Welcome! You have accidentally reached the blog of a heteroclite follower of Jesus: dave wainscott. I'm
"pushing toward the unobvious" as I post thinkings/linkings
re: Scripture, church and culture. Hot topics include: temple tantrums, time travel, sexuality/spirituality, U2kklesia, role of the pastor, God-haunted music/art..and subversive videos like these.
He definitely has some ground beneath his feet, and the authority to write this book.
As you can see, it sits on the honored top of my stack and stash of books this month...
"My own academic discipline of systematic or constructive theology helps me discern in U2's music the theological framework of Christian doctrinal convictions about God, creation, the human condition, redemption and the goals of God's community-making work in a world that longs for reconciliation." (pp. 3-4)
Suffice to say this is not a pop-culture , superficial .. let alone "tacky and vouyeristic" ...mass-market title on U2 and their faith.
Having said that..
I didn't expect to see my name on the first page (:
Well, as you can see by the mentions of several of those names on my blog, and on my Facebook, that is would be dynamic cohort to hang with for a few days! Next U2 Conference, hopefully! ...
.. As long as Megan Click is also there! Her wonderful review of U2's "Easter Lilly' blew me away,and I will brag on her and that in my next post.
Harmon's book is of course an indispensable addition to the library of theologically-minded U2 fans, and I will commend the Amazon preview and reviews to you at this link, and simply highlight here two vital talking points...both related to The Edge... from the first two chapters alone.
1) Edge's eschatological guitar
My brother and I, who first saw U2 in concert on the convert on War tour, (see my review "I am still living off this concert" , and see this to check how electric it was ), and we have often talked about "The Holy Spirit on guitar!" when listening to The Edge's "swirling epiphanies," There are others who seemingly pray through their guitar, but no one emotes it like Edge,
Harmon's discussion of a more specific branch of theology, eschatology, illuminates how Edge is a theologically-informed guitarrist/pray-er:
".. ['Gloria'] exemplifies what I've come to regard as theologically significant about The Edge's very tone: the amp pushed just to the edge of breakup without going fully over into distortion, expressing an urgent stretching forth toward something not quite reached, contrasting with those ethereal chiming harmonics that break in from somewhere transcendent. Both come together in this next song, The first verse voices frustration at efforts to sing, and stand up, and speak up that don't quite succeed, accompanied by a riff that's the rock guitar equivalent of a Baroque keyboard fugue, played with that yearning overdriven tone. Then comes the inbreaking of those transcendent chiming harmonics...(p.5)
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"The word that comes to mind when I try to come up with language for the sound of a U2 song is yearning ..the music itself evokes yearning."(p. 6)
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"The reign of God is at hand and people have the opportunity to participate in it in the here and now, but it is not yet fully realized ar cannot become so without the participation of people in the rein of God. This tension is the key theological concept for understanding the spiritual significance of the whole of U2's music.
"...n the formative years of the band, U2 even found a way l express this tension through the distinctive instrumental sound they created. U2 remythologized the open-fifth power chord that eschews both major and minor thirds as a way of musically maintaining the eschatological tension between the now and the not yet...
..I. say that U2 "remythologized" the open-fifth power chord because, as one of my guitar-playing theology students noted when I mentioned this to him, the power chord commonplace in guitar-based rock music is by definition a root note, its fifth, and the octave of the root. But The Edge's rationale for utilizing this chord structure is theologically, in particular eschatologically, significant. When the neither-major-nor-minor fifths were combined with The Edge's frequent playing of ethereal-sounding chiming harmonics , his distinctive use of the delay effect not as an atmospheric effect= with trailing echoes but as a compositional technique to create notes that are not directly played but are integral to the music, and clean guitar tone overdriven to the edge of breakup without turning fully into distortion evoking urgency, the result was the yearning sound of the already/not-yet tension of Christian eschatology translated into the idiom of post-punk rock music." (pp 22-23)
-2)Edge's Pádraig Ó Tuama and Methodist connections
"I've been reading a lot about the early period of Methodism...and George Whitfield who was..the first evangelist to take his sermons out doors," said the Edge toPádraig Ó Tuama
Methodism is my heritage and tribe, and that Edge ( "the "Zen Presbyterian") had been reading about it--- let alone " a lot"--- made my day...a lot.
