"you/You walked in the room"

I had never seen the 77's
classic and quirky (and Kinks-ish),
Mark Tootle-penned
"You Walked in the Room"
as a commentary on Big-Box Church gatherings,
and midrash on Matthew 23:3

until just now.

What did Mike Roe call this song in the
brilliant liner notes to this
brilliant song
on a brilliant CD
(There's a reason it's $125 on Amazon today, guess I won't resort to that for duplicate set of liner notes)?
"Psychedelic music and pyscho-spiritual lyrics?"
(Help me, Mike, I play it all the time, but lost the notes).

The song is only one reason "Sticks and Stones" is $125 on Amazon today:
(guess I won't resort to that for duplicate set of liner notes)?

And I don't think Tootle was (at least primarily)referring to church gatherings..

but rhema and reason take us there.

As does the first verse..

Here we are
A floor and a ceiling
One two three four walls
And an empty feeling
Even when the bodies are everywhere
Even when the talk's so loud you have to shout
Loneliness is staring me in the face
Trying to get out of being in has left me inside out

...This all paints what so many feel but can't articulate/admit about the unwritten rules/ethos of some megachurch "services." At times, it can feel like nothing more than Hanneh Arendt's "organized loneliness" ( The Origins of Totalitarianism.. p.478, link and context).

So when the next lines hit:

(And if it weren't for you
I'm sure that I'd be
A pessimistic man
In search and lonely
Wondering what to do
And why to do it)

...I see the "you" as "You."
Ultimately, the You is God/Jesus.
Granted, there are those amazing people who when they walk in the room, their presence changes teh atmosphere. I always to Keltic Ken and wife that church parties don't begin till they get there; they are the life of the party (Maybe you can see it on some of our videos).
Kevin Klancey is kinda like that, too...maybe it's a K thing(:
I would love to hear Tootle's take if he had in mind a both/and here in the "you/You."
This song came out long before Bono talked so much about "God walking through the room" (77s came first!). His most recent quote added a twist:

"Moment" was played just one time — the band improvised the version on
the album from thin air. "This kind of spirit blows through every now
and then," Bono says. "It's a very strange feeling. We're waiting for
God to walk into the room — and God, it turns out, is very unreliable.
So you don't have the right to imagine you can make a great album. But
what you can do is create the conditions where it might happen."
link

We live in the unpredictable paradox and unreliable reality
of sometimes finding we can "create the conditions" for God to actually walk into a church meeting....

......and more often knowing that the Visitor has his own timing and timetable.
Completely reliable in his unnrepentant unreliability.

But maybe he is likely to initiate his initiative precisely when he "shouldn't": when our boxed and organized loneliness is "staring us in the face" and facade;
perhaps when he overhears from the other side of the door our stupid, shallow sinful and "spiritualized" small talk, often dressed up as "prayer requests":

Lousy jokes
And out & out lying
'Bout somebody else's bad luck
Bad taste
Bad timing
Somebody always tries to get a laugh
From losers in this system of give and take
Can't decide what this party's all about
Is it a celebration
Or just some kind of personal wake?

Every time he shows up unannounced it is Emmaus Road all over again; even if we are late and latent in finally recognizing him in the way he breaks the bread..

...at least he's here to break bread, and not us, as we deserve.

That he has mercy at all(and not just judgement on us), and shows up at all..

You walked in the room
(And people seem to get a retrospective look in their eye)
You walked in the room
(Like if only they had known, they would've prepared a disguise)
You walked in the room
(Ain't it funny how your presence always comments on our secret lives)
You walked in the room
You walked in the room

... changes everything.
How could his presence NOT comment on our secret lives?
Which is why I am hugely humbled that he condescends to walk in any church-room at all;
let alone those rooms we attempt to lock up and throw away the key
(oops..another amazing 77s-related classic..here it is).


"The God who could fry you alive," John Oswalt says, "loves you."
And he walks in the room, anyway.
Not with a sword,
but with a knowing smile (smirk?)
that almost immediately melts our masks and smelts our simulacra(p).
Even down to the 22nd pew.


Be it big box church, or the most relational organic church..even XXXChurch or Strip Church... that he enters the room at all is no small gift and miracle. More often than not, if he showed up at a random time before or after the official service, he would eavesdrop on some pretty serious

"out & out lying."

Which of course happens quite a bit in our worship songs, too!!
(see "CCM makes you lie," "Is there such a thing as Christian music?"
and "prayer that shreds".
Maybe this is why

God himself has been spotted ditching church at the Nine Inch Nails gig with Bono:


)

Gee, maybe we should draft more 77s songs into our Sunday mornings.
Such might even coax God out of heaven and bring him down the earth.
Even into our humble little room and remnant.

I mean, whatever we can do to get The Man into The Room/
That's what we all want, right?

Uh..
Temple tantrums, excluded..