Election of a Pope, how foreign it all is...

 

You can't help read the news without seeing something about the election of a new Pope.

I've looked through the candidates and can't help reflect that they will be all following the last Pope John Paul's, conservative roots. Celibacy, no condoms, no women ordination, etc etc.

I reflect on this while watching them, cardinals brightly dressed in red, old men. They appear completely out of place. I wonder if they have twitter, facebook accounts? Know what the latest music the young people are listening to where they live? Have an reflection on a current movie? I watch these elders shuffling along thinking of Nick Caves song "God is in the house" and wonder where?

I can't help thinking that the Catholic Church will continue to loose its way regarding relevancy. Its a shame Catholicism has a lot to offer, I love its mysticism, it's depth of theology,it's breathing with seasons.

But the Church appears uninspiring with the leaders it is putting forward.

Election 2010:: Nick Cave PM

Image via Wikipedia

From The Age today regarding Nick Cave as PM::

Alternative rocker Nick Cave has been voted the musician Australians would most like to see installed as prime minister.
The singer behind the bands Grinderman and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fought off competition from Powderfinger's Bernard Fanning and John Butler in the MySpace poll.
On hearing the news, Cave joked: "My first political act will be to introduce legislation forcing all Australians to lower their expectations."

 Its a good first political act! Though I suspect he know the problems of prophets becoming leaders. You just have to look at poor Peter Garret.

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• Nick Cave voted PM (theage.com.au)

The Beatles and World View

In "The Gospel according to the Beatles", written by Steve Turner; there is a time that George Harrison escaped the Western Culture and went to Kashmir. He found a completely different world view.

India, which had gained it independence from Britain only in 1948, had the added allure of not being par of the modernist world that the counterculture was rebelling against. It wasn't involved in Vietnam, ecological destruction, or economic oppression. Its religion wasn't grim and puritanical. To young Western eyes, the gurus in their simple clothing and long hair, with garlands of flowers around their necks, were far happier than the average Protestant evangelist in his polyester suit. As James W. Sire observed in his 1976 book The Universe Next Door, "The sing to Eastern thought is...primarily a retreat from Western thought. The West ends in a maze of contradictions, acts of intellectual suicide and spectra of nihilism that hunts the dark edges of all our thoughts. Is there not another way?"
George deduced from his reading and experience of Hinduism that God is present within each person. God is not "out there" waiting to be contacted, God is "in here" waiting to be discovered.

I had conversation with a colleague who also came from India. I find it amazing that they have a marriage which was arranged for starters. But on the spiritual side I also find it amazing. They spoke about how much of Indian culture is made up of superstitions. For example not doing the washing on a Thursday because it will bring about 'Bad Luck'. At first in Australia they kept up these superstitions but latter gave them up because they were 'ridiculous' and doesn't know why they followed them in the first place!

With this as a background I recently heard of a person who is in India at the moment and is experiencing many 'Signs and Wonders', the lame walk, blind see, etc etc. It would seem obvious to me that without western empiricism the spiritual is a place for answers, and therefore more frequent in developing and third world countries.

It reinforces for the western 'missionary's' world view, of "signs and wonders".

For me I've come to the conclusion that most 'Signs and Wonders'  happens through the power of suggestion. The following the crowd, and don't ask impolite questions.

Yet God is, a big God. For me he is Sovereign. I believe He works mostly through the laws and mechanics of nature, the 'Kingdom here and Now'. Occasionally though he jumps out and contrary to Nick Cave, intervenes.

Nick Cave and Bono

I spotted this post Bono vs Nick Cave on the Center for public website, by Greg Clarke.

"Both U2’s Bono and Nick Cave put their creative drive down to losing a parent at a young age. That tragedy gave them both a ‘Father-shaped’ hole in the heart that has to be filled with something. Bono says there’s something questionable about a middle-aged man who still needs to hear a stadium full of people chanting his name to know he’s OK. Nick Cave describes himself, using biblical language, as ‘doing the work of his father.
But both Bono and Cave acknowledge that the most significant man in history is not their respective fathers, but Jesus of Nazareth."

I find it interesting that both are often compared. Like brothers, they are examined by Aunties to see who has the strongest gentetic traits of their 'Father'. 

The 'Love Song'

Interesting 'Magnificent', from the latest U2 album has been haunting me.

I was born, I was born to sing for you
I didn't have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice from the womb
My first cry, it was a joyful noise, oh, oh

It has the same themes as Nick Caves lecture he gave on the 'Love Song'

'The love song is perhaps the truest and most distinctive human gift for recognizing God and a gift that God himself needs. God gave us this gift in order that we speak and sing Him alive because God lives within communication.'

It is as if Nick, has written the answer to why Bono has written 'Magnificent', why it is a great 'Love Song'. Although I think for Nick it maybe a bit blatant, to obvious.

I wonder what we would get if Nick Cave collaborated with Brian Eno..... 

Double Albums

I think for me one think that elevates a good band to something even better is, the double album. Not just a crappy, cheap double 'live' album, a double studio album. At times you get these overlapping themes almost like a symphony.

My top five are::

The Beatles :: White Album

Pink Floyd :: The Wall

The Cure :: Kiss me, Kiss me, Kiss me

The Whitlams :: Little Cloud

Nick Cave :: Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus

Its interesting U2 hasn't got there with a double though I think Achung baby, had enough material left over for Zooropa. I think this should have been a double. But then again I can only listen to Bono for a short while before his voice gets on my nerves...