And of course no surprise that fellow Irishmen and fellow theologians O'Tuama and Edge (see p. 9 for "U2 as Theologians) got together and got along.
I have been using a song (below) of O. Tuama's in teaching and seminars for years, a shocking (to evangelical sensitivities, anyway) song of lament (complete with F word ) for years.
I often wondered if O'Tuama knew U2.
I learned all this from Harmon's magnificent book (p.10).
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All that to say, as a pilgrim on my way, I highly commend and recommend..
nay, require..this book,
Suffice to say I am thankful for the theological imagination of pilgrim Steven Harmon himself.
Many mornings in the weeks and months after my wife Sonya died, the sun shining through the window would wake me up, For the first few moments finding my consciousness, I was content: becoming oriented to the opportunities of a new day.
Then, inevitably, I remembered.
Oh, she's dead.
Wait, really? Was it just a dream?
"Oh, #*#!, it's really true!," I actually said aloud more than once.
They joke there are two types of people: those who say "Good morning, Lord!" and those who say "Good Lord, it's morning!"
On most days I was both; finding a way for both to coexist in the same space, soul and morning/mourning.
But I am getting ahead of myself..
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Seven years later, I woke up I woke and oriented myself to the fact that it was day.
The " Oh, #!@$! , it's rea"l morning surprises no longer a regular occurrence. I am not the same since she left; but I am happily remarried
I grabbed my phone, ostensibly to check the time or secure a morning devotion, but more likely to check Facebook...and found notification of a new U2 song.
"Song for Hal," it said. As I began playing it, the soundscapes began; some classic and exciting new Edge "swirling epiphanies" emerged..
The vocals began. They were good, but something wasn't quite right. Had I been fooled by AI?
No, it was the Edge on lead vocals..
Unlike most U2 releases of the past, I was not prepared for a new song by my favorite band. I had usually read the lyrics and maybe even reviews/forum comments..
But this time I had no idea what the song was bout, let alone who the hal Hal was. Let alone that it was about.
Full immersion,
And as the morning light Stretches out across the floor
Can't believe it's another day And life goes on like it did before
What? Were Bono and Edge reading my memory?
My mail and my mind?
It wouldn't be the first time.
"
To switch gears:
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To quote a book title that can be well-applied to personal journey/spiritual life: the "What to Expect While You are Expecting " principle is relevant here.
Two, I was not even expecting to expect two EPs ("Days of Ash" and "Easter Lilly"),
let alone one;
let alone two great ones;
from U2 this year before the full-blown album later this year.
Two albums (three releases) in their 50th year? And two (three?) that follow the liturgical calendar?
God is in the house. The lads are pregnant.
I consider the two surprise EPs as one whole; two sides of an album/coin/life posture. The band have spoken clearly about the first volume being more angry, political.. and lament-laden, and the sequel more personal and hope-filled .......as we are expectant of the "defiant joy" of the album to come,
To be expectant in U2 fandom is also to expect anxiety that the album this fall won't live up to these EPs. The worst fear is they partly lose the plot/baby. Me genoito, I hope Jacknife Lee is right!
I like these two EPs both very much ; especially the second, so I am writing about it today..
I won't write much, as I can't add much to...but can amen much to.... these great reviews that I recommend and will reference:
I will only major on three songs here, as I have observations, connections and questions.
But I want to start ny note two intriguing structural observations on the EP as a whole (as an artwork); and then give a few heteroclitic and maybe unobvious comments and questions on each song.
