This week, Alison shares a very personal reflection… 

I asked him “why are you packing your toothbrush?”. He looked at me and I knew from the look in his eyes why. He was leaving me. “What about your birthday?” I asked feeling rather foolish. It was his birthday the next day and we had planned to take the children, aged 8 and 5, on a day trip to a local Bank Holiday village fair.  

One of ‘our tunes’ had been Soft Cell’s Tainted Love. We minced around dance floors together being dramatic, singing along at the top of our voices. The tune is upbeat. The words are devastating. Our marriage looked good to many people, but inside that relationship it was in fact a tainted love. Tainted by his cheating; tainted by us both being young and not knowing who we really were; tainted by poor mental health; tainted by self-medication of poor mental health by illegal drug use. 

This was all 15 years ago. If we skip ahead to May 2019, I am on a train coming home from work in London and I am reading the Methodist Conference Report ‘God in Love Unites Us’ – the report of the Marriage & Relationships task group 2019. As I read, I am overwhelmed by a sense of what a good marriage can be; that it could be in the words quoted at the start of the report of a Nat King Cole lyric  

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return” 

and I simultaneously grieve that first marriage and celebrate my second marriage, whilst praising God for the expression of possibilities expressed in this conference report. Love is mentioned 210 times in the report. 

15 years ago, I didn’t feel the church was offering anything to me except for a booklet called ‘Endings & Partings’ which was some solace as I felt maybe someone had trodden this path before me. 

I read books on being a Christian and divorce and they all made me feel like a failure. I remember a married woman at church coming rushing over when she saw me talking with her husband and claiming him back from me. I remember how lonely it is to arrive for worship on your own, or as the only adult. Church felt absent from me in this huge time of change in my life. Inside I was hurting and the words from ‘Tainted Love’ were my song now not our tune  

“you take my tears and that’s not nearly all” 

I felt like he had also taken my standing in community, my ‘normalness’, my dignity.  

About 12 -18 months after my first husband left, I went to my minister at the time and said that the church had marked all the big things in my life – my birth, baptism, becoming a member, a local preacher, my marriage. And now I am at a huge life moment, and I want to church to be there for me and my children again. I asked if I could write a liturgy to mark our new family and give a testimony as to what God was doing in my life at this difficult time. He looked a bit terrified but said yes.  

Standing there facing the congregation, telling my story in my local church community was really important. I needed people to know me and my experiences, and to know that they can talk to me about this stuff because I know God is in this with me and I won‘t crumble. It felt ‘right’ to stand there and share some of the pain of what it is to sing some of the words from ‘Tainted Love’ and use them as a prayer of lament  

“I’ve lost my light, I toss and turn I can’t sleep at night” 

Equally it was an act of healing to be standing at the front of church with the children and being blessed as a new expression of family. The next day I woke up, healed enough to make a positive step and I filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery. 

But being divorced in the church is tough. So much emphasis is put on marriage, and love and family. So much of the service within the church depends on being a 2-person parenting team to be available to play one’s part. It was tough one AGM when someone stood up, in response to a question about what should our mission be, to say we should mission to the single parents and their dysfunctional children. I wasn’t ready for that one as I had felt fairly safe in my own church community. Boom! That hurt.

And that’s it, in local church we rub along with one another and sometimes we get it wrong and sometimes we get it right. But the institution of church has a power I feel we rarely name, and the power to ignore, as all children who have bullied in the playground know, is a big one. As a divorcee there was something about being a bit weird, a bit ignored. Because the institution of church hasn’t really engaged with this part of my story except to say that some people disapprove and can opt out of remarrying me. But now, reading this report, I feel seen. The report says  

“3.2.6 We therefore recommend that liturgical texts be produced and commended for use at the ending of a marriage, not to glorify divorce but to acknowledge its reality and enable the partners and other people affected (and also the Church) to offer and open themselves to the gracious love of God as they go through it. The availability of such a service would be an expression of our belief in God’s grace and healing and show that nothing is beyond the care of God and the Church.” 

