A life in letters: Fischbacher, Stephen (b1960)

I first heard of Stephen Fischbacher in the late 1990s when our friends Iain and Avril Marr played The Angry Hotel Man song to a church group meeting at their house in Lentram. The song is an extremely amusing take on the nativity. An irascible Bethlehem hotel owner grows increasingly cross as one star-lit night he is repeatedly roused from bed by a perpetual stream of visitors. A young couple, shepherds, wise men (with an anachronistic mode of travel, motor-bike and car), a hubbub of neighbours, and  to crown it all a sleep-banishing clamouring of angels. And yet before dawn, the hotel man’s heart is stilled by wonder.

Born in 1960, Stephen Fischbacher was, like me, brought up in the context of brethrenism. His family was musical, and Stephen played guitar from the age of ten – largely self-taught. After studying theology in Canada, he returned to Scotland to a job as a schools worker with Scripture Union – he brought together a worship group, and joined a folk band.

By the early 1990s, Stephen was a youth and children’s work at St Paul’s and St George’s Episcopal Church in Edinburgh. He began writing songs for his own children, Beth and Brodie and for the children of the church, and in 1995 some of these were released on an album (It’s a noisy world) on which he was accompanied by ‘The P&G Kids’.

After hearing The Angry Hotel Man song, I bought Just imagine, the second album released by Fischbacher which included this song. I loved it. I loved the sheer, quirky exuberance of the music, the warmth and joy which the tracks exuded, and the depth of experience which the writing embodies. Stephen Fischbacher’s first wife Lynda, the mother of his two children, had recently died after a long illness, and as he told Tony Cummings ‘I found both the writing and the recording of the album a lifeline in trying to manage the many extreme emotions I was going through at the time.’

I was particularly touched by the haunting beauty of the title track Just imagine which explores the image of the ‘wood beyond the world’ an accessible place of shelter in a parallel dimension where all is well.

It’s not far away if you’re ready to go

You’ll find it’s a place where things can’t go wrong

There’s a welcome awaiting, it’s where you belong

The wood is the home of the one you seek

Who binds up the broken and strengthens the weak

You can come any time that you’re needing a friend

For this is the place that will never end

Just imagine, the wood beyond the world.

In 2000, a charity, Fischy Music was launched, as Stephen gathered round him a team who began working not just in churches but also in (largely primary) schools.  Fischy Music’s mission is to support ‘the emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing of children and families.’

Stephen writes not just specifically Christian pieces, but songs promoting personal development, wellbeing and emotional resilience. In all my encounters with Fischy Music I have been impressed by the tenderness and robust love with which Stephen and the team engage with children.

Not so very long ago in evangelical circles ministry to children almost invariably focussed on encouraging conversion. I remember an article which appeared in the evangelical monthly Crusade in the summer of 1974 stirred up some controversy by asking whether the correct approach was the traditional one of seeking the conversion of children by focussing on their sinfulness and need to turn to God, or whether children should in fact be encouraged to see God as someone who loves and accepts them, and invites them to respond.

Stephen Fischbacher  to my joy exhibits a gentle reaching out in healing to vulnerable children, and an apparent  conviction that God is present in every movement of love, regardless of the specific beliefs of those through whom it comes. The work of Fischy Music continued to develop throughout the next decade, and new albums were appeared regularly. But Stephen’s work impacted me most around the turn of the millennium.

I arranged for Stephen and a colleague, Suzanne Adams to come to Inverness for a few days in the autumn of 2001 to spend time working in a number of primary schools. And so I found myself sitting in the hall at Holm Primary School one Tuesday afternoon in September, beneath the big bow window which overlooks the peaceful slopes of Craig Dunain.

Stephen and Suzanne led a group of Primary 5 pupils though a series of imaginative songs which emphasised the specialness, the uniqueness of each child.  (‘You are a star! Just the way you are!”)

We discovered shortly afterwards that as we laughed and sang, on the other side of the Atlantic, passenger jets were remorselessly targeted at the Twin Towers.

As they visited other schools later in the week, Stephen and Suzanne were able to bring some healing to children mesmerised by images of destruction, and encouraged them to reflect on their own personal experiences of cruelty.

The kids learned an action song – you can either ‘build up one another, build up your sisters and brothers’ (here you used your fists to represent building a wall, fist upon fist upon fist) or else you can ‘tear down’ those around you (here you grabbed an imaginary sheet of wallpaper above your head with both hands and ripped it to the ground.) On the Thursday lunchtime I walked through the playground at Lochardil Primary School. Several groups of children were building walls with their fists and singing. Why, I wondered, could the world not learn this piece?

The song I appreciated most that week was called When people are cruel and is set to the reflective American tune Streets of Laredo.  Stephen and Suzanne dedicated a performance of it to me at the concert in Inverness Royal Academy on the Friday evening at which, for the first and so far the only time in my life I played air guitar.

It’s a song focussed on the life and death and resurrection of Jesus as he faced ‘the bullies of Calvary.’ And yet he was not daunted because ‘he knew where he came from and where he was going.’

The song’s implication is that precisely because Jesus knew his origin and his destiny we too can know where we are going, and so remain undaunted no matter what.

When people are cruel it makes all the difference

To know where you’re going and where you’ve come from

It was a time in my life when I was just beginning to understand fully where I had come from and to discern where I was heading more clearly through the mist of the future.