Gill writes:

I love songs like this. Ones that sound light and boppy; that seem like they’ll have a simple message but as they begin to play out, you realise that they pack a punch instead.

The opening lines sing out about liberation. Of recognising your worth. That life is there for the taking.

Do you know why you’ve got feelings in your heart
Don’t let fear of feeling fool you
What you see sets you apart
And there’s nothing here to bind you,
It’s no way for life to start

I think it is Brian McLaren who talks about God ‘taking the people out of slavery but also the slavery out of the people’. In other words, we’re so used to lifestyles and frameworks within which we live that we can’t see the alternatives to it.  We enslave ourselves.  Or perhaps, as Hawley sings, we allow ourselves to be distracted or caught up in systems that may, or may not be, of our own making.

Those people, they got nothing in their souls
And they make our TVs blind us
From our vision and our goals
Oh the trigger of time it tricks you
So you have no way to grow

Most of us are in some form of wilderness – trying to break the chains of some form of slavery. It could be personal  – fear, addiction, prejudices, worry, attitude, food. It could be social – status, greed, debt, competition, expectations.  It could be global – money, resources, plundering the earth at the expense of our children. What is it that Dietrich Bonhöffer is credited with saying? – “The ultimate test for a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves for it’s children.” 

But there is hope.

And no one else can haunt me
The way that you can haunt me
I need to know you want me
I couldn’t be without you
And the light that shines around you

The wilderness journey led by Moses was notoriously twisting and turning and we can deal with the twists and turns if we allow God to guide us. If we follow the ‘light that shines around.’

We’re bound to be tempted to go back to what’s familiar but we’ll receive nourishment and refreshment from quite unexpected sources at times – even popular music would you believe?

We CAN escape our slavery and with God’s help, we can take the slavery out of us too. 

Tonight – the streets are ours
And these lights in our hearts they tell no lies

Find out more about Richard Hawley at https://richardhawley.co.uk/

Jill writes:

I have found this haunting since I first heard. It’s one of the songs that I love to sing along loudly to when I need it… most days!

I love the fact that it has the wonderful voice of Annie Lennox and her very own style while singing this very much older piece of music, which is usually sung in quite a different style. The music shows to me the value of adapting and evolving! It’s a great mixture of old and new… an older style of accompaniment with modern rhythms.

The choir has a brilliant quality of music but are also very, very disciplined, which I think is what we’ll need to be, together, if we’re going to respond as needed to the climate challenge.

Annie Lennox says that she imagined the voice of the planet as she heard the words of this song. She imagined a dying planet. She recognised that she wanted not to be remembered for harm to the planet. She wanted to live lightly and not to cause the death of the planet.

Over all the funerals I’ve taken (well over 500), I lost count of the times that the family would say to me ‘She never did any harm to anybody’. Usually I was trying to find out what positive impact the loved one may have had. The more I thought about the phrase ‘never did any harm’ the more I’ve realised that just by living as our society lives in the UK this was extremely unlikely for any of us. Our way of living on this planet takes too much, costs too much and harms too much to be able to say ‘we never did any harm’.

The good news is that we are now in a position that we understand this and have the choice to change.

This song also reminded me of how people with wealth need to take extra positive care for the environment.

One year the city centre congregation I was working with agreed, as part of our discipleship, to ask every member to do a ‘carbon footprint’ measurement. More than half the congregation had a well below average footprint… just because they don’t own cars, computers, or baths, can’t afford to travel, and have to watch all their electric bills, making difficult choices about whether to keep an active fridge or TV. As a congregation we had an about average footprint for the UK which showed which of us needed to give up more of our privileges.

I, too, would like to believe that I had given ‘no trouble’ to the earth when I’m in my grave.

