Â鶹ԼÅÄ

From Revered Kate Bottley, Vicar of the churches of Blyth, Scrooby and Ranskill:

Last Saturday night I strapped on my Doc Martins and pulled on my checked shirt and indulged in a bit of time travelling. Back to the ‘90s with an indie all dayer at a sweaty venue in Manchester. The bands of my youth were playing and I wasn’t going to miss it for the world. Being 5 foot nothing there’s no option of standing quietly at the back, so I surged to the front. The mosh pit was politer than I remembered and I suspect because of bad backs and weak 40 year old knees not as raucous as I recall but it was just as friendly. I lost count of the number of strangers I locked eyes with over lyrics that we could never forget and while the Wonder Stuff sang about the size of a cow, I became surprisingly emotional with a bloke in an old band t shirt from Bolton.

It wasn’t the only music I enjoyed on Saturday, that afternoon I’d officiated at a wedding and encouraged the guests when it came to the hymns to go for ‘volume over tunefulness’, they took me at my word and belted out ‘The Lord of the dance’ with more gusto and enthusiasm than I’d heard in a long time. I couldn’t help but smile and neither could they.

In the bible we are encouraged to worship God by making a ‘joyful noise’ the music I encountered on Saturday was the best description of this I’ve heard in a while. Music brings joy, it stirs us, makes strangers friends and helps put a tune to our happiness and comforts our pain, it goes deep into the deepest part of our souls, connects us with each other and transports us into the presence of the holy composer of the tune of life.  We lock eyes from the driver’s seat of our car with a stranger in a queue of traffic only to realise that we are singing along to the same radio station.

Not so long ago on an early morning dog walk in our local park I sang along to the worst of my play list I got a bit carried away with Barry Manillio, belting out ‘At the coppa coppa cabana…’ a voice through the early morning mist replied back ‘the hottest spot north of havana’. I don’t know who the stranger was on that disco dawn chorus but the joy it brought and the joy of Saturday’s holy hymns and audacious anthems have the power to carry me in times of joy and sorrow. So today whatever your song might be sing up and sing out because music is good for the soul and the tune of our shared humanity sounds better with your voice in the chorus.