Gill writes:

It appears, certainly amongst my friends, that October is perhaps the most favourite month of the year for many people. In the northern hemisphere, it signals the transition from summer to autumn; in the southern hemisphere, the days are getting longer as the summer inches closer.

October is a month when we notice more about the world around us – the changing temperatures, the warmth of the sun, the leaves clothing the trees, misty mornings, cool rain, and petrichor – that confident smell of the earth.

It’s a month of significance – Black History Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, World Blindness Awareness Month and World Menopause Month. There are Thanksgiving Days in Canada, St Lucia and Grenada. 15 countries celebrate their Independence Day including Nigeria, Tuvalu, Cuba and Croatia. The UK & Ireland has National Poetry Day (6th October) and Sweden has National Cinnamon Roll Day (4th October) – evidence perhaps that it’s no coincidence that the country is consistently in the Top 10 of the world’s happiest countries.

For U2, ‘October’ is an image and an ominous word. According to lead singer, Bono, in an interview in 1982, it was a response to where they felt the western world was at in the early 80’s. He saw the 1960’s as a time when things had been in full bloom. There was plenty – modern conveniences, disposable income for many, space exploration, and so on. And then the ’70s and the ’80s hit and it felt like it was a time after the harvest, the trees were stripped bare and things become easier to see. Bono said ‘We’ve finally realized, maybe we weren’t so smart after all, now that there’s millions of unemployed people, now that we’ve used the technology that we’ve been blessed with to build bombs for war machines. October is an ominous word.’

October
And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care?

This atmospheric song with few lyrics encourages me to hang on in there. Seasons may change, and things may happen that frustrate, anger and cause despair, but God goes on through it all – with us. Things may get even colder and darker as winter looms ahead but there is hope that spring will come. That light and new life lie ahead – and that this time shall pass.

It’s not often that we humans embrace change very willingly, but October seems to buck that trend. It seems we run to embrace the cooler days and the overt change of the season. In 24 days’ time, it’s unlikely that there will be any signs of summer left and we (in the northern hemisphere) will be creeping into shorter days and longer nights. This month will hold our hand as we edge towards winter, letting go as it hands us over to darker, colder November. And the best thing of all is God is with us.

October
And kingdoms rise
And kingdoms fall
But you go on and on

U2, as you are probably aware, are still making music. You can find out more at https://www.u2.com/.

Jane writes:

I guess it was about 20 years ago when I first ventured out to see Starsailor at ‘The Winding Wheel’ in Chesterfield. Friends who know me well will have heard me say that I was full of apprehension for two reasons. The first – what if there were only ‘three of us and a cat’ and no one else liked them AAAAggggghhhhhh! Second – what if they (that’s the 3 or the cat) didn’t know the stuff and stood like statues without getting involved or singing along. All my worrying was in vain and the gig was electric and packed with everyone really invested in the band, the album and every song offered to us. Phew!

In recent days, I’ve been to a 20th Anniversary Tour for that same album by that same band (it’s a Covid-delayed bit of a thing), and if anything it was the same experience in glorious technicolour with Leeds Student Union full of very middle-aged folk singing like a choir. For a couple of hours, nothing else mattered.

Christ, I’m out of my mind

I need to be loved

What a plea from the 500 assembled folk and one that resonates around the world for people in all aspects of their existence.

The reply though is equally impactful:

As I turn to you and I say

Thank goodness for the good souls

That make life better

There is a huge sense that there are the good folk around us that make life better – the smiley ones, the extra-mile people, the door-openers, the Big Issue buyers, the shopping neighbours, the lift-givers. The list is endless and we are thankful for those little bits of love expressed by these encounters.

As I turn to you and I say

If it wasn’t for the good souls

Life would not matter

But there’s more. There are also the people who you can cling to, lean on and rest a while with. Those that see you. Those that listen between the words. Those that mean life is still worth living when you feel it isn’t. Deep and gentle committed love for the other.

The scripture writers tell us that there are two great commandments – to love God and love your neighbour as yourself. If you can be a good soul today for anyone, remember you can make life better and make life matter. Give it a try if you can. You may be answering the deepest need and the heartfelt prayer of another.

You can still get to love Starsailor and find out more about them here https://www.starsailorband.co.uk/

Jill writes:

I have hardly stopped singing (and dancing along to) this since I heard it. The uplifting beat of this song raises my spirits and makes me want to dance!

Jesca Hoop was brought up Mormon in America and has now settled in the UK.

