LOVE AT THE GREEK - Slave Of Two Masters

 ‘No servant can be the slave of two masters' (Luke 16) 

You walk into a room and they're sitting there watching television. At the same time each one is doing something on their own laptop with headphones in their ears. They emerge from what absorbs them to smile and hug you and then they sink back into their respective absorption. It's the way things are.

They remind me of myself when I was their  age, in my early twenties. Music was my first love which totally absorbed me. Listening to it on the blue transistor radio. All we had was Radio Eireann and an hour of Larry Gogan and at night we could get 208 Radio Luxembourg. Enough to feed my need for anything modern - pop, rock, folk. I got to know ever detail of the charts, becoming a bit of an encyclopedia, almost good enough to rival Larry Gogan who knew everything.

By my early twenties I had acquired a radio cassette recorder and as I write this I realize that my nephews and nieces have no idea what such a machine is. But it was my machine and my passion. It was perpetually set to record with the pause button on so that whenever a song came on that I liked I hopped up to record it, ending up with quite an impressive collection of cassette tapes that were probably illegal.

1977 was one of the best years of my life. I was free and in love and halfway on my way to being a hippie. Neil Diamond had just released the live album 'Love At The Greek' which I went out and bought. 

Back home I had the house to myself so I got out the record player, put the two box speakers facing each other on the floor, put on the record, turned it up loud and opened the sitting room windows so that the neighbours could share the experience. Then I lay down on the floor with my head between the speakers and went to heaven with 'Glory Road', 'I've Been This Way Before', 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull'. Not quite as impressive as his earlier 'Hot August Night' but good enough for me on that day.

Mam was coming down Parnell Avenue on her way home from work in SPS and she heard the music at quite a distance, horrified beyond words when she realized that the noise was coming out of her own house, so she tore into me in no uncertain terms and put a stop to my glory. I was mortally offended of course.

But I was learning something important that would serve me in more critical situations later in life. I realized that I had become a slave to this beautiful gift of God; in some way the gift had become my god. Not only that but my slavery, addiction to music was affecting other people, impinging on their lives. This is true of the more serious addictions that I've had to battle with. We cannot be slaves or addicts in isolation.

And I began to pray that God would help me to love Him more than the music because something in me knew that this is the order in which things should go - God first, everything else next. Seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be added. In all my subsequent, more  serious slavery's I constantly make this prayer, to love, to desire God more than whatever it is. With music it probably took another 13 years before I achieved the right balance. And I didn't lose the music in the process.

I have always loved and yearned for God but always too there is the struggle to maintain the right balance, not letting anything take over the place that belongs properly to God.

This is what stirs in me as I read these lines from Luke's Gospel 16 - you cannot be the slave of God and money or anything else, like music. And if you are a slave to anything or obsessed by anything - to the good things of life or to the destructive things - then part of the road to healing involves asking for the grace to love God more. 

It does not of course mean becoming obsessed by religion because that too can be slavery. It is about loving God - and loving the others in my life - giving preference to a loving that is free and liberating.

From Moxie To The Holy Spirit - Anointed To Be Set Free

Moxie

Brend Van Deurzen and I met for the first time in a hostel in Los Arcos – about 120km into our 800km pilgrim walk to Santiago de Compostella in Spain – on a very wet Saturday. We became kindred souls in the course of the journey.

Over a year later he decided to come to see me and to see Dublin. As happens with the young, as happened on the Camino, as was happening now – he drew me out of myself, taking me to places, to experiences that are new. Temple Bar is one of the places he was keen to see so we went there in search of the TradFest, which began on January 22.

We came across Moxie, a young band of students from Limerick and Sligo, who play traditional Irish music with a contemporary edge. A wonderful sound! There’s a freshness, a vibrancy in the way young people play music because they have not yet become cautious and what they create is a very joyful blend of the old in the new, the traditional in the present.

It strikes me that life in the Spirit is very much like music, the kind of music that Moxie has to offer. The Holy Spirit makes all things new, even the ancient truths of the Bible are made new by the Spirit who expresses them in the present in ways that touch people’s lives. The truths themselves, the Truth doesn’t change but it is always fresh and new in its expression.

The Holy Spirit expresses the reality of God in our lives in different ways, according to the gifts that we are given. One of the early Fathers of the Church says that the Spirit takes the shape of the person in whom he lives, as water takes the shape of the vessel into which it is poured. It is the same Spirit but seen and experienced differently in each person and no one person possesses all the gifts but we the Church, the community of God’s people share all the gifts together, for the good of all.

Some people have wisdom, understanding; some are teachers or preachers; some have the gift of music or language; some are carpenters, builders, cooks, cleaners; nurses, priests, teachers. There is an infinity of gifts and it is good that each of us knows in what way we are gifted, how the Spirit is expressed in our lives.  (1 Corinthians 12: 12-14. 27)

Among the effects of the Spirit are joy and freedom. When the people were crying as listened to the Word of God Ezra told them 'Go, eat the fat, drink the sweet wine, and send a portion to the man who has nothing prepared ready. For this day is sacred to our Lord. Do not be sad: the joy of Yahweh is your stronghold.  (Nehemiah 6. 8-10)

When we listen to God’s Word attentively it will sometimes make us cry in repentance but even in repentance we are called to joy because the joy of the Lord is our strength.

There is the defining moment in the life of Jesus in Luke’s gospel chapter four when Jesus stands up in the Synagogue to read. They give him the scroll of Isaiah and in it Jesus sees his own anointing: the spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives…(Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21)        

This text was fulfilled in Jesus in his day; it is fulfilled in Him now – in us when we take it to heart, allow it to have an impact on our lives. In Jesus we find the possibility of being liberated from whatever oppresses us, the destructive forces that hold us captive. When we look into our own hearts we don’t need anyone to tell us how we need to be liberated; we know it ourselves and there is not one of us who does not yearn to be free of something. Jesus is anointed to free us. We are anointed to be set free.

Brend & Me On Killiney Hill