Fidge writes:

There was a great buzz of excitement in the Comms Team WhatsApp group a couple of weeks ago when Ben Lawrence’s single ‘O Wide World’ dropped into the chat, followed a week later by the release of the video.

I’m guessing that this week’s Friday Fix may hold a few firsts:

1. I know the musician (how often has that been said on the Friday Fix?)

and

2. Ben is a member of the Methodist Church’s Connexional Team (not employed as our connexional musician, although I think such a job would be super cool!); he is, in fact, our video content producer.

It’s common when a new member of staff arrives to have a meetup; you know, to say hello and have a chat. So last year, when Ben started working with us, we met on Zoom and chatted away about his work, Methodism, what brought him to work with us, etc. Throughout our chat, I had been admiring a couple of amps I could see sitting behind him, and just as our conversation was drawing to a close, I casually said to him, “So… you’re a musician?” “Yeah” he replied as if it was no big deal, and then announced he was about to launch his new album.

The conversation continued with Ben telling me that the album was written in response to losing his twin brother Dan to cancer, aged 25, in 2016. I came away from our time together deeply moved that somebody that I had just met would talk so openly about grief and death, and with such honesty and vulnerability.

‘O Wide World’ is the debut single to the album. It’s a story of grief but also one of hope in the adventure of life. I’m always interested when I hear people talk about any subject that as humans, we are not naturally good at talking about. It seems that Ben is not the only one responding creatively to death, as both the recent album releases from P!nk, Ed Sheeran and the Foo Fighters are rooted in their experiences of loved ones dying. It almost feels as if the creatives of the world are somehow expressing the collective grief of the world from the COVID pandemic. It’s given permission for folk to be more upfront, open and honest about a subject most would rather avoid.

I’ve never lost a sibling, so I cannot comprehend what that feels like, but I know something of wanting to somehow make sense of loss. My dad died when I was in my late 20’s and on his birthday, I would always treat myself to something that reminded me of him and his creativity: something photographic or artistic. So, the sense of wanting to do something creative with pain and loss certainly resonates with me.

Ben describes ‘O Wide World’ as much as it’s my story of losing my brother to cancer, it’s also about hope, adventure and learning to thrive in this fluid state of grief we all exist in. It’s about living life to its fullest, even in the middle of the pain, the breakdowns and the disappointments. It’s about ‘flipping that frown upside down’ and packing your bag for the story that lies ahead, even if it scares you.

So maybe the invitation today, as you listen to this song, is to reflect on the words of Jesus in John 10:10 ‘I have come so that you may have life and have it abundantly.’ Perhaps today you might just find time to pause and notice what or who is around you.

O wide world, what do you ask of me?

I’m not ready, but still you’re calling me

Give thanks.

Be grateful.

We have one life.

What will you do today to live that life in abundance, in hope, and with a sense of adventure?

You can find out more about Ben Lawrence at https://benlawrence.co.uk

David writes:

Cave writes ‘the lyrics and the vocal performance emanate from deep inside the lived experience itself’, in this instance he is writing about the Pogues classic^. ‘Fairytale in New York’. Few could argue, on listening to his own composition ‘Waiting for You’, that such a description isn’t also merited.

The poignancy that Cave expresses in delivering the title lyric of this song leaves us in no doubt that true love dwells, and even grows, in the waiting space. As he sings ‘waiting for you’ we can sense that during a time of separation, love has grown. Yet, this is far more than a case of ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’. The waiting is more than the bittersweet parting of lovers pining for precious time together again. This is the heartfelt passion of those whose souls are conjoined, yet who are parted.

Your soul is my anchor, I never asked to be freed

sings Cave, yet, as the line is sung, even as we sense that love has grown, we become aware that the waiting may well be in vain. In the longing is lament, and in the tangible sense of grief and sorrow which emanate from the lyric we are given an insight into the intensity of desire which lies within the waiting. A desire that risks not being fulfilled.

The truth is that for many in today’s society the act of waiting carries no risk. For the privileged, waiting simply means next day delivery! Desire is always fulfilled, and waiting is understood simply as the passage of time from one completed goal achieved towards the next. Richness is measured in the numbers of, not in the depth of, experiences. 

