All new babies bring new possibilities into the world. That is because each of us is unique and will therefore have the possibility of doing things that no-one else will or can do. Some babies grow up to be great – to be Winston Churchill or Nelson Mandela - but at the point of birth we don’t know what a new baby will be like or what he or she will do. Anything is possible, the future is completely open.
But in our Candlemas reading (Luke 2. 22 - 40) Simeon and Anna both knew that the six-week-old baby in Mary’s arms was God’s Messiah, the one who would bring salvation to all peoples. At that time all six-week-old babies had to be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem. How did Simeon and Anna know that baby Jesus was different from all the other babies that they had seen brought into the Temple?
It was the Holy Spirit that led Simeon into the Temple on that day so that he could encounter Jesus and it was the Holy Spirit that had assured him that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s promised Messiah. Simeon was waiting – looking out, praying for, expecting – Israel to be saved and so the Holy Spirit was with him and revealed the Messiah to him in a six-week-old baby boy. Often God’s work in the world and in other people is not easy to spot. God works in and through the ordinary and every day, through the people and things around us and we need to be looking out for signs of his activity and presence. We need to be listening for his Holy Spirit to prompt us to look at some ordinary thing or ordinary person in order to see God at work.
In the film ‘American Beauty’, Ricky shows Jane a blurry video of a plastic bag blowing in the wind among autumn leaves. As they watch he explains that "this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it … And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever."
"Sometimes,” he says, “there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.” To encounter God as that incredibly benevolent force that wants us to know that there is no reason to ever feel afraid, we need to pay attention to the beauty of the ordinary, overlooked things in life, like a plastic bag being blown by the wind. As Saint Augustine said, “How many common things are trodden underfoot which, if examined carefully, awaken our astonishment.”
We assume because Simeon expects to die once he has seen the Messiah that he was an old man and we know that Anna was 84 years old when she saw Jesus. Many of us, after living a while and seeing a lot, become a bit bored, even jaded and, when that happens, we stop expecting much, resigning ourselves to life pretty much as it is. Simeon and Anna didn’t do that though. They retained a sense of expectation, a sense of wonder, a sense of the marvel of life and so they looked for the new thing that they were confident God would do.
The singer-songwriter Victoria Williams wrote a great song called ‘Century Plant’ in which she tells the stories of older people who do something new in their old age – paint, travel, study, join the Peace Corp or ride the Grand Rapids. The Century Tree is a cactus plant which blooms once in a hundred years and you never know when it will bloom. Her point is that it is never too late to ask God to give us a sense of wonder and expectancy about the world.
Many people at that time could not see what Simeon and Anna saw. John’s Gospel tells us that the world and his own people did not receive or recognise him but that to those who did receive him and believed in him, he gave the right to become God’s children. Simeon and Anna, although they were old and close to death, and Jesus was only a six-week-old baby, became children - God’s children - because they believed that Jesus was God’s Messiah.
The same possibility is there for each one of us. We may have become jaded and cynical because of what we have experienced in life, we may have become closed off to wonder, we may have rejected the possibility of God and the possibility of good. Jesus came as a new-born baby to reawaken all those possibilities in us and in our world, for us to truly be born again. That is what Simeon and Anna experienced and it is what we can experience to as we respond to this child that is God’s salvation for all peoples. It is never too late to recover a new sense of wonder, it is never too late to ask God for it because you never know when it will bloom.
Let us pray: Lord, keep us from an ‘I’ve been this way before’ or ‘I know this already’ attitude. Revive in us a new awareness that you are alive and awake in the world and therefore every day can be filled with good things, even surprises. Amen.
This is the music, in no particular order, that I've most enjoyed listening to in 2023:
Bruce Cockburn - O Sun O Moon: "O Sun O Moon is a surprise turn away from political and social satire or commentary to a more personal, and also seemingly more straightforward, blues and folk based music, where texture and arrangement are the focus. It’s subtle, enticing music that isn’t afraid to remain stripped back but also welcomes clarinet, upright bass, accordion, glockenspiel, saxophones and marimba into the mix as and when required. Cockburn sounds relaxed and slightly gruff vocally throughout, quiet and contemplative, whilst the album sounds as though it was recorded next door. It’s warm and enticing, with love – be that romantic, spiritual or sexual – often posed as not only the answer but a command from above."
Pissabed Prophet - Pissabed Prophet: "This album mixes the colourful and riotously explosive Britpop psychedelic influences of the Small Faces and Beatles with the melodiousness and carefully-observed lyrics of the Kinks... Like a prophet, Simpkins is reporting back from within the bell jar of cancer treatment to share a renewed zest for life as he refuses to mourn a dream and resolves to let life and love flow... Zany in parts, moving in others, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more unusual, inspired and profound album this year. ‘Pissabed Prophet’ will thrill, intrigue, amuse and inspire." Equally good is Apple, the EP that followed.
Corinne Baily Rae - Black Rainbows: "Bailey Rae takes us on a journey from the rock hewn churches of Ethiopia, to the journeys of Black Pioneers Westward, from Miss New York Transit 1957, to how the sunset appears from Harriet Jacobs' loophole, in order to explore Black femininity, Spell Work, Inner Space/Outer Space, time collapse and ancestors, the erasure of Black childhood and music as a vessel for transcendence. Yet, 'Before the Throne of the Invisible God' is where her energised and empathetic, wracked and anguished, celebratory and creative journey through Black history and the continuing legacy of racism finds its resolution. In a place not of simple submission, but of living the questions raised by a capacious faith where responses to prayer are both the actions of life and also the explorations found on this album."
Dave Gaham & Soulsavers - Angels & Demons: "With Depeche Mode, frontman Dave Gahan‘s haunting baritone often provides the human touch within songwriter Martin Gore’s icy electronic tableaus. With Soulsavers — a British production duo known for its gospel-inflected, organic sound — the singer has room to grow into something more. Angels & Ghosts is the second album Gahan has recorded with the group, after 2012’s dark, bluesy The Light the Dead See. Prior to that, the producers worked with a who’s who of underground heroes — husky-voiced grunge vet Mark Lanegan, vocal contortionist Mike Patton and sensitive folk singer Will Oldham, among others — but they stumbled on a unique foil with the Depeche Mode singer. And while The Light the Dead See was very much a transitional record, this album is where Soulsavers and Gahan hit their stride."
