benedson

Music for Holy Week| Good Friday

Father Forgive them, they know not what they do.

Today you will be with me in paradise

Woman, behold your son...
Son, behold your mother.

My God, My God
Why have you forsaken me?

I thirst

It is Finished

Father, into you hands I commend my spirit

Music for Holy Week 5 | Bar-Abba

Barabbas or Bar-Abba? The choice that the crowd had to make, a choice between Bar-Abba (son of the Father - Jesus) or Barabbas (son of Abbas). The similarity between these two names could be understood in a few ways, is it a linguistic trick to highlight something about the character of Christ? Does it represent two forms of revolution - one violent, one peaceful? Is it that the crowd were essentially in this moment being offered two forms of revolution - the way of peace or the way of violence and they chose the way of violence. Little has changed in 2000 years. It takes courage to choose peace, and when people do choose peace it exposes the atrocity of violence. It exposes that in every human being there is the image of God and violence against a person is a violation of that image. Yet we - we are the crowd - still choose violence.

I think that for the crowd it is a moment of choice and it calls us to reflect on the choices that we make each day. If we were to choose which one would we go for? It takes courage to stand against the crowd and I think that I am being slightly idealistic when I say that I would stand against the crowd. I doubt that I have that kind of courage. I like to believe that I would, believe that I would have the courage to do so, but I know that I probably wouldn't. It's a betrayal, a betrayal that we still do when we chose to follow the negative way that may be chosen by the crowd. I think that's the challenge for Christians today, the crowd says one thing - we maybe called to say another. That crowd is manifest both inside and outside of the church and the call is to listen to the heart of God and to respond with integrity.

So to the song, I'm trying to resist moving into Good Friday mode...but I'm going to go for the late-great Johnny Cash singing Hurt - The cover of the NIN track. I'm picking this for a few reasons, I think that Cash sang the song after the death of his wife, it was a time where he felt lonely and was in reflective mood. Looking back on his life and the choices that he had made. It's somber but strangely spiritual as well, it draws you into the brokenness of the moment, the memories of a man looking back but there is somewhere within it the tinge of a better future...

Music for Holy Week 4 | Betrayal

Judas' betrayal happens in my reading today, John 13: 21-32.  I think that Judas has seen a revival in the past few years - he's the bad boy of Christianity and everyone likes a bad boy.  A character who is complex, a character who seems to get a rough eschatological deal and yet a character who betrays one of his best mates.  On a purely human level I think that we should move beyond the pop theology of glamourising a betrayer and recognise that if this was one of our friends we'd be hurt by a basic human betrayal.  On that level I don't like Judas.  

But Judas also raises questions of choice, freewill and strangely in the reading today 'being possessed'.   Were Judas' actions those of a free man or were they the actions of some possessed by the spirit of evil.  The text suggests that evil enters him, which raise questions regarding how much he did betray Jesus or whether he was a mouth piece.  His freewill gone as he became an empty vessel used by evil.  On that level I feel sorry for Judas.

But maybe the polarity of the two is unhelpful.  I make choices each day - some good some bad, some have a positive outcome, some do not.  I also know that if I make bad decision after bad decisions I can get myself in a pit.  A pit that there is no way out of - trapped by my own bad decisions I am no longer free, I have enslaved myself.  Maybe Judas has enslaved himself, maybe he has made so many bad choices and not had the courage to hold-up his hands and say 'help'.  Help, I'm drowning I need you to draw me out of my pit.  Maybe...

There are many songs that I could have picked today.  But I've gone for one by The Charlatans called 'Judas' (It's not about Tevez).  The Charlatans were the first band that I saw many moons ago at Exeter University and since then I'll had a soft spot for them, so why not...

Searching for the very souls whove already been sold
Go on your way accordingly my son
I will privately accept you and together we will fly away
To another land
In the cold, cold eyes of Judas
Please help me
In my hour of weakness
I will secretly accept you and together we will fly away to another land

 

Music for Holy Week 3: My Soul is Troubled

'My soul is troubled' is a line from John 12:27, it's perhaps one of the greatest understatements in human history.  I'm sure Jesus was troubled, in John's Gospel he seems to know what is going to happen and he is fearful.  Foreknowledge can be paralysing with the fear of the future preventing any action in the present. 

