I have a friend who plays in a band with a rather curious name. “Whisky soaked redemption.” It’s a bit rock n roll, a bit country, a bit blues, but the name of the band is both sublime and insightful.
And before going any further I should point out the obvious that whisky is like all of God’s good gifts. Use it properly with yourself as the boss and it is a marvellous thing. Abuse it and let it control you and deep sadness is yours.
I like the title of the band because it reminds me of the wedding at Canna where there were lashings of very good quality wine. There, at the reception, something unseen, subtle and lovely occurred. Redemption had come to the wedding reception at the insistence of a woman and with only a very few realising it.
I think too of a cramped upper room with just a few motley men gathered around a table with bread and wine. Nothing was happening, something was happening, everything was happening and the consequences of this little supper would reverberate around the world and into the twenty-first century. Redemption intincted by wine.
But what of music? Well, after the last supper …"They sang a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives". And what wedding does not have music and singing and dancing.
At first reading, the name of my friend's band might seem a little crass to you and politically incorrect. But the whole Christmas thing that is hurtling towards us means that the divine came to revel in, enjoy and sanctify our everyday life, our everyday stuff. Our loving, our joy, our tears, our smirking and even the stuff in the decanter.
Go Whisky Soaked Redemption… You legends!