I confess there is much about pop culture and particularly pop music of various kinds about which I know almost nothing. Other subjects and pursuits have filled my time by choice.
But I know just enough about the musical group U2 and its lead singer Bono to be glad to know that one of our kids last week surprised his wife by flying her to Vancouver for Mother's Day to hear U2 in concert.
Bono is an intensely spiritual person who, from what I've read and heard, really has a sense about what is important in life and about how all worthy art reflects not just the more lovely aspects of life but also the struggles, the darkness, the wounds.
In that way, such art is similar to the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew scriptures.
And, as this interview with Bono attests, he's smart enough to know that about the psalms, too. In fact, they have been quite influential in his life.
"Before taping the new interview," the story reports, "Bono said he reread the Songs of Ascents ― a series of Psalms that were possibly sung by Jewish pilgrims as they made a trip to Jerusalem. Within those few chapters, Bono said he found songs about peace, protection, laughter, hubris, rage, tears, humility and unity.
“'Okay, that’s just Songs of Ascent. They had utility. And why is it in Christian music, I can’t find them?'”
In fact, though Bono is known as a Christian artist and U2's music reflects a Christian approach to spirituality, he finds a lot of music labeled as "Christian" to be wanting:
"'Creation screams God’s name. So you don’t have to stick a sign on every tree,' Bono said, suggesting that just because a song isn’t explicitly called a 'Christian' song, that doesn’t mean it isn’t spiritual in nature.
“'This has really, really got to stop,' he said. 'I want to hear a song about the breakdown in your marriage, I want to hear songs of justice, I want to hear rage at injustice and I want to hear a song so good that it makes people want to do something about the subject.'”
If you can't be brutally honest, your music, your art of any kind lacks veracity, lacks soul. (So I give this blog post a B-minus because, honestly, I wish I had something more insightful to say about this. Maybe I should have sung this one to you.)
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READERS SHOULD THANK MARTIN LUTHER
As we continue to commemorate the start of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago this year, here's a piece about how important Martin Luther was to general literacy of the populace. If you want the full story of how Luther took the newly invented printing press and changed the world, the book to read is Brand Luther by Andrew Pettegree. My review of it done for The National Catholic Reporter can be found here.
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