Knackered
Reflecting on a Greenbelt Moment
There I was at the Greenbelt Festival back in the day.
I will always remember this day.
It was like this ...............
I was leading the team and presenting the Rolling Magazine
and the Very Stinking Late Show .........
and it was around midnight ..........
After doing five x two hour +
wild wacky unique to Greenbelt
'Rolling Magazines Programmes’
during the Festival week-end ……
I stumbled into the late night big top
where Bruce Cockburn was quietly
strumming his guitar and talking to us .....
He was talking about the time he was visiting a refugee camp
with life sustaining suitcases of drugs.
He had brought the only drugs they had into the camp
to meet their massive need ……
Then - as he was there,
bringing aid and support to humans living on the edge of survival ….
... the helicopter gun-ships came and attacked the camp.
Then
he went into song
there in the Big Top
to knackered me ……
He then he launched into his song -
'If I had a rocket launcher" ……
...... and I wept.
Just listen to it.
I was leading a youth work project
in East London at this time -
working with street gangs.
I felt the same oppression there doing that work
as Bruce Cockburn was describing so powerfully ......
There in that big top, in a safe environment,
I felt the oppression which I was living under in a different context.
It cut me to the soul.
It inspired me to kick -
raise up out of my tiredness -
be refreshed and renewed and
determined to work with people
on the underside of the Thatcher led society
which we were in at that time.
Greenbelt saved my life.
Greenbelt was the instrument,
the meeting place,
where God placed his finger print on my soul.
Thanx to you both.
pip wilson BHP
Listen to the song ..................
