sulawesigirl4
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Well as we wait for more people to receive their copies of Walk On, I thought we would go ahead and kick off discussion with the foreword to the book. Kind of a pre-discussion discussion. Lol. I have typed it up in its entirety (whew!) below for your reading pleasure:
I have little to add to this as I want to open it up to discussion. But what I did want to point out was the mention to the idea of "God being in the room" during the Elevation tour. Some of you may know this, some may not, but there is a bootleg recording of the very last rehearsal the band did before the Elevation Tour kicked off in Miami last year. After the band is done running through the songs, Bono invites a friend of theirs, a minister from Dublin, Jack Easlip, to come up on stage and say a blessing on the tour. He also invites everyone from the crew and stage people to come down around the front if they?d like to partake. Easlip then proceeds to read from the Psalms, in fact that very passage that we all have heard Bono quoting during Streets. Easlip says:
Next time we hear this music, it struck me there will be people everywhere, which will transform everything. And that a great deal about what I feel this tour is what is gonna happen to the people who come here, who are gonna be touched by this album and who have already been touched by the album and the albums over the years. So, I thought of a Psalm, Psalm 61 which has pretty pretentious words, but then they were used by Jesus himself about himself, so I suppose we could do no better than that really. And it just starts "The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." And I felt that what we want God to do tonight is to pour his anointing. Now that?s not just a dab on the forehead, that?s a rich anointing of his oil. We are told the oil would flow down from the top of your head and in my case into your beard and down your front to make a mess. And that?s the richness of God?s anointing. And what I felt that God wanted me to do today was to pour out in his name that anointing on everything to do with this tour: everybody and everything. We think of the band, but we think of every piece of equipment and everyone who works that piece of equipment. Everyone who backs up, everyone who drives a car, everyone who does the catering, everyone who is responsible for technology, every joint of wire, every plug, every socket, every light. So we ask for that anointing to be poured out by the power of his Spirit. So we simply say, ?Come holy Spirit and reign. Pour out your rule and anointing on this tour. Let nothing be an obstacle. Just melt away anything that is not of you, so that your power can flow without interruption. And we claim your blessing and your anointing because we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.? Psalm 116 has a nice response. The question is "how do you respond to the blessing of God." And the answer is "Celebrate! And drink a toast to God." So?to God!
I don?t know about you, but I definitely felt something move in my heart during each Elevation show I went to. And hearing those words be prayed over the band, the tour and the album?it never fails to give me an eerie sense of d?j? vu. Because in a way, that prayer was for me! And I felt it answered. And that...well that makes me think twice about mysterious ways.
-sula
As a devout Los Angeles Lakers fan, I was tuned into the first game of the 2001 NBA Championships when it was announced that U2 would be performing live during the halftime show. U2?s concert was in Boston while the game was being played in Los Angeles. When the cameras switched from one venue to the other, television viewers saw Bono praying on his knees.
"What can I give back to God for the blessings he poured out to me?" he said. "I lift high the cup of salvation as a toast to our Father. To follow through on the promise I made to you." The lead singer of arguably the most popular rock band on the planet was loosely reciting a prayer from Psalm 116 on national television.
In describing U2?s 2001 Elevation tour to Rolling Stone magazine, Bono said fans had told him they sensed "good vibrations at" the concerts. ?God is in the room," he reported, paused, and added, "more than Elvis. It feels like there?s a blessing on the band right now. People are saying they?re feeling shivers ? well, the band is as well. And I don?t know what that is, but it feels like God walking through the room, and it feels like a blessing, and in the end, music is a kind of sacrament; it?s not just about airplay or chart positions."
Are rock ?n? roll bands supposed to talk to Rolling Stone about blessings? Sacraments? God walking into the room? Why would this all sound so incredibly clich? coming from a well-scrubbed contemporary Christian rocker created by Nashville, yet actually sound sincere and authentic coming from a theatrical rock star?
Bono has the reputation as rock ?n? rolls? most effective and enigmatic spiritual provocateur ? rattling the souls of fans all over the globe. "I sometimes think I have a kind of Tourette?s syndrome where if you?re not supposed to say something, it becomes very attractive to do so," he once confessed. "You?re in a rock band ? what can?t you talk about? God? Ok, here we go. You?re supposed to write songs about sex and drugs. Well, no I won?t."
Most of the world is tired of being berated and tutored about social issues by spoiled and over-paid rock stars, yet we still give an audience to Bono whose heart bleeds with the best of them. Pope John Paul II wanted to wear his sunglasses when they met. Arch-conservative senator Jesse Helms cried when he heard Bono describe the plight of hungry children in Africa. Bono has done more single-handedly to relieve Third World debt than all the Armani-clad finance ministers that could be packed into a United Nations conference room. He has mysterious charisma, an unpretentious grace that affords him the ability to be the only one wearing sunglasses indoors without coming off as a megalomaniac. Would one dare to say he had an anointing to be a rock star?
It seems as though there is a riddle to unwrapping the significance, relevance and longevity of U2. Very little is ever predictable about their next sound. They never seem to follow rock ?n? roll?s party line. They seem to be in the MTV world, but not of it. There is an underground river of depth that rolls through the tracks of U2?s recordings. They make you think and invite you to imagine.
