Disposable Social Media

I write this post after a lengthy period of relative Interweb silence. Those of you who know me know that I am persistent like a tick normally, but life has been somewhat busy.

This has created another foray into a circumstance that troubles me, and that is the disposability of social media.  In my own life, I have a family, wife and kids, I have a ministry in public office, I have friends and I have the part of my life that is ameliorated by social meejah. I have fast become of the opinion that life is like a large bottle filled with semi-inflated balloon - that when one gets bigger the others become squeezed. 

I truly value those whom I call friends in the world of mine that is bound up in Twitter, Facebook or on this silly blog. I have been drawn to them (and I suppose them to me) for precisely the same reasons that I have been drawn to any of my friends - which is to say a commonality of interest, circumstance or perspective. I enjoy their company, and gain from their presence (and if you are reading this, I include you in that). 

Recently, the ministry balloon has taken much of the space and I will not let the family balloon be adversely squeezed. That leaves my friends, and especially my SocMed friends, whom I then neglect. 

Because my friends are the kindly sort of people that they are, they will call with one voice that it doesn't matter, that they will be there when I find time. I love them for that, but it doesn't help in many ways. Among its many good qualities, one of the poor qualities of social media is is disposability. Put another, I can simply switch it off. I am not one of those who will dabble with Twitter while I am sat with my family, and I try hard not to write blog posts while my kids are in the house. Obviously I cannot do those things while I am exercising the jobs of my ministry, and ministers who Tweet in church are not favoured by me (some things really should be sacred and of the space and place). 

It makes me sad in many ways. I regard friendships as robust and important and worthy of all the requisite effort - except that ones built on SM become like the proverbial Bic biro. There has to be a pecking order in the life of anyone, and as a man with many calls on my time (dad, husband, priest, padre, PCC chair, brother, son, uncle, yada yada yada), there have to be priorities.  Because social media is mitigated by an 'on' button that be turned 'off', it becomes, sadly, the inevitable loser.

If you are one I have neglected of late, I am sorry. 

And enjoy Metallica - they are very loud!

The Food of My Soul

I was trawling through video clips so that I could update my Vernacular Video Bar, and struck (for me) gold. Today I have placed two pieces for your enjoyment - one because it is technical picking as I like it (though not hard to do if you know what you are doing), and because the other made me cry (in a nice way).

This is hard on the heels of a journey that I have made this morning where, as ever, I was plugged into my iPod. 

I reflected this morning that I could live without many things physical or temporal - but not music. I can no more live without music than I can live without air, and the starvation of either makes for a poor day, I find.

The video at the top of this post is of Mark Knopfler, the only man alive who by his creativity can make me weep because I find his skill overwhelming and beautiful. His music, to me, is stunning. It is music that soars like a feather on a spring breeze, just before crashing into me like a freight-train. It is effective, lyrical, hard yet soft, winsome when needs be and technically about as good as you will find. This video is of a song that is dripping with pathos anyway, and with an orchestra, is a perfect moment. The fact is, that Mr Knopfler is a man who makes the notes that he doesn't play sound stunning too. 

In general terms, music reaches us where we wish to be reached. I played a wide array of snippets of music last night at the service I lead in the Week of Prayer for Christian unity - including Maria Callas, Metallica, Eric Clapton, a kids' nursery rhyme, Alien Ant Farm and the odd Wesleyan hymn - partly to illustrate that we are all different, but to comment that despite their differences, all of that music was on my one iPod. In its breadth I am best served by music as there are Faure days as their are Chris Rea days. Unity, I said, wasn't about being the same, but about being united in our variety.

The thing with music is that we choose what we like. We don't waste a moment of our time listening to music we dislike, so it fast becomes the purest expression of ourselves. I am not sure that much else works like that so easily and so purely in our lives. Our musical tastes have their seasons too, and it fair to say that I haven't listened to Hitman Howie Tee for a few years (though I used to listen to little else when I was a sprog).

I pity the poor soul that has to arrange my funeral. I can't even do it (an exercise I have tried to do so that Mrs Acular is spared). Music in death is as evocative as music in life, and the effort to sum me up in hymnody and song will be a rocky one. Put another way, if you want to get a real idea of who this blogger really is, listen to these videos and others as they appear - for they do a far better job than I could. 

My Dad Said It Was Rubbish

With thanks to fellow blogger Gareth Saunders for bringing this to my attention. My journey with Metallica started about the same time. They celebrate 30 years making music this year. This blogger congratulates them, thanks them, and hopes they come to the UK again soon!

If you don't like Metallica, this probably isn't for you! (some language too, be warned)

Rock on

My Favourite Song at the Moment

 

This video is of the song I like to listen to most at the moment. I put it here because it is my blog and some Christians (and some priests) like this music. It is a large part of who I am, and this a gift for them.

