Ok, I'm starting a new topic on this...

This is Phil's post (transferred from "Yearning for the Holy Spirit" thread):


"Posted 09 September 2009 04:19 PM

Probably a sidebar to this topic, but . . . give a listen sometime to "Borderline" by Madonna, which is one of my all-time favorites (best quality from iTunes music store or view on youtube). Listen to the words, and consider how very well about 90% of it applies to one's relationship with God, especially in the love mysticism of the Song of Songs.

quote:
Just try to understand, Ive given all I can,
cause you got the best of me

Chorus:

Borderline feels like Im going to lose my mind
You just keep on pushing my love over the borderline.


I've often thought that the passionate eros in Madonna's music is really meant for God, and it seems to be the story of her life that she just can't find any lasting peace or happiness. In that sense, she's different from those who have been awakened in God's love and seek a deeper surrender. Still, it sometimes does feel like "I'm going to lose my mind," but in a good way. I needed to lose the "old mind," and need to have my life and love pushed over the borderline.

Now go listen to the song (best with headphones, volume up)."

I'm glad, Phil, you wrote about this (I listened to Madonna, right away ).
I used to have this kind of experience, while listening to pop-songs, that they actually describe divine love, like Song of Songs. Sometimes, it seemed silly to me, but it was very powerful at times.

I found out that the same happened often to John of the Cross. Once, when he was in jail, he heard through a window, someone singing a popular love song in Spanish and he was immediately caught in ecstasy.
He also transformed popular songs of his time into mystical poems. This was called "vuelto a lo divino", which means in Spanish, "changed/turned into divine".

So I think it's one of traditional Catholic experiences... even though it may seem a bit profane to some people.

After this introduction, I want to share a song that had this effect on me.
It's a song by Britney Spears (I know, I know... ) - "Born to make you happy".
Once I heard this song, and every word seemed to be about my love of God, about coming and going of consolations, and my yearning for more and more of this love.
Especially:

"CHORUS
I don't know how to live without your love
(I was born to make you happy)
'Cause you're the only one within my heart
(I was born to make you happy)
Always and forever you and me
That's the way our lives should be
I don't know how to live without your love
I was born to make you happy

I'd do anything, I'd give you my world
I'd wait forever, to be your girl
Just call out my name,
and I will be there
Just to show you how much I care"

It don't think that Britney's songwriter meant anything more than another simple love song. God's grace can use anything to open our heart here and now. (And I really like this tune, btw).

Ahh, great! Yes, it's often happened that the Spirit speaks to me using popular music, though I haven't been tuned in as much during the past years. Still, there's a good data bank in my memory. E.g.,

I want to know what love is
I want you to show me
I want to feel what love is
I know you can show me.
- by Foreigner

- - -

You are the sunshine of my life,
Thats why Ill always stay around,
You are the apple of my eye,
Forever youll stay in my heart,

You must have known that I was lonely,
Because you came to my rescue,
And I know that this must be heaven,
How could so much love be inside of you?
- Stevie Wonder

- - -

You just call out my name,
And you know whereever I am
Ill come running, oh yeah baby
To see you again.
Winter, spring, summer, or fall,
All you have to do is call
And Ill be there, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Youve got a friend.
- James Taylor (also Carole King)

- - -

And lots of others. Seems it often happens when awakening from sleep, or when I need some kind of message during the day. Generally, I've not heard the song recently nor thought of it for weeks, so it's sort of "out of the blue." Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's me petitioning God or vice versa.

Wow! I had an ecstatic experience with that Foreigner song during my K awakening. I had a sense of presence, not divine, but very feminine, with that song surging through my mind/ears and a deep deep delight, as if I was in love or would be in love or was experiencing a premonition of sexual/spiritual bliss.

Even on a mundane level, I love the overwrought emotionalism of the song. Come to think of it, doesn't that kind of passionate emotionalism in a religious context trigger ecstatic experience? I know my own K was partly set off by an ultra-emotional, deeply involved experience of music.

Then there was my friend's mother who was slain and flew to the heavens listening to "Killing Me Softly with His Song" . . . powerful stuff.

My sister tells how she was flooded with the Holy Spirit at the bar when this song by Police or is it Sting came on. "Suddenly I was aware that even if I tried to ditch Him when trying to drown my sorrows, I couldn't hide from Him." She woke up (so to speak) on the dance floor and went home. I'm probably taking great liberty here in quoting Psalm 139 vs.7-12

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
Ill be watching you

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
Ill be watching you

Oh, cant you see
You belong to me
How my poor heart aches
With every step you take

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
Ill be watching you

Since youve gone I been lost without a trace
I dream at night I can only see your face
I look around but its you I cant replace
I feel so cold and I long for your embrace
I keep crying baby, baby, please...

Oh, cant you see
You belong to me
How my poor heart aches
With every breath you take

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
Ill be watching you

Every move you make
Every step you take
Ill be watching you

Ill be watching you
Ill be watching you
Ill be watching you
Ill be watching you...

I read in Sun magazine of a young soldier who was in a mental hospital in Germany and heard Linda Ronstadt singing "Killing Me Softly" over the intercom while he was folding laundry. He had just been told that there was really no chance that he would be able to leave mental institutions, and he doesn't say what the mental illness was, just that it was severe, and did not have to do with combat stress. Anyway, he'd heard the song before, no big deal, but this time he felt like it was God singing to him, that he was God's baby, and by the end of the song he felt reassured of his place in the universe, and his own life made sense to him. He was discharged a week later, a basically normal guy, and when writing had been married many years, had worked many years, had children, grandchildren, a fairly normal life. He never bought the recording, it has no charge for him, the work it needed to do was done.

I too have often felt God's presence and my heart being lifted up to Him while listening to normal everyday music. Must be our openness to God that makes all things sacred and potential vehicles of grace.

I used to be able to listen to a great deal of music, but now find that it doesn't take long before it messes significantly with my energy and sense of peace. That's one reason I haven't "kept up" with it the past few years. What happens more frequently is that the music just sort of shows up in my mind, and I find myself humming something to myself. Here are a couple of others that come quite frequently -- songs you won't hear much on the radio, but which are in my "data bank" somehow.

You belong to my heart
Now and forever
And our love had its start
Not long ago
- by Bing Crosby (the music in my head is with Bingo singing)

The curious thing about that song, in particular, is that it seems to work just as well if it's my soul crooning to God, or vice versa.

- - -

A little love that slowly grows and grows
Not one that comes and goes that's all I want from you
- "That's all I want from you," by Skeeter Davis

That one seems to be from God. The song continues (but usually fades off, staying with the first two lines above)

A sunny day with hopes up to the sky a kiss and no goodbye
That's all I want from you.

Don't let me down, oh, show me that you care
Remember when you give you also get your share
Don't let me down I have no time to wait
Tomorrow might not come when dreams're dreamed too late

A little love that slowly grows and grows
Not one that comes and goes that's all I want from you.

Phil,
You are a tender soul.
I wonder how many of us have been hearing the refrains of songs to God for how many years!
Sweet of you to be vulnerable enough to share
them! I love it.

I have been quietly keeping a vigil with the threads of these conversations.....whispering souls talking of God.....it has a music of its own. Makes me glow.

Naomi