Yet this is not the whole picture of course. The wait goes on for clean water for 771 million people across the world (https://www.wateraid.org/facts-and-statistics). 2.99 million food parcels have been given out to those who have waited in line at food banks this year in the UK (https://www.trusselltrust.org/news-and-blog/latest-stats/). 82 million refugees wait to return home or find security in a foreign land (https://www.rescue.org/topic/refugee-crisis-100-million-displaced). For these, and others, waiting is not simply a passage of time but a deep desire for security and the waiting of course does not always bear fruit. For many, life is not a journey from one peak to another but an attempt to find some even ground. A longing for a change in circumstances. A lament for what might be.

Waiting is one of the themes of the liturgical season of Advent, although it is all too often trivialised, marketed as the countdown to Christmas Day. This is far removed from the real intention of the season, or indeed from the sense of waiting portrayed in Cave’s song. In both, there is real separation, in which the waiting time is not about the passing of the minutes, hours and days between where you are and where you want to be, but rather a profound period of preoccupation with and reflection upon what could and should be. Advent is a season to desire deeply.

Therefore during Advent we should not be asking, “am I prepared for Christmas?” Rather, we should be asking ourselves, “what is it that I long for?” “What do I lament that has passed?” “What do I wait for with a fathomless yearning?” “What would make me sing, my voice quivering, with the same passion and emotion I hear in Cave’s voice?” 

‘Your soul is my anchor
I never asked to be freed’

To be anchored in God’s soul means that our desire is God’s desire. We wait, deeply desiring and longing for all that God longs for on this earth. ‘On earth, peace and goodwill to all’ has become a cliché of Christmas. It is the greeting of the heavenly host to the shepherds from God and as such is no cliché, but a message from the heart of the divine. This is what God desires.

‘A priest runs through the chapel, all the calendars are turning
A Jesus freak on the street says He is returning
Well sometimes a little bit of faith can go a long, long way
Your soul is my anchor, never asked to be freed’

Too often waiting is seen as an eschatological exercise. We want a different world, restored relationships, water and food for all and peace on earth. Yet our generation seem content to accept this as a pipe dream, and our hopes are focussed instead, while ‘the calendars are turning’, to a day when He returns and all will be well! Yet waiting should never be about apathetic acceptance. 

There is no acceptance in Cave’s vocal or lyric – there is only longing.

The longing and yearning of waiting cannot accept what is. To be anchored in God’s soul is to ask never to be freed from our desire to see, and do all we can to ensure, peace on earth and goodwill to all. This waiting, this longing, this yearning leads us to allow our little bit of faith to go a long, long way in action.

‘Waiting for you
To return
To return
To return’

Jesus told a story about goats. The goats were dedicated to the King and longed for him to return. They waited to serve him, and to pander to his every need. If he was overthrown in a coup they were ready to visit him. If he was on his sick bed they would be there too. They waited in their chapels as the calendar turned. One or two of them even shouted loudly in the street that the King would return. As they waited for him to return, others waited in the queue at the Foodbanks, waited for access to clean water and were arrested and languished in prison with no visitors.

Yet, when the King returned he banished the goats from his Kingdom. They were dismayed and didn’t understand. They believed they had been faithful in waiting. The King explained that he was angry with the goats because while they had been waiting for the King to return they had done nothing to achieve the aims of his Kingdom. While they had been dreaming of a future Kingdom, they had failed to help those in their midst who were in need. To realise the kingdom in his absence.

There were sheep in this parable too. The sheep had spent their time in the King’s absence, not waiting, but acting as if the King were with them, always ready to serve those in need. On his return it was the sheep who the King welcomed into his Kingdom… 

…true love dwells and even grows in the waiting space…

Find out more about Nick Cave at http://www.nickcave.com

Marc writes:

“You’re always trying to see yourself
​through the eyes of someone else”

There’s a degree of pressure on us when we do that.

