Tom writes:

A few years ago, I found myself putting together an alternative service of Christmas readings and songs, in which the songs would be secular pieces rather than the usual hymns and carols. It was in this context that I found the band Nelson Can, and their (to me) fantastic indie Christmas track, “On Christmas Night”.

I love the way it offers upbeat vibes while acknowledging the darker notes of midwinter – the desire to hibernate like the Polar Bears (a favourite animal of mine), and the pangs of grief and loss that can hit at this time of year. (It probably helps if you’re aware Nelson Can are a Danish trio, so very used to long, cold, dark winters!)

I also love the way it does not shy away from the fact that, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, Christmas and the Winter Solstice are linked. To be honest, the annual debates about the timing of Christmas bore me. Of course, Jesus was unlikely born in December – what kind of government organises a census when travelling is most difficult? Of course, the early Christians borrowed already existing festivals to make their point – why wouldn’t they? Things can be more than one thing at the same time. I don’t think it inappropriate that the Christian faith might celebrate the birth of the Light of the world at the point of the year when nights begin getting shorter and days become longer (although this begs the question of whether we need different liturgical years in different places, but that’s for another time and place!).

In relation to the Friday Fix theme for this year’s Advent and Christmas, however, it’s something else that makes this track vital to me. We’ve been journeying to Bethlehem, where in the Christmas story we encounter Jesus’s birth amongst us, the Word become flesh and dwelling amongst us. Yet, as Scrooge discovers in Charles Dickens’ classic tale, Christmas isn’t just a one-day event. “[I]n the eyes of every child shines a little piece of the sun,” sing Nelson Can. This isn’t true just on Christmas night, it’s true all the time.

Likewise, the final destination of our journey is not ultimately Bethlehem. It’s ourselves. The God found lying in the manger as a little, weak and helpless baby can also be found deeply embedded in our own flesh. Having found the gift of the child in which God offers themself wholly to us, and having offered in return the gift of our very selves to God, we find that we too can carry the Christ-light beyond Christmas into the world beyond the trees, and tinsel, and wrappings, and TV specials. The sun, and the Son, can shine in our eyes, and through us the world can be enlightened by a Love that will go so far for us that it will come into the world as one of us, that a world that might seem like never ending night might know the dawn has come.

Check out Nelson Can’s music at www.nelsoncan.bandcamp.com

Final Destination?

Jane writes:

In my humble opinion, any song that sounds like it starts somewhere and plans to go somewhere else is a winner. This is one such song and brings with it memories of buying the cassette tape and travelling to London in the car with it as a companion, using the rules of a “first listen.” Play, eject, turn over, play, eject, turn over, play… – well, you get the picture. A song and an album for a journey. (You can find out about cassette tapes on the internet if this language isn’t familiar to you😉)

I’m not sure what other fun rules or games you have when travelling, but one we didn’t play much as a child was – follow the brown sign and see where it takes you. My dad was a man who liked to get from A to B without even a stop for the loo, let alone a diversion. So when me and Mum were in Ireland a few years ago, travelling around looking for Binghamstown (that’s a story for another day)
and we saw a sign that said Spanish Armada Wreck, it was time to go off the chosen road. Mum even remarked we wouldn’t be doing this if Dad were here! I rest my case. We got to the designated layby and Mum, less than enamoured with the idea of getting out of the car on the wild Atlantic west coast, said, “you go.” With excitement, I went. I’m not really sure what I was expecting to see. Some wood on a beach, maybe with a sticky-up configuration. What I got was the sea and one of those panoramic signs explaining where the wreck was – deep, deep under the water. To be frank although the promise of the brown sign brought optimism, the result was a bit boring. In a way, I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I knew it wasn’t that. (Apparently, Ireland is littered with Armada wrecks after a very roundabout journey home from defeat on the English south coast, via Shetland and the west coast of Ireland. 24 in fact – but this one was hiding. History lesson over 😅)

Sometimes we set out on our faith journey as a result of testimony or a particular situation in our lives. We think we are to get many things maybe, salvation, healing, clarity, rescue, energy, honesty, explanation, hope, purpose, forgiveness, eternal life – you can add your own to the list if you like – but often it is much more complicated than we expect. It’s a real adventure in navigating a new way.

I guess faith for me is like the brown sign game. You enter into the situation imagining you know what you’re going to get, it turns out to be quite different and often in a beautiful way, but sometimes in a disappointing one. Your expectations are built on the things of life, and what you need is the reality of what God brings to you. You may not have found what you’re looking for when
you made the choice to follow, and that’s a plus because it drives you on from a temporary destination to new places and things unseen – in this case, when God is revealed. A baby in a manger. The humility of a God incarnate.

So this Christmas, find your way to this story of the birth of Jesus and all it encompasses. Rest a while, and when you’re read,y set off again. In the journey of faith, every ending and destination is a beginning of something new, so if you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, don’t give up – discovery is just around the corner.

