His Song a Weapon in the Hands of Love: Christian Reflections on the Music of U2 (VIII)

Eugene Peterson once pointed it out, that the first Christian ever to have been formally called a “theologian” was John of Patmos. It’s true: the Greek term they gave him was theologos—one who speaks “God-words.” And Peterson humbly points it out that, as a theologos, John’s great contribution to the life of the church was that fascinating piece of unparalleled, theological poetry, the Book of Revelation. And despite the centuries-old tendency to read the book of Revelation as though it were simply God’s survival manual for the apocalypse, at its heart it is exactly that: a poem. It’s a marvelously, majestically, mysteriously theological poem, to be sure, but still for all that, a poem.

I have always found it both sobering and inspiring to think that, whatever else he was, the first Christian theologian was a poet. Sobering, because so little of the work I do in the discharge of my daily duties as a pastor is actually poetic. There are plenty of God words to be spoken, of course, but most of them are of the practical or the pedantic kind. I preach; I propound; I pray. But very seldom does the moment seem to call for an unequivocal, unapologetic poem, per se.

This strikes me as especially curious, given the fact that such vast swaths of the Bible were written in verse. From the vivid praise of the Psalter to the visionary oracles of the prophets, from the dark debates in the Book of Jo to the sensual Song of Solomon, I mean, the authors of the Good Book seemed to think that good poetry played a central role in opening the heart to God, and in hearing from him in return. Even the Master himself, the Living Word who gave us the Beatitudes and inspired Mary’s Magnificat, seems to have been perfectly at ease among the arresting rhythms and piercing imagery of a well-turned line of poetry.

It’s not simply sobering, however, to realize how important a role good poetry played in the spiritual lives of those first Christians; it is also inspiring. Anyone who has agonized over the best way to say it precisely, what God was up to in a given moment of their lives—anyone who has stumbled unexpectedly across a metaphor so perfect it untangled a knot in their hearts they didn’t even know was there until it had opened—anyone who has had a line of verse flare suddenly in their spirits and so illuminate an otherwise impenetrably dark night of the soul—anyone, that is, who has ever had just the right words at just the right moment coalesce beautifully with something God was intimately doing in their lives, will be encouraged to know that the Christian faith has always made ample room for good poetry in its vision of the spiritual life.

Which is perhaps one of the reasons the music of U2 still holds a special place in my heart, some 40 years after first hearing them play. Despite the cliches that dog the band—their pompous self-righteousness, their predictability, their over-dependence on slick production at the expense of musicality—and to whatever degree these critiques are valid, still their music contains some of the most evocative poetry I’ve ever encountered in a rock-music context. In some ways, Bono was to the 80s and 90s what Bob Dylan was to the 60s and 70s, but the comparison falls short. I’ve always heard, in Bono’s lyrics, something both more spare and more expansive than anything I’ve encountered in a Dylan tune.

A few samples from the repository of U2 lyrics that echo regularly in my heart might prove the point:

We turn away to face the cold enduring chill
As day begs the night for mercy, love
A sun so bright it leaves no shadows
Only scars carved into stone on the face of the earth

(One Tree Hill, The Joshua Tree)

I remember, when we could sleep on stones
Now we lie together in whispers and moans
When I was all messed up and I heard opera in my head
Your love was a light bulb hanging over my bed

(Ultraviolet Baby, Achtung Baby)

And I have no compass
And I have no map
And I have no reasons
No reasons to get back

(Zooropa, Zooropa)

You gotta cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
You know I took the poison from the poison stream
Then I floated out of here

(Running to a Standstill, The Joshua Tree)

I realize there’s a high degree of subjectivity when it comes to things like song lyrics. What speaks to one heart is not necessarily guaranteed to speak to another. Even so, the poignancy and pathos of lines like these, I hope, need little pointing out. I can still recall hearing some of these words being sung for the first time; the sound was like that of the click of a key in a lock, opening a door into a space in my heart I had always sensed was there but didn’t know the way to. Even today, the opening line of “Where the Streets Have No Name,” or the outro of “The Fly,” and many parts of many other U2 songs still have that effect.

One of the running themes in this series on the music of U2 has been the question of the band’s faith and/or spirituality: is U2 a Christian band? I’ve explored that from a variety of angles, suggesting that, though they have always held themselves aloof to the label, in some ways they are more “Christian” than many of their explicitly, evangelically “Christian” counterparts. I won’t rehash all those arguments, but I will suggest here, that perhaps this is most evident in the poetry—the deep yearning and profound imagery—of their lyrics. There are wonderfully poetic Christian songwriters, too, to be sure. Michael Card and John Mark McMillan are Christian lyricists I think of who stand on a similar level as Bono when it comes to using words, by turns, as gemstones and slingstones both. But in my experience, artists like these are the exception, not the rule.

