maggi dawn

Beth Rowley

I downloaded Beth Rowley's Violets EP onto my iPod the other day. What a fab voice. Go listen!

Duffy

No, it's not a typo. I know about Buffy. But I heard this young blues singer on Woman's hour (yes really! I'll do a post about Woman's Hour, and the wonderful Jenny, sometime soon) the other week, and just came across these YouTube downloads of her stuff on DennisWine (also famous for "outing" the Bishop of Horsham...)

Duffy has a great voice, needs polish and training, hope she doesn't damage it before she gives her absolute best. She's great already, could be fantastic in years to come. Go listen.

Pentecost Worship: don't despise your body

Come and join us for worship. I'm presenting the Daily Service tomorrow (Tuesday 29th May).  9.45 a.m. on Radio 4 LW.

We're in the week of Pentecost, and our theme is on the experience of life with the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow's service is about flesh and spirit. The reading (which I didn't choose!) comes from Romans. I never preach/speak on Romans unless the lectionary dictates. It's complicated and not something I naturally gravitate to. But it's one of the things I like about the discipline of lectionaries and thematic plans that you are forced to engage with parts of the Bible, and the Faith, that you might otherwise leave on the back burner...

To "listen again" on the website go here after the service is over and scroll through the page to find the link to Tuesday's service:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/dailyservice/index.shtml

Pierced for our transgressions

It's been pointed out to me several times that the name of a new book on one particular theory of atonement has the same name as one of my songs. I gather the book is a response to some of the arguments that have been going on lately since the Chalke-gate thing happened a  couple of years back. I haven't read this latest book yet; I am almost finished with A.K.M. Adam's rather wonderful Faithful Interpretation (good enough that I am actually reading all of it, carefully, not just giving it a speed-read review) and on the other side of the desk I am also reading Alan Jacobs' absolutely splendid tome, A theology of reading. I hope to blog-review these in more detail ere long, but already I would urge anyone interested in how we go about the interpretation of the Bible to get both of them.

But back to He was pierced...  here are some random lunchtime thoughts on atonement theory and disagreements about doctrine.

Any thorough-going atonement theory (i.e. a theory of how the death of christ "works" to put right a broken relationship between God and humanity) is going to include some close attention to sacrifice and judgement - God's forgiveness is certainly full and free, but it isn't cheap and fluffy, and neither is it blind to the serious ills of the world. All the same, no thorough-going theology should (even unintentionally) present God as mean, judgemental and narrow-minded. I rather suspect that is really what Steve Chalke was trying to get at in his book, even though he left himself open to misunderstanding.

John MacIntyre reckons there are at least 27 different theories. I find something of value in all of them, and I don't think that any of them, in isolation, nor even all of them put toegether, are sufficient to give a full understanding of the consequences of the death of Jesus Christ. There's a lot to be said for holding different theories together - they aren't mutually exclusive, but can balance each other out and offer a richer understanding held together than by choosing one as pre-eminent over all the rest. A thoroughgoing theory of atonement needs to be multi-faceted. It needs to include an understanding of the rightful anger of God against violence, hatred, injustice, the abuse of power - in fact against all that mitigates against love. That's what sin means. An atonement theory also needs to include the idea that the cross is an inspiration and example to us to lay down our lives for our friends. (I'm quoting John quoting Jesus there, I didn't make that up). And further, it also needs a more universal view, something that reflects the idea that atonement is not limited to the sins of an individual, but that the world and everything in it is released not only from human sin, but from the grip of evil and the tendency for things to degenetrate into violence and destruction.  An associated idea that should always be noted, I think, is the warning that anyone (Jesus being the first among equals in this regard) who devotes their life to justice and peace and love is likely to end up paying dearly for it. Finally, any discussion of the atonement needs to aknowledge an element of mystery - because however much sense-making our theology does of the atonement, there's always an added sense that we don't totally know "how it works", although that needn't stop us knowing it does work.

I find it really sad that something as fascinating, as poignant, as ijmportant and life-changing as the atonement is becoming a peg on which to hang arguments between different factions of the Church.  I can't decide whether this spoof of the Old Rugged Cross - Old Argued Cross - is funny or sad. How particularly ironic that it was just as Easter unfolded this year that the latest argument erupted over theories of the atonement. Surely we are not supposed to be fighting about whose theory of the atonement is "the right one". Isn't the point precisely that we are not right; that we don't understand; that all our musings about God are incomplete? That only God can see everything; only God can make things right? Of course it seems unbelievable that God could be quite as generous as some dare to believe; there is this human instinct that comes variously from fear, meanness, or a form of tribal exclusivism, that wants to insist that only if we sign the "right" doctrinal statement or buy into the "right" interpretation, will God's grace work and people be allowed to belong to the Christian Club. I am so tired of liberals slagging off Evangelicals for being narrow; of evangelicals dismissing liberals for being woolly. It's so pointless. I hear the words of the Epistles of John echoing in my head - written, it would appear, by an elderly man who sums up the wisdom of his years by saying, "Children, you know the only thing that really matters in the end? - that you love one another. "

The longer I live, the more I believe that the beauty of the atonement is not that it only works if you believe it in the right way, it's that it works even if you don't understand it at all. I'm not going soft on doctrine - I love doctrine with a passion, and I spend a good slice of my life teaching it - but even I have to admit that we aren't saved by doctrine, and that God can be visibly and awesomely at work in the lives of people whose doctrine is well wide of the mark.  The grace and generosity of God is, I'll grant you, completely outrageous. He seems to insist on including people in the Kingdom of God who are not like me at all. Where does it come from, this need to have doctrinal proof of someone else's salvation? I have to wonder whether that isn't precisely the kind of thing that Jesus died to save us from.