Find out more about U2 at https://www.u2.com/

A Disrupted Journey

Sally writes:

Driving Home for Christmas by Chris Rea is the Christmas record about a disrupted journey. It’s a journey which is disrupted by the combination of snow and the sheer number of people all seeking to get home for Christmas.

I have to be honest, it’s a cheesy song and not my normal taste in music. However, it is a Christmas Classic, and it makes the point that whilst some journeys might be straightforward, many aren’t, and you find yourself stuck not being able to move at the pace you’d like to.

In that situation, you have to make a choice about how you respond. It can either get really frustrated at the situation and perhaps succumb to road rage or chill and use it as a time to reflect and remember, understanding you’ll get there in the end. 

In the song, Chris Rea decides on the second course of action and gets lost in his memories, noting that those beside him seem to be doing the same. He also refers to getting home as “putting my feet on holy ground”. At this point, I could get quite cheesy myself about how it relates to faith and Christianity. But I’m going to try not to.  

Rather, I want to use it as a metaphor for life more generally this Advent. You might feel that you’re stuck in a rut and going nowhere fast. Life is frustrating; you had a plan for the journey, but it seems that you are going through the same routine day after day. In that situation, you have a choice whether you get frustrated and angry about it or if you choose to take it steadily and use the time to reflect and plan, knowing you will get where you’re going in the long run.

I advocate the second approach, and if you’re a Christian or somebody who is open to it, chatting to God, praying, as you’re feeling stuck in that place. 

Find out more about Chris Rea at https://christmas.chrisrea.com/

Navigating the Wilderness

Marc writes:

When the list for the Advent fixes comes out the same time as the John Lewis advert (see below), it’s an opportunity too good to miss! All you have to do is work out which of the weeks and themes you can shoe-horn it into…

The official line is this:

“If you can’t find the words, find the gift. We don’t always know how to say how we feel. Not out loud. Not properly. But then comes Christmas and something in us wants to try. This is the story of a dad and his son, and the gift that helps them find their way back to one another. Because, sometimes, a gift can say the things we can’t.”

I got to wondering “what is the gift that gets us through the wilderness and into restored relationship? What is the gift that draws us beyond the trappings and isolation of the past and present and into the place where love lives?” But the biggest question for me became:

I wonder where the wilderness really is in the life and narrative of John the Baptist?

John 1:19-23 says (in “The Voice” translation):

“The reputation of John was growing; and many had questions, including Jewish religious leaders from Jerusalem. So some priests and Levites approached John in Bethany just beyond the Jordan River while he was baptising and bombarded him with questions:

Religious Leaders: Who are you?

John the Baptist: I’m not the Anointed One, if that is what you are asking.

Religious Leaders: Your words sound familiar, like a prophet’s. Is that how we should address you? Are you the Prophet Elijah?

John the Baptist: No, I am not Elijah.

Religious Leaders: Are you the Prophet Moses told us would come?

John the Baptist: No.

Religious Leaders: Then tell us who you are and what you are about because everyone is asking us, especially the Pharisees, and we must prepare an answer.

John replied with the words of Isaiah the prophet:

John the Baptist: Listen! I am a voice calling out in the wilderness. Straighten out the road for the Lord. He’s on His way.”

The lives that we live in our normality may prove to be the biggest wilderness.

For John, and perhaps for us too, I’m not sure the “wilderness” of the desert is the problematic place that we often make it out to be. I think the wilderness for him, and often for us, is found in the business and the bustle, even in the noise and hubbub around us. In the advert that’s the headphones and the distance, the knowledge that you’ve tried but your gift hasn’t been found or appreciated. It’s seeking approval and recognition. It’s wrestling with all the rubbish and trying to tidy things up. It’s that discontent of things not fitting. It’s walking away to find your own space. That place can hurt…

You’ve been hurt, And you’ve been down
You’ve been set out of your course, boy, And pushed around
Flying high, but, oh, you felt so low

So you’re longing for the warmth of somebody
You’ve got nothing in this world to lose
Let me take you down where love lives
Come away, come on out of your blues

Gill writes:

The Journey Begins…

“A life lived in fear is a life half lived.”

So says the character, Fran, in Baz Luhrmann’s fabulous film Strictly Ballroom. A film about following your heart, challenging the status quo and being prepared to step outside of the norm.

Whenever I hear this song from Cyndi Lauper, I’m immediately taken to the scene where the main characters in Strictly Ballroom, Fran and Scott, dance amidst the drying laundry on a rooftop with a neon Coca-Cola sign glowing in the background. The scene is layered with symbolism. They dance amongst the drying laundry — a visual expression of transition, of being washed and renewed – caught in the in-between space of who they’ve been told to be, and who they are daring to become.