1) An inclusio of sunrise language; especially being surprised by the sunrise. Cheesy as it might be if another band adopted it , it is clear that in the U2 dictionary, "sun" is often code/standing in for Son (Jesus). Drawing the fish in the sand, Here the focus on sunrise/Sonrise : fitting for an EP with Easter in the title.
Here is that inclusio:
-First song "Song for Hal".
And as the morning light Stretches out across the floor
Can't believe it's another day And life goes on like it did before
-Last song: "COEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?)
Every night we hope and pray for a new day to rise Every morning when the sun shows up, it's still a surprise
And, as often with inclusios (and chiasms) , the term often shows up in themiddle (more or less) of the narrative. Thus, in the song "Easter Parade,'
Every night we hope and pray for a new day to rise Every morning when the sun shows up, it's still a surprise
2) An inclusio of the word/image "parade.'
First song "Song for Hal"
Then in "COEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?) the ;last song:
Changes, these changes Will rain on this parade
Wherever the strange is on parade Wherever the music is made You'll be there
=
in "Easter Parade,' of course, the whole song is the parade.
Changes, these changes Will rain on this parade Changes, these changes I am not afraid
Then in "/COEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?)
Changes, these changes Will rain on this parade
And, as often with inclusios (and chiasms) , the term often shows up in themiddle (more or less) of the narrative. Thus, in the song"Easter Parade,' of course, the whole song is the parade.
What is "Easter Lilly" about? The surprising and subversive sunrise and prophetic and poignant parade that springs forth from death.
On the avenue, Fifth Avenue The photographers will snap us And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet And of the guy I'm taking to the Easter parade
Inclusio and chiasm are, even witthout e writer being fully aware of embedding these structures, reveal quite a lot about the overall meaning/message of a work. Don't get me started on Bible inclusio and chiasm. But I could get started up here or here, LOL,. As Mick Jagger sang...
Alos, I note that every song (or almost every song on "Easter Lilly" ends with an outro or coda/last section.. that changes gears. I am sure there is a term for this in musical composition/theory. Instead of fadeout or repetition/reprise of a chorus, or an improv/scat/glossolalia/Bongolse ending (As in "Still Haven't Found".. a whole new thematic world opens up.
My favorite example here is "In a Life" ...which nods to a Peter Gabriel lyric (see 40:08 in video here to learn that is (in part) about God).. And how about the final note of "Coexist." There are different theories about what it means: a nod to the ending of the "Zooropa" album, an exclamation point on the album. a "more to come" teaser,. A requirement to say Edge played on the song...
Let's return to "Song for Hal," which now know is a response to death of the band's friend, Hal.
In a way it is my "Song for Sonya."
I often play on shuffle, but even more than other U2 releases, it would seem blasphemy to consider any other intended running order of the Easter Lilly tracks. As Bono mentioned (quoting Dalai Lama) in the book accompanying "Atomic Bomb,' "To meditate on life, start with death."
-Question for fans and followers (Edge, I know you are reading, lol): In the opening lyrics
Did you hear "Forever"? Was it playing soft and low? It's not a song you wanna hear If you're not ready to go
Is the song "Forever" a specific actual song, or just an image? Here are some internet guessed.. Many suggest it is just a symbol of the afterlife; but I am still haunted by the way it is mentioned as if an actual song
Note also a possible connection binding the two EPS. The last song oin "Easter Lilly," that is, "You are not alone."
repetitive “I feel alone,” conflicts with the refrain “you’re not alone” in “Song For Hal.” The personal confession of aloneness is raw — can’t see the forest despite the trees sort of thing. Here is a personal song about friendship, but he feels alone. Is it an emotional disconnect that’s being alluded to? Could it be that he feels that God hasn’t been with him? Bono did alling out to God during his brush with death and he didn’t hear Him
Now the first song on the next EP (or if you comsider tghe two as one album, the vetyu next song,
"IN A LIFE"
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The second song, "In a :Life", per the Edge's comments in Propaganda, and per the clear content of the official music vireo, is about the friendship of the band over the year.
