Direction.
See the stone set in your eyes, See the thorn twist in your side
I′ll wait for you
Sleight of hand and twist of fate, On a bed of nails, she makes me wait
And I'll wait without you
With or without you, With or without you
~ U2, “With or Without You”
the joshua tree summer series, 3
I always wondered why U2 named this album The Joshua Tree. With a little AI-assistance, I gathered some of the references most important to the band. For starters, Bono and The Edge held a deep fascination with American landscapes and mythology. The tree's stark, almost biblical, appearance in a barren landscape resonated with the album’s themes. The Edge actually owned land near Joshua Tree National Park at the time, and the band spent time in that desert, which directly shaped the album’s mood.
Perhaps more tellingly, the Old Testament leader Joshua led the Israelites into the promised land, and the album is full of that tension: America as both promised land and fallen empire, a place of yearning and disillusionment. I discovered that the original title of the album was to be The Two Americas, which makes the thematic intent even more explicit — but The Joshua Tree was more evocative and less on-the-nose.
The album’s tension continues here in track three: “With or Without You.” I had to spend some time with these lyrics before it came into clearer focus for me. Ostensibly, a song of troubled love, it’s more nuanced than that. Bono has talked about the impossible demands placed on him from multiple directions in that season — his wife Ali, the band, his faith, his ambition — and the feeling that he was failing all of them simultaneously.
Ultimately, this song is about feeling horribly stuck. It is the proverbial “between a rock and a hard place”—relationally, spiritually, vocationally. We know this place, you and me. We have been there. Maybe you’re there now! I love Bono’s pensive authenticity in this song. See what you think…
Sometimes our best efforts to do all the right things lead us into a box canyon, where we feel absolutely helpless to get out. Even the spiritual journey feels that way at times. Religion usually pushes us too soon, too conveniently to resolve that tension… because religion is about making us feel safe and secure. Genuine spirituality, on the other hand, welcomes tension—no matter how uncomfortable—in service of honesty to the human experience, where the resolution that lies on the other side of the full process.
The most provocative line in the song for me is the repetition of the line, “And you give yourself away.” What is it that we give ourselves away to… and is this giving a good thing or a bad thing? For me, it speaks to all the claims made on us by life—the job, the money, the relationships, the dreams, the transcendence—and how much pressure pushes us to give ourselves to everyone and everything. Until we feel far too spent and fragmented.
The contemplative journey is no less easy, mind you; but it is an honest path toward honest integration, toward unity of being. And that is a direction worth finding.
finding our way home
This integration is the essence of the phrase I use here, “Finding our way home.” Home isn’t comfort; it’s unification, where instead of giving ourselves away to all askers, we gather ourselves toward a union of being. I would very much like to hear what (or who) is helping you find your way home these days.
takeaway
Recollect yourself. Then move one direction.