J Lind - The Land of Canaan: "J Lind’s sophomore album, "The Land of Canaan" (2021), is the next chapter in an increasingly deep and diverse body of work. The production conjures other-worldly soundscapes reminiscent of Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno while the thoughtful lyric draws on those of Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, and Dawes. Laced with religious allegory and existential unrest, Lind’s second album grapples with the destabilizing effect of our ever-shifting values and the ephemeral nature of our private promised lands."
The Mercy Seat - The Mercy Seat: "Truly, the whole band is amazing and shines with virtuosity. Bassist Patrice Moran features very prominently here, and her lines really help to preserve the gospel tone of the record. Gano and drummer Fernando Menendez push the music much more into the Dead Kennedys or Butthole Surfers end of the spectrum. Singer/bombshell Zena Von Heppinstall is the major creative force here, penning four of the songs and carrying the music with her fabulous voice. Highlights are "Don't Forget About Me," the bluesy "He Said," and the "Let the Church Roll On/I Won't Be Back" medley."
Victoria Williams & the Loose Band - Town Hall 1995: "Victoria Williams is truly one of a kind. Town Hall is a perfect introduction to her eccentric talents." "'You R Loved' is anchored by slapdash percussion, pedal steel accents and prickly piano. A mid-tempo rocker it pivots on dense harmonies and flange-y guitar. This is Vic at her most spiritual, giving herself up to a higher power exemplified by 'lines of poetry, revealing mysteries.' Insisting Jesus’ love is universal, her impassioned ardor makes believers of even the most aporetic."
Mary Gauthier - Mercy Now: "Darkness. Lightness. Adulthood. Youth. Knowledge. Ignorance. Despair. Redemption. All reside in Mercy Now. As the last line quivers from Mary Gauthier’s pursed lips,'Every single one of us could use some mercy now', the listener is exposed to an emotion the artist has painstakingly painted into every note and vocal. Humility….something else we could us now. Thank you, Mary."
Ruthie Foster - Healing Time: "an album that gives off an overwhelming feeling of love and freedom. Foster has one of the best voices in American music today and she uses it as a healing tonic for our struggling world. Fans have always found healing qualities in Ruthie’s music but this new song cycle operates on a fresh, higher level. Her tones, lyrics, and ideas seem designed to comfort all of the displaced souls of the last few years. In many ways, this is the record that many of us need to hear right now. If you are dragging through endless lost and broken days, spin this and let Ruthie lead you to the light."
Bob Dylan - Fragments: "... seems to have been jilted by all that he once saw as his lover; the poetry and the musical backdrop are of a man at the very end of his tether. And yet it is not dark yet and Dylan still sees glimpses, tiny and all as they are... there are still inklings of hope and indeed maybe the candle of the Born Again late 70s and early 80s still flickers - I know the mercy of God must be near (Standing In The Doorway)- But I know that God is my shield/ and he won't lead me astray(Til I Fell In Love With You)... If faith kicks in as a refuge in times of trouble perhaps this is a more truely Biblical work than saved."
My co-authored book ‘The Secret Chord’ is an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief. Order a copy from here.
“People like Victoria Williams don’t come around very often,” writes Josh Kun: “Part front-porch soothsayer, part quirky bayou princess, and part eternal child, Victoria Williams writes songs of indescribable originality that embrace the earthly and the divine with wit, charm, and understated vision. She makes the line between songwriter and storyteller even more difficult to discern than it already is.”
“Everyday poetry” is, as Kurt Wildermuth has noted, Williams’ aim. She sings “imaginative, unpredictable, sweetly melodic paeans to shoes, a frying pan, a merry-go-round, the lights of a city, the statue of a bum,” “the moon, a clothesline, weeds, and wobbling-yes, as in the form of irregular motion;” thereby celebrating “seemingly commonplace objects and acts.”
Then, with ‘Holy Spirit’ she “extends the physical to the metaphysical.” In this song, as Steve Stockman has described: “Williams is looking everywhere she goes and the song finds the Spirit on Lake Bistineau and in the New York City subway. In the former she is singing with friends around a campfire and in the latter receiving the generosity of a stranger.”
‘Holy Spirit’ is a song based on the experience of paying attention to commonplace, everyday objects and acts within which the Spirit of God – the Holy Spirit – can be found. As Simone Weil claimed, “Attention, taken to its highest degree,” – “absolutely unmixed attention” – “is the same thing as prayer.” That is because, it “presupposes faith and love.” “If we turn our mind toward the good,” Weil writes, “it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.”
That is what we see in ‘Holy Spirit,’ where, in addition to the campfire singing of 'Kumbaya' by Lake Bistineau and the New York subway song with a whistling stranger, Williams also finds the Spirit on mountaintops, beneath the stars, in churchyards and in bars:
“I have seen it on a mountaintop I have felt it beneath stars I have felt it in a churchyard and even in some bars”
What is it is that she finds, sees and experiences there of the flowing of God’s Spirit?
“It will make you laugh, make you cry, make your heart go ping Yeah the spirit, holy spirit will make you shout and want to sing”
This is – both the song and the experience – “Utterly joy pumping!” Making this, as Stockman writes, a “declaration that is perfect on … Pentecost Day.”
Michelle Shocked, who has covered ‘Holy Spirit’ and “sings it still sometimes, whenever the Spirit moves her,” describes Williams as a “pal, a peer, a playmate, an inspiration” noting that she was someone who seemed out of place on the LA punk circuit, as “how often is there a simple place for anyone this great, this natural, this instinctive, this deep, this pure, this true?” And yet, she reflects, Williams “is more often in place, more in time and beyond, than all the rest of us can ever hope to be,” as the Spirit “moves whenever Sister Vic sings.”
