Everyday Encounter...
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A short one today... Can't remember where I cam across this one, but it's quite catchy! What will you say "Thank you" for today? What's on you list? Does pain feature in your "Thank you"? Should it? Who or what are you saying "Thank you" to? (There isn't even a "Read more..."!)
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I am so blissfully unaware of everything... unless it affects me directly or flashes up on my social media feed.
They say that ignorance is bliss.
Sometimes we'd rather close our eyes and have everything go away. Perhaps if we sleep things will be better when we wake. Someone will have magically fixed the problem. I guess this song just draws together the thoughts that I've already had with "Bridge over troubled water" and "Eyes of a child". Human kind has been on a journey round light:
We sat round a fire and told stories as communities and clans; We moved indoors and read stories around the fireplace, or listened to them on the radio; The radio got replaced by the television and we continued to have less responsibility in telling the story, though we were all still pointing in the same direction; Nowadays the TV is still in the corner of the living room, and the seats still point towards it, and it ever continues to burn out a light and tell stories, but whilst it tells its stories I tune it out and disappear into the light of the screen in my hand. It tells stories, paints pictures and shows things to me. I experience them alone, along with millions of other people, and occasionally I send them to other people on social media so that they too can enjoy them alone. Now this is something I wrestle with a lot as I do assemblies in schools and work with young people. I'm acutely aware of the world that I have inherited from my elders, the good, the bad and the ugly of it. And I'm increasingly deliberate in not wanting to just pass the buck of responsibility for changing it to those I work with. I was on my way to a meeting somewhere new. The sat nav suggested I could either turn left or go straight. I went left because that looked like the more fun option. As I happily drove down the road I came across a work-horse pick-up truck doing a three-point turn in the road to avoid going through the ford. I ignored the signs and kept going. It was fun, it was deeper than it could have been, and my car miraculously made it through (even managing to be cleaner!). It was a win-win really, but it could have been expensive... Especially if it had been deeper and faster flowing.
The better option would have been to have carried on straight along the other route, or to have turned around before I got there. A less dangerous option would have been a bridge, or to wait until the ford was lower. "I Do."
No caveat. No grudge. Not feeling like I have to, but because I want to and more than that, that I have the privilege to... I GET to... And I am free to! That is the feeling that I had when I got married. I didn't feel like I had to say I do, but I really wanted to. And I knew the potential and privilege of it. I wonder if that's the same thing when we are asked to say "I do" at things like church services, when we sign up to things in life? Do we see the opportunity and potential excitement, or are we just saying it because we have to? Because when we say it we open ourselves up to a whole lot more... What more could we get ourselves into? I was late to the game catching up with "Wakanda Forever", and I've already had Rihanna's "Lift me up" from the film in this series... The reality is that it was a brilliant film, with a powerful soundtrack.
I could have picked a whole host of songs that carried emotions and enhanced what was going on in the film, and the reality of a sequel without its leading man due to Chadwick Boseman's absence. That funeral scene at the start was raw. I wonder how many of those tears were real, how much of the ritual we see was created for him by people who wanted to celebrate him in their own way? This song, "Alone" plays as Wakanda prepares to take the fight to Talokan following Namor's flooding of the capital city and his murder of Queen Ramonda. Carrying on from "My Stupid Mouth..." ... Another old song: "It only takes one tree to make a thousand matches. It only takes one match to burn a thousand trees." Stereophonics “The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.”
James 3:5 Revisiting one of my favourite songs, and wondering how I've not written this blog before...
My stupid mouth has regularly got me in trouble: Sometimes my mouth just goes into gear before my brain; Sometimes I'm trying to be funny; Sometimes it's a case of needing to process things out loud; Sometimes it's because I'm getting defensive... Sometimes I hear what I'm saying as it comes out and I'm already trying to backpedal and justify what I'm saying as I'm saying it. Other times I am completely clueless as to how much impact what I'm saying is having on the listener. |
Every-Day EncounterIf you'd rather listen and come to your own conclusions about the eclectic mix of songs I worked through in Lent 2023, here's the Spotify Playlist! Archives
September 2023
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