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”

Kristie writes:

This newly released song from Katherine Priddy has been firmly lodged in my head – you know how a tune sometimes makes its way in and then lingers? Fabulous folk with some strong drums. Not only do I love the tune but the lyrics feel really timely – I wonder how many witches I will see celebrated today? 

Dust the ashes from your eyes
Red of dawn in midnight skies
Oh you, let it fuel and consume
And burn into your mind
The smoke and lies

Fingers point when hands are tied
Sink or swim, the loaded die
And you, you who gave us these brooms
And dare to look surprised
You never stopped to think we’d learn to fly

Having just finished watching the powerful “Riot Women” that brilliantly exposes misogyny, I am enjoying reading how it is resonating with so many viewers. It feels to me like all of us are being encouraged to dust the ashes from our eyes to see not just the injustice but also notice the power – “we have matches too”.

I’ve been so many women
I’ve been worshipped and abhorred
They loved me for my voice until it conjured up false storms
I’ve been loose with my morals or I’ve turned the key too tight
I smiled through the daylight hours and plotted through the night
Remember you who tell the tale of how we climbed those pyres
They weren’t burning witches, it was women on those fires

I’m grateful that the theology I read now has moved beyond comparisons of women as either inherently pure or the cause of everything that is wrong with the world. And that last line, “They weren’t burning witches, it was women on those fires”, in particular reverberates.

We still do this today – apply a label and overlook the beautiful person, made in God’s image. We dehumanise when we say “asylum seekers” for example, lumping people together and losing sight of all of who each person is. In my denomination we’re encouraged at least to use the phrase ‘people seeking asylum’, rather than ‘asylum seekers’ but I feel we still have a way to go. I shall keep ‘plotting’ – together we can make it happen. 

Find out more about Katherine Priddy at https://www.katherinepriddy.co.uk/

Sally writes:

CMAT is an artist who has grafted hard to develop her following since her debut album release of If My Wife New I’d Be Dead (and yes the spelling mistake should be in there). Euro-Country, her Mercury-nominated third album, is a well-deserved nomination. For those who haven’t come across her, she is an Irish artist who blends indie, pop and country into a mixture which is delightfully quirky and refreshing.

She is a wonderful wordsmith whose album contains angst, loss and frustration as well as humour – sometimes all of these within the verse. Within this, she uses a range of imagery and metaphor as well as a mix of English and Irish language. An example of how all this works is early on in the title track where she says:

I went away to come back like a prodigal Christian

I lost a little weight, yeah, and gained it back when I lost him

I learned alot by being here

How I had to be on my own, yeah

And now I feel like Cu Chulainn, I feel like Kerry Katona.

Whilst the incredibly catchy ‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’ may initially sound like a dig at the TV chef’s deli partnership with Shell, it is the singer’s exploration of her own prejudices and the impact of them. She reflects on the impact of her writing about her dislike of the posters promoting this by saying:

So ok, don’t be a bitch

The man’s got kids

And they wouldn’t like this

And therein lies the genius of this album; CMAT doesn’t just go for the easy thoughts or trite comment but really explores her soul and feelings. She identifies, in her songs, the reality of a mind which goes to those places which aren’t easy and comfortable and mixes these deep reflections with some cracking tunes.

And so it is not surprising that within ‘When a Good Man Cries,’ there is a line saying “All my jokes have turned to prayers”. It goes on to include the lyrics:

“Oh, I can feel what I hated in dreams, come on

Give me a hand if you can, Jesus, it’s time

To be real, spin wheels

Kyrie Elesion

Oh I can feel what I hated in dreams, help me

Not hate myself, help me love other people, oh, I’ll

Wear the beads, I’ll read

Kyrie Elesion

When we start to go to those difficult places and experience losses, that is often when we seek to reach out and encounter the divine, God, in some form.

The good news is that God is ready to meet us where we are, not on the basis of what we promise to do, but because the divine loves us unconditionally, and totally.

