Heeding the Ear Bugs...

I think just about everyone gets 'ear bugs,' those songs which stick to your brain and play themselves over and over again. They can be terribly annoying, and some folks will do just about anything to stop the repetition. (This might include singing it out loud, which often, I understand, has the effect of 'infecting' someone else within earshot.)

I am trying to befriend my ear bugs these days, as an alternative to getting annoyed, and trying to listen for what they might be saying to me. Along the same lines as the wisdom that hymns teach us more (and more memorable) theology than any sermon will, sometimes I think perhaps God might even have a thing or two to say to me, that I haven't been paying attention to any other way. I suppose this is a form of prayer.

So, today, the ear bug is from the 70's rock musical, 'Jesus Christ Superstar,' particularly the song that Mary sings one evening to a frustrated Jesus:

Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to, problems that upset you, no,
Don't you know, everything's alright, yes, everything's fine,
and I want you to sleep well tonight
let the world turn without you tonight.
Close your eyes, close your eyes, and relax, think of nothing tonight...



This is actually something quite helpful for me right now, because for several nights really, I have been turning my mind to those problems that upset me, just before bedtime. And also several times throughout the day when I should be enjoying the life in front of me. Mostly they are problems of religious violence, how I might succeed in creating a peace community of young religious leaders near all of our seminaries in Chicago, how to create the Interfaith Peace Teams, how to stop a war in Iran, how to handle a handful of bitter individuals who try to keep my congregation from being a welcoming place for others, or simply remembering the cruel and humiliating barbs that my seminary president throws out at myself and any other student in leadership on our campus--and trying not to become too bitter about these last cases myself. I wonder if I can succeed, or even have any hope at all, in attempting any of these things.

And yet, it is Christmas night. And while there may be much work for me to do tomorrow morning and all next year, I won't make any progress on any of these tonight, and I won't get far without sleeping well. It's a little like this process of recovering from a concussion--doing myself more harm than good if I refuse to rest well. Taking a week off, the world has not fallen apart (Perhaps a few of my bills have gone awry, but I'll need to check that also tomorrow), and this has been a good lesson for me. The world can turn without me, at least for a little bit. I've been meaning to make myself expendable for the time when I'll be in prison later this spring, but this forces me to practice actually doing so.

So, at least for tonight, I will try to take heed, close my eyes, relax, and hopefully think of nothing more.