My doctoral dissection is less than 150 pages, short by many standards, and especially in my field where as a friend puts it so eloquently, verbal diarrhea is common.  But as one of my advisors put it, it has at least double the work of a standard one.  It was heavily influenced by General David Petraeus’ own Princeton dissertation on the US military’s  counterinsurgency efforts during the Vietnam War and of course, the bible of strategy, Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and actually when I think more about it – the Bible itself.  

The data analysis and writing took a relatively short period – as I recall just weeks.  The hard part was coming up with the concept – this took years, a ton of reading, and waiting for everything to really set in.

This one is about waiting.  

Especially in faith.

My favorite song of all time is U2’s With or Without You.  I used to teach what I thought was a pretty insightful interpretation of the lyrics to my Sunday School class.  I wrote a lengthier explanation to someone earlier that I may post at some point – that’s its own story. But I digress.

I read somewhere that the song has three entities in it.  The singer, a woman, and a “you.”  The woman represents sin or something negative and the “you” is God.  Listen to it from this perspective, it can hold water.  

The song’s main theme and lament at some point is about waiting.  And how we do that – for resolution, hope, justice, grace, love, God to show up.

Recently, I remarked to my daughter’s godfather that U2 writes Christian songs without their listeners knowing it.  Pearl Jam does it without themselves knowing it.

I took my daughter to a U2 tribute band concert. I think this is the one song that captures who I am the most – the ethereal opening, simple and solid bass line, the piercing guitar, and somewhat hidden, conflicted lyrics.

And You give Yourself away.