To “hold a mirror up to” is a phrase meaning “to take a look at oneself objectively to examine or reflect on things (issues) stemming from the reality of reflection; to reveal to someone about the way they look (differently) to the rest of the world (so that they can reflect upon themselves); expose, show up, bring to light (some (unpleasant) aspects to oneself)”.

Community done badly holds up images of the ideal alongside the mirror and tells us all the ways we don’t measure up.

I think there is merit in the mirror when it comes from a community with the right heart.

Community done well is about having a mirror held up to us that we can respond to. That mirror isn’t designed to focus on and highlight all our flaws, but rather to reveal the inner beauty and brilliance that is masked by who we try to be, that’s often waiting to be released. The image they want to see revealed isn’t about creating another person to look like the “ideal” but to bring out the latent potential in the individual to enhance the community.

It’s about allowing the individual to belong and shine without conforming to herd mentality or having to look identical to the rest of the flock.

It only works when there is real objectivity. It’s a skill that needs nurturing in communities and in ourselves, to be able to see all thrive. We often get it wrong, I often get it wrong, but I know there’s intention with the right communities I’m part of.

It’s with sadness and often admiration that I see people who are still battling to live up to unreal societal and cultural expectations, forcing themselves to be someone else. The sadness comes from the fact that it is wrong and the compulsion to conform to set ideologies shouldn’t be there, but I admire the resilience and the longing to chase that which is so often fickle and fading before it’s achievable… But how long can that really last? Life is passing them by while they try to be someone they’re not, struggling without asking for help to find freedom. How are you still holding on!?

May we all find a community that helps us be shaped more into who we are than the ideal they think we should be, but may we also find communities that see the innate beauty and brilliance in us and allow them to help us change to accept that!

You can find out more about Kodaline here – https://kodaline.com/

Gill writes:

Here’s a song that would definitely figure in the soundtrack of my life – for two reasons at least.

Firstly, the release of this song in 1991 coincided with my early 20’s which was a time when I first started to really question and have doubts about God and all that good stuff. This stage is absolutely an integral part of faith development – we grow by asking, exploring, and challenging ideas and beliefs.

It was a time of trying to get to grips with life and with issues that life threw at me – sex, drugs and rock n’ roll I suppose – and these were things that the church either avoided discussing at all costs or had only one view on the issue that couldn’t be questioned or explored.

Secondly, and quite simply – I find that the music is just so catchy – and at points matches perfectly with lyrics that I can’t help but sing along to them.

Many people think that the song is about religious doubt and guilt but according to Michael Stipe, R.E.M.’s frontman, it’s more about unrequited love – of not being noticed by the one you are devoted to. Apparently, in parts of the southern USA, ‘losing my religion’ means that you’ve got to the end of your tether which puts a very different slant on the song!

As I said earlier – the song gave voice to my frustrations of being both a young adult and a young Christian. That optimistic twenty-something probably wouldn’t expect the lyrics to still resonate 32 years later but as I go about my daily work as a worker and lay minister of more than one denomination, I guess you could say that I feel like I’m losing my religion about some of the attitudes we have towards younger people – in both church and society. We seem to see them as separate rather than part of – and that troubles me.

A few years ago, I took part in a workshop led by Dr. Steve Argue (from Fuller Theological Seminary and a leading expert on faith and emerging adults). Steve told us that he’s regularly asked by churches if he could help them to reach older teenagers and young adults. His reply is always along the lines of ‘if you are prepared for the doubt and questioning that they will bring to your comfortable church community, then yes.’

And this is what I see across the country in both our communities and churches. Younger people are in the corner, in the spotlight, losing their religion. Younger people challenge us – with their ideas, with their energy, with their need to respond and do things differently from the generations that preceded them. They ask why we’re doing things that way and make suggestions about how we could do things differently. And for some reason, we can have a tendency to go on the defensive and guard that which we see as precious and not up for negotiation.

The question is – how can we respond to the challenge well so that we can all benefit?

Perhaps one thing is in realising the bigger picture. In 1 Corinthians 12:26 we’re reminded that ‘if one part suffers, every part suffers with it.’ Rejecting, ignoring, excluding those who are younger or different to us, and focusing only on our needs is a pretty selfish act, and it helps to realise that life, and God, are much bigger than us.

