Gill writes:

I’m travelling back from Dunbar on the train as I write this. Whilst I was there, I managed a quick visit to the birthplace museum of John Muir – a quiet hero of mine. John Muir was a Scottish-American naturalist, writer, and conservationist who championed U.S. national parks. As you walk around his birthplace, you encounter lots of his quotes, and there was one that particularly grabbed me.

“Wash your spirit clean from the earth-stains of this sordid, gold-seeking crowd in God’s pure air”

For me, his words evoked a deep connection, with this recently-released, ‘Doors-esque’ song from Kula Shaker which appeared on my ‘Release Radar’ playlist a couple of weeks ago. Both seem to speak into how I’m feeling about the current state of our world.

Yes, many folk are broke in monetary terms, but many also seem broken too. I’ve been on this planet for way over fifty years and I’ve never felt us humans being so disconnected and divided as we appear to be currently.

I say ‘appear’ because my day to day encounters with people indicate the world is still full of caring, tolerant and welcoming people. It’s just that some politicians and media barons are telling us that Britain is broken, full-up and unsafe.

Yes, things could be better. Things could definitely be fairer. And some of our systems really do need fixing but there’s a part in this song that reminds me, like Muir’s words, that beauty and nature and love and God are not broken. They are still very much there, and this is what offers us hope and connection.

But when I see the sunlight in the trees

When I hear the buzzing of the bees 🐝

When I see my children running free

Feel God’s love shining down on me

The gospel reading this Sunday takes us down the path of contemplating division amongst us.

Like the pioneering spirit of John Muir, I think we can claim Jesus as the ultimate pioneer — blazing the trail, warning of dangers, urging us to keep going, and he makes it clear that following him can cause division, even within families. Why? Because his teaching challenged the status quo.

Jesus exposed injustice. Through his parables, he revealed how some leaders amassed wealth at the expense of the people, bending or ignoring God’s law when it suited them. He confronted hypocrisy head-on. And whenever someone dares to say, “this isn’t right,” division is almost inevitable. Those who benefit from injustice will always resist change.

Noticing glimmers of hope and glimpses of God are what can keep us going. We can draw strength from it, even when our world causes heartache and anguish. It can give us the courage we need to face the challenges that we are experiencing.

So on this Friday, along with John Muir and Kula Shaker, I invite you to take heart, have courage, look for the glimmers, find joy and meaning when faced with adversity.

Jane writes:

This week I’ve been to see ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ It is quite a tough watch as musicals go and the current political landscape only goes to reinforce that. Amidst the political and many family narratives there’s this lovely song that arises at the wedding of two characters. Parents wondering about the passage of time, life’s pattern and all that lies before the newly weds:

Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

The advent of a new life in our family has brought me to the same set of wonderings. Both for the parent I raised and the new little bundle of love and joy that changes every time I meet them.

What words of wisdom can I give them?
How can I help to ease their way?

The passage of time in life as a person of faith, as a friend, as a daughter or parent (nanna or otherwise) really changes your perspective. What you thought was a definite truth becomes more blurred, and things you thought
didn’t matter really do.

I feel certain God calls us to navigate who we are in the changing seasons. In Ecclesiastes we are reminded that “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven” so this thinking about life and what
does/should happen when is hardly new, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it becomes easier. Maybe today you might wonder what you can do to ease the way of those around you that you love. They may be facing very tough times or very joyous ones. They may need wisdom…. The days flow swiftly so what we offer may be the most precious gift we can give before the sun sets again.

Fiddler on the Roof is touring at the moment https://fiddlerontheroofuk.com/tour-dates/

You can find out about its history here https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatre-news/news/learn-about-the-production-
history-of-fiddler-on-the-roof

Marc writes:

Mindlessly scrolling my socials at a community youth group (is it still called that if there’s only one young person!?) and this comes on in the background.

As tends to be the way, any mention of Jesus and my ears prick up.

“You’re scared it’s movin’ quickly

Oh, now you’re crying, you’re in pieces

‘Cause the only love you’ve ever known is Jesus”

It got me thinking… and here I may waffle… when we experience the love of Jesus, what is that like?

At times it can be raw and visceral and real. It can be something life-changing, and deep, and incomparable. It can be transformational and fast moving, full of potential and excitement and adventure. But I wonder if that’s always the case for everyone? Maybe it was like that at the start, but since there have definitely been times where the love I’ve known from Jesus is just slow and steady. Sometimes I’ve wondered whether it’s just static, or even there. What if it’s just something I’m imagining?!