‘Outside my house is a cactus plant / They call the century tree / Only once in a hundred years / It flowers gracefully / And you never know when it will bloom’
The popular understanding of the flowering cycle of the Century Plant is described in the opening lines of this song by the singer-songwriter Victoria Williams. In the song Williams tells the stories of people like Clementine Hunter and Old Uncle Taylor - older people who did something new in their old age – whether painting, travelling, studying, joining the Peace Corp or riding the Grand Rapids. Her point is that it is never too late to ask God to give us a sense of wonder about the world and a sense of adventure about life.
We assume because Simeon expects to die once he has seen the Messiah that he was an old man and we know that Anna was 84 years old when she saw Jesus (Luke 2.22-40). Many of us, after living a while and seeing a lot, become a bit bored, even jaded and, when that happens, we stop expecting much, resigning ourselves to life pretty much as it is. Simeon and Anna didn’t do that. They retained a sense of expectation, a sense of wonder, a sense of the marvel of life and so they looked for the new thing that they were confident God would do. As a result the most significant moment in their lives occurred at the end of their lives. Late in life was the time when they were most able to see God and serve God. They were living proof of a line that Victoria Williams repeats in her song, ‘It’s never too late.’
Because they kept looking Simeon and Anna saw with their own eyes the salvation that God had promised for all people. Many had served God faithfully before them but had not seen that salvation. Hebrews 11 tells us about Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and many other heroes of faith from the Old Testament stories but concludes, ‘these were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.’ Simeon and Anna lived at that time when what God had promised began to be fulfilled. Imagine how they must have felt to see what so many heroes of the faith had not been able to see. Like them we have the great privilege of living in the time when God’s Messiah has been revealed, so I wonder how we respond to that privilege?
Many people at that time could not see what Simeon and Anna saw. John’s Gospel tells us that the world and his own people did not receive or recognise Jesus but that to those who did receive him and believed in him, he gave the right to become God’s children. Simeon and Anna, although they were old and close to death, became children, God’s children, because they believed that Jesus was God’s Messiah. The same possibility is also there for each one of us.
We may have become jaded and cynical because of what we have experienced in life, may have become closed off to wonder, may have rejected the possibility of God and the possibility of good. Jesus came as a new-born baby to reawaken all those possibilities in us and in our world, for us to truly be born again. That must have been why he taught his disciples to become like little children. God became a child, with all that that means in regard to God learning to marvel and wonder at a world which had first come into being through that same God. So Jesus is God not being jaded, by becoming like a little child. Because God continues to wonder, we can continue to wonder about God. That is what Simeon and Anna experienced and I wonder how we too will respond to that possibility? As Victoria Williams sings and as this story demonstrates, it is never too late to recover a sense of wonder; it is never too late to ask God for it because you never know when it will bloom.
Simeon and Anna both knew that the six week old baby in Mary’s arms was God’s Messiah, the one who would bring salvation to all peoples. Now, at that time all six week old babies had to be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem. So there would have been other babies there on the same day and Simeon and Anna seem to have both been regular visitors to the Temple looking out for God’s Messiah. They might have seen hundreds of six week old babies over the years that they had spent in the Temple. How did Simeon and Anna know that baby Jesus was different from all the other babies that they had seen brought into the Temple?
It was the Holy Spirit that led Simeon into the Temple on that day so that he could encounter Jesus. It was the Holy Spirit that had assured him that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s promised Messiah. In addition, Simeon was waiting – looking out, praying for, expecting – Israel to be saved. He was expecting God to reveal the Messiah to him before he died and so would have been constantly looking for signs of the Messiah. As a result, we can see a combination of the Holy Spirit’s revelation and Simeon’s expectation – his active looking - that revealed the Messiah to him in a six week old baby boy. Often God’s work in the world and in other people is not easy to spot. God works in and through the ordinary and everyday, through the people and things around us. Therefore we too need to be looking out for signs of God’s activity and presence. We also need to be listening for the Holy Spirit to prompt us to look at some ordinary thing or ordinary person in order to see God at work.
In the film American Beauty, Ricky shows Jane a blurry video of a plastic bag blowing in the wind among autumn leaves. As they watch he explains that ‘this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it … And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever.’ ‘Sometimes,’ he says, ‘there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.’ To encounter God as that incredibly benevolent force that wants us to know that there is no reason to ever feel afraid, we need to pay attention to the beauty of the ordinary, overlooked things in life, like a plastic bag being blown by the wind. As Saint Augustine said, ‘How many common things are trodden underfoot which, if examined carefully, awaken our astonishment.’
It is encountering Jesus as did Simeon and Anna that enables us to develop the expectation that, as the poet George Herbert puts it, we will see ‘heaven in ordinarie’. Through Christ’s incarnation God becomes human and, while this is the fullest revelation possible of the divine in the human, it is also a reminder that, as St Paul states in Romans 1, ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.
How do we come to see God in the things he has made? Lesley Sutton, Director of PassionArt, encourages us to learn from artists: ‘The gift the artist offers is to share with us the mindful and prayerful act of seeing, for, in order to make material from their thoughts and ideas, they have to spend time noticing, looking intently and making careful observation of the minutiae of things; the negative spaces between objects, the expression and emotion of faces, the effect of light and shadow, shades of colour, the variety of texture, shape and form. This act of seeing slows us down and invites us to pay attention to the moment, to be still, not to rush and only take a quick glance but instead to come into a relationship with that which you are seeing, to understand it and make sense of its relationship with the world around it. This is a form of prayer where we become detached from our own limited perspective and make way for a wider more compassionate understanding of ourselves, others and the world we inhabit.’
The Celtic Christians had this sense of the heavenly being found in the earthly, particularly in the ordinary events and tasks of home and work. They also sensed that every event or task can be blessed if we see God in it. As a result, they crafted prayers and blessings for many everyday tasks in daily life. The French Jesuit priest and writer Jean Pierre de Caussade spoke about 'The Sacrament of the Present Moment' which ‘refers to God's coming to us at each moment, as really and truly as God is present in the Sacraments of the Church ... In other words, in each moment of our lives God is present under the signs of what is ordinary and mundane.’ The philosopher, Simone Weil, stated that: ‘Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.’ ‘Absolutely unmixed attention,’ he claimed, ‘is prayer.’
