With Lent being just around the corner, the theme of "homecoming" seems to carry a particular weight this year for me. And there is a passage in the psalms that always "strikes home" to me as being representative of human perfection. It speaks of happiness and security amidst all of life's varied responsibilities and challenges.
"Apart from you I want nothing on earth.... To be near God is my happiness. I have made the Lord God my refuge" (Ps 73[72]: 25, 28).
From time to time I hear or remember a rock music song which to me carries spiritual significance and force. Much of rock music, as I choose to look at it now, is base, corrupting and "much ado about nothing". One particular song recorded by the Irish band U2, is entitled "A Sort of Homecoming" and produces an "elevating" influence through the imagery it employs. For me, through the words of this song, the notion of "homecoming" is carried to its ultimate definition: representing the return of a wayward or much distracted soul to a deepened state of communion or identification with God as its Source of Happiness.
Below I will paste the lyrics of this U2 song, from the album entitled "The Unforgettable Fire" of the mid 1980's. Notice the themes of "light in the darkness", hunger, healing, desire, bridge-building, weariness etc....Even the washed out atmosphere of this song reminds one of a spiritual journey through the "valley of tears", with the guitar chords slowly alternating in between two variations and sounding like the slow tolling of a heavy bell (a summons). It is really well done. The singer's voice is more "stylized" than professional, but is appropriate for this form of music. For those who are U2 fans, I suppose his voice is like an old friend. Some of you who have never liked rock music would probably be turned off by this song if you were to listen to it.
U2: A Sort of Homecoming
And you know it's time to go
Through the sleet and driving snow
Across the fields of mourning
Lights in the distance
And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, desired time
And your earth moves beneath
Your own dream landscape
Oh, oh, oh
On borderland, we run
I'll be there
I'll be there
Tonight
A high road
A high road out from here
The city walls are all pulled down
The dust, a smoke screen all around
See faces ploughed like fields
That once gave no resistance
And we live by the side of the road
On the side of a hill
As the valleys explode
Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of its own
Oh come away, oh come away
Oh come, oh come away, say I
Oh come away, oh come away
Oh come, oh come away, say I
Oh, oh, oh
On borderland, we run
And still we run
We run and don't look back
I'll be there
I'll be there
Tonight
Tonight
I'll be there tonight, I believe
I'll be there, somehow
I'll be there, tonight
Tonight
Oh come away, I say, say oh my
Oh come away, I say
The wind will crack in winter time
This bomb-blast lightning waltz
No spoken words, just a scream, yeah, oh
Tonight we'll build a bridge
Across the sea and land
See the sky, the burning rain
She will die and live again
Tonight
And your heart beats so slow
Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning
Lights in the distance
Oh, don't sorrow, no don't weep
For tonight, at last
I am coming home
I am coming home
