SOUL SURMISE

JOE HENRY - THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO WATER

I have been listening to Joe Henry since the early 90s. T-Bone Burnett produced him and The Jayhawks were his band on occasion. Two good introductions. 1993’s Kindness Of The World was a particular favourite.

In more recent times I got as excited about records Joe Henry produced as the ones T-Bone Burnett did. When my very favourite band Over The Rhine came into his sphere of genius, I was stoked.  

When Over The Rhine were in Fitzroy a couple of years ago I got talking to Linford about Henry. Joe had been in Belfast in his joint venture with Billy Bragg around the same time.

In the conversation Linford shared how he thought that pretty much everything Joe Henry spoke was literature. He told me that Joe still uses pen and paper and stamp and envelope. He sends letters! He signs them all Love and Revelation, Joe. On their next record Over the Rhine had a song called Love and Revelation!

Which brings us to The Gospel According To Water. Wow. Here’s a dark horse sneaking up along the rails to get itself in the frame for Album of the Year. 

The aforementioned Burnett once shared the secret of the first Counting Crows record. He said that most bands arrive with a demo that needs made into a fully fledged record. With August and Everything After, he went on, I turned the record they brought me back into a demo. 

The Gospel According To Water has that demo sound. Hanging on a lone guttural guitar sound, for the most part, the playing is measured, intentional and beautiful in the raw state of it. 

Upon this, Henry throws that literature that Linford said of his conversation. These are poetic songs with enough words articulately rhymed and depth of meaning for us to swim in for years to come. 

They are tough songs, written in a spurt while Henry was living with stage 4 prostate cancer *. You can imagine that they are as raw in emotion as that guttural sound they move upon. Joe himself says of them:

“Though they have all grown out of darkness, I don’t believe any of these songs themselves to be “dark” in nature, nor about the circumstance that prompted their discovery. In them, I hear the re-accessing of my imagination and its greater invitation; hear deep gratitude, and a compassion toward self that I don’t always possess; an optimism I did not know I’d allowed to flourish.”

Linford did say “literature”.

So if you are up for some personal discovery, some re-accessing of your imagination, a listening for deep gratitude, a compassion towards your self and some optimism to flourish then look no further. This is honest. This is vulnerable. This is pastoral. This is Love and Revelation.

 

*Joe is in remission - prognosis is encouraging.

TOXICITY FILLS THE AIR

God, toxicity fills the air of my city

Sectarian vitriol

On social media

Banners

Gable walls

Hatred is spewed

Dehumanising

Those who do not live with us

Think like us

Vote like us

And God when we smear your indelible image in others

We do not only hurt others

We break the heart of you

Creator who made us all, very good

And revealed the preciousness of all

By sacrificing your son for the world

God forgive.

 

And God,

Before we point fingers

In self righteous arrogance

Send your Spirit to search us

To see the toxic vitriol 

And ungodly divisions

Within your Church

Between Churches

Blasphemous schism

God forgive our intolerance

The impoverishment of our love

The absence of relationship building

That Jesus’ Gospel models

God forgive us.

 

God, start with me

Interrogate my soul

My skewed intentions

Towards those who are not like me

Investigate the Northern Irish DNA in my soul

Thran

Holier than thou infallibility

Devil’s speed to judge, exclude and damn

God, if words could kill

I would need a licence

For the bombastic belligerent sentences 

That I swear out

Cutting

Breaking

Injuring

God forgive.

 

God, be faithful and just to forgive

And then purify from all unrighteousness

Give empathy and compassion

Wisdom to deny self 

Courage to carry cross

To love our enemies, 

Do good to those who hate us,

Bless those who curse us

Pray for those who ill treat us

As Jesus asked

God, this is rebirth

This is repentance

This is the grace of God

That dilutes the toxic

In our society

In our Church

In our souls

God open our hearts

To bring it on. 

SHALLOW IN A STAR IS BORN - A REFLECTION BY DANNY MOORE

This is the script of Danny Moore's commentary on Shallow from a Star Is Born at our Gospel According To... Female Pop Stars. He and his amazing wife Shannon then blew the roof of with a version of Shallow. 

 

Last year saw the release of the Oscar winning film, ’A Star is Born’. 

The story follows Ally, a waitress with an incredible talent who is desperately searching for her big break. 

Jackson Maine a famous musician stumbles across her raw talent one night after his concert and is convinced that she is a born star. 

And after getting to know each other for a while, he presents her with a once in a lifetime opportunity to perform in front of thousands of people. 

She is initially apprehensive about embarrassing herself and not convinced that this is the solution to her problems. 

