Many of us are enjoying immensely the collection of conversations between Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagan, Faith, Hope and Carnage. (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2022).
Recorded over a couple of years, while Cave was forced to remain in Britain, during lockdowns and other challenges, these conversations are so insightful and, despite touching on tragedy and grief, really encouraging.
As the ‘blurb’ on the cover says, ‘The book examines questions of belief, art, music, freedom, grief and love. It draws candidly on Cave’s life, from his early childhood to the present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years,’
I have not been a particular fan of Cave’s music, but have always been interested in his thought, expressed in many art forms. Here he presents himself as a profound and sensitive thinker, with extraordinary humility. He believes that his art (music in particular) comes to him and takes its own way through him, including in the relationships within the studio, in friendships and collaborations—and all of this he is happy to name as a spiritual reality, and often simply to name as God. He describes himself, in fact, as a fairly conservative kind of Christian, though by that he is not referring to the cluster of beliefs and ideologies which prefer that term now, with a capital C. He means that he feels at home in historic forms of worship and faith expressions.
Somewhat to the surprise of O’Hagan, Cave persists in naming God’s presence and activity in his work and life. This is especially challenging as they return often to the tragic event when Cave’s 15 year old son Arthur died in an accident. Nick Cave is happy to say that often he feels Arthur with him and that much of his work is both for him, and at the same time he (Nick) is also aware of a kind of search for forgiveness, as a parent who has not been able to protect their child from the dangers of the world. So, in a section exploring these dynamics, Cave says straight-out: ‘Yes, that’s right, the work is a form of salvation.’ (p.170)
This is so significant. Salvation is not something one possesses, but it is something into which we may live, or enter, and in which we participate actively. We do not ‘save’ ourselves’. But neither does this gift of new creation happen without us. It is not the gift of a sugar-daddy god, who will make it all better. Rather, we live and work it out, as indeed the Scripture says: ‘work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,’ (Philippians 2. 12).
There are a hundred wonderful things I might quote from this book, but I will cite just one more. At the end of their project, Sean O’Hagan remarks that ‘the word “hope” has not featured much in our conversations, even though it’s in the book’s title. Is it implicit in everything you do and believe?’ Nick Cave responds:
‘Yes, hope is in every little thing, as far as I can see. Hope is optimism with a broken heart.’
Certainly this man’s heart is broken: not only did he lose Arthur, but during the time of these conversations, his mother died, his earlier partner died, several other friends died and just as the book was being finished another of his sons died. A broken heart, but with it, again as the Bible urges, a contrite and teachable heart. Here is a true disciple, one willing to learn from life, from the mysterious presence he cannot explain but has learned to know, to listen to and trust. Amidst the carnage, the broken heart, there is indeed faith, and hope, and love.