Where have all the new cars gone?

Title of this post to be sung to the tune of Where Have All the Flowers Gone>, that very poignant protest song of the sixties. I never knew it was an anti-Vietnam song back in those wide-eyed and innnocent days of mine of course: I just saw it as a lovely song in the same vein as In an English Country Garden. However, its lyrics ring true again now, but where are the folk singers of today to vent their anger at the torrid, horrid world our society seems to be becoming?

The news these past few days has been dominated by the fate of the latest hostages to fall victim to the sub-human extremists of the Middle East. Ken Bigley, a middle-aged Englishmanm has his life hanging in the balance with the threat of chilling execution, most likely beheading, for no other crime apparently than being the wrong nationality in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two of his fellow captives have met that fate in the last week but the mental torture being imposed on his loved ones is almost worse than the physical barbarity of his death sentence. The captors are demanding the release of two Iraqi women held in American jails, something which needless to say the US will not acceed to.

Last night saw Mr Bigley's distraught 86-year old mother, barely able to contain herself, appear before a news conference before later collapsing and needing hospital treatment (although she has at least been discharged this morning). What can possibly drive anyone to such acts of savagery, to forgive the insult to my surname? Have they never had family themselves? Can anyone be so loveless? I do hope and pray that the pleas of his family will have been seen by his captors and move them to mercy, but somehow I fear it will make little difference.

How can anyone so lose their humanity to ruthlessly kill not fellow soldiers or militia men, but disinterested civilians? Of course, the west is not blameless and our leaders have the blood of countless other civilian lives on their hands but this sort of thing just defies belief.

My feelings echo those of 'decent' people everywhere I hope. It was a theme taken up by Father Brian Darcy in a great Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2 this morning. He called everyone of any faith to spare a prayer to their God for this hapless man and his family and it was a challenge I willingly responded to immediately. The resultant 15 minute prayer session was a blessing of stillness in an unstill world: I find it increasingly wonderful how God can provide such moments of perfect peace, or Shalom as the Bible calls it, at the most unexpected times and in unlikely ways.

As I write this, I am once again having to keep my cool against what seem to me like the excesses of my neighbours below. For the last twelve hours or so, I've heard what sounds like the same piece of music being played over and over accompanied by incessant chatter. Now it's not noisome in itself, but irritating. And yet, I know that good witness means being tolerant to this, understanding and moderate. Compared to the matters above, its a trivial annoyance. My neighbours do after all have every right to enjoy their culture in their flat during the daytime hours and I'd be laughed out of court if I attempted to complain to officialdom this time, I think. This world needs moderation, and it needs moderators. Lord, bring us back to that equilibrium, that "Shalom", which only you can give.

As I said in an earlier posting, I don't think I have known a September like it. But you have to find light relief and normality, indeed almost wallow in the mundane in such situations or else the terrorists win their victory. The little observations of life, these daily details, may not be of earth-shattering importance, but they do ensure that civilised life, whatever that is, can carry on.

It's now two-thirds of the way through the month when the 54 registration came in, but I have yet to see a new car on the road- most unusual. OK, there were eight of them on the back of a transporter the other day, but that doesn't count! Are these moveable cartons of shiny metal and rubber losing their allure? For the sake of the thousands employed in the motor industry, I certainly hope not, but maybe environmentalists would raise a cheer.

It's such a fine balance between enjoying and enduring this consumer-led planet, I find. Laws of physics ordered by the almighty actually make this world go round,not money, and yet there's no tirade against trade in the Bible, something I've perhaps been prone to forget at times. However, it does warn that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil- though not, as is often misquoted "of all evil". I wonder how much of our present problems are really down to a misguided moneyphilia? At which point, purely by "accident", I'm sure, the weekly LICC mailing popped into the inbox, saying this:

Jesus Walks – Kanye West

Jesus is everywhere - from designer label All Saints’ silver-studded belts proclaiming ‘Jesus loves you’ to River Island’s cartoon-Christ t-shirts bearing the WWJD legend. Never before has the Son of God been so assimilated in order to push product.

It doesn’t stop there. Christ is in the cinema, Christ is in politics, and now Christ is in a pop chart near you. And no, it’s not Christmas, and Sir Cliff is nowhere to be heard. Instead, it’s the goth-shock rocker Marilyn Manson and the critically lauded US rap star Kanye West who are responsible.

Manson’s latest release, a cover of Depeche Mode’s classic ‘My Own Personal Jesus’, attacks America’s right wing , as the Republicans lay claim to divine approval in the run-up to the elections (see ‘God is not a Republican’ at www.licc.org.uk/culture/god-is-not-a-republican).

Kanye’s song ‘Jesus Walks’, however, reveals an even more radical message for contemporary America.

It is many things - an attack on racism and the divide between rich and poor, a confession (‘I want to talk to God but I’m afraid cos we ain’t spoke in so long’) and a rooted ‘gospel’ song depicting Christ’s compassion for the outcast:

‘To the hustlers, killers, murderers, drug dealers, even the strippers, Jesus walks with them. To the victims of welfare, feel we living in hell here, hell yeah, Jesus walks with them.’

But the unique prophetic edge of both the song and album (‘The College Dropout’) is West’s unflinching critique of aspects of his own Afro-American culture. He refuses to embrace the popular image of rapper-as-gangster-hero, and undermines the superficiality of the bling-bling consumer lifestyle. As his recent hit ‘All Falls Down’ decrees, ‘The prettiest people do the ugliest things/For the road to the riches and the diamond rings.’

West also calls into account the deep hypocrisy of a media culture which encourages its stars to flaunt sex and violence but never religious ideals. As he spits in ‘Jesus Walks’, ‘They said you can rap anything except for Jesus.’

Christians wishing to ‘make it’ in the music world are often wary that overt expressions of faith will make them unpopular. Perhaps the gospel according to Kanye shows that incisive social thinking accompanied by assured musicianship is one way to ensure that, directly or indirectly, Jesus gets to talk (if not walk, quite yet) with the MTV masses.

Jason Gardner

How true. God needs witnesses to his goodness. Not people who bling bling but sing sing of his great love forever. At which point, I'd love to quote the hymn based on Vaughan Williams' wonderful Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, which was one of the hymns they had on the Daily Service pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela this morning. Trouble is, I don't know the words!

THE LONG ROAD
I might not share the spiritual background of the pilgrims venerating the professed relics of Jesus' brother, but I am certainly a pilgrim on the journey on the modern road of life. A few years ago, I had a chorus come to me on one of my prayer breaks on the beach in Portslade, East Sussex, where I was living at the time I put the words to the tune of a lovely tune by the brilliant Mark Knopfler, called

On the long road, the long road of life
Sometimes there's joy, sometimes strife
But through it all
You're still the same
You share the joy
You share the pain

Lord, I love you, yes I do
I'll follow you, follow true
Down that long road, the road of life
That long long road, the road of life.

It is a long road indeed, yet hitting the "motorway" of mortal existence in the forties, you realise how short a journey it can be so it's best to make the most of it. The early pilgrims reached their final destinations footsore and weary, but God is not averse to industrial technology aiding the journey in our age, I'm sure. However, rust will never destroy this chariot. It runs on love and its journey travelled is measured in heartbeats not milemarks. There's a 24/7 hotline to the manufacturer and an eternal lifetime warranty. With features like that, who needs the latest number on a plate?