Bono's renewal of baptismal vows , officiated by an unlikely pastor; Part 1 (thanks to Angela Pancella)

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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)...

           I decided to follow both Jesus and the band (the worship band formerly known as the Hype) even more heartily..

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.

• Exploring U2: Is This Rock and Roll? (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011)
• U2 Above, Across, and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Assessments (Lexington Press, 2014)
• U2 and the Religious Impulse: Take Me Higher (Bloomsbury, 2018)

Today the spotlight is on Angelia Pancella's chapter in the third volume, "U2 and the Religious Impulse.".  

Part of an AI-created collage about me

Here's what hit me on a recent re-read of this loaded chapter (which  helpfully interacts with my friend Tim Neufeld's seminal  "Crystal Ballroom" Periscope community/communitas  of U2 followers, see pp. 166-168). The chapter is titled  “Like Faith Needs a Doubt”: U2 and the Theist/Nontheist Dialogue.

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.

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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.

Bono: Yes . I do.

-U2 and the Religious Impulse: Take Me Higher (Bloomsbury Studies in Religion and Popular Music), Scott Calhoun (Editor)

Ah, of course, As the aforementioned Tim once said about me, " Dave, you know what I like about you? You always push toward the unobvious! You are gifted at seeing what others miss."; I now pay that compliment foward to Angela, for helping/empowering me to put language to what I felt. It was so obvious/unobvious . What a gift.

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.

"Let your yes be yes," as Jesus preached.

'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.

R. Amen.

link

YES? One can say more; but cannot say less.

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"

Wedding language. Covenant echoes.

When I heard my parents say to each other "Yes..I do" upon my asking them if they renews their wedding vows on their 50th? Sacramental. Priceless. Spiritual.

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.’”

“Say no more,” Gay responded. 

“That’s a perfect ending.” link

Bonus :Here is the entire episode with complete Bono interview:

U2 devotional #11: Paul Leader on surfing "Every Breaking Wave"

Paul Leader's blog always makes my day.  Here's an excerpt from his post on U2's "Every Breaking Wave."  This song is multiplex for me; heck even Bono has said he's not figured out how the story resolves.  Maybe some of the meaning "changes in the moment you're in" as Bono once said of rhema.  I have often connected it to Ephesians 4:14.

Paul has a great app on this song.
--

Every Breaking Wave.  
by Paul Leader

“Are we ready to be swept off our feet
And stop chasing every breaking wave?”

One of the songs that has grabbed my attention on the new album is ‘Every Breaking Wave’. Many sermons/talks/blogs could be shared from this one song. The thought of stopping the chase after those breaking waves has stirred my heart in a strange way. You see through-out my Christian life I have been seeking out and chasing after the waves of revival and renewal. I have driven all over Britain to surf the waves of Toronto and Pensacola. Run after prophetic movements and went wherever I could sense a well of refreshing. I have created waves and read all the latest books on what the next move is going to look like, so I could have my surf board ready and primed to find the next contemporary breaking wave. But what was that all about in a life of constants? Was it pure escapism from the reality of life and the ordinary? Was it only the thought of a better, more exciting life that kept us going until the next weekend? While we sought out a more supernatural day, God showed us a more natural way, the way of living on earth in flesh. I ran the country hunting out other storm chasers, while I neglected the family and community God had placed me within. The waves became the focus rather than the people. Who cared if they were drowning as long as I was riding the biggest waves around. Thankfully I am no longer impressed by the fizz of waves. I realised that no matter how many waves there were, there would always be another one, and each one would always end up at the same place. I have stopped chasing after every breaking wave...    Link, full post

U2 devotionals: "It's the way you don't pay that's okay.."

U2 song lyrics often work on several levels...and one level in most (all?)  every song is, of course, the spiritual, God/Jesus story.

It's ironic that in U2's ironic era (the 1990's), many fans thought they had lost the faith, and ditched the spiritual lyrics.

 But just check out "Discoteque."  Read the lyrics BEFORE watching or listening to the song. 
What's it's ultimately about?    What..or Who..is "it" in the lyric? (see"What the hell is IT"?)
 How obvious..and evangelical..is a line like  "It's the way you don't pay that's okay, 'cause you can't earn it."  Any card-carrying evangelical knows the "saved by grace and not by works, salvation can't be earned"  motto (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Bono has said the song is "a little riddle about love."  And it works on  that and other levels, as Bono admits in the same interview.  Just google the song interpretation; is it about  music?  U2's style? drugs? romance? the search for salvation?  All that and more..