And what does it look like to compare our experience of the love of Jesus, whatever that looks like for us, with a fresh experience of love from others? How does it compare to the tangible love we might experience from community and church, or somewhere else?

Maybe sometimes we can come on too strong in our attempts to love like Jesus, and maybe we need to slow it down. Maybe we overwhelm people who have always been loved by Jesus, but it’s never been an overly “real” or radical experience, but instead a steady background thing.

Conversely, maybe we need a bigger experience of Jesus’ love, one that brings us to our knees, and to tears, and overwhelms us when compared to the love we receive elsewhere and simultaneously makes us want both more and less.

What if Jesus’ love was a real measure for us by which everything else fails in comparison? That’s the sort of love that will see us “not drown in dirty waters full of hopeless doubt” but will “pull us out and hold us now.“

Find out more about Benson Boone’s music at https://www.bensonboone.com/

Gill writes:

If I’m really honest, metal is not my favourite genre of music but it is for plenty of my friends, which just goes to show how amazingly diverse music is in touching our hearts. It was one of said friends who introduced this song to me back in the 80’s – a classic break-up song from Ozzy which starts rather pertinently with the words ‘time has come to say goodbye’ – words that take on a new meaning this week when we heard about Ozzy’s death.

Ozzy Osbourne’s life was always a paradox — the so-called “Prince of Darkness” whose music and antics once scandalised polite society, yet who, underneath the wild exterior, revealed moments of startling vulnerability and longing. This song from 1983, So Tired, is a striking example of this softer side to him. Behind the grand, almost theatrical arrangement, Ozzy sings not about devils or bats, but about weariness, loneliness, and the ache of giving so much of himself away.

“So tired, so tired / And I can’t wait for tomorrow…” he laments — a simple line that could also be a quiet confession from a man whose public persona often hid a desperate, human need for rest and peace. Ozzy’s life was a relentless ride of excess and survival: the poverty of his youth in Birmingham, the dizzy heights with Black Sabbath, addiction, scandal, reality TV fame, and countless near misses with death. Through it all though, I can’t help thinking that there’s a spiritual search for him — not in a pious way, but in the deep human desire for something more than the chaos our lives can seem to have.

Many of us might not know that Ozzy was raised Anglican, and despite his stage persona, faith and questions of the soul run through his work. Songs like So Tired show us a man who knows that even fame and fortune can’t quiet a restless heart. “I’m so tired of waiting for you” is a lament for lost love, but maybe it’s also a cry about something bigger — a hope that beyond weariness there might be a welcome, a home, a forgiveness not found in fame or intoxication, but in something transcendent.

In many ways, I think that Ozzy’s life embodied the messy truth that spirituality doesn’t always look neat. It can be loud and broken and contradictory. And yet, in the quiet corners of his music — such as the weary sigh of So Tired — we hear a glimpse of the same longing that our faith traditions try to answer: the hope that, one day, the tired will find rest, the lost will be found, and even a self-proclaimed madman can be embraced by grace.

Rest In Peace Ozzy. You were a legend in my lifetime.

Find out more about the late Ozzy Osbourne at https://www.ozzy.com/.

Gill writes:

For quite a number of years, before I ventured into the world of learning and development, I was a full-time Youth & Community Worker managing youth centres and a range of youth projects in various places around England. At times in that role it felt like I was constantly on the phone or at community meetings advocating for the young people I worked with, in particular the young men who the community had a real struggle with.

I often wondered (and still do) why so many young men had such a hard time from all angles – family, neighbourhood and society in general in their teens. Having walked alongside my son during those years recently (he made it to his 20’s – yay!), I have reached the conclusion that as a society, we’ve not really learned how to embrace and understand young men as well as we could do – probably because a significant number of previous generations sent them off to war. In a sense, the tracks on how to engage with young men haven’t been firmly laid and so we don’t know how to cope with them very well. 

This song, Kids Off the Estate from Rotherham’s ‘The Reytons’ immediately made me sit up and notice – defiant anthem that it is. I was introduced to it by my son who was 16 at the time, for whom it really resonated. It gives voice to young men who’ve grown up in places too easily dismissed, especially overlooked housing estates, where promise and despair live side by side. Beneath the catchy indie riffs and blunt northern drawl, there’s a sense of aching to this song: a cry for meaning, belonging, and redemption that could easily go unheard.

I think you’ll agree that it’s not an overtly religious song, but for me it has an unmistakable spiritual undercurrent. It points to how society struggles — and often fails — to hold young men with care and hope. Instead, they’re labelled troublemakers, written off as “wasted potential.” Perhaps this song is a lament for young people boxed in by postcode prejudice and a broken system, but somehow there’s a resilience here too.

