wow, way to tangle me up in my thoughts for a few hours! i have so many different u2 songs that are spiritually significant for me, so i've tried to narrow it down to a handful of songs that god has really used to speak to me through my journey...
beautiful day
red hill mining town
drowning man
discotheque
bad
beautiful day
redhotswami said:
Beautiful Day
This song reminded me that I am surrounded by gifts from God. That when I am feeling my lowest, that I shouldn't forget that I am loved. This song has this special lift that no other song does for me. Heh, I tell people who squeal whenever that "Bad Day" song comes on the radio "I liked it when it was called Beautiful Day", because its essentially the same message. Stuff is going wrong, but theres also so much that is going right. And wherever I am in life is exactly where I need to be. And what I don't have, I don't need it now. But my favorite line is "what you don't know you can feel it somehow." That to me describes the mystery of God's love for me. I may not be fully aware of it, and many times that constant love makes no sense to me. But I can't deny that I still feel it. I think the best ending to the song is when Bono added "the goal is soul." That is like my favorite U2 line ever. That reminds me to forget about the material, and my expectations, anxieties, fears, etc. The goal is soul. Everything I do is aimed at something that transcends these things. My soul is my nouse which is connected directly to God. THAT is what is important. Nothing else.
i love what redhotswami wrote, pretty much the way i feel about this song. i remember listening to this song a day or two after i began my journey, i was going through relationship and life hell and yet as i listened to this song, some sort of amazing joy entered my heart - the simplicity of the feeling was the most amazing thing and the song just encapsulated that feeling for me. i knew in my hard that though it was a hard decision, i had made the right one.
red hill mining town
this song always takes me back to around the same time as the whole beautiful day deal: early in my relationship with god. i was struggling at my job, at home, with my boyfriend, and extreme homesickness (i was living not only out of home, but out of the country!). i remember hearing that amazing chorus
i'm hanging on, you're all that's left to hold onto, i'm still waiting, i'm hanging on... and knowing that it was crying out what my heart was crying out. it seems life such a simplistic recounting, but hidden in those few words was every fear, doubt, and sadness, but at the same time, the fact that god was still there to hold onto, at the bottom of it all, he really is all i need to hold onto. looking back at the song in hindsight, i can see that lyrics like
the seam is split, the coalface cracked can speak of the richness that comes from being in that place of vulnerability towards god, and the richness that often ensues from moments of utterly hopeless openness.
drowning man
i study at a private college, and in my first year of study there in 2005, they did not yet offer any degree program, which meant no government funding for my fees. this meant that - obviously - i was required to pay my way, and that if i wasn't able to cough up my money each term i couldn't attend classes. not being from a wealthy background, asking my mum to pay my fees wasn't an option at all, however two of my brothers had kindly paid my firt terms fees of $1200 (AUD) between them. it wasn't until term 2 rolled around that I started panicking, i didn't have any money, and despite selling the few ultra rare cd's/memorabilia that i owned, i still had only half the required amount. i was freaking out, to boot, my job situation wasn't the best and i was finding it super hard to make ends meet. i went into a tailspin of panic where everything became pretty hopeless, i didn't know what to do, how i would sort this all out. then as i was wandering around with my headphones on (quite a common occurence), this song jumped out at me - it was as though god was suddenly singing this song of comfort to me, and i experienced a real peace and comfort in that moment, and knew there was going to be a way out - which there was!
discotheque
what can i say. i love this song to bits. for me it became significant at the end of last year - i'd been going through some changes, and my thinking about my faith and the way the church portrayed it were changing drastically, and discotheque summed it up for me: we push and shove and try and control god, but in the end it's not up to us, our interpretations and enactions of god become about as meaningful as bubblegum, and yet there is an addictive quality to certain behaviours.
bad
me screaming out in the midst of this transition, not only to god, but to everyone around me who writes me off according to
their interpretation of how we are supposed to live as the kingdom of god on earth.
i'm wide awake, i'm not sleeping... i remember being home alone one afternoon and screaming these words out, i was sick of it all, but sick of myself as well and how i was letting stupid behaviour get in between me and god.
/end rant.
phew!
yeah, don't start me on the spiritual significance of u2 songs in my life - please don't!