The haunting background vocal, "you want heaven in your heart" is really brought up in the mix (and therefore the meaning) in some remixes of the song

Cleverly disguised as a disco song, it subverts the genre; making fun of "bubble gum" music/salvation while using bubble gum music and scenario.  But, as if to sneak "fish in the sand" yet again, Bono sneaks in some more soteriology in the outro: "I can't get in, I paid, it's not enough"

(Interesting that in some "live" versions, Bono adds a litany about things that enslave..even that we are  "slave to Rome")

Also note: this is pretty much the same story as "Vertigo."  Bono has said that song also takes place in a club, and the temptations along the way to salvation.  ("I was thinking about this awful nightclub we've all been to. You're supposed to be having a great time and. and the character in this stares at the cross just to steady himself").

Bonus: "you want heaven in your heart....but you take what you can get" connects to U2's "The First Time"..another controversial 1990s song.. in that the character doesn't choose salvation; settling for something else/less, and the song almost celebrates that poor choice, even as it mourns it  (see  cursing God's staff and revisionist U2 history and  Well-Ended Stories That Don't End Well).  Not to mention the "I want to get it wrong/Can't always be strong" of "Ultraviolet"...

Bonus: a reference to The One, two years before The  Matrix popularized that phrase (BTW, Not a bad translation of "Christ" ..." the Messiah, or the one;   "the one called the Messiah" as  NLT translates) .  How about a use of "Boom!" years before that became common slang..

Let's go to the discoteque:


You can reach but you can't grab it
You can't hold it, control it, no, 
You can't bag it
You can push but you can't direct it
Circulate, regulate, oh no, 
You cannot connect it

You know you're chewing bubble gum
You know what it is but you still want some
You just can't get enough of that lovie dovie stuff

You get confused but you know it
Yeah, you hurt for it, work for it, love, 
You don't always show it

Let go, let's go, let's go, 
Discothèque
Let go, let go, go go, 
Discothèque
Looking for The One 
But you know you're somewhere else instead
You want to be the song
Be the song that you hear in your head
Love

It's not a trick 'cause you can't learn it
It's the way you don't pay that's okay 
'Cause you can't earn it

You want heaven in your heart..

You know you're chewing bubble gum
You know what it is but you still want some
You just can't get enough of that lovie dovie stuff
Let go, let's go, 
Discothèque
Go go, go go
Discothèque
Love, love
Looking for the one 
But you know you're somewhere else instead
I want to be the song
Be the song that you hear in your head

Love, love, love
You want heaven in your heart
Heaven in your heart
The sun, the moon and the stars
But you take what you can get 
'Cause it's all that you can find
And you know there's something more 
But tonight, tonight, tonight

Boom cha, boom cha
Discothèque
I can't get in, I paid, it's not enough
Boom cha, boom cha
Discothèque
I paid, get in I can't, it's not enough
Boom cha, boom cha
Discothèque
I can't get in, I can't, it's not enough
Boom cha, boom cha
Discothèque
Boom cha, boom cha
 ) ) ) )

gated communities, the pros and cons of being invisible, and the 'arclight' of U2's new song

I’m more than you know
I’m more than you see here
More than you let me be
I’m more than you know
A body in a soul
You don’t see me but you willI am not invisible..

There is no them
There’s only us


I could never..
would never...
                  live in a gated community.

Yet somehow I live in one.

For years, I quipped, "gated communities are against my religion."

link

God has a sense of humor (revenge?). When we were looking for a house, the only one available that met all our needs was one in a dreaded gated community.  I struggled, but did the husbandly and biblical thing: submitted to the wife and family.   I told myself-- and them-- it would only be temporary....and grumbled to myself that I would be temporarily miserable.

If you're wondering why I struggle so, a simple googling of  "Would Jesus live in a gated community?"
reveals that the obvious, expected answer is 'no.'

And the New York Times:

... gated communities churn a vicious cycle by attracting like-minded residents who seek shelter from outsiders and whose physical seclusion then worsens paranoid groupthink against outsiders link      

I can't wait to get out.

But in the meantime, I aim to learn all I can about
 exclusion and embrace (Volf's phrase),
                 bounded and centered sets
                                         and  the dynamics and dilemma of


  "us" and "them."

(It's that last pair of terms I'm interested in here; note that language is used in the NT Times audio)

I have even learned that one megachurch (Saddleback) has actually planted a church in a gated community; yes, "a church you can't visit".   No comment yet, but  (like Paul W, see link) I need to wrestle with that reality. Uh oh, I just had a terrible  thought: what if I'm called to do the same, while I live in one?