I’d like to be remembered for positive impact rather than for aiming ‘not to cause any trouble’

But I have a long way to go…

Find out more about Annie Lennox at https://www.annielennox.com/

James writes:

ABBA bringing out new music has given great excitement to me. You may think I would write about “I Still Have Faith In You” but it is actually “Don’t Shut Me Down” that has led to much theological reflection. What can this song of a woman to her former lover have to do with Christianity I can almost imagine you ask? I wonder if the same could be said of the Song of Songs if it wasn’t contained in the Biblical canon? Yet we see at the heart of the Bible, a love song.

This song is about a woman who comes back to try and gain her old lover back. This was clearly a shock to her lover:

I believe it would be fair to say “you look bewildered”

and you wonder why I’m here today

and so you should, I would

Sometimes when we have changed, or try to make amends, people do seem bewildered. They wonder what our intentions are. People sometimes wonder what our intention is as Christians. A few times I have been part of Christians at Pride and, while most people seem delighted to see us, I have been asked if we are covertly not in favour of Pride. Years of hurt and oppression do not easily go away. Some do look bewildered and wonder why we’re there – and yes, so they should, I would. Yet that is one of the most important places for me to be if I am truly to show the all-inclusive love of God in Christ.

Will you leave me standing in the hall or let me enter?

I wonder if that is metaphorically a question we all ask as we engage in sharing the love of Jesus? Or when we try to share our lives and hurts with someone (Christian or not)? When we make ourselves vulnerable, and metaphorically stand in the hall, we do not know how others will react and if they will let us into our lives. That is the risk we take – the Christian faith is full of risk but it is not reckless risk. It is a risk of love. Christ took the risk of love in choosing to live and die for us. We all have to be vulnerable at times and it is in our vulnerability that we are fully human. Perhaps it is in the moments of our transformation we have to be vulnerable. Many of us have had questions about how people would respond on discovering we’d become Christians or started taking our faith more seriously.

I have learnt to cope, and love and hope is why I am here now

I wondered at times with depression whether I could carry on – whether my life was worth living. Yet it is the love of God in Christ and the hope that I will one day be united with Christ that has often kept me going. It truly is love and hope which is why I am here. In amongst difficult circumstances and real pain, I have known the hope of Jesus Christ which allows me to stand.

And now you see another me, I’ve been reloaded, yeah

I’m fired up, don’t shut me down

I’m like a dream within a dream that’s been decoded

When thinking theologically about this song, this line just makes me think of the Holy Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit that spurred me to action. The Holy Spirit who prompted me to become a Local Preacher – something I did not dream I could do (ask my mentor who had to eventually tell me it was time to get in the pulpit and actually preach!), and yet reloaded me with a passion to preach the Gospel. The Holy Spirit who prompted me to stand for full justice and inclusion, both within the church and outside of our walls.

Often our faith does feel like a dream within a dream. We know there is a story of a better future. We know that God is reconciling the world to Godself through Jesus Christ. Yet we live in a messy, fallen world where we know that things are not as they should be. As Christians we are called to be prophetic; to proclaim what the world can and will be. That isn’t always easy or popular and yet we must be part of that as we pray “your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”. How do we proclaim that to the world so that makes sense? How do we demonstrate what our faith does in our lives in a way that makes sense to those who know us best?

I’m not the one you knew, I’m now and then combined

and I’m asking you to have an open mind

now I’m not the same this time around

We all carry around our past experiences, hurts and what we have done. Yet we also change all the time. As the Holy Spirit transforms us, if we are open to her presence, we do become different. We are now and then combined. How do we change? How are we not the same? I wonder how tangibly the effects of our faiths can be seen by those around us? Conversely, do we (with appropriate safety measures as needed!) have an open mind about how others can change? Are we open to seeing what is going on? As a church we are being “changed from glory into glory till in heaven we take our place”. That is quite exciting. I sincerely hope that with all my flaws and imperfections I am not the same in 20 years time as I, hopefully, grow in holiness and faith.

When others look at you, I hope they will say that you’ve been reloaded and you are not the one they knew; that you are now and then combined. Are you not the same this time around because of the transforming power of the love and saving grace of Jesus?

Check out abbasite.com to find out more about ABBA.

