I've been steadily building up a bank of urban images in hope of one day finding the time to create a visual backdrop to complement this stunning song written and performed by my friend Andy Smith. Finally I managed to find the time to fasten it all together in iMovie and this is the result. If you like it, share it!
First taste was in the dark
with the sound of crying echoing off the walls.
Your crying.
You have every right to cry.
You’re only 9 weeks old and the virus in your chest burns like hot coal.
Outline of sleep-deprived parent appears over the cot,
a fierce voice barks hot breath into your face.
Hands grab your little arms a bit too tightly.
There’s a heavy pause, followed by unrecognised words,
“Sorry… I’m sorry… It’s OK…”
Sin and repentance.
Simple and quick.
Sour and sweet.
It won’t always be so.
By the first sound of the school bell sin has struck more times that you can count.
This is the world that makes all Victim.
Worse.
This world turns all Offender.
Close fleshy lids and recall the times you’ve been scorched
by lies and scams,
by names called and rights revoked,
by property taken, identity mistaken,
your body used, trust abused.
Coerced and compromised.
Even if you resist its name you know sin’s forms
the way Adam knew Eve.
Now look about.
This talk of sin occurs on the salt plains where
there is no topography of differentiation.
Dirty fingerprints are on us all.
Beauty and beast find empathy in their scars.
But who invited this?
This life?
This world?
This injustice?
Tell me how an innocent bush-boy becomes a stoned-soldier;
how in a twist of fate the victim becomes the perpetrator.
His broken heart becomes cold and calloused.
And with every crime he tells our story.
For we are all enlisted, young.
Now our grown-up minds store toxic pools,
our tongues razors.
Cats claws have grown in our paws
and the truth sags through lack of exercise.
Actions provoked reactions and it happened.
Sin found a host, a home.
A soul to shame,
a name to blame.
Every now and again I find something on the internet that is jaw-droppingly cool. Yesterday I was having dumb fun generating geeky pictures of myself (not hard) at www.yearbookyourself.com. Today I was simply letting my eyes dance and my mind race as I flicked through the pages of Small Ritual. It basically combines two of my favourite things in the world: kick-ass graphic design and forward-thinking Christian faith. Bookmarks at the ready...
Tomorrow the Wilson's will be heading off to Spain for a fortnight - I can't wait, the last few weeks have been seriously hectic! Apart from lots of family time and sampling a few fine Rioja's I'm looking forward to spending a couple of days at the ContraCorriente youth festival which will be taking place just south of Madrid. I so wish I'd persevered at my last attempt to learn Spanish but after weeks of listening to podcasts before my last trip out there I fell to pieces within about 1 minute of trying to chat to a taxi driver taking me from the airport to my hotel. One day I'll crack it though - I hate being a stereotypical monoligual Brit abroad. Speaking through an interpreter should be fun though, I'm planning on keeping my talks very visual using props and stuff to get the points across. How my story of nearly getting struck by lighting on an Indian beach will translate I'm really not sure!
The day before the Euro 2008 cup final (which I really hope Spain get to and win) I'll be taking a group out onto the streets of the town to do a bit of face to face mission with the local youth. I'll be seeing how a little idea I've used here in Manchester travels across the cultural divide. One of the challenges in short term mission in getting over the superficial 'How ya doin' and into a more meaningful conversation. It struck me a few weeks ago that maybe a cool way to get chatting to people, especially young people into the alternative scene would be to offer to do them a tattoo, with body paint. So I came up with some tribal designs and a bunch of words in gothic text and took them out to an event. It went down a storm and it was such a buzz to see young people walking round proudly displaying on their bodies words like: LOVED... CHOSEN... ETERNAL... HOPE.... It's a bit like being a hairdresser or something, they just sit there and happily chat until the job's done. The whole thing has a totally prophetic dimension too, it's a declaration of God's truth right there as close as you can possibly get. Part of me wishes I had a proper needle kit so they wouldn't be able to wash it off later! Anyway, I've had a translation done into Spanish and we're going to give it a whirl. Who knows, maybe it'll work ;-)
I'm on a bit of a heavy train of thought at the moment. It may have been triggered by a TV programme I watched yesterday about the great Spanish artist Goya. In the latter years of his life, following his witnessing the atrocities of Napoleon's invasion, his work became very dark and grotesque. In particular I think I resonated with Goya's sense of hopelessness in the face of mans inhumanity to man!
The recent news story about the UN aid workers and peace keepers perpetrating child abuse has both incensed and depressed me in equal measure. I struggle to conceive how one human being can treat another in this way. How can a human hearts become so cold as to commit such acts? How can human minds become so depraved to offer no resistance of conscience? Perhaps this is what Jesus was getting at when he told the crowds that anyone who says ‘Raca’ to his brother should be brought before the highest court in the land. That little Aramaic phrase simulates a retching of the throat prior to spitting – it’s an expression of utter contempt. And I do worry that this is where the headlines start, with the variety of ways and means through which even kids are taught the language of hate. At this point I’m reminded of the writings of De Touqeville, particularly his reflections on the newly emerging American nation:
“The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest; his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he does not see them; he touches them, but he does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone.”