It's been pointed out to me several times that the name of a new book on one particular theory of atonement has the same name as one of my songs. I gather the book is a response to some of the arguments that have been going on lately since the Chalke-gate thing happened a  couple of years back. I haven't read this latest book yet; I am almost finished with A.K.M. Adam's rather wonderful Faithful Interpretation (good enough that I am actually reading all of it, carefully, not just giving it a speed-read review) and on the other side of the desk I am also reading Alan Jacobs' absolutely splendid tome, A theology of reading. I hope to blog-review these in more detail ere long, but already I would urge anyone interested in how we go about the interpretation of the Bible to get both of them.

But back to He was pierced...  here are some random lunchtime thoughts on atonement theory and disagreements about doctrine.

Any thorough-going atonement theory (i.e. a theory of how the death of christ "works" to put right a broken relationship between God and humanity) is going to include some close attention to sacrifice and judgement - God's forgiveness is certainly full and free, but it isn't cheap and fluffy, and neither is it blind to the serious ills of the world. All the same, no thorough-going theology should (even unintentionally) present God as mean, judgemental and narrow-minded. I rather suspect that is really what Steve Chalke was trying to get at in his book, even though he left himself open to misunderstanding.

John MacIntyre reckons there are at least 27 different theories. I find something of value in all of them, and I don't think that any of them, in isolation, nor even all of them put toegether, are sufficient to give a full understanding of the consequences of the death of Jesus Christ. There's a lot to be said for holding different theories together - they aren't mutually exclusive, but can balance each other out and offer a richer understanding held together than by choosing one as pre-eminent over all the rest. A thoroughgoing theory of atonement needs to be multi-faceted. It needs to include an understanding of the rightful anger of God against violence, hatred, injustice, the abuse of power - in fact against all that mitigates against love. That's what sin means. An atonement theory also needs to include the idea that the cross is an inspiration and example to us to lay down our lives for our friends. (I'm quoting John quoting Jesus there, I didn't make that up). And further, it also needs a more universal view, something that reflects the idea that atonement is not limited to the sins of an individual, but that the world and everything in it is released not only from human sin, but from the grip of evil and the tendency for things to degenetrate into violence and destruction.  An associated idea that should always be noted, I think, is the warning that anyone (Jesus being the first among equals in this regard) who devotes their life to justice and peace and love is likely to end up paying dearly for it. Finally, any discussion of the atonement needs to aknowledge an element of mystery - because however much sense-making our theology does of the atonement, there's always an added sense that we don't totally know "how it works", although that needn't stop us knowing it does work.

I find it really sad that something as fascinating, as poignant, as ijmportant and life-changing as the atonement is becoming a peg on which to hang arguments between different factions of the Church.  I can't decide whether this spoof of the Old Rugged Cross - Old Argued Cross - is funny or sad. How particularly ironic that it was just as Easter unfolded this year that the latest argument erupted over theories of the atonement. Surely we are not supposed to be fighting about whose theory of the atonement is "the right one". Isn't the point precisely that we are not right; that we don't understand; that all our musings about God are incomplete? That only God can see everything; only God can make things right? Of course it seems unbelievable that God could be quite as generous as some dare to believe; there is this human instinct that comes variously from fear, meanness, or a form of tribal exclusivism, that wants to insist that only if we sign the "right" doctrinal statement or buy into the "right" interpretation, will God's grace work and people be allowed to belong to the Christian Club. I am so tired of liberals slagging off Evangelicals for being narrow; of evangelicals dismissing liberals for being woolly. It's so pointless. I hear the words of the Epistles of John echoing in my head - written, it would appear, by an elderly man who sums up the wisdom of his years by saying, "Children, you know the only thing that really matters in the end? - that you love one another. "

The longer I live, the more I believe that the beauty of the atonement is not that it only works if you believe it in the right way, it's that it works even if you don't understand it at all. I'm not going soft on doctrine - I love doctrine with a passion, and I spend a good slice of my life teaching it - but even I have to admit that we aren't saved by doctrine, and that God can be visibly and awesomely at work in the lives of people whose doctrine is well wide of the mark.  The grace and generosity of God is, I'll grant you, completely outrageous. He seems to insist on including people in the Kingdom of God who are not like me at all. Where does it come from, this need to have doctrinal proof of someone else's salvation? I have to wonder whether that isn't precisely the kind of thing that Jesus died to save us from.

pierced for our transgressions

This post has been re-published here due to technical problems

Aled Jones and Francis Drake

I had the great pleasure this morning of talking to Aled Jones on the Radio. I'm happy to find that he is as charming in real life as he seems in the public eye. We chatted about this and that, and then I got to say a few words about faith. This is (approximately) what I said:

We need certain things to survive - food, shelter, warmth. But we need something more than this to flourish as human beings - we need a dream, a sense of purpose. Of course, our dreams need to shift as we get closer to them - if your dream has already come true, it's time to get a new one!

I think that this is mostly what we mean when we speak of God. To catch a glimpse of God is to know that there is something bigger than ourselves - something, or someone, beyond the horizon.

Sir Francis Drake, the first person to circumnavigate the globe, once prayed for bigger dreams. This is part of his prayer:

Disturb us, Lord,
when we are too well pleased with ourselves;
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little;
When we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly -
to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery;
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

gig

Beat the Blues

I'm singing at the Red Bull, Barton Road, on Tuesday night (1st May) from 8.30, in company with Ali, Mike and Mark, Malcolm and the Mystery Train. All the usual crew. Come along and join us. New guitar, new songs!

