SOUL SURMISE

TOMORROW IN FITZROY - 18.11.18

Tomorrow morning (11am) I will be preaching an appropriate text in this week's Brexit apocalypse, looking at Mark 13's "little apocalypse". With the help of Charles Manson's commentary of The Beatles' White Album we will be asking about the fear and the shalom of the end of the world and looking at the end of one way of the world before Advent send in a whole new order. There will be updates about Saphara's work in India... we are delighted to welcome Semeda Steves, Head of Programmes India for Change Alliance...  a wee taster to...

... Tomorrow evening (7pm) when will be a celebrating Saphara's 10th Anniversary. 20 years ago this year Christine Burnett first went to India. Christine has done some amazing work in schools in India, using combinations of State and Catholic schools in N. Ireland. Education is at the heart of every Saphara policy and an integral part of our teams’ time in India. It is the key to empowering young people from disadvantaged communities to escape from poverty. This is a chance to look back, thank God for so many stories of real transformation and look ahead to whatever God might do through Christine in Saphara in the future.

STREET LIGHTS - HOMEWARD BOUND

Bono and Gary Lightbody singing Paul Simon together. What a lovely thought. Well, you can download it now! 

U2 might be just finishing a long tour and Snow Patrol might just be about to arrive in Ireland on a similarly lengthy jaunt but both lead singers have had enough time to send in their vocal lines for a charity single. Now I’m a lover of the charity single, Band Aid, Sun City and Perfect Day particularly but this one might be as tasteful as any.

This is an Irish-centric song put together by Aoife Woodlock who produces the renowned RTE TV series Other Voices. As she tells it Lightbody was first to commit and with all these things when a major player like him says yes then others will join in the slipstream

Street Lights is a collaborative bundle of artists that again tells the world that when it comes to music Ireland fight way above our weight. -  Conor O’Brien of Villagers, David Geraghty of Bell X1, Colm Mac Con Iomaire as well as Cathy Davey and Saint Sister and more appear here. 

The High Hopes Choir are on it too. Which is appropriate as the choir was the brain child of world-renowned conductor  David Brophy as a vehicle to help homeless people change their lives. The single is in aid of homeless charities - Peter McVerry Trust, Simon Community Ireland and Focus Ireland.

It is some of the best of Irish singers doing what they do best, using their art in transformation. It might also be the very best charity single of its kind. Paul Simon’s Homeward Bound is a songwriting classic and the theme fits perfectly. The Street Lights version is beautifully orchestrated and arranged in a way that makes it yearning and hopeful all at once.

Buy it on iTunes now. A song that’s not just good but good for something. 

UNDER THE SIMPLISTIC SECTARIAN SURFACE - OUR COMPLEXITIES

I met a man in a British Army uniform awhile back. As we shook hands shared names I was astounded. He had one of those Irish names that shouted Catholic. Knowing what we were both thinking, he laughed and carried on that his family were from the Republic of Ireland. it reminded me of the complexities.

I felt the complexities again tonight when soccer fans disrespected each other’s anthems in the friendly between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Northern Ireland team are a scattering of Protestants and Catholics, yet all being treated like the same. What if Liam Boyce scores! 

Brian O’Driscoll’s recent Shoulder to Shoulder documentary looked at those complexities in an Irish Rugby team that during our Troubles had Donal Lenihan, from Republican stock, sharing a room with Brian McCall from the British army! The complexities. 

Sadly, the complexities are hidden a long way from the simple sectarian surface that causes all of our division. This simplicity came out during the Titanic Commemorations in 2012. In the north it was a Protestant tragedy, ignored by most Catholics. In the Republic it was recognised that more Irish Catholics than Protestant were lost due to the final docking at Cobh. 

The Pope celebrating the Battle of the Boyne. The Presbyterians in the United Irishmen. The All Ireland Gaelic Football Cup is named after a Protestant. There are hundreds of Protestants learning Irish on the Loyalist Newtownards Road. Complexities.

I believe that if we could open up the complexities it might be an avenue for us to humanise one another and uncoil the spring of tension that our simplistic view of each other has been allowed to wind up. After centuries on the island we are more mongrel than the pure breed that many build their ideologies on. Recognises little bits of the other in ourselves might lead us to more empathy, understanding and respect. 

 

DEACON BLUE LIVE AT THE ULSTER HALL, BELFAST - 13.11.18

photo: Janice Gordon-Stockman

 

Backstage before the gig, I reminded Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh that they ended their last Deacon Blue tour in Belfast and here they were starting their 30th anniversary Tour in Belfast. Last time they were relaxed, tight as a drum, smooth as a ship called Dignity on a calm far away sea. Tonight their Dignity was ready for some waves. They had done their first dress rehearsal with lights in the afternoon. As I gave a final hug fifteen minutes before showtime I sensed some nerves.