Because my job often takes me into the most deprived communities in the city I often see the seedlings of this kind of attitude. Some young people I meet will have a firmly rooted stance that everyone outside their inner circle is a nobody (and of course there are categories below nobody but you wouldn’t want to be in them). Sadly these young people are likely to be making their own headlines sooner or later, for all the wrong reasons.
And so, and yet, with all that as a backdrop, I absolutely love the gospel. The pure, joyous and just gospel of Jesus of Nazareth who gave his life so that a new community could be born. And I love being part of that community, the church, in which I can be held accountable for my attitudes and hopefully keep my own heart from freezing over. And I want that community to grow and grow, because I see little hope for the world if it doesn't.
I've spent the past couple of days in London. While I was there I got chance to take a look at the Cans Festival 'Exhibition' which is just a short walk from Waterloo Station. It's the kind of place you could easily spend a whole day, but I only had about half an hour to spare so it was the briefest of glances. As you walk through the tunnel the colour, wit and propaganda leaps out from every painted brick. Most of the pieces in the 'fat end' of the tunnel were pretty large works, painstakingly executed. But at the far end, just beyond the bend and back in the daylight, was a whole patchwork quilt of smaller stencils, hardly a single square inch of the concrete was visible. I reckon there must've been a few hundred artists who'd gone to town on it.
The notes accompanying this little movie on YouTube state "This poem isn't actually about religion. It is kind of irrelevant to the piece whether or not you believe in God or a God or anything like that. That's not the point......"
I disagree, it seems to be totally about religion, specifically the way that religion plays God, but blatantly isn't God.
I've been reflecting a bit on my trip a few weks ago to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and in particular on comments by Andy Goldsworthy that I came across in the gallery showing his work. He was referring to the relationship between himself and the art he creates. Apparently, depending on the outcome he has in mind there are three approaches he will take: 1) Work in which he as the artist needs to be physically present; 2) Work in which traces of his intervention as the artist are left behind; 3) Work in which he is exteremely careful to produce an effect that leaves the observer wondering if the art had simply created itself.
As someone who believes in God as the ultimate source of creativity I find these insights into the mind and motivation of an artist absolutely fascinating, I can't help but draw parallels with the divine designer.
The most listened to track on my iTunes player is White Shadows by Coldplay. Like many of Coldplay’s songs it seems to resonate with an effortless spirituality but until today I’ve been pretty vexed as to what the lyrics are all about. My moment of revelation into this musical mystery happened in the Bothy Gallery at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park which features work by Andy Goldsworthy. Several photographs were displayed with the title Frost Shadows. In his own words Goldsworthy describes how he stands still with his back to the sun early on chilly winter mornings. Slowly but surely the sun rises and its rays begin to melt away the frost from the grass - apart from in the areas obscured by his shadow. The result is, in the words of Chris Martin, white shadows that sparkle and glisten.
Going back to the spirituality of the song, I think that it can be found in its brave exploration of human transience. Rather like some of the Psalms or the book of Ecclesiastes it is centred beyond the self, it reaches towards eternity for perspective. I don’t know why it never made a full release on its own merit – it’s much to good for album fodder.
Yesterday I finally got round to visiting 'Another Place', the art installation by sculptor Antony Gormley just north of Liverpool docks. Crosby Beach is a rather grim place to be on a drizzly January morning but I was well prepared with many protective layers and I really tried to enter into the atmosphere of the place. For me, these cast iron men staring at the horizon reminded me of the loneliness of leadership.
Don't get me wrong, 'Another Place' is not a depressing place, not at all. In fact, the figures seem to evoke a spirit of resolve and even hope, but their isolation and vulnerability is inescapable. Yes, there are 100 of these iron men on the same beach but each one is so far removed from his neighbour that it is impossible to view the sculptures together as a whole, as a community.
The life God has called me to connects me with lots of church leaders, of all traditions and denominations, I'm on first name terms with at least a hundred and work quite closely with several dozen. It's quite apparent to me that the default setting for church leaders is 'fly solo'. Of course there are exceptions but on the whole spending time developing friendships with other leaders appears a fairly low priority. This state of affairs is actually quite strange considered in the context of the struggles which are par for the course in leadership. The tragic truth is that over the years I've known several who've decided to give up on church altogether. It was these leaders that I felt my heart going out to on Crosby Beach.
I often think about my own future as a leader and wonder if I'll eventually be swamped by the tide or slowly sink into the sand. It's a possibility that I think every leader should be realistic about, nobody can say "It'll never happen to me." And so I've made this my goal, to make myself know-able to other leaders and to try to build friendships that will last. In particular I've decided not to allow doctrinal differences to dictate my relationships. Above all, I must not fly solo.
