Mobility brings freedom and a certain amount of unpredictability. I spent last weekend in Birmingham engaged in a ministerial project for the Diocese. Travelling back on Sunday morning brought with it clear blue skies until I reached the Oxford bypass when rain swept in with relentless force. While some drivers seemed unaffected by the downpour my car seemed to be very sensitive to patches of surface water combined with strong crosswinds. This was the time and space into which I heard the distinctive theme tune of Desert Island Discs. Much to my delight I discovered that Lauren Laverne was to interview Nick Cave.  

 

 

Readers of my blog might have picked up a piece I wrote in February 2024 about his captivating book, Faith Hope and Carnage written with Sean O’Hagan. If you come across a copy do get hold of it – I promise you will not be disappointed!  You might be interested to take a quick look at my review https://www.jameswoodward.online/blog/faith-hope-and-carnage-by-nick-cave/

In Praise of Desert Island Disks

The interview with Nick Cave was powerful and one of those ‘ shifting’ moments that invites you into a different space. He shared his story in such an undefended way. Laverne showed her listener how to ask invitational questions. There was a sense of warmth, respectful curiosity. Laverne rarely gets in the way of the guests life and music.

We glimpsed quite a lot about Cave. He was honest about his family, the lost opportunities that he was offered at school and his drug addiction. He named the many things that have sustained him and brought him into life. In these far too short moments in between the tracks we saw the gift of being real, truthful and undefended life. He names regrets. He celebrates love. He takes us inside his creative and original heart and mind for songwriting and performance. See for yourself https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0027cgl For what it is worth I was glad to be introduced to the music of Karen Dalton but my favourite track was Nina Simone, My Father.

What do we learn about Nick Cave?

Cave tells us that his writing and his music demand routine and discipline.  ‘ I go to work like everyone else….. in a suit.’  This free spirit requires structure for the creative process to work and for it to release imagination. A steady routine of ‘9 to 5’yields fruit.

We learn about his family and how his father, a teacher, introduced him to art and literature and the adventure of learning. This is a man who has read deeply and widely. This is a man who engaged in challenging and deepening conversations around the family table. He was shaped by film, literature and the outrageous comedy of Barry Humphries performing as Dame Edna.

At one level this is a conventional and secure childhood but it is shot through with the challenge, disruption, freedom and a heavy touch of rebelliousness. There is something irrepressibly life-giving about this troublemaker. He challenges those of us who conform, agree and go with the flow for the sake of a quiet life, ‘I just never really like to be told what to do and how to behave and what to sing’ is a theme tune running through his life. Perhaps paradoxically this just might be  the secret of his skill as a writer and musician.

Cave tells us about his move to London in 1980 and the steady movement into recognition and fame. In a world of electronic communication Cave is a letter writer. His commitment to writing home to his mother during these years is evident and important for her. Following her death during the pandemic, he discovers that his mother had kept all of his letters from London. It made me wonder what life might be like if we recovered this art and made time to connect and share our lives in writing.

But there is pain and heart wrenching grief. Cave reminds us that all of our lives are fragile and unpredictable. Each of us in different ways have to handle the life changing shape and shadows of loss and grief. He is unafraid to name the carnage of death and particularly what happened to him following the death of his 15-year-old son Arthur in Brighton in 2015. He shows us how to name our fragility and boundedness as we live with the roars of fear and insecurity. Life is rarely predictable or secure for anyone.  Again in this interview, Cave shows us that life is simply too short to be fake. He tells us that however much he might hurt we need to speak from within our heart.

Truth, imagination, and participation as the life of the Christian Church.

Is a reflect on this I wonder how far this has shaped his faith. We learn from his blog site the red hand files https://www.theredhandfiles.com/ how important the discipline of going to church on a Sunday is for him. One of the most arresting phrases that Cave shared in this yielding interview (and picked up by my wonderful colleague Jo Neary) was his description of the Church as truth, imagination and participative.

I think it is true that as we grow older what sometimes emerges is a clear vision of what’s important. We might become clear also of  what simply needs to be let go of. We may wonder about what it is about loss that shapes the very fabric of what it means to be human. We know that very often older adults become much more open to the spiritual and religious dimension of life because experience has brought a deepening of purpose and meaning. It is a painful but necessary part of growing up.

Here is how Cave expresses this:

‘ I experience a certain spiritualness within the worlds chaos, and approximate understanding that God is implicit in some latent way. Yet it is only really in Church, that profoundly fallible human institution that I become truly liberated. I am swept up in a poetic story that is both true and imaginative and fully participatory, where my spiritual imagination can be both contained and free. The church may appear to some a small, even stifling, it’s congregation heard like, yet within its architecture, music, lit and stories I find a place of immense spiritual recognition and liberation.’

 

Looking forward for Sarum College

We might want to wonder whether spiritual imagination can be both contained and free, but it resonates within my own story. It also captures something of the journey of Sarum College on my own work there over the last decade. 

Our life is deeply rooted in the Christian story and I think we need to be more confident in expressing the rootedness of this history and the way it shapes our desire to draw people in to learning for their flourishing. Perhaps we need to be more confident about our Christian identity. With Cave we need to find narratives that express how in and through our community of learning we open up windows into the truth of what salvation may look and smell and sound like.

Of course we shall need to be adventurous and playful. We shall also need to be respectful of the curious and suspicious integrity of those who sit on the edges or beyond any formal religious commitment. We shall need to be rigorous in our intellectual endeavours. We shall need to be able to communicate the shape of this invitation into a theological adventure and journey which captures both the imagination and our human need for truth. This is I think what Cave expresses.

In these difficult times for the Church we would do well to attend to voices such as Cave. He is real and grounded. He is hopeful and wounded. He is creative and invitational. He is playful and serious. And all of this resonates throughout his music. Perhaps it’s there where we see his theology played out through the hopeful and painful reality of living this one life of ours.

Philip Larkin in his poem Church Going, tells us  that the Church is ( and can be) a serious House on a serious Earth. Perhaps our theological endeavours here at Sarum might invite you into some serious exploration, study and reflection?

In the meantime, thank God for Nick Cave. I hope and pray he continues to make music for our souls for some time to come.