When we pay attention to life in this way, we are, like Simeon and Anna, looking with expectancy for a revelation of the divine in the ordinary sights, events, tasks and people that surround us. That revelation can come at any time, in any place and at any age, because, like the Century Plant, you never know when it will bloom.
All new babies bring new possibilities into the world. That is because each of us is unique and will therefore have the possibility of doing things that no-one else will or can do. Some babies grow up to be great – to be Winston Churchill or Nelson Mandela - but at the point of birth we don’t know what a new baby will be like or what he or she will do. Anything is possible, the future is completely open.
But in our Candlemas reading (Luke 2. 22 - 40) Simeon and Anna both knew that the six week old baby in Mary’s arms was God’s Messiah, the one who would bring salvation to all peoples. At that time all six week old babies had to be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem. How did Simeon and Anna know that baby Jesus was different from all the other babies that they had seen brought into the Temple?
It was the Holy Spirit that led Simeon into the Temple on that day so that he could encounter Jesus and it was the Holy Spirit that had assured him that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s promised Messiah. Simeon was waiting – looking out, praying for, expecting – Israel to be saved and so the Holy Spirit was with him and revealed the Messiah to him in a six week old baby boy. Often God’s work in the world and in other people is not easy to spot. God works in and through the ordinary and everyday, through the people and things around us and we need to be looking out for signs of his activity and presence. We need to be listening for his Holy Spirit to prompt us to look at some ordinary thing or ordinary person in order to see God at work.
In the film American Beauty, Ricky shows Jane a blurry video of a plastic bag blowing in the wind among autumn leaves. As they watch he explains that "this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. . . . And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever." "Sometimes,” he says, “there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.” To encounter God as that incredibly benevolent force that wants us to know that there is no reason to ever feel afraid, we need to pay attention to the beauty of the ordinary, overlooked things in life, like a plastic bag being blown by the wind. As Saint Augustine said, “How many common things are trodden underfoot which, if examined carefully, awaken our astonishment.”
We assume because Simeon expects to die once he has seen the Messiah that he was an old man and we know that Anna was 84 years old when she saw Jesus. Many of us, after living a while and seeing a lot, become a bit bored, even jaded and, when that happens, we stop expecting much, resigning ourselves to life pretty much as it is. Simeon and Anna didn’t do that though. They retained a sense of expectation, a sense of wonder, a sense of the marvel of life and so they looked for the new thing that they were confident God would do.
Victoria Williams wrote a great song called Century Plant in which she tells the stories of older people who do something new in their old age – paint, travel, study, join the Peace Corp or ride the Grand Rapids. The Century Tree is a cactus plant which blooms once in a hundred years and you never know when it will bloom. Her point is that it is never too late to ask God to give us a sense of wonder and expectancy about the world.
Many people at that time could not see what Simeon and Anna saw. John’s Gospel tells us that the world and his own people did not receive or recognise him but that to those who did receive him and believed in him, he gave the right to become God’s children. Simeon and Anna, although they were old and close to death, and Jesus was only a six week old baby became children, God’s children, because they believed that Jesus was God’s Messiah. The same possibility is there for each one of us. We may have become jaded and cynical because of what we have experienced in life, we may have become closed off to wonder, we may have rejected the possibility of God and the possibility of good. Jesus came as a new-born baby to reawaken all those possibilities in us and in our world, for us to truly be born again. That is what Simeon and Anna experienced and it is what we can experience to as we respond to this child that is God’s salvation for all peoples. It is never too late to recover a new sense of wonder, it is never too late to ask God for it because you never know when it will bloom.
Let us pray: Lord, keep us from an ‘I’ve been this way before’ or ‘I know this already’ attitude. Revive in us a new awareness that you are alive and awake in the world and therefore every day can be filled with good things, even surprises. Amen.
The Nativity Story contains several examples of God bringing change to people in old age. This story of a child for Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1. 5-25), together with Simeon and Anna recognising the Christ-child when he is presented at the Temple (Luke 2. 22 - 38).
In both instances, the long-awaited event occurs at the end of the live of those involved. These are stories of faithfulness over a lifetime, of belief sustained despite disappointment and of new life occurring in old age.
The singer-songwriter Victoria Williams has a song called 'Century Plant' in which she recounts stories of people whose lives changed significantly in old age, of people finding new talent and purpose which hadn't been apparent through the majority of their life.
She sums these experiences up with the image of a century plant, a cactus which only flowers once in a hundred years, to say it is never too late to make a change, to find a talent, to receive God's blessings.
The issue, as for Zechariah, is that we struggle to believe that things can be different and that change can occur. Often the further on we are in our life journey the more we keep to what we already know rather than making the most of new opportunities. The Nativity Story, as a whole - from Zechariah and Elizabeth to Simeon and Anna, suggests that change can and does come and that lives can blossom in old age, if we recognise and receive what God is already doing.
The music in today's Discover & explore service on the theme of Time at St Stephen Walbrook included: A Prayer of Henry VI, Henry Ley; To Morning, Gabriel Jackson; Even such is time, Bob Chilcott; and Nunc Dimittis, Gustav Holst. The latest group of Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields sang for the first time in this service and will do so for the rest of this series:
I wonder which of these rewrites of Psalm 23 is true for you: ‘The clock is my dictator, I shall not rest’ or ‘The Lord is my Pace-setter, I shall not rush’? There are moments in our lives when it seems that we have all the time in the world and other moments when it seems that we have no time at all. We can see this visualised in Kim Poor’s painting The Angel of the Hours where time is vanishing from the clock which the angel holds. Is this an indication that the angel wishes to draw us into the timelessness of eternity or is it, an indication of the speed with which we feel our days go by? The comedian Dave Allen famously said: “You clock in to the clock. You clock out to the clock. You come home to the clock. You eat to the clock, you drink to the clock, you go to bed to the clock… You do that for 40 years of your life, you retire, what do they … give you? A clock!”
