WASTED - why I want Kate Tempest to be my friend

Thing is, in a few hours – I’ll be staring at her name on my phone, too late to call, coz she’ll be gone, and I’ll just be sat there like a prick, staring at the shape of the letters, the way they fit together, so perfect, just like her, and I’ll sit there, wishing I could show her that when I’m with her I feel so fuckin’ real, like, not pretending nothing, just who I am. I feel like I can be the man I want to be. And I do want to be that man, Tony. I do. But for some reason. For some fuckin’ reason.

I’m in a play this week called WASTED by Kate Tempest, and it breaks my heart in the best possible way – the way that only great art can – where it’s just gently tragic, but in a really satisfying way because you go ‘YES, that is it, that is what it’s like to be a person.’ The part I’ve just quoted gets me like that. To be honest it sums up a lot of what’s going on in the play – this sense of the characters wanting to be something more than the lives they are living, wanting to be better, wanting to be more real, wanting their life to mean something, but for some f**ckin’ reason they just can’t quite do it.

I asked the other guys who are in the play why they loved it, and my mate Jake said something I thought was really interesting. He said he thought it expressed something universal – and at first he wasn’t quite sure what that was – but then he said maybe it was a universal feeling of inadequacy, or maybe of connectedness, or both. And I think he’s nailed it – what the play captures so beautifully – as does pretty much everything Kate Tempest has ever written, is this agonizing tension between our human longing to be part of something bigger, something meaningful – some world-changing moment, some shining city – and this unshakeable reality that we are not what we want to be. That we are a mess. Glorious ruins – standing and falling together – hoping for more but settling for less. Tempest knows like no one else I’ve ever heard, just how deeply we were meant to be more than this, but at the same time how seemingly impossible it is for us to really change. For some fuckin’ reason.

And the really funny thing is, that she’s got no idea how to fix it. There’s a bit of poetry that we all perform together at the end of the play, and it’s trying to tell the audience how to make things better – but to be honest, it’s not that good. It feels a bit hollow and cheesy, because all she can say is stuff like, your dreams are worth pursuing, mate, you do deserve everything you dare to want. And it feels empty because we know that’s not enough, it doesn’t really change anything. It makes us feel a bit upbeat, but ultimately, that hope is not lasting, and like she says we end up desperate for someone to help us, but convinced we can’t be saved.

And I find myself doing this play, wishing so much – as to be fair I do anyway – that I was mates with Kate Tempest. Because I want to tell her that there actually is hope. Take just one example. One of the things the characters are always longing for is to break out of their monotonous, nine-to-five lives, and go somewhere, do something. They all want to cut loose, change stuff, be free. But they’re either powerless to change or addicted to security. And I want to say, what if there was a God who said, “Come to me, be my kid, and then go – go and do something incredible and terrifying because I’m the king of the universe and I’ve got your back, and if you fall flat on your face I will still love you and be so, so proud of you, so go.” That’s the kind of freedom these characters are longing for, and honestly, not being arrogant, but on the days when I realise the truth and really get it, I have that kind of freedom. Because God’s my Dad.

Or take another thing – all the stuff in that first bit I quoted about how beautiful it is when you’re with someone and you can be real, not pretending, just who I am – but at the same time not just wanting to be what you are, but to be the person you want to be, to be better. It’s all the way through the play, the longing to be seen and known and loved exactly as you are with all your imperfections, but also to change, to become more. And it seems like a paradox, like it’s impossible. But I see it and I want to grab Kate Tempest and say “It is possible!” What if there was a God, who knit you together and knows you better than you know yourself – there’s this bit in the bible that I love so much where it says -

As a father has compassion on his children,
so the King has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.

He knows that we’re a mess, he sees our glorious ruins and he has compassion for us. He flippin’ loves us. Exactly as we are. But way too much to leave us that way. And this is the epic thing, is that he also gives us a real hope, the real power to become who we were meant to be. There’s a bit in one of the ancient prophesies were God promises his people -

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

And through Jesus that is just what he’s offering right now. To any one of us who’s willing to trade in our old heart – the heart that longs for something better but just can’t do it, can’t bring itself to change, the heart that can’t help putting itself first – to anyone who’ll trade that in he’s holding out the offer of real hope, real change – a new heart that is really alive in a way we just can’t get by ourselves, that loves him, and loves people, so deeply and richly that it almost forgets itself. We were made for so much more than what we are. And in the play, when we just tell people that, and tell them to be better, it feels hollow because it’s like we’re asking everyone to receive something but there’s no one actually giving it – it’s everyone’s round but no one’s buying – something this good, this big, has got to cost something. But the thing is, what God is offering, does cost him something. He had to die to bring us to life. And he did – he’s paid the cost, and it hurt – but he’s holding out the hope he’s bought for us. Jesus is saying ‘Come to me, and you can have my Dad as your Dad, and my Spirit as your Spirit, and you can be free.’

I feel like it’s unlikely I’m ever going to get a chance to tell Kate Tempest this, so I thought I’d write a blog about it, and who knows, she might see it some day.

P.S. If you’re in Cambridge, come see the show. https://www.facebook.com/events/374964179368061/