Get me out of here!  Time to change the scene:


The  indefatigable New Testament scholar Joel Green   (Ha!  I have waited years to use the word "indefatigable" for Joel Green, as he is the one who  introduced me to the word;  using it in reference to  F.F. Bruce) was asked to speak to a group of new pastors. I was a member of that group; and I was thrilled that the meeting took place at the church I pastored.  So in preparing the room for the meeting, I wrote on the top of the blackboard (Anyone remember these ancestors of whiteboards?)  "Congratulations Joel Green on 'Dictionary of the Gospels' winning Book of the Year."

After getting to know all of us, Green  promptly and without comment erased the  announcement and drew a large circle, placing the word "us" in its center.

He had our attention.

He then silently drew another circle, labeled "them."

In the silence, the take-home lesson was already hitting us; and the teacher hadn't yet  even said a word.

What he did next nailed it:  he re-drew the two circles so the "us" circle encompassed and included the "them" circle.


Twenty one years later, U2 releases the song "Invisible," in which the line Bono has used for years (see  my 2008 post here) in conversation and in concert finally becomes official.

"there's no 'them,' there's only 'us.'"

I love that in an early use of this phrase, Bono made it clear who the "them" was; the song was performed at the Dublin Paralympics (Special Olympics).  I dare you to watch who dances (4:15 to 4:51) to the lyric at hand, and not get it.
.


Steve Stockman:

that lingering anthemic “fade out” nails the prophetic protest,“There is no them... There’s only us..” It is simple, profound and powerful.

The humanising is a recurring theme in U2. Original Of The Speciesfrom How To Dismantle and Atomic Bomb was about revealing to someone their specialness and Get Your Boots On from Line On The Horizon took on the same aim, “You don't know how beautiful you are...” Invisible seems to throw a wider arclight. This could be about the dalits of India, the forgotten refugees of Syria or Sudan or the disappeared of any war.  link

And to cast an even wider (narrower?) arclight, it could be about anyone who has ever felt themselves a "them," and thus invisible. Tim Neufeld, in a two-part series  (part one,  part two)
on U2's Invisible, offers this helpful connection:

It’s not just albums that I think of when I listen to “Invisible.” A little-known movie that Bono co-wrote in 2000 also deals with similar themes. The Million Dollar Hotel, directed by Wim Wenders, is set on skid row in downtown Los Angeles and follows a number of mentally ill people who live in a rundown hotel. (I know the area well and annually take college students into this environment.) In the movie, Tom Tom (Jeremy Davies) becomes the self-appointed protector of Eloise (Milla Jovovich), a young, vulnerable and withdrawn tenant, resistant to any friendships. The villain, Geronimo (Jimmy Smits), delights in subjugating Eloise which causes great distress for Tom Tom. At a key moment in the film, Geronimo brazenly confesses his conquest of Eloise to Tom Tom. “I fucked nothing!” he brags. "She's not NOTHING!" Tom Tom protests. At this we are confronted with one of the main points of the movie: to all but Tom Tom, (and not unlike most of the homeless and disabled in our society), Eloise is invisible; she is nothing. It’s a heartbreaking moment. Eloise could be writing the lyrics for “Invisible.” “I’m more than you know, I’m more than you see, I’m not invisible.”  link

I am fascinated that, in an amazing book, chemist P.W. Atkins makes the case for the "hidden potency" of things invisible.  He even argues that "invisibility does not mean uselessness" (p. 11).  He's speaking of  oxygen and nitrogen, but this applies to Eloise, and to me, and to any in seasons of invisibility and "them"-ness.

Someone who has been abused/raped/trafficked  often articulates the paradox of invisibility:  due to the need for safety (Dear Lord, here he comes again, please make me invisible!")  and the sense of shame, they want to be/feel they should  invisible/disappear into nothingness (see Frank Lake) and also more than anything need to be validated, believed and believed in... heard and seen.   

link

 As U2 has sung, some things/people "need to be believed to be seen."    Elsewhere in the U2 canon, we find "I'm in the black, can't see or be seen."

Or to intertext to The Who:  consider Tommy's plea/prayer "See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.." 
It all starts with being seen.

 Or the devastating, determined "Can you see the real me, preacher?"

As a preacher, I must see like Jesus sees, and see what and who  he sees.

Jesus sees those outside the gate...

                 and even those inside.


