Welcome! You have accidentally reached the blog of a heteroclite follower of Jesus: dave wainscott. I'm
"pushing toward the unobvious" as I post thinkings/linkings
re: Scripture, church and culture. Hot topics include: temple tantrums, time travel, sexuality/spirituality, U2kklesia, role of the pastor, God-haunted music/art..and subversive videos like these.
Thanks to Asheley Boggan for bring this quote back into the conversation(s) about where Methodism goes from here. She rightly asserts that, "John Wesley's entire ministry was framed by a submission to be more vile." (p.23).
Wesley's Journal:
"I could scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, having been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in church...
“At four in the afternoon I submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation…” (, Journal of John Wesley, II, 31 Mar. 1739, p. 167 ).”
What time is it for Methodism? It's four o clock in the afternoon.
At Bristol.
We of the Methodist tradition are quick to quote a different time, date and place as where it all began:
"In the evening,I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." (Journal, May 24, 1738)
But one year later at Bristol, everything took subversive shape:
"Have you had a Bristol moment in your life?
A moment where you felt God calling you into something new and unexpected? (Discussion question, p.22)
In a very moving section (chaper 1), Boggan recounts her own Bristol encounter, literally in Bristol on a Wesleyan heritage tour, interweaving it with her own personal trauma (divorce and death of parents) and the denominational trauma. That brave pilgrimage is one we all need to take! Thank you, Ashley for inviting us into the hard but required work of reflection which can birth a wholly and holy vile life.
Any who know my own traumas connected to discerning my calling as a Methodist pastor may be surprised I am not here to comment on the UMC/GMC divide, or conservative/liberal debates. (See
And I would love to be as Bristol-ed as I was Aldersgated.
I will let you peek at the table of contents, and these reviews of the book to learn more about how she apples the Bristol-birthed vile-tality in the current situation. She is well-versed in history, a great story teller, and the challenges are clamant and convicting A heads-up: many in our tribe are not aware of the Thomas Blair incident (pp 30-31) in which Wesley used his influence to spring a man accused of "sodomitical practices" (reminds me of the Pastor Artie Bucco story) from prison. Tell that story, Methodists of all stripes.
May Wesleyans ever be "prophetically offensive" (p. 107) and sovereignly and steadfastly committed to Jesus..and to true "vile-tality."
Have you had a Bristol moment in your life?
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Note: I received a copy of the book from Speakeasy for an honest review.
But the canopy is there...even if appearing bruised.
I challenged Stacy to post a few reasons...any reason ..why she likes this song.
I can't wait to hear. She many even know things about the song I don't..and I have been tracking it for 45 years or so, I bet she even knows about the often-unnoticed (and much-debated ) throat-clearing cough towards the beginning that I always hears as a guy waking up and turning on the radio to hear this song, and eventually play along to it.
And that man has been me ever since.
To cough is to pray.
My reasons for liking the song are many.
And some were formed before Stacy was born.
But I don't even know if I can use the word "like."
Or love.
Or "hate"
Or "love."
Or love/hate.
Though they all work.
Maybe the word I need is "need."
I mean, we all need help putting words to our prayers at times.
Even, especially when the prayer ...as written...doesn't seem to be getting through..
And this song was an integral part of the prevenient-grace mixtape that led me to Jesus (tied with this 24-minute hymn from the Book Of Genesis--I mean, Band of Genesis ), and part of the strange and heteroclite canon/cannon of laments and imprecations that keep me tethered to this Jesus.
Stacy, I might not know you..or Jesus..without this song!
(Do I love or know Jesus?)
And this blog post is also serving a public challenge to Stacy to write more; even blog. Her social media posts can be stunningly moving. My post today may only be so to me, but I dedicate it to her.
This song.
Where to start?
If by some tragic circumstance you have never encountered this song, may I counterintuitively (Why not go the unobvious route?) suggest you sample this version filmed in my favorite city, as the song is sensitively interpreted performed by two Jewish men. If I had been there, and stumbled upon this scene, I would've probably been so transfixed that I'd be transfigured..or still there. To me, another Jewish Man is always active in the music of streets of That City.
See you after the break.
Original version.
When this song came out, and my friends and I first heard it cranked loud on Dan's huge JBL speakers:
As most Floydfans know, the album this is found on, and this song, is partly/largely about/addressed to former band member Syd Barrett,
As is much (all?) of their material.
Barrett had left the band/been forced out due to his drug-induced mental ilness, The band tells this chilling story
Syd Barrett's tortured spirit was already hovering over Pink Floyd's ninth studio album, even before he unexpectedly crashed the sessions for Wish You Were Here on June 5, 1975.
Both the emotive title track and shimmering, psychedelic epic "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" were inspired by Barrett, the band's former frontman, with chief writer Roger Waters meditating on themes of isolation and inward escape. So, when the long-absent musician – portly, with distant gaze, shaved head and eyebrows – randomly arrived during a mixing session for "Diamond," the coincidence reduced the band to a mixture of shock and depression.
It's not as if Barrett, Floyd's co-founder and the driving creative force behind their debut LP, 1967's The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, left the band on good terms. His mental instability, erratic stage behavior and addiction to LSD made him a liability, and guitarist-singer David Gilmour was brought in as a replacement.