For me, Kids Off The Estate stirs some deep questions about the Kingdom of God. Where is grace for the ‘kids off the estate’ for example? If Christ walked those streets, I think he’d stand alongside them — not judging but inviting them to belong, to be seen as wonderfully-made humans rather than headlines and statistics. The faith that I have doesn’t believe that we should be preaching at them, but listening more and standing alongside when and where needed.

The song hints at the need for transformation: not just of individuals but of the structures that confine them. It asks us to see young men not as threats but as human beings with potential. Their frustration, bravado and longing for escape reveal hearts that yearn for purpose, acceptance, and a future not determined by their birth.

In the end, I think that Kids Off the Estate is more than a song — it’s a mirror. It reflects a society that needs to nurture its sons better, and a spiritual call to see Christ in the overlooked corners of our own towns.

You don’t have to hate

The kids off the estate

Mates after a fate

And they called them Reytons

P.S. – The Reytons’ name originates from Yorkshire slang. Specifically, it’s derived from the phrase “right ‘un” which is used to describe someone who is a bit of a “scally” or mischievous. 

Find out more about The Reytons at https://thereytons.com/

 
David writes:

After a few pleasantries, the hygienist about to clean my teeth told me he was from Italy. Having spent some time there myself, I asked him where, and before I knew it, he was entrusting me with more Italian than I possess. So, you’re a Protestant pastor? What are the main differences between the Protestant Church and the Catholic Church?… And you’re from the USA, right? What do you think of the new pope? A thorough cleaning of my lower teeth gave me some reflection time before spitting out my rinse and some overly-simple responses.

Behind the whirring of the equipment was a soundtrack he seemed to be controlling from his phone. Some David Bowie. Then Green Day’s American Idiot (did he play that one on purpose?!). The next time my mouth was freed, I asked him which Italian artists he liked. He put his hand-mirror and cleaning-pick onto a tray, and scrolled through his phone. Green Day cut out. Silence. Do you know Vasco Rossi? He sang in church before he became a star, you know. You might like this one. It’s called “Vivere.” It’s very, how would you say, riflettivo.

He resumed his work on my teeth, and with the first few strums of the guitar, I could feel my hands loosen their grip on the arm-rests…

Vivere
È passato tanto tempo…
È un ricordo senza tempo
Vivere
È un po’ come perder tempo
Vivere e sorridere…

To live,
much time has passed…
it is a memory without time.
To live, it’s like wasting time,
to live and to smile…

Reflective, indeed. Mindful, too. Just live. Didn’t someone once describe prayer as ‘wasting time with God’? And to smile, even when sitting in a dentist’s chair?!

…Vivere e sorridere dei guai
Così come non hai fatto mai…

To live and to smile at misfortunes.
It’s just like you have never done it…

Later, I checked out the video – images of desperation and inspiration alongside one another. A solitary cry raised from some soulless bar, suddenly backed by a choir and an orchestra… like aloneness found by community, lament becoming a hymn, desperation shifting into a resolve to live better.

…Vivere, vivere
Anche se sei morto dentro

Vivere, vivere
E devi essere sempre contento
Vivere, vivere
È come un comandamento…

To live…to live…
Even if you are dead inside.
To live…to live…
And you must be always content.
To live…to live…
It’s a commandment…

Must be content? Deeper than optimism? A commandment to live, and live abundantly? A decision to seek resurrection?

Vivere o sopravvivere
Senza perdersi d’animo mai
E combattere e lottare contro tutto contro…
 
To live or to survive
Without losing the soul
And to fight and battle against everything…

After what felt like an unusually long time with the hygienist (my teeth must have been with extra-clean by then), I lifted myself out of the chair, like getting up from a pew after worship.

Grazie, Vasco.

Find out more about Vasco Rossi at https://www.vascorossi.net/it/home/1-0.html

Tom writes:

Despite my known affinity with the Glastonbury Festival, I have only been backstage once – which I know is more than most people, but is far less than some people I know! It wasn’t deliberate (I happened to be with my dad being shown around as the new vicar – and unofficial chaplain to the Festival) yet somehow we ended up on the side of main stage (this was in the brief period when it wasn’t a pyramid). It was Friday, and the first act was on the stage (later that day, Oasis would headline for the first time, and the next day Pulp would cover for the imploding Stone Roses in a headline performance that remains era-defining). I didn’t know who they were, but it was amazing to be there, at the side of the stage, watching them do their thing. Unsurprisingly, I have felt an affinity for the music of Michael Franti and Spearhead ever since – and especially their 1994 album, Home, which formed the main part of their act that day.