Behind them, the Coca-Cola sign flickers, perhaps representing the pressure to conform or the shiny, sparkly ballroom world that Scott is trying to break free from. Together the laundry, the Coca-Cola sign, the music, the dance captures the moment when things suddenly seem possible: the shift from compliance to courage, from imitation to authenticity, from fear to that first spark of freedom.

Advent invites us into this same sacred ‘in-between’ space. We wait in the tension between what has been, and what is yet to come. Like laundry hanging between wash and wear, we exist in a state of preparation — cleaned but not yet ready, transforming but not quite transformed.

The watching and waiting of Advent can feel edgy. We are people conditioned by neon Coca Cola signs and instant gratification, taught to fill every silence and schedule every moment. But Advent asks us to resist that pressure. To pause. To ponder our journey. To begin slowly.

Time after Time— the chorus of the song also echoes through the Advent weeks. God’s faithfulness across generations. The annual repetition of waiting, of hoping, of trusting that light will come. The song’s gentle insistence reminds us that love doesn’t rush or pressure us, but remains constant through the turning seasons and passage of years.

If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me.

These words feel to me like an Advent promise. In our wandering and wondering, we might have noticed that we’ve strayed a bit too far from the path that we were supposed to follow — there is One who waits with us and finds us exactly where we are.

Advent whispers the same invitation that Fran gives to Scott: step outside what’s safe and familiar. Dare to dance your own steps. Live life to the full. The journey requires us to be courageous in leaving behind familiar things, and to risk, dare I say, looking foolish.

As we journey through these Advent weeks, may we find ourselves dancing on rooftops — in those unexpected, unglamorous places where real transformation happens.

May we have the courage to hang our old selves out to dry and be vulnerable in the in-between time.

And may we trust that time after time, through every season of waiting, we are held, we are found, we are loved.

A life lived fully — the one beyond fear — is always just a brave step away.

NB: the version in the film is sung by Tara Morice, the actor who plays Fran.

Find out more about Cyndi Lauper at https://cyndilauper.com/

We’ll be sharing Friday Fixes that have the theme of journeying towards Bethlehem during Advent this year.

Our first one will be tomorrow, since Advent begins on Sunday 30th November.

Tom writes:

Over the summer we moved location, and I started ministry in a new location. Both those things are stressful. We have also been adjusting to becoming grandparents (see one of my previous Fixes), and the new role has been more challenging owing to a variety of unseen factors. So it is that, three months after moving, two months into starting the new role, I was feeling ready for a break. Thankfully, we had planned for this and booked some holiday for the half-term. We had originally thought we might escape for some autumn sun, but when we came to making bookings we realised that might not work. So instead, we booked a week in a self-catering lodge with a hot-tub and access to a heated swimming pool in the Mendips between Wells and Bath.

It was only in going through the process of making this booking that I realised that I was also feeling homesick. Online, my moniker is MendipNomad. There are people who have known me by that name for years before ever meeting me in person and using my real name. Anyone who knows me on here will be aware of my Somerset connections. Yet the second part of that moniker is my main trait – I am a nomad. Yet this nomad was homesick.

These feelings were even more greatly highlighted when I managed to snag last-minute tickets for us to see Reef play the UEA Union on the tour marking the 30th anniversary of their debut album, Replenish. I moved to Somerset in 1994, and 1995 marked not just my first attendance at the Glastonbury Festival but Reef’s, on the back of the release of their first album. Not only that, I knew folk who knew the boys (it’s now lads and lass, and Amy is a kickass guitarist!), or at least some of them. While their full roots are mixed, Reef are definitely a Glastonbury band (the town, not just the Festival), with connections both there and in neighbouring Street. Heck, there aren’t many globally known bands who play gigs at Glastonbury Town Hall!

So that evening we made our way over to the campus, grabbed some food, got a drink, and caught the end of their support act. Then came the quiet reworking of the stage. Then the quiet anticipation as the roadies took their leave and the dry ice rolled out. Then the drawn-out opening chords of “Feed Me” hit, and so did the joy and relief and nostalgia and recognition that I was beginning to run on empty and needed feeding.

It marked the beginning of a fortnight of feeding and replenishment –emotionally, spiritually, physically. The following week included a ministerial retreat, and the week after that we jumped in the car and headed West, to roads and places engrained in my soul. We relaxed in the hot tub, we walked in the hills, we viewed art in Bath, we shopped in Street, and we ate in Wells (at a lovely, recently opened Italian in the old Post Office – if you’re nearby, try it out, you’ll be well fed!).

We all need to eat, literally and figuratively. We all become washed out and drained, and need to replenish ourselves. I could use this opportunity to note God’s command to engage in sabbath, or the way in which Jesus is frequently engaging with people at the dinner table. But really, that’s not my point, it’s simply an aside from the joy having been able to return home, musically and physically, for just a short while, and to be fed and replenished in order to head back out on the journey of life and ministry ready for the next steps on the way.

