Belonging.
I believe in the kingdom come, Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one, But yes I'm still running
You broke the bonds, And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross of my shame
Oh my shame, You know I believe it
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
~ U2, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”
the joshua tree summer series, 2
Bono, lead singer for U2, actually found much of his inspiration for his song lyrics from the Psalms. The raw, unedited honesty of David’s travails closely mirror the ambiguity and lack of resolution found in the band’s music. Particularly this album. Take a fresh look at the Psalms, and you’ll see this tension woven throughout many of their lyrics (don’t know if you ever thought about the Psalms being lyrics, but yeah, they were). U2’s juxtaposition of faith and doubt, hope and angst would be right at home alongside Israel’s greatest songwriter.
Perhaps nowhere does this tension show up on The Joshua Tree more than track 2: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” As you can see above, they are explicit in their Christ-centered belief system… but I love how they acknowledge that belief itself, no matter how good, does not salve the anxious soul. That the human condition calls for more than belief; it calls for belonging.
While church is the most obvious place for faith-centered belonging, many Godward folks struggle with the church. Including Bono. In the late 1970s and early '80s, three of the band members were involved with a charismatic Christian community in Dublin called Shalom. When the community leaders expressed doubts that the band’s musical vision was compatible with faith, the dissonance wounded Bono. So while he left the church, he didn’t leave Jesus.
Take a fresh listen…
Sometimes the heavenly promise embedded in the identity of the church just can’t be sustained by the limitations of our humanity. Maybe that’s always true; maybe even at its best, the church itself points us toward the ultimate belonging we’re made for. A place beyond power struggles and egos, beyond broken promises and rejections. And like Bono, we can’t give up on the sacred hope of spiritual community just because it can’t live up to our full longing. We don’t live up to our own sacred potential, right? Why should we expect that spiritual communities and leaders would?
finding our way home
Where do you experience your greatest sense of belonging? Is it in church or somewhere else? These days I most often find belonging in a soul-friend conversation, in our monthly Soularium, or sitting in John’s backyard with five guys and a cigar. How do you create more belonging?
takeaway
Keep looking. Keep gathering.