The reality, of course, is that time is constant and unchanging; it does not actually lengthen or contract. What changes are the choices that we make as to how we use our time and the feelings we have as a result.
The famous passage from Ecclesiastes that we have just heard read (Ecclesiastes 3. 1 - 15) is often understood as meaning that God orders our time and allots particular events to particular times and seasons. However, it can also be understood in terms of one of those phrases like ‘stuff happens’, ‘life happens’ or ‘shit happens’ which mean simply that what happens happens. The reality it says is that all our lives will contain enough time for births and deaths, tears and laughter, mourning and dancing, conflict and peace to occur. There is time enough in each of our lifetimes for all these things and it is inevitable that we will experience them.
While it is inevitable that the highs and lows of life will occur over the course of our lives, we don’t know when these things will occur or how long our lives themselves will be, and so inevitability is combined with uncertainty. We often respond to this by trying to impose order either by detailed planning on our own part or by asking that God will order our days. When we do so, we can end up preoccupied with the future, instead of experiencing the present.
As we don’t know how much time we have, it is imperative that we must use the time we currently have wisely. We do so by savouring and appreciating the time we have whether that is: time at home - growing together as a family; time at work – completing tasks and supporting colleagues; time at church - in worship, fellowship and prayer; or time alone with God - praying and reading the Bible.
Van Morrison sings that ‘These are the days, the time is now … There's only here, there's only now.’ Similarly, Simon Small has written, ‘There is always only now. It is the only place that God can be found.’ Each moment we are alive is unique and unrepeatable. As songwriter, Victoria Williams, has put it, ‘This moment will never come again / I know it because it has never been before.’ We live in the present and can only encounter God in this moment, in the here and now, today.
Equally, we can only give in the here and now. In Deuteronomy 30. 11 - 20 we read of Moses saying to the Israelites, “today … I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses” and exhorting them to “choose life.” Similarly, in Hebrews 3. 7 - 19, the writer of that letter says, ‘Today, if you hear his [God’s] voice, do not harden your hearts …’ The emphasis of these passages is that now is the moment to encounter God, now is the moment to live, now is the moment to give.
This autumn we are encouraging all those who come to St Stephen to reflect on the various ways in which we can use our time, talents and treasure in God’s service. Each of us has time, talents and treasure which could be given out of gratitude and to help this church. In the Stewardship leaflet we have given you today we list a variety of roles with which we need help here at St Stephen, so I encourage you to reflect on those roles and consider whether you could help us in some way.
How much time have we got? We don’t know, so we must use it all wisely. The past is behind us, the future is yet to come, so now is the only moment in which we can live and move and have our being. This means that now is always the moment in which to encounter God, now is always the moment in which to truly come alive and truly live, now is always the moment in which we can give of ourselves in thanks for all that God has given to us. There's only here, there's only now. This moment is unique and unrepeatable. It will never come again because it has never been before. So, these are the days for encounter, for living and for giving. The time is now.
"… as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing
in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test,
though they had seen my worksfor forty years. Therefore I was angry with
that generation, and I said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts,
and they have not known my ways.’ As in my anger I swore, ‘They
will not enter my rest.’”
Take care, brothers and sisters,that none of
you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,”
so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first
confidence firm to the end.As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as
in the rebellion.” (Hebrews 3. 7 – 15)
Meditation
In Deuteronomy 30 we read of Moses saying to the
Israelites, “today … I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses”
and exhorting them to “choose life.” Similarly, in our reading from Hebrews we
have heard that, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts …” Later
on in Hebrews we read that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and
forever” but the emphasis here is on today.
One reason for this emphasis is that, as Simon Small has
written, “There is always only now. It is the only place that God can be found.”
Each moment we are alive is unique and unrepeatable. As songwriter, VictoriaWilliams, has put it: “This moment will never come again / I know it because it
has never been before.” We live in the present. Therefore, we can only
encounter God in this moment, in the here and now, today.
Jean Pierre de Caussade was a French Jesuit priest and
writer known for his work Abandonment to
Divine Providence and his work with Nuns of the Visitation in Nancy,
France. De Caussade coined a phrase to describe what we have just been talking
about. He called it ‘The Sacrament of the Present Moment,' which “refers to
God's coming to us at each moment, as really and truly as God is present in the
Sacraments of the Church ... In other words, in each moment of our lives God is
present under the signs of what is ordinary and mundane. Only those who are
spiritually aware and alert discover God's presence in what can seem like nothing
at all. This keeps us from thinking and behaving as if only grand deeds and
high flown sentiments are 'Godly'. Rather, God is equally present in the small
things of life as in the great. God is there in life's daily routine, in dull
moments, in dry prayers ... There is nothing that happens to us in which God
cannot be found. What we need are the eyes of faith to discern God as God comes
at each moment - truly present, truly living, truly attentive to the needs of
each one.” (Elizabeth Ruth Obbard, Life in God's NOW, New City, 2012)
Simon Small has noted, however, that “Our minds find
paying full attention to now very difficult. This is because our minds live in
time. Our thoughts are preoccupied with past and future, and the present moment
is missed.” He goes on to say that, ‘To pay profound attention to reality is
prayer, because to enter the depths of this moment is to encounter God ...
Contemplative prayer is the art of paying attention to what is’ (Simon Small,
'From the Bottom of the Pond', O Books, 2007). In saying this, he echoes de
Caussade’s idea of the sacrament of the present moment and the thinking of SimoneWeil who said that, ‘absolute unmixed attention is prayer.’ All these confirm
the thought in Hebrews that today is the moment for encounter with God.
Prayer
Lord God, our thoughts are often preoccupied with past
and future, meaning that we miss the present moment. Enable us to realise the
uniqueness of each passing moment which is unrepeatable. Enable us
to live in the sacrament of the present moment by giving absolute unmixed attention
to the reality of what is in the here and now. Today, may we hear your voice in the sacrament of the present moment.
