International Times: 'A Deep Dive' - 'Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere'

My latest review for International Times is on Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere:

'The synopsis of ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere’ is essentially to be found in lines from an early Bruce Springsteen song, ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’:

Well, everybody’s got a secret, Sonny
Something that they just can’t face
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it
They carry it with them every step that they take

‘Til someday they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag ’em down
Where no one asks any questions
Or looks too long in your face
In the darkness on the edge of town
In the darkness on the edge of town

What Springsteen initially can’t face is his troubled relationship with his troubled father. In the film he is told this to his face by his girlfriend Faye (a composite character, rather than an actual person). Eventually, he leaves New Jersey – his hometown, which triggers memories for him all the time he remains there – and through talking therapies gains necessary understanding of his mental health challenges, including greater understanding of and an improved relationship with his father.'

My earlier pieces for IT are: an interview with the artist Alexander de Cadenet; an interview with artist, poet, priest Spencer Reece, an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a profile of singer-songwriter Bill Fay, plus reviews of: 'Great Art Explained' by James Payne; 'Down River: In Search of David Ackles' by Mark Brend; 'Headwater' by Rev Simpkins; 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art' by Jonathan A. Anderson; 'Breaking Lines' at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, albums by Deacon Blue, Mumford and Sons, and Andrew Rumsey, also by Joy Oladokun and Michael Kiwanaku; 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley; Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel; T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone; Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Together' exhibition, 'What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise' by David Miller; 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt, the first Pissabed Prophet album; and 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

IT have also published several of my poems, including 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'The Edge of Chaos', a state of existence poem. Also published have been three poems from my 'Five Trios' series. 'Barking' is about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey and draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. 'Bradwell' is a celebration of the history of the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, the Othona Community, and of pilgrimage to those places. Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'.

I am among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a recent anthology from Amethyst Press. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

'Five Trios' is a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:

• 'Barking';
• 'Bradwell';
• 'Broomfield';
• 'Pleshey'; and
• 'Runwell'.

These poems have been published by Amethyst Review and International Times.

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Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City.

Sermon for the first Sunday after Trinity, Sunday 22 June, titled ‘Release and change’

Here's the sermon for the first Sunday after Trinity, Sunday 22 June, titled ‘Release and change’, that I've recorded for the weekly sermon series of the Diocese of Chelmsford. 

All the sermons in the series can be found on the 'Weekly Sermon Videos' playlist. My earlier sermons in the series can be viewed here and here.

Imagine for a moment what it must be like to hear many voices in your head. Some of us will have had such experiences when events have overwhelmed us and, in our anxiety, we cannot see a way through and so the issues and options we experience run round and round in our minds without finding a resolution. Others of us may have had diagnosed mental health conditions which have included the experience of hearing competing voices. Each of these experiences are distressing and are hard to deal with.

Such experiences give us some insight into the story told in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 8.26-39) and the experiences of the man that Jesus healed, all described in the understandings of Jesus’ time rather than the understandings of today. The man describes his experience in terms of having a legion or mob of voices in his mind and the distress caused leads him to live in a distressed state away from his local community.

Our society, too, sometimes responds to the mental distress that people experience by isolating people from their communities, although, generally, we try to support people as much as possible within their homes, families and communities.

When confronted by this man, Jesus stops, listens and then responds him. Similarly, as Jesus’ followers, we also need to be those prepared to give time and space to any who are anxious or distressed, and especially to listen in ways that enable people to unpack their experiences and those things that are a source of distress for them.

In our Parish, Kintsugi Hope Wellbeing Groups are one of the ways in which we offer such space. Kintsugi Hope Wellbeing Groups provide a structured yet flexible program designed to help participants accept themselves, understand their value and worth, and grow towards a more resilient and hopeful future. These groups are places where people can experience:

1. Safety and support, where there is no shame in struggling
2. An increase in self-worth, confidence and wellbeing
3. A deeper understanding of the reality of God's love for them
4. Clear pathways to receive additional support if needed

As a result of the groups that have run in our Parish, I am aware of people who have been able to discuss past experiences in their families that hadn’t been talked through previously and others that have been empowered to begin to address issues that have needed addressing for some time.

Many of us respond to uncertainty, anxiety or distress by bottling up our thoughts and feeling; keeping them inside, rather than sharing them with someone else and thereby allowing them to be expressed, explored and understood. Our bottled-up feelings have to go somewhere – they have to expressed – because, if that doesn’t happen, they build up and build up inside us until they finally explode and, by exploding, do more damage that would have been the case if they had been expressed earlier.

It may be that this is what is being depicted for us in the strange part of today’s Gospel reading where the many strong forces in the life of this man are sent, by Jesus, into a herd of pigs which then rush down a steep bank into the lake and are drowned. His pent-up emotions needed to come out – to be expressed – in order to leave him and go elsewhere.

The man needed to see something that symbolised his full and final release in order to believe that he was finally free and that is what the episode with the pigs provided for him. A key part of what happened for them was that their pent-up emotions found a different kind of release which then enabled him to be free of them and to begin to share positively out of the experiences he had had.

I wonder what is bottled-up inside of us that we need to express and release in order to begin to become free from its negative effects on our lives. Again, our Kintsugi Hope Wellbeing Groups can potentially offer safe spaces in which that sort of disclosure is possible but talking to counsellors or psychologists might also be helpful.

This man was able to walk away free from all that had been tormenting him through his encounter with Jesus. More than that he began to share positively out of the difficult experiences he had had. That is also the experience of several from our Kintsugi Hope Wellbeing Groups.

When we are able to address the difficult experiences in our lives – express, explore and move beyond them, so they no longer constrain and limit or harm us – then these wounds in our lives can become the places from which we are able to support and help others. We become wounded healers in the same sort of way that Jesus through his suffering became the source of salvation for each one of us. It is by his wounds that we are healed and, once we have received healing, as with the man in our Gospel reading, then we are often able to support and help others going through similar experiences because of our personal knowledge of what they are currently going through.

Kintsugi Hope works with the centuries-old Japanese repair technique which uses urushi (Japanese lacquer) dusted with powdered gold to restore broken ceramic and porcelain vessels. Rather than masking fractures, kintsugi highlights them with gold to tell an object’s story. Items which have been restored using the kintsugi technique are often considered even more precious than they were before. It is the same with those who receive healing as did the man in today’s Gospel reading as, by becoming wounded healers, we become even more precious than we were before.

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Graham Kenrick feat. Natasha Petrovic w/ mental wellbeing charity Kintsugi Hope - Jesus Of The Scars.

Dave Crawford in concert

Dave Crawford in concert
Friday 8 March, 7.00 pm

St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN

Popular local musician, Dave Crawford writes engaging/melodic songs in Americana/Alt-Rock/Indie-Folk. He has performed at the Leigh Folk Festival, Pin Drop Sessions, and Music for Mind together with Kev Butler. He was recently included on The Open Mic Show Album, Vol. 1 from SoSlam. We have enjoyed Dave’s powerful vocals and guitar here when he has performed previously at our Open Mic Nights.

Dave says: “I am a singer/songwriter, musician and visual artist and was born and bred in Wickford. I have Bi Polar Disorder and my last spell on a psychiatric ward was 4 years ago, after which I settled back in the old home town. I've been writing and performing songs for over 30 years, but the last 4 years in particular have been very productive. All the songs I will be performing have come from this period, with the majority of the set written or finished in 2023.”

Part of ‘Unveiled’, the Friday night arts and performance event at St Andrew’s Church
No ticket required – donations requested on the night

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Dave Crawford - Where You're Walking 2.