OK....but I don't hear that...at all.
I was already with Megan on this l even before I read her post
It is valuable to quote Megan's full comment on the song, as it radically resonated with me.
The song that follows feels like a cross between the underworld and purgatory. Strongly connected to Bono’s Stories of Surrender, it uses the London Underground as a kind of in between space. The repeated fare/coin imagery evokes Charon’s crossing or the purchase of indulgences. It begins with “I’ll meet you in the air… with the fare,” and the person is met “in the empty space that occupies your place.” The looping percussion and guitar during the Circle Line section accentuates the feeling of circling until one learns what they need for passage into the next life. These lessons are both relational and communal and include the futility of ignoring God’s instruction, ”You’re kicking the pricks,: an archaic form of goads, which references Acts 26, and the need to surrender. There is a driver on the train of this circle that notes how the “souls are in so much pain,” which possibly may be the wounded healer Christ presented in Scars. Only confession , both corporate (“when we make our bed out of war”) and personal (“I never achieved anything on my own”), breaks the loop. The song ends with grace: “A skipping stone I was thrown, the ocean floor is not my home.” and gratitude, “I only received from being shown.” and leads us to the encounter in the song that follows. link
Instead of Charon (a fantastic connection, and it reminds me not to miss potential lyrical connections to paintings, as in the Mephisto "Checkmate' painting (see this)I thought of the Trainman in Matrix Reloaded , who lives in the subway/underground,
headquartered at "Mobil Station "(Mobil is an anagram for limbo? the writers did that on purpose) , and seems doomed to keep riding the trains in a purgatorial state . He wears multiple watches (hmm . note the song lyrics 'And when we stop the clocks stopping time )The name of the train is Loop, symbolizing a loop in time or endless cycle of limbo
And when we stop the clocks stopping time ” and jumps to the other side of the platform He is in charge of Mobil Station (Mobil is an anagram for limbo:the writers did that on purpose). The name of the train is Loop, symbolizing a loop in time or endless cycle of limbo. See ("I am a strange christian loop")
.
Driver on the train is Jesus, Megan? Yes, thank you. Again, i had somehow not seen that..
"Meet you in the air" is classically connected to the dispensational theory of the rapture I (1Thess 4:17 literally says "meeting Christ in the air" and this was I think a doctrine of Shalom, too ) that it seemed to me certain he meant that..
Bono has even written in "Ahimsa": I'll meet you where the sky is torn
I’ll meet you in the air
I’ll meet you before the world was born"
BUT now i wonder..
My question: “to wake up an unforgiving son” ..what
Does that mean to you ?
Of course the brother of prodigal son comes to mind.
The line could mean “to wake up someone who is an unforgiving son” or “to wake up as a forgiving son”...
]
On to:
"COEXIST: I Will Bless the Lord at All Times.
First a quick question. In the flurry of fan comments when the song first appeared. there was discussion about whis is the "Girl Of Guadaloop" Of course, it is likely primarily the Virgin of Guadalupe.
But why her, and why does she how up here? And Pat Washington evem wondered if Girl was thjs other girl here,... who Bono would obviously admire. LOL. But her name doesn't rhyme with "book"...though neither does "Guadaloop," for that matter
This chilling song redeems or buys back some bad memories I have of the old TBN network.
Paul and Jan Crouch sometimes hosted some guests that I was interested in seeing..
But their campy creepiness often bugegd me..let alone the scandals that ultimately came out.
Paul routinely opened their flagship show with an overly enthusiastic quoting /cheerleading of this same Scripture:
“I will bless the Lord at all times and His praise will continually be on my lips.”
And Bon's now bought/brought it back from me.
