All the lost souls

Some of you will know that I am something of a James Blunt fan and as I was driving away from the final day of Synod yesterday evening, one of his songs was going round in my head. This was probably due to my not having enjoyed the past four days that much and the lyric that I was focused on was ‘Give me reason but don’t give me choice. ‘Cause I’ll just make the same mistake again.’

With the song well stuck in my head, I listened more closely to the rest of the song and was struck by the depth of struggle that the words bring out. The first verse of Blunt’s song called ‘Same Mistake’ goes like this:

‘Saw the world turning in my sheets and once again I cannot sleep. Walk out the door and up the street; look at the stars beneath my feet. Remember rights that I did wrong, so here I go. Hello, hello. There is no place I cannot go. My mind is muddy but my head is heavy. Does it show? I lose the track that loses that me, so here I go.

And so I sent some men to fight, and one came back at dead of night. Said he’d seen my enemy. Said he looked just like me. So I set out to cut myself and here I go.’

I know, it is a bit cryptic; but I guess that is the prerogative of a song writer. What strikes me in so many of the lyrics of today are the obvious struggle that a young generation is going through and the questions that they are asking? James Blunts first two album titles – Back to bedlam and All the lost souls - are very revealing of the man. On the front cover of All the lost souls is a large picture of James Blunt with what appears to be many hundreds of small pictures of him in the background. On the inside cover is a skull and on the back cover is a butterfly. Life, death and the hope of transformation?

All of the questions are out there being asked. The challenge for me is how to engage in the conversation?

On Sunday week I am being ordained as a Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church after many years of being a Lay leader. I have asked the acting Principal of United Theological College, Rev Dr Dean Drayton to be the speaker at the service. Dean has been one of my biggest inspirers, motivators and mentors since our paths first crossed over twenty years ago. He asked me this week; ‘What is stirring you right now?’ That’s a really good question.

My reply was that we as the church talk about Jesus like ministry, going out and bringing care, hope and healing to the community; but what might this look like if we deliberately joined with God in ministry in our own local places without the goal of taking people out of society to simply go to church on Sunday? How do we bring about long term transformation that continues to bear fruit from generation to generation?

I know it’s way too ambitious! It couldn’t happen?! Maybe not; but I am going to go down fighting for all of the lost souls and all of those whose mind is muddy and whose head is heavy. I don’t have a choice because God has given me the reason.

Cheers - John