I fear that my soul is not troubled enough.  I look to the news and see troubling events, yet the constant flow means that it all sits on the surface.  I'm troubled, but then I move on to be troubled by the next tragic event.  My soul is not deeply troubled.  Perhaps this is the common human experience, we cannot cope with the multiplicity of troubles and so they barely scratch the surface.  When we see people truly troubled by events we can't cope with the raw emotion that a troubled soul brings.  Do I pray for a more trouble soul? Probably not.

Holy Week is a troubling week.  Globally today is a troubling day, innocent people are still being slaughtered just as an innocent man was slaughtered. Last night many were killed in Syria and Libya and no doubt many will continue to be killed.  With them there is no hope of physical resurrection, but the ideology must never be allowed to be killed - the ideology of freedom and the believe in a better world.  They shame our political apathy - we should be troubled at ourselves as well as their plight.

Okay, the music.  I've gone for Leonard Cohen's 'The Future'.  It's a great track and this is the live version from Jools Holland.  I'm sure that there are many different interpretations of it, but the reason that I have chosen it is because it is in part about the fear of the future.  We can look around us and be so trouble that we're paralysed in the present, or look back through rose tinted spectacles at the past dreaming of a past utopia. Or, our troubled souls can bring about change for a better future...

 

Music For Holy Week 2 | The Stench of Life

The reading that I'm reflecting on today in John 12:1-12.  Mary anoints Jesus with expensive perfume whilst in Bethany, Lazarus is at the table eating and Judas is horrified at the extravagance of the act.  I reflected a bit on this last year and so I want to explore a different focus this year.

I'm struck that Lazarus is a man who has been dead.  A man whom Jesus raised from the dead and so this is not an ordinary meal.  I wonder what they are discussing? are they asking Lazarus about those days that he was dead?  Is Jesus getting some 'death tips' off the only man alive qualified to give them?  Or is it a moment where they are simply celebrating life in all it's fulness, laughing at the joy of human company.  Or is Jesus aware that just around the corner is his death, can he smell it is the air?  Can Mary sense it and hence the anointing.  

This could be a sad text, one that is a preparation for death or it could be one where the stench of life, rather than death, surrounds it.  It's a text that looks both ways  - It has a dead man walking and a resurrected man eating - it's looks to life and looks to death.  It strange prequel for the emotions that are to come, yet within it somehow is an aroma, the aroma of the perfume bringing life to a situation that death could kill.

The song for tonight is by Spiritualized.  J. Spaceman, the lead singer, was in a coma for a number of days during which he medically died a number of times.  Prior to being in a coma he had written the album 'Songs From A & E' - I think my favourite album of the last two years.  The album is eerily prophetic of what is to come and one song that sums that up is the song Death Take a Fiddle.

 

Music for Holy Week| The Untriumphal, anti-climatic entry

I've been quiet on the blog front and so as I journey through Holy Week I thought that I'd offer seven reflections and seven pieces of music to accompany the week.

The triumphal entry is anything but triumphal.  I was reading a commentator who suggested that it was in fact a parody of previous Triumphal Entries - Triumphal entries into the city of Jerusalem that have been all hubris and then, whilst initially successful, were brutally crushed by the Roman military.  The people of Jerusalem would have seen this before - they'd have expected a messiah to enter on a horse and claim that the city was theirs - and so when jesus enters on a colt what do they think?  I think that they just laugh!  Laugh at this man mocking the previous triumphal entries, mocking those that have gone before him.  

But actually It's not really much of an entry anyway, it's a reckie, a brief nose at the city and then back to Bethany for the night (according to Mark's Gospel).  It's all a bit of an anti-climax.  Yet we celebrate it as we like the excitement, we like the celebrity of it all - Jesus Christ SuperStar on a Donkey.  Well I don't think that Jesus liked it - I think that he saw a crowd as fickle as ever, wanting a messiah, but willing to drop him at any moment.  Jesus was unimpressed and so he left and went to stay with his friends...friends who stood by him in the good times and the hard rather than the fickle crowd of celebrity.