Lord God, give us the eyes of faith to discern you as you
come at each moment - truly present, truly living, truly attentive to the needs
of each one. May we discern you in what is ordinary and mundane, in the small
things of life as in the great, in life's daily routine, in dull moments, and in
dry prayers. Today, may we hear your voice in
the sacrament of the present moment.
Lord God, keep us from thinking and behaving as if only
grand deeds and high flown sentiments are 'Godly'. Teach us to value the doing
of small, mundane actions recognising that you are equally present in the small
things of life as in the great. Enable us to show your love through our actions
as we do our common business wholly for the love of you. Today, may we hear your voice in the sacrament of the present moment.
Blessing
Realising the uniqueness of each passing moment, hearing
God’s voice today, living in the present moment, discovering God’s presence in
the here and now. May those blessings of God almighty, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you always. Amen.
Here is my Spiritual Life column from today's Ilford Recorder:
'Bill Fay sings that “There are miracles / Everywhere you go.” What we might not then expect is for the song to continue, “I see fathers / Hold a little child's hand.” What Bill Fay celebrates in this song entitled ‘Cosmic Concerto (Life Is People)’ is the wonder of everyday life if we can but see it - seeds being sown by the wind to grow into trees; grandmas and grandpas blowing kisses into a pram; the infinite variation in the space of a human face.
Simon Small has written that “Our minds find paying full attention to now very difficult. This is because our minds live in time. Our thoughts are preoccupied with past and future, and the present moment is missed.”
Jean Pierre de Caussade spoke about the Sacrament of the Present Moment. He meant by this God present in what is ordinary and mundane; there in life's daily routine. Simon Small has also written that “to pay profound attention to reality is prayer because to enter the depths of this moment is to encounter God.”
Regardless of whether we see God in the miracle of human existence, we can perhaps agree that, even though life also contains great suffering, there is real wonder, beauty and mystery to be found in everyday life.'
One of the great pleasures of 2012 for me was discovering the music of Bill Fay through Life
is People.
Fay's songs are simply astonishing - simple and melodic yet with unusual
imagery and insights (both whimsical and surreal bearing comparison with Syd Barrett and Nick Drake) delivered with gravity and grace. 'Cosmic Concerto (Life Is
People)' is a highlight from a collection of stand-out tracks; a celebration of
the miracle of ordinary life, the infinite variation in each human face, which
stirs his soul. I'm currently absorbing his classic Time Of The Last Persecution; empathy in the face of apocalypse. Humility seems to run throughout his music; both in his low-key, almost hesitant and weathered delivery and in lyrics such as "The never ending happening / Of what's to be and
what has been / Just to be a part of it / Is astonishing to me" ('The Never
Ending Happening') and "I don't ask much, for myself / But for the one's I
love" ('Thank You Lord').
Following on from that discovery, here are some other stunning songwriters who, like Fay, have not achieved the attention that their work actually merits:
Michael Been, The Call's singer/songwriter, was born in Oklahoma City but migrated to California before forming The Call with Scott Musik. Sin and salvation are staples of the diet that The Call served up. Been thought that every fault in the world was within him and said that he had had "hundreds of born-again experiences" needing them because he was dead a lot of the time: "I believe in truth. Whatever is necessary for a person to experience to find the rock bottom, to know the darkness of his life, that's right. A lot of our music is confrontational, it deals with the dark side of life because that teaches us something." Red Moon and Reconciled represent the peak of The Call's work combining literate lyrics with powerful anthems and genuinely encompassing despair, ecstasy and the stages in between.
T. Bone Burnett creates ridiculous satirical morality tales - the marijuana smoking computer operator paying through the nose for free love (The Sixties), the millionaire buying culture in massive fashionable chunks (A Ridiculous Man) and the émigrés selling soft sentiment and soft porn to children (Hefner and Disney). Burnett knows though that judgements are precarious - that what we think we know and what we actually know are often in opposition - so he balances his tales on the jerky, anxious, angular rhythms of his rock 'n' country hybrid, almost like stiltwalking.
Peter Case neatly summed up the dual strands of American music when he wrote in the sleeve notes toPeter Case that he didn't know any songs about America but that these songs were about "sin and salvation". Like Bruce Springsteen, Case has an ability to speak in the voice of those people struggling for a nickel, shuffling for a dime who find themselves caught in relationships that have ensnared them. Theirs is the voice of hope deferred - to someone else (Turning Blue), and the voice of harsh experience - "You don't know it but it's plain to see/You can't tell when you're workin' for your enemy" (Workin' For The Enemy). His eye for colourful detail authenticates his character's tales and adds extra layers of meaning - "So we made love in that place out in back/The last time that we took off our clothes/We took other things and took more than that/I took off with my clothes in a sack and I froze"
Rated "rock’s last great obscurity" by Melody Maker Bruce Cockburn has quietly made a living as a singer/songwriter since 1970 and his self-titled debut while never going all out for fame and fortune. As literate a guitarist as he is a lyricist he fuses sparklingly complex jazz/rock rhythms with metaphor loaded lyricism, as often spoken as sung – "sometimes things don’t easily reduce to rhyming couplets". Forty years plus of consistent, intelligent exploration of the personal, political and spiritual, often within the same song, is no mean achievement. When combined with both an honesty about his own relationship and faith frailties and a willingness to campaign with the likes of Oxfam raging against US and IMF oppression in the two-thirds world, you have to give the man respect. In 1992 in a song, Closer to the Light, written following the death of Mark Heard, Cockburn wrote the line - "There you go/Swimming deeper into mystery" – which seemed to sum the direction in which Cockburn’s work has headed over the course of his long career.
Like Gordan Gano of the Violent Femmes, David Eugene Edwards has a preacher in the family - in Edwards case, his Nazarene preacher Grandfather. Edward's songs not only oscillate around the twin poles of sin and salvation but use the language of the King James version as they do so. If any current music fully inhabits the Southern mindset then surely it is this. 16 Horsepower released their debut album Sackcloth 'N' Ashes in 1995 and, after the eventual demise of 16 Horsepower, DEE continued in similar vein with Woven Hand. As he has said: 'The myths of our country are in the songs. The untold stories and
gaps in history books are in the songs – our recollection is preserved in this
music. Those songs as well as the stories that my parents told me, the bible and
the books I read, all this is the foundation of my imagination of America.'