Gig

My next gig in Cambridge, in the company of Malcolm Guite and Mystery Train:

Thursday March, 15 2007 at The Red Bull
Barton Rd, Cambridge, CB3 9JZ
Cost : free

Acoustic roots music  from 8.30 pm

Come along and say hello

My album of the week

I've been listening to this every spare minute. In the car. Cooking the dinner. Lovely lovely trad English folk, kind of in the Kate Rusby mould, from a Canadian man who sounds suspiciously like he's really English... (Tim? come on where's that accent really from?). It's my album of the week.

My son, however, is stil in that blissful stage of life where there is nothing as measured as an "album of the week". He came in tonight in the middle of "Mr Froggy went a-courting", starting singing and dancing along, and said, "Mum, I love this music! It's my favourite music in the whole universe, ever!"

So there you have it. Album of the week, or best in the universe ever (at least until next week!!) but if you can convert your currency into Canadian dollars, you too could be listening to Tim's lovely mellow voice, and supporting a charitable cause while you do so.

new baby

yay! 

obviously

no

time

to

blog...

Fauré Requiem

One of the things we do at Robinson, regularly but not often, is to take a classic piece of choral music that's usually heard as a concert piece, and "perform" it as a liturgy. I think we may have been unique in constructing a liturgy around the wonderful Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms. We did Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man about 3 years ago as a Eucharist for Remembrance. Not so unusual, but still a different experience from a concert, was to do Mozart's Requiem last year as a liturgy. This weekend, for Remembrance Day, we are doing the same with Fauré's Requiem. We aren't a professional choir - it's a choir of volunteers, run by two of our students. And 68% of our Choir is new this term, so they've only been singing together for 5 weeks. It's a brave move, but it was sounding nice in rehearsal, and we are looking forward to it.

Fauré said some stuff about his Requiem that may well chime with Emerging Church afficionados - he wanted to do something that was a funeral but not as we know it, church but not as we know it. His own faith and belief were an interesting mix of orthodoxy and complete maverick individualism. But then he was an artist, so that's pretty unsurprising. Creatives are often feared in the Church because they want to reshape things. Odd, perhaps, that displaying creativity - that most God-like of qualities - often sidelines artists within Church circles.  Anyway, here's what Fauré said about his Requiem:

"It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience. The music of Gounod has been criticized for its overinclination towards human tenderness. But his nature predisposed him to feel this way: religious emotion took this form inside him. Is it not necessary to accept the artist's nature? As to my Requiem, perhaps I have also instinctively sought to escape from what is thought right and proper, after all the years of accompanying burial services on the organ! I know it all by heart. I wanted to write something different."

If you want to join us for our Choral Requiem for Remembrance, it's at Robinson College Chapel, Grange Road, Sunday 12th November. 6pm.

God's iPod 8 - Joni Mitchell

I said earlier in this set of posts that music can be almost like a sacrament. And there's a strong theme of sacrament on one album that I consider a classic - Blue, by Joni Mitchell. I've written about Blue before, about its theme of longing and travelling, about the way that songs (like tatooes) get under your skin, about how every song is about being in one place and wanting to be somewhere esle.

The theme of sacrament is present, in its broadest sense, meaning that physical things are both representative of, and at the same time part of, some deeper meaning that they convey. Late in the album, Joni sings "a Case of You", which is, like many of her songs, lyrically extraordianry, capturing in a few neat phrases some truth about life that everyone recognises. The idea of symbol and sacrament are hinted at in the way she begins weaving together everyday and throwaway things, and places, and people, and the investment of the heart, captured in lines like this:  "On the back of a cartoon coaster, in the blue TV screen light,  I drew a map of Canada, with your face sketched on it twice".  (Blue - count the times it appears incidentally in the album of the same name.) But she then deliberately emplys the idea of sacrament to describe human love - "you are in my blood like holy wine, you taste so bitter, but so sweet, oh I could drink a case of you, and I would still be on my feet."  I like this, not just because it's clever, but because it is profoudly true that we discover and experience the love of God more powerfully through the love of fellow human beings than through any doctrine or spiritual exercise. There is something sacramental about the way human love refuses to be divided up into physical and spiritual, about eating together, about a friend who will cry or laugh with you, or just be there when words run out, or about someone who will hold you - body and soul - in complete acceptance. I can already hear the commenters beginning to type about how this idea is open to abuse - and yes, it is. But in a sense it is  precisely the fragility of the medium that makes it work as a sacrament. Bread has a tendency to fall into crumbs too, and wine is undoubtedly a double-edged sword. Love, like bread and wine, is not completely dependable, not the same from day to day, and sometimes falls to crumbs instead of giving nourishment. But when it does work, it connects you to the Holy like nothing else.

God's iPod - what I left out

One of the interesting things about thinking my way all through my music collection before Greenbelt was noticing things about the collection that I'd never seen before. I was acutely aware of gaps on the shelves where things have been lost or broken and not replaced. I even went and bought a couple of replacement CD's to compensate. I noticed themes that crossed over between albums by the same artist, or by albums from different artists in the same era. I noticed that there is very little on my shelves that you would call "Christian" music,  and a friend pointed out that a disproportionate amount of my collection is by Canadian artists - although given the strong association of Canada with the singer-songwriter (that's how I used to earn my living before I was a priest), perhaps that isn't so surprising. 

If I was really organising God's iPod for him, I wouldn't allow him to miss out on Daniel Lanois (his own stuff, rather than what he's produced for others, good though that is), or Jeff Buckley, or Bach's Cello Suites, or the complete works of Bruce Cockburn (and a couple of gigs to go with it). Annie Lennox would have to figure because her voice is so lovely, and  Christine Collister, Teddy Thompson, Sarah McLachlan and Rufus Wainwright for the same reason. Neil Young, Richard Thompson, James Taylor, Peter Gabriel, for their writing talents; Stephane Grapelli for his brilliance and sheer good fun.

