Songs of September and Song of Songs

Here's my magazine article for September:

By September the football season is well underway - although some would say the football season never really stops! The number of players changing teams during the summer means that though the names of the clubs stay the same, the actual teams can be quite different. If you follow a club on social media you will get updates on the latest signings, and following my team, Tranmere Rovers, on Facebook I saw the familiar name of a former player who is now returning.

Though I'm not a good enough fan to know all of the players, Connor Jennings, who has also played for both Scunthorpe United and Grimsby Town, sticks out in my mind mainly for a couple of reasons: firstly he was a great player who contributed lots to three consecutive play-off finals, including the winning goal in the 2019 League Two final. But secondly, he has a great fan song!

Sporting chants usually take their inspiration from popular or well-known songs. So we have the general purpose: “You're not singing any more” to the tune of “Guide me O thou great Redeemer”; “There's only one...” to “Winter Wonderland”; and “You only sing when you're winning / fishing / insert other regional stereotype here” to “Guantanamera.” Connor's song is to “September” by “Earth, Wind and Fire” but when I first heard the chant I recognised the tune but didn't know the original song, until it was on the radio a few weeks later.

One of the writers said about it “never let the lyric get in the way of the groove”, meaning that it's a song to dance to not think deeply about, but it does have a general message. Unsurprisingly, it is not about a footballer who “never gives the ball away”. The singer asks his partner “do you remember...dancing in September...never was a cloudy day...Remember how we knew love was here to stay?” Unlike many songs that speak of this first flush of love, the song doesn't then say that this love was great but never lasted. Instead, now in December they still share true love.

These months could be literal months, saying that this was not just a summer fling, or they could be metaphorical months (like they are in Sinatra's “September Song”) describing the human lifespan as a calendar year. But whichever way it's read this is a song about a love that has lasted. Some have suggested that the reference to bells indicates that this is a song about a marriage (possibly on 21st September) that has lasted.

Sometimes the Bible reading at a wedding service sometimes comes from Song of Songs, where all eight chapters are a poetic celebration of the love between a man and a woman, often using spring as a metaphor for young love. I often then say that the 'springtime' of love makes everything seem easy, but the challenge of the marriage vows is to keep that love going through the difficult autumn and winter seasons. A difficult if not impossible promise to keep, unless we have the God who is love (1 John 4:8) filling us with his love. And his love is is a true everlasting love, not just for those in love, but for everyone.

Living Hopefully

Wildflowers in Scawby churchyard

Here's my article for April:

Spring has sprung and in the natural world we are seeing signs of new life, and with them brings hope that the cold winter days are past and the warm (and maybe even hot!) days of summer are on their way. But it's not just in nature that hope is springing: with the government 'road map' we have a hope that the dark days of the pandemic are coming to an end and the bright days of 'normality' are getting closer. Although hope is a powerful emotion that can keep us going through difficult times, it is good to question what the grounds of our hope are.

As we emerge from the shadow of COVID-19, the obvious grounds for our hope is in the vaccines, and then (as it has been throughout the pandemic) in the NHS to treat us if we fall ill. But these aren't solid grounds for hope. With each variant that appears there is concern that the vaccines won't be effective against that strain of the virus. With each rise in cases there is concern that the NHS will not be able to cope with demand – it is not surprising that one of the constant slogans has been to 'Protect the NHS'. The development of the vaccines is something to be celebrated and the NHS do fantastic work with all sorts of medical needs, but vaccines and the NHS are not solid foundations on which to build our hope of overcoming this plague, still less are they solid foundations on which to build our hope of overcoming the root cause of our fears about the virus.

We are desperate for protection against the virus because ultimately we fear death. To those who believe that the physical world is all that there is, death makes all our lives ultimately meaningless. As it says in Ecclesiastes 5:15 “We leave this world just as we entered it—with nothing. In spite of all our work there is nothing we can take with us” (Good News Translation). To those who do believe in a supernatural afterlife, death brings the uncertainty of eternal existence – uncertain because of not knowing what the outcome will be. The general sense that if you're good enough you'll have a nice eternal existence sounds reassuring until you ask the question of what 'good enough' means, and if we're honest, we don't even come up to our own standards! Death then is something to be feared and therefore our only hope is to delay it as much as possible. Unless there is a better and more solid ground for hope.

Thankfully, there is a better hope – the new life of spring overcoming the death of winter is one way God points us towards the good news of Easter; that Jesus' death and resurrection mean that death is no longer something to be feared. Our lives have meaning because they don't stop at death, and we can be forgiven for our constant failure to be 'good enough' because Jesus took our punishment on the cross. Just as we benefit from the work of many scientists by having the vaccine so we can benefit from Jesus' sacrifice by putting our faith and trust in him. So this Easter, live hopefully!

Non angeli, sed sancti

Here's my article for the May magazines:

The first day of May is often said to be the first day of spring, where the blustery April showers are left behind in favour of fresh spring breezes. Spring, like Easter brings with it thoughts of new life. May is also the month when the church remembers St Augustine of Canterbury, a missionary who came to the British Isles in 569 AD to help spread the message about Jesus, and subsequently became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Both these events have been in my mind in the last couple of weeks and have linked together.

Although Christianity was practised in Britain before he came, Augustine brought a new vigour to the task of spreading the gospel. He was sent by Pope Gregory the Great, who according to Bede, saw some British slaves in a Roman market and on seeing their pale faces and blond hair asked who they were. He was told they were Angles, to which he responded “non Angli, sed angeli” - not Angles but angels! It was this that inspired him with a desire to send a mission to the Angles.

The new life of spring echoed a new chapter in my family's life as we anticipated the birth of twins in September. Unfortunately there was a complication with the pregnancy and, despite an operation, both twins died at 18 weeks gestation. But the expectation of new life was fulfilled in a more complete way than we imagined as James and Jacob, as we named them, entered the new life that is a central part of our Christian belief. “For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him...And so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonian 4:14, 17b).

We have received many messages of support and prayers, for which we are most grateful. However there's one message that we occasionally hear which strikes an odd chord, and that is words to the effect that James and Jacob died because God needs more angels. This springs from a folk belief that when people die, and especially babies, they become angels. My thought on hearing this said to me was a version of of Gregory's aphorism: “non angeli, sed sancti” - not angels but saints! James and Jacob, like all human beings, are made in the image and likeness of God. The angels are God's servants but through faith in Jesus humans can become his children and his children are saints.

The comments about our 'angel babies' are well-intentioned, and we are grateful for the love that inspires them, but there is surely a greater comfort in the truth that they are saints; they have the eternal life with God that we also can receive by faith in Jesus. Whereas it is almost impossible to know for certain whether or not someone who has died will have eternal life, babies who die will, in God's mercy, inherit eternal life. So if you have lost a baby in whatever way, either before or after birth, take comfort in the truth that they are not angels, but saints.

[see also my Advent blogposts on The Four Last Things: death, judgement, heaven and hell]