One Day by Matisyahu

Let's Get Mystical

OK, this is old school. Olivia Newton John, the early years. She played the lovely Sandy in the movie Grease. As a recording artist, one of her more famous tunes was "Let's Get Physical." How's that for blunt? The lyrics went like this:

I'm saying all the things that I know you'll like
Making good conversation
I gotta handle you just right
You know what I mean
I took you to an intimate restaurant
Then to a suggestive movie
There's nothing left to talk about
Unless it's horizontally

Let's get physical, physical I wanna get physical ...
Let me hear your body talk


OK then. This sounds like the mating ritual of something in a Brazilian rainforest. I'd like to suggest that we're made for a bit more than only the physical. I think real love goes a bit further than that. Let's Get Mystical!

The truth revealed in Scripture, and echoed in our hearts through our human experience, is that we are actually a beautiful and mysterious harmony of spirit and matter. We are "sacraments" in the broad understanding of the word; visible signs of an invisible reality. This is part of the brilliant plan of God in making the universe... that there should be things visible and invisible, and that we humans would be the bridges between the two worlds. This explains our restlessness, our deep yearnings for More. It explains why we are at the same time both like and unlike the animals we share the planet with.

You see, the animals are the ones who get physical.... they eat and sleep and forage for food and build their little dwellings in the bush. They mate, they reproduce. But we humans dine, we rest, we create.... cathedrals, symphonies, prayers, poems and promises (a little John Denver reference there). And we make love.... though sadly, even this phrase is being stripped from the vocabulary today. People just have sex. Having sex used to mean being male or female, and checking the appropriate box. It went from a noun to a verb in just a generation or two.

These mystical phenomena we experience as humans set us worlds apart from the animals:

- music
- laughter
- poetry
- philosophy
- love!

St. Paul called us to dwell on these higher things.... "Think of what is above, not of what is on earth." (Colossians 3:2)

The trap that the "Let's Get Physical" approach falls into is the same trap that was set from the beginning by the Evil One; to divorce the physical from the mystical within us. The illusion is that we're made for one or the other and we must decide. Do we become hermits or hedonists? Well the answer is a combination. “As a being at once body and spirit, man expresses and perceives spiritual realities through physical signs and symbols” (CCC, n. 1146).

The art of being human lies in distinguishing the difference between idolatry and iconography; between worshiping the thing itself, or allowing it to lead us in wonder to the One Who created it. In the song, there's clearly a descent into the lower realms of lust, not a climb to the heights of love. The singer is using the other person for their own selfish pleasure, and pulling out all of the stops to make it happen; "I'm saying all the things that I know you'll like, making good conversation... I took you to an intimate restaurant. Then to a suggestive movie..." The song ends with the same refrain again, but a curious change takes place.... "Let's get animal, animal. I wanna get animal..."

In the words from a famous scene in the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles... "You're going the wrong way!"

We'd all do well to heed the words of Pope Benedict XVI:

An intoxicated and undisciplined eros, then, is not an ascent in “ecstasy” towards the Divine, but a fall, a degradation of man. Evidently, eros needs to be disciplined and purified if it is to provide not just fleeting pleasure, but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, of that beatitude for which our whole being yearns.
- God is Love, 4

So let's get mystical! That's the direction towards which we truly yearn. And we can find it in our human loves, as Pope Benedict asserts: "From the standpoint of creation, eros directs man towards marriage, to a bond which is unique and definitive; thus, and only thus, does it fulfill its deepest purpose." (God is Love, 11)

The Redemption of Rock Music

(originally published in Nov, 2007 for Christopher West's syndicated column "Body Language")

John Paul II warned that if chastity is lived in a repressive way, it’s only a matter of time before sexual desires explode (see Love and Responsibility, pp. 170-171). I think we find here a key for understanding the sexual revolution of the twentieth century. It was a ticking time bomb waiting to detonate in response to the prudery and repressiveness of the previous era.

If a culture’s music provides a window into the soul of that culture, I think the rise of rock music in the 1950's is very telling. Rock music seems to be an artistic expression of the explosion of all that pent-up desire. The very term "rock and roll" – coined by DJ Alan Freed in the early 50's – came, some say, from a slang term for sexual (mis)behavior.

Before you get the wrong impression, I’m actually writing as a fan of rock music – a big fan (of much of it, anyway). It’s in my blood. It’s "my" music. I can still remember my first "favorite song" from the radio. "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes..." by David Bowie. It was 1972 and I wasn’t even three years old.

Not all rock music glorifies lust and indulgence. Much of it expresses an earnest search for meaning. Neil Young "keeps on searchin’ for a heart of gold..." and Bono has "climbed the highest mountains" lookin’ for that thing he’s lookin’ for. Rock music for me has always expressed an interior longing, a search. It’s been a way of "getting out" what’s going on "within" – the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly.

As a rock drummer, myself, I can’t tell you the number of times I have pounded those skins as a form of therapy. We’ve all got bottled up "stuff" that needs an outlet. Drumming has been a great one for me. A good, driving beat not only rattles the walls, it shakes-up the soul as well. "Gimme the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock ‘n roll and drift away...."

If rock and roll can generally be understood as the musical expression of the sexual revolution, then I predict that as a new sexual revolution unfolds – and it is slowly unfolding with the spread of John Paul II’s theology of the body – so, too, will a new form of popular music. There are many signs, in fact, that a positive musical transformation is already quietly underway.

I want to point you to two of those signs: Mike Mangione and Vince Scheuerman. These two artists, whom I know personally, are part of a new breed of rock musician: both grew up on rock music; both, through hard times, came to love their Catholic faith; and both are working their tails off to make a difference in the secular world with their music.

Mike Mangione’s latest CD called Tenebrae (Latin for "shadows") has received great reviews from critics across the country and was selected as New York Magazine’s pick of the week this past September. Mangione’s rock-folk-acoustic-indie sound includes haunting cello and violin. His lyrics dig deep into the human experience, expressing an eros yearning for redemption in songs like "First Time: Please Forgive Me" and hope for a culture of life in the midst of a culture of death in songs like "The Killing Floor." You can learn more and order his CD at mikemangione.com. Also, search for his name on You Tube to see him perform "It’s Me, Not You."

Vince Scheuerman is the lead singer/songwriter for the band Army of Me. This past summer they toured with the Dave Matthews Band promoting their new album Citizen. Their video "Going Through Changes" has been a regular on MTV. While their sound is harder than Mangione’s, the lyrics come from that same place in the soul. They express a hunger for wholeness and communion in "Two into One" and the hope of rebirth in "Rise," a song inspired by the tsunami of December 2005. Learn more and order Citizen at Armyofmeonline.com and see their video for "Going Through Changes" on YouTube. Look closely and you’ll even see this MTV rock star wearing a scapular.

If rock music was born from the explosion of sexual repression, who knows – when John Paul II’s "theological time bomb" detonates, Madonna might really and truly sing "like a virgin."

- Christopher West