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. 

Social Media and the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

It's a funny thing. I am sitting in the coffee shop of a national chain of gymnasia, wheezing, and rather than exercising, am preparing a sermon for a service in church tonight. I am also 'riding' Twitter (as one does) following the hashtag #wpcu2012 . For those who don't speak the Masoretic language of Twitter, it is a label that connects all thoughts on the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. 

And it's my day off! 

As I ponder this idea of Christian Unity, especially on a day when we commemorate the life of an Egyptian monk (St. Antony) and the life of an Oxford academic who was part of the Tractarian Movement (Charles Gore), it is clear that for as many Christian who have lived and breathed on this earth, there are as many variables of this living faith of ours. Yes, we conglomerate into denominations, and those denominations have some similarities, but in the end, the great joy of holding a faith in Christ is that we can all be different. 

The theme for the Week of Prayer this year is that of 'change'. Let me get this straight: we are all different, seek unity, while at the same time aspiring to change. Sounds like a game of ecclesiastical Twister to me, but like all challenges to our faith, is one that commits not just our efforts but those of the God we adore in common. I wonder if the change that is called for is simply that we embrace our differences in the comfort of the overwheleming matters that we hold in common. 

This brings me to social media, and a drum I bang often. Among my Twitter friends, and those whose blogs I read or who are kind enough to read mine, are Christians of every flavour and pursuasion. I am a Christian of a specific brand, and those who know me know my preferences in worship, in ecclesial attire, in hymnody, in theological nuance. In the gander scheme, none of those things are important, and simply choices that appeal to me. Social media doesn't really care for any of that, yet accommodates all of it. Twitter and Facebook care not a jot that I am a contemporary breed of Anglo Catholic, and in many ways that is good. I share thoughts and debate with many Christians (and those who have no faith) and most of the time, the labels are simply of no importance. 

I don't think a week of prayer for Christian Unity is, or should be, about us all being the same. Life would be turgid and dull if we were. A week of prayer for unity is a week to celebrate what we hold in union and that we carry in hands each pair distinct from the next. I don't want to be a Roman Catholic and I am sure that my Catholic friends have no desire to be Anglican. We are who we are and we are as the Lord has called us. Imagine an orchestra if every one of the gifted musicians played the same instrument. Yes, there would be music, but the repertoire would be rather limited.