What is more, this montage of clips was partly filmed at the London O2 when I watching. I am one of those fans, though so far to the front, you'd never spot me!

For those who are unfamiliar withe the genre of Heavy Metal, this is a fine band and one of its finest songs. Enjoy (or try to, but it won't kill you)

Metal Head

The place of 'Heavy Metal' music in the lives of Christians has crept up the agenda a little more recently - though I doubt it will ever overtake the Papal visit. 

For many, Heavy Metal is the work of one Mr Lou C. Ferr, and in truth, its symbology does little to dissuade that viewed. It is often a genre of music that appears to be followed by the oily and lank-haired breeds who seek comfort from their leather jimmie-jams and and spider-web tats cast artfully across their acne-scarred visages. They wear jeans which are so tight they promote herniae; their ankles seem to be of a magnetic order that they can only exist poles apart, thus causing the legs of the 'Metal Head' to be forces to a perpetual inverse 'v', with each legged concluded as it is by scuffed boots with more buckles and straps that a clergy away-day!

'Bloody Noise', my dad called it. 'Awful Racket', Mrs Acular says. 'Why are they shouting', the Twins Aculae enquire. But they are mistaken, all of them.

For those of you unfamiliar with the breed, 'Heavy Metal' is something of a British invention, spawned of the likes of Ozzie Osbourne and Tony Iommi that then spread to America and brought to genesis the likes of Metallica and then onto splintered genres [Nu-Metal, Death Metal, Glam etc] which all have their own sound. In essence, these bands comprise one or more electric guitars, bass, drums (often double-pedalled for machine gun speed), and a lead singer who growls. Put another way, Metallists are musicians, often classically trained in their instrument, but nonetheless experts. Their music attends to subject matters that the fluffy popsters tend to avoid. 

I have, I think, all the albums of Metallica and many of their tracks deal with a struggle with God and the pain that some human activity can bring to being. The lyrics often speak of struggling on in the face of the odds - and very often the struggle with evil. There are some very noble songs. Another group I like to listen to, System of a Down (since disbanded, sadly), write songs about justice and the horror of war and its machinery. 

In short, these are musicians who deal with some of the spectres that live in all of us. I love classical music and with that I find this to be very compatible. Yes, the genre is loud and often angry, and it is often sweary and growly - but if you can get under the facade you can hear some poignant sentiments. Give me a moment of Metal music to a lifetime of plastic pap that Mr Cowell engenders. I would rather a moment of 'The Judas Kiss' than a year of 'My Baby-boo Is My Cootchy Coo' - bleh!

Mindgames

This is a post derived from some random noggin-fodder from your old mucker - the Vernacular Curate. I think it; I inflict it! All heart, me ...

[1] I own a mug, bought for me as a gift and in light of my childlike passion for jet aircraft, most especially Concorde. I think that this plane is among the most beautiful of human creations and if it were ever appropriate to fall in love with, and marry, a machine - this would be my honey (with the Aston Martin DB9/DBS as my Mistress). The missus (the real fleshly one, my real honey) was drinking out of said mug this morning and the girls noticed the slender curves of Lady Concorde thereon printed. They asked about this funny looking plane, so man of heart that I am, I fired up the old iTouch and put on a film from YouTube that paid homage to the now mothballed jet. Set to Brightman/Bocelli  (sniff) - it was a lovely little piece, genuinely heart wrenching for those of us who cared about Concorde. An odd thing happened - I felt grief. Yes, truly - I felt grief. I am not sure what I was grieving for in those moments, but I was bereft for a few minutes. The mind is a strange thing.

[2] As I drove to a diocesan council for something or other earlier, I was enjoying some music being piped through the old iTouch. As it happened it was some heavy metal - how fragrant such sounds are in the believer's ear! As I had my Prince of Gadgets set to 'shuffle' I was then assaulted by some easy listening stuff and I was annoyed. Remembering that the music upon that thing is there because I bought and paid for it, and that I installed it, I pondered. My musical tastes are directly affected by the life I find myself in - and not in predictable ways. For example - in my stress -laden retail days when I drove for hours to and from work, I sought the company of Mark Knopfler et al. Nice, easy listening. When I was at College I only ever listened to Palestrina, Durufle and Byrd (and mostly Mass Settings at that) and both Knopfler and Metallica were set aside. Now I am in ministry, it seems that only loud heavy metal will do. It also dawns on me that I have had the same Metallica CD in the car for over a year - round and round and round. These are perhaps the opposite to what I may have predicted, and to be honest I don't fully understand. I am far and away happiest now, so why the agressive music? Not sure, to be honest ...

Well, dear friends, do with this as you wish. Perhaps you have had slightly 'left field' emotional moments; confess brothers and sisters! Maybe your musical appetites differ with the lives you lead; maybe you just don't listen to music. Who knows ... who knows ...