I would also insist (and I have plenty of practice at this, as I have a son with a Gameboy) that every now and then when God had been listening to his iPod a bit too long, that he TURN IT OFF!!! and come out and see a couple of art galleries, play in the sunshine, drink some tea at an outdoor cafe, and then go to a proper gig. Or a Verdi opera. Or a night at CB2. Or, of course, Greenbelt Festival...

God' iPod - not to my taste

Among the things I almost included in my list of 8 choices for God's iPod, but left out for the lack of space and time, was a track that I don't like at all. What could that have been? I like a vast range of music, and even stuff I don't immediately warm to can be interesting if you listen hard enough to what's going on. But of course there is stuff that leaves me cold. A bland, soundalike boy-band cover of a memorable classic always seems like a pointless travesty to me.  Bjork, whose creative inventiveness I admire immensely, I dislike for the simple reason that I cannot stand her voice.  Or Dido's stuff I find bland and manufactured. Wagner - no thanks. Or some of that bland, West-Coast romantic worship music, complete with airbrushed beauties and Disney voices? eukk. Not for me.

The point of including something on God's iPod that I particularly dislike is this: if God had an iPod, and if he was making his own choices reflecting his own nature, than it would certainly contain music that I do not like at all!! God will, inevitably, find something to redeem in stuff that I hate; he will like the music of people that I do not understand; he will love the people, and the music, who live so far out of my zone that I just don't get it. God's iPod would be like God's Kingdom - it wouldn't be my (or your) favourite playlist, but would include people and styles and tastes that I find out of date, dull, alien, too sophisticated, or even bad taste. Some of what God would download would wind you up and make you wish you'd never heard of Christianity. And that's worth remembering.

God's iPod - Keep Music Live

I certainly would not offer a piece of my own music for God on the basis that it's the "best" in critical terms. I'm not that out of touch with reality. But as I said at the beginning of this set of posts, choosing music for God's iPod is neither giving him my list of critical top 8, nor choosing the music of "my life". I imagine this as choosing music that illustrates things that are important when you think about the world theologically.

One of the things that I hope God would feel bothered about, faced with an iPod, is whether we  are gradually ceasing to make music, and only listening to other people's. It seems to me that fewer and fewer kids seem to take music lessons, play in ensembles, sing in choirs, and so on. (Or do I have rose-coloured spectacles on?) But if the "God's iPod" exercise was asking "what music might be important to God?" I hope that one of the loudest answers would be "LIVE music!!" It would of course be irreverent to imagine myself telling God to turn off the damn machine and rejoin the human race... but I trust that the Almighty would already be ten steps ahead of us on that one.

So for my 7th offering for Greenbelt's "God's iPod", I did shut off the technology, got out my guitar  and played a song. One of my own, because that's what I know. Keep it live. At least some of the time.

God's iPod - radiohead

There is a feeling that every music lover knows - that feeling when, after everything has gone dull for a bit, you hear a new album or single or band, and suddenly it's like the grass is a shade greener, the sun a little brighter and the sky a bit bluer than it was before. A piece of music can make you feel as free and as reckless and as unnerved as if you've just jumped out of an aeroplane; it can affect you as dramatically as when Truman Burbank opened the door at the back of his movie set. That feeling of newness, of the world lighting up in a fresh way, is something that commentators on aesthetics have puzzled over for centuries, and tried to rationalise and explain (not always very successfully). Heidegger, a philosopher of the 20th century, once commented that the whole purpose of art was to make the viewer see the world in a fresh light, as they had never seen it before.  It's interesting that a whole slice of the Christian world (mostly a Protestant slice) has shied away from all things aesthetic, and even forbidden Christians from dabbling in the arts. This fear that the arts are inevitably immoral is a sad defect in Christianity as some of us have known it. The truth is that the capacity for the aesthetic to split open the soul to see the world in a new way is a God-given gift. Like Truman living within the artificial limitations of his film-set world, when that capacity is denied our lives become too small.

I can well remember a number of instances when that soul-splitting feeling of brilliant freshness came over me on hearing a piece of music for the first time. Bach's Double Violin concerto when I was about 7.  La Boheme when I was 9 (my Dad let me stay up late specially to hear it broadcast live from the Opera house). James Taylor when I was 12 or 13. The Beatles Revolver in my mid teens, and not long afterwards, the third movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony; his 8th in its entirety as it was the first one I even played in. K T Tunstall's "Eye" was the last time it happened.

And somewhere in between, The Bends lit up my world after several years of not really hearing anything startling or new. There is something both raw and sophisticated about Radiohead - they comp[ose almost on a symphonic scale, they employ the dirtiest, grungiest guitar sounds, and weave it all together with exquisite, sweet melodies, which often belie (or project in irony?) the cynicism of the lyric. Nice Dream was one track that has all these elements, so I chose this for God's iPod.

God's iPod - Graceland

I know, I know - I've already had a track by Paul Simon. And sure enough, there are hundreds of fantastic tracks by other artists I could include here (in fact I might post about that too) but Graceland I have chosen for a particular reason - that it was the first album I evere heard on CD.

Back in the late 80's, when CD was first rumoured, and then brand new, and then (for a while) prohibitively expensive before it settled in and everyone had it, I made an album of my own. I recorded it late in 1986, in a studio miles from home, and one night we went to the studio manager's flat for supper. The discussion de jour soon began as to whether CD was, in fact, so clinical and clean in sound that it removed all the human feeling from the music, or whether the digital clarity was a good thing.

"Listen for yourselves," said our host, as he unveiled his very own CD player, and put in Graceland (which had been out about 6 months). I was an instant convert. The clarity and punch and brilliance was fantastic, and IMHO didn't mask the warmth and vibrancy of the music at all.