Formed in 1982 and discovered by Chrissie Hynde busking outside a Pretender's gig, the Violent Femmes were among the first to combine punk's frenzy with country's resignation and gospel's jubilation. That full on clash of contradiction is the raison d'etre of the band (and something they were into long before the idea featured in U2's third coming). "That's the thing about this band," said Gordon Gano their singer/songwriter, "in the songs, in the whole performance of them, there's all different levels of total contradiction going on at the same moment where we are serious and as far from being serious as possible, it's important and also far away from being important". It's also part of the "American tradition" - "Country music has a long tradition of singing horrible songs about drinking and sinning and then doing some sincere gospel numbers". This is where 'Country Death Song' gets its dark inspiration from - "I even think 'Country Death Song' is happy because all the awfulness of the song, it came out of my love for country music and I feel happy when I sing it. I must have a different perspective".
Mark Heard wrote, in 'I Just Wanna Get Warm', "The mouths of the best poets speak but a few words/Then lay down, stone cold, in forgotten fields" - in retrospect that seems prophetic. Just a glimpse into the soul of a man known by so few and yet so deeply missed by so many. The liner notes from the tribute album say it best: "Mark Heard left behind a legacy of music that will undoubtedly impact the lives of many, just as he has impacted the lives of the artists who participated in Strong Hand of Love. The testimony of his brilliance as a poet and artist is undeniably evident throughout this inspiring tribute."
Los Angeles group Love were, in the words of David Fricke, 'the bi-racial folk-rock pirates who made Love and Da Capo in 1966, then the silken psychedelia of Forever Changes in 1967.' 'Although Arthur Lee was the main writer, [Bryan] MacLean contributed some fine songs, including Orange Skies, Old Man and the haunting Alone Again Or, with its flamenco-style guitar and dramatic trumpet flourishes.' ifyoubelieveinis a collection of MacLean's music written when he was in the band and written with Love in mind. 'After an aborted attempt at a solo career ... [MacLean]joined a Christian Fellowship Church called the Vineyard ... During Friday night Bible stints [MacLean] took the concert part of the session and was so amazed at the reaction he gradually assembled a catalogue of his Christian songs.' Taken from the Latin and literally meaning 'within the walls', Intra Muros is the album of "spooky" Christian music MacLean was completing at the time of his death. Due to 'the great strength of songs like the amazing Love Grows In Me and My Eyes Are Open', Intra Muros 'stands as fine testament to the ability of a great songwriter.'
Michael McDermott's trademark embrace is "of faith and hope in the face of adversity." His lyrics are "uniquely evocative" as he "sings in poetry", his tunes being "literate story-songs." Stephen King wrote of him: “Michael McDermott is one of the best songwriters in the world and possibly the greatest undiscovered rock ‘n’ roll talent of the last 20 years.” In “Mess of Things,” McDermott sings, “the trouble with trouble is that it sometimes sticks/plays tricks with your mind while it gets its kicks/And slowly there’s a momentum shift/And the weight becomes too great to lift.” McDermott sings about a world where “everybody is bleeding, or everybody is filled with doubt,” and yet he sings, “say the word/And I shall be healed.”
'After the Flood' from Lone Justice's debut album neatly fits Maria McKee's description of country music - "originally Country music was very raw and very spiritual and very gut-level". With a half brother (Bryan MacLean) from seminal 60s LA band Love and Victoria Williams as a next-door neighbour growing up ("she taught me my first guitar chords", McKee has said and they sang briefly together before their separate careers took off), the emphasis was always likely to be on the raw, spiritual and gut-level rather than the country aspect of the definition. By the time McKee recorded her second solo album You Gotta Sin To Get Saved, with a band that included Jayhawks, Gary Louris and Mark Olson (then Williams' husband), she felt she was standing still, merely reprising her work with Lone Justice. She responded by recording the critically acclaimed album Life Is Sweet. Here she felt her songwriting becoming "crystal and dramatic ... this larger-than-life grandiose thing, sort of riding the fine line of bad taste". Grunge based and coruscating on tracks like 'Scarlover', Life is Sweet sounds a far cry from the cow-punk of Lone Justice but it remains "very raw and very spiritual and very gut-level". At the end of the day that's what matters.
Julie Miller writes nakedly emotional songs which in their aching beauty combine perseverance and faith with sorrow and heartache. Her songs have featured in her solo work, her husband Buddy Miller's solo albums and on several jointly recorded albums. An early song reflecting on the crucifixion asked, 'How can you say No to this man?' The same question can be asked of Miller's confessional work - how can you say no to the grace and openness found therein?
Neal Morse is a US prog rocker who first
made his mark in the band Spock’s Beard and then formed the prog-rock supergroup
Transatlantic. Following his conversion to Christianity in 2000, he left both
bands and has since produced a substantial and well-regarded body of solo work
exploring different aspects of his faith. His fourth solo album
Sola Scriptura, across four tracks and 76 minutes (this is prog
rock we’re talking here!), tells the story of Martin Luther and the Reformation.
Morse says, “The point of it is to point us … toward the light of God's truth
which is laid out wonderfully before us in the scriptures. Of course, this is a
lofty goal for a mere CD, but, with God anything is possible!”
Over The Rhine'sLinford Detweiler and Karen Bergquist say: "... we try to write music that in little ways helps to heal the wounds that life has dealt us or the wounds we’ve dealt ourselves. We try to write songs that can hum joyfully at the stars when something good goes down. We try to write tunes capable of whispering to a sleeping child that in spite of everything, somehow, all is well. We try to write words that help us learn to tell the truth to ourselves and others." “We’re really only reflecting what we’ve already heard,” Detweiler explains, “a mix of all the music we grew up with and were drawn to: old gospel hymns, the country and western music on WWVA, the rock and roll records the kids at school passed around, the symphonic music that my father brought home, the jazz musicians we discovered in college, the Great American Songbook performers that Karin’s mother loved, and of course the various singer-songwriters that eventually knocked the roof off our world. But when this music is reflected back to the listener through the filter of our own particular lives, hopefully it becomes a much different experience (maybe even somewhat unique) for those with ears to hear.”
