I wanted to pass along a short, but powerful story that my sister, Sandi, experienced firsthand this week:

On Wednesday night, my sister and others from her church were volunteering at Solomon Center, a food pantry in the Cincinnati area. They have been running very low on supplies lately, as the need has increased twofold and they’ve not been able to financially to double their supplies. As a result, they had a list of items that they were out of posted on white board.

A guest using a walker to get around came down to receive services. While there, he must have scanned the white board and seen that the food pantry was out of shampoo. After he received his order, he slowly ascended up the stairs, visibly struggling with his walker on each step. Once outside the Center, he walked in the pouring, driving rain to his car that was parked on the other end of the lot. Pushing his walker aside, he climbed into his car and got a plastic cup filled with—of all things—shampoos from a hotel. The old man then got back out of the car, walked all the across the parking lot with his walker, down the stairway, and—now thoroughly soaked to the bone—gave the gift to Sandi and her crew to help people who needed shampoo. Without fanfare, he then walked back up the stairs and back to his car to go home.

The volunteers at the Center were all humbled and overwhelmed by his generosity. Just like the widow who gave the mite in Jesus’ parable, this man gave out of his poverty. How many of us do the same?

The U2 Unplugged series of blog posts were chapters originally intended to be published as a book back in 2005. However, due to legal complications with reprinting the lyrics (thanks Universal!), the publisher I was working with at the time decided not to go forward with the project. The chapters sat on my computer for two years while I was trying to figure out what to do with them. In the end, I thought that the best solution was simply to make it readily available on my blog.

As you read through the U2 Unplugged series, I encourage you to dive into the meaning behind each song’s lyrics, discover their biblical foundation, and get practical about how you can apply these truths to your life. To help you out, I’ve included two things at the end of each chapter: an Action Steps box providing specific challenges to get you started living out the truth seen in the song, and a Diving Deeper box giving you Bible verses, books, and films that you can turn to for further exploration of the song’s theme.

Finally, keep in mind as you read U2 Unplugged that music is an art, not a science. U2 lyrics, in particular, are famed for their ability to be interpreted in many ways. While I attempt to tap into the meaning Bono and the others had in mind when they wrote the song, I am certain that I will take their lyrics into directions much different than U2 ever intended. So as you read through this book, keep in mind that I am offering an interpretation of the lyrics but not the official interpretation.

However, that’s one of the best qualities of music. We can experience the music for ourselves on our own terms and allow God to use it to transform our lives, even in ways that U2 never dreamed of.

Table of Contents

Preface: An Unmistakable Gospel Trail

Part One: Love’s Victory

1. The Club Vertigo Letters, “Vertigo”
2. Dancing the Perfect Storm, “Drowning Man”
3. Crashing into a World of Karma, “Grace”
4. Love for a Cross-Eyed Culture, “God Part II”

Part Two: God & Me

5. The Courting of an Untamed God, “Wild Honey”
6. Thirsty Worship, “Gloria”

Part Three: A Complete Faith in an Incomplete World

7. A Gritty Faith, “40”

8. The Overturned Sardine Can, “All Because of You”
9. Glimpses of a Far Off Country, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”

Part Four: A Disciple’s Life

10. Mysteriously Ever After, “A Man and a Woman”
11. Sleeping Giants, “Crumbs from Your Table”
12. A God of Positive Promise, “Yahweh”

Note: The “chapter order” above is actually quite different than the date order in which they were posted onto the blog.

U2 occupies a unique position – not only in the music world, but popular culture in general. Time’s “Man of the Year”. Designer iPods. Super Bowl halftime shows. The (RED) initiative. And meetings with heads of state and the church about the AIDS crisis in Africa. The influence of the Irish band, particularly its front man Bono, seems to be everywhere.

When asked to describe U2, Bono recently reflected, “The band always feels like it’s coming, never that it’s arrived.” Not only does Bono’s description reflect the ever-freshness of their music and their ability to reinvent themselves, but also the spiritual journey of the band members themselves: Bono, Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullin. Since the band released their initial album Boy in 1980, each of the foursome have experienced the best and worst the world has to offer. To borrow from one of their most popular tunes, each has both “climbed the highest mountains” and “held hands with the devil”.

Yet, regardless of the highs and lows of their personal walks of faith, the Christian truth expressed in a large body of their work is unmistakable. Whispers of Christ’s teaching show up in some spots, and direct quotes from scripture are found in others. And, when you look at their discography as a whole, you can see a clear “Gospel trail” – signs that much of their music is written from a perspective that assumes, even requires, biblical Christianity.

