by the Night Writer
Earlier I posted about the time the godly hole got punched in the wall of my world-view. It was a dramatic example, but not necessarily the first time God tried to get my attention. Looking back now I can see numerous nudges, nods, winks and taps on the shoulder when I was a boy and later a young adult. Not that I’m anything special, mind you, or that God isn’t trying in multiple ways to reach all of us. In my life, however, certain things have resonated, even when I didn’t understand or want to admit what invisible mallet struck the chime to make it vibrate.
For example, back when I was in college I was browsing in a used record store as the local alt-rock campus radio station played in the background. A song came on that immediately pricked my ears. I’d never heard it before and though I could make out the words, I couldn’t really understand them. I just knew that the melody got a hook into me. About all I could remember was part of the chorus: “My heart going boom, boom, boom….”
The station didn’t say the name of the song or the artist, and though I’d hear the song occasionally at random times in the next few years I still didn’t know anything about it other than it strangely moved me every time I heard it. After I moved to the Twin Cities in the early 80s I finally got the name of the song and artist: “Solsbury Hill” by Peter Gabriel, and then spent several months trying to find a copy of it in those pre-Google, pre-Amazon, prehistoric days. It finally found it on a live album and could listen to it to my heart’s (boom-boom-boom) content. Even with that I still couldn’t grasp what it was about. Some friends told me it was a song Gabriel wrote when he was trying to decide whether or not to leave Genesis, and that seemed to make as much sense as anything even though the lyrics were mostly obscure (it was a great time for obscure lyrics).
Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city light
Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night
He was something to observe
Came in close, I heard a voice
Standing stretching every nerve
Had to listen had no choice
I did not believe the information
I just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom boom
“Son,” he said “Grab your things,
I’ve come to take you home.”
Then, along about the time I was discovering I was to be a father, and was rediscovering my faith, I heard the song again and it suddenly became clear to me. Had Gabriel written the song to describe his break-up with the band or, as I was doing, to come to terms with a spiritual reawakening (I knew he had become a Christian about the time he left Genesis)? I had heard a profound voice with information that by “reasonable” standards I could scarcely believe…what could I, or should I, do about it? Which of two seemingly incompatible worlds would I choose, and at what cost?
Could I trust my eyes and…imagination?
To keep in silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Tho’ my life was in a rut
‘Til I thought of what I’d say
Which connection I should cut
I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going boom boom boom
“Hey” he said “Grab your things
I’ve come to take you home.”
The earlier, mysterious appeal of the song became a confirmation to me that there had been a plan for my life all along, even if I was slow in picking up on it. Still, it was hard to think of giving up one life for another, but I knew the direction I had to go. In doing so, however, I came to realize that there is just one life; the difference is in how you will approach it.
Peter Gabriel didn’t stop recording music, he just went about it in a different way, with a different sense of mission. It wasn’t a matter of me withdrawing from the old world, but embracing it with fresh eyes and new arms. Nor was it about what I could get or become, it was about what I could give and be to others (my daughters, for example).
When illusion spin her net
I’m never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me
Physical separation is an illusion. I once told a men’s group that we were not monks who should seek to withdraw from the world to pursue and preserve our piety, but men who will pursue the world with our piety so that none may perish, “giving up” our lives in order to save and disciple the lives of others. If we withdraw then certainly people won’t see our failures or weaknesses and we can hope to keep them from pointing and laughing. But they also won’t see our tests and testimonies, and we keep them from a chance to see something in our lives that makes them consider their own lives and say, “Wait a minute….”
Today I don’t need a replacement
I’ll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
“Hey” I said “You can keep my things,
They’ve come to take me home.”
It’s a great song. I posted it on the wall of my cube when I left one job in 2003, then posted it on my blog when another job left me in 2006.
http://mrdilettante.blogspot.com/2006/03/solsbury-hill.html
It’s the best song Peter Gabriel ever wrote.
I almost forgot to say the most important thing — great post, NW!
Yeah, that is one of my favorite songs too and one of the best Peter Gabriel ever did. I found most of the rest of his stuff post Genesis a little self-indulgent but Solsbury Hill seems refreshingly honest. I thought the refrain is about when he got kicked out or left a boarding school he was unhappy with as a kid and it carries forward his persona as a seeker, not quite fitting in anywhere trying to find his place in the world.
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