On StandFirm here: http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/4221/#77757
The song reminds me of the lines from Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach:
The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
-Matthew Arnold (from Dover Beach)
never cared for what they say never cared for games they play never cared for what they do never cared for what they know and I know
So close, no matter how far Couldn’t be much more from the heart Forever trusting who we are No, nothing else matters
James Hetfield of Metallica (from Nothing Else Matters)
Forever trusting who we are, is not the best place to stand. It’s a tragic, though romantic, portrait of human love - where human love, eros, is raised to the divine and any human act deemed “loving” is then made divine. These words in the end is a type of narcissism, a self-love - where nothing else matters (the author cannot even remember why he wrote the song for a former girlfriend). But that is not the love that Jesus took with Him to the cross. These are the words of self-possessed Romeo and Juliet, who’s idolatry for one another destroyed them. And what do the words of Katharine Jefferts Schori have for such romantic, even narcissistic idolatry? Affirmation!
We don’t need romanticism, we need reality, the reality of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (and all its messiness) to stand up in a world where buildings fall down.
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On StandFirm here: http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/4221/#77757
The song reminds me of the lines from Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach:
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
-Matthew Arnold (from Dover Beach)
never cared for what they say
never cared for games they play
never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
and I know
So close, no matter how far
Couldn’t be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
No, nothing else matters
James Hetfield of Metallica (from Nothing Else Matters)
Forever trusting who we are, is not the best place to stand. It’s a tragic, though romantic, portrait of human love - where human love, eros, is raised to the divine and any human act deemed “loving” is then made divine. These words in the end is a type of narcissism, a self-love - where nothing else matters (the author cannot even remember why he wrote the song for a former girlfriend). But that is not the love that Jesus took with Him to the cross. These are the words of self-possessed Romeo and Juliet, who’s idolatry for one another destroyed them. And what do the words of Katharine Jefferts Schori have for such romantic, even narcissistic idolatry? Affirmation!
We don’t need romanticism, we need reality, the reality of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (and all its messiness) to stand up in a world where buildings fall down.
Or we stay silent where nothing else matters.
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