Oh life is bigger
It’s bigger than you
And you are not me

Perhaps another thing is to stop sending mixed messages. We say that we want younger people to know God and to fill our churches, but I think we only want them on our terms (not God’s). They need to fit our expectations and follow our traditions and patterns. They’re expected to conform to our ways – when let’s face it, part of their job as a younger person is to challenge the system – it’s what they do! So how can we make room for this instead? It’s no surprise they walk away…

Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough

Perhaps, instead, we could turn around and notice younger people. Perhaps we can requite some love. Perhaps we can start to build good relationships across all the generations in our churches – building bridges rather than walls. Let’s seek to understand each other rather than to blame each other.

We all know that relationships are a two-way process that require time and effort; that might lead to heartbreak; that need empathy and understanding; that demand us to be sacrificial; that allows space for us to be cared for as well as being the carer; that ask us to close the gap rather than keep some distance.

In making the effort, perhaps we might find some joy and hope. Perhaps we might grow and learn a new song. We can, at least, try.

I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try

Or perhaps it’s just a dream…

Find out about R.E.M at https://remhq.com/

Tom writes:

I have sometimes described my secondary school as “below bog standard”. To be clear, that is, I am sure, the way many locals looked at it, and the way the local education authority viewed it – especially based on the fact it no longer exists, its buildings flattened and built over with a housing estate whose only nod to the area’s former use being the road names referencing authors such as JRR Tolkien and Agatha Christie! And I cannot say that my time there was always the happiest a child has ever experienced. But the teachers were undoubtedly committed, and looking back I am nothing but grateful for the experiences attending that school gave me, learning to live alongside people whose daily experiences of life were very different to mine as a bright, academically-inclined, often shy, village-based, vicarage-raised, white, straight kid.

Some of my happiest memories from that time are from my GCSE art classes. Art was not my strongest subject, but I enjoyed it, and it was also a class that was not streamed (there weren’t enough pupils taking the subject to enable it to be). This meant that I was in class with kids who were much better than me and kids who were taking it precisely because it was a non-academic subject and therefore an escape from their struggles with numbers or letters. It was also taught in a relaxed classroom environment – which meant we were allowed music on in the background, music of our choosing!

It was in this environment that I was introduced to the music of Guns & Roses. I suspect that many church-goers, not just then but even now, would be shocked by the thought of a good Christian kid like me listening to such a band. They would be even more shocked, I suspect, by an ordained minister actively encouraging people to listen to their music! To be clear, I am not condoning the behaviour of band members, whose life-choices have regularly epitomised everything negative the media have ever suggested about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet, as I learned studying art alongside some of those classmates, those who have experienced the darkest that life has to offer can frequently ask the brightest questions.

So it is that we find the imperfect people that are Axl, Slash, Duff and company asking significant questions of humanity’s propensity towards acting violently towards one another in their 1990 song, “Civil War”.

I will admit to being someone who accepts the ideals of pacificism while believing the pragmatic response to the evils of the world sometimes requires a violent response. I wish it didn’t. I have no doubt that all war, all violence is sin. But I also believe that the world places us in no-win situations where the spider’s web of what we may choose to call original sin forces us to rely on God’s unlimited grace because whatever we do will place us in need of it. And the words of this song, as much as anything else, challenge me in that position.

So it is that when I hear of wars and the rumour of wars, and when I am half way to being convinced that maybe some wars might be justified, I return to the voice in the background of those GCSE art classes, provoking me to once again reflect deeply on God’s demonstration on the cross that violence is never the answer, as Axl Rose asks at the very end of the song, “What’s so civil about war anyway?”

I haven’t yet come to the conclusion that war and violence are always avoidable, but I accept it is never a civil response to the difficulties of the world, and that our propensity to turn to it as a first response, and even our willingness, my willingness, to turn to it as a last resort leaves us forever in need of God’s grace. Who’d have thought that GCSE art classes would have such a lasting impact?

