In these ever increasing cynical times, it seems -declaring faith in anything that one is unable to physically touch, see, smell, eat, drink, ingest, fuck, steal, abuse or exchange for cash is seen equivocal to believing in extraterrestrials, Coca Cola endorsed Father Christmas, the tooth fairy or the Cadbury’s endorsed Easter bunny… and by declaring a faith in something science refutes, one could fall from intelligible grace to an assumed ‘Nitwit status’ and fall fowl to ridicule …arguably! (That’s the word a politically correct argument needs to enable its digestible existence int it!!!?) I am of course referring to religion and belief in a higher power… yeah, that ole chestnut, they say never work with animals or children on TV right, well the same is said for politics and religion in conversation… the eternal debate with no official right or wrong conclusion, one could say it’s kinda like arguing a musical preference, for example, one person could declare Queens ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as the best song ever, where another could argue ‘Hotline Bling’ by Drake is… there is no official answer, although ‘arguably’ one is far superior to the other and therefore technically better… but, to quote John cusack in the muzo’s rom-com of choice High Fidelity: “how can it be bullshit to state a preference?” Each has their place and purpose in the vast audio spectrum of personal appreciation and hum-ability …arguably!

Here’s the thing… the difference between religion and faith… is fucking HUGE! That’s the realisation I’ve arrived at in justifying my own cynical, tainted beliefs! Kinda like rearranging the furniture within the chapel of my mind… (the chapel used to resemble a wannabe, gin-soaked, bar-room queen’d whorehouse in Memphis) it’s basically all the fucking same, only the organised religious names have been changed to protect the indecent!

I was brought up a strict Irish catholic, reluctantly attending Roman Catholic schools and weekly church services, I did the various ceremonies such as first holy communion and confirmation, I really dug the religious jewellery and pageantry of it all, I even attended weekend church groups to prepare for some of these, on top of all the other school/church shenanigans… although I do remember being rather willing to attend these because it enabled opportunity to mingle and interact with girls I had crushes on at the time, especially the confirmation classes at a priests house after college, once a week for a few months… man, there was a girl whom I had the mega hots for and so I’d take this opportunity to try and awkwardly flirt with her -AT A PRIESTS HOUSE!!!! Only me! I failed yet again… nowt new there, so here I kinda left my enforced Catholicism behind and became a devout Satan worshiper, and by that sarcasm, I mean I came of age and far favoured my music to anything else, if I needed some kind of enlightenment I’d whack on a record and get more outa that than I’d ever gotten from that god fella… besides, god evidently had a shite taste in music.

The constant frowning I’d get from the congregated holy joes in God’s house were typically judgemental and stereotypical of the time, while rocking my heavy metal t-shirts emblazoned with Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest etc- ironically bought for me at car boot sales by my Nan… who was the religious Don Corleone of our family! (I remember one particular mass where she stuck up for me and my lil’ metal headed wardrobe by sternly telling a stuck up holy joe to mind there own business, then hilariously made fun of his drastically-balding-bonce-disguise-come-over, my Nan rocked! Still does!)

There are many reasons and events I recall that distanced myself from the Catholic Church, or religion in general, other than the aforementioned judgmental snobbery… and the time my brother had impressively (and unknowingly) rolled in dog shit just before entering the church for mass (which brought a whole new level to church snobbery and the disgust on the faces of all sat around us even made my dear ole mum laugh).

Two events stuck out in my memory; one was asking my grandfather why he never went to church when my brother and I were forced to attend, his answer resonated and registered deep within my moral compass:

When the money donation part of the mass came and the pot passed around, my Nan, grandad and their then young children (my mum and uncles) would be unable to contribute as they were dirt poor and barely able to put food on the table, let alone donate to the church, and so were regularly frowned upon for the inability, not refusal, to splash the holy cash! Then came the part in mass when the priest kind of does a freestyley ad-lib chat to the congregation, it’s kinda like if the mass were a song, then this bit is the unscripted middle eight Jam… so this particular Sunday in the early 1970’s he ‘indirectly’ berated those in attendance that refused to donate and made implication to the Goddard clan (my family crue) which made Stanley, my gramps, stand up and tell the priest and all the naysaying, muttering, tutting holy joes where to stick their charity pot and walked out in protest with my uncles in tow… leaving my poor mum to stand by me Nan, who, although understandably embarrassed, stayed put in the name of the lord… can I get an AMEN!!!? From that day on my grandfather Stanley turned his back on the church, and spat at it like a true blue collar punk rock rebel, because quite frankly… ain’t nobody got time for dat!

