite the question “Is what you want exactly what you need?” – the search is on to reach oblivion.

Joy at all costs.

In this Advent season though, as we prepare to welcome the Christ child again into our midst, we have an opportunity to experience real joy of a different deeper kind. The kind that reminds of a long-standing truth – God meeting humanity in the person of Christ. God showing us the way to live and inspiring all we do. God with us Emmanuel. God eternal and life-giving. This is a joy that bubbles up as these revelations once again seem more real. That is deep-seated and never leaves us.

I’m not immune to the fact that Joy at Christmas can be artificially manufactured too. Gifts, nights out, endless jingly tunes in shops, TV ads, church fêtes, Christmas specials I could go on…..

So I hope and pray this year the deep-seated Joy Joy – real Joy – comes to you in a quiet or unexpected moment and that it lasts you an eternity.

Fidge writes:

During Advent, we recall the words of Isaiah who foretells the coming of Jesus as the ‘Prince of Peace’ who will bring justice and peace to the earth. 

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

When I think of the world today, it seems we are longing for some sense of peace right now. War, conflict, divided nations, fake news, domestic abuse, modern slavery, knife crime, drugs, cost of living crisis…. the list could be endless. So where do we, and how can we find and experience peace in our world?

As I’ve been thinking about the word peace, I’ve been pondering on my own experience of peace and recalling the times, places, situations when I have felt peaceful. 

This year, my wife Lin and I along with our woofie Lizzie Lugs, escaped for a week to a remote cottage in Glen Etive in the Highlands (if you’re a 007 fan, you’ll know it as the road to Skyfall where M and Bond stop to take a breather, admire the view). To get to the cottage we drove down a single-track road off the A82 at Glencoe and then onto a rugged farm road, through several gates, past the Highland cows and eventually to the cottage, a remote old shepherd hut dwelling. No WIFI, no TV, just rolling hills, breathtaking scenery, the river running through the Glen, clean fresh air and no light pollution so we could see the stars! Glen Etive is our Happy Place – a place where we find peace. But I realise that what is peaceful for us, may seem unbearable and stressful for others.  

What does peace feel like for you? How, when and with whom do you experience it?

The song ‘Peace’ is written and performed by an Australian band called Fruit. I first stumbled across them some 25 years ago when they performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and have loved their music ever since. I think the band split but continued as individual artists. Here they recall the feeling of peace as a place, with a person and when these things come together and are in alignment, strength, hope and courage are found. 

I love this song – I find it peaceful to listen to. But more importantly I love the notion that potentially peace opens up something else for us and within us – courage to speak out, to tend the earth carefully, strength to be and do more than we thought imaginable. In this, we understand that peace and justice go hand in hand. 

The invitation for this second week of Advent is to notice where and when you feel peace or when you catch a glimpse of peace and of course, to pray for peace. 

The Song Peace is found on the Album Burn (2005) and a live recording of it on the Album The Trio Album- Live at the Church (2004)

Gill writes:

I have to admit that this song is one of my favourites from the 80s. I have long hoped that I could use it someday for a Friday Fix. And so here we are: I get to use it to challenge a common perception of what hope may be.

To slightly twist the opening lyrics of this song:

It’s time we should talk about hope

There’s no secrets kept in here

Because I think we have a tendency to get hope wrong; or at the very least misunderstand it. Hope is not the wishful thinking of this song; it’s not wishing on a star; it’s not a warm and fuzzy feeling of optimism and possibility.

Just as God is not just a noun but a verb too, hope is also not just a noun but a verb. Brené Brown points out that hope is not even an emotion but a cognitive process where emotions do play a role, but they are much more about the decisions and actions you take.

Hope is not born out of the easy and comfortable times. It’s born out of those times of struggle and adversity. Those spaces where we feel stuck, helpless and powerless. Hope is the process that leads us to set goals and navigate our way through those challenging times. Hope is definitely not something passive.

