Sunset Ibiza
I've had a 'Sunset Ibiza' CD for several years now. I like to put it on in the background when I'm entertaining, or when I'm feeling mildly spiritual. Its 'chill out' music sets the tone, makes me feel cool (albeit in the way a drunk, middle-aged relative at a wedding disco feels cool) and gives my record collection a shimmer of clubber chic. But it's gone from lifting me to becoming my very own lift muzak.
Last week, however, I went to Ibiza. I was there to check out the amazing work of a Christian mission community called 24/7 Ibiza, whose members have the guts to pray with the clubbers and binge drinkers and pole dancers and bouncers and beautiful people of the island.
That's another story. But while I was there, they took me to the world-famous Café Mambo, which, along with its next-door neighbour Café del Mar, provides the perfect spot to welcome in the night.
It's a daily rite of passage, in fact, as thousands gather reverentially on the sandy beach to watch the sun lower itself gently into the sea. It was moving for me to feel part of something bigger - a bigger crowd, a bigger picture, a bigger world.
And all the while, the DJ, Erick Morillo, played a blissful Balearic set, which made so much more sense in this 'original' context, than at my anodyne dinner parties or flat-pack worship gatherings.
The 3-D combination of sound, people and place was a truly soulful experience. And it helped me, within that moment, to remember that, so often, I am simply a passive consumer of culture, not an active participator.
It doesn't mean, necessarily, that I have to go to New York to appreciate Sinatra, fly to Havana to 'get' the piano playing of Rubén Gonzalez or hit Sheffield to fully dig those cheeky Arctic Monkeys.
But it does require acknowledging that all culture has a context and tells a story. Which means listening actively, watching attentively, and thinking about who and where things come from. The people. The places. The Spirit.
Sadly, we've become too used, in our Christian communities, to passive cultural consumption. We live with the surround sound of spiritual muzak. But don't we - if we really stop to think about it - have a better experience to offer, even than Sunset Ibiza?
Let's get lifted.
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