I’m reading this book and its making my heart shudder.It’s bathing my head in light.
It’s bringing me to life.
I’m remembering my passion, like leaves in spring.
How long have I been asleep?
I used to check out the 24-7 website in the computer room at college. We used to stack the mammoth pew chairs for an hour so we could sweep the old sanctuary with art. We used to pump Sigur Ros through a bought-in PA as the house music. We used to walk around Shirley dreaming of our next project – making a record in an old house, in a week; our prayer wall; moshing and laughing and witnessing at school til the teacher moved me to the front.
I’d forgotten what heady times they were. The creativity. The opportunity. The community. Walking back from the Douglases. Talking outside our house for hours. You know, I’m beginning to think it wasn’t such a waste of time after all.I guess the reason it all worked was because we loved Jesus. We loved Jesus and we loved each other. I guess we’re struggling because the cloud moved and we didn’t move too. I guess I don’t feel the same because I spend too much time on my own. Because there’s no one I’m dreaming with. Because I love mercy but I love creativity too.
Oh how we need to dream!
When we just banter we look backwards later and wonder where promises go.
We just survived this year.
We just coped.
We just about kept up with commitments that grapple our throats.
We escaped from it all.
We played at church.
Nonono!
Don’t escape, engage.
Don’t banter, dream.
How can we be counter culture if we’ve lost our imagination?
How can we fight when we’re dragging our pillows?
How can we sing if we’re chewing on s
teak?
Posts
Pete goes to my church at uni. He is a proper awesome guy. I got a little bit star-struck when I met him, as I'd only just finished reading God On Mute (recommended by the way).
ReplyDeleteI listened to Jelly Babies (the record in the old house) the other day. It was incredible to listen back to it. To hear on record the innocence and vigour of that time, the hope and the dreams we all shared. The record's really amazing though simply because it actually happened. Sure most kids dream, but how many go on and actually do it? Not nearly as many. OK so someone's got this crazy idea - kick everyone out of the church offices, ship in the entire youth group, write a load of songs, paint, sing, rap, beatbox, record, mix, print the cds and sell them all just to buy a keyboard for some Ugandan musician!! In a week!!!!
ReplyDeleteOur dreams became reality. Andrew wrote a song called pretty much the same thing, years before all that kicked off.
Then, we were dreaming of this time now, without even really knowing it. And we were writing about it, asking God to save us, to shine on us, to liberate us and our friends. And he has!
Our dreams and our creativity were absolutely interwoven. We dreamt so we wrote it down. Or was it the other way round? We wrote about dreaming first, and then the dreams came? I sometimes wonder when I look back at some of the things I wrote, if it's actually more that way round - songs that at the time just seemed to sound right; lyrics...hey, sometimes just cos the words rhymed! And yet later on, or in some other situation, some were really powerful and spoke to people.
But whether dreaming creates the songs, or the songs bring on the dreaming, one thing's for certain - both are great.
I'm still there in that room with the dodgy gear making a record, because I don't just want the dream, I want the reality.
I remember too.
ReplyDeleteThough, for me, the nostalgia is tinged with pain. When I look back at those ineffectively medicated years, I mainly see an indistinct blur of desperation and baffled hurt, of excruciating highs and lows. But I also see the bright moments - and for me they are moments - when we were sat on the logs on the common eating icecream, or packed in a tent at some festival - and the cloud would lift for a moment and my thoughts would become clear and I would see you all and see God and be very thankful.
I feel I have the same community at my church now, but probably not the creativity. Growing up stamps all over your creativity. Which is very sad. We all have houses to keep clean and jobs to go to and we don't have time to create and to dream. Actually, that's not quite true: the creativity is still there, it's just packed into a tube journey and doesn't get to luxuriate itself over a week. And the dreaming is still there, but so are practical considerations, like the fact that my twenties won't last forever and I want to get a PhD in and start a family. I'd like ten parallel lives.
But it's always been a little different for me because I can't write songs.
My dream right now this minute (I'm giving a paper this afternoon - I'm in the Institute of Historical Research in London and I should be preparing but instead I'm dreaming) is that one day, somehow, we could schedule a week-long Shovel reunion, in Shirley. You guys can make a record and I'll be appreciative, while I sit in a corner somewhere and write poetry, like I used to, only it'll be cheerfuller poetry because I'm cheerfuller now. Then we'll go to the common and chuck a frisbee around. It'll be summer. It seems to have always been summer, but it can't have been. I guess it was the six-week holidays.
I must stop rambling. I have to give a paper. Also, I feel a bit silly.