My Soundtrack of 2013

Apologies to any remaining regular readers for the sparseness of the blog in recent times. But inspired by the ever-granular Ben Jiggins, below are the songs that have been particularly distinctive in my life this year (organised alphabetically by artist rather than order of impact): 

Machineries of joy – British Sea Power: A new British Sea Power album is always a major event in my musical calendar, and this opening track (from the album of the same name) sets the scene for the beauty that follows. I don’t feel I really know the album that well as yet, but this song has rarely been out of my head since hearing it. 

Monsters of Sunderland – British Sea Power: Another stand out track from the new album, this is unadulterated energy, melody and guitars mixed with tales of North Eastern folk heroism. Fantastic.

Stunde Null – British Sea Power: An older track from BSPs generally underwhelming 4^th album, this minor-key number rocks out at an urgent pace in a generally incomprehensible manner. Classic BSP and a song whose excellence I’ve only come to appreciate this year.

Give life back to music – Daft Punk: The first three notes of this song constitute the most powerful and distinctive opening to an album I’ve heard for a long while. The riff returns at regular intervals to make this a highly captivating song.

Giorgio by Moroder – Daft Punk: Undoubtedly my favourite new song of the year. And this from someone not massively inclined towards electro-pop. Epic epic epic. No other word. That ITV used this in their Tour de France coverage after Chris Froome’s early domination only increased the awesomeness.

November Rain – Guns n Roses: During my two-week placement on the manufacturing line one of my duties was to test the radios on each car. Blasting out all nine minutes of this was a definite highlight and led me to rediscover the song.

Read my Mind – The Killers: I’ve considered this to be a very high calibre song for a good five years, but it gets special recognition for hitting my ultimate ‘music-for-the-moment’ experience of the year – playing over the morning airwaves while driving to Heathrow to fly to the USA for holiday. Sublime.

Siberia – Lights: Having not heard of her before, I ended up listening to Lights on Spotify through a chain of related artist suggestions including Bastille and Imagine Dragons. I would highly recommend becoming familiar with her catalogue, and it was the acoustic version of this track that has particularly penetrated my songscape.

Some Kind of Nothingness – Manic Street Preachers: Another track of a few years past whose genius is now full-born in my mind. Soaring strings, choir in the third chorus and a drenching of classic Manics nostalgia combine to scintillating effect. Would wager this is the song I have listened to most while driving in 2013.

Glory Days – Bruce Springsteen: A long way from my favourite Springsteen song, but this has come up over and over again this year at opportune times to raise my mood. Also has interesting tie-ins to the theological debate surrounding the cultural mandate.

I Work Days and You Work Nights - To Kill a King: A band introduced to me by the aforementioned Ben, I have enjoyed their debut album and the simple piano/haunting vocal combination of this opening number have embedded into my deeper musical conscience. Another album I look forward to getting to know better. 

Lebanon in Syria's Shadow

The ongoing crisis in Syria has plunged neighbouring Lebanon to the brink of a full-scale sectarian war between the Sunni and Shi'ite communities. Given the political similarities between Syria and Lebanon this is not altogether unsurprising, but the process has been catalysed by the direct intervention of the Lebanese based Shi'ite militia group Hezbollah in the conflict. For a more in-depth look at what is going on, I suggested visiting this newspaper website or watching this BBC documentary.

But the situation is far more complicated than may appear, as Lebanon has 18 recognised religious identities, including 12 Christian communities that make up around a third of Lebanon's overall population. While the Christian communities were involved in Lebanon's Civil War (which ended in 1990), the war in Syria (and so likely any conflict within Lebanon) has become defined as a inter-Muslim sectarian crisis. And like many Christian communities in the Middle East in such situations, Lebanon's Christians risk become caught in the crisis, as Iraq's long-standing Christian communities have. Indeed, there has been a general mass exodus of Christians from the Middle East in the past 15 years, and strife in Lebanon would risk accelerating this further.

Lebanon desperately needs prayer to avoid these potential catastrophes. Please pray that:

* The escalating Shi'ite-Sunni sectarian violence would cease and civil war be avoided
* There would be peace and reconciliation between the communities of Lebanon
*Christian communities would not be forced to flee Lebanon
* There would be authentic witness of the love, peace, reconciliation  judgement and Sovereign Lordship of Jesus Christ in Lebanon

Why I have joined the Labour Party

I’ve been hooked to politics ever since the 1997 general election campaign. But with the exception of a single year within the Liberal Democrats I’ve never been a member of a political party. There have been a number of reasons for this, but the two recurring ones have been having other priorities at various times and my political vision not fitting neatly within any of the three dominant ideologies of British politics (socialism, liberalism, conservatism). This latter point is further complicated by the fact that the three major parties of the UK that are supposedly the standard-bearers of such ideologies have wildly blurred their heritage in a pursuit of pragmatic vote grabbing, the PC-agenda and active secularism.