....Pink Floyd were confused by his presence, assuming he had to be a crew member. But when Gilmour eventually identified their former bandmate, Waters broke down in tears. That June day also happened to be Gilmour's wedding day, so Barrett wandered into the guitarist's wedding reception at EMI. He left without telling anyone, disappearing as strangely as he'd arrived. The experience had a profound impact on the band, particularly Waters, who even incorporated a lyrical reference to the early Barrett-penned single "See Emily Play" on Wish You Were Here.
"I'm very sad about Syd, [though] I wasn't for years," Waters said in 1975. "For years, I suppose he was a threat because of all that bollocks written about him and us. Of course, he was very important and the band would never have f_____ started without him, because he was writing all the material. It couldn't have happened without him, but on the other hand, it couldn't have gone on with him. He may or may not be important in rock 'n' roll anthology terms, but he's certainly not nearly as important as people say in terms of Pink Floyd. So, I think I was threatened by him."
Gilmour, who co-wrote the music to both the title track and "Shine On," has trouble separating these classic songs from his memories of the former Floyd icon. "Although 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' is specifically about Syd and 'Wish You Were Here' has a broader remit," Gilmour said in the 2012 documentary Pink Floyd: The Story of Wish You Were Here, "I can't sing it without thinking about Syd."
Finally, now you are primed to read the lyrics, and weigh who they addressed/redressed to? Who is your Syd?
You can "never again sing it without thinking about" your "randomly arrived" Syd.
Lyrics:
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from hell Blue skies from pain Can you tell a green field From a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade Your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? Did you exchange A walk on part in the war For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here....
From Song Facts:
This song is about the detached feeling most people go through life with. It is a commentary on how people cope with the world by withdrawing physically, mentally, or emotionally. In the commentary of The Wall, Roger Waters states that the inspiration was Pink Floyd founding member Syd Barrett and his ordeal with schizophrenia.
Roger Waters has said this song was based on a poem he wrote about Syd Barrett's fall from reality. It was said that Syd's friends would lace his coffee with LSD, which eventually lead to his mental breakdown. >>
This was a rare case of the Pink Floyd primary songwriters Roger Waters and David Gilmour mutually collaborating on a song - they rarely wrote together. Gilmour had the opening riff written and was playing it in the studio at a fast pace when Roger Waters heard it and asked him to play it slower. The song built from there, with the pair writing the music for the chorus and verses together, and Waters adding the lyrics.
The song reflected the feeling of the band while they were recording the album. Waters felt they were not putting a full effort into the recording sessions.
When this song starts, it sounds like it is coming from an AM radio somewhere in the distance. It represents the distance between the listener and the music.
"There is no dark side of the moon really. As a matter of fact it's all dark,"
"Is there anybody out there?" they once prayed.
The expected answer is no.
Same with the chilling first set of questions in "Wish".
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from hell? Blue skies from pain? Can you tell a green field From a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?
They are not essay answers.
One senses they are multiple choice
A"Yes"
or
B"Hell, no."
It's often more classically encouraging to hear U2's Bono (Who gives us permission and a decoder to "Turn each song into a prayer") ask the biblical question "How long?'' since we know the question has a deadline, and is not a dead end.
Maybe Pink Floyd is asking the same question, but from the dark side of the faith.
(And bigger than the Boogie Man and the devil, for that matter.)
Waters also may well have meant this as not just about TO or ABOUT Syd, but
FROM Syd, how HE felt towards
the band (or himself..or God)
I was not yet a committed Christian when I first heard this song; I don't know what you would have called me when the pictured guys (I'm the one in the T shirt, And obviously, there is one non-guy with us, but she wasn't part of our gang) in this Upstate New York circle of friends first experienced it.
I felt it/heard it as my lonely being awakened,
It was addressed to myself
to my friends
to Syd
to a partner I hadn't met yet
and to an unknown God that I somehow knew.
I am intrigued that Waters tended to picture the "two lost souls in a fishbowl" as
two fish, but each in a separate bowl (this is perhaps authenticated by cover art on a later single version).
I hadn't felt it that way.
Being two lost souls in the same bowl was lonely enough.
But at least the two were in it together.
Terrifying to be trapped in a bowl alone, able to see your soulmate in an adjacent bowl.
Year after year.
Covid quarantine, indeed
But until we admit we often live this hellonearth in our "there" ("Can you tell heaven from hell?."...
We may never experience God as here.
Wish you were here,
Syd
friends
enemies
Dave
God
It's all in how you read it,
PS Maybe just watch this guy in video. He's crazy, but he may weel say most of what I just tried to sat better than I just did!:
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Ken Schenk's "first thoughts" on What is distinct about a Wesleyan hermeneutic?
Historical method is historical method. I think what is more distinctive are the hermeneutical values in which we place the results of historical study.
The priority of the Bible for Wesleyans is transformation, both corporate and individual. This is God's doing and it is on God's agenda. The priority is formation rather than information.
The priorities of the individual for God are 1) our hearts, 2) our behavior, 3) our thoughts. So God is most interested in forming our attitudes and living through the Bible. Ideas are secondary.
