Having grown up in a protestant church and home, I have spent all of my life oblivious to the Stations of the Cross.  If you are also unfamiliar with this practice, here is what Wikipedia says about the stations:

Stations of the Cross (or Way of the Cross; in Latin, Via Crucis; also called the Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows, or simply, The Way) refers to the depiction of the final hours (or Passion) of Jesus , and the devotion commemorating the Passion. The tradition as chapel devotion began with St. Francis of Assissi and extended throughout the Roman Catholic Church in the medieval period. It is less often observed in the Anglican and Lutheran churches. It may be done at any time, but is most commonly done during the Season of Lent, especially on Good Friday and on Friday evenings during Lent.

One of U2’s new song’s on their recently released album No Line on the Horizon got me thinking about stations of the cross.  Here are a few of the lyrics to this penetrating ballad entitled Moment of Surrender:

I was punching in the numbers at the ATM machine
I could see in the reflection
A face staring back at me
At the moment of surrender
Of vision over visibility
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me

I was speeding on the subway
Through the stations of the cross
Every eye looking every other way
Counted down ’til the Pentacost
At the moment of surrender
Of vision over visibility
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me

So, as my interest had been piqued by my favorite band, and my heart was open during a season of searching during Lent and Easter, I found the service our little Episcopal church held on Good Friday deeply meaningful to me.  It was a chilly night, and we met out in the garden beside the fountain in the church courtyard.  Flaming lamps flickered on and off in the wind as the priest and people read God’s Word and responded, looking at artistic renditions of the different phases of the story of Christ’s Cross.  I held both of my daughters on my lap, wrapped in a warm blanket against the cold, and we wondered in our hearts at the great mystery of such wondrous love.

If you are interested in something enlivening for your own personal prayer life, or something life-giving to read with your children, here is a link to a stations of the cross devotional that can be used personally or with others.  I love how this particular teaching is so gentle in its truth.  I’m going to try to mull over one station each day for the next couple of weeks. 

Okay, I just got VIP tickets for the U2 360 show in Atlanta this fall, and I am doing cartwheels in my living room.  I’m so excited I can’t stand it!!!!! Check it out.

These guys are having fun in New York this week.  Right now, they’re performing live on Good Morning America at Fordham University.  But they’ve been hanging with Dave all week.  This you tube clip is hilarious.

Aaah.  Bliss.  It is here.  And it was worth the wait.  Full of good stuff.  Spent my afternoon curled up in bed with both my girls beside me, watching the cool graphics on my computer while I listened to U2’s new album, while reading and digesting the words.  It’s going to be fun to get familiar.  And, their tour dates will be announced next Monday, March 9th. . .  Gonna be a great year!

Here’s a review worth reading at Blog.Listen, and here Bob Flayhart is taking a journey with the songs and their meaning on his blog.

Oh, and can I just say that the deluxe version, with digital video is so worth it.  Get it!  iTunes.

Okay, well, I’m the only person I know who hasn’t listened to the new U2 album, which hasn’t even come out yet.  Maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but friends have downloaded pirated copies, and others have heard it on XM radio.  Me, I’m old school, old-fashioned, or just plain stubborn.  I’m holding out for Tuesday.  I’m still a huge amount of offended for the guys.  They’ve worked on this album for the last two years, and they took precautions not to let it leak out.  Yet hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people have pirated, free copies of the album before it has been released for sale.  Argh.  It aint right. 

I feel a bit better knowing legal action is being taken.  Check out this article about the current lawsuit involving four Swedish guys who run Pirate Bay.  I’m also sure that real U2 fans will still buy the cd, and they won’t be hurt too badly by all this free loading. 

Here is one of my all-time favorite songs from them.   Enjoy, compliments of Nexxus and Modernista:

 And here is an amusing version of the same song (how did they come up with this stuff?!):

The irony.  Looks like the recording companies have disabled embedding of their U2 videos.  So, you’ll have to go directly to you tube to watch.  Thanks a lot, pirates.

In only a week and a day, U2’s first new album since the grammy-winning How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in 2005 will be released.  I am counting down the hours and minutes. What is so incredibly amazing about this band, is that they are not content to simply play their old hits. No way, after 33 years together and 22 years on top of the world as the biggest band, they continue to strive to make great music, full of lyrical wonders and instrumental genius.   Here is a great article about the making of the new album over the last two years.  If there is a theme to the album, Bono says it is peripheral vision, which I’m guessing means knowing what is going on around you and responding to it.  Hmmm.  Oh, and I love what he says that makes this Irish group stand out - joy.  They are a surprising commodity in a rock-n-roll world of rebellion, anger, sex and drugs.  They like what they do, and they have fun.  Bono says, “Joy, for me, is the spilling over of a life well-lived.”  Well, I’m glad I’m getting to live mine during their lifetime, because they inspire me and give me a lot of enjoyment, as well as cause me to think about gigantic things such as justice and poverty and living a big life.

You can already watch the video of the first single to be released, Get On Your Boots.  I had the chance this weekend to listen to a pirated version of the new album.  But I just couldn’t do it.  I gotta wait for the real thing.  March 2 in the UK.  March 3 here in the USA.  I’m getting on my boots and heading to the nearest music store! 

Okay, my wonderful husband just made me oh-so-happy!  He was in a nearby town today for a financial seminar, and he brought home this month’s copy of Q, with 30 pages of oh-so-savory U2!!!  Yay for me.  I know what I’m doing tonight. 