Hauntingly, he reclaimed his faith on his death bed, whether he knew something we didn’t or was just pleasing my Nan remains a mystery but I like to think it was both, there’s another whole story staring a robin and Irelands highest mountain here but I think I’ll leave that there for now… another time perhaps!

The second poison arrow that struck my religious heart was a tragically familiar tale of a priest we’ll refer to as father Frank N. Furter; the resident token priest at st. Joseph’s primary/junior school, my school! He developed a liking for me and my unintentional super geek, super soul/P funk and Motown inspired appearance at the time, he would creep up on me and massage my Afro while all the other kids would laugh and acknowledge him as a kind of B list celebrity, Little did they, (or I up to that point) know that this dude was a fiddler, later to be imprisoned for acts of indecency to young boys… so all in all my impression of all this religious malarkey was to be of utter bollocks… besides: Satan looked cooler, had a better taste in music and favoured rebellion over rubbing rhubarb so… as Little Richard would say… A-WOP-BOP-A-LOO-BOP-HAIL-BEELZEBUB-BAM-BOOM!

Religious belief and practice has since been a confusing conflict for my battered noggin, and so I soon left it far behind. That is until I myself ended up on deaths door, numerous times over the past few years, at the mercy of my addictions. The lower I fell from grace the more I seemed to be shown (unknowingly at the time) small windows of, what I can only describe as, ethereal coincidence. Of course at the time I was far too gone to acknowledge anything that didn’t cop me a buzz or anaesthetise all senses, and so when I eventually arrived in recovery (as previously blogged), it was only with new found clarity, a sense of relief and grateful enthusiasm for life that I started piecing stuff together. No… I didn’t suddenly find god in sobriety, but I did feel some kind of spiritual identity, or more; an awareness, one that made me see the worth in the smallest, insignificant things life offers… I know, I know, I sound like a born again crusty in need of a protest and a shower, but hear me out!

Belief in a higher power, one of your own understanding, whatever it may be… a tree, a white bearded dude in the sky, what ever floats your belief boat, is an essential ingredient for successful recovery, or so we are told. Those seeking relief from the death trap, the higher power is kinda like inflatable armbands to help keep you afloat amidst that initial navigation through the rough seas of cravings after detox, from here on out it’s pretty straight forward, but this higher power thing is an ever present part of recovery and if you embrace any fellowship such as AA or NA you’ll hear about it rather frequently, so there’s no avoiding it, ya might as well find one and be done with it! So I looked deep within my silly ole self and thought “what is my higher power???” Initially I thought of Sly and the family stone rocking the funk out to ‘I wanna take you higher’ but that wasn’t deep enough for my exaggerated inner ego, then as the funk fog cleared, I saw the boss…! This might sound a tad coconuts to most, but my higher power through rehab and the first few months of recovery was… Bruce Motherfucking Springsteen! The Boss!!!

A moral compass of integrity and humility, and a soundtrack to the happier times of my youth, instilling aesthetics in me that are now intrinsically part of my being… the boss was there for me during the good times and the bad, his lyrics unfold like little stories with identification, characteristics, strength and hope at their very core. From the modest, somber acoustic depths of Nebraska and Ghost of Tom Joad to the bombastic stadium shaking (and massively misunderstood) anthems of Born To run and Born in the USA, to the funk soul revues of The E Street Shuffle and Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, the relationship/breakup soundtrack Tunnel Of Love, to the political climate addressing The Rising and Wrecking Ball albums, there’s a song to suit every need and emotion with the boss’s back catalogue, and his feelings on Irish catholic upbringing and the subsequent family associations are rather reminiscent of my own, so for those reasons I chose the boss over god… and ladies and gentlemen, germs and boils… the flowers are still standing!

During the wet brained logic of my lesser times I often pondered the lyrics to this particular song, and was drunkenly convinced Bruce wrote every word on my behalf… when I looked at myself I didn’t see the man I wanted to be… somewhere along the line I shifted off track… goin’ one step up and two steps back! I know it’s a cliche, but it rang true then and looking back in that painfully reminiscent rear view mirror, it still does, but for a myriad of different reasons.

So as I’m banging on about a higher power I’ll just try to surmise some stuff that enabled me to feel able …and could perhaps help anyone else lost in that turbulent ocean find a reason to believe… The obvious argument besides science for denouncing God, is the suffering and hardships of this cruel world, how could a grand design be at work and allow, or even create such atrocities? Organised religion is a club and a compassionate attempt to prevent chaos and deprivation among civilisations, be it In varying guises, the fundamentals are seemingly the same (arguably obvzzzzz!). So as I adopted a recovery head and did all that I was told or recommended in order to get/stay clean and sober, the ever present spiritual coincidences kept crossing my path and I began to take more notice. The more I did so, the more I questioned my own beliefs and understanding.