I pray that whenever you find yourself exhausted and in need, the resources to be replenished and fed are available to you as they were to me. And if you’re feeling that way right now, then know it’s okay to step aside and seek your own replenishment.

Find out more about Tom’s beloved Reef at https://www.reeftheband.com/

Gill writes:

One of the books that I’m enjoying at the moment is Robert Macfarlane’s Is A River Alive? It’s one of those books that provokes a great deal of thought and soul-searching; and it’s helped me recognise the poignant significance of rivers, and especially estuaries, throughout my life. I may have moved around England quite a bit, but there have been many river estuaries anchoring my story — the Ribble, the Mersey, the Wansbeck and the Humber.

Of course, estuaries are the most visible and obvious expressions of a river’s life, but even the smallest stream leaves its mark. The garden of my first home was virtually on the banks of North Devon’s River Bray; there were hours of Pooh Sticks on the River Eye in Leicestershire; and my days now are shaped by the teeny, tiny River Wriggle that can turn our village into an island when the rains come.

A river — whatever its size — shapes us whether we realise it or not. From the earliest settlements to the busiest cities, people have always gathered and built by rivers. They draw us close. They offer water to drink, land to grow, routes to travel, and stories to tell. They hold memory in their currents — the memory of life shared and sustained. Rivers give us life, and they remind us that life is something that moves, flows, and connects.

This song from Jimmy Nail, Big River, pulled at my heartstrings the first time I heard it. In fact, it brought a tear to my eye — maybe that’s being a quarter Geordie that’s seeping through, or maybe it’s because of the many times I’ve walked along and crossed the Tyne. It’s a river that has never forgotten the importance of its recent past.

The thing that particularly catches at my heart is that steady, soulful promise that the Tyne keeps rolling on. Even when the cranes fall quiet and the ships no longer sail, the river doesn’t stop. It carries memory. It carries loss. And it carries life, as it always has done.

And in my heart I know it will rise again
The river will rise again

Robert Macfarlane asks whether a river might be alive — not as metaphor, but as truth. Could a river have its own kind of spirit, its own pulse of knowing? Stand by one long enough, and I think you begin to believe it might. You notice that the water moves with purpose — shaping banks, feeding fields, quenching thirst, and soothing souls in more ways than one.

Scripture knows this truth too. Water is never just in the background — it’s creation’s breath. The Spirit brooded over the surface of the waters. It divides and blesses, washes and renews. From the chaos at the world’s beginning to the crystal river of Revelation, water is always alive with God’s presence.

Perhaps the question is not just whether a river is alive, but whether we are. Do we still feel the flow of something larger than ourselves — something that carries us beyond those dry places, something that gives and sustains life?

So here’s a thought for this week:
Go and stand by a river, or even a puddle after rain.
Listen. Watch. Let it remind you that all things move, all things change, all things live in relation to each other.

And still — the river keeps on flowing.

Jane writes:

This song contains one of my all time favourite lyrics. “The disappointment of success, hangs from your shoulders like a hand me down dress.” It’s right up there in my top 10 lines from songs with “They gave me a golden handshake that nearly broke my arm” and “This is the age of the understatement”

Oddly though that’s not why I chose it today.

It’s because of another line.

“Are you who you always hoped you would become, when you were young”

I’m really agitated at present by world events, the UK political landscape and people’s odd behaviour in otherwise ordinary circumstances.

Organisations missing the point of their own values. Hidden agendas and down right rudeness. I am often to be found muttering “How did we get here” or ” What have we become if we think this is reasonable.” 

It’s a kind of rhetorical lament. How have we become so out of kilter with God’s guidance and basic human decency? Jesus makes it clear that our task is to love God with every bit of us, and love others with the respect and care we’d expect ourselves. God has a top ten of his own when it comes to values that includes not lying, not taking what isn’t yours, being respectful and not killing, yet all of those things are up for grabs in 21st century life it seems.

I suppose it’s straight forward to ask you, as the lyricist does, to look into the mirror and ask yourself do you recognise the reality of who you are, and are you who you hoped you’d be? It’s tougher to hold up a mirror to institutions and organisations, churches and charities, governments and law makers but the question remains. Is this really who you want to be? Have you lost your way? Can you look in the mirror and see your own integrity stare back?  

I suspect it’s a sobering question for all of us, but as well as looking into it, we need to be the mirror for others, and be brave enough to ask…. is this really who we are… is it really who we hoped we’d become?

You can find out more about Del Amitri here https://www.delamitri.info/ 

They still play live (I saw them last year) but their lead singer is struggling with Parkinsons and his reflections on that can be found in his new memoir “The Tremelo Diaries”