“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom...You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.” ― William Blake, Proverbs of HellSome have taken this modern proverb to heart as a means to finding meaning and satisfaction in life. We call it the pursuit of happiness in the USA. There is a driving force in humanity to reach higher (or lower) to find purpose for our existence. Religions, philosophies, possessions and experiences are a means to fulfill the same life search. That life search is driven by internal questions.
What am I doing here?
What is my purpose on this planet?
Why do I exist?
Is there any meaning to life?
As we grow bored with each adventure life tosses our way, we search for a new adventure. All searches, all forays into excess, lead to the same place, a realization that there has to be something more.
The band INXS was a major success in the US in the middle 1980's. Their 1987 album Kick sold over 6 million copies in the USA. But the album that first got my attention was back in 1982. INXS released Shabooh Shoobah which had four hit singles in the US, The One Thing" (July 1982), "Don't Change" (October 1982), "To Look at You" (March 1983) and "Black and White" (June 1983). I was a college student and MTV played on our television sets 24/7 practically. It was the new thing in music to watch the VJ's broadcasting the next hot video from the next hot band. This was back in the early days of MTV when they actually were about music.
One song that was not a hit that I like off of Shabooh Shoobah is Old World New World. There's a phrase that got stuck in my head from the song: "Doing as the Romans Do."
When I think of doing as the Romans do, i think of their pagan festivals of excessive drinking, eating and sexual indulgence. With the bands excess driven image, I thought the song was about orgies. It's far from it. It's about spiritual searching. Old World New World is a seekers song.
The term seeker, within of the church, came out of Willow Creek Community Church in Chicagoland and their success in attracting and reaching seekers for Christ. Seekers are spiritually searching, but not convinced that organized religion is the answer to their search. One author, Thomas Bandy, describes our emerging culture as spiritually hungry and institutionally alienated. Take a look at the lyrics of Old World New World by INXS and see the heart of a seeker.
Listen along here. http://youtu.be/Xcd_ZJzi1Ic
Old World New World
Natives wearing turquoise and silver
Dirty dogs barking in the distance
People of a thousand tongues
I'm learning the primitive rites
I'm doing as the Romans do
Mt. Kailash to Mt. Everest
Then down to the river Ganges
To follow your mighty past
We're learning the primitive rites
We're doing as the Romans do
Old world
New world
I know nothing
But I'll keep listening
Cities tumble into the ocean
Cities getting built in the sky
Now we're talking digital
We're learning the primitive rites
We're doing as the Romans do
Millions playing at monopoly
Rolling the dice of their life
I'm dancing and shaking hands
We're learning the primitive rites
We're doing as the Romans do
I know nothing
Grow old look wise
Never knowing 'til I die
But I'll keep listening
I'll keep listening
Pan
Shambala
Judism
Hindu
Christianity
Masdic
Budism
Atman of Vedies
Sun Ra
Astrology
Voodoo
The great dream time
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The lyrics reveal a seeker who recognizes that he knows nothing of the world's great religions or their teachings. He is searching and listening. He is experimenting and evaluating. Austrailia has an indigenous population with their faith. The aborigines some call them. In Amercian we call our indigenous peoples Native Americans. The reference to turquoise could be to our Navajo tribe who consider the light blue stone to be loved by God. After God made Mother Earth, God threw the turquoise into the heavens to make the sky. Turquoise is thought to have healing and purifying properties, perhaps because of its connection to the dawn or creation in Navajo myth.
The Aborigines of Australia have 250 or more languages in over 600 dialects. Perhaps the lyrical reference to the people of a thousand tongues is to the Aborigines, or it could be a reference to all the world's primitive cultures. In any event, the seeker is searching out the myths and beliefs of these cultures.
Moving to the next verse the seeker is referencing Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism. Mt. Kailash is considered to be the home of Shiva, the god of yoga, tantric sex and ganja weed (i.e. marijuana). The awe-inspiring edifice also has attracted Muslim and Buddhist adoration as a sacred site. Everest, the tallest of all mountains on earth is a sacred site to the indigenous Sherpa who live there. It's also a site of Buddhist community in a hidden valley below the mountain. The River Ganges is a sacred river to Hindus. They believe the river is spiritually purifying.
I interpret that the fast paced ever-changing world we live in has disillusioned the seeker. As he learns from the ancient past and the wisdom within myths and religions, he sees the world around him playing dice with their lives, pursuing wealth and property like in a monopoly game.
INXS wrote in the dawn of the information age. The World Wide Web had not yet come into its own. Being in the music business they would have heard of digital formats on the horizon. The Compact Disc was made commercially available in 1982. I didn't covert until 1990. The seeker seems a bit put off by technology and is searching from something more than the latest gadget.
As he looks upon his contemporary world he sees some oddities that make little sense to him. We build cities on earthquake fault lines that may some day tumble into the sea. Rather than invest in ways to improve our odds, we build space stations in the orbit around the earth and equip our satellites with weapons (1987's Guns In The Sky). Our technology isn't saving us. The seeker may wonder if our technology will be the end of us. At very least he doesn't find meaning in our technological advancements.
So he ends the song with a list of religions he is researching. Christianity makes the list. Michael Hutchense, the lead singer, sadly died in his seeking. In true excessive form, he accidentally suffocated himself during auto-erotic asphyxiation.
The bible speaks about asceticism's harsh treatment of the body. Some religious folk in Judaism, Christianity and other faiths debase themselves as an act of contrition or humiliation before God. Some follow strict dietary restrictions. Paul writes that these do very little to make us righteous.
Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (Col 2:23)Instead the apostle Paul encourages the church to live in Christ, in His grace and love. How does one live in Christ? You must believe the gospel. You are cut off from a life giving relationship with God because of your sin. No amount of learning the primitive rites or doing as the Romans do, will connect you to God. God is holy. You are not. But God loves you and has acted in Jesus Christ to remove the barriers caused by our sins so that we can be in fellowship with our creator. The blood of Jesus shed upon His cross is the once for all sacrifice atoning for all sin. Accept this gift of Jesus' sacrifice and trust that He was raised from the grave.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom 10:9)Invite Jesus to dwell in your heart and learn to live in His power and love, not your own limited resources. You will need a church community to pray for you and encourage you as you learn to live in Christ and by His grace and love.
If you are like INXS seeking truth to answer your soul's searching for significance, know that the living God know to us in Jesus Christ rewards those who seek Him.
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Heb 11:6)
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jer 29:13)Good hunting!
Dear Lord, bless all my friends and family who are searching. Help them to be found by You. Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment