SOUL SURMISE

A BIG DECISION? AN OPEN DOOR? CUT THE CORD!

“And sometimes I get nervous
When I see an open door
Close your eyes
Clear your heart
Cut the cord...”

-      From Human by The Killers

Ten years ago, this was the lyric that I carried all the way through the process of leaving a job I loved in Queen’s University Chaplaincy to go back into parish ministry at Fitzroy Presbyterian Church.

For me, the invitation to consider becoming the minister at Fitzroy was a huge honour and I had to think about it but I had never considered going back into Church life. Fitzroy’s potential excited me but I was nervous every time I caught sight of that open door.

Being a Presbyterian process, it took eight months between the initial phone call to think about it and to actually being installed as minister. Throughout that wait I sang over and over again this spiritual wisdom of Brandon Flowers.

I had to close my eyes and seek God in ways I had never done. Prayer, connecting with God, was vital. If I was going to take the risk that this would be for me and my family, I needed to find time to talk it over with God and to listen. I would need to be sure that the fit was right and that I was taking the next step in my following of Jesus.

Next up I had to clear my heart in readiness for a spiritual change, the way we cleared our house for the physical move. I needed to take all the selfish ideas of my own which might have been the selfishness for safety or the selfishness of being flattered that Fitzroy were interested and what a prestigious thing to be their minister. The heart needed cleared of me, to be given the holy space that might allow God to fill that heart with what was good.

In the end, after all was weighed up and without any doubt in my heart and mind that God was calling us to go... we had to cut the cord!

This last step is the trickiest of all. It takes courage. It means leaving where all is safe and comfortable and jumping with faith and trust into the new world that beckons. To move on means not looking back. It is done and I am thankful to these words as the soundtrack to the entire process. Like Paul in Philippians, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Perhaps you are in one of life's tricky spots. A big decision. An open door beckons but... I think The Killers are suggesting we take a deep breath, then gather up all of the courage we can muster and then... a step of faith... cut the cord!

KUMBUKUMBU NZURI ART EXHIBITION IN FITZROY - INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST KENNY WOODROW

Kumbukumbu nzuri is a new exhibition by Kenny Woodrow that we are thrilled to have in our Grace and Imagination Gallery in Fitzroy. Kumbukumbu nzuri is a collection of Kenny's East African paintings from Kenya and Tanzania. An English translation of the Swahili is ‘Beautiful/Good memories’. 

This is a stunningly vibrant and beautiful collection of work that draws you into East African life. These painting will captivate the eye as you walk past them and the second look that they will demand from you will have your brain engaged and your heart touched.

Take a journey into dress, customs and everyday working life of east Africa. I asked Kenny a few questions about himself, his art and Kumbukumbu nzuri. 

 

When did you first discover a love or gift for art?

My earliest memory of someone commenting on my artwork was in Primary school after I had completed a foiled paper mosaic picture of a colourful parrot. The picture brightened up the magnolia painted wall in the wee country primary school near Ballymena!

 

How did that develop?

Art was a subject I enjoyed in secondary school. I received encouragement in my efforts and I also had a Chinese friend who was a really talented fine art artist who showed me what could be achieved with a bit of effort. I was able to take his ‘constructive criticism’ of my work at a time when most said – Oh, that’s nice! In secondary school and later in grammar school I had the opportunity to use different materials but always preferred fine art (drawing, painting), rather than working in graphics, ceramics or sculpture. I studied education with Art as my main subject in Stranmillis and after graduating taught Art in a special school in SEELB. Secondary school, grammar school and Teacher training college were all part of my development, and I was ready for new creative challenges during these stages.

 

What about your own style. How did you find that?

I don’t think I’ve found one or settled on a style yet. Surely there has to be more to discover!!

I really enjoyed my time studying History of Art, looking at lots of different artists work, trying to figure out how they technically achieved the effect they did. Back in Northern Ireland I enjoy Arts TV programmes that describe the society artists were living in at the time, and the way their artistic style developed over their lifetime.

I also now have had exposure to African artists work. East Africa has a great art style called TINGA, TINGA, which portrays stylised safari animals and Africa landscapes. It’s great to see how resourceful artists are with the lack of artists materials available to them. Most people will see my work as realism.

My work as an illustrator with Wycliffe meant that I had to ensure that the pictures were very realistic is style. No figures were to be placed behind boulders and figures had to show all the limbs, otherwise the people they were intended for could be confused.

Illustrations in these early reading Literacy booklets were to be kept simple as adult readers were beginning to learn how to read a picture as well as learn how to read text. Outside of the restraints of my work assignment, I regularly came across people, situations, places that I visually thought would make great images to represent artistically. A camera is a great tool for helping capture these moments.  The only problem is, you never have  the camera about when the event is happening!

 

This exhibition is set in East Africa. How did you end up there?

This is a conversation that should take place over a coffee! The short answer is that I, along with Andrea, were supported as we began a ‘short term’ assignment with Wycliffe Bible Translators. I should say our 2 year assignment has extended to beyond 20 years of service now! We both left our teaching jobs in Northern Ireland and with continued prayer and financial support, served as support personnel for Wycliffe missionaries working with people groups in Kenya, Uganda and eventually in Tanzania.

As a couple we had been exploring options of Christian service with quite a few missionary organisations but it wasn’t until a Wycliffe missionary explained the need for ‘anyone good at drawing’ to help translation projects with producing literacy materials, that we believed this was a ministry we were gifted to serve with. Following a number of preparation years with Wycliffe, we began our overseas assignment with Wycliffe in Kenya and were seconded to assist Bible Translation and Literacy (BTL) projects.

These early years of service overseas still have a huge impact on our appreciation of what God is doing among many diverse ethnic groups in East Africa. Over the years we have come across men, women and children of faith, who despite many challenging personal circumstances are passionate about seeing God extend his kingdom during their season of ministry.

 

What caught your attention to do these particular pieces?

The pieces are from 2 different periods of our family living in East Africa. The Kenya paintings are images, which I suppose, have a real personal interest for me. When you come across people groups such as Rendille, Samburu, Borana, Turkana, Daasanach for the first time, you are immediately struck by their appearance which is so different from anything you’d see in Ahoghill!!

In my oil paintings of women, I wanted to show what they wear and how they adorn themselves while living in a remote location. No Boots Chemist to call into, or Claire’s for accessories! You really need to have an understanding of their culture to make any sense of why they appear as they do, and the roles that they play within their group.

The paintings that I have of women record anthropological details, as well as maybe being interesting to look at. One of my maasai woman paintings show how a mother uses a wrap to carry her baby. Another painting is of a group of Rendille women. Although the painting shows what they wear and the adornments they have around their neck and arms, one woman in the composition does not have her head shaven as she is showing to her community that she is pregnant.

The maasai men usually dress in a particular way with a brightly coloured blanket. Their standing posture reminds me of historical sculptured figures I had studied previously during History of Art revising, but I also wanted to show what else they usually have with them including their dagger, urungu, and stick. Again, the stick has a particular meaning among the men’s peer group and community.

The Tanzania and Zanzibar paintings are large oil paint versions of previous artwork I completed when living in Dar es Salaam.   

 

Did you do this art on the field? If not, what did you work off? memory? Photos?

Life in another culture for an extended period of time may not always go as you hope for or had planned! I did have opportunities to train local artists and get involved with Literacy projects, but a large proportion of my time has been ensuring scripture books and literacy books are ready to be sent to print. As a change from working with typeset documents and strange looking fonts that won’t print correctly, etc, I do look for ways to keep the creative juices flowing. I recently was bought a really good digital camera that has allowed me to capture scenes and moments that I wish I’d captured previously.

After living for more than 3 years in a country, you become more selective about what pictures you want to take, and what meaning the activity you captured is trying to show.

The second assignment for our family in East Africa was a request to work in Tanzania and as I thought of the variety of images I had taken of men, women and children I wanted a new way to try and paint them. I tend to let pictures percolate in my imagination for a while before I attempt them.

Trying to paint with oil paints in Tanzania wasn’t a great success and became a source of frustration. Working from photographs I had taken during my travels and holiday my first attempts were created on paper using oil pastel. 12 images were produced with the intention of returning to the images at some point when we would be living in a cooler climate where I could use oil paint.

I had to wait 2-3 years, when we returned to NI, before I could continue with my ambition to have the Tanzania images, painted on large canvases using oil paint. I bought a second hand wooden garden shed - via a well-known discount website - and built a studio in our back yard. It’s been great to have the room, the accessibility to art materials, and the time to enjoy painting and drawing again.

I always saw the Tanzania based oil paintings as a series that needed to be seen together, rather than paintings that were to be shown when they were individually completed. I’ve recently returned to realistic pencil drawing again as a skill which needs to be practised regularly and is something which I hope will develop my future work. Digital technology for artwork can create incredible images, but for me, there’s something more engaging/valuable in a work of art that someone has taken time and interest in producing and is able to share with others.

 

What do you hope people might gain from the exhibition?

My immediate reply to this is to scream… ‘THERE’S A BIGGER WORLD OUT THERE, NORTHERN IRELAND!!’

It’s been interesting and perhaps disappointing to discover there’s not much interest in Africa based artwork in Northern Ireland as I’ve talked with various gallery owners. I hope that friends who have regularly asked me how the artwork was going, will be able to see the paintings as a collection rather than as individual pieces. As well as having anthropological interest in the figures appearing in the paintings I hope that most of the work will be considered a colourful celebration of life lived out in East Africa.

 

KUMBUKUMBU NZURI will show in the Grace and Imagination Gallery, Fitzroy from November 30 - January 22 (open at Fitzroy events and when staff are in the building - use Rugby Road door)

 

 

THE QUESTION MARK IN LIFE ON MARS? - PAT DUIGNAN'S FUNERAL SERMON

Not even Janice, my wife, knows this but Pat Duignan helped in a spiritual awakening for me. In my early 40s I discovered, at the school gates, that I was socially incompetent. 

Since I was 17 I had spent almost all of my time with Church people. I studied Theology at Queen’s, in Union College. I went to the Christian Union. I was then placed in a Church and worked in Churches for the next two decades. It was a bubble, an ivory tower.

When Caitlin and Jasmine went to school I discovered people who were not living in my bubble. I felt insecure. What do I talk about? Pat was the one I was most drawn to. He seemed to have as many rock t-shirts as I did. I so wanted to talk to him about music. What would he think of me, a minister? Well, I guess in the end it seems to have gone quite well. Here I am! Thank you Pat.

Over the last fifteen years, every time we saw each other we talked music. Bowie, Arcade Fire. Bowie. The Waterboys. Bowie. Dylan. Bowie. Van Morrison. Bowie. 

I will always see Pat when I hear David Bowie. Goodness he is wearing a Ziggy Stardust t-shirt in his coffin today and I am gutted I didn’t think of wearing one over my clerical shirt.

Thinking of today I was immediately down to Bowie’s song Lazarus, released just days before Bowie died:

 

“Look up here, I'm in heaven

I've got scars that can't be seen

I've got drama, can't be stolen

Everybody knows me now

Look up here, man, I'm in danger

I've got nothing left to lose

I'm so high it makes my brain whirl

Dropped my cell phone down below

Ain't that just like me?

 

This way or no way

You know, I'll be free

Just like that bluebird

Now ain't that just like me?

Oh I'll be free

Just like that bluebird

Oh I'll be free

Ain't that just like me?”

 

Just like Pat.

Now, over these past few days I have had the joy of listening to a lot of music. Self indulging in Bowie and Arcade Fire and calling it work. I even bought a couple of Bowie books. I wonder can I claim them against tax!

I was drawn to Changes - “Time may change me/But I can't trace time”.  There was Lazarus that I just mentioned and features in the Bible. There was (You Will) Set This World On Fire that I will mention a little later. Of course, there is also Ashes To Ashes which I might have to avoid at the committal later. Yu don’t need to hear me say at the Crematorium:

 

“Ashes To Ashes Funk to funky

We know Major Tom’s a junkie”

 

Sorry. I am aware that I need the right amount of Pat’s irreverence and a little of what as a reverend I need to have. This is all about balance!

In the end I decided to build this address round the song Life On Mars? There was some debate about which song Pat wanted is coffin carried out to. Alex (daughter) thought it might be Space Oddity but Gloria (wife) was sure it was Life On Mars? She remembers him mentioning the question mark. That question mark was the detail that convinced me.

Who knew about the question mark other than Pat… me… and a few other anoraks! My feeling was that the question mark was important to Pat.

In his first book on Bowie’s songs, Rebel Rebel, Chris O’Leary writes: “In a few lines Bowie captures a teenagers life, its slights, its cosmic sense of injustice, its losing war against tedium, its restlessness, its uneasy cynicism.”

You can see why it caught Pat’s teenage soul. Oh! You Pretty Things with its exclamation mark is also about questioning:

 

"Written in pain, written in awe

By a puzzled man who questioned what are here for"

 

Surely Pat’s songs were his way into the questions? What is this life all about? Is there life after? What about God? Many of us enjoyed following in the slipstream of Pat’s energy… the energy of the question mark.

BUT the question mark doesn’t end here. The family will have many questions. How did this happen? How did he fall? Why was there no medical way to save him? 

My prayer is that all those sharp question marks in the family’s hearts and souls and minds will be comforted by God. Jesus called the Holy Spirit a Comforter and I hope Jesus is proven right. 

Of course we all have question marks. I have. I am asking if Pat heard the Bible verses I read to him in hospital? Did he find the peace that I prayed that he would have? A peace beyond understanding. A peace that the world cannot give.

All of us are on what I call sacred ground in these days. We are in this space between earth and the beyond. It is ground to reflect on good times. We laugh a lot on this sacred ground. We weep a lot. We question a lot. My Bible readings today from Isaiah 40 and Luke 9 had lots of question marks. Who is God? Who can compare to God? Who is Jesus? Do we gain the world and lose our souls?

The morning after Bowie died I had to do Pause For Thought on BBC Radio 2. Here is what I said:  

 

“Bowie will be remembered way beyond his innovative songs… as an actor, an artist in its widest sense, a pusher of the boundaries of fashion, a blurrer of the lines of sexuality… 

Perhaps some think that as a Reverend being a Bowie fan is a guilty pleasure… BUT we shouldn’t forget his spirituality either.

I remember the shock when he dropped to his knees during the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium and recited the Lord’s Prayer. 

He said afterwards, “In rock music, especially in the performance arena, there is no room for prayer, but I think that so many of the songs people write are prayers. A lot of my songs seem to be prayers for unity within myself. On a personal level, I have an undying belief in God’s existence. For me it is unquestionable.

On his 2013 record The Next Day Bowie took the words of St Catherine of Sienna and made them into a guitar strut of a Pause For Thought. The song (You Will) Set The World On Fire is taken from St Catherine’s words “Be who were you were meant to be and you will set the world on fire”.

In the lyrics of this song and the riffed up music he sets it to Bowie expressed perfectly Jesus intentions for all of us when he told his disciples he had come to give them life and life in all its fullness. 

As a rock star David Bowie lived a full life and if we lean and listen closely to the tributes and reminisces this week then we will hear him encourage us to do the same… like David Bowie “Be who were you were meant to be and you will set the world on fire…” … and as with Major Tom, “may God’s love be with you”

 

Here in Fitzroy we believe that God answers a few questions. We believe that God knows what we are made for. Not just as a human race but as individuals… 

We believe something in humanity broke down. Humans reached to be more… and became less. Jesus was born, died, resurrected and ascended to heal the brokenness. God came to earth to deal with the questions marks. 

So thank you Pat for leaving us to ponder Life On Mars and its question mark. Gloria, Alex and Christopher, may God comfort all your question marks. All of us, let us take these question marks about God and life, the the after life and who we were meant to be into the rest of our lives.

STORMZY TAKES GLASTONBURY TO CHURCH

Stormzy’s Glastonbury headliner has been the talk of the weekend and in places that do not usually talk about grime artists or rappers. 

Stormzy on Mainstage made history. He was the first black solo British artist to headline the Pyramid Stage. He took the opportunity. A Banksy designed Union Jack stab vest highlighted the crisis of knife crime in London and racism was challenged throughout. There was some controversy as he used an expletive towards Boris Johnston. Political and beautiful have been words used in the same sentence of reviews all weekend.

It was also personal. Stormzy was celebrating his own success. This was his story set in his communities with his issues for being a black man. Before that theme takes on a self obsessiveness Stormzy concluded by telling Glastonbury that he was going to take them to Church.

Watching on television my soul smirked at the idea of a vast majority white secular English crowd, that see God as a joke, being taken to Church. It is probably not what they thought they were doing when forked out £250 for a ticket.

My smirk turned to a smile and my soul lit up as Stormzy and a gang of Gospel singers started into Blinded By Your Grace a song that would fit into any Sunday Church Service. It is a song of testimony and on the Pyramid Stage it was Stormzy telling us all who he was most grateful to for this pinnacle of his success - God!

 

“Lord, I've been broken

Although I'm not worthy

You fixed me, now I'm blinded

By your grace

You came and saved me”

 

Preach it Stormzy! Then into the rap:

 

“This is God's plan, they can never stop this

Like wait right there, could you stop my verse?

You saved this kid and I'm not your first

It's not by blood and it's not by birth

But oh my God what a God I serve”

 

I’m no fan of Grime but this boy reaches across the genres and grabs my attention with the political, the personal, the spiritual. Oh Stormzy stormed Glasto! 

In the wake there was much debate. How could someone God saved, who claims to serve God be so seemingly keen on the F word?

I am no fan of the F word but the too sensitive obsessiveness of over pious Christians bemuses me. I saw one thread where someone was quoting James 3 about the restless evil and poison of the tongue with Stormzy.

God isn’t so much interested in the words. They are sounds from a human mouth. James is talking about something so much more dangerous! If we think cleaning up our swear words has tamed our tongue we are missing the point and the power of the tongue that James refers to.

God is more interested in what these sounds are saying. Are they building up or knocking down? Are they edifying or divisive? I imagine James had the 9th Commandment in his head. Bearing false witness against your neighbour. Now that is cursing and sadly too prevalent in Christian communities no matter how “clean” our language is! Let us not chew gnats and swallow camels over words and cursing. 

In Stormzy’s heart on that Glastonbury stage was justice for those who are growing up like he did and the personal journey that God has him on. We can critique the rhymes. We can disagree with some of his views. We can have our opinion on his use of the F word but let us not bear false witness… Let us not lose the wonder of Glasto going to Church! 

SONGS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD - FOR PETE SEEGER'`S 100 BIRTHDAY

Pete Seeger’s legacy was handed down to me through other people. That in itself is his legacy. Seeger was as much an interpreter of songs as he was a songwriter himself. One of his aims was to hand songs down so he probably would be prouder than annoyed that that is my relationship with his legend.

I would call myself a Seeger fan yet I don’t own one of his albums. My first real exposure to his work was when a tribute album Where Have All The Flowers Gone was released in 1997, soon to be followed by If I Had A Song and Seeds.  The versions by Jackson Browne, Ani Di Franco and Billy Braggconnected. Even better was Bruce Cockburn’s Turn, Turn, Turn and Bruce Springsteen’s We Shall Overcome.  

The Bruces indeed did exactly what I love, and what this blog is all about, and brought the social justice and art together under a Biblical umbrella. Turn, Turn, Turn maybe made even more famous than Seeger by The Byrds is a straight lift from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes and We Shall Overcome started out as a Baptist hymn.

Springsteen of course revisited the joy of recording this song and eventually released an entire album called The Seeger Sessions. This record, and the wonderful tour that followed, brought Seeger closer to my affections and also inspired my MTh thesis on music as a transformational power both spiritually and socially.

The Seeger songs that Springsteen chose, and again they were not ones Seeger wrote but ones he used for transformational reasons through the Civil Rights Movement of the early Sixties, gave me musical references to the theology of James Cone’s book The Spirituals and The Blues. That Springsteen used five Christian hymns/spirituals on this record, and made it up to seven when he toured the record, was good evidence to me that music could make an impact for the spiritual and the injection of the spiritual into justice issues.

As we celebrate Seeger's legacy on what would have been his 100th birthday I see him as more than a singer. He was an activist. He didn’t only love his art. He loved the human race. He chose not a road to commercial success but decided to take his art and use if for the good of humanity. He is remembered for more than the songs he sang, he is remembered for what those songs were about. He didn’t write We Shall Overcome but his use of that old hymn in the context of civil rights has led to it becoming, as Springsteen wrote in the programme notes of the Seeger Session Tour, one of the most used songs wherever there is injustice across the world.

In some ways we could see Seeger in one of Springsteen’s own songs. The Ghost of Tom Joad, so powerfully re-recorded on Springsteen’s new album High Hopes, could be a blend of Steinbeck’s fictional character Joad and the real life and vocational ambition of Pete Seeger: -

"Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."

Mr Seeger, for your influence we thank you. We really believe we will go on hearing you…

 

 

 

Pete Seeger’s legacy was handed down to me through other people. That in itself is his legacy. Seeger was as much an interpreter of songs as he was a songwriter himself. One of his aims was to hand songs down so he probably would be prouder than annoyed that that is my relationship with his legend.

I would call myself a Seeger fan yet I don’t own one of his albums. My first real exposure to his work was when a tribute album Where Have All The Flowers Gone was released in 1997, soon to be followed by If I Had A Song and Seeds.  The versions by Jackson Browne, Ani Di Franco and Billy Braggconnected. Even better was Bruce Cockburn’s Turn, Turn, Turn and Bruce Springsteen’s We Shall Overcome.  

The Bruces indeed did exactly what I love, and what this blog is all about, and brought the social justice and art together under a Biblical umbrella. Turn, Turn, Turn maybe made even more famous than Seeger by The Byrds is a straight lift from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes and We Shall Overcome started out as a Baptist hymn.

Springsteen of course revisited the joy of recording this song and eventually released an entire album called The Seeger Sessions. This record, and the wonderful tour that followed, brought Seeger closer to my affections and also inspired my MTh thesis on music as a transformational power both spiritually and socially.

The Seeger songs that Springsteen chose, and again they were not ones Seeger wrote but ones he used for transformational reasons through the Civil Rights Movement of the early Sixties, gave me musical references to the theology of James Cone’s book The Spirituals and The Blues. That Springsteen used five Christian hymns/spirituals on this record, and made it up to seven when he toured the record, was good evidence to me that music could make an impact for the spiritual and the injection of the spiritual into justice issues.

As we celebrate Seeger's legacy on what would have been his 100th birthday I see him as more than a singer. He was an activist. He didn’t only love his art. He loved the human race. He chose not a road to commercial success but decided to take his art and use if for the good of humanity. He is remembered for more than the songs he sang, he is remembered for what those songs were about. He didn’t write We Shall Overcome but his use of that old hymn in the context of civil rights has led to it becoming, as Springsteen wrote in the programme notes of the Seeger Session Tour, one of the most used songs wherever there is injustice across the world.

In some ways we could see Seeger in one of Springsteen’s own songs. The Ghost of Tom Joad, so powerfully re-recorded on Springsteen’s new album High Hopes, could be a blend of Steinbeck’s fictional character Joad and the real life and vocational ambition of Pete Seeger: -

"Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."

Mr Seeger, for your influence we thank you. We really believe we will go on hearing you…

 

 

 

MY PERSONAL TRIBUTE TO RICK ELIAS (died April 2, 2019)

Singer, Songwriter, Producer Rick Elias passed away on April 2, 2019. He had been battling cancer for some time. I had the privilege of spending a little time with Rick and this is a personal Tribute.

 

 

It made the late Rich Mullins weep the first time he heard Man Of No Reputation. It had been written by his friend and fellow Ragamuffin Rick Elias. 

Elias released a number of records in the Contemporary Christian Music market in the 90s but was not confined to that niche bubble. He was one of the main writers for the Tom Hanks movie That Thing You Do.

When Rich Mullins drew together his Ragamuffin Band for his album A Legacy, A Liturgy & a Ragamuffin Band, Rick was an obvious candidate. Rich’s Ragamuffin’s were the black sheep of CCM. They had edgy faith but they played great! 

A couple of albums later and Rich, perhaps even inspired by Man Of No Reputation, decided to record a whole album around the person of Jesus. He recorded an albums worth on a boom box before sadly being killed in a car wreck. Rick, along with fellow Ragamuffins Jimmy Abegg and Mark Robertson decided to finish what would become The Jesus Record.

I had booked Rick for Greenbelt in 1997 or 98 but I don't think it was at Greenbelt that we actually met. The Ragamuffin Band had come to London to record the strings for The Jesus Record in Abbey Road. While they were there Jimmy and Ben Pearson would film interviews with Sammy Horner and myself for a Tribute documentary about Rich Mullins called Homeless Man. What a thrill to be in Abbey Road! I remember walking down the steps with Rick into that huge studio that The Beatles used. 

I had Rick back in the UK and indeed in Ireland in April 2000 where Janice and I entertained The Ragamuffin Band to an Easter weekend in Ballycastle. They were playing gigs at Glenabbey Church in Newtownabbey and The Exodus in Portstewart,

Rick proved himself very much the city man with his lack of interest in the Giants Causeway and by getting up at 6.30am not for a beautiful walk on the beach, across the road from his hotel, but to walk up the main street to look in the windows of closed shops. 

In those gigs in Northern Ireland Elias’s songwriting and vocal skills were showcased. I was particularly drawn to God Grant Me Tears from Prayers Of A Ragamuffin:

 

Grant me the tears of a beggar
Til the fighter begins to sway
Punch drunk knocked down by grace
God grant me tears I pray.

 

As I pray for friends who will be grieving deeply Rick’s loss today I am still drawn to A Man Of No Reputation. For Rich to give the centre piece of his record to another water isn’t a surprise to me. He was a humble guy. He also had little choice. The song is as good a song about Jesus as anyone has ever written. It’s dark, brooding and radical. Theologically it touches on incarnation, grace and hope. It poetically works in the most poignant of ways. Ways that brought Rich Mullins to tears. 

 

He was a man of no reputation 

And by the wise, considered a fool 

When He spoke about faith and forgiveness 

In a time when the strongest arms ruled 

 

But this man of no reputation 

Loves us all with relentless affection 

And He loves all those poor in spirit, come as you are 

To the man of no reputation 

 

Thank you Rick Elias for all the music but particularly this song.

ARCADE FIRE & CHURCH

 

"I had a somewhat religious upbringing," he says. "Not strict, but it was there and I’m kind of thankful for that. If you grow up just watching MTV, that’s its own form of religion and it’s not even based on happiness or communal responsibility. I mean, try to construct a worldview out of that."

