Music break

My theology professor played this before class the other day, right before we spent the 3-hour class period watching the documentary Race: The Power of Illusion, as a way to prep for the contextual theologies we'll be reading in the second half of the course. Race, class, gender, sexual identity and social location matter in how we talk about God, about human beings, about the entire world. As all theology is contextual (yes, even the classic, Old-Theology views we moderns inherited from the Greeks by way of medieval Europe) it's important to know our own contexts as well as the context of others. It seems kind of daunting and too diverse-for-unity sometimes, that everyone has their own lens through which to peer, darkly, at matters divine, but I think that's just a case of looking at the hole instead of the entire donut. Our contexts may differ, but we are all humans, and we all are under grace, which is the unconditional love of God which frees us to love and welcome others.

Anyway, I heard this song yesterday while I was at the bookstore, skipping church in favor of academic catch-up, and I thought I'd share it and its message, which is a pretty good one. Enjoy!

Sheryl Crow, "Out of Our Heads"
If you feel you wanna fight me
There’s a chain around your mind
When something is holding you tightly
What is real is so hard to find

Losing babies to genocide
Oh where’s the meaning in that plight
Can’t you see that we’ve really bought into
Every word they proclaimed and every lie, oh

If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts
If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts

Someone’s feeding on your anger
Someone’s been whispering in your ear
You’ve seen his face before
You’ve been played before
These aren’t the words you need to hear

Through the dawn of darkness blindly
You have blood upon your hands
All the world will treat you kindly
But only the heart can understand, oh understand

If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts
Children of Abraham lay down your fears, swallow your
tears and look to your heart

If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts
Children of Abraham lay down your fears, swallow your
tears and look to your heart

Every man is his own prophet
Oh every prophet just a man
I say all the women stand up, say yes to themselves
Teach your children best you can

Let every man bow to the best in himself
We’re not killing any more
We’re the wisest ones, everybody listen
‘Cause you can’t fight this feeling any more, oh anymore

If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts
Children of Abraham lay down your fears, swallow your
tears and look to your heart

If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts
Children of Abraham lay down your fears, swallow your
tears and look to your heart