Only after embarking on the 12 step programme with a sponsor (which I’ll address in a separate blog), did I begin to rearrange that furniture in my preconditioned, and often bitter mindset… it became clear that there is no harm in embracing a spiritual existence in life, if anything it can act as comfort to one who is seeking respite from hardships that led us to self medicating. I felt a change so often spoken about in AA, a change that helped me feel a connection and a unity I had never felt outside of a gig before! Could it be that we are more than just physical matter trudging this ball of rock in arguable infinite space? Where do emotions come from? The sheer immeasurable power of emotional energies… LOVE!!! What the fuck is love in science terms… a necessary ingredient for mating and repopulating our species… (yeah, and monkeys might fly outa my butt), and what is that warm feeling when you hear the perfect melody or harmony? That waking moment of clarity on a sunny spring morning, with nature overwhelming every sense of our consciousness, even nature’s soundtrack of bird song is euphoric if you breathe it in and truly feel it… (give me the dawn chorus over anything on the radio one playlist anytime)

We have become somewhat disconnected from each other and from nature, its no wonder life doesn’t seem to make sense to many of us, no wonder we fail to believe in age old theories of faith and tradition, no wonder we’re jacked up on antidepressants, pain pills and Netflix binges, turning to chemical relief and avenues of escape/relief from the trials and tribulations of modern life… we are all junkies of varying needs and necessities, be it the digital dependency of smart phones and social media platforms, food, sex, entertainment and limitless pleasure seeking debauchery… if we separate ourselves from our natural habitual surroundings and environmental realities then we are fucked and if a wee bit of spiritual connectivity and realignment can bring a natural subconscious balance to each of us, then we’re on the right track again, and far more in tune with the same fundamental frequency of life, which has gotten overwhelmingly complicated… but it needn’t be this way.

All that sounds like a load of hippy dippy new age bullshit and unrealistically achievable twaddle spewed from the mouth of a recovering alcoholic addict nincompoop …I know, cuz I just read it back and thought just that, BUT even though it sounds like a moonage daydream, it really could be a better way to live and perhaps a dream that can last!?

I’m no exception from the human condition, having spent the majority of my waking life burying my head in the sand and trying to escape reality, be it through headphones, needles, pints, pills or powder, a shambles of contradictions and mask wearing, false bravado bullshit… lying my way through a stumble stack of excuses and delusional crackpot theories with more than my pants on fire, proper BO I tell thee!!! But I do feel grateful to be able to even write this shit right here, right now …and I’m fucking damned if I’m gonna let my unnaturally conditioned autopilot self react to life in the way it did before the Apocalyptic Ballet. Freedom from all the shit that ties us down, fucks us up and turns us into shadows is actually in abundance and all around us, it’s in the pages of books I’ve grown to love again, it’s in the harmonious summer tinged tones of the beach boys,or the smell of freshly cut grass in spring (unless your a poor sod who is blind, deaf and riddled with hay fever).

I’m starting to see it in the simplest of things, a minuscule gesture or the look in someone’s eye when you tell them something nice, it’s in kindness, it’s in caress, it’s in boobies and bottoms… and it’s in music, art, photography, film, salad cream sandwiches with prawn cocktail crisps, Elvis’s hips, tea and toast and CUSTARD!!!! Look, just trust me okay, it’s abundantly everywhere!

Change the lenses you look at life through, and you’ll be sure to pick up on the beauty and good vibrations we’re all connected and entwined in, and with!!!! But shhhhh, don’t tell anyone though, it’s a secret -the governments and gods of the world refuse to accept its very existence and acknowledge, kinda like aliens and Trump’s female handshaking technique!

Could it be we are all equal, worthy and as important/unimportant as each other? Innocent until proven guilty… even the bad guys of this world were born innocent, but somehow got infected with the diseases and impurities of humanity as they grew, were suitably conditioned, and sculpted into people, some with power and some without, all on the great conveyor belt of the mundane majority. So there really is no such thing as normal… normal is a uniform, remember school…? so let your freak flag fly and feel the freedom in acceptance of who you really are, break those chains of conformity that imprison and restrain so many creative avenues of self expression and true identity. As Wayne Campbell once said: “Led Zeppelin didn’t write tunes that everyone liked. They left that to the Bee Gees.

I’ll leave this frankly bloody ridiculous blog with a few words of someone else’s wisdom…

Your task is not to seek for love,

But merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

What you seek is seeking you.

I shoot an arrow right, it lands left…

I ride after a deer and find myself chased by a hog…

I plot to get what I want and end up in prison…

I dig pits to trap others and fall in…

I should be suspicious of what I want.

Peace, luv, sandwiches and hugz, Sammy x