From now on this Scripture will be voiced by Bono and the U2 song, not the
TBN theme song
PTL, to risk quoting another controversial m televangelist show/
Finally:
One mystery : All U2 fans know what COEXIST means, and Bono's history with the motto and headband/blindfold. But what does that have to do with the song's story Why is this in the title and nowhere in the lyric?
Ken Penner has as a suggested answer:
The anchor of the song is a vow seized from King David in duress, a stubborn promise to bless the Lord at all times, quoting verbatim “I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Psalm 34:1, KJV). This is praise spoken through gritted teeth, and the COEXIST title frames that struggle with what Bono called a “powerful symbol of tolerance,” an attempt to imagine common ground when human rights feel under siege in the aftermath of 9/11. -Ken Penner
But Brian Zahnd has an additional (final?) answer, and
he may well be right! I haven't seen anyone suggest this. but I love the "obvious unobvious" . Someone ask Bono!
See 16:05 to 20:05 in Zahnd's sermon above/The take home?:
"Can the commitment to bless the Lord at all times COEXIST with the reality of a worldwhere children are killed by down strikes?"
Or dead men don't wake up? Isn't the ruthless and refreshing honesty of dozens of U2 songs that faith and doubt /grief an joy and coexist ? (see "Bono audio: God at the 9" Nails Gig")
Or as Walter Brueggemann, whom Bono quotes and references, has said,. the gospel and a prophet, and :prophetic imagination" is all about the coexistent paradox of grief and amazement?
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"Oh #@! It's real!" ..but God is good..
all the time..
and at all times.
I am learning to creatively coexist in the midst, milieux and mess of that.
Paul McCartney's best album... and you have never even heard of it, let alone heard it..,
partly because it was recorded under the name of his alias/alter ego The Fireman.
The album? "Electric Arguments".
It even includes a worship song...hear it, and the rest of the album here
P:S I bet you have never even heard of The Monkees' best song either. Late to the party? It's here.
Their second best that you have also never heard of includes Neil Young on guitar It's here, and I hear it as a prayer.
Both cowritten by Carole King, and both from the same album.
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On to reviews of Electric Arguments by Paul McCartney AKA The Fireman:
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"a staggering collection of timeless adventures that touch on the best aspects of today's more left-field sounds". Clash, link
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Electric Arguments is the best Paul Album he's released in the last twenty years, and no one has listened to it:
Electric Arguments by The Fireman (Paul McCartney and Youth working together) is a top tier album for me. I think The Fireman have a bad wrap because of their first two albums which were not Paul's standard kind of thing.
The songs near the end are a little more abstract (it is still "the fireman") but the first ten songs are as good as his seventies material for me!
Paul played all the instruments and vocals, similarly to how he did on Chaos and Creation. It's basically what I thought of as "McCartney III" before MIII actually came out. link
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Electric Argumentswill go down as one of the most eclectic and exhilarating albums in Macca’s whole extraordinary canon. link
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The proof is in the listening: this is Paul McCartney finally “getting back,” serving notice that he’s back, with all of the adventurousness he had with those other Liverpool lads – and reminding us that “Lonely Hearts Club Band” stuff was his idea, after all. link
Though he may never acquire the same ‘cool’ credentials of John, the existence of The Fireman indicates that he may have conceded there is nothing left for him to prove. link
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I'll be brief in this, my first Debaserian time, by saying right away that McCartney has rarely recorded and released such a "modern", immediate work, rich with the most diverse sounds and musical cues.
If it has always been said, and partly rightly so, that McCartney's music needs careful production to give its best (which often, unfortunately, had to make up for a lack of ideas), this time we can enjoy the former Beatle without frills and in the midst of a very happy, instinctive, creative moment, finally far from market demands, which Paul too, too often, has let himself be influenced by.
The album consists of 13 tracks which almost perfectly, in my very personal opinion, fulfill the main task of music, which is to live better, forgetting reality as much as possible during those minutes.
