{"id":1206,"date":"2005-06-29T13:38:19","date_gmt":"2005-06-29T17:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2005\/06\/29\/a-bit-of-the-gospel-according-to-me"},"modified":"2005-06-29T13:38:19","modified_gmt":"2005-06-29T17:38:19","slug":"a-bit-of-the-gospel-according-to-messrs-hewson-evans-clayton-and-mu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2005\/06\/29\/a-bit-of-the-gospel-according-to-messrs-hewson-evans-clayton-and-mu\/","title":{"rendered":"A bit of the Gospel according to Messrs. Hewson, Evans, Clayton, and Mullen"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

For some reason, of late, I’ve been struck by a number of situations in
\nmy life and in those of some of the people I know where they’ve had to
\nkeep learning the message of surrendering in the face of Love. 
\nThere’s a U2 lyric that has run through my head often as this has been
\nhappening: “Love is not the easy thing\/ The only baggage you can bring\/
\nIs all that you can’t leave behind.”<\/p>\n

Which of course resonates quite heavily in statements from the gospel
\nlike “Those who wish to save their life will lose it, but those who
\nlose their life for my sake will find it.”  It’s profound and yet
\nobvious that real love — of family, friends, partner, God — can’t
\nhappen until we drop all that we can of what we’re carrying.  And
\nwe’ll find a way in that love to drop that which we think we
\ncan’t.  One must stop holding tightly to things and people if one
\nwants to give and receive, because we only do those with open hands.<\/p>\n

So it rang a little bell for me to find out that this continues to play out (glad for the pun) on the European leg of the Vertigo tour<\/a>. 
\nWhile playing songs from Achtung Baby, the part of the show where
\nslogans have traditionally filled the huge video screens and flashed
\nthrough at high speed (“beLIEve” “Everything you know is wrong” “Watch
\nmore TV”), that trend continues, but the message is vastly different. <\/p>\n

There are dialogues in different colors:
\n I HAVE NO MONEY I HAVE NO POWER<\/strong>
\n
\n THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK<\/em>
\n
\nAs we learn how to fight “Them,” “They” go on telling lies, often
\nin red and black, and near the end the truth comes out, superimposed
\nover big white words like HOPE:
\nTHE SECRET IS YOURSELF
\nTHE SECRET IS YOUR PAIN
\n THE SECRET IS LETTING GO<\/a> GIVING UP GIVING IN
\nTO…
\n[and here I was expecting at last to get the ironic turn, the way “it’s
\nyour world you can change it” used to shift to “charge it,” but, no,
\nthe 90s are well and truly gone:]
\nGIVING IN TO…
\nLOVE
\nall
\ngold and white. And then the thing reverses itself, and plays the
\nbeginning backwards until “their” lies and “our” apathy\/powerlessness
\ndisappear into nothingness before your eyes.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is how we overcome the power of the world we live
\nin–we live into love.  I was speaking with a friend a few days
\nago, and he was talking about how the ultimate power is information,
\nhow knowledge can defeat what one’s enemies throw at you, how
\ninformation is the ultimate tactical weapon, whether one is a state, a
\nperson, an organization.  I remembered that love is stronger than
\nall that, because it removes us from needing or caring about the
\ntactics of advantage and dominion.  When we live into love, like
\nOscar Romero or Aun San Suu Kyi, power and advantage and death cease to
\nhave real meaning.<\/p>\n

And you can learn this at a rock concert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some reason, of late, I’ve been struck by a number of situations in my life and in those of some of the people I know where they’ve had to keep learning the message of surrendering in the face of Love.  There’s a U2 lyric that has run through my head often as this has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rayleejun"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-js","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}