Landfillharmonic orchestra

God doesn't do waste.
H/T Ruth.

Musical interlude: our biggest challenge

For those whose attention span does not extend to the length of the previous video.

Birds without Wings: a musical interlude

Brett sent me these lyrics (music available for download), saying they seemed to echo some of my sentiments here. I agree.

Wishing that something would happen
A change in this place
'Cos I'm tearing off the fancy wrapping
Find an empty package

Take for a while, your trumpet from your lip
Loosen your hold, loosen your grip
On your old ways that have fallen out of step
In a changing time

Hoist a new flag
Hoist a new flag

Angry sun burn down
Judging us all
Guilty of neglect and disrespect
And thinking small

And death by boredom
And death by greed
If we can’t stop taking
More than we need

Well across the fractured landscape
I find the same things
Tired ideas
Birds without wings

Birds without wings
Birds without wings

And these are just thoughts
On lack-luster times
I've no interest
In excuses you can find

Like you've had a hard day
Now you've too tired to care
Now you're too tired to care
You've had a hard day

Well across the fractured landscape
I see the same things
Tired ideas, broken values
Many with the notion that to share is to lose

A hollow people bound by a lack
Of imagination and too much looking back
Without the courage to give a new thing a chance
Grounded by this ignorance
(And the cat comes)

We're just
Birds without wings
Birds without wings
Birds without wings

- David Gray, "Birds without Wings", 1993.

Don't interrupt me

H/T Dave Lankshear.

How to start an argument

Recently, I've been blogging a little on climate change and it has understandably at times produced some lively discussion. However, Anthony (known to regular readers as the guy who jumps in to answer every question offering points, though in his spare time an Anglican minister) has decided he doesn't have enough controversy in his life and so has decided to open a discussion of church music.

He has some good thoughts on the practicalities of song selection and their role in a service. His post is worth reading, particularly if you have anything to do with serving congregations musically.

Greenwash: Honda

Advertising concept of constructing world's largest LED screen to flash feel-good images. $100,000.

Obtaining scores of new cars and taking them out into the countryside for filming. $1,000,000.

Replacing most of the cars with a combination of headlights and CGI. $300,000.

Film crew and distribution costs. $2,000,000.

Taking a beautiful gospel children's song that became a civil rights anthem and re-using it to sell cars that assuage environmental guilt. Worthless.
All figures have been pulled randomly from the air. I have no idea. However, much of the shoot was indeed done with CGI.

The Word became flesh: looking again at Jesus V

A sermon from John 1.1-14: Part V
2. LIGHT – shining in the darkness

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

- John 1.1-5.

The generously conversational God spoke the world into being. He is the source of all that is. Nothing can avoid being in relationship to him via his creative word. If you exist, if you’re alive, you’re already a recipient of his grace. Your very life and breath is a gift from outside. I didn’t ask to be born. I didn’t earn the right to start breathing. Every time the sun rises on a new day, all we can do is receive it with empty hands and thanks. Like the sun, the source of our life streams relentlessly into us from a source beyond us, a source we cannot control and can only accept.

Let’s listen to one artist’s thoughts on this theme. This is from a track called “You are the Sun” by Sara Groves.

You are the sun shining down on everyone
Light of the world giving light to everything I see
Beauty so brilliant I can hardly take it in
And everywhere you are is warmth and light

And I am the moon with no light of my own
Still you have made me to shine
And as I glow in this cold dark night
I know I can’t be a light unless I turn my face to you

Shine on me with your light
Without you I’m a cold dark stone
Shine on me, I have no light of my own
You are the sun, you are the sun, you are the sun
And I am the moon

Twelve points for the first to guess the Scottish location in the photo.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X.

As it is in heaven

Having recently seen Så som i himmelen (As it is in heaven), I've had two thoughts:

• Swedish sounds easier to learn than I expected; there were many links to both German and Old English (not that I can speak either of those, but even the smattering of each was enough to pick up a few lines in the film).

• More importantly, the enduring popularity of the film* demonstrates our society's deep yearning for genuine community.

The story explores the development of a small Swedish village church choir under the guidance of a brilliant international conductor who unexpectedly retires in order to return to his roots. The choir are drawn together by a shared object of desire into a community that is creative, healing, honest, non-judgemental, transformative, sexuality-celebrating, fear-overcoming, a refuge and has space for difference and imperfection - in fact, all the things church is meant to be. No wonder the village pastor is driven into obsolescence.

This is a film that draws deeply upon Christian language and symbolism, not least in having a Christ-figure around whom the community formed, whose ‘crucifixion’ (first through being rejection, then symbolically in his own death) reconciled and established the community. Moreover, in this community angels can be glimpsed and life starts happening on earth as it is in heaven. In contrast, the village church, particularly through the figure of the repressed and repressive priest, is revealed as a sham community of control, conformity, fear, gossip and envy. The community claiming to be Christian is thus critiqued using many of its own standards.

Its alternative was a "church" with no prayer, no sin, no sacrament, no word. Just music. Although the slow growth into honesty amongst the choir led to many dramatic acknowledgements of long-buried tensions, and in (almost) every case this lead to new levels of love and acceptance and unity, the film would portray the dramatic outburst of hidden emotions, but not the long and sometimes slow process of working it through to reconciliation. Perhaps we have to assume this occurred off-camera, but it is of such stuff that real community is made.

Unfortunately, the film was more interesting theologically and musically than dramatically: wounded genius retires early and returns to his home village where he has to confront his past yet finds acceptance and love through learning to offer them to others.

Four out of five stars.
*I think it is still showing at the Orpheum in Cremorne, more than a year after it opened, making it the longest-running film in Australia. It's been showing continuously for the last two and a half years in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Images from here, which also suggested that the film is "a classic Western. Mysterious stranger rides into town, arousing the womenfolk and upsetting the menfolk. Although a man of peace, his presence excites violence. In the end, he must die for his beliefs, releasing the town from its troubles (it's kinda difficult to ride off into the sunset when the next one might not come for another 9 months)."