Bad manners
Melissa Kite lives a Real Life
God must have an extremely thick skin. I do hope so anyway. I just had a shocking insight into the sort of thing He probably has to put up with all the time.
The incident in question took place at a Neil Diamond concert in Birmingham. I had not gone to the National Indoor Arena prepared for an epiphanic moment of spiritual revelation. Which just goes to show that life’s mysteries are revealed to us when we least expect them. Sometimes while singing along to ‘Sweet Caroline’ and ‘Forever in Blue Jeans’. To say the crowd that night was enthusiastic would be an understatement. Before it began, we Mexican waved around the stadium. As Neil launched into our old favourites, we were on our feet dancing, swaying, singing along, arms punching the air.
Then, right at the end of the two-hour set, the man in spangles sang a song about God. ‘Put your hands in the air with me!’ he said, a big innocent smile on his face. Ten thousand sets of arms fell in unison. Neil carried on singing, ‘I’m a man of faith!’ And 10,000 people sat down in their seats for the first time since the concert started. The man next to me actually folded his arms to emphasise his non-compliance and made a face like he was chewing a wasp. Only one woman a few rows from the front stayed standing, waving her arms ecstatically. Her neighbours looked at her as if she was giving off noxious fumes.
Neil persisted. ‘I’m a man of God,’ he sang, as the rest of the crowd of baby boomers stared back accusingly. Suddenly I found my right arm sneaking its way upwards. I nudged my mother sitting next to me. ‘Wave for Jesus!’ I whispered. She agreed. We are not the most religious family on earth. But we do know our manners. The crowd’s attitude to God was just plain rude.
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sidfaiwu
June 19th, 2008 3:34pm"After all, who perfected the art of being happy without material possessions?"
Buddha.
"I think I still prefer even her brand of rigidly unyielding belief to no belief at all."
Why?!? Her belief system is appalling. Untreated illnesses cause children to suffer and die needlessly. In comparison, the downside of non-belief that you worry about is people's happiness during a recession? I'll take some bad moods over suffering kids any day.
"When did we collectively decide that God was an acute embarrassment never to be mentioned in polite company"
Perhaps many of us haven't decided that God is an embarrassment, but instead that He doesn't exist?
Helga Marie Mali
June 19th, 2008 7:33pmhi melissa,
i don't know what a kind of religious education you have gotten, but if your God has a thick skin, it might be a heathen one. would enlighten what you call your "manners". it's more than a matter of manners, when cyniciym of such an extent wells out of one's mind. sincerely hmm
ian skidmore
June 25th, 2008 7:34amwhy do you fly this kite
Neil Spensley
July 1st, 2008 7:58pmThere may be something in Melissa's analysis, but surely the basic points are that a) we British find it embarrassing to talk about or show stuff like this in public b) we pay to hear songs, not to be preached at (I remember similar reactions to, for example, Nina Simone's Black Power tirades, even though everyone loved her and agreed with [the essence of] her message). In a sense it was Neil Diamond who was being rude.