SOUL SURMISE

NEWS OF TWO BOOKS I AM INVOLVED IN BEING PUBLISHED IN 2020

photo: some of the Muzungu Collective creating with Levixone

 

Some news on Book Week NI. I am hoping to be involved in two books being published in 2020.

Firstly, the book that I have been working on with Trevor Stevenson is in its final edit. It has taken longer than we thought but it is nearly there! Trevor is founder of Fields Of Life which Soul Surmise readers should be well aware of.

It is a fascinating story about how one man in simply following the next step that he sensed God was asking him to take ended up with an organisation that educated hundreds of thousands of children across East Africa and will soon have reached one million people with clean water. I have enjoyed being involved in help shape Trevor's memoir - LIFE IN THE KILLING FIELDS OF EAST AFRICA. It's a gripping story.

Secondly, there is a poetry book in the works. This will again be a collection of writings about the time I have spent in Africa. I will be mixing poems and short surmises that will deal with the beauty of the country and the people of Uganda and what I have learned about life, faith, mission and the environment from my time spent there.

This book will be called THE SAME GRACE COLOUR and we hope that there will be an album of music based on the lyrics available with it. There is even tentative plans for a vinyl version. This will have a variety of songs and music by what we are calling MUZUNGU COLLECTIVE. It will be of a very high quality, I promise! If you would be up for a very limited vinyl edition at a little bit higher an expense (maybe £25) then message me or leave a comment and email address below this article. ALL PROFITS TO ONIALEKU NURSERY BUILD FUND. 

 

 

 

 

THE WORLD HAS MORE THAN SEVEN WONDERS (2019 Re-Write)

(I started this poem in 1993 and rewrote it a song version on Grace Notes, our Stevenson and Samuel album in 2001. A sermon in Fitzroy by Jonny Hanson inspired a 2019 version, bringing Uganda into verse 3 and Job 26 into the "chorus".)

 

I gazed across the Himalayas

Looked into the eye of God

He winked at me in the dawning

With a reassuring nod

Mountains glistened in the sunlight

The art of the Creator

Scientists only glimpse his thoughts

And even then a whole lot later

 

The world has more than seven wonders

More than seven wonders

And all this is merely a whisper of God

Only gossip of the power that thunders.

 

I stood on the rim of the Canyon

My mouth hung open wide

I was in awe just peering in

Never mind what went on inside

I sense creation screaming

And I’m listening as best I can

But eternal glory is way beyond

The grasp of this mortal man

 

The world has more than seven wonders

More than seven wonders

And all this is merely a whisper of God

Only gossip of the power that thunders.

 

I’ve looked up the Nile at Murchison Falls

Reaping unfailing love

Felt the torrent of God’s good grace

Little splashes of heaven above

Caught the image of God’s best creation

In a wide eyed child like grin

Giving me hope to carry on

On an earth beautiful and broken

 

The world has more than seven wonders

More than seven wonders

And all this is merely a whisper of God

Only gossip of the power that thunders.

ELBOW - GIANTS OF ALL SIZES

Elbow fascinate me. I would not call them a favourite band but I have so much appreciation. Their last record Little Fictions didn’t cross my radar but I have loved Seldom Seen Kid and The Take Off And Landing Of Everything. This one is up with those.

There is a near eccentricity about Elbow’s beautiful layering of instrumentation and then of course Guy Garvey’s lyrics are on the poetic end rock lyrics. Garvey’s love of Joni Mitchell explains his rather unorthodox lyrical shape but it plays havoc with melodies. That might just mean that Elbow records need more listens, a little harder work. 

Garvey’s subject matter, introspective honesty and social and political astuteness is what makes Elbow a vital, almost urgent, listen.

This is where Giants Of All Sizes is exceptional. His father’s death and the birth of his son is the personal arc of the story. Garvey has said "Jack's arrival really helped me through Dad's death, because it made Dad's death part of things, rather than the end of things. And it made my own life part of things, rather than the point of things.” We all need such perspective.

World issues get a wrestling with too. Empires, my favourite, reminds those of us stressed about Brexit that every day across our globe is an end of the world for some. It is sensitivity sobering and a agin a perspective shifter. 

White Noise, White Heat moves close to protest music. This is all about Grenfell Tower and the injustice that the poorer communities in our societies suffer. Garvey sees himself as “some Blarney Mantovani with a lullaby when the sky is falling in”. 

The opening line of the entire record is “And I don't know Jesus anymore”. I am not sure that it is a statement of lack of faith in Jesus as much as a line that speaks into a culture of deep dark uncertainty. Elbow throw us into a vortex of grief, personal and societal. They also bring us back to lover and child as the place to find stability and hope through the tossing about. 

It makes for an album that allows Elbow’s dramatic near prog sound to ebb and flow. Garvey holds it all in with his honest poetry.

TOMORROW IN FITZROY 20.10.19 - BEING WITH CREATION

Tomorrow morning (11am) in Fitzroy we will be celebrating Harvest by asking about how we are doing about the environment. Continuing our very popular BEING WITH series we welcome Jonny Hanson to preaching on BEING WITH CREATION. Jonny is a sharp mind and radical practitioner. He is Managing Director of Jubilee Farm. Jubilee see themselves as a Christian Creation Care organisation. I believe in these days of Extinction Rebellion and Greta that Jubilee have a prophetic voice for the Church. Our worship is on the classical week rotation with the brilliant viola of Ulster Orchestra's Richard Guthrie and the free flowingpaino of David Livingstone. I believe there might be an original worship song too!

In the evening (7pm) we continue our excellent Evening Programme for 2019-20 with Chris Fry. Chris is a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and will speak on The Problem of Peace. Chris will be looking at conflict and aggression and reality in the life of groups that seek to offer healing and hope. Expect imaginative theology, insight and practical suggestions for implementation. 

PRISONS AND PRISONERS? A SURMISE.

Prisons? How do we see prisons? You might find that, like me, you haven’t thought an awful lot about it. However, if you stop and surmise for a moment like me you might realise how much your view of prisons has been honed by what you have seen through The Troubles and the documentaries since. Prisons are about keeping people inside. For decades they were very dangerous people; heighten the security.

Perhaps, as well as making sure they do not get out, we are all about the punishment. I mean these are criminals. Justice is demanded. Give them bread and water and all this talk about televisions and pool tables… perhaps we do not think that prisons should look like that.

As a follower of Jesus prisons are an irritant. I cannot dismiss them as places to keep people in or be all about punishment. Jesus had a special place for the prisoner. 

That first time that he stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth and open the scroll of Isaiah, right there in the text were the words - “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners.”

At the end of his life, when he is talking to his disciples about how you can tell who is getting in to the Kingdom and who is not, Jesus tells them that they can do good to him when they do good to the marginalised - “I was in prison and you came to visit me.” 

It is important that we see that at the heart of Jesus ministry, and at the centre of what the Bible reveals to us about the character of God, is redemption. It is not judgement but the transforming power of grace that Jesus came to do and teach us. 

That should change how we see prisons and indeed prisoners. The rehabilitation and indeed redemption of prisoners should be high on our agenda. The reduction of re-offending should be a priority when we pray for a peaceful and prosperous city, as Jeremiah asked us to.

Surely, we should be calling for the building of prisons of grace and praying for the Spirit’s transformative power and that by God’s unmerited love criminals become repentant reborn humans, eventually leaving prison to make positive contributions to society that forgives and sets them free, without stigma. 

On this year’s Prisons Week I am asking how I see prisons and what I am doing about the prisoners that Jesus identified himself with?