 It sounds, I say, both from his conversation and his recent songs, like he still misses that faith-based sense of community. "Yes. I guess I do," he says, after some thought. "I’m not practising, I don’t go to church, but what I got from it was a sense of belonging to something bigger. What I really miss is being forced to be in a community with people that aren’t the same as you. Then, you really have to work through the ways that you’re different. I think that’s important and it’s missing in youth culture. I guess some of the songs are a reaction against the tyranny of youth culture, where you only hang around with people who dress like you, think like you and listen to the same music as you. Even though we are seen as the quintessential indie band, I feel very far from that culture a lot of the time."

The above quotes are a fascinating article about Arcade Fire, in The Observer newspaper by Sean O’Hagan. What is it about the Mormonism that has brought faith back onto the artistic palette of good recent rock records; I am thinking of The Killers as well as Arcade Fire? Whatever, you don’t expect journalists to have a conversation with a British band and have them speak about Church communities!

Win Butler’s comments about the benefits of Church community comes in the light of the fact that the band’s album Suburbs is a critique of youth culture. As so many people, even believers, suggest that growing up in Church has been detrimental to their lives, Butler suggests the opposite. His phrase, “What I really miss is being forced to be in a community with people that aren’t the same as you”, is most prophetic. Perhaps the MTV world that has created the homogeneous and spoiled generation he critiques so strongly are so pampered that the give and take of real community is too much for them.

Even Churches have become little communities, with great vocal emphasis on community, that are just a group of refugees who couldn’t take the friction and self sacrifice of building real community so they withdrew into an easier option. It is easy to create community with those who all agree with your style of worship, theological opinion and song playlists. Easy and pretty much useless to any sense of spiritual growth.

The community that Jesus birthed and that we read about at the end of Acts 2 was a menagerie of quirks and freaks and ages and backgrounds. It was a sign of his transformational power that they could be held together. It was a part of their lifetime discipleship course that they should be forced to shape and hone each other in their differences and disagreements.

It is why I love being minister of Fitzroy. Our community is differences right across the pews. Different ages, different backgrounds, different spirituality journeys, different theologies and different opinions about everything. The rubbing together of ages, denominational backgrounds and theological opinions develops both belief and behaviour. If done in a grace centred respect it also prevents mono-theological arrogance and judgementalism. Holding tether such varied and vibrant community tests my own discipleship too!

Church communities where God's grace are is not needed seem pointless and indeed perhaps Godless. They are certainly no advert for God, just another club that could be about golf or yachts! Oh for many communities like the one Butler misses...and oh for mine to be like that one. 

I'M SORRY, JAPAN (INDONESIA) - A POEM BY EL GRUER

On days like these I often turn to this poem by El Gruer from her book The Paper Sky. 

El wrote it for Japan. Tonight it is for Indonesia.  We can become desensitised by the constant news stories. Let us remember those who are going through the toughest challenges a life can be thrown.

I’M SORRY, JAPAN

In our world, it was one of those days.

I had to study for an exam so I didn’t fail,

had a phone call with my Uncle dale,

and it was buy one get one free at the picture sale.

 

It was there that I heard, Japan, you hit 9 on the Richter scale.

So I stopped. I thought.

I’m sorry, Japan.

...

 

But by that time, the day was done

and the news was on.

From a comfortable distance,

I watched the day in your world.

 

I watched with eyes

desensitised to the perspective

of our Father’s eyes because

I was tuned out from your

blood    spilt   cries.

I sat calmly, as your

flood-damaged   souls   died.

I stopped. I really thought.

 

I am sorry, Japan, that your earthquake

failed to shake me

to my knees to cry out

Father, please, relieve.

 

I am sorry, Japan

that in my world, your world

wasn’t a part of our world, didn’t move

me to move things in the spiritual world.

...

 

I’m sorry, Japan,

that it wasn’t my plan

to pray for you today.

THE MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES... THE MOVIE PHILOMENA... AND FORGIVENESS

I found Philomena a spiritually stimulating movie. In another blog review ( read it here...) I looked at the evangelistic work of Philomena on Martin Sixsmith. In this blog I want to look at the end of the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie then I am heading in to a big spoiler so stop reading now… go and watch it… and then come back here after you have enjoyed. If you haven’t seen it and want to continue reading then having been warned a will give a little background. 

Philomena was an unmarried teenager, sent to an Irish Magdalene Laundry where Nuns looked after you in return for your working for a few years in their convent. It wasn’t pretty and many of the children were then sent off to be adopted. Fifty years after her son was born, and almost as many since she had seen him last, Philomena sets her heart on finding her son. Martin Sixsmith who has lost his journalist credibility in a political leak takes on the story. An unlikely partnership they set off on a trail that leads them to a shocking conclusion that the Nuns have lied to not only Philomena but her long lost son. By the time they discover this her son is dead and the hope of reconciliation gone. 

