ruminations on lyrics

Without doubt my favourite album is "The Unforgettable Fire" by U2. I first heard it as a senior in high school at a time where I thought no one thought like I thought or felt like I felt. I still find it hypnotic. One of favourite "I" times is cranking it up on my iPod sitting alone on the beach watching a thunderstorm crackle on the horizon.


But then comes "The Soul Cages" by Sting. Written during his mourning of his fathers passing. As I await the passing not of my father but my mother, the lyrics are speaking to me once more. I remember the first time I ever thought of what I would say to my father if I knew it would be our last meeting. In an obscure village in the middle of Austria driving down the windy road from a refugee camp to our home - I listened and sang as loud as I could. No one heard but God. It was both intimate worship and loud complaining.

In the confusion of the reassessment of his relationship with his stand-off father, Sting writes these words using the metaphor of sea and storm:

Did I see the shade of a sailor
On the bridge through the wheelhouse pane
Held fast to the wheel of the rocking ship
As I squinted my eyes in the rain

For the ship had turned into the wind
Against the storm to brace
And underneath the sailor's hat
I saw my father's face

If a prayer today is spoken
Please offer it for me
When the bridge to heaven is broken
And you've lost on the wild wild sea
Lost on the wild wild sea...

Put much better than I ever could . . .

Enneagram Type

It must be the week of personal tests.
I just finished an Enneagram type test. This is how I tested, but with a four wing making me "The Iconoclast":



free enneagram test

What is your world view - quiz

I just finished a quiz on worldviews. This is how I tested:

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 75% Neo orthodox 64% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 57% Modern Liberal 54% Fundamentalist 46% Classical Liberal 36% Reformed Evangelical 25% Roman Catholic 25% Charismatic/Pentecostal 18% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

Is this true?

Miroslav Volf writes:
"If the claim that Christ 'died for the ungodly' (Romans 5:6) is 'the New Testament's fundamental affirmation', as Jon Sobrino rightly states in Jesus the Liberator (Sobrino 1993,231), then the theme of solidarity, though indispensable and rightly rehabilitated from neglect by Moltmann and others, must be a sub-theme of the overarching theme of self giving love. Especially when solidarity refers to 'struggling on the side of', rather than simply to 'suffering together with', solidarity may not be severed from self-donation.
All sufferers can find comfort in the solidarity of the Crucified; but only those who struggle against evil by following the example of the Crucified will discover him at their side.
To claim the comfort of the Crucified while rejecting his way is to advocate not only cheap grace but a deceitful ideology" Exclusion and Embrace


When I first read this, I wasn't sure if it was semantics playing with me or whether he was really on to something. What is the difference between 'on the side of' and struggling with'? Don't both speak to identification? I think what Volf is differentiating (using an oversimplified example) is the difference between the dictionary meaning pointing to the mental assent side of voicing and experiencing unity in solidarity by signing a petition against something, versus the on the ground protest march type of Solidarity. If I read him correctly, then the first italicised section becomes clearer.
The context of this clip is a discussion on how the cross plays into the self in relation to the 'other'. What Volf is effectively saying here especially in the last paragraph, is that to sign the petition on behalf of our enemy is only part of the journey Christ wants us to embark on in reconciliation. To follow his 'way' means to go out on the street with them? How does this play into the whole realm of giving? Is there some sense of exchange?