I am not invisible
I am here!

psalms with street cred and drums that smash Satan and call us from violence to chivalry: U2's "Hawkmoon"

Doesn't everyone hear "Hawkmoon" that way?
(see U2 devotional #7b:"like a preacher needs pain")


Great testimony in Christianity Today.includes some great U2 (and Johnny Cash) nods):

You know it's quite a story when it starts like this:

:
At age 13, I was baptized by my first stepfather. The baptism capped off an emotional high I had contracted at a recent church camp. To be honest, I was baptized because I wanted to date the pastor's daughter and assumed baptism was a prerequisite. And, to be more honest, I believed that having my stepfather baptize me might make him stick around. It was the same reason I intentionally lost our basketball games.

Three days after he raised me out of the font, my stepfather beat up my mom and me and ran off with the wife of a youth leader at our small church. We never saw him again.
Our family didn't talk about the strange events that dotted my childhood. Like the time I was almost kidnapped when I was 8. My mom and biological father (who left two years later) were hosting a party in our home in Santa Rosa, California, while a friend and I played on our front lawn. A stranger showed up and began talking to us, laughing as she suddenly picked me up and held me tight. While I screamed, she carried me around the corner, toward a black Lincoln sedan with the back door swung open. Hands emerged from the backseat to pull me inside while the woman started pushing me in. Right then, my dad and his friend arrived. The stranger jumped into the car and it sped away. My mom and dad never mentioned what happened.

....

And later gets onto U2:

Music was still communicating to me, giving me inklings of a reality outside my own. In 1987, just as I was about to wear out my cassette tapes of Boy and War, U2 released The Joshua Tree. Arguably the Dublin rock band's magnum opus, it helped me center and remember that life was more than smoking pot and doing cocaine. That year, I went to see them in concert (yakked out on coke and tequila, still). The last song of the night was "40."

Out of nowhere, a wind of grace blew over me. It wasn't the lyrics that got me ("I waited patiently for the Lord / He inclined and heard my cry")—I had no idea they were based on Psalm 40. It was the music and the people singing together. Up to this point in my life, I felt like I had been standing in the middle of a circle, punching wildly at the air so no one could hurt me. But here I was drenched in a universal love, and immediately sobered. The mass of voices carried me toward the arms of God.

Psalms with Street Cred
This moment was profound, but it was fleeting. I carried on, chained to voiceless anger. I graduated from a state college, the first in my family to do so, became an RA, landed an internship at NBC, started a business—I was starting to come into my own. But my stabs at a few different careers didn't pan out, and I ended up working for my dad selling garlic for a couple years, then kicking around dead-end jobs. I was starting to realize I couldn't manufacture my own joy.

One night in 1995, I was driving around listening to Nirvana, flipping off people who were lined up outside of bars. My middle finger was my life statement. With my mouth sealed shut, I was saying that their games were meaningless, even though I couldn't have told any of them what was meaningful.

Later that night, lying in my bed in my apartment in San Jose, I heard a voice. It both was and wasn't audible. Give me 100 percent. You've never given me 100 percent. I knew right away that it was the God I'd heard about in churches growing up, the God I had started to believe might exist at the U2 concert.

I realized then that I had never talked to God. I had only talked to God's people. And I had been judging him based on Christians' attempts, however well intentioned, to save me. In that moment, he was asking me to see him for himself, just like I wanted to be seen for myself. I said aloud, "All right. I'll give you 100 percent." I had nothing to lose.
The next morning, I was driving around listening to U2's Rattle and Hum when the song "Hawkmoon 269" came on:I got out of bed and grabbed a Bible from the leather-bound, gold-embossed, soft-cover, youth-version, study-version, latest-version pile I had collected over the years. The majority of what I had heard in church had no staying power, but I did remember that the Psalms were in the middle of the Bible. I devoured their words like the lyrics on the liner notes of a Cash album. They were deep and rich. They had street cred. I started to think, Man, this might be true. Even though I hadn't slept well for years, that night I slept like a baby.

Like a desert needs rainLike a town needs a nameI need your love. . . .Like coming homeAnd you don't know where you've beenLike black coffeeLike nicotineI need your love

I pulled the car over and started weeping. I didn't just hear Larry Mullen's drumbeat at the end of the song—I felt it with my being. His bass drum was smashing Satan in the face, each hit loosening his grasp on my life. It called me from violence to chivalry. It called me to a strength that was for justice and gave me hope. All the chains I'd been dragging around, all the screaming and no one listening—it all shattered and fell away.
I hadn't paid attention to where I pulled over. When the song ended, I looked up to see a woman watering her lawn. Sitting in the car, a snotty, sobbing mess, I watched the water fall from the hose, the sun sparkling and dancing off the drops, lighting them up like jewels. They were clear and pure and radiant, and it was ordinary and everyday, right there for me to see. I knew God was there, with the woman watering her lawn, with all of us.

