Singing Through Lent

During Lent we are led through the valley of suffering and songs have always been used to help ease pain. My music library opened involuntarily this morning during one of the responsive readings. The congregation simply read “journey on” and this brain left the building and traveled back to the seventies to hear Kansas sing “journey on my wayward son.” Which of course, an internet search later proved wrong; it is “Carry on My Wayward Son.” But to be reminded of the words of the chorus was worth the time warp.

Carry on my wayward son
There’ll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don’t you cry no more

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man,
Well it surely means that I don’t know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I’m like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune,
but I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son
There’ll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don’t you cry no more

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
Now your life’s no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you!

It’s always interesting to find glimpses of spirituality in unexpected places, and perhaps this is another instance of finding fool’s gold glittering underneath the common rock, but sparkles are still pretty to see. I found a list of songs with Bible implications which led me to a cool version of “All My Trials” by Paul McCartney. Evidently there is a wide range of lyrics for this song, and Paul (I can call him by his first name) recorded his version in 1990.

There's only one thing that money can't buy,
True love, that will never die, oh no, no.
All my trials, Lord, soon be over.

My prayer for the congregation?

Gracious God, You are the balm for our soul. In a world of medications and preventative education, we use them to stave off suffering and control our afflictions. So we are confused when you ask us to walk into Lent, willingly leaving ourselves open to feeling pain and refraining from self-healing. You ask us to reside in a foreign place where we turn to you alone for our healing, for the health of our soul. Let us not flee too quickly from this valley. We can linger in this land of Lent because we have the confidence of Easter, we know that there will be peace when we are done and that soon our trials will be over. Amen.