Jane writes:

Any track that starts with the line “Open your eyes, disasters are waiting to happen” has got to be worth a listen in my book. It’s such a short song and carries within it a sort of fatalism and yet a strong sense of what really matters when the chips are down.

There are times in your life when you generally don’t know what the hell is going on. Everything around you seems to be turning into something pretty unpleasant, and the opportunities to understand are limited. You also know it’s not going to get better any time soon, and quite literally the aforementioned disasters hang over your head like an anvil.

Quite often in such moments, the themes that are distressing seem to be on repeat from other times and places in your existence and as the lyricist writes:

The patterns are clear

Only you can appear to address them

They’re open armed with deceit not too far behind them

When it all becomes clear

Only you will be able to stop them

In their tracks, in their tracks

But there’s rather an assumption that you have any personal resilience to deal with stuff. In such life moments people will say “lovely things”

· “It’ll be right”– if they’re from Yorkshire

· “The Lord knows what he’s doing – he has plans to prosper you not harm you” – well-meaning people of faith who can quote scripture

· “You’re not alone in this, God is there” – also from people of faith but the less astute kind

· “You’ve got this” – people who can’t bear that you’re in pain and essentially want you to pull yourself together

· “Well you can spend your energy on moping about or on being happy” – people who are making assumptions that how you feel is in fact within a hairs breadth of being in your control

· “Ahhh, it is what it is” – that’s one of my own because I’m at a loss to find a solution and I think some response is better than none

But there are people who get it. Typically they just love you and put up with you and let you grieve for/about whatever it is that ails you. I’m never sure if you can head off disasters at the pass, or indeed deal with them when they land, and occasionally there is an opportunity for personal agency or of course a cry to God. I wonder though if it’s those who “get you” rather than those who “claim to” that really make a difference.

When all else fails then, even the lyricist says:

Disciples will gather

As your enemies shatter around you

And you call Heaven knows

Keep those God-given people close for they are the ones who are the living embodiment of what love is meant to be about. Patient; kind; not self-seeking; protective; hopeful – you know how it goes…

You can find out much more about Robert Vincent here https://robertvincentmusic.com/

Judith writes:

I wrote this reflection using Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence’ intertwined with the biblical references it invokes for me.

Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:11-12)

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

At that place he came to a cave and spent the night there. Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9)

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

‘Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

“You have seen many things, but you pay no attention;your ears are open, but you do not listen.” (Isaiah 42:20)

“Fools,” said I, “You do not know

Silence, like a cancer, grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you

On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;

for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips

Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold

I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice (Proverbs 2,7,10 & 20)

But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed in the wells, of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” (Exodus 32:4)

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, “The words of the prophets

Are written on the subway walls

Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the wall of the royal palace, next to the lampstand. (Daniel 5:5)

And tenement halls”

And whispered in the sounds of silence.

Simon & Garfunkel’s website is https://simonandgarfunkel.com/

Paul Simon’s website is http://www.paulsimon.com/

Art Garfunkel’s website is https://www.artgarfunkel.com/

Marc writes:

In June 1997, The Verve released a song from their album “Urban Hymns” called “Bitter Sweet Symphony”. The lyrics are fascinating, and paint a picture of one understanding of life and how we seek to live it, ultimately recognising that life itself is a “Bittersweet Symphony”.

That notion is a starting point for this reflection

“Cos it’s a bittersweet symphony this life.”

It’s important that we don’t shy away from the things that we struggle with in life, and we are not saying that turning to God means our struggles are in any way unimportant, or a result of sin or a lack of faith. As we journey into this practice we are bringing all of ourselves to God, recognising what we enjoy and what we struggle with, celebrating his presence in the sweet and the bitter, and fully aware that to have life in all its fullness is to experience both the bitter, and the sweet in the confidence of the presence of God’s love.

As life happens both the bitter and the sweet combine, and we need to find ways to live through the bittersweet. That song that reminds us of the happy moments dancing with the person who is no longer with us; that smell that reminds us of a simpler time before our hurt; that vaccine that gives us our freedom, but came after the suffering and loss of so many; those daily moments where we can experience both joy and pain in the same instance. That is the bittersweet symphony of life, all those things coming together to give us our experience.