Today, it is arguable that the UK political scene has never been more uninspiring. This despite the fact that the nation is facing some of the greatest strategic challenges in its history, almost all of which are global in their scope. These include the challenge of stewarding an economy that is both flourishing and sustainable without running up colossal debt, seeking territorial security in a world of unregulated nuclear development and volatile terrorism, and the urgent need for continual global resolve over food, water and environmental security for all. The question that sits over all this is - with the economic eclipsing of Europe by new markets, what global role does Britain now have? What role should we look to have? Westminster barely scratches the surface of such issues, and without being dogmatically alarmist, we really do have our head in the political sand right now. Party politics appears as sterile as ever, voter engagement largely cynical.

So why plunge in now? Surely this is the time to walk away and get on living a full, joyful, Christ-centred life outside of the murky machinations of politics? While a greatly attractive prospect in many ways, I have found myself unable to walk away. It is a call on my life I can’t lay down. And I feel that now is the time to get involved. I have had many helpful years of political formation and reflection, and do not regret waiting until now. But I would regret waiting any longer. So in I have plunged.

But why the Labour party? In purely ideological terms, I have made convincing cases to myself for joining any one of the three main parties. I believe in the socialist ethic of caring for the less-well-off, marginalised and vulnerable within society; I believe in the liberal view of civic society and democratic governance; I believe in the one-nation conservative social vision of a politics that embraces cultural-moral concerns as well as material matters. Yet, as has already been noted, these visions seem at best confused and diluted within their respective contemporary parties, so I have had to take some other questions into account:

o       What values are at the core of each party?

o       Which parties reflect the interest of all and not just a select group?

o       Which parties have the political courage to take on the strategic Goliaths of our age?

o       Which parties move beyond materialism to consider the fullness of ‘the good life’?

There was not a uniform answer to these questions. But after great reflection, I have decided that the Labour Party is the party closest to my political home, despite falling short on some of the above points. I have many views that will not be shared with the majority of other Labour members (such as on EU membership, schooling and gay marriage) which may prove challenging, although this would equally be the case (perhaps on different issues) within the other parties. But faced with the alternatives of frustration in a minority party or the tirelessness of starting a new movement, I am happy to have made this choice.

So, I’ve joined the party, what next? There are two very clear next steps for me – to agitate the Labour policy agenda to deal with these huge national challenges and to campaign for a Labour majority in the 2015 general election, to deliver a government that will truly govern as a ‘one-nation’ party.  After that, who knows…

Shelf Stacking and Humanity

Of the yards of comment produced by the recent high profile Work Scheme case of graduate Cait Reilly (who was 'forced' to stack shelves for no pay to continue receiving benefits), by far the most interesting was that of Independent writer Terence Blacker. Particularly striking was the assertion that:

"For many conservatives, [big society ideas] must have been dangerously liberal thoughts. If people like Cait Reilly began to discover that there was more to life than being an economic unit, then the whole market-based system of values would start to crumble."

This is one more presentation of the battle between liberal and conservative views on the ordering of life that have raged since the 18th century. Yet what is interesting is that both socialist and social democratic movements also fall prey to exactly the same material critique- that in their systems the first measure of humanity is their economic wealth (or lack of). The counter critique is that liberal notions of humanity that are 'light' on economic urgency will soon lead us down the path of excess, laze and ultimately disorder. 

As in most dialectic impasses, Christianity urges us to choose the truth of both ideas and learn how to keep a healthy tension in our public (and private) life. According to scripture Human is made in the image of God, and the character of God encompasses creativity, community, love and labour. Therefore we are intrinsically economic beings but we are intrinsically much more than that also. Unemployment does indeed offend our core humanity, but so does workaholism or an expression-free life.

Manual work is a dignified activity that should not be snobbishly shunned, for indeed the Lord Jesus himself partook of it. Yet this isn't the debatable point in this case, for the vast majority of reasonable people will agree with such a view. The real issue is as Terence Blacker described it - does the Work Scheme embody a dangerous view of humanity that we are only materialist and therefore can only fulfil the Human Call through being 'economic cogs'? Let us hope this is not so and that this case merely highlights a gross lack of sense and flexibility in the Work Scheme administration.