Another question, however, was not so easily resolved for me. The composition of an album had, up until then, taken aas one of its contstraints the length of time it was realistically possible to record onto 12" vinyl, and how to handle the turnover between side 1 and side 2. The last track on side 1 essentially had to be the "record turner" - the listener had to be motivated enough to want more. With a CD, there was, technically speaking, almost limitless possiblity in terms of length of album, and there was no "turnover" moment. So not only the perception by the listener, but the composition of the album would be affected by a change in technology.

The same, of course, is true of the iPod. A new technology is neither good nor bad, but it does affect the perception and the creation of music. The album as a concept - and especially as a "thing" - begins to break down with the iPod, as the listener can choose whether to accept all of an album, or only some selections, whether to listen to them in the order of composition or whether to rearrange them, splice them together with other music. The listener become sthe DJ, and the power is shifted between artist and listener. In some instances - like albums with two good tracks and piles of filler - this is perhaps a good thing. But if I were the DJ for Go'd iPod, I would insist that the listener take some whole albums on board, and make themselves listen to the whole. The artist shouldn't have all the power, it's true, any more than the publisher. But the tendency to cut and paste everything is not always beneficial to the listener either.

God's iPod - Craig Armstrong

I was torn here between Craig Armstrong, Ennio Morricone and Jocelyn Pook. Partly because I'm fascinated with the relationship between music and other art forms (like film, for instance) and partly because, while I'm no Luddite when it comes to technology, I like technology to be used for its own sake, not as a convenient way of replacing something we had before. That is to say, why try to produce a violin sound on a synthesiser? Play a violin, dammit. But computers/synthesisers can create sound that acoustic instruments can't, and when the two mediums are mixed together, some really interesting stuff emerges. Brian Eno, of course, must be added to the list of innovators here. Other names too. But in the end I picked Craig Armstrong from the list of luminaries, partly because I find I turn to him more than most, and partly because of a really fab worship service we did last year in my College Chapel, not only using Armstrong's  music, which is already a masterpiece in its own right, but using some of his music as an introit to Gesualdo's Tenebrae responses. The track I chose from Armstrong ended in the same key that the Gesualdo began, and the slide from 21st recorded music to 16th century live choral music was practically seamless. It's a kind of appropriation of the idea of "mixing" that still engages with "real" or live music, something I think we should pursue much more than we do.

Anything by Craig Armstrong would do me on God' s iPod, but Ruthless Gravity, the first track from As If to Nothing is one of my favourites.

God's iPod 3 - Crowded House

I'm not going to heaven (wherever that is) if there's no Crowded House. Neil Finn is, without question, one of the finest songwriters of his generation. It's hard to choose one track when you love a handful of albums... Into Temptation might have made an interesting reflection on the clash between human desire and social rules, longing and promise. "into temptation, knowing full well the earth will rebel; into temptation, into the wide open arms of hell..." a sample of his brilliance

But in the end, Together Alone (From the album of the same name) made it to my list of songs that I would recommend to God, or think might reflect something of what GOd is like. WHy? Because a) it is a beautiful piece of music, brilliantly fusing Maori drummers with western melodic rock, and b) a song about friendship between lovers. The moment of passion may ebb, but the friendship is there forever, is the underlying theme of the song. He describes a love so sweet, so deeply reaching into two souls, that it must last forever in some form, whatever else happens.

I have been through the usual ups and downs that any thinking person would about the existence of God, the relevance (or not) of various doctrines and practices of the CHurch. But ultimately the love of God is made real via the love we experience through people - the lovers and friends who look right into your soul and love what they find. As Joni Mitchell once put it, "love is touching souls". Together Alone nails that important truth (often lost on the Church)  that love - both human and divine - is not just about rules or social contracts; it is wild and a little unpredictable, and not altogether easy to manage. But in the end, it is what makes us thoroughly human.

God's iPod - Mozart in the absence of Bach

My original selection included Bach's Double Concerto in dMinor for two violins. There is something sublime about Bach; I cannot imagine supplying music for God and not including Bach. However, it became apparent that Bach is not available on iTunes. Should God become involved in the great iPod experiment, I feel sure that he would do something about this. However, once I arrived at Greenbelt and found that Bach was off the menu, I did, happily, have with me a CD of Kiri Te Kanawa singing Mozart's vespers, so that is what GOd was offered next.

Kiri is one of those voices of a generation. Perfect tuning, immaculate delivery,  almost miraculous control. To hear her deliver hugely lengthy lines, perfectly and smoothly produced, would seem to require four lungs-ful of breath, not two.

Mozart's Vespers is a beautiful piece, and the 60 seconds I isolated for God's iPod was the opening of Laudate Dominum, a setting of Psalm 116. "Praise God, all the nations of the world. For he has shown us his mercy" is an approximate summary of the translation.

Martin Wroe was my interviewer on God's iPod, and he asked me whether you need to know what the words mean in order to gain spiritual benefit from the music. I think that knowing what it means certainly adds a level of possibility to the music. But music where you can't hear the words (no, not just loud young people's music, but opera and vast tracts of ecclesiastical choral music too) has its own value, as does music without any words at all, and can open up the human heart to spiritual understanding at least as much as the words can, perhaps more. It technically stretches the categories to say that music is a sacrament, but I do think that music has the capacity to penetrate the soul in a way that intellectual reason can not.

Go find Kiri singing the Vespers. It will do your heart good.

God's iPod - Tenderness

Tenderness

I promised my selections for God's iPod - an evening event at the New Forms Cafe at Greenbelt, which was kind of twist on desert island discs. Choosing for God's iPod, I thought, was quite a different proposition from choosing MY desert island discs. What songs do I think God might find representative of his thoughts on music, spirituality and life? What songs would I like to recommend to God? WHat might the music of heaven sound like? What might the music of heaven-on-earth sound like?

