U2 and the Relentless Search of American Fulfillment

It’s 2003. In the next decade, there will be a financial crisis, thousands of troops sent to the Middle East, the United States will be led by their first Black president, and LeBron James will replace Michael Jordan as the preeminent face of the sports world. But you’re not worried about that right now. You’re at Chuck E. Cheese.

The pizza has been served. Your spouse and 67 percent of offspring are sitting at the table in anxious anticipation for the gooey goodness of cheese pizza to hit their taste buds. But they’re not eating right now, they’re waiting on you. Why? Because you are knee deep in the ball pit, throwing ball after ball against the chain link walls in search of your youngest son. 

 

It’s been fifteen minutes, and he’s nowhere in sight. His three-and-a-half-foot frame seems to be submerged in the sea of color, and you can’t grab him, because his blue and green stripes do not provide contrast striking enough to stick out, so you keep searching. You cannot find what you’re looking for.

 

Amidst the cries and rapidly cooling pizza, the tension between the family members is rising. Junior cannot be found. Minute after minute, more people join the search. Parents and workers are throwing balls again and again, only to fall back down.

 

Anxiety hits a high, only to see the young boy stand outside the ball pit sucking on his thumb, smiling. The realization hits like a truck. The thing you had been looking for all along has been laughing at you in disbelief for the past three minutes. All you had to do was turn around.

Searching Without a Trace

 

As a white, middle-class American, I believe Bono, lead singer of U2, has been a cultural prophet who stands the test of time. Now, before you close the tab and choose to forget another stab at cultural punditry, hear me out. Let’s take a look at 1987’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”:

 

I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls only to be with you

 

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

 

The tone of the song is incredibly joyful, but if you’re a fan of the 1988 live version, it reaches new heights with a triumphant gospel choir. The message seems like Bono has indeed found it.

 

But the song is also about identity crisis. Our lead character is detailing his beliefs, trials, and works, but for what? He’s heard the songs of angels but has also held the hand of the devil. Like the narrator of Ecclesiastes, he has seen it all yet has no clear path to fulfillment. 

 

Now, as someone who has spent the last couple blogs documenting the tried-and-true members of Congress, where is the connection? Bono is quite clearly writing under the pretenses of his Christian faith, documenting his drive to success only to leave him spiritually empty. 

 

This is when I will borrow a term, one that is called cultural eisigesis, which means that there will be a reading into the song text under the preconceived notions of the culture. If you don’t get it, by all means read along.

 

There is a distinct level of recognition of shame that is absent with our members of Congress. In the final verse, Bono says that the cross of his shame has been carried. So much so, he laments further in addressing his shame, as if his sackcloth has been ripped and ashes are about to be poured over his head, “Oh my shame.”

Embracing our Weakness

 

In We the Fallen People by Robert Tracy McKenzie, the Wheaton College historian makes it clear that the starting point to mend the mounds of American democracy is embracing the depravity and recognizing the weakness of our elected officials, and thus, seeing the depravity within ourselves. In laymen’s term, he says that we need to realize that four years in office cannot and will not fix everything because it starts with us. And yet, as Christians more often than not, there is an angle to the prayers and placement of the hope that government officials will indeed “take back the country for God.”

 

This is, to put it simply, not only a problem with the people running for office. They play the god card because that is what voters desire out of them. It boils down to the source, our expectations as voters. On the Left, it’s instituting equality and inclusion across the board for all peoples and saving the planet from Climate Change. No bill can solve those problems, no matter how hard they try. On the right, it is the security of first and second amendment freedoms. Bills can’t solve all of those problems either. We are left in a rut throwing colored balls against the chain links over and over again. We’re searching, but we cannot find.

 

Like Bono on a stage in front of thousands of fans or our opening character in a pit in front of thousands of colored, plastic balls, our identity as American people has gone rouge, running to the fringes of extremism rather than meeting in the middle of cooperation and compromise.

 

That’s where we’ve gone wrong. Members of Congress have become people pleasers hoping to save face every other November. Policy expertise is tossed aside at the party line. In its place is empty promises and lies to change the country. For what? Power? Greed? Success? All at what cost? 

 

The power trip exercised in the midst of the pleasing results in a LACK of recognition towards our shame, instead, as our Founders had hoped, that democracy prides itself on POINTING out the shame of the individual and allowing the governing body to work together and push for meaningful legislative solutions.

 

Our legislative body has been sacrificing to the god of security, offering praise to the deity that comes in the form of paper slips in the ballot box.

 

In the book of 2 Kings, chapter 17, the writers, documenting from exile, provide the reasons for the place where they now stand. “They would not listen. Instead, they became obstinate like their ancestors who did not believe the LORD their God.” This is where I say in the current state of each party, pointing out the obvious, Christ would be disappointed in both, because they still have not found what they’re looking for and refuse to look at each other to find the answers. All they have to do is turn around.

 

But in the end, our U2 song of introspection, identity crisis, and search, is about grace. It’s a song that provides a pathway of promise. We are unable to satisfy the needs of our heart, but that doesn’t mean it’s all for naught. What it means is, as Bono says, we all bleed into one. One body of people, in pursuit of one promise. Maybe it’s a pursuit of a better family, a better future, but for our leaders in Washington and the voters who elect them, the pursuit must be for a better nation through Christ-exalting cooperation. 

 

At the end of the day, our Constitution is a paper of compromise, for better or worse. It has been amended thirty-three different times for the sake of cooperation and progress. So, as American people, it's time to turn around and begin the search to truly find what we are looking for.