LOSING MY RELIGION…
Do you ever get an ear worm?
A song that sticks in your mind and you can’t help hearing it or humming it occasionally. Or in my case finding the chords* and playing it on the guitar!
For me recently it was Losing my religion by R.E.M. Its from their Out of Time album from 1991. I was teaching regularly in Scotland at the time and so I listened to it on plane journeys on my personal tape player (remember them?) and it became well known to me. It was the most successful track from the album and possibly from the R.E.M catalogue.
It worried me a little that this should start rattling around my mind (and you, dear reader might by now be similarly concerned!) So I started to look at the lyrics to make sense of whether this was just one of those things or if there was a message in this new obsession.
It goes like this:
Oh life is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no I've said too much
I set it up
Obviously, this is about someone struggling with the big questions of life, probably a person of faith, but struggling to make sense of the life that is “bigger”. And feeling that any “God” might be distant. Then guilt sets in about even voicing these heretical thoughts.
That's me in the corner
That's me in the spot-light
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough
This person feels exposed , “in a spotlight”, and whatever faith they have, their “religion” , is slowly ebbing away. The demands are too much , “trying to keep up”, and still the guilt at having these ideas haunts this person.
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
He is grasping for a positive sign but can see none.
Every whisper, of every waking hour
I'm choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, fool
Oh no I've said too much
I set it up
Even confession is beyond him and he feels foolish even believing in the first place.
Consider this
Consider this the hint of the century
Consider this the slip
That brought me to my knees, failed
What if all these fantasies come
Flailing around
Now I've said too much….
And now he fears that it was all made up and he is lost his belief completely.
….But that was just a dream
Try, cry, fly, try
That was just a dream
Just a dream
Just a dream, dream
The song closes with a conclusion – it was all a dream and not real. Job done. I'ts over.
A quick diversion before we go any further.
Communication has many stages and any one of them can become faulty leading to miscommunication.
SENDER
A thought
A medium for transferring the thought (eg written, spoken, a picture)
Conversion of the thought into the medium (coding)
Transfer of the thought via the medium
RECEIPIENT
Receipt of the medium (eg hear, see)
Translate the message from the medium
Receive the thought and process its meaning (decoding)
Any one of these stages can become faulty and lead to miscommunication. Faulty coding by the sender or faulty decoding by the recipient can lead to the original thought not being what is received by the recipient. Different understandings, “noise” that distorts the message, poor coding in the first place. All can mean that good communication breaks down.
That’s why feedback is so important.
(eg when you said that what I heard was…..)
Back to R.E.M…..
Everything I wrote above is nonsense based on a false premise!
The song has, contrary to 34 years of presumptions on my part, nothing to do with religion or spirituality or faith. To “lose ones religion” is a southern American idiom that means to “lose ones temper through frustration”. The song is actually about someone at a party working through an unrequited and yet obsessive love for another person. The lyric “in the spotlight” was originally meant to be “in the kitchen”, referring to a young man who found it difficult to express his own longings for someone who would not reciprocate the same feelings.
My decoding was faulty because what was coded by Michael Stipe and others 30+ years ago meant something completely different to them than to me!
Much of the life of a pastor is communication.
I write (like here). I speak. I have body language (that bit we often cannot help). I probably send out unconscious messages as well (we all do!)
Please may I encourage you to do feedback.
If something jars with you, with what I have said or written, or if it is what someone else has communicated, seek clarification. Do not presume that something out of character is a change of position or a slight.
Check it out.
We all need to check our own presumptions and prejudices when interpreting the messages we receive from others a well.
We also need to be careful with the coding we do when transmitting messages.
We, all of us, WILL get it wrong sometimes.
Be patient, be forgiving, be clear.
It’s the enemy’s playground.
“Did God really say?” (Gen 3:1) => WHAT(!) did “they” say….?
Every blessing
Doug
vicar@christchurchpurley.org.uk
* Am, Em, Dm, G if you are interested!
TWO MASKS MEETING