http://youtu.be/cAe1lVDbLf0
Rufus Wainwright – Across the Universe
“Across the Universe” was deep in the category of songs I put in “time-out” when I first became a Christian due to its Sanskrit guru-talk and dreamy, druggy feel. At the intense urging of some fire-breathing preachers, I had become convinced that I should cleanse my spiritual palette of all artistic influences that were not overtly proclaiming the Gospel. Years later, when I began to realize that God could actually show Himself through those who did not yet know Him, I began to purchase on digitally re-mastered CD much of the music from the 33 1/3 LP’s I had once destroyed. Still, however, songs like “Across the Universe” remained in a gray area (along with things like Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”).
Then entered XM Satellite radio in our cars and the discovery of “classic rock” stations that beam a steady stream of songs from those ground-breaking years mysteriously into our local driving experiences all over America! Not only have some of these songs from the gray areas occasionally bathed my heart in the thoughts of God, but it even seems that the timing of the playlist is available to heaven’s orchestration, as if the satellite beaming them down is just a marionette with controls attached far higher than the skies!
One day last year, I was making the five-minute drive from my home to a community gathering that was an attempt to draw all denominations together around the “Father-Heart of God”. These multi-church experiences had become painful for me, as I had spent a year investing myself as president of the Ministerial Alliance, naively wondering why my passion and vision hadn’t translated into “results” (or even attendance) only to later realize that in fact my gender was the only problem, but what a big problem it was. I’ve never wanted to make women’s rights in the Kingdom a bandwagon or even a topic, but some folks from the other opinion were still making it so! I was feeling deeply the irony of going to hear about the Father’s Heart in a context that had recently slapped a dose of the opposite experience on my little dreamer-soul! Right into the middle of my angst, XM satellite radio inserted Rufus Wainwright’s version of “Across the Universe”—I didn’t have to buy it and commit to the Sanskrit sentiment—it was just there filling my car, and ME.
I wept as I realized the multi-layered message God was sending in the five-minute drive. Though the handful of folks who had shunned me for being a woman in a “man’s position” would also deny me the joy of hearing from God through this “secular” (even false-religion filled) song, God would not be stopped by any human barrier. As Rufus Wainwright sang out the Lennon lyrics, I could feel God saying to me, “Perrianne, I’m coming to you from across the universe to remind you that I made you and I understand you, and I am able to work in you in images and streams and swirling hope beyond words. I am able to conduct the symphony of sound and light inside you and orchestrate it into a beautiful piece of art. I didn’t call you to be understood by all—I called you to demonstrate a realm beyond the naturally ‘understandable’ and I am with you!” Pretty good dose of the Father’s Heart in the car before the meeting—one which got me through the meeting itself!
However, there was one sticky point: there was still the cringe factor provided by the Sanskrit words. What was God’s take on those, I wondered? Did He turn off His heavenly advocacy and communication during this unfortunate departure, where John Lennon waxed more pagan than usual? Did He—as I do during scenes in movies--look the other way for a moment until the “bad part” passed? The Beatles’ tryst with transcendental meditation and pilgrimage to India was obviously an attempt to fill a spiritual void, but surely the inclusion of a mantra in the middle of a song was too "syncretous" to be infused with God’s Spirit!
Crusader/confronter/investigator that I am, I couldn’t wait to Google the lyrics when I got home. Thanks to my new best friend Wikipedia, I discovered that the Sanskrit words that form the link to the chorus can best be translated, “glory to the shining remover of darkness,” or “Victory to God divine.” I marveled, realizing that, even if the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was using them to laud a human guru (and our stomachs turn at the thought of the idolatry), the accolade expressed rightly—and ONLY--belongs to our God. There is no shining remover of darkness that comes close to the God of the universe who revealed Himself through Christ. Amidst the haze of Eastern hippie confusion, a redemptive possibility EVEN FOR THE MANTRA appeared. What does God do with a line like that in a song? The same thing He has always been doing: sends forth His Spirit in the earth with the mission to display the riches of Christ that answer the deepest cries in search of another realm—separating from the picture the droll and limiting realities put there like boulders by the religious and narrow ideas of men—the things which obscure God’s ownership of the shining removal of darkness!
Next I discovered the video (link above) which features a very young Dakota Fanning as if she is walking through a three-dimensional Rene Magritte painting! Although it would be a mistake to be over analyze a video like this, I must admit that the drably dressed unsmiling men suspended in the atmosphere seemed to shout out the ugly structures of religion and narrowness that were causing me pain, and I too readily felt like the little girl with a balloon walking through it all trying to trace the path of the song. At the very end, the release of the balloon moved me deeply and I wept again.
I can walk through this jungle of misguided worship (sometimes the Christian stuff seems more incomprehensible than Sanskrit), just marveling and observing like little Dakota Fanning. I don’t have to engage—I can just trace the song, follow the Voice, and feel the comfort of heaven. But there are times and places along this journey where a “letting go” will be in order. Can I trust the “balloon” of my hopes and dreams—the precious things of my heart—in an atmosphere where people are looming large floating above, waiting to criticize and condemn? Surely I better hold on and keep things close—I trust God, of course, but I had better wait for a better time to release what is inside me, right? There’s a better environment than the Bible belt of Texas—New York City maybe? England loves me, yes, they LOVE me in England….. (She repeats over and over and then gets hold of herself once again….!)
“No my dear,” God seems to be saying with a gleam in His eye, even as I write this now. “There will never be a perfect atmosphere to release what is inside you. The time is now and the place is where I put you. It turns out that you are not speaking to the immediate surroundings alone. The wisdom in MY global economy is in play here and the orchestration of my Spirit far transcends whether people switch on the applause sign immediately or not! You are on an odyssey of discovery and My Hand is guiding you---from across the universe! You can let go because I AM the glorious and ONLY remover of darkness. I choose to go for the big things, and though I comfort you in your temporary rejections, they don’t stop Me! And with regard to the place inside where you and I journey together—My heaven meeting your earth in surprising ways—the communion made possible by redemption—the filling of the void that all things Eastern seek but fail to fill---regarding that inner sanctum of spirit: NOTHING’S GONNA CHANGE THIS WORLD…. Go ahead and let go…It is safe…I am here….”
Though this is all very personal to me, I share it here in hopes that it connects to someone else out there—perhaps a disenfranchised dreamer or two. Fifteen years ago, a man prophesied to me that there were indeed others out there who were “just like me”….(be afraid, be very afraid…) It’s time for us to release what we have into the atmosphere and trust the God who paints with color and continually surprises us with the unlimited access His Spirit has to the things religion has told us are off limits. What is He saying to you from “Across the Universe?” Maybe you want to watch the video once more...and think about letting your red balloon go, too…. It IS worth enduring the pain…pools of sorrow do turn to waves of joy...in God....