But Jackson simply whispers in her ear, ‘All you gotta do is trust me. That’s all you gotta do’.

And at first she doesn't react. But in a rush of emotion Ally steps out in faith and trust, onto the stage singing a version of the song she wrote. And in that moment A star is born.

Lady Gaga who played Ally tells of how this song, ‘Shallow’ is a love song. A conversation between two people who are deeply in love. 

And with the lyrics of this song we quickly recognise the brokenness of these two people. We find questions being asked about happiness and emptiness, among a host of other things.

But it’s clear to see that Lady Gaga is telling us through these lyrics that brokenness is found in the shallow, our fears, our worries, our regrets and failures are found in the shallow waters.

And these two characters that are wrestling through these questions of life, they find their answers in the love and trust they have for each other, however temporary that may be. 

And if you have seen the movie you will know what I mean when I say that the love they share is so deep and genuine that it’s contagious. 

But what does that say to us? We have so many things in our lives that tell us that they can answer our own lives questions but very few can sustain. 

Our relationships, our wealth, our position all can be a major distraction and sometimes ultimately leave us broken. And when those questions of happiness or emptiness remain, what’s left?

So to use the lyrics of the song, tell me something boy, tell me something girl…Are you happy in this modern world, aren’t you tired trying to fill that void?

Or do you need more??

Because the Gospel reaches into the deepest, darkest questions of our lives and cripples them with love. 

The Love of a God, who has bled the same blood that runs in our veins, who has fought with the same thoughts in our minds that we think, who has fought the same daily fight of life as we do right now, and He cripples our darkness with love. 

And God sees us in shallow with all our brokenness and questions. 

And He calls us from the deep and says all you gotta do is trust me, that’s all you gotta do. In every circumstance, in every situation God says, all you gotta do is trust me, that’s all you gotta do. 

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO... FEMALE POP STARS - A Review

For ten years Fitzroy have performed and perfected a Gospel According To… format that has covered U2 (multiple times), Dylan, Springsteen, Cohen, Mitchell, Morrison and more. We have also dabbled in Les Miserables and The West End as well as rolling out Narnia, Lion King, Finding Nemo and Harry Potter for a family audience.

The music end has been a little old. For a long time I had dabbled in the idea of a younger pop night. My daughter Jasmine beat me to it. On a drive home from Ballycastle, in August, Jasmine worked through a playlist of songs that was a perfect template for such a night.

So, the young women of Fitzroy with a couple of male helpers took us on a journey into the heart of 2019 culture and sang about how the Gospel caresses and collides with it.

There were songs of identity crisis and the pressures on young girls particularly on eating, self harm, fashion and identity. 

Erin Humphrey and Erin Thompson, fresh from playing lead in the ir school musical Clueless, gave us Jessie J’s Price Tag with Jonny Fitch doing the rapping. The dilemma was laid down: -

“When the sale comes first,
And the truth comes second,
Just stop, for a minute and
Smile

Why is everybody so serious
Acting so damn mysterious
Got your shades on your eyes
And your heels so high
That you can't even have a good time”

 

Catherine Forde then sat down at the piano for a yearning emotional and incredibly mature performance of Alessia Cara’s Scars To Your Beautiful. It was faultlessly beautiful!

 

She don't see her perfect, she don't understand she's worth it

Or that beauty goes deeper than the surface

 

The vocals throughout the evening were stunning.

Talitha Bowman is only 14. A quirky vocal, strong with personality, she also has this ability to throw other perspectives. Tonight she makes Jessie J’s Who You Are her own, as fragile as the soul searching behind it. Only 14. Goodness! 

 

Don't lose who you are, in the blur of the stars

Seeing is deceiving, dreaming is believing,

It's okay not to be okay

Sometimes it's hard, to follow your heart

Tears don't mean you're losing, everybody's bruising,

Just be true to who you are

 

The Erins return for the first Lauren Daigle of the night. Daigle is a gift to teenage Christian girls. She’s a great writer, has a wonderful voice and brings spiritual depth to these issues of image and identity. I can hear this one being done on a Sunday morning…

 

You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing

You say I am strong when I think I am weak

And You say I am held when I am falling short

When I don't belong, oh You say that I am Yours

And I believe (I), oh I believe (I)

What You say of me (I)

Oh, I believe

 

As if this is not all special, we have a centre piece. One of our most talented voices belongs to Shannon Moore who married Fisherwick Youth Worker Danny in June. They had both shared with me their love of the movie A Star Is Born. I remember the moment when Jasmine and I came up with the idea that they would sing Shallow form that movie.