The Innocence Mission hail from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and own up to a "religious upbringing where our parents lived out their faith rather than evangelised". They formed in 1982 and initially attracted the support of Joni Mitchell and her then husband, Larry Klien. Mitchell called Karen Peris "one of the most interesting singer/songwriters around at the moment", while Klien produced their first two albums (The Innocence Mission and Umbrella). Peris summed up the band's approach when she said "I saw something in a book Float Planes. In the beginning there's a quote from a hymn that said, "When I die hallelujah! Bye bye I'll fly away ..." and that's exactly what I think we want to say." In 'Wonder of Birds', from the first album, they talk of building homes with windows to fly through and this is an apt description of their songs. 'Bright As Yellow' for example, from their third album Glow, is a joyful celebration of that open-handed, open-hearted approach to life, as exemplified by Peris's mother. Peris writes conversational songs that draw significance from the everyday while the band on the earliest albums set these to a swirling, chiming, transcendent version of the 'big' music.
Leslie Phillips sang in Sunday School with Maria McKee and recorded several albums for the CCM label Word before a name change to Sam, a marriage to T-Bone Burnett and a series of critically acclaimed albums often produced by Burnett. Phillips combines a cool pop sensibility with razor-sharp lyrics. A mix that finds her ethereal voice, tinged with melancholy, soaring over like a seagull skimming waves.
Jim White inhabits a world where the natural and supernatural are intertwined and where the ordinary slips seamlessly into the extraordinary. White says in 'Still Waters', "Well, don't you know there are projects for the dead and projects for the living?/Though I must confess sometimes I get confused by that distinction". White's characters have ghosts in their homes, curse ships which promptly sink and serenade the dying ('Still Waters').
Victoria Williams has a naive, folky style which uses images and characters that would not be out of place in a painting by Marc Chagall. This style, however, conceals a great subtlety of approach and a willingness to experiment with musical form in a similar to fashion to that of Van Morrison. Williams builds songs that are not simply a melody running through verses and chorus but which, in tandem with the lyrics, veer off in directions that are consistent with the emotional ebb and flow of the song as a whole. She sees the divine through the local, the ordinary, the common-place, and the natural finding the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing through the building of a raft and duets with a fellow-traveller on the New York underground ('Holy Spirit').
I write more about some of the above in my co-authored book 'The Secret Chord'.
‘This moment will never come again
I know it because it has never been before
I listen to the rain outside the door
A thousand voices singing songs that ain't been sung before
Some days while lost in reverie
I find the very hours have slipped away from me
Well as the sunlight dances through the leaves
The patterns they awaken me
And I say hey ho
This moment will never come again
I know it because it has never been before
Here we are now
Soon it will be then
Here we are now
Soon it will be then
Here we are now
Soon it will be then
It's nothing more, nothing less
Than the place that we are in
This moment will never come again
I know it because it has never been before
And I listen to the wind
And I see the trees are shaking’
Jean Pierre de ‘Caussade's ... original term 'The Sacrament of the Present Moment' refers to God's coming to us at each moment, as really and truly as God is present in the Sacraments of the Church ... In other words, in each moment of our lives God is present under the signs of what is ordinary and mundane. Only those who are spiritually aware and alert discover God's presence in what can seem like nothing at all. This keeps us from thinking and behaving as if only grand deeds and high flown sentiments are 'Godly'. Rather, God is equally present in the small things of life as in the great. God is there in life's daily routine, in dull moments, in dry prayers ... There is nothing that happens to us in which God cannot be found. What we need are the eyes of faith to discern God as God comes at each moment - truly present, truly living, truly attentive to the needs of each one.’
'Contemplative prayer is the art of paying attention to what is.
To pay profound attention to reality is prayer, because to enter the depths of this moment is to encounter God. There is always only now. It is the only place that God can be found.
Our minds find paying full attention to now very difficult. This is because our minds live in time. Our thoughts are preoccupied with past and future, and the present moment is missed. We live in a dream; contemplation is waking up.
There are many forms of contemplative prayer ['Repeating a word or phrase in the mind, slowly and rhythmically; holding a visualization of an image; watching the breath; or bringing awareness to different parts of the body are some of the methods used'], but they all involve bringing the mind into the present moment. It is the only goal, but not the only fruit. In the practice of contemplative prayer we wait attentively for the Now to express itself. The form this takes will always be unique and sometimes hidden. The moment when the depths of now are revealed is when contemplative prayer becomes contemplation.'
"Men invent means and methods of coming at God's love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God's presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?"
"Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God."
"The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament."
There are miracles,
In the strangest of places
There are miracles,
Everywhere you go
I see fathers,
Hold a little child's hand
I see mothers,
Holding a little child's hand
I see trees, trees,
Blowing in the wind
I see seeds,
Being sown by the wind
It's a cosmic concerto,
and it stirs my soul
I see grandmas,
Blowing kisses into a pram
I see grandpas,
Scratching their head in amazement
It's a cosmic concerto,
and it stirs my soul
It's a cosmic concerto,
and it stirs my soul
Like my old dad said,
Life is people,
life is people
In the space of a human face,
There's infinite variation
It's a cosmic concerto,
and it stirs my soul
It's a cosmic concerto,
and it stirs my soul
Like my old dad said,
Life is people,
life is people
In the space of a human face,
There's infinite variation
Life is people,
life is people,
life is people
Life is people,
life is people,
life is people
Life is people’
Help me become attentive to this moment
which will never come again.
May I know you in the sacrament of the present moment
seeing that you are there
in life's daily routine, in dull moments, in dry prayers.
More than that, that all is in you,
all is held in the palms of your hands.
May I see the present moment as though I were
walking on my hands, seeing the world hanging upside
to know dependence and rest
in the Maker’s hands. Amen.
