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.
Morpheus:
All of our lives we have fought this war. Tonight I believe we can end
it. Tonight is not an accident. There are no accidents. We have not come
here by chance. I do not believe in chance... I do not see coincidence, I see providence, I see
purpose. I believe it is our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I
believe this night holds for each and every one of us the very meaning
of our lives...
Niobe: What if you..and the prophecy.. are wrong?
Morpheus:Then tomorrow we may all be dead, but how would that be different from
any other day? This is a war, and we are soldiers. Death can come for us
at any time, in any place... Now consider the alternative. What if I am right? What if the prophecy
is true? What if tomorrow the war could be over. Isn't that worth
fighting for? Isn't that worth dying for?link
--
the best-known quote from the PesachHaggadah is, "why is this night different from
all other nights?" This line is usually recited by the youngest person at the
table (or at least, the youngest person capable of reciting it). It is meant to
express the child's confusion at the difference between a typical every-day or
holiday meal and the unusual features of the seder.
link
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 historyand 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
)
)
)
)
Paul McCartney taking the initiative to lead in prayer with U2, crying out for God's blessing? That amazing story is told by Bono in "U2 by U2", beginning backstage before Paul and U2 were to perform together for Live8:
Paul is a much more dimensional character than people realize. He came in our dressing room before the show..Then as we were on our way to the stage, he came over and stopped us, in front of everybody, and said 'Can we just pause for a second?'. He put his arms around us and made a beautiful prayer about how 'music is what we do, and we give our music to Your service, Lord. On this day, use us.'
We (U2) always spend time in prayer before we go on; we pause and ask for a blessing on the show. Some people do it in a very showy, kind of theatrical way, like they want to get Jesus to play the tambourine. But this was a real moment for me. I thought 'What a blessing from a Beatle." -Bono, U2 By U2, p 342
----------------------
Video below of the song that followed that prayer..
Abe Laboriel Jr, McCartney's drummer (and whose dad Abraham is a respected Christian musician),
says about playing concerts with Paul:
“We huddle behind the curtain right before we’re going to play and pray before the show“ which is something Paul said he’s never done before. He leads us in prayer and says something like, ‘God, we want you to take over. Let us have a good time and let everybody out there have a good time. Thank you for letting us be here to do this.’ Wow! What beautiful humility, handing it over that way. My dad has always said that music is all around us and it visits us. To be with someone who lives that same philosophy is beautiful.” link
Ringo Starr talking about God being in the room? T-Bone Burnett
(longtime Bono friend, thanked in the liner notes of U2's "Achtung Baby" for "the truth in the dark.")
tells that story in the clip below...1:17ff:
The two remaining Beatles have long been seen as the "secular ones."
But there is no secular, and as Neo once learned, there is no spoon...
Of course, there is no such thing as Christian music around here.
The closer people get to music;
the closer they get to God....
as Burnett discusses above.
It's partly because "the universe at base is music." (Len Sweet)
Music making and music hearing are ways we engage the physical world. Even in the case of electronically generated music, the body is often involved through, say, a keyboard, and patterns of vibrating air are mediated through physical speakers. The physical things we involve ourselves with in music have ultimately arisen through the free initiative of God’s love—they are part of the ordo amoris. more
No results found for "biblical duende".