Don't be fooled by love songs and lonely hearts
You're living in a twilight world
Don't be fooled by love songs and lonely hearts
Don't give in to the twilight world
So not “Twilight Zone”, but “Twilight World”, it gives the song a very different meaning. Hopefully things will become clearer as the lights come on. Oh, by the way I love the phrase “Swing out sister”, which I have used for many years.
Sometimes life can feel a little like you are living in an episode of the “Twilight Zone” or “Alfred Hitchcock Present” or a personal favourite “Tales of the Unexpected”, programs that are repeated on “Sky Arts”. Or more contemporary versions such as “The X Files”, “American Gothic”, “The Outer Limits”, “Inside Number 9”, “Black Mirror”, or perhaps “Stranger Things”
And if I only could
I'd make a deal with God
And I'd get Him to swap our places
Be runnin' up that road
Be runnin' up that hill
Be runnin' up that building
Say, if I only could, oh
“Stranger Things” indeed!
I felt like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie the other evening. A friend had come round. After a while I noticed some crows from my window. They were making quite a racket; it was quite disturbing. Molly was certainly agitated. I said to my friend, it feels a bit like that Hitchcock movie “The Birds”, it was strangely disturbing. After a while Molly got really agitated and began barking at the door. I calmed her down, but she wasn’t happy. My friend eventually left, as he did Molly shot outside with him. There by the door was a crow. Molly investigated but didn’t attack it. It wandered into the garden whilst the other crows squawked and flew around. I directed Molly inside and my friend stood around. As he did the largest crow swooped down, pecked at his head and flew off. It was obviously attempting to protect its fallen friend. My friend was in a state of shock and bleeding from his scalp. It was quite disturbing. He texted his mother, who he cares for. She was quite upset with him, as she thought he was joking with her. While all this was going on she had been sat at home, with a friend who was taking care of her, they had been watching “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock.
“Living in the Twilight Zone”?
My friend is ok. He went for a tetanus injection and was looked over by a doctor and nurse. Both of whom had never heard of such a thing. His mum will not be watching “The Birds” again, but she is ok.
Molly wasn’t her usual self for a few days; she is ok now. On Sunday she did something she had never done before, and it terrified me. After the service on Sunday we walked to John Leigh park, down the back roads. We were meeting her friend Ronnie and my friend. We arrived early and Molly just ran down to the garden area, something she does often. I was talking on my phone and sauntered down the path to the bottom of the park, as if walking round the park. I don’t normally do this, usually we walk into the middle of the park. After a few minutes I called out to Molly, she did not appear. I went looking for her and no sign. I searched and searched and couldn’t find her. my friend arrived with Ronnie, still no sign. Fear then began to take a hold and the whole park was looking for her. I bumped into Jennie Louise who is a dog psychologist, she told me of her dog once doing something similar and that it ended up running all the way home. This though is not as far as Molly’s home. She explained that Molly will probably have re-appeared when she left me, found me not there, caught my scent and probably trotted home. My friend said she would walk the route back to my house, whilst I waited in the park. It was a very long 10 minutes, until my friend rang to tell me that Molly was sat happily waiting on my doorstep.
You can imagine the relief. I don’t think I’ve hugged anyone like I hugged Jennie and then I set off home so grateful and so full of relief. All was well.
It did show me the power fear. Life has settled down since, although I was exhausted by it all on Monday. A feeling that I have been feeling for a while. I talked with a few friends, met up with a couple too. That evening, I did something I’ve been thinking of doing for some time. I joined in with a choir, at the town hall. I had heard them singing a couple of weeks before. I joined some 60 people I didn’t know. They made me feel very welcome. I was quiet at first, but soon got into the spirit. I even knew one of the singers who took me under his wing. It was just what my heart desired. I was laughing about it the next morning with Rob, especially at some of the “luvvie’s” present, to which he said something like. Well in a few weeks you’ll be the biggest luvvie of them all.” He is no doubt right. Once I feel comfortable and find my voice, I will be flying. It was certainly what my soul needed as I found my bliss; as I found the courage to be truly me. Courage and the love at its heart will always transform fear.
Looking back I have felt at times like I’ve been living in “The Twilight Zone”, a place I do not wish to step into again. It also left me thinking about horror and thriller movies, why we watch them. I suspect it is rooted in this fascination with have with fear. I have also been looking at the birds around the house a little more closely. They are lovely and they sing the most beautiful songs and yet as I witnessed on Thursday they can turn when under threat.
Have you seen the film “The Birds”? It is a classic 1960’s horror/thriller directed by the great Alfred Hitchcock and loosely based on a story by Daphne du Maurier. The film is set in a Californian seaside town that is suddenly, and for reason never explained, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks; a terrifying film in its day that no doubt instilled a fear of birds into a whole generation. Hitchcock truly was the master of the suspense thriller; he knew how to tap into that fear that lurks within us all. I know as a child there were many films that tapped into the fear in me.
Fear has the power to inhibit but it also has the power of allure. I remember those terrifying public information broadcasts from the 1970’s, images that still stay with me, about the dangers of railway lines, and electric pylons and of course “Lonely Water”, with the terrifying voice on Donald Pleasence. Not that we headed the dangers, in many ways it kind of made them more enchanting for me and my friends. When I think of the more exciting childhood memories they were all laced with danger. I also remember a collection of “video nasty’s” that my stepdad must have got a hold of and of finding them and watching them and the waking nightmares and terrors that I suffered as a result. I was far too young to be watching such things.
The cinematic childhood memory that haunted me the most though was a Saturday night episode of “Hammer House of Horror”. It was a werewolf tale that vividly remains within my psyche. The image that had the greatest impact was of the beast at the window in the black of night and the person turning round and it being in the room with them. This was etched on my memory for years and to such an extent that I never dared look out through the glass of my room after dark. Even to this day there is a part of me that feels nervous if I look through “glass darkly”. A feeling re-felt with those crows the other evening.
There is a power and an allure in fear. It is something everyone experiences. It can overtake the rational mind and many exploit it in others. A feeling that seems to intensify in this age of muti-media and instant 24 hour rolling news. There are forces that feed fear and paranoia in folk, a power that at times can control people’s lives, beyond all reason. It can cause deep distrust and keep people penned in at home and paralysed.
Fear comes in many forms. We need not fear fear in and of itself. It is a vital part of our make-up, of our animal heart. It sets the pulse racing and heightens our awareness. Fright is a vital instinct. It points to danger; it’s a warning signal. That said there are other forms of fear which are not so useful. Perhaps the most debilitating of all is dread.
Dread and other forms of debilitating fear can overwhelm us and lead to crippling forms of anxiety which can inhibit us from simply living and being. When we are overcome by such emotions everything can appear bleak; our senses become dulled; it drains all the colour and taste from life. This leads to us projecting our anxiety and worry onto everything that we do in life; it takes the very life out of living and leads to abject misery. It drags us into pits of depression and traps us in the very things that we believe protect us from present dangers. As a result, we go deeper into ourselves and get lost and trapped in our black holes of doom and gloom. It can be very difficult to find our way out of these states of being. It sucks the life out of us and stops us being who we really are, all that we can be.
So how do we overcome the power of this debilitating fear? How do we find the courage just to be? Something I experienced once again on Monday.
Well I have discovered that it is not complicated. All it takes is just a little faith and a little love to create the courage just be. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Which of course it is, but it is far from easy.
This brings to mind a verse from one of my favourite hymns, that we sang earlier, “Others call it God”
The verse goes like this...
“A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
And Socrates drinking hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
An millions, who though nameless,
The straight, hard pathway trod –
Some call it consecration,
And others call it God.”
The straight hard pathway of faith is not easy, but it is well trod.
The images depicted in this verse are of characters who had the courage to do what they believed they were there to do, whether a picket on duty, or a mother looking after her children or the likes of Jesus and Socrates who were willing to sacrifice their lives for love or truth...inspirations to me, inspirations to us all, inspirations that still sing to us down two millenniums or more.
Socrates was charged by the Athenian council with “corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing in deities of his own invention instead of the gods recognised by the state.”
He courageously contested the charges against him, but ultimately lost and as a result was condemned to die. He accepted the judgement of his peers, while responding with these immortal words “The difficulty is not so much to escape death...The real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong, which is far more fleet of foot.”
He did not fear death because he felt that it would take nothing from him of value. As he said to the court “I have never lived an ordinary life...I did not care for the things that most people care about – making money, having a comfortable home, high military or social rank.” Neither did he fear what death would bring which he saw as either the sweetest sleep or a journey to a better place, a place of justice. As he proclaimed, “nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death.”
Socrates would rather have surrendered his life, than his integrity. Both in life, as in death, he perfectly illustrated the courage to be. He had the integrity and therefore courage to say, “I have a more sincere belief than any of my accusers, and I leave to you and to God to judge me as it shall be best for me and for yourselves.”
“Jesus on the rood” (Jesus on the cross) like “Socrates drinking hemlock” is another incredible example of someone living out the courage to be. This is truly an example and beacon to us all. He was not immune from fear though. He experienced fear and doubt at the very end, as he hung dying on the cross. Who wouldn’t? In the Gospel accounts of his life, he rarely quoted scripture, but at this moment he did. That said he did not quote the comforting 23rd Psalm “I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil for thou are with me”. No, instead he quoted the much starker 22nd Psalm “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?” He did not quote the comforting words “My cup runneth over”, instead he cried out “I thirst”.
Some might say where is the courage here? Well, it is in what comes next, as he utters “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In these words, lies the essence of his message of radical love. For Socrates integrity gave him the strength to be; whereas for Jesus it was love; the love of God and the love of neighbour as for self. He surrendered himself utterly to his purpose and to his God as he uttered those immortal words “Father, I commend my life unto thy spirit.”
This is where we find the courage to truly be, to overcome the power of unnatural fear, through living in and through love, truth and integrity. Love will always overcome fear; love will always enable us to find the courage to truly be all that we can be. Again as the verse depicts, it is love that enabled the picket to stand in the freezing cold, to stand up for what they believed in; it is love that motivated the mother to sacrifice herself for her children; it is love that enabled both Jesus and Socrates to make their ultimate sacrifices.
We will always know the emotion of fear; we will always feel fear. We need it, fear is a natural instinct. That said we need not be enslaved by it. We need not fear the crows perched above us. To be free all we need do is live in integrity, live in love and the courage to simply be will shine, from our very being. In doing so not only do we liberate ourselves, but we will become a light to others who in turn may be inspired to liberate themselves and others too.
Let love and truth show us the way to be all that we can be.
Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"
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