"Help" *****

This morning I am still haunted by the face and performance of actress Jodie Comer in last night's "Help" on Channel 4. I was not at all surprised to find it got a ***** review in this morning's paper, where the reviewer said that some government ministers should be forced to watch some of the scenes in this astonishing drama. Jodie Comer played a young assistant in a care home in Liverpool, where she finds an unexpected connection with the residents. It is set in the early months of last year. starting pre-pandemic but then showing us what happened across Britain in our care homes as Covid struck from March onwards.

One night she finds herself on duty alone, with several residents already having died. She discovers another victim and wants to turn him on his front but can't manage it.  I could hardly watch as she wanders around the darkened and silent  home, desperately trying to get help over the phone but "noone's coming". So she enlists the help of Tony, a resident played by the wonderful Stephen Graham, suffering from early onset dementia.  A fantastic script and excellent acting meant that it was easy to forget that we were in a TV drama and not a documentary.  

Admittedly it perhaps went off the boil a little in the last part. When the manager returns from sickness himself he puts Tony on strong medication, knocking him out, so Jodie Comer decides to spring Tony and takes him to a caravan on the coast. I agree with the reviewer who asks whether we can imagine this happening. It reminded me, and the reviewer, of the excellent "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". At the end we were reminded of some statistics, notably that between March and June 2020 40% of deaths were in care homes. At breakfast today Fr Andy reminded me that one of our parishioners is a resident in a home where there is only one assistant on duty at night.

A lot of the time I am dealing with "serious stuff" in my work and ministry. So in the evening I am often glad to chill with my music or something light on the telly. But every so often something serious comes along that begs to be watched. I am so glad that I watched "Help" with its 5 stars. Anyone who doubts whether TV can produce programmes that are not only great works in themselves, but social realism polemics at the same time - you need to see "Help".

Jesus and R.E.M.

Often in preaching, especially at Sunday Mass, I like to try and explore what happens in the Gospel passage from a human point of view. What was it like to be there? What was Jesus thinking or feeling? What was everybody else doing and thinking? What can we now learn from that? The great St Teresa of Avila said something about how we can only come to know the divinity of Jesus through his humanity.

 

Yesterday we heard Jesus ask the apostles who people were thinking he was, and then who the apostles themselves thought he was. Now as one commentator pointed out, we all want people we love to know us well. Jesus loved them, so he wants them to know him well. He loves us too, and so he wants us to know him personally too. 

Another commentator observed that "we probably all find it easier to tell people who we think they are, than to actually listen to them and find out who they really are! Finding out who the other person truly is, requires listening, walking together, sharing, helping and being open to see the other person’s fragility and hurt. In doing so, we participate in our friends’ brokenness. And that is exactly why Jesus offered Himself for us: He broke the bread for the broken people we all are…" (Patrick van der Vorst).

So much can be going on behind the eyes. R.E.M were an impressive American band who were at their most commercially successful in the early 1990s, though they only broke up ten years ago. One of their most popular songs was "Everybody Hurts", and it is accompanied by a video reflecting this theme. In some ways it was not a characteristic song of theirs, but it has touched a nerve for many people.

 

When your day is long  And the night, the night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, 

well hang on 

Don't let yourself go
'Cause everybody cries 

Everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it's time to sing along

 

When your day is night alone (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go (hold on)
If you think you've had too much
Of this life, well hang on

'Cause everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts

 

Don't throw your hand, oh no
Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone
No, no, no, you are not alone

 

If you're on your own in this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much
Of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody cries
Everybody hurts, sometimes

And everybody hurts sometimes
So hold on, hold on, hold on....

Everybody hurts

Abba, Coldplay, holograms and a higher power

Abba are back!  Well, we weren't expecting that, were we?  Well I wasn't.  Their new single is good, high on emotion but sort of reflective too. They're gong to do a concert too?   No, actually they're not, they'll be at home, while holograms (I think) of their younger selves "perform"  at a purpose built place in London's Olympic park.

Like most people, I suspect, I don't really understand holograms. They're there but not there, aren't they? Also using holograms recently are Coldplay, one of the great bands of the last 20 years or so (in my humble opinion etc). I remember buying their first CD - I think in my Penarth phase 1997-2000. One of their great gifts is to fill and energise whole stadiums - so-called, sometimes disparagingly, "stadium rock". But don't knock it - giving pleasure to so many people can't be bad.  

Coldplay are using holograms this year in performing their single "Higher Power", so here is a video of them doing so at New York's 4th July celebrations two months ago. You can catch the same thing but at the 2021 Brits on another Youtube video, but without an audience. And it's Chris Martin's connection with the audience that is part of the phenomenon. Oh, and yes, that title - "Higher Power". Coldplay are also notable for moving from the emotional to the spiritual from time to time, not always obvious in modern music. This seems to be clearer on their forthcoming album and its video filmed in Damascus.

Enjoy "Higher Power" - and the holograms..

Be opened!

 The man who was deaf and impaired in speech - one of my favourite Gospels, and the one for today. Watch and hear the Master at work, giving a lesson in how to be sensitive to one another. Notice especially how the way Jesus heals here seems undignified or even silly, as he puts his fingers in the man’s ears and his spit on the man’s tongue.  But first...

1. He takes the man aside in private, someone who is only too used to being looked at, laughed at etc. Thee then followsd what cane be seen as a silent show. It has to be as Jesus is trying to communicate with someone who can’t hear. In other cases, before Jesus does a miracle, Jesus talks to the person for whom the miracle will be done. In this case, he does charades.

 

2. Jesus' charade begins by letting the deaf man know that he is putting a part of himself into the deaf man - his fingers into the deaf man’s ears, his spit into the deaf man’s mouth. Jesus is inviting the man to accept him into himself, literally.  

3. Then Jesus looks up to heaven to show the deaf man the source of Jesus’ power. It doesn’t come from some magic in Jesus’ fingers or spittle. It comes from God, whose power is in Jesus. 

4.  Even the sighing or groaning and the speech of Jesus to the deaf man make sense if we think of them in this way. First, the deaf man sees Jesus open his mouth to make the inarticulate sound of groaning. This deaf man doesn’t speak, but even those made mute by deafness can groan. In groaning, Jesus joins the deaf man, who can see Jesus groaning even if he can’t hear him. 

5. And then the deaf man sees Jesus speaking an articulate word to him, to the man who cannot hear. In doing this, Jesus is inviting the deaf man to trust in him - to choose to hear the word that Jesus speaks to him.

And so Jesus humbles himself to share the limitations of this man. By an apparently undignified dumb show, the love of the Lord heals the deaf man’s soul as well as his ears.So we can hear and learn from the love of the Lord in this story.