Hope, as I’ve already said, is not wishful thinking. Hope requires us to be actively involved and consequently it means that we have a responsibility for hope too. Brené Brown talks about the work of CR Snyder in her book ‘Daring Greatly’. Snyder believes that hope is learned – again indicating that it is not passive and wishful.

The word hope comes originally from the Old English word “hopa” which means “confidence in the future”. Perhaps this is about having notions of faith and trust in God. Or for those of no faith, perhaps it’s about recognising life’s mysteries and looking beyond ourselves for answers that helps us sustain hope.

Which leads me to believe that sustaining hope is a collective effort. In so many different ways, we can have and share in hope for each other. In those moments when we are the one who can’t see the wood for the trees and are in the depths of despair, we need someone else who can bring hope into the space. And on those days when we are the ones filled with hope, perhaps we can be the one holding that hope for others so that they can carry on.

As we journey into Advent, hope is on the horizon. Let’s hold onto this hope, no matter what challenges lie ahead. Let’s not just leave it to wishful thinking. And let’s ask ourselves the question, what hope are we bringing and sharing with others? We’re not passive and full of wishful thinking are we?

You can find out more about China Crisis and their current tour at musicglue.com/chinacrisis or on Instagram @chinacrisismusic

This coming Friday and for the Fridays during Advent, we’re dropping a reflection each week that relates to the familiar Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.

We hope that you enjoy them!

Tom writes:

Songs can be tricky things. While I am deeply committed to the use of secular music in sacred worship, I do recognise that it is not always a simple thing to do. Sometimes this is because they are deeply ambiguous, and sometimes it’s because, while the song itself is fine the artist presents problems because of their wider views or behaviour. Sometimes, though, it’s because you think part of a song says just what you need, but another part says something rather different to where you’d like to go.

An example of this is the song “Woodstock” (originally written and performed by Joni Mitchell, but arguably performed definitively by either Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or Matthew’s Southern Comfort, depending on taste and geography – I’m a CSNY man, myself). I love the opening lines of the chorus:

We are stardust, we are golden,

We are billion-year-old carbon [ final verse: we are caught in the devil’s bargain]

I’ve preached on those words, in particular on Ash Wednesday, in the light of the words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.” For we are indeed dust, star dust, elements that are billions of years old. Ultimately, we are not creators but part of creation. Those of us who have a Christian faith must be absolutely clear that our responsibility to the environment is not so much rooted in some sense of benevolence towards the planet we happen to live on, but a necessary part of recognising that we are simply one part of a vast creation for which God, the Creator, has an eternal love. It’s wonderful (in my view) when there’s a secular song we can turn to in order to highlight theology – after all, we live in a world where secular songs are more likely known than church ones!

However, as much as I love the song generally, and in particular those chorus words, I also have a big problem with the song – and especially how the chorus ends: “And we got to get ourselves/ Back to the garden.” It is a tempting feeling – the world is going to hell in a handcart, and the way out is to reverse back to a time when things were better. It’s a temptation open to both the secular and the religious – history is littered with forms of socio-political philosophy and theology that look back to some supposed golden time period. Sociologically, it’s often agrarian, and in theological terms it’s often about trying to somehow recover our place in the Garden of Eden before the fall of humanity.

Yet, to me, this looking back seems deeply unbiblical. It seems to me that, for Christians, the direction of travel is not an attempt to get back to the garden but to seek out the city of God. Now, do not get me wrong, I am not an urbanist, who thinks the earth’s population should base itself in urban conurbations. Nor am I some kind of neo-Victorian progressivist, who thinks that the future is always better than the past, and that human/ecological improvement is a natural given. Rather, it is that a) while the past is vitally important to working out how we have ended up where we’ve got to and might give clues as to errors needing to rectified it is not a map of the future, and b) as a theologian I think it clear that the scriptural direction of travel is forwards from a Garden to a City, at least in a metaphorical, mythical way.

