Thursday, February 09, 2006

a meditation...

After watching the Grammy's last night (by the way, the most boring award show in history...but it would be an awesome concert experience and we all know how I feel about concerts), I was moved by the lyrics and performance of U2's song One. I recently pulled up the lyrics, and here's what they say...

Is it getting better
Or do you feel the same
Will it make it easier on you now
You got someone to blame
You say...
One love
One life
When it's one need
In the night
One love
We get to share it
Leaves you baby if you
Don't care for it
Did I disappoint you
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without
Well it's...
Too late
Tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We're one, but we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
One...
Have you come here for forgiveness
Have you come to raise the dead
Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head
Did I ask too much
More than a lot
You gave me nothing
Now it's all I got
We're one
But we're not the same
Well we
Hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt
One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
One...life
One

Even as I read through those lyrics again, I'm struck by so much...that our differences shouldn't hinder us from moving towards people. That we may not always agree with each other theologically, psychologically, emotionally, but that we are still part of something bigger. That though we may be upset that someone's "liberal" thinking is hindering them, that for the first time in the person's life, they are actually able to think on their own. That God cannot be put in a box...and in the end that we are a reflection of God to each other and that we must learn how to be a community with everyone.

Amen U2, Amen...

2 comments:

Maria said...

It's so beautiful Meg - the song, the post, all of it! I love this song too. I love how it's a reminder of the things you've mentioned and of all the times our words and our actions don't match and how our 'one life' individually and globally only works in community. Thanks for the post.

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more, of course being the ridiculous U2 fan that I am. Bono has said that he finds it so odd that people play this song at weddings. It is essentially about a break up. He wrote it when the band was close to breaking up. He also thinks he wrote it as a response to a lot of friends that were gay and how their father had responded to them when they came out. This is a beautiful song with a fantastic guitar riff.

Although, I think that Mary J. Blige was awful in the versioin they did on the Grammy's. I have an incredible version on MP3 with an orchestra behind it.