LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

Lillies of the field

 

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From our own efforts to gather more

To the birds who have enough

From our own attempts to look good

To the roses in their springtime magnificence

 

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From the feeble efforts to change who we are

To surrender into what God’s grace longs to make us

From waiting until we are good enough for God

To having his strength made perfect in our weakness

 

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From the selfishness of the thrill of a moment

To the usefulness of things that last forever

From the slavery of the things that we see

To the freedom of living in the blessings unseen

 

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From the love we are craving to get

To the service we are zealous to give

From a holiness that feeds our self righteousness

To a Godliness that feeds the world

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

 

 

And when there's less to share and I've gone to seed

I'll still want what I don't need

- Villagers

 

“I'd rather fight You for something I don't really want

Than to take what You give that I need”. 

 - Rich Mullins

 

I have learned not to crave things that hurt me but I can’t stop craving the things that make me whole.

Trixie from Call The Midwife

 

People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

Jesus - Matthew 6:32&33 (The Message)

 

LISTEN TO THE SERMON HERE

 


LIFE CAN BE LIKE THAT

Tescos

This appeared in my very first book of poems, Lyrics To Unwritten Tunes, back in 1990... It happened me again today, so a few tweaks and...

 

Life can be like that 

You find all your bearings

And discover where it’s at

You know the direction to take

In every situation

You now know all the answers

To every kind of question

And then…

The questions shift

The answers are all lost

You spin in disorientated confusion

One day you know it all

The next day you know nothing

Because once again

They’ve changed the shelves 

You are lost in Tescos

Life can be like that. 

 

This appeared in my very first book of poems, Lyrics To Unwritten Tunes, back in 1990... It was Woolworth's then but today it happened Janice and I, so a few tweaks and...


THE POST 4 CORNERS FESTIVAL BLUES

Stocki and Martin 25

photo: Neil Craigan

 

I never heard that idea before

Or thought about that like this

Her voice raised a deep good mood 

I wept to that guitar of his

We really don’t want to say goodbye

We believe a change is gonna come

We have come along, a long, long way

From where our trauma started from

 

Her poem took me out of here

I wanted to hold his rhyme 

Many of the lessons being learned

We learn every single time

Those colours and their adjectives

That yarn slow threading together

That little fox in that photograph

Home, here, there and wherever

 

Like a field ploughed and fertile

We sow seeds in Friday afternoon laughter

Then we help each other water and prune

Marvel that this all grows up after

I’m missing the sounds

I’m missing youse

I’m missing the sharing

I’m missing youse

I’m missing the drama

I’m missing youse

I’m missing the sport

I’m missing youse

I’m missing the craic

I’m missing youse

I’m missing the tray bakes

I’m missing youse

I’ve got one big enormous dose

Of the Post 4 Corners Festival Blues. 


SUNSHINE ON LEITH - ALL GROWN UP

Martin Leith

I am a believer in songs that grow up. Songs that might be received well on release but over the years become more weighty, more powerful, more important.

Late last night as I flicked channels I caught Coldplay on BBC Radio 2's Piano Room right there on TV. I came in near the end. They were going to do a cover.

Band member Guy Berryman tells us that three days before he heard The Proclaimers' song Sunshine On Leith for the first time. He was in the bath. Now how a Scottish musician could have avoided such an iconic song mystifies me but he sent it to Chris Martin who hadn't heard it either. Not Hibernian fans obviously. 

Martin speaks of it as having quality and soul, 'astonished good' he calls it. He does mention listening to Hibernian fans singing it. He also speaks of The Proclaimers catalogue and their importance. The Reid brothers are two of our most underrated songwriters. 

For me, it was almost tattooed on my heart in 2016. Something truly spectacular happened and my and The Proclaimers' favourite Scottish football team that I had followed since I was 8 years old won the Scottish Cup… for the first time in 114 years. Yip, since the year my Granny Stockman was born!

As the captain lifted the Cup the crowd broke into the Hibees’ Terrace anthem Sunshine On Leith. A sea of green scarves singing in unison at such a moment is a wonderfully emotional moment (catch it on YouTube) There have been articles written about it as a terrace chant and how special it is that Hibs fans only sing it in very special moments. 

Yet there is so much more to this song than a Cup winning chant! As a hymn this has everything. As well as its sense of place, Edinburgh’s beautiful Leith, and its sense of the personal romantic love, there is deep spiritual connection. It has its transcendence. God as Chief is recognised and the song rings with thanksgiving and praise! 

It has catharsis and the hopefulness of healing. In my Masters dissertation I highlighted what I called “prophetic stimulants”. The core of a song that gives it potency for personal or social transformation. This song has a range of them in just a few minutes. 

Another Scot, one who had his finger on the musical pulse more than Guy Berryman, was David Tennant, a Doctor Who. Tennant did a very understated version on the BBC Children In need record Got It Covered. It threw another hue. That Coldplay were involved with another Doctor Jodie Whittaker on her fine version of Yellow on the same record... come on boys. Pay attention!

Of course it is a film too but me the most authentic cover has to be Blue Rose Code when they add it to another ode to the city - Edina (catch it on YouTube). It is soul tingling in its sense of grace, gratitude and devotion.

When I bought Sunshine On Leith as a CD single in October 1988 I could not see it becoming what it has, a song to be sung around all human camp fires. 

 

My heart was broken, my heart was broken

Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow

My heart was broken, my heart was broken

You saw it, You claimed it

You touched it, You saved it

My tears are drying, my tears are drying

Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you

My tears are drying, my tears are drying

Your beauty and kindness

Made tears clear my blindness

 

While I'm worth my room on this earth

I will be with you

While the Chief, puts sunshine on Leith

I'll thank Him for His work

And your birth and my birth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah


HOME?

Stockies 150

The theme for the 4 Corners Festival 2025 is Home? This was my take, as I read on the first Sunday evening of the Festival.

 

Home - question mark.

Where is my home?

Is it Ballymena 

My hometown

Galgorm where the Stockmans are from

Harryville, the Kernohans

Is it where I was nurtured in Granny’s cottage beneath the thatch

Where I kicked my ball against the wall

The shops where I bought The Beatles

The church where God told me that I’d found him

Or is Belfast my home

Where I have now lived more than twice as long

Where I met my wife

Raised my children

And live out my vocation

Home?

 

Home - question mark

Home is where the heart is

What does that mean?

Do I need to go to some home because my heart is there?

Or is finding my heart wherever, home?

When all of me stretches out relaxed

In contented belonging

As if swaddled in a warm embrace

The arms of God’s grace

In Janice and Caitlin and Jasmine

All around me

Whether on sofas, or at a table, or on a beach or singing at a Ryan McMullan 

Whether in Belfast or Ballycastle or Cape Town or Arua

Home?

 

Home - question mark

We are always heading for home

Or hearting for home

Or souling for home

Pilgrims tumbling and stumbling behind Jesus

Close enough to gather his dust

Following him home 

And 

As we journey

There are moments on the way

Where home comes and meets us

Which makes eternal sense

Because this will be home - no question mark

At the end of the ancient text

On the very last page

As everything comes to its end

Or the end of the beginning

Home comes down out of heaven

To us 

Here

In a garden of shalom 

With a tree of forgiveness 

A river of justice

Where love is the air we breathe

Then,

Then, 

Recycling will be recreation

Repression relieved

The riven are repaired

Reprobates redeemed 

And remembering will become that hoped for resurrection

Home will be where my heart

Is known

Is healed

Has all it should have longed for

All it ever needed

Home.