We’re not long off Advent as I write this. I often describe Advent as a time when we wait for that which has already been and remember that which will be – for Advent is a much about the Second Coming (however we understand that phrase) as it is about the original Incarnation. And in this waiting and remembering it is important to be aware that what will be is not what was. We are indeed start dust, a part of the Creator’s beloved creation, but the destiny of that creation is not what it once was, but something new, something better, something brilliant, and we won’t get there by walking where we’ve come from, however appealing that might be!

Marc writes:

Humankind has been on a journey around light:

We sat around a fire and told stories as communities and clans;
We moved indoors and read stories around the fireplace, or listened to them on the radio;
The radio got replaced by the television and we continued to have less responsibility in telling the story, though we were all still pointing in the same direction;

Nowadays, the TV is still in the corner of the living room and the seats still point towards it, and it ever continues to burn out a light and tell stories but whilst it tells its stories, I tune it out and disappear into the light of the screen in my hand. It tells stories, paints pictures and shows things to me. I experience them alone, along with millions of other people, and occasionally I send them to other people on social media so that they too can enjoy them alone.

And before I know it, time has disappeared, the film has ended and it’s time for bed.

I’ve done nothing, paid attention to nothing important, and my fingers have silently run over the screen.

The stories I’ve been told have been trying to tell me what I’m missing out on, but they haven’t brought me lasting joy. And yet I keep disappearing into the machine-assisted nowhere.

How could we reclaim the stories that matter, gathering back around a community light rather than our personal pocket lights?

How can I get closer to stories that matter, rather than imperfect pictures promoting and promising perfection?

Well, I got so lost here
Machine-assisted, I disappeared
Into a dream, you don’t wanna hear
How I got caught up in nowhere again (Oh, oh)

It feels like I’ve been silent runnin’ (Silent runnin’)
Through the infinite pages, I scroll out
Searchin’ for a new world
That waits on the sunrise
I’m silent runnin’

Find out more about Gorillaz at https://www.gorillaz.com/

Gill writes:

Sometimes a song’s lyrics speak to us, but its whole essence provokes wider, deeper thinking. This song from the young Altrincham band, The Guest List, is a case in point.

The song itself is genuinely poignant. The 161 refers to the number of men from the 60 houses on Chapel Street in Altrincham who left to fight in trenches of World War I. 29 did not return and 20 succumbed to their injuries soon after returning home. King George V referred to it as the ‘bravest little street in England’.

It’s not there now. The street, including the Methodist chapel that gave the street its name, are long gone but on the wall of Phanthong Thai Restaurant (formerly the Grapes pub), you’ll find a blue plaque commemorating those 161 men.

The wistful images evoked by the song have led me to ponder the everyday lives of those 161 and their families. How they lived not only side by side but, most probably, in and out of each other’s homes. It makes sense that they joined up and left for the war together. In a similar way, thousands of young men joined World War I alongside their friends and family, often forming the basis of ‘Pals Battalions.’

Belonging is a human need. We’re social beings who suffer when we feel that we don’t belong somewhere. I find Brené Brown’s thoughts about belonging helpful to reflect on because she says that true belonging needs to start with knowing ourselves first. Once we truly know ourselves, we can be confident and have the courage to retain our sense of self whilst belonging to groups.

We humans have a tendency to do things the other way around. In order to meet our need to belong, we tend to seek out people who think the way that we do and share our beliefs and values. This is how we’ve traditionally sought community, but it can start to go wrong if our common ground is a dislike, or even hatred, of “the other”—people who think differently and have different beliefs and values to us. It becomes ‘them and us.’

It’s really difficult to step back once hate has been embedded. This is why Brown believes that we must know ourselves first and foremost so that we can have the courage to take that step away, rather than be swept up with values and beliefs we might not necessarily buy into completely.

‘Them and Us’ is at the forefront of my mind this week. I’m filled with uncertainty and worry about how things might play out in the USA in the coming months and years. And over the next few days, we will be remembering publically those whose lives were violently cut short as a result of conflict – the ultimate ‘them and us.’