And so a piece of music.  I'm picking a song by Pulp and is called 'Dogs are Everywhere'.  It was an early Album and also an acoustic on the B side of Common People.  I'm picking it as I think that its about the stench of celebrity, someone wanting to be along and yet where ever he goes there are dogs, dogs that try to drain the life blood out of him...

 

Spirit of Life: Shooting ourselves in the foot...

As many of you will have no doubt seen the Spirit of Life Festival, which I have been involved in organising, hit the press this week.  It got picked up in The Mail, The MEN and The Metro newspapers. People then jumped on the bandwagon, mainly conservative US commentators, and were quick to condemn the initiative because of a bit of misreporting in the newspapers, or as one blog puts it 'careless diocesan communication'.  It was then picked up by the Church Mouse and also in Church Times this week, both of which were more balanced and more supportive of the event.

I'm not surprised that there has been a bit of a back-lash but I am slightly concerned that through the whole process we maybe shooting ourselves in the foot.  Since the initial negative publicity there was a second press release that affirmed the Christian identity of the festival.  I think that it is important that the Christian identity of the festival is affirmed, but I also have a concern that by over emphasising the Christian identity of the festival we may well drive away the people that we are wanting to attract.

Let's be clear - this event is not aimed at Christians.  It's aimed at people who are interested in New Age Spirituality and this event seeks to engage with them through the riches of Christian Spirituality.  I think that the people that we're seeking to attract are not wanting to know this is a tradition christian event as many of them will have rejected traditional Christianity, but are wanting to explore spirituality and are surprised to find so riches within the Christian tradition.

Lent through the Lanes: Silent Pilgrimage hits Brighton

If you're in Brighton over the next few weeks then it's worth paying a visit to Lent through the Lanes.  It's the third Silent Pilgrimage type event to happen; the first was at Greenbelt last year then we ran one in Manchester and now Beyond are doing one in Brighton.  They describe it as:

An audio meditation around central Brighton with visual accompaniment. You can collect a headset from Brighthelm reception and a guide map around the Lanes and as you walk your headset will play you location specific meditations on Lent and Easter themes.

If you're interested in running one of these events in your area then please drop me an email and we can have a conversation about how this can be arranged.  The next one that is due to happen will be taking place on Oxford Road, in Manchester during MMU's Mind, Body, Spirit Week.

Brian Cox- The Poetry of the Universe

Last night I watched and listened with wonder at Brian Cox exploring the creation of the universe in his evocative series the wonders of the universe.  I then caught 10 minutes of an interview with him this morning on the radio, during the interview the interviewer mentioned that the BBC were going to turn the music down on the programme as they'd received complaints that it was too loud.  Cox disagreed wanting the music louder and explaining this by saying that it was not a lecture but a presentation where the music helped to evoke an emotional reaction to that which was being presented.  He commented on how much thought was put into the presentation of the show - which locations were selected and camera shots chosen to inspire and draw people into physics.  It truly is a beautiful piece of television where music and images sit well together with Cox's descriptions bringing about awe at what is out there.

It got me thinking about how we communicate.  Cox has taken physics, which whilst I'm sure is v.v. interesting, and made is popular and accessible.  The music does this, as does the filming, but what I also think is intriguing is that what is often perceived to be rather dull is being sexed up through the use of music and imagery to bring about an emotion response. As I watch the show many of the facts wash over me as I'm caught in the beauty of the universe and how the music stirs me to respond.  I'm left wondering which I value most my emotional response or my factual understanding...

Spiritual Power List: Top 100

Fascinating article here on the World's 100 most spiritually powerful people.  They define spiritual power as the spiritually most influential living people, and interestingly there are no Christians in the top 10.  Nelson Mandela is there at no 19 and the Pope at no 34.  I think that it's an interesting example of the much trumpeted separation of religion and spirituality, however it is also interesting to recognise that there is a significant amount of power in this context.  

I also find it interesting that 76% of the list in male.  Much of my thinking and reading around contemporary spirituality has note the rise of feminist spirituality within this realm and yet her 76% of the leading figures are male with the average age of them being 67.  I wonder how this compares with a list if 100 most influential Christians on the planet?  My suspicion would be that there is a higher male percentage in Christianity but I am still rather surprised at the lack of balance in this list.