I love the way that Michael Franti’s music weaves catchy beats and melodies with lyrics that tell intriguing stories with clear ethical implications. In “Hole in the Bucket” the familiar children’s rhyme entwines with a day-in-the-life story of a man’s encounter with a homeless beggar and the nagging need for some thread. Much of the song is an internal monologue of Franti thinking through all the reasons why giving some of spare change to the panhandler would be a bad idea. Would, he thinks, the man use it for sensible reasons, or for ill?

No doubt many of us have been there. I am deeply aware of the regular advice given to offer food or tickets rather than cash, to avoid being scammed, and have personally done that, taking an enquirer to the supermarket to buy them food rather than simply giving them cash. But I’ve also given people cash, not knowing what they’d do with it – but I had it, and didn’t need it, and my faith calls me to be gracious rather than cynical. Either way, however, I’m not sure that the key message of the song is about giving cash to down-at-heel strangers.

At the end, Franti decides to go and give the man some cash. Yet it is in this act that he realises why he needed to buy the thread that’s been nagging him all along – he has a hole in his pocket, and now neither of them has the cash! It seems to me that at the heart of this song’s message (and with Spearhead you can be sure the song has a message) is the fact that debating about whether certain things are a good idea or not can blind us to more urgent problems that, if left unfixed, will lead to an inability to resolve the matter we think we’re debating.

Imagine if Franti (and I use his name only as the singer of the song and teller of the story) had decided to give the street-dweller his money sooner – not only would the man have got some cash, but Franti would have been reminded of the reason for needing thread much sooner. I suspect that many of us have found ourselves in similar situations – in our faith, our politics, our lives in general. We have spent so long discussing the merits or otherwise of some problem that by the time we settle the matter we have let a more significant problem get worse. Hopefully, it has rarely meant the debated problem is now entirely unsolvable, but we are nonetheless reminded by Franti and his band that focussing on the philosophical can lead us to miss other, more pressing, practical matters.

Now, excuse me while I just go and check my jeans pockets…

Find out more about Michael Franti and Spearhead at https://michaelfranti.com/

Gill writes:

At long last, I finally saw The Lightning Seeds perform recently when they supported Paul Heaton at Bramhall Lane in Sheffield. And I’m pleased to say that I wasn’t disappointed, especially when they played this song which has always been a favourite of mine.

I findThe Life of Riley to be a particularly joyful song. From its jangly guitar to the cheery chorus, it’s pure optimism bottled into three minutes. But underneath the bright melodies, I think there’s something a teeny bit deeper going on.

First of all, the title itself – The Life of Riley – suggests living a carefree life. You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a hymn to laziness – lying on the couch eating crisps and doing nothing. But actually, this song is more about seeing life through fresh eyes – a child’s eyes. Ian Broudie wrote it for his son Riley, and I think there maybe there’s something slightly sacred about it. The way he sings:

So here’s your life
We’ll find our way
We’re sailing blind
But it’s certain nothing’s certain

I don’t mind
I get the feeling
You’ll be fine

isn’t blind optimism – it’s an act of hope. Of trust. Of faith. And those of us who follow Jesus hopefully know a little bit about that.

Hope, in the Christian tradition, isn’t naïve – it’s radical. Believing that God is with us even when things are confusing, a bit messy, or just plain boring – that’s real faith. And I can’t help feeling that this song invites us into that kind of space. It’s not ‘preachy.’ It’s encouraging and it’s hopeful.

Maybe there’s also something spiritual about the playful nature of the song too. Jesus said we must become like little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Not childish – but childlike. Trusting. Joyful. Able to be amazed by a butterfly, or to laugh at a well-timed joke.

So maybe that’s the real lesson here for us. That delight is not a distraction from faith – it’s part of it. That dancing round the kitchen, skipping in the rain, or just singing along to The Lightning Seeds (or any song of your choice) at full blast can be holy too. God didn’t make a grey world – he made a rainbow one. And joy, like the song says, is worth celebrating. So I’ll let this song wash over me and remind me that joy is a gift that God wants us to open.

Oh – and by the way – I saw Riley that day too. A grown-up, 30-something Riley playing guitar alongside his Dad on stage in The Lightning Seeds. He really was fine, just like his Dad predicted.

Find out more about The Lightning Seeds at https://lightningseeds.co.uk/