She describes losing her family’s faith saying, “Now I feel free of it: I have faith in people”

We have all just been through a period of mourning for the Queen who many describe as the mother (or grandmother) of the nation. My own Mum died not long before the Queen, and all of this has set me thinking about what you ‘take in with your mother’s milk’.

For many of us in England much of what King Charles and his siblings took in from the Queen, through the cord almost, is also part of our communal history. The belief that we matter, that we are ‘rulers’, that we ‘know best’ and so on are (controversially perhaps) hard to get away from if we are born White and English.

“A fairy tale can tell no lie”

What, from our earliest days, is lie and what is truth?

How do we navigate the urge to become independent, while still being interdependent on so many other living things/people?

During these periods of mourning and remembrance, I have really valued thinking back through my earliest life and learning to value things I’d completely taken for granted. At the same time, I’ve valued the learning that I can let go, that nothing has to stay with me forever, that I will always have the upbringing I had but that it doesn’t need to be my whole future.

In an earlier stage of my life, there was a preacher who often said ‘I am coming more and more to believe…’ before he shared something that made us think.

Jesca Hoop sings ‘Came to believe…. To believe’…

Find out more about Jessica at https://www.jescahoop.com/

Gill writes:

I haven’t quite been snared by the ‘wild swimming’ bug like some of my friends have been. My social media feeds over the last couple of years have been increasingly peppered with images of friends in swimsuits, wetsuits, and a glamourous array of swimming hats. They are diving into plunge pools at the foot of waterfalls, or emerging from misty lakes, or walking towards a grey sea with a bunch of swimming buddies arm in arm.

Of course, I have considered succumbing to the bug. I do like swimming. I do like paddling in waves. I’ve always enjoyed building dams and striding through shallow rivers. However, I don’t like creatures swimming anywhere near me (this is the woman who ventured into Lake Galilee, took one look at all the fish, and walked straight back to the swimming pool). And I don’t like ‘deep.’ I think I am as much scared of depth as I am of heights. I once had to swim a race at Wigan International Pool (now gone) which was a 50m pool with a 5m deep end. I’d never been so fast at the beginning of a race as I was that day.

This song, however, took me to the seawater pool at Southport on the first time of hearing it. Possibly not in January as the song suggests but there were days in May and June when you couldn’t feel your hands or feet

Red bikini, running, slipping
Get your stuff, we’re going swimming
In January
I can’t feel my feet or my hands
Making me watch you do handstands
Is this why you brought me?

I love it when a song conjures up nostalgic feelings where we can place our own images onto it. You don’t have to be from the north-west to understand handstands in water and shivering until the warmth of towels and clothes take effect. Of course, the rest of the song takes me further down memory lane as it’s all about Liverpool (where the band are from) – a pool where I would happily drown.

Don’t let me down
If you listen, there’s a beautiful sound
In a cold north western town
We found a pool where we’d happily drown
I wish I was there right now

One of the phrases that have crept into our vocabulary fairly recently is ‘making memories.’ I can’t say that I warm to it really. There’s something a bit too ‘consumerist’ in it for me, and it goes hand in hand with visiting a place because it looks good on Instagram. Perhaps I’m too much of a cynical Gen X-er but this phrase attributed to AA Milne (but probably not from him at all) works better for me – ‘We didn’t realise we were making memories, we were just having fun.’

I do concede, however, that it’s important to stop and savour the moment. We can be so caught up analyzing yesterday or preparing for tomorrow that we are not actually living in the present and noticing the small moments. I can’t, therefore, argue with the intentionality of ‘making memories.’ I think that great memories in our lives are of moments when all of our senses are engaged; we feel valued and loved; and we feel connected with others.

This song captures these feelings for me because my memories of living in Liverpool are full of love, laughter, new experiences, adventures and feeling liberated. It goes without saying that watching the video is no less nostalgic for me.

And because I was living in the moment so much, I can appreciate those days with lots of affection without a desperate yearning to go back to those times and places. They were special there and then; it wouldn’t be the same if I returned to try and recapture it all. After all, I am too busy living where I am right now.

Happiness Researcher (yes, it is an actual job) Meik Wiking says in his book ‘The Art of Making Memories’ – “As long as you live, keep learning how to live. And remember: one day, your life will flash before your eyes – make sure it is worth watching.”

I hope this summer is a time where you are blessed with moments of feeling connected, noticed, and loved. Go ahead and make some memories – and take time to be in the moment.

If you’d like to know more about Red Rum Club, check out their website at https://www.redrumclub.com/