When the music fades

I read Sixsmith’s memoir in a matter of days. At once both helpful and unsettling.

Like Sixsmith, I sat in the big top. However, I was there as an adult leader (cooking for and watching over my teenage youth group) rather than as one going through teenage years under the pressure of expectation brought about by being referred to as “a History maker”.

Sixsmith acknowledges from the get-go that she has no inside information about Pilavachi and his actions or motivation. His seeming withdrawal from the process of understanding and explaining suggests a hardness of heart that is disappointing, to say the least. I am left with continued questions of my own. I regard myself as being aware of and sensitive to power plays such as one sees with a narcissist leader, and I saw none of that from “on-stage” Mike. We can’t separate “on-stage” from “behind the scenes” Mike, and so I am puzzled about whether he felt remorse for his actions in the moment, or whether he had some experience in his past which had normalised the wrestling and massaging.

My good memories of those sunny August days are tainted by the doubts about whether I too was duped in some way, and whether my attendance, amongst thousands, allowed Pilavachi’s power games to continue unchallenged.

Unlike Sixsmith, I was less a full-time member of any Charismatic church, but she is right to extend her concerns from the summer festivals to activities that went on in her Church (and probably in Churches up and down the country who wanted to somehow replicate what was seen as good in the Somerset big top). I do recognise validity to her critique of that style, even as I continue to be an advocate for it.

Maybe we ought to be wiser in recognising that every human construct, even Churches and Spiritualities, contain within them the seeds of their own downfall. What are seen as strengths at the beginning will probably be seen as flaws in the years to come. Other styles of Church deserve a similar brutally honest memoir from those we push through them, with all the best intentions.

I can’t undo the fruit, for me at least, of being at Soul Survivor back in the noughties. Lying on the floor amidst the noise and chaos (and the young man doing prayer ministry on another teen whilst also wearing a T-shirt with that joke number we used to put into our school calculators which made a slightly rude word when turned upside down), crying from the pain and disappointment of hard Parish ministry as the Spirit reassured me with grace and gentleness is a moment I will be forever grateful.

Sixsmith’s memories draw me to go back on Facebook and look at the profiles of the teenagers I took. Most of them are of that generation now bored with social media, and so there are very few up to date posts letting me know from afar how they are doing, now all working and living adult lives. Nothing gives me any sense of how they are in real life, and what they remember of our Soul Survivor trips. I pray a blessing for each of them.