And as followers of Jesus we are not exempt from the bitter. We experience the pain alongside the freedom, the joy alongside the mourning. Indeed Jesus promised us that it wouldn’t be all sweet. Yet there is a promise that we can cling to, a promise that Paul writes in Romans 8 from his understanding of who Christ is and what he has accomplished.

“What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

As we journey together into this new school year, and for the Methodists- the Connexional year; into the unknown of today, let alone tomorrow and beyond, we cannot assure ourselves of only the sweet, nor will we experience only bitter. They will come together, in different amounts. But the promise we can choose to cling to is the constant presence of God’s love, from which NOTHING can separate us. Thank God for his ever-present love regardless of what comes our way.

(You can find a Reflective Exercise that Marc uses in the ‘Devotional Ideas’ of this blog called ‘Bittersweet Reflection’)

The Verve split up in 2009 but lead singer, Richard Ashcroft, continues to make music. Visit his website at http://richardashcroft.com/

Gill writes:

“Sometimes we just simply have to find a way. The moment we decide to fulfil something, we can do anything. And I’m sure the moment we start behaving as if we were in an emergency, we can avoid climate and ecological catastrophe. Humans are very adaptable: we can still fix this. But the opportunity to do so will not last for long. We must start today. We have no more excuses.” (Greta Thunberg speaking to the British Parliament on 23rd April 2019)

I don’t know if I hear God in this song, but I definitely hear the cry of our planet. And considering that our earth was gifted to us by the Divine, then perhaps that’s what I hear – God speaking through God’s creation. Creaking, and groaning, and wailing – crying out for us to listen and act one last time. As Greta says, and the young Christians who are currently walking from Cornwall to the COP26 tell us – change is urgently needed.

Sing your song
Sing out for me
Give it everything you’ve got
Just one more time for me
Move in from the dark

Perhaps the call to act feels too unsurmountable. Perhaps we don’t know where to start. Perhaps we don’t know what to do. Perhaps we think that someone will come up with a plan in time to save us. Perhaps we think it’s all ‘stuff and nonsense.’ I guess all of these responses are a reaction to a problem that is so huge, and distant (though the recent ICCP report tells us it isn’t), that many of us escape in to denial, disbelief, anger and dissonance.

The river seems too wide to cross but we can sense the incoming storms. We don’t know whether to batten down the hatches or to swim and hope for the best. If we swim out and the storm ceases, will we be ridiculed for acting like we did? If we stay put, the storm might be even worse than imagined – will our shelter be enough?

The river’s wide
Too wide to see
There’s a storm outside my window
Moving close to me
Move in from the dark

My personal faith is rooted in love. I can’t explain it any other way. I know some people struggle with the word ‘love’ because of their life experiences, and I know that love can hurt, excruiatingly so, at times. All I know is that I feel connected, concerned and consumed by love for those I share this planet with, stranger and friend alike. I feel called to try and take care of our common home in whatever way I can.

That’s what I hear in this song. A call; a cry; a love that can’t be avoided.

Our planet isn’t just something to kick around on. Our wellbeing and human flourishing is wholly tied up with it. If the Earth is sick, then so are we. It’s our life-source and we are tasked by the Creator to take care of it. It has everything that we need to live. It’s the dirt beneath our feet. It’s the sun that rises without fail.

I know that I take so much of life for granted and many of my actions and choices are to the detriment of life on this planet. We’re all part of God’s amazing creation – the web of life that God has woven for us – whether we believe it or not. It’s time I behaved better and listened – that’s what I hear in this song.

I’m all of this and nothing
I’m the dirt beneath your feet
I’m the sun that rises
While you’re sleeping
I’m all you need

Dave Gahan is still the lead singer of Depeche Mode and you can find out more about them on their website http://www.depechemode.com/

You can also follow Dave Gahan on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DaveGahan