Because of its sense that God's love is his central feature, the Wesleyan tradition naturally gels with an incarnational God, a God who comes to us. As such, we believe God speaks to us whatever our understanding of Scripture may be. We don't have to get to the original meaning to finally hear God. God will meet us without us having to have a certain understanding.
Thus, the Wesleyan tradition is more open to "more than literal" and figural readings of the Bible than other Protestant traditions. We are not bothered if the NT does not read the OT in context. We are open to the Spirit speaking to us out of context through Scripture. God's goal with the Bible is to meet us, not to give us a homework assignment.
On a side note, the "new perspectives" are far less a problem for the Wesleyan tradition than they are for the "high Protestant" traditions.
We are not opposed to the way the Spirit has used the Church to clarify the application of Scripture in the Church. We are more a tradition of prima scripturarather than sola scriptura. link
David Bercot ( website here; wikipedia here) an attorney who became an early church historian and ordained Anglican (and now a Mennonite "layperson") has his critics... but the issues he raises (regarding how faithful were the Reformation and the contemporary evangelical church to Scripture; especially to how the early fathers..90 to 199 AD... interpreted it) should be wrestled with.
From his website:
David Bercot began his professional career in 1980 as an attorney, and he still practices law part time. However, for most of his life, his driving passion has been for Christ. In 1985, to satisfy his theological curiosity, he began reading all of the existing writings of the early Christians (A.D. 100-325). Although his aim at the time was merely for theological inquiry, what he learned about Christianity in the early centuries profoundly affected his entire life. When David shared what he had discovered with various Christian friends, they encouraged him to write a book about how Christianity looked when it was still young.
Bercot eventually followed up on their suggestion, and he wrote the book Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, which was published in 1989. That book provides a provocative look at early Christianity in contrast to modern Christianity. Since the book challenges many of the cherished beliefs of evangelicals, Protestants, and Catholics alike, Bercot wasn’t sure what type of response the book would have. To his astonishment, the book sold out of its first printing in six months—and the Heretics book is still in demand over twenty years later.
When Bercot began receiving letters from his various readers, he learned about various Christian churches and groups that he had never even heard of before. What he has learned as he has interacted with different groups of Christians has had an enormous spiritual impact on his own life and that of his family. Today, David Bercot works full-time as an author and speaker. For a complete list of the books authored by David Bercot, please click here.
An excerpt below on one area of his teaching which hits home on this blog (role of the pastor)
and some video below.church-w
From "Real Heretics..":
Shepherds Who Graduated From the School of Hard Knocks
..Today's evangelical churches are typically governed by a pastor and a body of elders and/or a board of deacons. Normally,the pastor is a professionally-trained man with a seminary degree who wasn't raised in the congregation that has hired him. Frequently, he has no governing authority other than the power of persuasion. The body of elders or board of deacons are normally men with full-time secular jobs. They oversee church finances and programs, and they establish church policy. But typically, no one in the church goes to them for counseling, and they aren't usually the shepherds of the flock.
Although we use many of the same names for church leaders..our church government differs considerably from theirs in substance . Instead of a sole professional pastor, the entire body of elders (presbyters) were full-time pastors in the early churches. As Christianity grew, all Christians in a given city were not able to meet together in one place. But each separate fellowship of believers in that city had at least one elder or presbyter to shepherd them. And each city had one overseer or bishop who coordinated all of the individual congregations in that city..
The overseer (bishop) and elders (presbyters) weren't outsiders brought into the local church. Rather, they had generally lived in that community for years. Their strengths and weaknesses were well-known to the entire congregation. Furthermore, they didn't qualify to serve...by studying in school and stuffing their heads with knowledge....As Tertullian told the Romans, 'Our presbyters are proven men who obtain their position not by purchase, but by established character.'
..Once an elder or overseer was appointed, he normally stayed in that local church for the rest of his life, unless persecution forced him to moved. He didn't serve for three or four years and then move to a large congregation with better compensation...the entire body of elders were normally full-time shepherds and teachers. Unless the congregation was simply too small to support them, elders were expected to free themselves from any secular jobs. By doing so, they could devote their full attention to the flock..
..With so many full-time pastors, each member of the congregation undoubtedly received close, individual attention.
To serve as an elder or overseer in the early church, a man had to be willing to lay down everything for Christ. This began with material possessions. An elder didn't leave his secular occupation in exchange for middle-class salary from the congregation. It was considered heretical for a congregation to pay any salary to its overseers or elders. Instead the church financially maintained its leaders on the same basis it supported widows and orphans . pp 44-47 Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up."
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"It's Just War" - Should Christians Fight? Debate from FollowersOfTheWay on Vimeo. On March 28, 2014, Anchor-Cross Publishing and Followers of the Way sponsored a debate on the subject of just war. We sought to bring leading thinkers together to discuss the issue in historic Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston. Speaking of behalf of just war were Dr. Peter Kreeft (professor of philosophy at Boston College) and Dr. J. Daryl Charles (Berry College). Speaking against just war and for biblical nonresistance were David Bercot and Dean Taylor.
