An article for October editions of parish magazines from the Archdeacon of Worcester, Robert Jones.
I’ve been reading The House of Music, which tells the true story of a family of seven children, taught at a state comprehensive in Nottingham, who take the classical music world by storm. Mum is brought up as a mixed-race child in a deeply prejudiced Britain and her children also know what it feels like to be on the end of hurtful racist comments. Each of the seven children turns out to be a gifted musician. You might have heard of one: Sheku was asked to play the cello at Harry and Meghan’s wedding, something which shot him to worldwide fame.
During the pandemic and also reflecting upon the death of George Floyd which shocked the world, the family played a home-spun lockdown concert from their home, ending with these words from Sheku: ‘We want to bear collective witness to the violence that divides us, and stand together with those who want change. Racism is a global pandemic that has been going on far too long to stay silent. For us, music is our form of expression, protest and hope. Love to you all.’
Brave words from a young black man in hard times. Music was the way in which they chose to rise above hatred and learned the language of love. As lockdown closed down theatres and concerts, their mum wrote this: ‘With the muting of the performing arts comes a narrowness of vision, and room only for the loudest, angriest and most monotonous of stories.’ They found a way in which to rise above the loud, the angry and the monotonous.
Thankfully, Covid is no longer shutting down the arts, the churches or the places where we refresh ourselves. However, I find myself going back to those prophetic words of their mother. There are loud voices in this divided world and indeed country of ours. Someone once said of the swimming pool that the noise is loudest at the shallow end, and we’ve certainly become accustomed to sound bites rather than considered thought. There has surely been a shallowness in much of our political and even religious discourse.
Where do we find a story to help us rise above the clamour of competing views and visions, and get a sense of perspective? How do we avoid narrowness of vision and create enough space to see the wood for the trees? For the Christian this is often found in reflective prayer. A bishop was once asked a question on a radio news programme and surprised the presenter by saying that he needed to think about it, going quiet for a few moments. Quiet doesn’t work on radio, yet this silence enabled him to respond properly. Jesus summed up our faith as ‘loving God, neighbour and self’ - if prayer is about making time to love God, so too is loving your neighbour.
Simply put, the story of Jesus, God on earth, embodies a loving kindness which instinctively we feel is at the core of all human desiring and hoping. It isn’t a story by which we escape life’s tough realities: it is the story which helps us face them; it is ‘our form of expression, protest and love’.
Archdeacon Robert Jones