I hold onto the hope that it doesn’t have to be this way. I hold onto the hope that we can all be grown-ups and realise that we simply can’t agree with everyone we meet, but we can try to understand each other’s experiences and perspectives. I hold onto the hope that the more we talk together and hold space to understand each other, hate can be driven out and love can enter in.

If ever you have read the book, or seen the film, The Railway Man, you will know the story of Eric Lomax, a British POW subjected to torture by the Japanese army in Singapore. It tells the story of how the hate he had for Nagase, his Japanese interpreter (whose voice he heard whilst being tortured) eventually turned into love and friendship.

The story is fascinating as it takes you through all of the emotions that both Lomax and Nagase underwent in their reconciliation. The courageousness of both to meet, understand and start to know each other resulted in a lasting, genuine friendship that is an inspiration.

As I stand and reflect in the two-minute silences in church on Sunday, and at the village war memorial on Monday, I will remember the souls of Chapel Street, the souls of those who left our village and never returned, and the souls of all those killed as a result of conflict. And I will remember the last words of The Railway Man, “Remembering is not enough if it simply hardens hate. Sometimes the hating has to stop.”

Why not give The Guest List a follow on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/theguestlist.band

Tom writes:

I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was the morning after the night before (you can imagine for yourself what that might mean, and you’ll probably be wrong, but hey, a bit of mystery is no bad thing!). In the April morning sunshine, I was walking along the suburban streets as though they were air, skipping several perfectly usable bus stops because that would mean standing still, and I was too full of joy to even think about standing still. Around me the world glowed.

Given much of the past twelve months had been disastrous, a time of being broken into a thousand pieces and being unsure how they might be put back together in any coherent way, a time of anger and bitterness and confusion, a time in which what should have been the start of something exciting and encouraging fell apart and ended as something devastating and disheartening, such a feeling was remarkable.

It is this moment that I think of whenever I hear Elbow’s song, “Mirrorball”. The song is a reminder that how we see the world is rarely based on unfiltered fact. Rather, our interactions with the world are shaped by so many factors –not least our own mood and recent life events. The band’s lyrics reflect deeply on the ways in which finding love results in seeing the world differently. What were once normal street scenes have become a ballroom in which the couple dance together. Life has not always been a bed of roses since, but when I hear this song (written and released a few years later than that moment over twenty years ago) I am transported back to that morning, that walk, that feeling of a world transformed by love.

Of course, the love that changes our perception of the world does not have to be romantic. While the songs lyrics remind me particularly of that morning, the ways in which my perception was changed after a period of seeing the world as grey and blurred in that spring involve other loves as well. There is the love of friendship, the joy of late nights talking about the deepest of pains and of cross-country dashes on empty roads across highland moors. There is the love of family, the welcoming arms of familiarity and stillness and the opportunity to say nothing because nothing needs to be said. And there is the love that I will call divine – the unconditional love that holds us and enfolds us and reassures us in sudden moments we do not expect, like stepping off a ferry on a jetty and knowing not only that you are welcome but that, despite how everything feels, all will be well.

Whenever I preach on the moment in the Jesus stories that we call the Transfiguration, the moment on the mountaintop where Peter, John, and James see Jesus glowing with divine light and spending time in conversation with Elijah and Moses, I’m reminded of “Mirrorball”. To me, that moment is a reminder that encounters with divine love, the divine love most clearly revealed in Jesus, change the way we perceive the world. That is why, even in a world such as it seem right now, we are able to have hope in a better future, find joy amidst the grief, believe peace is possible despite the deep injustices and violence around us – because we have experienced the way in which love turns dark streets to dance floors and the moon into a mirrorball – we know that everything has indeed changed, and it is our call to live out that change that love brings in the world, so that we might reflect the love of God in the world in a million myriad ways.

Find out more about Elbow at https://elbow.co.uk/