Dear friends,
As some people at Martin Way are aware, I'm a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen. As far as I am concerned he is undoubtedly the greatest songwriter of his generation, so the promise of a new album or tour never fails to excite me. With tickets to next summer's Hyde Park con cert already secured I'm now counting down the days until his new album, Wrecking Ball, drops through my letterbox in early March. Yesterday I received an e-mail informing me that it was possible to watch a video of one of the tracks from the forthcoming album. Needless to say, I immediately stopped what I was doing - printing voting papers for our Church Council's consideration of a proposed amendment to the wording of Clause 4 of the Deed of Union - and double-clicked on the link to watch the video of We Take Care Of Our Own.
Interestingly, the video came overlaid with the song's lyrics, lest anyone be left in any doubt as to th e message that Bruce is seeking to convey. And I can see why this has been done. The song is heavily laced with irony that could be miss ed. It wouldn't be the first time. Springsteen's Born in the USA was widely misunderstood (and most famously so by Ronald Reagan during his 1984 Presidential campaign) to be a nationalistic anthem when in fact it offered a damning critique of US policies both at home and ove rseas. We Take Care Of Our Own seems to plough a similar furrow.
Anyway, as I was watching/listening, a couple of lines grabbed my attention:
We yelled "help" but the Calvary stayed home
There ain't no-one hearing the bugle blown
My first thought was that Bruce had made a mistake - that he should have written (and sung) Cavalry instead of Calvary. So I went back and listened to it again. And agai n. And again. And though I am more than aware that even Bruce can make mistakes (his theme song to the film The Wrestler made referen ce to a 'one-legged dog making his way down the street'!) the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that his choice of words was deliberate, that he is playing with the words and the imagery to make a point about supposed core values and ways of living (self-sacrifice, non-violence, love etc.) not being lived out - even being betrayed - resulting in a failure to help or "save" others (not that I mean "sav e" in an overtly religious sense).
Later last night, after the Chur ch Council meeting, I visited a Springsteen fans' online message-board to see what others had made of these words. Opinion was divided - some called it an honest mistake and were adamant that he had in fact meant 'Cavalry', others believed 'Calvary' to be entirely deliberate. Until Bruce is challenged on it and/or speaks about it, we w on't know who has called it correctly but, in many ways, it doesn't matter - both interpretations can make sense. And, in any case, whatever any writer has in mind frequently becomes almost meaningless once the words are opened up to and interpreted by someone else. Whenever we read something we do so through our own eyes and therefore make sense of it in the light of our own life experiences. My suspicion is that those Springsteen fans on the message board who have a faith of some description are more likely to make sense of the use of the word Calvary than those who do not - not necessarily because they understand more but because the word resonates in a different way with them.
I mention all of this for two reasons. Firstly, to illustrate that there is rarely one way of reading a text - so when someone says, for example, the meaning of a Biblical passage is self-evident, please don't feel inferior and/or assume that you must be wrong if you understand it differently.
Secondly, to illustrate that words matter - and how we use words matters. You will then be delighted to learn that your Church Council overwhelmingly voted to approve the proposed changes to Clause 4 of the Deed of Union. If you were not aware, Conference has, ahead of next year's conference, asked all District Synods, Circuit Meetings and Church Councils to consider and vote on the proposed changes which clarify that (in our official documents) by 'minister' we mean both presbyters and deacons, so that, wh ilst acknowledging that there are differences between them, we show that we think both are equally valued ministries (for more information visit the Methodist Conference website. Not as exciting as the prospect of a new Springsteen album and tour perhaps, but important nonetheless.
With every blessing,
Paul