I discovered that “Gospel trail” for myself growing up in the 1980s when I listened to my first U2 album, War. In fact, I was recently reminded of the spiritual influence that their songs had on me during that time period. During the process of writing the U2 Unplugged series, I serendipitously stumbled upon an old, worn-out Bible that I’ve kept stored away since my high school days. A photocopy of the lyrics to “Drowning Man” was taped inside the front cover of the Bible. Perhaps foreshadowing this series, several lyrics were circled with notes scribbled in the margin. Even back then, I was eager to unplug the Christian truth found inside their songs.

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Part 12 of 12 in the U2 Unplugged Series

I am convinced there is a “Now gene” swimming inside every human body. A two-year child reaching out for a toy at the counter never sees next week as an option. A couple madly in love yearns to be together tonight, not tomorrow. Much of our postmodern economy, in fact, is built on the importance of Now: credit cards, downloadable music, video-on-demand, lottery tickets, to name but a few examples. Pundits call us the “instant society” for obvious reasons.

If we have a “Now gene” that influences us towards instant gratification, I can easily guess its source of origin – our humanness. On the one hand, you can make a case that this desire for the immediate isn’t altogether bad; perhaps it is the natural response that any person, bound by time and space, will inevitably have. On the other hand, Satan recognizes “Get It Now” as one of his most effective weapons, because it allows us to receive what we most desire without requiring any inward change on our part to get it. The net effect of an undisciplined “Now gene” is that we become spoiled, unappreciative, and self-absorbed creatures.

But, as you explore the scriptures, you will see that God has a much different sort of genetics in mind: he wants to infuse our spiritual blood streams with a “Waiting gene.” When we need his help, God promises to be there for us. But, before he takes action, God often wants us to hold out, just a while longer, and then he will engineer circumstances in our lives and rescue us according to his timetable.

On the War album, U2 features two songs, both heavily influenced by the Book of Psalms, that show two different types of rescues that God makes in our lives. In “Drowning Man”, they sing of God’s instantaneous rescues, particularly when eternity is at stake. The final song on the album, “40” [lyrics] [iTunes], explores a much different sort of saving act: a deliverance from earthly pain and hardship that takes a far longer time to realize. Echoing the words of David in Psalm 40, “40” initially sounds like a simple song of worship. But, as you look closer, a remarkable real-world texture begins to surface. The juxtaposition of gratitude, hope, and desperation in the song reflects the ups and downs every believer has living in this world.

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If you are a C.S. Lewis fan, these are good days. With the coming films Prince Caspian in May and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2009), Narnia remains an “in thing” within popular culture. With even more Narnia sequels on the way and possible film adaptations of other Lewis works, including The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis seems well positioned to be a giant in popular culture for years to come.

But, if C.S. (or Jack, as he liked to be called) were here today, I believe he would quickly bring us back to reality, warning us not to get caught up with “what’s in” at the moment. Lewis believed fashion – what’s cool and hip – is one of Satan’s most powerful seducers. It subtly distracts and derails our faith. Lewis illustrates this point several times in The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. However, you may not have realized that he even expresses this same belief in The Chronicles of Narnia: Susan’s eventual loss of faith in The Last Battle seems to be based, in part, on her preoccupation with acting grown-up and her penchant for being fashionable.

Fashion may have been a big deal in Lewis’ day. However, “what’s popular” is far more seductive and alluring in today‘s media-saturated, attention-starved world than ever before in history.
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Back in January, I talked about my upcoming cross-country bike tour this summer in combination with the release of my upcoming book, The Expeditionary Man. We just completed the web site for the bike tour and wanted to invite you to check it out at whythebike.com.

What makes a person great? Is it the number of championship rings he wears on his hand? How fast she rises in her career? The amount of money in one’s bank account? In this media-crazed, post-modern culture of ours, greatness is increasingly defined by the superficial, temporal, and the trivial. Yet, as disciples of the only One who is truly great, is there some other standard by which we can measure greatness?

Since God created man in His image, one way to tackle this question is to look at God’s greatness and see what principles trickle down to man. There are limitations to this approach, of course, since He is omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite, and the last time I checked, I was not any of those. Nonetheless, I’ve found that there are some intriguing parallels to consider.

In all of God’s dealings with the world, arguably the two most significant acts He has ever done is to (a) create the world and (b) serve the world by becoming a man in the person of Jesus Christ and dying on the cross for our sins. If these are the two climatic activities of God in His relationship with man, isn’t it possible that these acts also serve as models for us? Perhaps you and I can share greatness when we create and serve in His name. (Or, as J.R.R. Tolkien used to say, a more theologically correct term for human creation is “sub-create” since God is the only one who truly creates ex nihilo, from nothing.