Paul Simon is outstanding among musicians in his generation; from decade to decade he has developed his writing, his own style being constantly reinvented as he interacted with diffferent kinds of music while always producing his own unmistakeable sound. One of his landmark albums (IMHO) was There Goes Rhymin' Simon. But which track to choose?

Were I in the fantasy situation of supplying advice to God on what to download onto an iPod, I would first recommend that with an album such as this one the whole album should be taken, in order, and played as an album rather than rearranging individual tracks. A really good album (as opposed to a an album that is merely couple of hits padded out with a lot of filler) is an act of composition in itself, and the placing of one song next to another is deliberate and worth preserving. A Greatest Hits is a commercial, not an artistic concern, and to use an iPod merely to collect isolated tracks is like selling out to listening to nothing but Greatest Hits.

That said, one of the songs on Rhymin' Simon might have a particular appeal to God at the moment. The Anglican Church has been tearing herself to shreds over the last few years over women priests, gay bishops and one or two other issues. The debates themselves are debates that need to be had; the issues are not irrelevant or without their complexzities. But the mode of the debates  as they have happened has been a matter of distress to the majority of those within the Church.

"By this shall the world know that you are my followers," said Jesus, "that you LOVE one another." Not that you agree with one another. God doesn't call us to agree on everything, and he never forbids a good argument. But love one another? That's not what we've been doing lately, not by a long chalk.

"Right and wrong," sings Paul Simon, "oh, right and wrong, they never helped us get along. You don't have to lie to me, just give me some tenderness beneath your honesty."

There's a Jewish proverb that says "To sing is to pray twice". The impact and poignancy of Simon's words is at least doubled if you hear him sing it.

God's iPod - something so right

I chose two tracks from Paul Simon albums for my "God's iPod" presentation on Friday night. More later about that. But now I'm home from Greenbelt I have to add one more: Something So Right. This well describes my current feeling about the Greenbelt community, who pulled out all the stops to make it possible for me to go this year despite some tricky circumstances that made it almost impossible. For me, the happiest Greenbelt for several years. Like a lot of people, Greenbelt is the community, the little bit of heaven on earth, that reminds me from one year to the next why I go on believing.

"When something goes wrong, I'm the first to admit it,

the first to admit it. But the last one to know

when something goes right, oh, it's likely to lose me,

it's apt to confuse me because it's such an unusual sight,

I swear I can't get used to something so right,

Something so right."

Paul Simon

God's iPod

On Friday night at Greenbelt, I'm down to appear on some interview thingy called "God's iPod". The idea is, if God had an iPod, what do I think would be on it?  I'll post a few of my thoughts over the next few days. But the immediate question that occurred to me was this - am I recommending stuff to God that I think he OUGHT to listen to? Or second-guessing what he might choose? It's trivia, yes, we know that. But quite entertaining trivia, and a nice little opportunity to think about music, technology and spirituality. Oh, and I may just sing something - live - if I can get the courage togaether (haven't sung in public for SEVERAL YEARS.....)

9pm in the New Forms Cafe.

Good Books

A set by Good Books was one of the best moments of our College May Ball this year. High-energy, good tunes, and the sense that they were only just beginning. Definitely one to watch. (In fact, I'd like to go and watch them again, this time with my glasses on; my contact lenses fell out in the swing boats, so the last half of the Ball was very soft-focus from my perspective.)

life's a gift...

friend what is it that you seek
what is it that you're tryin to find
what is it that you're tryin to find
some day i hope you realised
it shined in you all the time
hills to climb sights to see seas to cross
friends to make hands to shake the world is yours
foods to taste sounds to hear love to feel
seeds to sow things to know fish to reel
space to quiz stones to lift
life's a gift...

faithless

Teddy Thompson

Teddy Thompson seems to have inherited a winning combination of genes - his father's talent for songwriting, and a beautiful voice to match his mother's, and from both sides of the family far more interest in making great music than in being cool. For anyone else who lamented the demise of Crowded House, Teddy Thompson is well worth checking out. First album was lovely, his voice on Brokeback Mountain was absolutely haunting. New album here.

my heart is not raised up too high...

My heart is not raised up too high,
my eyes don't search beyond the sky,
I do not seek what can't be known,
nor fret myself over mysteries.

But I have calmed and soothed my soul
like a child at rest in its mother's arms;
like this child sleeping by my side,
my soul in God knows peace and calm.

All you who love and trust your God,
in this God shall you put your hope;
for there you will find unfailing love
from this time forth and forevermore.

Words and music by Maggi Dawn (c) 2006 Kingsway's Thankyou Music 

I will survive

A friend of mine needs to sing this at the moment. (You know who you are!) So sing. Everybody else can join in.  Altogether now...

First I was afraid, I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side
But I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong
I grew strong, I learned how to carry on
and so you're back from outer space
I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face
I should have changed my stupid lock, I should have made you leave your key
If I had known for just one second you'd be back to bother me

Go on now go, walk out the door
just turn around now 'cause you're not welcome anymore
weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye
you think I'd crumble, you think I'd lay down and die?

