Breathe...

Last night the angels of God's grace in rock and roll - U2 - opened their show with "Breathe" - my favorite tune from the new CD. What a freakin' GREAT song...

Verse two says:

16th of June, Chinese stocks are going up
And I’m coming down with some new Asian virus
Ju Ju man, Ju Ju man
Doc says you’re fine, or dying
Please
Nine-oh-nine, St. John Divine on the line, my pulse is fine
But I’m running down the road like loose electricity
While the band in my head plays a striptease
The roar that lies on the other side of silence
The forest fire that is fear so deny it
Walk out into the street
Sing your heart out
The people we meet
Will not be drowned out
There’s nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now
Yeah, yeah

We are people borne of sound
The songs are in our eyes
Gonna wear them like a crown
Walk out, into the sunburst street
Sing your heart out, sing my heart out
I’ve found grace inside a sound
I found grace, it’s all that I found

Better than most, these guys are crying out to us to make connections - spirit and flesh, heart and soul, mind and love and all the rest - rather than embracing our cages and giving up. In my morning prayers I continue to reflect on Joan Chittister's words re: St. Benedict:

There are two ways to live in the world - as if were connected to it like a leaf to a tree, or, as if are a universe unto ourselves... The seduction of embarking on a spiritual life is that people can be fooled into believing that wanting it is doing it. (DIG THAT: fooled into believing that WANTING it is DOING it!) They begin to believe that by traveling they have arrived. Worse, perhaps, they begin to allow others to think that by traveling they have arrived, too. They mistake the idea for the thing and perpetuate the idea (that is abstract, disembodied truths that haven't yet taken up residence in our flesh.)

Man, do I experience this all the time in myself! And I find it is a particularly nasty virus in the church where it is so easy to slip into self-righteousness. How does Jesus put it? Seeing only the speck in the eye of another while denying and lying about the log in our own eyes?

My prayer for this Sabbath day is to get out of my own way long enough for the Spirit to move me into the gratitude of grace. Then let me cherish and nourish that grace carefully so that when I go out into the streets... I breathe. (And maybe even put on my sexy boots - and make it real, man!)

Free me from the dark dream
Candy bars, ice cream
All the kids are screaming but the ghosts aren’t real
Here’s what you gotta be
Love and community
Laughter is eternity if the joy is real

(NOTE: U2 was playing at Giants Stadium - in NJ - on Springsteen's 60th birthday: what a trip, yes? So they did a little of "She's the One" followed by their own Bo Diddley riffing on "Desire." Too kewel for school...)