Tom writes:

My experience of depression is that it plays havoc with my memory. It especially causes you to replay bad memories, and tries to tell you that these are the only memories important to understanding your place in the world – like a vinyl record or CD that’s been scratched and keeps playing a particular phrase on repeat. It helps, therefore, to have memories that you can bring to the forefront of your mind that can, somehow or other, overlay or push aside the worst with, if not the best then, at least, better.

As you might guess, for me those positive memories are almost always innately linked with a soundtrack of some kind or another, and none so more than the one attached to Mancunian modern jazz trio GoGo Penguin’s ‘Last Words’:

It was the middle summer of my probation as a presbyter and the Black Dog was as large and overpowering as I have ever known him. My head was so firmly in the grip of his fearsome jaws that I was signed off by my doctor. I was exhausted by his company but could not rid myself of him. And so I lay on my bed, unfeeling and uncaring. On the stereo was the debut album of a jazz group I’d heard about on the radio a few weeks earlier. I wasn’t deliberately listening, it was just noise, something in the background to avoid silence that would inevitably leave my canine companion growling in my head.

Then on came the track “Last Words”. I found myself drawn from my bed, energised and compelled to dance around the bedroom, the landing, the other rooms around our first floor. Not dancing in any sensible or ordered fashion. Just free and joyful. And I can give no explanation to this other than the Holy Spirit. In that moment I was joyful and danced before the Lord and knew that God was with me. As the music ended Black Dog overwhelmed me again, and I returned to my bed, the covers wound tightly around me, an emptiness and numbness once again returning to consume me.

Yet now I knew. Now I knew that even in that deep pit God was somehow there, even when I could not see, or hear, or feel any indication that this was so. The band’s video for the song makes clear that the themes of the piece (there are no words) are indeed those of endings, departures, and the saying of goodbye – themes that depression also frequently brings to the forefront of one’s thoughts. However, in this piece I found hope, and joy, and peace, and love, and something to hold onto, to drag to the forefront of my mind whenever the beast that haunts me once again grows to the size of a Baskervillian hound and threatens to consume me.

I have no expectation that my offering of this memory, and in particular this piece of music, will somehow lead to everyone finding God’s presence in this one instrumental – or indeed in music at all. I offer it only to affirm this – that God is present, even when we cannot see, or hear, or feel, and that such presence may well make itself known, even temporarily, in the most surprising of moments, by the most surprising of ways.

Jane writes:

I love a bit of Janis Ian. Her timeless qualities and her writing that seems relevant for all the moments in her life (and ours) means that she always has something to say. I mean just look at “At Seventeen” from way back in 1976 as an example for any anxiety-ridden teenage girl.

This song is one that was penned in 2020. She has spent a lot of time encouraging people to record it for themselves and in as many ways as possible to spread the message. You might find all sorts of versions.

It seems to carry a spirit of eternal optimism

Better times, better times will come. Better times, better times will come

We will dance, we will sing in that never-ending spring

But it comes with a kind of list of caveats and ideas that are needed to make that so

When this world learns to live as one

When we greet each dawn without fear

And when the winds of war cannot blow anymore

In the kind of world we’re facing at the moment I’m not sure Janis’s optimism seems very real. I’m also not convinced that as a society we can do as required to make better times a reality. Are we willing to make the choices needed? How much of it is in our gift anyway? Living alongside each other harmoniously, stopping war, and generally living a fear-free existence because of those two things being in place. It takes effort.

Yet as we come to that part of the church year when we see Easter on the horizon I wondered how much resonance there was with the sense of hopelessness of those first disciples after the death of Jesus. I wonder if the messages of loving our neighbour are the ones we need to hear again? I wonder if the spirit of the early church, which encompassed sharing and caring for each other and those less fortunate with no support network, was embraced again now the better times may feel more real.

This Lent and Eastertide it seems then it’s worth just picking up one task, offering one loving word, or one act of protest that might mean better times for everyone. Oh and don’t forget to have a sing as you go.

Janis Ian and Neil Finn, who sings on this version, are both making music https://janisian.com/ https://www.neilfinn.com/