Oh no, not I
I will survive
as long as i know how to love
I know I'll stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
and I'll survive
I will survive

It took all the strength I had not to fall apart
kept trying hard to mend the pieces of my broken heart
and I spent oh so many nights just feeling sorry for myself
I used to cry,Now I hold my head up high
and you see me somebody new
I'm not that chained up little person still in love with you
and so you felt like dropping in and just expect me to be free
now I'm saving all my loving for someone who's loving me

Arvo Pärt

Last night went to hear Paul Hillier conducting the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir singing one of Arvo Pärt's most rarely heard works: Kanon Pokajanen. Fab stuff. The first time I heard any Arvo Pärt was wen his stuff was mixed in with all sorts of weird ambient stuff by a DJ; since then have enjoyed Pärt both "pure" and "mixed". Last night's performance, in St John's Chapel, was sublime. Although it may sound a tad disloyal to the wondrous place I previously worked at, there are some works for which the warmer acoustic of St John's Chapel works much better, IMHO.  Last night was one of those moments, and apart from the bum-numbing agony of the extra-hard pews, it was a blissful concert.

e.s.t.

went to see/hear the divine e.s.t. at the weekend, at the equally divine Barbican. What a great gig. (apart from the support band, who were pretty sub-standard, but quickly forgotten with Esbjorn's first three chords)

Have been listening to Viaticum since then. Yum.

gerard manley hopkins and music

I'm quite stunned to find that a long-ago friend and musical colleague has set the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins to music. As regular blog-readers are aware, Hopkins is one of the writers I have taught on in the university here; one of the interesting aspects of his poetry is the way that the musical sound of the words sometimes was more important for Hopkins in sense-making than the grammatical construction - consequently his work is often obscure, but needs to be read OUT LOUD to gather its sense. It's an interesting feature of modern history that reading is just as often a silent activity as a read-out-loud; the sense of words can be very different depending upon whether they are read silently or spoken.

The website for O'Leary's forthcoming Hopkins settings is here. I for one am looking forward to hearing it.

Stamford

Today we (the choir and I) are off to Stamford - the Choir will give a concert in All Saints' church at 6.30, so if you are nearby come along.

Stamford is a beautiful town, a bit of a miniature version of Cambridge in a way - and edge-of-the-Fens market town stuffed with churches and ancient endowed buildings and history. I went to school there (rather good girls' school where I was forced to wear a hat every day of the year) and my family still live there.

hey-sanna

I went to see a friend in Jesus Christ Superstar last weekend. Watched with interest, and not a little frustration as I had tried to get this production on in my Chapel, but various insurmountable things stopped me...

It was amusing to see my friend (one of the kindest people in the world) playing a very menacing Caiaphas; interesting to see the way that choreography can turn the same group of 15 people into  lepers, demons, and dancing girls; most of all, fascinating to see how differently it plays in 2005 from when it was first out - some of the issues it connects to (fame, identity, superstardom, celebrity) are the same now as then, but there are issues that are current that didn't even register (to me at least) back then. Still, I was about 9 when I first saw it, so I guess my critical faculties were a bit less developed...

The thing that struck me about it this time round was the opening lines - where Judas sings/shouts at Jesus that it was all much better at the start. Jesus, he says, it used to be about the things you said - but now it's all about YOU. Obviously, that sets up the theme of the whole musical - what happens to people and realationships and communities when one of their own becomes a superstar.

All the same, it struck me this time round that this opening theme upends one of the most central threads in Christian theology - that it's not just about the ideology or the belief system, it IS about Him, who he is, and what that knowledge does to all of us. And looking at issues of stardom and identity, wondering - what if he was "just a man - just one more" - what difference would it make?

It's good, I think, to let a bit of theatre or art or literature unpick your faith once in a while. Hey-sanna. 

He was pierced

Around this time of year I usually get strings of e-mails asking where people can find my song "He was pierced". The answer is that it was published by Thankyou Music, and currently the most easily available sub-publication of words and music is HERE. The English words - for Anya in Sweden,  David in Korea, Dave in Illinois and anyone else who gets in touch this week -  are below. 

I wrote He Was Pierced when I was a mere slip of a youth, for a church in south London where I had been invited to lead the musical bit of worship one night. On discovering that not much of their music collection was either in my musical or theological ball-park, I decided to write something for the occasion that was simple enough for both music group and congregation to learn in 5 minutes flat, but musically interesting enough not to be boring. Hence a simple but memorable melody, not too many chords in case the music group was unsophisticated, and a descant to keep the interest. The result - I thought - was nothing more than a simple little song that would do the job just for the night. Yet inadvertantly I had struck on the Paul McCartney recipe for a perfect pop song. All this time later it's still being sung all over the world, to my amazement and delight.

There is a mildly amusing story behind this song that illustrates the point I was making some time back about the widely varying possibilities of biblical interpretation. After He was pierced had been in circulation for a few years, I received several letters from Catholic Charismatic groups thanking me for this song and a few others. One person wrote, "It's so hard to find worship songs in this style that are not imbued with Evangelical theology, so we love your writing..."  I was, therefore, much amused when the line "and to bring us peace he was punished"  was later cited as the prime example of Evangelical songs that reinforce penal substitution "distorting doctrine..." through a "dubious translation of the Hebrew..." Of course I didn't translate the Hebrew at all - at that time I only read in English and Norwegian, not Hebrew or Greek. But it doesn't take a genius to work out that the variation in interpretation had nothing much to do with my songwriting, and everything to do with the fact that I lifted the words out of that most variably interpreted book of all time, The Bible.

The longer I live, the less think I understand what Isaiah 53 means. But it remains for me a rich and multi-layered poetic account of the sacrifice of martyrs; of the self-giving love that comes from the heart of God; of the possibility and hope of peace even in the midst of turmoil and chaos; of the lamentable fact of human history that the pursuit of peace so often ends in bloodshed; and in all of these, a passage that - for Christians - therefore speaks volumes about the death of Christ.

He was pierced for our transgressions
and bruised for our iniquities
and to bring us peace he was punished
and by his stripes we are healed.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter
although he was innocent of crime.
And, cut off from the land of the living,
he paid for the guilt that was mine.

