Do you ever feel a general weariness of body and soul? It doesn’t bear the pointedness of an intense crisis, whether physical, spiritual, emotional, or financial. Instead, it is the weighed down feeling of living each day under the sun (cf. Ecclesiastes). The simple passing of time and the corresponding accumulation of disappointments, pains, and sorrows slowly wears us down. We find ourselves feeling like the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, as if we are thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.
I find myself in this place in recent days. And like so many, I turn to music as a source of catharsis, of release. Particularly, I look to the music of my youth. Song or poetry can often speak to us in ways that prose cannot. So, last weekend, after a number of years and thanks to the gift of Spotify, I put on my headphones and listened to the 1983 album, War, by the band U2.
The last song on the album is one that spoke to me in my teen and college years and I found the same resonance listening to it at age 52. The lyrics are simple. Bono, the lead singer, sings the following:
I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He lifts me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
How long to sing this song?
How long to sing this song?
How long, how long, how long
How long to sing this song?
You set my feet upon a rock
Made my footsteps firm
Many will see
Many will see and hear
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
How long to sing this song?
How long to sing this song?
How long, how long, how long
How long to sing this song?
It is a song of praise and plea. Confidence and longing blend together, acknowledging our current lot is hard but also encouraging our hope that something better is on the way. It is almost psalm-like, which shouldn’t be surprising. The title of the song is 40. Any guesses why?
