It's just gone midnight. And the male Beaker People of a certain age have been watching the Guitar Heroes on BBC4. What could have been more appropriate than the Middle Aged Rocker Service?
And they say we don't produce worship for men any more. Over an hour of middle-aged, overweight blokes earnestly looking at the frets of their Squier Strats as they wish they had a US-built Fender. I wouldn't say there was a particular focus of worship as they thrashed through "Smoke on the Water", "Sultans of Swing" and "Voodoo Chile". But as they went through that bottle of Jack Daniels, it's fair to say there was a certain degree of community and common spiritual purpose. And if that was just a longing for the 70s heyday of Santana, who's to say that it's not, in the truest sense of the word, what CS Lewis described as "Joy"? The Pentatonic could be carved into Creation, as far these guys are concerned. As the Apostle put it, "Ziggy Played Guitar".
I've left them to it. They could be hours yet. As I walked across to the Archdruidical Lodgings I could still hear the sounds of "Every Breath You Take". Bad news - they're all going to have to re-tune the guitars at the end. But you know, the way they're going, I reckon they could still be playing in the morning.
Surely middle-aged men are allowed to have their foibles. We are all at the stage of life where we say, if only! Before we reach the stage of life where we are forgetting how to use the conveniences.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it would be better if they were playing Air Guitar to the actual sound of the original music, at least then, it would all be in tune - but hey, after a bottle of JD it all sounds in tune anyway.
Oh how (being so close to) the truth hurts....!
ReplyDeletePicking up my trusty Les Paul is the only possible response.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say there's no worship for men any more'; rather, the church has a problem - it doesn't know how to function as a community - and rather than addressing the problem, it's waving red herrings around.
ReplyDeleteRobert, I'm sure that you are right. At a manly, upright Baptist chapel like my own there is no doubt that men are welcomed and indeed encouraged to take their rightful place at head of their household - in a strictly patriarchal, but definitely non-aggressive kind of way.
ReplyDeleteThe Beaker men, on the other hand, were much struck down in woe a year or two ago at the "Daisy Chain" service. Somehow, they said, it did not hit their inner Neanderthal.