Danny led us in with a crafted piece, insightful in commentary and spiritually powerful. (read Danny's script here!) He compared the shallows and the deeper water that God calls us to. He placed significance in the movie when Maine whispered to Ally during her first big performance “All you gotta do is trust me. That’s all you gotta do”. Then these two newly weds sang a duet that blew the roof off, power, sensitivity, harmony. Goodness but these two are better as one!

 

I'm off the deep end, watch as I dive in

I'll never meet the ground

Crash through the surface, where they can't hurt us

We're far from the shallow now

 

We were now diving into the deep and Katy Perry’s By The Grace Of God started the journey home. Singer Erin Thompson as good as told the old guy to sit down as she shared how this song gets her up and out when she feels insecure and wants to curl up in bed:

 

I know I am enough

Possible to be loved

It was not about me

Now I have to rise above

Let the universe call the bluff

Yeah the truth will set you free

By the grace of God (there was no other way)

I picked myself back up (I knew I had to stay)

I put one foot in front of the other and I

Looked in the mirror and decided to stay

Wasn't gonna let love take me out

 

 

Another Lauren Daigle. Joel and Hannah Kane took this one on and after a nervous first verse they found their voice and took us powerfully into the heart of rescue that could be seen as a Psalm: -

 

There is no distance

That cannot be covered

Over and over

You're not defenceless

I'll be your shelter

I'll be your armour

I hear you whisper underneath your breath

I hear your SOS, your SOS

I will send out an army to find you

In the middle of the darkest night

It's true, I will rescue you

I will never stop marching to reach you

In the middle of the hardest fight

It's true, I will rescue you

 

We were now swimming and basking and finding our identity and image in the unconditional love of God. By an error in production Shannon and Danny were only told they were singing it that day. Though they didn’t feel they nailed it, no one else did. These two voices can carry anything. In this song Katy Perry releases all the fears and brings freedom in unconditional love.

 

Unconditional, unconditionally

I will love you unconditionally

There is no fear now

Let go and just be free

I will love you unconditionally

 

It was an archetypal Gospel According To… It collides with the insecurities of a young world and caresses it with unconditional grace. There was a little my press-jockeying had to add.

A RAINBOW OVER THE SKERRIES - REMEMBERING HEATHER BAXTER & A PRAYER FOR MARTIN AND THEIR GIRLS

Last night our friend Heather Baxter came into my mind. Heather has been ill for some time, battling cancer for even longer. For some reason I was acutely aware of her and deeply concerned. This morning I woke up and the first email to arrive was from Heather's husband Martin telling me that Heather had said her goodbyes and left us for the next life. 

The Stockies are heartbroken. Back in 2005 Martin and Heather were like our "dorm parents" when we did a sabbatical at Regent College, Vancouver. Oh they were so much younger but wiser to the Canadian ways and so caring of all of us. Caitlin and Jasmine were young and they loved the Baxters. Heather was a gem. Beautiful inside and out. She was a gentle light of Jesus. She helped give our family the best three months of our lives! We are ever grateful...

... and therefore, this morning, heartbroken. Heather is too young to have left Martin and her two young daughters. The fallen world can be horribly cruel. Even our wonderful hope of Heather "falling into the loving arms of our Lord and Saviour", as Martin described her passing, doesn't erase the sense of sadness for us and empty void for Martin and his girls.

I do my wrestling in rhyme. I had begun this poem a few weeks ago when I saw a rainbow over Harryville, where I grew up. I was reading Marie Monville's book One Light Still Shines at the time. It is about how faith saw her through, after her husband became the Amish School House Shooter in 2006. The title of her book and something one of her children said about God making the bad a little less bad gets a line too.

So, I finished it, or at least this draft of it, today fondly remembering Heather and thinking of Martin and the girls. This goes out as a tough prayer for you all. 

 

There’s a rainbow over The Skerries

Like a promise from long ago

Clouds of black and gray a-swirl

Like the sky just doesn’t know

The weather moves unpredictable

How dangerously the wind blows

There’s a rainbow over The Skerries

Like a promise from long ago

 

When the pillar of familiar

Gives way beneath your lean

You are paying the heart-robbed cost

Of everything that love means

Your heart’s been lacerated

By the exploding force of sad

Believe one light still shines

To make the bad a little less bad

 

There’s a rainbow over The Skerries

Like a whisper from on high

Comfort comfort my people

When you hear them cry

Bereft of the final goodnight kiss

The empty side of the bed sighs

There’s a rainbow over The Skerries

Like a whisper from on high.