A Fusion of ideas

A weekend of contrasts! Not just in the weather – gloriously warm and sunny on Saturday, dull, wet and cool Sunday and Monday – but in the events I attended. The decision to juxtapose Greenbelt and Fusion seemed like a good idea at the time and I would probably have enjoyed both even more if I had attended them both all the time – however I think I got a lot out of the two events and reflecting on what each said to the other. So here I’ll share my thoughts on the fusion of ideas that emerged as I moved from Greenbelt (Kettering) to Fusion (Birmingham).

Main arena at Greenbelt with Boughton Houise lake in foreground

I shall go onto a bit more detail about Greenbelt elsewhere but just to say that it is a festival of ideas, arts and music where faith and justice meet. I arrived on Friday afternoon, settled in, found my way round and went to various events. Saturday dawned fair and I listened to a talk by Madeline Bunting before heading off to the sunny Cofton Park to spend the day with maybe 10,000 people (many families and young people as well as a few old dudes) listening to 9 pop acts – indie, hip-hop and house included. The big draw for me was Clean Bandit (my favourite techno-house classical fusion band, as mentioned weeks ago!!) but I was also impressed by Labyrinth, Sigma, Ella Henderson and Rudimental to name but a few.

Back to Greenbelt. Madeline Bunting (Writer, Social Activist and Guardian Journalist) was speaking about ‘mindfulness’ – a new trend that is making big inroads into the workplace and life generally. The basic idea is that we should discipline ourselves to spend at least 10 minutes a day centring down, focussing on our breathing, and avoiding distraction. The mindfulness movement has some scientific backing and has demonstrated that the techniques can relieve stress and tension and improve wellbeing. It’s being seen as a significant way to reduce the reliance on prescription anti-depressants. A key element is being aware of the inner narrative which is so often judgemental (about self and others) and interrupting the flow of these thoughts so as to focus on positive thoughts (I simplify of course!).

It is becoming popular because it has no creed, dogma, institution or priests (although scientists behind it are looking for some codification and recognition). It is wholly experiential – not reliant on outward practices and it is seen as a practical response to the exhaustion of our 24/7 culture.

Madeline herself has now left the Catholic Church in which she was brought up and favours a Buddhist way of life. Questioners at her session compared mindfulness with Christian (e.g. Ignation) contemplation and she noted that in this tradition there was more reliance on the use of words (not wholly true?). What saddened and surprised me most was her response to a point made about Jesus who said ‘blessed are the meek’ and himself practiced spiritual discipline. Madeline who had clearly been scarred by religious experienced commented (I paraphrase) ‘If you have managed to find the hidden thread of compassion in Christianity – good luck to you’

Here we see yet another example of contemporary people turning away from Christianity (or perhaps more accurately the Church) because they do not associate it with love, compassion, wellbeing or a meaningful response to the problems of contemporary life. (I could further critique this by commenting that Madeline’s notion of mindfulness is firmly rooted in western society – what would it have to say to those refugees immersed in a 24/7 struggle for survival?)

So with these thoughts ringing in my ears and the words from ‘The Shaping of Things to come’ also swirling round I approached Cofton Park. In their book, Frost and Hirsch several times consider how the church relates to people outside. Using the example of bikers gathering on a Sunday, they suggest that few bikers would probably come to a special biker-friendly service at the local church, but more would be influenced by Christians who joined their bikers group. The same can be said for many other ‘tribes’ not least pop fans (see the segway there?)

So Fusion, like the many other festivals happening over Bank Holiday weekend attracted huge numbers of people who enjoyed the music and atmosphere. Someone I bumped into at Greenbelt commented how much they enjoyed festival because for one weekend a year they could be someone else, they could be anonymous. The same can be said for Fusion and the festivals I’m sure.

Once again I was struck at how well the crowds knew the words of the songs.  I’ve been listening to ‘New Eyes’ by Clean Bandit for months but can still only manage to mumble a few  choruses. The fans knew all the words to all their songs as well as many of the other acts. How do they do it? I can only imagine it’s because they take the songs with them on various devices wherever they go, and through numerous repetitions they sink in. Just like the Psalms, Wesley Hymns Taize and Latin chants; we’ve surely lost something of that in the modern (Western) church haven’t we! Perhaps because we only ‘do’ church on a Sunday, unlike the music fans who are constantly plugged in to their music or indeed my dear Mother in Law who would sing Wesley hymns when dong the housework!

Reflecting on Madeline Bunting’s talk and the upsurge in interest in Mindfulness I was struck how many lyrics were about people seeking their identity, recovering from abuse, standing up for themselves, seeking and finding and loosing love. Once again there were numerous spiritual themes and even references to Biblical narratives in many of those lyrics that I could make out:

I keep going to the river to pray
'Cause I need something that can wash out the pain
And at most I'm sleeping all these demons away
But your ghost, the ghost of you
It keeps me awake

(Ella Henderson: Ghost 2015)

And when we started out
Out in those I Love You days
The days that seemed so bright
You brightened up inside
The side of you I loved
The love we had you crucified

(Ella Henderson: Pieces 2015)

One performer introduced her song by saying it was for anyone who had been treated badly by another person and asked for a show of hands of those in the audience who had the same experience. Over half of the young hands I could see in front of me shot up in the air.  Surely these people need mindfulness. Surely they need to know love, hope and forgiveness. Surely they need the gospel! But will they go to their local church to find it or do we need to release Christian pop fans to get alongside them??

Here’s just one example of lyrics that have deep meaning:

Even when you let me down
I forgive you in the end
What goes round comes back around
So I'll wait for you till then
If that's not enough, oh, no, no
Tell me what would be enough, be enough, be enough, be enough

And what is love
If you're still searching for something?
And what is love
If it's building up to nothing?
We'll never see how far we've come
But we keep looking at the sun
So what is love
If we're still searching for something?

Get higher, higher, higher
We keep looking up
Higher, higher, higher
But we're still not high enough
Higher, higher, higher
We keep looking up
Higher, higher, higher
But we're still not high enough

(Sigma ft Labyrinth 2015)

And as well as the lyrics there was the sense of closeness, community and togetherness. When ‘Shine like a diamond’ was sung the crowd made diamonds with their fingers and held them up high. As Clean Bandit sung ‘extraordinary’ every hand in the arena went up as if the crowd was joining in the search for something special, something beyond the ordinary, maybe beyond the daily lives that would summons them back to normality in two days’ time?

Something extraordinary
Something real
To fill my days and nights with something
That I can feel (I can feel)

(Extraordinary Clean Bandit 2014)