ADVENT, the beginning of the Church’s year when we prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus at Christmas, is well under way.
Many Christians take time during this season to read, reflect, remember, and renew their commitment to their faith in all that Jesus represents.
To help me do this, last month I ordered a copy of the Archbishop of York’s chosen Advent book for 2025, Listening to the Music of the Soul by Guli Francis-Dehqani, the first woman from a minority ethnc background to be ordained as an Anglican bishop of the UK. Her name was mentioned as a potential candidate to become Archbishop of Canterbury this year.
In the introduction to the book, she recalls being a guest on on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2024. She explains:
‘Each week a guest is invited to imagine themselves as a castaway on a desert island. They choose eight musical tracks or recordings (from which excerpts are played)… Discussion around these choices provides the opportunity for a conversation and a look back over the guest’s life.’
Inspired by eight pieces of music, the book is divided into eight chapters – at the end of each is a QR code with a link to a piece of music ‘chosen for its resonance to each chapter’s theme’. The author also invites us to ‘have a go at creating your own Desert Island Discs‘:
‘The choices you make are likely to help you better understand yourself and the things that are important to you… They may remind you of seminal moments in your life’.
Challenge accepted! I’ve come up with a list which I aim to share, one each day between today (17th December) and 24th December – Christmas Eve and the last day of Advent. They may not be what I’d really want to listen to indefinitely when isolated on an island, but they tell me something about who I am now and how I came to be here. So here goes:
Kyrie Eleison (Look Around You) by Jodi Page-Clark
At first I tried to come up with a piece of music that prompted memories of early childhood, as many Desert Island Discs castaways do, but nothing obvious came to mind. I considered one of what have now become known as ‘assembly bangers’ thanks to performers like Jason Manford and James B Partridge, but no single song stood out. I even considered the first single I ever bought – We All Stand Together by Paul McCartney and the Frog Chorus!
Then I remembered this song I used to sing with the folk choir at church until my voice broke in my early teens, and again in young adulthood. The title Kyrie Eleison comes from Biblical Greek for ‘Lord, have mercy’, one of the earliest Christian prayers. The English subtitle comes from the first line. Here are the lyrics:
Look around you, can you see?
Times are troubled, people grieve.
See the violence, feel the hardness;
All my people, weep with me.[Refrain]
Kyrie, eleison.
Christe, eleison.
Kyrie, e – le – i – son.Walk among them, I’ll go with you.
Reach out to them with my hands.
Suffer with me, and together
We will serve them, help them stand. [Refrain]Forgive us, Father, hear our prayer.
We’ll walk with you anywhere,
Through Your suff’ring, with forgiveness,
Take your life into the world. [Refrain]
It evoked memories of being part of a church community, singing and playing instruments – in my case, a violin (literally!) from ages 10 to 14.
I loved it then, but hadn’t sung it for years. It came back to me in my thirties as a struggled to integrate my sexuality and spirituality. The words of the second verse resonated deeply with me:
‘Walk among them, I’ll go with you
Reach out to them with my hands
Suffer with me, and together
We will serve them, help them stand’
It felt like a call for me to do this work of integration not only for myself, but for others. I believe it was a call to share my own story, and to advocate for other LGBTQIA+ Christians too – to commit to the ministry which has become the Open Table Network, the charity of which I am now the director.
This ministry became my main job in 2020 thanks to a COVID crisis response grant. With the extra time and money I put together a monthly worship video to share online during lockdown. In the video for April 2021 I included a new recording of this song by the Northumbria Community, which describes itself as
‘a dispersed network of people from different backgrounds, streams and edges of the Christian faith.’ – northumbriacommunity.org
Watch the video here [4 mins]
You can read more about my reflection on this song which I shared in 2021, along with the story behing the video, here: ‘Times are troubled, people grieve’ – A song of lament for today.
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