Perhaps, though, if we took a cue from Bono, and rediscovered or reclaimed the power of well-chosen words to minister to the heart and glorify the Creator who made it, we may be pressing into one of the most Christian endeavors of all. After all, not for nothing did the Psalmist declare: “My heart is stirred by a noble theme, as I compose my verses for the king.”

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Psyche and Eros, a poem

In the back corner of a cluttered gallery
Of the Louvre’s treasure trove
Stands, or rather swoons in ecstatic recline,
The glorious marble embrace
Of Canova’s Psyche and Eros.
Each arching inward toward the other
Reaching, longing, lingering
For the tenderest of kisses never to touch,
Each gazes mesmerized eternally
Into the stone-still face of their beloved,
While iphone-wielding tourists clatter past,
Hunting for trophied selfies with the smiling Mona Lisa.
Few if any, linger long enough to admire
How close they came to consummation,
Before the knowing of each other
Sent them spiraling apart forever.
    The day I saw it,
Young and longing for my own Psyche
To awaken in the arms of its dear night-shrouded Eros
(To hold her gently in a pose so passionate
As to be almost painful.)
I couldn’t pull myself away.
And though the thought that I was seeing something
Even Psyche ought not have seen
Caught in my throat like shameful fire,
I stood and stared, rapt with wild wonder
And burning holy with desire.

On Speaking Up, a poem

Constantly risking absurdity or death,
Said Ferlinghetti about the poet’s speaking up;
And yet weekly I walk a half hour
Tight rope strung taut between
The twin poles of divine transcendence
And human immanence,
An absurd dying and rebirthing
That is no real risk but a lived reality
Where everything and nothing is on the line.
This is my speaking up
In the face of apathy to things divine,
The disenchantment of the universe,
Blindness to the prevenience of grace
And the weary human capitulation
To every oppressor: sin and death and devil.
I know at any moment the crowd
Might snap awake and hear far more than I’m saying
And God knows what hell might break loose then—
What demons defeated—
What wounds healed—
What raging waves stilled—
What burning questions fanned into flame?
The only fear greater than fear of this
Is the fear of saying nothing at all.

Five Guitars, a poem

Once there were five guitars
Hanging on the wall.
Ready to pick up and play
When the Spirit came to call.
But three of them are packed up
And they're set out on the stage—
This house once had five guitars
But three have come of age
(How quickly they all grew).
This house once had five guitars
But now there's only two.

Daytime Moons, a book of poems

I'm excited to share that I've recently released a book of poems, based on poems that have appeared on this blog at one time or another over the years. It's called Daytime Moons and Other Celestial Anomalies, and it's illustrated by my amazingly talented son, Leland.

If you're interested, you can order it by clicking [here], or click the cover image to the left.

To pique your interest, this is the preface I wrote for the book, a reflection on the mysterious connections between pastoral work and poetry.

Eugene Peterson once pointed out that the first Christian ever to have been formally called a “theologian” was St. John the Seer. The Greek term they gave him was theologos—one who speaks “God-words”—and Peterson humbly notes it down that as theologos, St. John’s great contribution to the life of the Church was that scintillating, exhilarating, sometimes terrifying work of unparalleled poetry, the Book of Revelation. Despite the centuries-old habit of reading it as though it were simply God’s survival guide for the coming apocalypse, the Book of Revelation is, in fact, a poem—a marvelously, majestically, mysteriously theological poem, to be sure, but still, for all that, a poem.

I find it both sobering and inspiring to think that whatever else he was, the first Christian theologian was a poet. It is sobering only because so little of the work I do in the discharge of my day-to-day duties as a pastor is actually poetic. There are plenty of God-words to be spoken, of course, but most of them are of the practical, pedagogical, pedantic kind, exhorting the wayward and edifying the seeker. I preach and I propound and I pray, and certainly there are opportunities in all these activities to wax poetical, but seldom does the moment seem to call for an unqualified, unapologetic poem per se.

This strikes me as especially curious, given the fact that such vast swaths of the Scripture were written in verse. From the vivid praise of the Psalter to the visionary oracles of the prophets, from the dark debates in the Book of Job to the sensual Song of Solomon, the authors of the Bible seemed to think that any season of the soul was an occasion for a good God-poem, so long as the Spirit was in it. Even the Master himself—the Living Word who gave us the Beatitudes and inspired Mary’s Magnificat—seems to have been perfectly at ease among the arresting rhythms and piercing imagery of a well-turned line of poetry.

It is not simply sobering, however, to realize how important a role good poetry played in the spiritual lives of those first Christians; it is also inspiring. Anyone who has agonized over the best way to say it precisely, what God was up to in a given moment of their lives—anyone who has stumbled unexpectedly across a metaphor so perfect it untangled a knot in their hearts they didn’t even know was there until it had opened—anyone who has had a line of verse flare suddenly in their spirits and so illuminate an otherwise impenetrably dark night of the soul—anyone, that is, who has ever had just the right words at just the right moment coalesce beautifully with something God was intimately doing in their lives, will be encouraged to know that the Christian faith has always made ample room for good poetry in its vision of the spiritual life.

If one or more of the poems in this small collection were to have something even close to that effect—easing some agony, untangling some knots, or flaring in some darkness—I would consider this book to have been well-used by God; they certainly did that and more for me as I wrote them. A handful of them date from the early days back when I was still an English teacher, and a handful more date from the heady days in seminary when I was training for the ministry. Most of them, however, were written between 2009 and 2021, in the nooks and crannies of a very full schedule as a pastor. When I couldn’t find my way through what I was trying to say in a sermon, for instance, or when an encounter in prayer, maybe, or with Scripture left me grasping for the best way to contain it, I would now and then reach for a scrap of paper and scratch it out as a poem instead. Over the years these accumulated, flotsam in the tidal undulations of one man’s spiritual journey, until there were enough worth sharing to fill the book you’re holding now.

In the following pages you will encounter prayers, laments, meditations on Scripture, reflections on spirituality, and every-day scenes from the life of a pastor recast as the stuff of revelation. My great hope is that you might find something here to inspire you in your own spiritual journey, and that you will find opening within yourself a deep well of refreshingly clear God-words as you do.

Your Jonathan, My David, a song

If you would be my David
Then I’d be your Jonathan:
I’d take off all the trappings
Of the glory I got on;
And I’d remove my armor
And I’d offer you my crown,
If you would be a David
To my lonely Jonathan.

And I would stand before you
Unclothed and unashamed
And I’d show you all my secrets
Just to hear you whispering my name
And if it meant I could no longer
Be my father’s son
Still I’d let you be my David
If I knew that I could be your Jonathan

      Cause there’s a friend who sticks closer
     Than any brother could
      There’s a water that is thicker
     Than the purest drop of blood
      There’s a love that is more wonderful
     Than any I have known
      So hold me to your heart my Holy David
      And I swear that I will be your Jonathan
      O I swear that I will be your Jonathan
      I swear that I will be…

And when the night is lonely
And the shadow’s running high
If I shot my bow into the dark
Would you swear to never leave my side
And when my journey stumbles
And I’ve fallen on my sword
If I swore to be your Jonathan
Would you swear with all your heart to be my Lord?

      Cause there’s a friend who sticks closer
     Than any brother could
      There’s a water that is thicker
     Than the purest drop of blood
      There’s a love that is more wonderful
     Than any I have known
      So hold me to your heart my Holy David
      And I swear that I will be your Jonathan
      O I swear that I will be your Jonathan
      I swear that I will be…

celebration, a poem

for Walt Whitman

and I will celebrate with you,
am honoured to partake of this
your glorious noble design:

I will sing and I will dance and
share your cells, your ions, atoms,
fill my lungs with our biology.

and like you, madman, would I could
unveil the crystals of the snow,
or surge, an atom on the wind:

open wide the stained-glass gates of
morning dew drop on the grass, to
find within a silhouette of life.

and I shall be a pedagogue
of all humanity—a tear
of crystal on the face of joy:

I will sing and I will shout and
rend the morning air with razor
words, ephemeral, a vigil in the night.

and so this gift of language is
to celebrate, indicative
of inarticulate, our humanness:

we are but a passing of the
myst’ry breathed upon the soil of
earth—a blade of grass, a wisp of cloud.

and fire at dawn awakes the dome
of azure life, shall greet us as
we revel in our passing breath:

with bells and cymbals, tambourine,
the clamoring gift of language,
psalms to wake the dawn and fill our lives.

and ‘till the passing passes me,
and offers up His ions to
the next, I celebrate with you:

ripples of concentric joy, the
pebbles of our soul shattering
serene the glinting lake of life.

Thistle and Thorn, a poem

When I was just a little boy
My father taught me how to work with him
Breathing life out of the dust
Till my hands were bruised and torn.
Somehow his love redeemed the curse
Because just so long as he was there with me
I didn’t notice it was thistle
Or that they were his thorns.

And then when I was twenty-one
I waited tables for my schooling
Serving life in smoky rooms
Till the wee hours of the morn.
Somehow a joy redeemed the curse
Because with all the laughter we had there
I never guessed that was my thistle
Or that they were my—

     thistle and thorns, thistle and thorns
     Watered by the sweat of my brow.
     It isn’t much to give,
     The simple work of simple hands
     But what I have I give to you now.

And then a child was on the way
So I stood up in a classroom
Learning life out of my books
Till the lessons were well-worn.
Somehow his call redeemed the curse
Because with all the lives that I touched there
I didn’t know that was my thistle
Or that those were my—

     Thistle and thorns, thistle and thorns
     Watered by the sweat of my brow
     It isn’t much to give,
     The simple work of simple hands
     But what I have I give to you now.

Now child, you’re almost all grown up
And the world's spread out before you:
Will you build or will you heal?
What feats will you perform?
O, let his love redeem the curse
And just so long as it is done for him
He’ll make sure they’re never thistles
And they won’t just come up thorns.

David, a poem

Every sermon about King David
That I’ve ever heard
Explaining how we might have emulated
Him in his quest for the heart of the Lord,
Has chastened us to dwell upon
His faithful oath to Jonathan,
His five smooth stones before the warrior of Gath
Even the day he spied on Ms. Uriah in the bath—
Think about his contrite heart, they said,
When all was brought to light—
The pious things we know he did
To set things right.

And yet: for the life of me I can’t recall
A preacher ever asking us to mimic all
The severed hands he piled on
The bloody ground by the pool of Hebron
Or all the rows of murdered Moabites
He measured out the day he won the fight.
And even worse, no mention of
His constant wrestling for a holy word
That might express his yearning love
For the goodness he had tasted in the Lord—
The bitter agony it took to show it,
His burning heart’s desire to be a warrior-poet.

Sleeping in the Rain, a poem

There is a thrilling something
And yet so soothing
About nestling down to sleep
In the rain beneath a tent flap,
Knowing it will keep
You safe and dry,
And yet the steady slap
And patter at the fly
Assuring you how very fragile
The whole arrangement is.

If only we could keep that grace
When all the tents are put away
To learn to measure out our days,
Embracing our fragility
With the same unlikely peace
And with such perfect ease.

Pain, a poem

With what trembling did aching Job
Stand before the whirlwind,
Hand across his gaping mouth
To render his complaint?

He tried—Lord knows how hard he tried—
To slip away unrecognized,
To nurse his humble agony
And play the wounded saint.

But no one who has dared to speak
To you about the world’s hurts
Can drop the thing so easily,
Once lifted in lament.

You summon us to take our stand
And state our case with girded hearts
Then hold us till you’ve heard us out
And all the pain is spent.

Holy Saturday, a poem

The hardest part

Of Holy Saturday

Is the long and bitter

Holding of the breath

With no knowing

When we might exhale

Or how the stone-cold corpse

Will ever dance again with sheer delight

On an inexplicably discarded grave

When at last we do.

Good Friday, a poem

Tonight the lintel of the universe

Will bear the sacred smudge of blameless blood;

Tonight the hand of death will pass us by,

Brooding but stayed to see the bloodstained wood.

The Holy First-Born Son will bear our curse

Tonight, his cup mingled with our wormwood,

And the shining host of heaven will hide its eye

Loathe to recall the death that made this Friday good.

And somewhere in a silent church tonight

Where no one gathered and no praise was rung

Perhaps the angels still are weeping at the sight:

The place left empty and the cross unsung.

     Thank God that even if our worship failed

     There still was blood for us on the lintel of the world.

Maundy Thursday, a poem

She shifts her weight uncomfortably

The pitcher and the basin drawing near

Wanting shyly but so desperately

To have him come and pour his clear

And shining stream of servant-hearted love

Across her bashful feet.  

                                      But knowing

How he’d have to see the rough 

And calloused sole—the thought of showing

Him the spot she stubbed her toe

And left an ugly tear that never rightly closed

Is unbearably embarrassing to her—and so

She keeps her feet tucked in and unexposed.

          If only (this her ardent wish) we could have him wash

          Our souls without this all too clumsy touching of our flesh.

Palm Sunday, a poem

Did we, in our all too eager Sunday celebration 

Heralding a king we thought had come to fight

Against the weight of cruel Rome’s oppression 

Miss the real wrongs his coming would set right?

And did we miss the joyful cries of all those silent stones 

In our blind reception of that presumed warrior king? 

Did all our bellowing about Davidic thrones 

Drown out the trees’ applause, the song the hills would sing?

And while serene unbroken colts stood sentry

And rocks stood at the ready, filled with jubilation 

Did we miss the real triumph of his entry: 

A coming of Shalom to heal his suffering creation?

It wouldn’t be the first, or only time we missed it, 

The healing of a cross, in our yearning for a sword, 

Shouting loud Hosannas though we never could have guessed it 

How truly blessed is the One who comes in the Name of the 

                                                                               Lord!

Ash Wednesday (a poem)

And is this what all my best efforts—
My highest aspirations
And meager achievements,
The joys and sorrows and stops and starts,
The world-building and storytelling
And dreaming of dreams
And befriending of friends
The words, words, words
(flying out like endless rain into a paper cup)—
Is this what it all
Amounts to in the end:
A smudge of dust and ash
Smeared across the brow,
Teaching everyone who looks at me
To number well my days?

May it be so.
And if so, may that ash be
Fragrant with great delight
And shadowed with the darkest of loves
Smouldering with profound hope
And set just so, on the skin, above the eyes
To accentuate the twinkle of the iris.

May it be so,
And may I wear it well until I hear Him
Call my name at last.

First Song (a poem)

Speak to me softly with voices ancestral,
     Whisper tongues ancient and dripping in mead:
The smoke-pop, and sap-hiss of hall hearth your hymnal--
     Shield clash and lute wind and snorting of steed.

Unlayer the dank earth of archetypal digging:
     Marsh mist and peat moss and thyme-mottled wolds
Chant drumlins of darkness, shift dolems in singing
     And wend with the oak-root through Earth's clinging folds.

Or flutter a whisper by ancestral moon-light
     With air-tremor, wing-shudder, heron ascends
The soul-mousing owl and thrush-knock and rook-flight,
     From distant horizons the merlin descends.

And older than all, the seeping of water:
     The scarring deep fissures through granite of time.
The wave pound, the rain-tap, a well spring of wonder
     The hoar weight in winter, a burden of rime.

So come: with the rhythms of three-in-one dancing
     To earth-songs, and star-hymns, laments of the sea.
With trees clapping hands and hearts rising on eagle-wing,
     Carry me there to the hall of the First King,
Who chants me the lay of the hill, cup and tree--
     A very First Song for our very first mem’ry:
To hear it and know it and join it and sing.

For My Daughter on Her Birthday (a poem)

I told you once I’d carry you
Around a mountain lake.
And as you know, I did it too
Long after my arms began to ache.

You clung to me and I to you
Where ever the trail led
Despite the fact that we both knew
That you could have walked instead.

Well that was many years ago.
I'm getting grey and you are grown
And though the lakes still come and go
I’ve had to set you down.

But come what may, may you know it’s true:
If the trail gets steep or there’s no way through,
When the lake is wide, or especially blue,
I'll still always do my best to carry you.

For Cephas (a poem)

Jesus came to church today
Hands bruised by the frost
On a bitter Wednesday afternoon.
He had no where to lay his head
And the acrid smell of street-sleep
Hung like a halo about his hair.

And no one quite knew what to say—
The meaning of his words were often lost.
But someone put the kettle on
And someone warmed some soup and bread.
We gave him gloves he could not keep
And everyone was honored he was there.

Then Jesus Christ fell fast asleep
In the corner while we turned to prayer.
He woke up when we read his Word
And grinned to hear His story told—
And as he left we understood:
Tonight the Christ-child’s homeless hands
Are bleeding with the cold

Sweet Contentment (a poem)

Were you standing there the whole time?
That late night on the fair grounds
Watching fireworks burst and sparkle
While my youngest child pressed herself
Against my chest for warmth and strength
And together we watched the scintillating
Floral starbursts punctuate a day well played?

And was that you peering over my shoulder?
That afternoon my first-born son and I
Canoed across a quiet lake
After a long and weary week of summer camp;
He waiting days for this one lone outing with his dad
And I sinking slowly into a stillness in my heart
While the breeze pushed us back to shore
And he asked me if God had ever spoke to me?

The day my middle one led the praise
While we all sat round a glowing yellow fire
With the rocky mountain sunset long since faded
And the campground neighbours stopping by
To hear her sing and join the song
While every strum was a rhythm we both knew
That I had taught her—
Was that you?

Through soft nights pressed up warm and safe
Against the shape of my beloved?
Holding out the cup and bread
To any who would dare to feast on grace--
Thoughtful walks through autumn leaves--
The warmth of summer sunshine on my face--
A hint of Russian olive on the breeze--
A lingering joy that never leaves a trace?

Were you waiting for me all the while,
To turn to you without yearning or resentment?
You’ll have to forgive me my neglect:
If somehow I missed the overwhelming smile
Of your sweet contentment.