I have a major gap in my knowledge of popular music.  Somewhere in the double-digit year range.  A pretty creative and insightful high school classmate made this observation (can’t remember his exact words, but I think this is close) – the music one remembers most comes from your junior year of high school.  Kinda holds true for me – one of the first songs I play when given a guitar is Pearl Jam’s Yellow Ledbetter (about a fallen soldier coming home, really proud of learning this one, took forever, got talked to at church for playing).

Thanks to Jeff Bezos and Amazon Music, that gap is slowly being filled.  Lady Gaga has this really powerful duet “Shallow” with Bradley Cooper.  Also Lorde – South Park parodies her perfectly.

And this one that grabbed my attention immediately – Hozier’s “Take Me to Church.”  Apparently, some people think this is a worship song.  

It is not.  

Opening with a tribute to his female lover and how out-of-place she is in a religious environment, it transitions to a critique of hypocrisy, judgmentalism, and hate.  The music video depicts a gay couple being persecuted.

I have a love-hate relationship with church.  I generally dislike services and sermons, but would love to sit quietly and alone in the pews in the presence of God.  I won’t repeat what St. Augustine said about church – it is not nice, something to do with the oldest profession.

But I get it, no human organization gets it totally right.  Some do it better than others.  There’s no need to go into horror stories here.  Too many and just depressing.

That being said, there is hope.  My Jesuit priest friend runs a church in the Bay Area – a military veteran, former prison chaplain, Ph.D, experienced all around, occasional swear word (priest, not a saint).

And at the end of the day, it’s supposed to be a hospital for sinners (like me), not a school for saints.