Metal Wisdom

In case I hadn't mentioned it, I am a fan of the music of Metallica and other metallists. This picture is my poorly effort at trying to capture a moment when I fortunate enough to be stood mere feet away when I went to see them perform last year in London. If you could give me a moment, I will now assume the pose (legs parted like an inverted 'V', Guitar Hero axe in hand, angry look, snarl, grrr). Let's Rock ....

In the circles that I mix in, largely made up of Christians or the mothers of other toddlers, or both (or neither, if I am alone), my taste in music is not fully understood. My old man hated it too, which was a pity when my brother and I still lived home, both of us with stereos, both abusing my dad's human rights by dint of assault by decibel. I love heavy metal, and more obnoxious, the better. Grrrrrr

But rock musicians are, my friends, much misunderstood. Their musical brilliance is overlooked, for example, because the artist is 'inked' (tattoos, dear, do keep up), or that it is better appreciated when the grammophone is turned up above 2. Mr Hetfield et al are, and they may hate me for saying this [like the musicians from Metallica will read this, pah], profound theologicans. Yes, that's what I said, you didn't just dream it.

Their 2009 album, 'Death Magnetic' (no, I don't either), has a song called The Unforgiven III, and in that song is a line that goes: 'How can I be lost, if I've got nowhere to go?' and 'How can I blame you, when it's me I can't forgive?' There is easily a sermon in each of these questions.

In parish life, the whole notion of 'somewhere to go' has become apparent on a number of fronts: outeach, financial, ministerial, spiritual, and others besides - we seek a destination. It seems that we are surrounded in life by so many who have 'nowhere to go', in the spiritual sense. I am among that number often as it seems unclear what the journey ahead is to hold for me. There are some Christians who, if they saw me in the street (out of uniform) would bound up and ask if I am lost, or if I want to be saved. My reply is likely to be 'sod off and leave me alone', but the question isn't wholly wrong.

I guess there is a process here. We need to find out where we are going in our lives. Then we will discover if we are lost or not (we may be pleasantly surprised). If we discover that we are lost, we can seek help and direction (but don't ask a man to ask for directions, of course - they just prefer to drive around for a while until the answer is discovered by accident). I think that the important thing is to recognise that the journey is life long, and maps aren't that big. We need to keep asking, keep checking, reviewing.

The second line in that song, I will just leave in the air. Guilty as charged, mate (speaking for myself...)

Spiritual Room

I was reading a fine book (as they all are) by Henri Nouwen, and he introduced me to the idea that a person's spiritual life (and every human has one) is like a room.

Only while I was writing about the state of my wardrobe in the previous post was I reminded about this rather warming idea. I am going to offer my 'take' on it, as I have had cause to do at various funerals and similar such gatherings.

I like this idea because it allows the person to be themselves. I have added my Guitar Hero axe to mine only this last Christmas; why? because I love Heavy Metal and mine isn't a vocation where such a disclosure is fully consonant. I love the committment and musicality of heavy rock music, more especially the music of Metallica. They write and perform many angsty songs about a whole manner of things that speak of things like God, sin and Forgiveness. They attend to war and its futility as well - so lots to cheer an ailing soul! But the thing about it is, I love rock music and my spiritual room is a place of utter safety where I can turn the volume up and just let rip. This room is where I can be me, truly and properly me. A few people have peered inside, but no-one has entered the door, they can't (yet).

I was once assaulted with some piffle of a theory that suggests that a person has their 'front stage' and 'back stage' personae. Meh: I am all one person, but I have facets of me that are important and they can be aired in safety in my spiritual room.

I urge you all to examine your spiritual rooms, or at the least level become acquianted with the fact that you have one. Some may call it the heart, but a room is a place that we can more fully relate to. It is, as I have earlier suggested, that can become cluttered and untidy, or it can be a barren and unfriendly place. It might even have its own Feng Shui, but that is an entirely other post!

The aspect of this that is most applicable at funerals is that the loved-ones of the recently died have leave, for the first time, to step inside the room of the one just gone. The amount of times that I communicate something hitherto unknown to their nearest and dearest is astounding. You think you know someone ... In my spiritual room, I can rest. I dont even need to withdraw from life as that is not often possible, but this room has a window through which I can gaze upon things that are otherwise hidden to me. Kids would know this as daydreaming, but no better theological reflector than a child ever walked this earth. All of us need to go to our Room, sit in the chair that we have put there. It is a place where I can be calm, happy, deeply chuffed off, silly, excitable and a whole other array of the bits of me that normally live in a box! I can take a novel in there or a good spiritual book, either is fine. It is also a place with a table upon which I can lay out the 'cards' of my hopes and dreams; I can order them, re-order them or even disregard them (I have waste bin in there too). The thing is, when I enter, I feel the same and I feel good.