This fact was brought home to me while watching the A&E/BBC movie Longitude , the story of John Harrison, an 18th century English clockmaker who discovered the solution to the age-old “longitude problem”— determining a ship’s longitudinal position while at sea. I loved the film, but what has remained with me since was a statement at the film’s end reflecting on Harrison’s accomplishment:

What makes a man great? A man may be great in his aims, or in his achievements, or in both, but I think that man is truly great who makes the world his debtor… who does something for the world which the world needs and which nobody before him has done or known how to do.

Just as Harrison “made the world his debtor” by inventing a special timepiece that solved the longitude problem, so you can do the same when your creative efforts or servant heart fills a void left empty before you came along. For in the end, perhaps living a life of true significance is achieved only when you create or serve in Jesus’ name.

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Part 11 in the U2 Unplugged Series

“I Found It”. This slogan was used by an evangelistic organization back in the mid-1970s as a creative way to spread the gospel through mass marketing techniques. As a child growing up during that era, I remember yellow “I Found It” bumper stickers, t-shirts, billboards, and advertisements appearing everywhere around our home town. But as I look back at that campaign, I wonder how effective the slogan really was. There’s some truth in the message, but “I Found It” seems too simplistic and perhaps even misleading to describe the Christian faith. After all, believers aren’t immune to problems: we still struggle with addictions, experience tragedy, and make lousy decisions. We get a taste of Jesus Christ and his fantastic plans for us in the future, but never experience them fully as long as we are living in this sinful world.

In one of their best known songs from their entire discography, U2 sings about an incomplete journey of faith in “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” [Lyrics] [iTunes]. On the surface, the title may sound like a confession of unbelief. But, in reality, the song is an honest look at the struggle that all believers face as we seek a fulfilled life.

Flickers

A longing. It’s the pang in your stomach when you’re in love. You can sense it as you gaze over the glorious snow-capped peaks of the Colorado Rockies. You can feel it in your soul during a great worship or prayer time. C.S. Lewis observed that this intense desire, which he refers to as “joy”, is for something that nothing on earth ever truly quenches. You can catch a glimpse of it, but this longing is fleeting. In his poem Dymer, Lewis reflects on joy’s unattainable nature: “Joy flickers on the razor-edge of the present and is gone.” Lewis believed that was exactly how God intended it, that joy is meant to be a clue or a pointer to the fact we are made for another place, for his “far off country.”
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Part 10 in the U2 Unplugged Series

More ugliness. That’s what I expected to see as I rode in the back of a pick-up truck into La Saline, the poorest slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Since traveling to the Caribbean nation on a missions trip, I’d seen, smelled, and tasted ugliness all week long; the early morning truck ride offered up more of the same: poverty; disease; and malnutrition.

My destination was a church located in the heart of La Saline. The truck soon pulled up to the makeshift shelter: scraps of sheet metal bound together, resembling an overturned sardine can for the church’s 200 worshippers. As I made my way into the building and took a seat, I was not in a spirit of worship; I was just looking forward to the ride back to a more palatable part of the city. But as the morning service got underway, and I began to look around and see what was happening around me, something radical happened. The ugliness of the slum faded away. God offered me a window into what real beauty is. The worshippers had a beauty that went far beyond anything else the world has to offer – be it a sunset in Fiji, a fashion model, or a Michelangelo masterpiece. In their worn, weathered faces, I saw how “knock-out gorgeous” a full life with Christ can be. The joyful eyes and deep smiles in that church were far more infectious than the disease found in the open sewer outside the church building. Beauty, I came to realize, is not skin deep at all; it springs from the fullness of a soul transformed by Christ.

In “All Because of You” [Lyrics] [iTunes], U2 looks at this kind of inner beauty. The song contrasts the ugliness of the world with the completeness of a life transformed by Christ.

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Excerpt from my book The Myth of Happiness

A Coke bottle drops from the sky. That’s the surprising introduction to modern society that a bushman gets as he walks through the Kalahari Desert in the 1980 screwball comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy. In the film, the bushman isn’t sure what to make of a bottle falling from a passing airplane, and so he concludes that it must be a gift from the gods. After he takes it back to his tribe, together they try to figure out what to do with it. A musical instrument. A fire starter. Perhaps a cooking utensil. But in the end, they give up. Thinking the gift is more trouble than it is worth, the bushman goes on a journey across the desert to return the bottle to the gods.

All my life, I viewed joy as something like that Coke bottle. It descended unexpectedly from the heavens and fell into my world. And like the bushman, I had been puzzled my whole life about what to make of the gift. I tried various ways to mold it into something I could understand and work with. But when my dumbed-down versions of joy let me down, the whole experience became disillusioning. In my mind, God must be crazy for making the kind of promises that he does.

I became determined to shed my pidgin understanding of joy once and for all. Over the years, I’d studied various passages in the Bible that deal with joy. I probably even led a Bible study or two on the subject. But I wanted to look again at the Scriptures in light of joy and see what I had always been missing.
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