The sounds, instruments, and atmospheres you hear are numerous (violins, flutes, mandolins, synthesizers, and percussion of all kinds, etc.) but well-blended in this work, truly "multiethnic" without ever becoming an incoherent jumble. Rather, it is the coherence of the whole that leaves an impression of "slow-release" compactness at the end, truly rare for McCartney. link
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MCCARTNEY'S ON FIRE!
John would have been proud, for it sounds more like a john-esque project then one you would expect to hear from McCartney. Not to say that I was not an immense fan of Paul's melodic, hard driving pop songs. For I was. Just that he hasn't seemed to be able to pull those out in several years (decades?). Just as early critics of the Beatles marked Paul as a great R & B singer, this recording shows that "the Blues" is his forte..Sometimes it's just the right person and just the right combination. And this is it. No, this is not a happy super pop album, it is eery night music, sometimes dark. But it is music at it's best. The way McCartney needs to be, more relaxed and natural. Superb.
Listening to these songs I hear influences from other bands; U2, Peter Gabriel, CCR, Beck, Ozark Mtn. Daredevils, the Mars Volta, , Enigma, Jon Anderson. And yet, all of these artists were influenced by the Beatles. So, in essensce he is only influencing himself!
,,"Sing the Changes" is immediately my favorite and could easily be a top 40 song (if the verses were cut a bit). Compelling sermon like delivery with a nice guitar riff bringing everything together.
In "Traveling Light" McCartney puts on his Peter Gabriel impression, playing flute and singing with a low Peteresque vocal.
"Sun Is Shining" just has that orb like feeling you get with some U2 songs. Very U2-ish.
"Dance 'Til We're High" is another one of my favorites. For some reason, this one reminds me of early / mid 80's college/Indi radio. It also has tinges of Genesis...
And, finally, the coda "Don't Stop Running". I have been a Beatles fan for over 40 years. I have listened to McCartney for....ages... and yet, I have never heard him sing like this. He sounds like Jon Anderson (of Yes). And... it works! And with an interesting harpsichord like sound... just everything on this album is a hodge podge of sounds and instruments... and it is never boring.
All in all, I love this album. This is the best thing McCartney has done since the mid 70's. But don't expect it to sound like the mid 70's. It sounds like 2008. It's great!
To quote McCartney "The Fireman takes your hand and leads you through the blaze to places you didn't know you wanted to go."
Electric Argumentswill go down as one of the most eclectic and exhilarating albums in Macca’s whole extraordinary canon. link
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. The results are still experimental in nature and despite the hooks it is still very much an avant-garde experience. It has a Radiohead feel to it but only in mood and atmosphere.More proof that some of Paul’s best recorded work was in the last 20 years of his career. link
. Creative gem! certainly a true gem and perhaps will be remembered as one of Paul’s best works, at his most creative and instinctive. link
Having been a fervent follower of U2 since 1980, upon hearing "I Will Follow" on the amazing WPLR New Haven (Thanks to St Stoneman) I did (follow)...
And having been a fervent follower of Jesus since Spring 1983..
..when I had the chance, just days after signing on to that second followership, to see/hear/experience U2 at the New Haven Coliseum--a concert that was so historic and Holy Spirited that the leitourgia had no name, and inevitably they later had to literally blow up the arena (watch it here!), as no act could possibly top U2 (or even their alarming opening act)...
As one with wholly/holy obsession with said band , and an unrepentant bibliophile, these three books are among my favorites...and I own a few...
thousand.
Scot Calhoun, who directs the U2 Conference, has edited and curated these three voluminous (and luminous) volumes. Academic books about U2, including one on religious impulse? Order them yesterday.
Oh, before you go any further, soundtrack this coming conversation about Angela's observations with an opening act/prelude: the classic interview excerpt of Bono on Gay Byrne's "The Meaning of Life"; you can watch it below. See you after the break. You might even sense the religious impulse to be baptized/renew your baptismal vows after viewing this short clip...which may be precisely the the point.