Of course there was no need. As they set up that dinghy, time and time again over the next two hours, there was no sense of anybody drowning. Yes, there were one or two wee nods to each other and maybe a few tentative gropes for smooth song transitions but I was kind of chuffed to be part of the crowd to see the new show before everybody else. 

Deacon Blue have a set list dilemma. They have made four albums at their peak before taking a long break. Since then there have been four full albums and maybe another records worth of stuff on compilations. A band that were massive 30 years ago can often draw a crowd who are looking for the hits to rekindle some memories of youth. That can make it difficult for a band to continue to develop the craft and the body of work. For me, it is the bands, like Deacon Blue,  still working at developing the craft three decades on that have my attention. This is not a a nostalgia tour!

Deacon Blue deal with this dilemma so well. There is a large swathe of the set that the nostalgia seekers will enjoy. Loaded, Raintown, Swaying Arms and Wages Day are a stepping stones across the depths of the catalogue around them. Then for the way home Deacon Blue hit them with the hits. Real Gone Kid, Your Town, Chocolate Girl, Dignity and Fergus Sings The Blues fill the last thirty minutes.

And who am I kidding, I love those songs but Ricky Ross and this band are about more. The songs I missed tonight were from the last five years, Bethlehem Begins, Gone, Turn, This Is A Love Song and That’s What We Can Do. My highlights were Stars, I Will and I Won’t, The Believers and Birds. We even got Rae and Homesick. I did say depths! 

Throughout, I was struck tonight by the poetry. Now, I have always loved Ross’s turn of phrase but tonight I was taken deeper. Perhaps it was that early song For John Muir. Not many bands write songs about environmentalists from the nineteenth century! Or maybe it was the inclusion of Van Morrison’s Sweet Thing at the end of The Wildness.

Whatever, I was hearing the themes of the land and the heart. There was something Yeatsian in the air. I have spoken recently about how rock music has been mistakenly labeled low brow. Those with ears to hear the lyrics of Ricky Ross would see that had he been a contemporary of Muir he would have been a poet. Rock is the medium to spread the power of the word. Morrison is a poet too though jazz and the blues equally his grá!

After For John Muir, Ross invited the crowd into an adventure and that is what we got. “Over the sea, over the land and the city” we indeed travelled and everywhere looking for home. From Raintown, to A New House to Birds to Homesick to Dignity, there is a thread running through this show that seeks a place of belonging, a soundtrack for all the refugees within us - “a place in the winter for dignity”. As Deacon Blue have done from their very first single they are creating art that is about “HOME, FAITH, WORK”. 

As in Birds, thrillingly dedicated to Steve, Janice and Caitlin, someday we will all be free:

 

We're high above jail walls and windows

We're high above the waves of worry

We're floating on the wind

Cause nothing can begin

To make us want to land again.

 

Believers.

PRAISE THE LORD - PUTTING GOD IN GOD'S PLACE, PUTS US IN OURS

Based on Psalm 146

 

Praise the Lord

Even in the middle of war

Praise the Lord

When you are knocked off your feet by illness or grief

Praise the Lord.

 

The ancient Psalmist

Teaches us to Praise The Lord

That praise should be a discipline

When happiness is not all around

Praise is believing in spite of the evidence

Praise is resistance to evil

Praise is realigning us to the bigger, wider, alternative truth.

 

Praise reminds us that God is

Creator

Sustainer

Redeemer

That God will bring

Justice

Salvation

Shalom.

 

Praise is when we put God in God’s place as Creator

And find our place in God’s creation

Praise puts us back in sync

 

In sync are the poor in spirit,

    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

In sync are those who mourn,

    for they will be comforted.

In sync are the meek,

    for they will inherit the earth.

In sync are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

    for they will be filled.

In sync are the merciful,

    for they will be shown mercy.

In sync are the pure in heart,

    for they will see God.

In sync are the peacemakers,

    for they will be called children of God. 

In sync are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 

In sync with God’s place as Creator

And our place ion God’s creation.

 

In an episode of Tales Of The Unexpected

Someone said

“You know who you are with a gun in your hand. 

You are a somebody.”

At the Communion table

I say

“You know who you are with a piece of bread in your hand. 

You are a somebody.”

 

In a world of war or illness or grief

That might be a tale unexpected 

But when we praise God 

We believe

We resist

We put God in God’s place as Creator

And find our place in God’s creation

When God is Lord

Everything is different.