Find out more about CMAT at https://cmatbaby.com/

Sally mentioned more than one song on CMAT’s album so here they are below:

Tom writes:

When members of the Friday Fix team of regulars were approached to listen to and reflect on some of this year’s Mercury Prize nominees, I jumped straight on board. The Mercury is my kind of music prize, with a set of nominees that’s always musically ecumenical, and a range of winners that’s almost equally eclectic (though it’s notable that none of the classical artists nominated have ever won). Anyway, given that breadth of options, I chose to challenge myself. After a little research I picked albums by two artists I’d admittedly never heard of but whose biographies and influences intrigued me: PinkPantheress (Fancy That) and Pa Salieu (Afrikan Alien).

The plan and expectation was that one track might stand out, for good or ill, that I could reflect on. However, that’s not really how it worked out. Across both albums there was one factor that stood out more than any other: track length.

Now, before going further, I want to be clear that if either of these artists win, I won’t be upset. I can clearly hear the compositional skill across the two albums (PinkPantheress tends to use the term ‘mixtape’), and the musical and story telling gifts both artists have. PinkPantheress clearly offers an insight into the life and times of my daughter’s generation (they’re the same age), while Salieu’s merging of Gambian folk and British urban styles speaks directly to some of the most significant political conversations of our time. So what I am about to say is not a criticism of the artists, but more a comment on general themes of life that both albums flag up to me.

In the end I picked Salieu’s track, “Round & Round”, for one reason – across both albums, it’s the longest at just 3:19. Only one other of Salieu’s tracks comes in at over 3 minutes, while all of PinkPantheress’s sit at below 3 minutes long – the shortest being just 1:44 (excluding the intermission track).

Not long after starting to listen to both albums on regular repeat to try and start connecting with them, I ended up at a networking event where I got talking with someone who shares both my interest in music and my slight links with the music business. As part of our conversation, I mentioned how short these tracks are, especially when compared to tracks by those bands that spoke to us when we were growing up: our conversation included Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen and The Stone Roses amongst others. In turn, they mentioned that their musician child rarely listens to tracks in their entirety before skipping to the next.

This, it seems to me, speaks of an issue in wider society – what we might describe as the soundbite-ification of social discourse. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked in communications (some might suggest that, as someone who preaches, I still do), and I absolutely value the ability to make your point, or tell your story, in short yet clear offerings. I’ve recently offered sermons that acknowledge that if I’m going to give someone a first dip into the Bible I’ll likely start with the Gospel according to Mark because of his relatively short, pithy, even punchy structure. But just because short is good, doesn’t mean long-form communications don’t have benefits. I’ve read great short stories, but I also love wandering around my new home city of Norwich having read the huge tome that is the late CJ Sansom’s Tombland, and my childhood would not have been the same without the joy of reading JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings! Likewise, the album Queen II includes the track “Nevermore” at 1:18 followed immediately by “The March of the Black Queen”, which is more than 6½ minutes long.

In the The West Wing episode, “Game On”, part of the plot revolves around the question of “ten word answers” – the summation of a political position in ten words. At one point, a senior diplomat comments that such things are anathema to diplomacy, a discipline that “requires all the words it can get”, while later, in a barnstorming debate performance, President Bartlett skewers his opponent as he acknowledges that his opponent has come up with ten-word answer he should have and then asks what the next ten words would be – both inferring that his opponent doesn’t have another ten words, and waxing lyrical on the fact that a complicated world requires answers longer than ten words.

Music, of course, isn’t necessarily political discourse. While I definitely believe music makes the world a better place, I don’t think it will solve all of the world’s many problems. But the fact that two albums up for a significant music prize can barely scrape together two tracks between them longer than 3 minutes does concern me. Not because of the quality of the music per se (they’re perfectly acceptable albums and there’s a skill in producing ten-word answers and ten-word stories) but because it highlights a growing inability to handle complex discourse in a complex world just at a time when the ability to do so is vital.

If the future of music is tracks no longer than a TikTok video, I think that’s a sad state of affairs. More seriously, if the future of politics is discourse no longer than a soundbite, I think that may well be the end of the world. In an Iona liturgy, we are called to remember that Jesus came because words were not enough. They aren’t. But we still need words, and right now we need as many of them as we can get our hands on!

Find out more about the artists at:

https://www.pasalieu.com/

https://www.pantheress.pink/