          --"Saved by U2 and an Audible Voice: God wasn’t on my to-do list. He showed up anyway."by Travis Reed [Full article here 

N.T. Wright opens up for U2: 3 psalms

Okay, we all know N.T. Wright is the rock star of Bible scholars.

Sometimes even literally, see this:

But he also opens up windows for us to "really read" rock stars.

I was thrilled NT mentioned (page  25)  Bruce Cockburn  (and Dylan) in his new book on the Psalms.
Of course those two are only one degree of separation from U2.
I don't know if Wright has wrestled with U2 (Vice versa is a good bet).

But this post is really called "N.T. Wright opens up  U2."

At least three times when reading "The Case for the Psalms," I said "Hey, that's a U2 interttext!"
 And I'm not even  talking the obvious examples like "40" and "Wake Up Dead Man,"

Here are the three (o far)

1)

The Psalms thus transform what I have called our 'worldview.'  I use this term in a very specifi8c way...A 'worldview' in this sense is like a pair of spectacles, it is what you look through, not what you look at..Worldviews, in this sense, are a swirling combination of stories, symbols, habitual praxis, and assumed answers to key questions (Who are we? What's the solution?  What time is it?)   -page 8-9, emphasis mine

That last question is of course familiar to anyione conversant with U2's 36O Tour.
It was full of questions.  The "questions" intro to "Blinding Lights " and later to "Zooropa" was brilliant.  But the whole "What time is it in the world?" line,  which was used in various spots, is in ones sense the leitmotif..even worldviewmotif..of the tour.

Here;s one example from the intro to "Magnificent," note also the question is often coupled with "And where are we going?":

Psalms center us, and call us back to worldview that is not from this world.  Asking questions about navigating time and timing lead to answers being found in the questions.  It's a timeline and time machine on the horizon.

In the book, Wright baptizes us into the worldview (and I might coin the phrase "timeview") of the Psalms (and thus also of Jesus and Paul, who quoted about almost  many Psalms as U2 do).  From there, he says, we get oriented to what time it is...in the world, and in us.  "We are given those psalms, I believe, so that we can pray them ourselves out of our own impatience. God in his wisdom knows that we shal want and need to express the pain of being caught in the crack of time."  (p. 74)

"How long?" indeed.

Related : U2: "thank You for the unanswered question"



2)Wright, in  a parenthetical (literally!  Some of his most profound observations can be found in parentheses and footnotes) discussion of Psalm 137's context of exile:

We shouldn't miss the extra point here.  It may be impossible to "sing YHWH's song" in this foreign land, but this particular pslamist turns this impossibility into yet another of "YHWH's songs,"  thus making a psalm out of the fact that one can't sing psalms here."  (p. 43)

That insightful obsvervation about pslamic subversion connected me to so many places in U2's canon.  In a  sense, their mission is not only to mention/pray/sing the unmentionable/unprayable/unsingable (Bono often jokes about his "Tourette's syndrome").  But singing/psalming from within that place ("right in the middle of a contradiction," Bono often says, takes me to "Gloria"

"I try to sing this song..but only in You I'm complete"


3)
 I will never/can never/must never forget.listening to U2's "With a Shout" (so commonly known as "Jerusalem " that even The Edge seems to think that's the song's name),

 a song about Jerusalem..

                  ....in Jerusalem.





To the side of a hill
Where we were still
We were filled
With a Love

We're gonna be there again
Jerusalem!
We're gonna be there again
Jerusalem!




(See"with a shout" by the worship band formerly known as The Hype)

Wright:

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem" (Psalm 122:6-7 ).
I cannot read or sing this psalm without multilayered memories of many great services in Oxford, Litchfield, Westminster, Durham and many other places.

But the psalm sounded quite different when I heard it in Jerusalem.

..I have sung the psalm as a pilgrim, heading up the hill from Jericho ina bus rather than doing the journey oin foot as Jesus dd, but still with that same sense of excitement as you crest that final hill and there at last is the city that another psalm calls 'the joy of all the earth.  (p. 183)

I am always in Jerusalem; praying from Jerusalem.
Or at least righ around the crest of that final hill.

Suffice to say I have added this new Wright book to my stack of books on the Psalms that Bono has read...or should.