By the way, I’ve been searching for the magazine ever since I heard back in December that it would be coming out.  At first I just hopped over to a local store and thought I’d pick one up.  Then I realized it wasn’t going to be here in our small town.  Next I searched the web, but couldn’t find anywhere to order a single issue of the magazine.  Finally, I found a store (”Barnes and Noble, I love ya!”) that carries it.  Well, then the fun really began.  I’ve been tormenting those poor booksellers nearly every day.  I knew they would only get a few copies, and I knew they would go fast.  And I knew there was no where else to get the thing.  (It is published in England.) 

Anyway, today was the blissful day when after my spiel they said, “Yes, we have it.”  I couldn’t believe my ears.  “You have the one with U2 on the cover?!”  I said in unbelief.  You gotta understand, I know the magazine guy on a first name basis now.  And at long last I have the blessed treasure in my hands. 

Just had to share. . . with other U2 enthusiasts (or maybe I should say other obsessed fans).  This is the year their first new album is coming out since 2004.  It’s also the year I’m turning 40 and definitely catching them on their tour.  And this is the night I devour a magazine, like delectable chocolate..

If you care to read or see more, check out the site of Q.

Well, so far we’ve looked at love, joy, peace, and now it’s time for patience.  That is one of those qualities people want everyone else to have but it is not so fun to try to grow some for yourself.  I hear myself say several times each day to my kids as they repeatedly call my name,  “Could you just be patient a second?!”  But it isn’t so simple to be the one practicing patience at a traffic jam, a long grocery store line, or when you’re in a heated “discussion” with a loved one.  Now is it?

The word for patience used in Galatians 5:22 can be translated forebearance or longsuffering.  And longsuffering is just that, suffering a long time.  The word comes from another root that means far or long.  The idea is to go a long time or long distance.  The other New Testament word for patience as found in Romans 5:3 means “an abiding under.”  It has the idea of cheerful or hopeful endurance or constancy, and it comes from a word which means to stay under, to remain.  Put the words together and you have the idea of remaining under for a long time.  Hmmm.

I’ve pretty much always thought about patience as simply waiting and doing so without getting too ruffled or whiney.  And while that is the way the word is often used in our English language, the meaning seems much richer in these Greek words.  The idea is that the Spirit of God produces within us as he dwells there, the ability to “stay” to remain under difficult circumstances and to keep a cheerful or hopeful countenance.  This is no mere outer conformance to difficult circumstances or the ability to put on a happy face or “suck it up” some more.  It is much deeper and more arduous than that.  It is impossible without the indwelling Spirit.

And it is not without groaning.  It is not a quick fix or a magic wand.  God isn’t into those things if you haven’t noticed, though we often demand just that.  No, it is learning to embrace this truth from Romans:  We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. . .the Spirit Himself  intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

It is worshipping the One who has been and continues to be patient and suffers long with his Creation and his redeemed ones.  He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 

So often in Christian teaching, the emphasis becomes on what we need to do, rather than on God’s amazing work even when we can’t do anymore, or don’t want to, or are just plain weary.  A while back, I was deeply encouraged when thinking about Psalm 40.  It was a painful trial for our family, and when I thought of how I should handle it or what needed to be done next, I just couldn’t.  Have you been there?  Where you are just “done”?  Such a painful place to be, but really a good one.  Well, I found a curious encouragement from the words of the psalm.  I waited.  Then God inclined his ear and lifted me out of the slimy pit.  I could wait.  I could stay.  But I could do nothing more.  And God would do the rest.  Listen to U2’s famous rendition of this psalm.  It says it beautifully.

Check out this groovy new online music magazine, launched today in honor of World AIDS Day.  Be sure to watch U2’s premiere video of a recently recorded version of “I Believe in Father Christmas”, and best of all watch “Playing for Change” as musicians from all over the world sing “Stand By Me.” It is extremely moving and reminds me that we really are all alike and in this together.

This is one of my favorite U2 songs ever!  The above video is well worth watching.  By the way, when I was listening to U2 back in high school in 1985, one of the youth workers who volunteered his time with us teens, tried to convice me that U2 could not possibly be “Christians.”  First of all, if that were true, their music would still be wonderful.  But more importantly, no one should try to say whether someone else is a Christian or not, just because they aren’t the same kind of Christian we are.  And, 23 years later, I am more sure than ever that he was wrong, well-intentioned maybe, but wrong.

This song has reminded me of the gospel in so many ways at so many different times over the past year and a half since its release.  It is like a parable, a golden box full of truth if you want to look for it, but stuff you might not notice if you don’t take the time to dig through the rubble in the box a bit.  I have worshiped in rhapsody right along with Bono many times:

The shackles are undone
The bullets quit the gun
The heat that’s in the sun
Will keep us when there’s none
The rule has been disproved
The stone it has been moved
The grave is now a groove
All debts are removed

Oh can’t you see what love has done?
Oh can’t you see what love has done?
Oh can’t you see what love has done?
What it’s done to me?

Love makes strange enemies
Makes love where love may please
The soul and its striptease
Hate brought to its knees
The sky over our head
We can reach it from our bed
You let me in your heart
And out of my head, head…

Oh can’t you see what love has done?
Oh can’t you see what love has done?
Oh can’t you see what love has done?
What it’s done to me?

Oh, oh, oh, oh…
Oh, oh, oh, oh…
Please don’t ever let me out of you

I’ve got no shame, oh no, oh no

Oh can’t you see what love has done?
Oh can’t you see?
Oh can’t you see what love has done?
What it’s doing to me?

I know I hurt you and I made you cry
Did everything but murder you and I
But love left a window in the skies
And to love I rhapsodize
To every broken heart
For every heart that cries
Love left a window in the skies
And to love I rhapsodize

Here’s one more YouTube video entitled Bono : A Conversation About Christianity, if you are still unsure.