Feeling groovy with the Archbishop of York

The Archbishop of York is 'singing' on a jazz album, Rhythms of Fire, released on One Voice records this week by Psalm Drummers. Sentamu's track, with lyrics based on Ephesians 3:14-19, can be listened to via our own website here. Personally, after my own extremely stressful week this week, I found it soothing and more in the style of ambient music than the bongo drums which he is better-known for being an expert at. Sentamu is also a professional-standard organist and composer.

(I call him 'Sentamu' here, with the emphasis on the Sen, not out of disrespect, but because that is how he prefers to be known, as he told me personally when I interviewed him soon after his appointment to York.)

Hat tip to Riazat, who describes him as 'smooth'. Also worth mentioning is Sentamu's recent visit to Jamaica, all the details of which can be seen via his own website.

I have many colourful memories of the Jamaica where I spent a large part of my early childhood. Those memories bear no resemblance to the Jamaica that Sentamu appears to have seen on his visit. What are my memories? Lightning, thunder, hot rain to shower in, hurricanes, houses-on-stilts, warmcuddlynanny, burglaries, sherbet, antedeluvian cars and fiery, smoking lorries, broken glass, road accidents (I still bear the scars), simply-beautiful-longlegged-boys in belted-low-slung jeans, bright blue-red-gold singingparrots, froglets jumping up the drains and into kitchen sinks at night, snakes, porcupine-quills-stuck-in-feet-on-beaches, child-eating red ants, ginormous hairy spiders, dirtbetweenthetoes, families-of-ten-in-one-roomed-shacks-with-baby-on-the-dirt-floor-under-the-bed, wild shocking-green plants, smokeyblue volcanic mountains, log cabins caught in the mist, strange magic, dolls-to-stick-pins-in, scaryschool, desks, timestables, dunce's hat-in-the-corner, glass-bottomed-boats, climbing-up-waterfalls, brown-girl-in-the-ring playsongs, white-Queen-riding-by-in-a-haze-of-dust-and-blacksuits-and-open-top-cars, steel-drums-and-carnivals, and of course church. The calm, cool whitewashed peace of the Anglo-Catholic tradition where we could escape to recuperate from all the above, before hurling ourselves back in to the addictive and maddening frenzy.

Can Jamaica really have changed all that much? Perhaps it's time I went back to find out for myself.

'For This Reason' with The Archbishop Of York taken from the album 'Rhythms of Fire' by Psalm Drummers (c) 2007 Survivor/One Voice Records.

Comments

[siva]

Hey Renegade Priest,nice poem.Keep up your good work.
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siva

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[A Renegade Priest]

Me is tinkin dat maybe da geezer shld be a rapper as well as a drummer. In which case he'd hear me rap

Listen to me! now dont be a fool
Hear me now 'cos God is cool.
He can get you off da street
He can get you on your feet.

Jeezus id da way, da troof, da life
Eee can lift you outta strife.
Listen carefully to wot me say
Cos Jesus Christ is alive today!

Yo Ruthie me babe, shout out to da Gledhill Massiv. Indahouse, alleluia, amen, for real.

[Poor Parson]

"Sentamu is also a professional-standard organist and composer."

I wish he would make that his day job instead of trying to be a media star.

[Stephen Marsden]

Not sure it even qualifies as 'singing', Ruth. Reading maybe?

But what is really interesting is how much easier it is to hear him properly, when he speaks slowly & quietly. Sometimes, when speaking in public, he seems to get so excited that he becomes more and more difficult to understand.

Still, it's comforting to know that you don't mind showing your age by calling that track 'groovy'!