We like sheep have gone astray,
turned each one to his own way,
and the Lord has laid on Him
the iniquity of us all.

Like a lamb, like a lamb
to the slaughter he came,
and the Lord laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

Maggi Dawn (c) 1987 Kingsway Thankyou Music (administered by Integrity Music Inc
CCLI Church Copyright License number 1236420

mystery train

A large number of people have protested to me of late that I never ever play any music any more. This is, in reality, a crying shame, and a bit of my soul feels like it's in the deep freezer.
Mystery Train is a local band, fronted by my friend and fellow priest, malcolm G. They are short of a bass player for a June gig, and have asked me to dep for them. So the dusty Dawn bass collection and the rusty Dawn fingers will be oiled and polished and put back into practice. Maybe this will get me going again.

Blue

Hopeful Amphibian has just shot up in my estimation (and he was already "up there") by posting Joni Mitchell's Blue as one of his Lent Songs. 
As he rightly says, Blue is an album much more than it's a song - the songs are so bonded together that they are more like movements of a symphony than individual songs. Blue was a life-changer for me: changed the way I wrote, the way I played, and in some ways was the doorway to thinking about the whole of life in a different key. Joni is right - songs are like tattoos. They get under your skin and become part of you.

One of the things that makes Blue (the album) so haunting and poignant is that in every single song, Mitchell tells us she is in one place, while wishing she was somewhere else. She's in Paris wishing she was in California, in Spain wishing she was in California, in Canada wishing she was anywhere else but here, in a plane wishing she was on the ground, in a cafe wishing she was in a house, in a bar wishing she was in Europe...  It's this dislocated, alienated quality that gives the whole album a feeling of insecurity and longing - the nervy edge that lies underneath the moments of wild joy in Carey, or deep introspection in Little Green.  What a wonderful album. My old vinyl copy I keep for sentimental reasons. The Cassette I played in my car a long time back has gone to the record store in the sky. Now I have the CD. And I suspect I shall own a version or two more over coming decades.  Along with Beethoven's 7th, Bach's double violin concerto, the Beatles' Revolver, Morricone's The Mission and Paul Simon's Graceland, Blue is one of those lifetime accompaniments.

...like bookends...

A long time ago (or so it seems) I had the pleasure of playing bass for a rather outstanding musician  called Fletch Wiley. He plays jazz on flute, trumpet and flugelhorn. Lately he got in touch again and sent me a recording of him playing live with some more superb musicians (Abe Laboriel, Leo Alvarez, Alex Acuna, Bill Maxwell et al) and it's cheering up a dull, grey winter's morning as I start to tackle some dull, grey adminsrative stuff. Fletch is one of those guys who can make an instrument talk and sing. Truly gorgeous - go buy yourself a copy (online from Visual Music or Amazon)

New Year Resolution 2005

I mentioned my preliminary thoughts on New Year Resolutions before the New Year kicked in. Between us, my son and I have now settled on one big, positive, life-enhancing resolution for 2005. Anyone that knows us will laugh cynically when they read this...

A number of different things have served to push me towards something that doesn't normally figure very highly on my list of things to pursue: it's about being much, much more economically and ecologically friendly. I have been a devotee of the easier stuff for ages: the recycle, re-use, reduce slogan is well imprinted, and I always do unleaded petrol, minimise the use of plastics, and avoid packaging where possible. But I've had this growing feeling that it's still not enough. We still use more than we put back, and destroy more than we plant.

The seeds were sown last year through a number of sources. E~mergent kiwi went on an economy-friendly diet to support mission, and he set me off thinking about the complex web of issues surrounding that. My son, of course, is being thoroughly indoctrinated at school about green-and-healthy issues, and it's vitally important to support all of that faithfully at home or it goes nowhere. Jordon Cooper blogged about the scandal of American poverty. And then, of course, there were the two huge issues that were bound to get a serious response from any thinking person: the new attack on poverty that is underway through international efforts, with the consciences of government agencies being prodded consistently by such modern-day saints as Geldof and Bono, and the Make Poverty History campaign. Latterly the plight of so many people who are not only shocked, injured and bereaved in Asia, but who now have devastated cities and no homes to return to, has again brought into focus how much one segment of the world has (or expects to have, or worries about not having) while the rest simply manage without.

As things turned out, I spent 5 days over New Year staying with friends who, along with their nexus of friends in Scotland, have figured out a number of things about living green, healthy and economical in the context of normal, urban life. They are streets ahead of me. They know about things like avoiding Sodium Laurel Sulphate and making your own bread and avoiding irradiated food; but more importantly (for me) they have figured out how to do all this in ways that fit into a regular Western lifestyle: they can do responsible, economical and green without dropping out, leaving their jobs or moving to the country.

Back in Cambridge I've started putting out the antennae and have begun to find people who know how to do the same kind of thing down here. There are outlets that sell green, fair trade, organic, without ripping you off and without having to support the great superstore monopolies. There are other families that want to co-operate with one another in order to live more responsibly, and encouragingly, they (like me) hold down full time jobs and wear normal clothes, not hemp and dreadlocks. I don't want to do self-sufficiency, I just want to figure out how to live here better.

So this is the Dawn household resolution for 2005. We are going to learn how to be better stewards of the earth. Expect the unexpected: green and earthy posts from your erstwhile ready-meals addicted, lipstick-and-heels wearing city-dweller. Anyone want my new recipe for lentil and mint soup and home made bread? (I can hear my friends laughing already...)

In case you think I've gone completely mad, blog-friends, I have two supplementary resolutions: to read and write more of what I like, and less of what I "ought" to; and to go out and see a LOT more movies. Wearing lipstick and heels, naturally.