I still go dancing sometimes, and I still dance to ‘Tainted Love’ by Soft Cell (although I think I like the original by Gloria Jones better now) and know I can do so mincing around, hurling myself unrhythmically around the dance floor, singing at the top of voice and the song is redeemed for me – as indeed I have been renewed through the love of God, my family and friends and local church, and I thank God that now it is possible that the institutional church might be able to be part of this story of healing and redemption too.  

PS: I know that most people are focused on this report because of the same sex marriage elements of it, and rightly so. I want to be clear that my experience of a sense of ‘ignoredness’ from the church is nothing in comparison to the pain caused to gay people by the church. This musing of mine is not to be in competition but to share some of my story as part of the East Central Learning Network #FridayFix 

If you want to see what Soft Cell are up to these days, you can visit https://www.softcell.co.uk/

Jane talks about ‘Seasons of Love’

I have the start of this song as my work phone ring tone and it does two things.  It reminds me of my love for music and musical theatre and also reminds me that what I do requires me to be a loving person.  That sounds a bit deep, that I might need to be reminded of that, but often we can forget how complex a thing it might be. 

This song taken from the musical ‘Rent’, explores what its like to live in community with others during the 80’s HIV crisis, explores the value of a human being and how that might be measured.  It considers the many practical or emotional parameters that could be possible indicators but in the end recognises the ‘Seasons of Love’ in a person’s life and ultimately how they loved and were loved is the most fabulous measure. 

God reminds us often through the scripture writers that we are valued for who we are.  Psalms often focus on how God sees us and loves us as individuals “even the hairs on your head are numbered” but it’s also made clear to us God’s love is full of grace, and whatever seasons we may go through our worth is not measured by the cups of coffee we drink, the things we do but simply because we are alive. 

The challenge that remains for us then, is to offer that grace-filled love to others, regardless of who they are and whatever way they choose to live. We are a people of faith called to love God and love others.  To see a person’s worth in the light of God’s love is the ultimate privilege. 

by Adam

I just love this track and it really speaks to me about the work of the Holy Spirit. 

The first line “un-re-route the rivers” reminds me that the “flow” of the Spirit is the intended, original route – we have re-routed it and now it needs un-re-routing. Re-routing naturally occurring water ways is a dangerous business, often a storm or another big weather event will return the river to its original route, often at great cost. We would do better to let the liquid spirit free in the first place. The picture of the “hard dry land” resonates so true with so many situations and sometimes my own life when I need to get down take a drink and fill my water tank. 

Of course it is not just the words, the bass riff, the clapping, the energy, the solos, and Gregory Porter’s amazing voice make this an inspiring track. 

So get down take a drink and fill your water tank! 

If you want to know more about Gregory Porter, his website is https://www.gregoryporter.com/

by Gill

Well, we have to have a Eurovision winning song this week don’t we?!  And what better than the last UK winner way back in 1997 when Katrina and The Waves won with ‘Love Shine a Light’.  Ah – those heady days when ‘nul points’ was a rarity for the UK entry.

I love using popular music in worship if I can and this song works well with Matthew 5:14.  We know that Jesus was described as the Light of the World but Matthew recounts Jesus saying that we are the light of the world too.  We may be ordinary people living ordinary lives but we cannot underestimate the impact and influence that we have on others.  The way that we speak to each other and treat each other every day says everything about us and our faith. 

In a ‘six degrees of separation’ type way, it could be said that this song even has a connection with our region. It wasn’t actually written for Eurovision originally but for The Samaritans 30^th Anniversary in 1983. The founder of The Samaritans, Rev Chad Varah, was born in Barton-upon-Humber (Lincolnshire District) and went to Keble College (Northampton District). (He was educated at Worksop College which is very nearly in the Nottingham & Derby District).

You may think it a cheesy, ‘wave your lights in the air’ type of song (as Katrina herself once described it) but the words in Matthew 5:14-16 are very close to the lyrics in the song to me:

“And we’re all gonna shine a light together

All shine a light to light the way

Brothers and sisters in every little part

Let our love shine a light in every corner of our hearts”

You can find out more about Katrina and The Waves at www.katrinaandthewaves.com