The Long Walk Home

Diary update. For want of any profound thoughts washing around my tired brain.  This weekend was for birthday fun organised by the excellent husbandface. Given that we are both extremely exhausted right now I think we did very well on the fun front.

Thankfully my brain wasn’t too tired for the wonders of Inception on Friday night, a film which treated me as if I had a brain and wasn’t afraid to use it. Another twist on the ‘what is real?’ genre.  A delight for anyone who has ever realised they were in a dream, woken up and then realised that they were still dreaming, on a whole lot larger scale.

Saturday was the day for adventure, amused at being the only two people in Drucillas park without children attached to us, delighting in sleepy lemars, enjoying grumpy donkeys, loving some crazy golf action, discovering ancient tea rooms, napping and then eating ridiculously lovely food at the Ginger Dog in Brighton.

Sunday saw our church move to a new building, Mum and Dad taking us out for more lovely food, cup cake joy, more napping and the return of The Wire in our lives. The Wire is something I really need to extol the virtues of more on this blog. But I need to go and watch it right now and have my internal monologue littered with profanities for a while.

All in all a very good weekend, I’ve been well fed, have had many naps and enjoyed much of this crazy world despite the haze of tiredness. I have been furnished with many interesting books to read and have made it through another year of life. Phew.

Schemes are afoot, plans are being made. Watch this space for upcoming news of the website you’ve all been waiting for coming to a computer near you this summer. We’re working on something pretty cool. The aforementioned Jason is coming up with some genius visuals for the stuff I write, and you’ll just have to hang off the edge of your seat to see what might come next.

Until then, here’s a taster, it’ll be different in the future, but here’s his interpretation of the prayer circle 🙂

SCL: Breaking the rules of the prayer meeting.

When you give in to the boundless love of your Maker, when you quit trying to be all ‘I know better than the Creator of the Universe’  and accept that really only He can sort out the mess in your heart and this world, there are a few things they don’t mention in the small print.

You thought it would be all unconditional love, redemption and freedom from now on, but really you’ve inadvertantly signed up to the thing known as the Christian Subculture.  Whatever church you have become part of has it’s own culture for you to learn and attempt not to be assimilated into.  There are rules to be followed, standards to live up to and ways to behave. It would take more time than my busy day at work allows to list all of these, and anyway they’d be slightly different depending on the church you’ve found yourself in and the country you are in. Last night saw such a mighty rejection of the rules down here that I feel compelled to record it.

Last night my husband broke one of the cardinal rules of the prayer circle.

Picture the scene. There are three or four of you, you’ve all shared your prayer needs/wants/avoidance of the real issue in your heart and now it’s time to pray. You all know the drill. It’s a bit like the last scene in The Waltons (I really have no idea what that scene is about, I’ve just read The Beach) where they say g’night to each other. You have to pray for one person only in the group. They then pray for someone else, who then prays for someone else. You all get cover, no-one feels left out and everyone goes home happy (although if the circle is bigger than 6 it all gets a bit awkward as no-one is really thinking about praying, just:  is everyone covered? who prayed for Bob? did anyone pray for Bob? do I have to pray for Bob? but I’ve just prayed for Jane, I can’t… oh phew someone is praying for Bob. It all gets a bit sweaty).

There are more subtle rules as well: You can’t pray for everyone in one hoover prayer as everyone else only has silence to offer and feels awkward praying the same prayer for someone again. Two people can’t pray in turn for the same person – what was wrong with the first persons prayer that the second one felt compelled to restate the issue before the Almighty?

It’s one, then another, then another until we’re all prayed for. That’s the rule. Deal with it.

Except last night my husband broke the rule. He was in a circle of three. Someone prayed for him. He flouted all convention and prayed right back at her. The third person was left hanging. What to do now,?  The first person will have to pray again, this time for the third person.  Who will the third person pray for? Herself? That breaks all the conventions. Talking to God about your own problems in a prayer meeting? Not cool. Seriously not cool.

Has anyone else experienced such rule breaking going down in their neck of the Christian woods? Lets out these people. (purely for repentance purposes you understand…)

I know it’s seriously uncool to like U2, (that’s why here’s a video from Mumford & Sons) I know the thought of another Christian churning out some more theories on the band and their songs makes most people want to run in the other direction, I know there is nothing some Christians like more than declaring their views on Bono’s state of heart before the Lord.  To be honest I get bored myself with the over analysis.

With that caveat aside I find myself again plunging into their back catalogue. In a Christian subculture starved of ways to express the experiences of everyday long term slog living, starved of songs of lament, frustration and boredom, songs of joyful exuberance and songs that speak of the reality of being human, U2 go someway to filling the gap.  There are others out there who are more cool, Mumford & Sons also have excellent lyrics that express being human and trying to relate to there being a God in this world.

There are others who produce deeply enriching music, music that worms it’s way into my soul and reminds me of a bigger world. To know we are not alone is an essential part of being human, to know we aren’t the only one who thinks our thoughts, who struggles with our struggles and who sees sunsets in a similar way is part of the joy of being human. Common experience does something deep inside us.  Standing in Hyde Park singing along with thousands of others to the songs of Blur last summer took me to a place other things rarely do.  It is not good for us to be alone. Ray Lamontage, Martyn Joseph, Bruce Springsteen, Damien Rice, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen and many more speak truth about human experience that makes me feel less alone in this world.

And so to U2, whilst I would love to expound my theory of each triplet of albums in their career I’ll leave that to some U2 geeks and stick to the point. Which was?  Ah, yes, the point is, these guys make songs that express some of normal life lived in a universe where there is a God, who we don’t understand, who we sometimes want to praise and sometimes want to shout at. Songs like ‘Wake up Dead Man’ and ‘Peace on Earth’ lament for this broken world we live in.  ‘Yahweh’ speaks of the longing for transformation. ‘Somedays are better than others’ speaks simple truth that today might be a crap day, but tomorrow might well be different. Something I have yet to really grasp how to really live out.

What are your songs that remind you of the real world out there? What songs remind you that you are not alone in this world? What songs are the songs of your journey through life that encourage you to keep believing there is more to this world than meets the eye? I find most of these songs aren’t in the traditional vein of ‘Christian’ music but in the hints and suggestions and things unsaid of the genres that aren’t classified as ‘religious’ in my itunes library.