Sixsmith is outraged at this injustice and the behaviour of those who claim to represent a God that he already has trouble believing in. He bursts through the private doors of the Convent and begins an assault one of the old Nuns who he reckons is culpable. As he does so, Philomena appears on the scene, looks the Nun in the eye and tells her that she wants her to know that she forgives her. Sixsmith is even more exasperated and says to Philomena, “Just like that?” to which she answers, “No, not just like that,” expressing the cost of this brave act. When Sixsmith shares his anger Philomena looks at him with some pity and says, “that must be exhausting!”

It is one of the many many profound scenes in a movie that has lingered with me. Everybody needs forgiveness. We need to forgive those who have wronged us. We need to forgiveness for those we have wronged. we need to find ways to forgive ourselves when we flounder in our mistakes.

Of that idea of forgiveness to the social and political reconciliation in Belfast. Forgiveness needs spoken, and it is not lost on me that it is spoken to the Church in this instance, and there needs to be understanding that when it is falteringly uttered that the words come with a huge cost and deep pain. Yet, it is something that releases the anger and that pain. It is a freeing act. Philomena, not for the first time in this movie, reveals deep truth in the simplest of ways.

PAUL MCCARTNEY - JAMES CORDEN SEES JOY... STOCKI SEES HOPE...

If you haven't seen James Corden's Carpool Karaoke with Paul McCartney on his Late Late Show, you need to. You say that you are not a McCartney fan. I still hold that you need to see this. It is precious television. A brilliant spectacle and full of personal emotion for both McCartney and Corden.

The concept is fabulous. McCartney back in his old home in Liverpool, at the barbers in Penny Lane and pulling off a surprise pub gig too. The car karaoke scenes are hilarious, though they get emotional when they talk about Let It Be, McCartney remembering his mum and Corden his dad.

Corden makes a point about McCartney's music that is obvious and yet often overlooked. He describes the joy that McCartney eeks out of songs. Indeed, in todays times that sense of joy might be as important as the clever lyric that expresses our social critique and angst.

Corden reminded me of a blog I did on the, now 76 year old, ex Beatle for his birthday last year. Corden sees the sound of joy, I hear the words of hope! We all need a blend of those!

Paul McCartney is never seen as the most political or spiritual of The Beatles. He has certainly never written anything lyrical to challenge the political subversiveness of Imagine by Beatle John or the spiritual enthusiasm of My Sweet Lord by Beatle George.

However, a couple of years ago, as I lay on my early morning holiday bed listening to him on my iPod shuffle, I became aware of a theme that I had never recognised before in McCartney’s work; hope!

Now some might immediately jump to his song Hope Of Deliverance and say that it states the patently obvious. Maybe! However my songs that appeared spookily close together on that shuffle were Tug Of War from album of same title, Summer’s Day from McCartney II and Golden Earth Girl from Off the Ground.

All three songs speak of a deep hopefulness of what will happen beyond the difficult moments the singer is in; the entire culture in Tug Of War; the very personal in Summer’s Day; and the eco world in Golden Earth Girl.

Before this holiday eureka moment I had previously blogged about another McCartney song with an eschatological theme, The End Of The End from Memory Almost Full:

 

"On the day that I die I'd like bells to be rung
And songs that were sung to be hung out like blankets
That lovers have played on
And laid on while listening to songs that were sung

 

At the end of the end
It's the start of a journey
To a much better place
And a much better place
Would have to be special
No reason to cry
No need to be sad
At the end of the end"

Some of Macca’s most poetic lyrics indeed. McCartney does know about death losing parents, wife and two Beatles. What faith he is believing here is hard to understand though he does touch on Christian and eastern faith In his most spiritual work, the more classical, Ecce Cor Meum for which he mentions being shaped by a philosophy “the faith in a benevolent spirit.”

Finally, and most recently McCartney has added to his canon of hope 2014’s single Hope For The Future:

“Hope for the future

It's coming soon enough

How much can we achieve?

Hope for the future

It will belong to us

If we believe

If we believe”

Yet again, we might question what Macca is believing or putting his hope in. It would seem to me that McCartney confirmed in Hope For The Future my hunch that he is expressing a secular wishfulness of something better.

All of these songs might be McCartney-esque in their ambiguity of belief but I as a Christian can shake hands with the sentiments and actually, whether Macca knows it or not, the theology of them, vague and all as it might be!