" I wanna be someone who makes you feel beautiful
I wanna be someone who does
I wanna be someone who makes you feel beautiful
I wanna be someone
Who covers you with love..."
- from Frozen Lake by Iain Archer
This was on our family compliation CD this afternoon and it is just so hard to beat. Whether directed to wife, lover or everyone I meet this is a grand design of human ambition.
Tomorrow morning at 11 in Fitzroy we get an insight into the warm and tender heart of an angry God as we follow Hosea into chapters 10 and 11... a creative sermon is in the writing! It can't be done in traditional exegesis! We will hear from one of our members Carole McFarland who works for London City Mission. Also the countdown to our Community Bible Experience where we will be reading the entire New Testament during Lent. Vibrant worship will have a Rend Collective slant.
In the evening, at 7, it is our monthly Faith on Trial where Christianity comes under a cerebral microscope. Tomorrow night it is the BBC's William Crawley speaking about Science and Faith. It'll be quality and no doubt deeply thoughtful.
"My soul is like a ruby
And I threw it in the earth
But now my hands are bleeding
From scrabbling in the dirt
And I looked up to the heavens
And a light is on my face
I never never never
Thought I'd find a state of grace
Oh joy, love you bring
Oh joy, make my heart my sing
Oh joy, joy in everything"
- From Joy by Mick Jagger
I have discovered the Rolling Stones for the first time this winter and one of the things that has most surprised me is the morsels of Christian Gospel that can be found in their train wrecks of hedonism! Here again, in Mick Jagger’s solo career, a clear and poetic expression of Christian grace. Something very special was given, the singer threw it away and needed an outside party to save what was lost through an act of grace. Obviously the fact that Bono joined Jagger on lead vocal on this song suggests that Jagger was writing with the U2 singer in mind but it is not a co-write; fascinating!
"So I pray for favour like Esther
I need your strength to handle the pressure
I know there will be sacrifice
But that’s the price
...
I can see the writing on the wall
But I cannot ignore this war
At the end of it all
Who am I living for?"
- From Who Am I Living For by Katy Perry
The racy and often sexed up Katy Perry pulls out the Old Testament heroine Esther as a role model. Wow! What’s going down here? Well, we shouldn’t be surprised at Perry’s knowledge of all things Biblical. This “bad” girl of pop was brought up in the home of a pastor and started her career singing Christian songs. Perry has spoken about how her mid teen self would be horrified by who she is now and has said that this is one of her most introspective songs, wrestling with her past and her present and her future. There is no doubt that this is a song in turmoil. There is a sense of call, maybe to fight for God. There is an awareness of the cost of that call. There is also an omnipresence of flames and sense of lightning striking judgement. Does Perry see herself tossed about in the seas in between. Or is she hoping to be a redeeming factor in the world she now inhabits?
Esther is an interesting character for Perry to turn to. God is never mentioned in the book named after Esther but she saves God’s people. The sense is that, though not named, God is sovereign and all around the story. Is that what Perry wishes for herself? Is this how Katy Perry sees herself; God being no longer part of the conversation around her but no less a presence of the love and destiny surrounding her?
Whatever the seas or the turmoil, like Dylan’s You’ve Gotta Serve Somebody, it is a question we all have to ask; who am I living for?
As they bombarded Belfast with the most potent and powerful rock onslaught that I have experienced since I saw the U2’s Vertigo arena tour in Vancouver back in 2005 I couldn’t help but think that this is the best time and place to see Snow Patrol. Belfast is always the best place to see Snow Patrol. For Gary, Nathan and Jonny this is home and home has rarely recognised a band as their own as much as Belfast has with these onetime indie misfits who grew into what we have tonight, an arena filling swan of rock’s mainstream. Belfast has always come out in numbers, always sung along and Gary Lightbody has always played up to it even writing Take Back The City about the city’s past, present and future.
Take Back The City was one of those early adrenaline blasts that these guys used to explode out of the night. It was as they went boom, boom, boom with strutting rock riffs and anthemic choruses that I realised that the strength of a rock band’s set can only increase by the quality albums they have released. Six records in and this band have now enough songs to grip an audience for the allotted hour and forty five minutes. Tonight Snow Patrol not only played at home and had the songs to play but their experience of the arena has grown. Lightbody’s ease with himself is evident as he sings more and more without a guitar. Connolly is a shape throwing visceral guitar hero. Jonny Quinn and Paul Wilson hold a steady as well as creative back beat groove and Tom Simpson recently joined by Johnny McDaid add all kinds of swathing and flourishing grace notes. Never have this band been more ready and never have the more delivered.
Setting off in attention grabbing mode and ending the same, the middle section is a risk with a general audience but reveals that new songwriting talent that Lightbody has become. More sleight of hand great melodies than foot stomping kardia thud new songs Garden Rules and New York, encased splendidly in Set The Fire to The Third Bar, with local girl Shauna Tohill filling in marvellously for Martha Wainwright and Miriam Kaufmann, and Make This Go On Forever. Lightbody even dared say that he thought Garden Rules was the best thing the band had done until now. Then it was back into the hits and the kardia grab until the Celtic techno of Fallen Empires with Nathan Connolly’s mandolin and a drum orchestra took the whole thing out. The audience singing was another highlight if predictably so on home soul. Run and Chasing Cars would now have no need of Lightbody singing at all but Belfast was in voice throughout.
What becomes apparent to me as this gig sweeps too quickly towards its end is the positivity of Snow Patrol. There is a lot of heartache and frustration and difficult social scenarios in their songs BUT their message is one of heart-open-taking-back-just-say-yes affirmation of love and life. Gary Lightbody doesn’t claim Bono’s spiritual anchor though he does sing that “On my knees I think clearer” and yet the band end gigs with more than songs. Tonight’s epic performance of Fallen Empires with the congregational chant of “we are the light, we are the light...” send out a positive vibe to a generation that need it. Then Just Say Yes as the encore closer in a city and country that was famous for saying No is a another subtle preach of positivity:
“Just say yes, just say there's nothing holding you back
It's not a test, nor a trick of the mind
Only love.”
Even the “For God’s sake dear” doesn’t have any sense of blasphemy but every hint of prayer. This is more than a good concert, it send something good out into the city tonight!
(loads more Snow Patrol articles in their own section on this blog)
