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An Update: Where Have I Been?

So, it’s been a while. Are we all well? I haven’t posted anything here for a period of time which begins to look somewhat negligent. What have I been up to? Here’s a short update:

I appeared on Friday Night Theology at the end of September with a post about Football and Treasure. Read it here.

I’ve been writing a few music reviews for Drowned in Sound. You can see what I’ve been up to there by clicking on this sentence.

The blog post I put here a few months ago about the wedding of my friends Matt and Ruth has been on something of a journey. It was presented at a conference at The Vatican called Living Fully, and is now to appear in a forthcoming issue of theĀ Journal of Disability & Religion, which is great. This journal is the arena in which most of the most current discussion of theology and disability takes place. I’m pretty honoured to be featured in such a publication.

There are exciting developments in the conversation in the Church of England regarding leadership and people with impairments and disabilities, particularly after a recent breakthrough at General Synod, brought about at least in part by some sterling work and impressive speeches from several colleagues in ministry. It feels like a time for change is coming. It’s a real joy to be part of the Disability Task Group, led by Roy McCloughry and featuring some of the finest people in this field (and me). A lot of things happen behind the scenes, in the quiet, out of the public eye, but things are happening. It’s exciting.

I’ve been away from my regular role as Curate at Emmanuel Church for the last month or so. Instead, I’ve been privileged to have a placement with the Chaplaincy Team at St Andrews Healthcare. I could write so much about being there. Suffice to say that I have a newfound and developing passion for the place of what is commonly called Sector Ministry. I’m so thankful to the team there for welcoming me so warmly, and for my colleagues at Emmanuel for releasing me for this time.

I’ve also written a few songs. Sorry for the breakdown in my A Song A Month plan. The tracks will appear soon. Earnest discussions are taking place about what to do with them all…

So, that’s your update for now. I don’t think I’ve missed anything, but perhaps I have. More soon!

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A Song A Month

A Song A Month for Spring: See In the Dark

It’s been a couple of months in the writing (life happened) but, finally, here’s the next installment in my 2016 songwriting odyssey. ‘See in the Dark’ is another pretty serious song, this time about certainty, and the loss of it, and whether or not that’s ok. I wanted to write a song from the place of having lost certainty, resisting the temptation that can sometimes befall songwriters, especially Christians I think, for everything to resolve nice and neatly. It seems to me life isn’t really like that very often.

I’ll do my best to present a jolly, jaunty little summer number next time!

Without further ado, here’s the video. Hope you all enjoy. Thanks for watching.

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A Song A Month

A Song A Month For February 2016: Light Has Come

I’m really pleased today to release the video blog for February’s A Song A Month, ‘Light Has Come’.

Most of you reading this will know that I’m a disabled person. I try not to bang on about it all the time, but being disabled is part of me, it’s not something I can easily avoid, and so instead I try and embrace it, without making a fuss.

Years ago now, I did a Disability Studies Masters by Distance Learning from the University of Leeds. One of the key people on the course, Colin Barnes, challenged me to write songs about my experience of disability. ‘We need more protest songs’, he said. I always fought shy of writing about disability, mostly because I didn’t feel I had the language to write about it well in a song. I haven’t wanted to be a protest songwriter. I’m no Martyn Joseph.

Over the last few years though, perhaps as I get older and some of the idealism of youth wears off, I’ve found myself finding the UK a harder and harder place to live as a disabled person. I personally am a very fortunate man. I have a family, a wife who I love and who loves me. I have a faith which sustains me, and I feel like I’m able to make a contribution to my community, and to society, in a variety of ways. The fact remains though that I am in physical pain of one sort or another all of every day (like a lot of people, a lot of whom have it worse than me) and more than this, mentally and emotionally, I face challenges and hurdles to overcome many times daily, because I use a wheelchair and am disabled. It’s hard to explain or quantify. It’s simply how it is. I hate being disabled. Much as I’m supposed to be well-adjusted to it all, I wish I wasn’t.

But I know full well that my life isn’t as hard as it is for a great many other people, whether they are disabled people, or whether they experience other things in life which marginalise them and make them part of minority groups they never asked to be in. I truly believe that, as people of social conscience, Christian or not, we are called to be prophetic, whether we’re off faith or not. I believe we’re called to stand and hold one another to account for how we treat each other, whether we are ‘successful’, functionally well, impaired, old, young, or anything else. It saddens me to sense a corporate, societal, hardening of heart towards people with disabilities. Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps I’m entirely mistaken, but that’s my sense.

February’s A Song A Month is a humble offering, inviting us to see that there is a better way to live, a better way to treat one another, to treat ourselves. A Light Has Come.

Thanks once again to Pete Thorn for playing on this song, and his help with the video.

Download the lyrics to Light Has Come by clicking here

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A Song A Month

A Song A Month – January – Kingdom

The first song i my A Song A Month Project for 2016 is Kingdom. I wanted to start the year with an uptempo, joyful song. These don’t always come naturally to me! It’s about the Kingdom of God, based around a Taize chant, whose words are

The kingdom of God is justice and peace
And joy in the holy spirit
Come Lord and open in us
The gates of your kingdom

I’ve always found this chant quite affecting, as to me it boils down the essence of what some of the key elements of being a Christian are, to act justly, seek and love mercy and to live joyfully wherever possible.

Of course, the biggest thing about the Kingdom is that it is God’s not ours, but we are part of it, and he is building it with us. It’s here and now. As we sing praise, as we live seeking to follow the Way, we’re showing that there is a better way, a hope for now and a hope for the future. I’ve heard it said that the local church is the hope of the nation. I hope that singing this song might encourage some of us to lives of justice, peace and joy in the holy spirit as we show that hope to others.

Big thanks to Pete Thorn for playing percussion in the video and for his help with putting the video together.

Without further ado, watch the video below.

If you’re interested and would like to donwload the lyrics and chords to the song, you can do by clicking here