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THE MATRIX WARRIOR
to
MIDDLE-AGED ANGLICANS
by
NICK COCKING HORNBY
I suppose it's the kind of thing that all men, all of us blokes, think sometimes, when our wives or our girlfriends or the girl we want to impress but who we can only talk about obscure Stax white labels in front of ask us what we're thinking about: what is it that makes us so different and special?
Because, you know, records and football and other handy loci of gendered consumption aren't just important because they're the way we communicate with other men in the hope that the distance we felt from our fathers can be healed - they're also true, in a way that the cissies and the girls just aren't going to be able to get, on account of not being, you know, rational. And it's rational to realise just how different and special we are. You know, as Anglicans.
Along with To Kill a Mockingbird - which I always told girls at college was my favourite book, but which actually I'd only ever seen the movie of, which is one of my top five Gregory Peck movies of all time, I'm reading a book at the moment which I think has a lot to say about life – life for blokes - Jack Horsley's Teh Matrix Warrior. I met Jack at a record fair, and at first thought that he was just another mumbling weirdo in a big flappy black coat. But Jack was different. He still lived with his mother and didn't wash his pants. Which was, you know, different, but something I could respect. Most of all, Jack had a new relationship with Christ that I really think could help all Anglicans to appreciate what's important – themselves.
The Matrix Warrior helped me to remember just how much Anglicanism has in common with the warriors of the Matrix. Anglicans are ambivalent about homosexuality, but depend on the fetishising of a revealingly-clad male body. They feel different and special without being able to explain in any convincing sense why they're better off. We try to impress the kids by putting on really, really shit raves. I'm more of a Nirvana man. Kurt Cobain really spoke to me, but as a cross-generational cultural commentator I can write articles in the The Telegraph about both. Listen to me. I write for the Telegraph on behalf of all blokes.
Jack helped me to wake up and smell the shiny leather trenchcoats. Abstinence and restraint are the very things that represent the church's ongoing commitment to avoiding humaton existence. Along with church fetes, weak lemon drinks and, you know, hobbies. Every Anglican is a Matrix warrior.
Jesus was a shepherd, sure. but that doesn't mean he wants to hang out with sheep. He wants to hang out with other shepherds. To talk about what kind of shepherd bands they like, and whether Charlie George's haircut was inspired by shepherds.
So, the banner-making group starting to seem a little pointless? Thinking maybe you’re a bit too special to be grazing with the flock anymore? Maybe you should put Jack Horsley on your top three list of messianic figures, along with Neo himself and the big J.C. Not John Coltrane, whose “My Favourite Things” is the definitive version, but Jesus Christ. Slip a few copies of the Matrix Warrior onto the table at the next Church Fete next to the near-mint copy of The Band's first album that I insist on paying a fair price for even though the old dear only wanted 20p. Be a Matrix geezeror. |
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