For more than twenty years, U2 has done their part to puncture the power of nihilism and hopelessness by pointing listeners to a transcendent reality of heaven, hell, angels, demons, deliverance, redemption, grace, and peace. Their lyrics unfold a world beyond the things that can merely be seen and rationally grasped. The music is not a simplistic mish-mash of yummy lyrics about skipping with Jesus through fields of daisies. Instead, their songs wrestle with pain and frustration without catering to hopelessness.
In this book, Steve Stockman has been a faithful interpreter of the spiritual trek of the members of U2. There is very little garden-variety evangelicalism (in the North American sense of the word) found in the members of the band. They drink, smoke, swear and wear leather pants. But there is a hefty and poetic theological substance that I think would startle St. Paul and would bring a smile to the Psalmist. This rock ?n? roll band is committed to social justice and eternal truth. In this day and age, that is no small luxury.
For those willing to take the time to look, popular music is brimming with songs of spiritually energized quests; some worth avoiding, but many worth engaging. Artists and fans alike have seen what is on the world?s buffet table and are still growling with hunger pains. Stockman does a tremendous service to those who follow Jesus, as well as those who aren?t travelling that path. To those who count themselves among the faithful, Stockman will help you open the eyes of your soul to intellectually and spiritually engage the music that touches the deepest part of what it means to be human. To those who do not consider themselves believers, this book will go a long way in helping explain why U2?s music seems to scratch an unidentifiable itch.
When I saw U2 during their most recent tour, I was amazed at how often I felt the presence of God in the arena. Granted, I am a U2 fan and not a terribly objective rock critic. Nevertheless, God used the opportunity to speak to me throughout the night. Not being a well-attuned mystic, I was rather surprised. The culmination of the evening was the final encore. After thanking "the Almighty" numerous times, Bono began singing the word hallelujah over and over and over again. This rather contagious melody and message rang throughout the audience?s soul. Soon, it seemed as though all 16,000 fans in the arena were singing the song with Bono. This one word, hallelujah ? praise ye the Lord. With that, they walked off the stage.
The great theologian George Eldon Ladd used to press the point that the Kingdom of God was already and not yet; some of the ramifications of the Kingdom are being realized now, while some will not be manifest until the Second Coming. As I sang the word hallelujah over and over with the audience, I felt as though, just for a moment, I had been caught up in the rapturous not yet.
As the band was just starting off many years ago, Bono wrote the following words to his father, who just recently passed away: "[God] gives us our strength and a joy that does not depend on drink or drugs. This strength will, I believe, be the quality that will take us to the top of the music business. I hope our lives will be a testament to the people who follow us, and to the music business where never before have so many lost and sorrowful people gathered in one place pretending they?re having a good time. It is our ambition to make more than good music."
It seems as though that ambition continues to be fulfilled.
-Steve Beard
I have little to add to this as I want to open it up to discussion. But what I did want to point out was the mention to the idea of "God being in the room" during the Elevation tour. Some of you may know this, some may not, but there is a bootleg recording of the very last rehearsal the band did before the Elevation Tour kicked off in Miami last year. After the band is done running through the songs, Bono invites a friend of theirs, a minister from Dublin, Jack Easlip, to come up on stage and say a blessing on the tour. He also invites everyone from the crew and stage people to come down around the front if they?d like to partake. Easlip then proceeds to read from the Psalms, in fact that very passage that we all have heard Bono quoting during Streets. Easlip says:
Next time we hear this music, it struck me there will be people everywhere, which will transform everything. And that a great deal about what I feel this tour is what is gonna happen to the people who come here, who are gonna be touched by this album and who have already been touched by the album and the albums over the years. So, I thought of a Psalm, Psalm 61 which has pretty pretentious words, but then they were used by Jesus himself about himself, so I suppose we could do no better than that really. And it just starts "The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." And I felt that what we want God to do tonight is to pour his anointing. Now that?s not just a dab on the forehead, that?s a rich anointing of his oil. We are told the oil would flow down from the top of your head and in my case into your beard and down your front to make a mess. And that?s the richness of God?s anointing. And what I felt that God wanted me to do today was to pour out in his name that anointing on everything to do with this tour: everybody and everything. We think of the band, but we think of every piece of equipment and everyone who works that piece of equipment. Everyone who backs up, everyone who drives a car, everyone who does the catering, everyone who is responsible for technology, every joint of wire, every plug, every socket, every light. So we ask for that anointing to be poured out by the power of his Spirit. So we simply say, ?Come holy Spirit and reign. Pour out your rule and anointing on this tour. Let nothing be an obstacle. Just melt away anything that is not of you, so that your power can flow without interruption. And we claim your blessing and your anointing because we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.? Psalm 116 has a nice response. The question is "how do you respond to the blessing of God." And the answer is "Celebrate! And drink a toast to God." So?to God!
I don?t know about you, but I definitely felt something move in my heart during each Elevation show I went to. And hearing those words be prayed over the band, the tour and the album?it never fails to give me an eerie sense of d?j? vu. Because in a way, that prayer was for me! And I felt it answered. And that...well that makes me think twice about mysterious ways.
-sula