These Are Days

“These are the days.
These are days you’ll remember.
Never before and never since, I promise
Will the whole world be warm as this.
And as you feel it,
You’ll know it’s true
That you are blessed and lucky.
It’s true that you
Are touched by something.
That will grow and bloom in you”.

From “These Are Days” by 10,000 Maniacs.

The little small group collective that gather around our dining table and inhabit our home and hearts have been working through a series looking at the topics of simplicity, love and justice in recent weeks. 

There are some big and small ideas that seem to challenge me to the core weekly.  Some little changes I can make and some bigger ones I am trying to work through. 

It’s good to enjoy food and laughs with friends who are also determined to encourage one another to grapple with things it’s easier to dismiss.  For each of us to become who we are meant to be and to think and live counter-culturally at times.

I seem to be hearing lots about consumerism at the minute.  I always falter with that when the new Howies or SAS catalogues arrive.  Mind you, this little piece made me smile:

“Come rain (and there will be), come shine (here’s hoping).  Even if our knees have knobbles and our calves are like sticks, we’ll be hunting through our wardrobes for our favourite shorts.  Because just a few hours of sunshine is all we need to remember those summers when we were kids.  When the sun shone for longer, the days were endless and our only deadline was tea on the table.  And when we got up in the morning and threw on our shorts and t-shirts, grabbed some toast and our bikes or skateboards and left for the day we knew that one day in the future the sun would be shining and we’d be putting on our shorts and remembering that feeling.

These are the days and they always were.”

Peace.

Poison

“My old man always swore that hell would have no flames.
Just a front row seat to watch you true love pack her things and drive away.”

From “Poison” by Pedro The Lion.

How much great art, film and music has been inspired by the notion of love? 

Ask someone to describe what love feels like and either a stream of metaphors and pictures ensue or there is a pregnant pause whilst we try to grasp the language to capture something so huge.  At our core we were all made for relationship and we long to be loved.  When we listen to songs about love breaking down,  it pains us at times because most of us have been there at one point or another.  None of us want to lose something so special, to acknowledge that feelings change, to recognise a thrill has gone or to feel rejected.

The lyrics above come from a desperately sad song about the breakdown of a relationship and the failure to cope in the aftermath.  This week I have watched it unfold in the lives of two people I hold dear.  It seems to be beyond being able to fix and I see them cancelling their wedding arrangements and dealing with who owns what and who keeps the house they have spent the last few years rennovating. 

How do I offer more than trite concern?  How do I offer support, understanding, love and hope?  I feel helpless and insufficient and a deep sadness for my friends.

“It’s finished” sounds so final.  So bleak.  So empty.  So devoid of purpose.

Someone else cried “It is finished” and they accomplished something that gives me a hope and a purpose no matter how tired of life I feel at times. 

How do I convey that to my friends whilst one smiles and jokes with me safe in the knowledge I know what is going on and whilst the other forces a smile through pursed lips and wet eyes?  How do I reach out as their relationship disintegrates in front of us all and they and I feel so broken inside?

Casimir Pulaski Day

On my most recent post, I quoted extensively from an engaging interview with Sam Beam of Iron & Wine which appeared in Paste magazine.  You can link to that post here.  He commented that the three main topics which he believes will really affect someone as a human being are: love; God; and death. 

Are those the topics that really seperate “great” art (in whatever media i.e painting, sculpture, photography, literature, film, music, whatever) from “good” art?  For me, I think that notion certainly rings very true.  Faced with any one of those issues in isolation and, in our most quiet and honest moments, I reckon that we stop pretending.

I asked what these things would look or sound like?

For me, I think it might be something very much like the attached you tube clip.  This is a song that speaks more truth to me about these subjects than many others.  The video is something that has not been prepared by some high budget commission by the musician involved, but is simply someone having lovingly story-boarded the sentiment and imagery and story of the song.  The result gets me every time I watch and listen to it.  I know there can be a tendency to skip people’s video links on blogs, but I would encourage you to click the arrow below and watch this.

October

“October
And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care?
October
And kingdoms rise
And kingdoms fall
But you go on”

From “October” by U2

Twenty seven years after its release, these two minutes and twenty seconds remain some of my favourites within U2’s catalogue.  Autumn leaves are such a common metaphor for life and love and loss.  In these days of global financial crisis, the line about kingdoms rising and falling resonates with me together with the thought of something eternal and everlasting and bigger than all of this mess we find ourselves in.