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The Encouragement Of Small Things

15th Jun 202115th Jun 2021 Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

We bought a climbing shrub in Asda back in about March or April time. We were looking for a climber to put in a pot outside the back door where it would get the sun most of the day and climb up the brick wall. We decided on a Jasmine Officinale, an evergreen climber that would produce loads of white, scented, star shaped flowers through the summer.

Sadly, the weather was so bad in April and May that it gradually started to look as though it was dying. After a couple of weeks, we cut it back to a few inches high in the hope that it might recover. As the weather warmed up, we could see some signs of life, and last week, we saw some flower buds.

Just this morning, we saw the first flowers emerge. Let’s hope it can now thrive and cover the wall with flowers.

Song For Today #21

28th Aug 2020 Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

This song came to mind reading a part of psalm 107 (verses 10-16, below). Maybe the greatest gift that one person can give to another in these days is hope. Hope in what often seems to be a hopeless world. I came across the song on an album by Eric Bibb (Painting Signs). The version I have chosen (below) is performed by one of the writers of the song – Phil Roy.

10 Some sat in darkness and in gloom,
    prisoners in misery and in irons,
¹¹for they had rebelled against the words of God,
    and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
¹²Their hearts were bowed down with hard labour;
    they fell down, with no one to help.
¹³Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he saved them from their distress;
¹⁴he brought them out of darkness and gloom,
    and broke their bonds asunder.
¹⁵Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
    for his wonderful works to humankind.
¹⁶For he shatters the doors of bronze,
    and cuts in two the bars of iron.

Hope in a Hopeless World – Phil Roy

Baby born in New York City
Wrapped in a blanket that’s tattered an’ worn
Mother doin’ the best she can
Teachin’ hope in a hopeless world

Eldest son, he stayed in school
Listened to his mother, didn’t drink or use
Yet, every job he wants he gets refused
It takes hope in a hopeless world

Lookin’ for hope in a hopeless world
Searchin’ for love in such hateful times
Tryin’ to stay strong when my mind gets weak
Looking for hope in a hopeless world

On the corner stands a young girl
The home she left was from a better part of town
Her daddy did things she couldn’t talk about
Is there hope in a hopeless world?

Ya got a quarter for the homeless man?
Spare some change for the soldiers
Who fought the war
Put some money in their hats an’ in their tins
Give them hope in a hopeless world

Lookin’ for hope in a hopeless world
Searchin’ for love in such hateful times
Tryin’ to stay strong when my mind gets weak
Looking for hope in a hopeless world
Lookin’ for hope in a hopeless world…
Tryin’ to ease my mind…

We got to listen to the voice inside
That speaks of love – don’t compromise
Realise time is passin’ by
There are mountains to climb,
We can’t be standing still

Churches are full, but the prayers are not heard
Saturday’s child don’t wanna go to sunday school
Whatever happened to the golden rule
Teach them hope in a hopeless world

Somebody out there’s got to listen
Somebody out there’s got to know
What i’m talkin’ ’bout
Raise your hand, raise your hand if you’re with me
There’s hope in a hopeless world

Songwriters: Robert Thiele / Phil Roy

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Song for Today #7

4th Jun 2020 Jonnyfun.ELeave a comment

Black Muddy River – Grateful Dead

This is the best version I could find – the original album version. I was looking for a live version, but this is pretty hard to beat. It’s a Jerry Garcia and Bob Hunter song – Bob Hunter wrote the lyrics to Black Muddy River when Jerry was in a diabetic coma in 1986. It was the second to last song that the Grateful dead played at the concert on 9th July 1995, just a month before Jerry Garcia died. If you listen closely to this song from their last show at Soldier Field Jerry actually says “the LAST muddy river” in one of the verses. He emphasizes the word very clearly so there is no doubt that it was not an accident.

The song that closes the 1995 concer is another Bob Hunter lyric, from much earlier – Box of Rain. Hunter wrote the song with bassist Phil Lesh, at a time when Lesh’s father was dying.

“Lesh wanted a song to sing to his dying father and had composed a piece complete with every vocal nuance but the words. If ever a lyric ‘wrote itself,’ this did – as fast as the pen would pull.”Lesh practiced the song driving to the nursing home where his father lay with terminal cancer.

The river picture in ‘Black Muddy River’ is a very ancient metaphor for death, and here in the lyric ‘I don’t care how deep or wide, if you’ve got another side,’ the hope is held out that this life is not the end.

Even more than that … the words can speak not only of the aloneness that we face when dealing with suffering, but also of the hope that we will get through the trials that we are currently facing.

When the last rose of summer pricks my finger

And the hot sun chills me to the bone
When I can’t hear the song for the singer
And I can’t tell my pillow from a stone

I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own

When the last bolt of sunshine hits the mountain
And the stars start to splatter in the sky
When the moon splits the southwest horizon
With the scream of an eagle on the fly

I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And listen to the ripples as they moan
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own

Black muddy river
Roll on forever
I don’t care how deep or wide
If you got another side
Roll muddy river, roll muddy river
Black muddy river roll

When it seems like the night will last forever
And there’s nothing left to do but count the years
When the strings of my heart start to sever
And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears

I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And dream me a dream of my own
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own
And sing me a song of my own

Bible · faith · Political

The (Kairos) Time Has Come

7th May 200922nd Jul 2020 Jonnyfun.E1 Comment

Mark 1:14-15

The world tells the time with clocks and appointment diaries. We like to control our time. But in these verses, Jesus says the time (kairos) has come.

Kairos time is God’s time. Like good comedians, God has a sense of timing. In the context of Jesus, Kairos is the time for God to do something unique, never to be repeated. Everything that God has ever done finds its centre, its heart in the presence of Jesus in the world. Everything has been leading up to this time, and everything leads from this time. The western world has acknowledged this in dating our calendar from God’s kairos time.

(Although the world probably no longer accepts or realises what it really means to date time from the coming of Jesus into the world).

I was hearing about the experiences of a South African woman yesterday. She grew up under the apartheid regime, and never expected it to end in her lifetime. South Africa still has its particular problems, and no doubt some of them are as a result of years of apartheid, but there is no doubt that things are different now. The kairos time came for that inhuman regime to end.

And what about Israel Palestine ? It seems – well not hopeless because there are cracks of hope – but certainly not hopeful as far as a lasting, just solution is concerned. But if it could happen in South Africa, where there was also little hope at times, then it could happen in Israel Palestine.

There are people, both Palestinian and Israeli, who are doing good work. There are those on the outside who have influence. What we need is a combination of the two, so that there will be a kairos time for change.

For more on this see:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/10/palestine-israel-peace-campaigners