Pop is prayer - or more essays I will probably never write

As mentioned in the last post I had a brilliant day today learning more about prayer.  One of the very last questions that came up was about the 'modern world' and how the language of prayer which the early church was steeped in is a world away from our secular culture which has no prayer language.  I was impressed (as we always are when people say stuff we were thinking ourselves) when the speaker said that there is modern prayer language, it's just often not knowingly directed at God. She mentioned specifically the love song as the vehicle for God language.

This is such a fascinating area for study, conversation and exploration.  Just think about it for a bit - how many songs have you heard, loved, sung long to, songs of love fulfilled and love twarted - that say things like 'I would die without you' 'I am incomplete without you' 'there is a hole inside me because I am not with you' 'I would change everything I am for you'. Now, I'm not being funny, but on what date with a partner are these pearls dropped in? I say this because as the lecturer today suggested, much of this language is the kind of thing you would in reality run a mile if someone said to you. It is too big, it is too much, it is too far. Much of the love song language does not speak of healthy mutual loving relationships between two equals.  I don't underestimate the depth of human loving here, but I think if you're reading this you may already have a song in your head that you think "yes, that makes much more sense if you think about it as a cry to God."

I'd also take this into other areas of popular music - I could go on about this at great length but for now I just suggest you have a look at a this as a very simple example - it's a psalm isn't it???? Gleekerama.

Prayer for Today

Just been to a wonderful day seminar at the Mirfield Centre with Dr Paula Gooder. Below is one of the many things (including half a dozen sermons at least) I have come away from the day with - a creative and poetic translation of the Lord's Prayer from the Aramaic taken from by Neil Douglas-Klotz 'Prayers of the Cosmos'. It's one of several such translations - there are a couple of others here.

O Silent Sound,
whose shimmering music pulsated
at the heart of each and all,
Clear a space in us where thy melody
may be perceived in its purity.
Let the rhythm of thy counsel reverberate through our lives,
so that we move to the beat of justice, love and peace.
The, our whole being at one with thy song,
grant that the earth may be filled 
with the beauty of thy voice.
Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share
what each being needs to grow and flourish,
And give us courage to embrace our shadow with emptiness,
as we embrace others in their darkness.
But let us not be captive to uncertainty,
nor cling to fruitless pursuits.
For from thee springs forth
the rhythm, the melody, and the harmony,
which restores all to balance, again and again. Amen.

The Work of the People

As someone who ventures occasionally to call themselves a liturgist I have repeatedly used the term 'work of the people' in countless essays and conversations over the last few years.  This afternoon I led a funeral for a lovely family whose mum had died aged 52.  Funeral liturgy in the modern world is a minefield, balancing between being clear and intelligible and culturally apt and maintaining the theological meaning and integrity of the event.  On more than one occasion I have taken funerals which felt more like the work of the clergy and the spectating of the family and friends.  Some of that is my own fault, I'm still learning, but some of it has to do with a lack of confidence amongst the populace at large to express themselves in a faith context. I'm not going into that now - I just wanted to say this afternoon that I've just been part of a funeral that was the work of the people in every sense. Beautiful and dignified, but honest and modern in the church, then boots on and shovels out at the graveside with spontaneous stories, prayers and singing, before grave all filled we shared the final blessing.  I love it when real people teach me how liturgy works.

Fear and Loathing in ......

I am afraid.  As well as being afraid of a large group of people and what they might do when they descend on my home town next Saturday, I am also more than a bit ashamed of my own fear.

Next Saturday, July 9th, there is a planned 'demonstration' by the English Defense League in Halifax.  The EDL often feel the need to exercise their right to publicly protest about their racist beliefs, particularly in areas with highly multi-cultural populations.  They are coming here, apparently in their thousands, and the consensus of opinion seems to be that they're just looking for a fight.  I am upset that there is apparently a reasonable level of local support for this activity too.

My gut instinct is that such action should be met with peaceful protest, with the celebration of the friendships and strength which exists in the town.  However I am also logically convinced by the idea of managing such a protest as a 'non-event' - not drawing attention to it, not giving it the energy it needs to feed on, essentially making it not worth the bother with the crushing power of disinterest.  Some folks in the area are going with the former course of action - and there will be a meeting of celebration in the People's Park.  I hope many more than will go to the celebration will take the latter option.