The short section I have in mind starts at 1:55 (though do watch the first section as well, as Bono masterfully adopts/adapts the classic C.S. Lewis trilemma apologetic ( popularly called the "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord" apologetic).
Wow.. I hear that hushed silence from you after the video ended.
When I show this clip in class, it inevitably happens, even from non U2 fans!
That short section has moved me for years, not just because it is a humble, diplomatic but direct confession of Christian faith from the singer, but this particular exchange has often given me the chills and holy hush; it always felt deeply mystical...even liturgical..in a way I could never quite put my finger on..
Until now, thanks to Angela, who says on p. 162:
A video of an interview of Bono with veteran Irish broadcaster Gay Byrne, from his program "The Meaning of Life," includes an exchange oddly echoing the renewal of baptismal vows that take place in some Christian churches at the Easter:
Bono: I find it hard to accept that all the millions and millions of lives, half the earth, for two thousand years, have been touched, have felt their lives touched and inspired by some nutter. I just —I don't believe it.
Byrne: So therefore it follows that you believe (Jesus] was divine.
Bono: Yes.
Byrne: And therefore it follows that you believe that he rose physically from
Bono: Yes. I've no problem with miracles. (Laughs] I'm livingaround them. I am one.
Byrne: So when you pray, then, you pray to Jesus.
Bono: The risen Jesus.
Byrne: And you believe that he made promises which will come true.
The simple call and response. The rhythmic cadence. The simple but heartfelt "Yes" of Bono's answers the the questions of the host/inquisitive inquisitor/pastor Byrne. And even though the interviewer has been characterized as an agnostic/atheist, Byrne didn't see himself that way. He was more of a struggling Catholic. Someone
called him "a loyal if questioning Catholic later in life."
His genuine interest in Bono's responses are based on decades of friendship . I felt he was even rooting/praying for Bono to confess in a very Christ-honoring and orthodox way.
At the funeral Mass for the late Gay Byrne on Friday, the principal celebrant, Fr Leonard Maloney SJ said those who knew the broadcaster well knew him as “a man of faith”.
In his homily at St Mary’s Pro Cathedral in Dublin, the Jesuit provincial said Byrne’s faith was not the kind of faith that has all the answers. “It was the kind that asks all the questions. link
Bono's "yes" answers called to mind the many riffs and improvisations on the word I have heard over the years as a pastor officiating baptisms/ renewals. Sometimes it is said tearfully and barely audibly ; sometimes shouted as if from a rooftop. A student of mine's recent response was (video here)
But something about Bono's quiet, confident "yes' resonates with me...and I know it spoke to Gay Byrne like no armtwisting evangelistic sermon could.
"All the promises are yes," as St Paul asserted . . A confession of faith in summative one-word microcosm.
'Oddly echoing the renewal of baptismal vows," Angela so articulately commented.
Yes, that's what I had felt but had no language for.
Echoes are important.
Here is one version of the renewal of baptism vows:
V. Do you reject Satan?
R. I do.
V. And all his works?
R. I do.
V. And all his empty promises?
R. I do.
V. Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth?
R. I do.
V. Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father?
R. I do.
V. Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?
R. I do.
V. God, the all-powerful Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has given us a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and forgiven all our sins. May he also keep us faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ for ever and ever.
Also, don't get me started on the two words in the sample ceremony above; and Bono's last and final answer, where it felt right to "say more" and add only two words: "Yes..I do"
They are still going strong as they near their seventieth.
May it be with all who we baptize, marry and speak to.
And interview about the meaning of life.
Amen,
"For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the 'Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God. (2 Corinthians 1:20)
"In his interview in ‘The Meaning of Life’ Gay said this to Martin Sheen: ‘Suppose it’s all true, and suppose you get to meet God at the pearly gates. What will you say to Him?’After hardly a pause, the seasoned actor said: ‘Deo gratias. Thanks be to God.’”
and deep fan of U2.
