I am feeling a bit deep and artsy tonight, so I am warning you...
I recently heard about this singing group, Young@Heart, composed of men and women in their 80s-90s. The story was related to me of their emotional performance of "Forever Young" before a group of young, male prison inmates. Tonight I finally made it to youtube to watch the video myself. I was so intrigued that I watched a couple of other ones. Their cover of "Fix You" by Coldplay left me transfixed and full of thoughts.
It is one thing to hear 30ish year old Chris Martin sing these lyrics, but for an elderly man on oxygen to sing about 'losing something you love that you cannot replace' carries a whole lot more weight in my book. As the choir members sing about 'tears streaming down their face,' you can almost see them remembering all their eyes have seen and the pain they have experienced in their decades of life.
Most significant was the refrain, "I will try to fix you" from this elderly, somewhat broken man. I wondered how often we characterize God like this man....tired, old, outdated, melancholy and 'trying' to fix us.
It is embarrassing really, to realize that I can make the God of the Universe so very small in an attempt to understand Him. Francis Chan describes it as God being the expansive ocean with my brain as a soda can in comparison. For me to describe Him only as the small amount of ocean I can scoop in my can is ridiculous.
It is not our job to understand Him. To make God comprehensible is contrary to who He says He is. We are to love Him, fear Him, praise Him, worship Him, trust Him, obey Him...but not to relegate Him to the kind, old, heartbroken grandpa wringing his hands over when we will come to our senses.
I am challenged. How about you?
6 comments:
Your thoughts about our smallness reminds me of hearing Louie Giglio. (sp?) Our minds cannot begin to comprehend the power He has. He uses a passage that talks about how He breathed the stars to compare us to the size of His creation. It is on You Tube and it will fascinate you!
You should try and see the entire movie. It was so moving. Seeing those precious people and all the wisdom of their lives...I know it is available on Netflix.
You MUST see the movie. I love it. After I saw the movie last summer, I was able to see them perform live. So inspiring!! And then I bought their CD. Yeah, I'm a fan!!
That is beautiful.
I also saw the film in the theatre - see if you can get it at the library or something. It's a great story and very touching.
I'd seen the video once before but listened and watched with a different heart tonight. What a beautiful song, and what an awesome group of older adults- we can learn so much just by watching them!
Post a Comment