I am glad the celebration is happening, but I am afraid to go. I fear the drunken violence which these people are looking for, I fear the reaction they hope to and may provoke in others.  I'm afraid to take a risk because I'm a mum and a wife and want me and mine to be safe.  I'm ashamed of this too.

I will offer my weakness to God and spend this week praying and asking everyone I meet to pray for Halifax on Saturday July 9th. Pray for those who are afraid, for those who want a fight, for the police force who will put themselves between one and the other, for the diverse faith and cultural communities of this town who have a great willingness to show love, hospitality and generosity in the way they live alongside one another.

Motivational Talk

.... by which I mean some of my very nice real world and tweet world friends telling me to make my blog more visible on t'interweb and, oh yeah, write some more stuff on it.  So that would be motivational in the gentle thump with boot sense.

I've been struggling recently to decide what to write here on the blog because I like to have clear, concise, well formed (if not always well informed) ideas that I feel make a bit of sense, before I write. However in the light of getting my first appointment (will be vicar of St Stephen's Lindley from September 21st), trying to get my oldest boy into a new school, trying to redecorate a vicarage, make wills, prepare for my first trip abroad in 9 years, plan a trip to Greenbelt and carrying on being a curate (why is there no Carry On Curate???) - I have relapsed into unfeasibly long sentences or long periods of silence!

@changingworship has had a point tho - I should be blogging about all this. I hope it will help me make sense of it all, and how despite all the above being good positive things for me and my family, I am currently wavering between grumpiness and ambivalence.

Brilliant BBC

Much blogging in church circles mentions frequently the poor reporting of the church, Christianity in general, and recently the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Some journalists have richly deserved the criticism which has come their way.  I thought Victoria Coren's blog hit the nail on the head about this - do have a look.

So having worked with the BBC in the last week on the live Pentecost broadcast and on Songs of Praise I just wanted to say very quickly - they have been an absolute joy to work with. Good people, working hard, with high standards.  I have always believed that the BBC is of immeasurable value, and the integrity and vision of the people who have come to the Minster have only strengthened this belief.

As with our Bishops, so with our media. If we want to tear a strip of them when they get it wrong, we have to remember to praise them when they get it right - otherwise we no longer have a relationship of mutual respect.

Huge respect from me today for all those who have been with us for the last week from the BBC - and go ++ Rowan.

Over simplification

After a week of reading blogs from angry people,  hurt people, disgusted people etc etc (with the possible exception of some balanced writing from The Church Mouse) following the revelations concerning Colin Slee and the selection of the Bishop of Southwark I just wanted to say a couple of things.

Firstly - just to make this clear - I do not support prejudice of any kind - and the lovely Very Rev Dr Jeffrey John should most certainly be a bishop by now. That withstanding....

We cannot pretend that the whole world is OK about gay just because nice middle class Brits have decided they are.  Many many people may rightly support equality and justice for all regardless of sexuality, but that does not change the fact that we live in a world where many many people cannot and do not accept this.  I believe that this gives context to the situation that the Church of England is in. We are not just an anachronistic institution doing something horrible in a lovely world where everyone else has moved on.  The internal struggles of our church truly reflect the struggles of our world with this issue, I believe. Ignoring this reality and simply berating our Archbishops for not living in a perfect Guardian reading "all right thinking people think like us" bubble is not fair and I'm not sure how it moves the debate in the right direction either.

People seem to have been devastated that in the meeting which is described by Colin Slee in the memo reported in The Guardian several people ended up in tears, that people were angry, frustrated, emotional.  As though our Archbishops, and Rowan in particular, should be behaving with detached professionalism?  I find this particularly worrying as a member of the clergy who is repeatedly told "but we're just human, you should let your vulnerability show." The proof of that pudding seems to be in the stringing up of our Archbishop for showing just such weak humanity.  Of course people were upset, so they should be.  These people were fighting with issues of conscience, issues which cut to the very heart of our faith in the nature of God and humanity, no doubt desperate to discern balance between short term evil and long term good - if in fact such a thing is possible.

I truly believe that our Archbishop is constantly seeking to discern God's truth while he balances precariously in an almost untenable position. I often feel too that those of us who see justice and equity as God's desire for all people regardless of gender, sexuality or any other categorisation might prove more successful in moving things in the right direction if we actually offered our Archbishop more support instead of waiting for him to mess up and giving him a good kick while he's down.

I live in hope of a much better day.