It was my eldest son who greeted me with the news that Bowie had just released his first single for ten years. Now 66 (yesterday was his birthday) there have been some concerns about his health in recent years so it was good to hear that at last something had emerged from the silence.
The first impression is that he sounds fragile, almost like a sad, old crooner but that tone brilliantly carries the song. He is revisiting places familiar to him when he spent some time recording in Berlin: ‘A man lost in time . . . Just walking the dead’. It is the memories which give rise to the refrain: ‘Where are we now?’
It is poignant, haunting, strange and the appeal of the refrain is almost heart-breaking but there is a spark of light in the climax:
‘As long as there's sun
As long as there's rain
As long as there's fire
As long as there's me
As long as there's you’
I suppose that is what you have to be content with when you have not been caught up in the hope that Christ brings. As long as the world keeps turning and we can reach out to one another then that is what matters. There is something deeply moving about that but I am glad that we have not been left to create our own meaning. I believe that has been given to us in the life and ministry of Jesus. He has shown that there is a Deep Story unfolding in human history. God is working out His purpose which will be seen in a great climax which the followers of Jesus called the New Creation when everything which has ever made us cry will be swallowed up in the love, justice and peace of God. Men and women can step into that purpose and be part of the New Creation now, living according to the values which will in the end be triumphant.
‘As long as there’s sun . . . rain . . . fire . . . me . . . you.’ But there is more - thank God.
