Is it an horrific dream?
Am I sinking fast? Could a person be so mean As to laugh and laugh? On my own Could you ease my load? Could you see my pain? Could you please explain the hurting? These are the first words of the first song on the album ‘The Hurting’ (from the song ‘The Hurting’). And I have been asking God why it is that these thoughts so resonated with me at the age of 20 and, even more puzzlingly, still resonate with me over thirty years later. I still ask God: ‘could you please explain the hurting?’ Similarly, the words of ‘Mad World’, the first big hit, in 1982, which drew me and many others to the band, which is the second song on the album, connect strongly with me now as they did then: All around me are familiar faces Worn out places, worn out faces Bright and early for their daily races Going nowhere, going nowhere Their tears are fillin' up their glasses No expression, no expression Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow No tomorrow, no tomorrow And I find it kind of funny I find it kind of sad The dreams in which I'm dyin' Are the best I've ever had I find it hard to tell you 'Cause I find it hard to take When people run in circles It's a very, very Mad world, mad world Mad world, mad world It is notable that Curt Smith in a 2013 interview with The Quietus[1] recognises that: ‘The subject matter [of ‘Mad World’] seemed to click with people. How simple it was, and how dark it was, seemed to connect. It says something about the English psyche, that’s for sure, as did the Gary Jules version being a number one hit at Christmas’, 21 years after the original, in 2013. ‘Maybe English people get depressed over Christmas…’ [1] In Their Own Words. This Is Going To Hurt: The Mad World Of Tears For Fears’ Debut LP Wyndham Wallace, September 20th, 2013 09:28, http://thequietus.com/articles/13379-tears-for-fears-the-hurting-interview, accessed 12 April 2016.
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A favourite album of mine in 1984 (age 20) was ‘The Hurting’ by Tears for Fears. The album cover is very moving, and features a little boy, against a white background, curled up, with his head in his hands.
I owned the album in the old tape cassette format, and a particular memory is of driving from Redhill in Surrey down to college in Plymouth, as fast as was possible in a light blue Austin Metro, down the A303, with The Hurting blasting out through the open windows. This was made all the more challenging by the fact my highly advanced audio arrangements consisted of an ultra modern six-buttoned tape recorder player, perched precariously on the passenger seat of the car along with other bits of student debris. The requirement to turn the tape over every 20 minutes presented a considerable challenge in such circumstances, and the anxiety this induced was heightened beyond measure by the fact that the machine itself was prone to severe battery failure without a moment’s notice. Quite apart from the immediate loss of music on such occasions, this also signalled a far more catastrophic consequence in the form of the dreaded chewed up tape scenario. One’s entire musical life support system was in danger of coming to a sorry and desperate end at the hands of a mangled mass of failed technology. All judgment gone, the need of coming to the immediate aid of the tape on such occasions far surpassed the threat to life from swerving all over the A303. And the angst induced by such an experience only served to increase the poignancy of the profound lyrics of The Hurting. ‘I have seen his ways, but I will heal him.’
It is interesting that God chooses to use the words ‘I will heal him’ in this particular context. We might have expected the verse to say ‘I have seen his ways, but I will forgive him’. And we are perhaps more familiar with the concept of God forgiving us than with the concept of God healing us. And, of course, we do need the forgiveness of God for our ‘wilful ways’. But it is also possible that the idea of God’s forgiveness can feel a little bit distant, or a little bit contractual, to us. We are familiar with the idea of God’s forgiveness, but less familiar with the actual inner experience of God’s forgiveness. This seems to be addressed here by the very personal promise of Creator to created: ‘I have seen his ways, but I will heal him’. We need to know the forgiveness of God. But we also need to experience the deep inner healing of God for our brokenness, our fallenness, our wilfulness. There is a deep woundedness at the heart of humanity that needs an equally profound solution. As Jeremiah 17:9 says (NIVUK) 9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Isaiah 57:14-21 (NIV UK) reads:
14 And it will be said: ‘Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.’ 15 For this is what the high and lofty One says – he who lives for ever, whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. 16 I will not accuse for ever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me – the breath of man that I have created. 17 I was enraged by his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his wilful ways. 18 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, 19 creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near,’ says the Lord. ‘And I will heal them.’ 20 But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. 21 ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’ These are incredibly reassuring words from Isaiah, as we start this new year; a reminder that the God who lives in ‘a high and holy place’ is also the God who is with those who are ‘contrite and lowly in spirit’. The one who is ‘high and lofty’ and ‘whose name is holy’ is also the one who draws near with mercy and compassion to those he has lovingly created, in all their fallenness and brokenness. Even when we ‘enrage’ God by our actions, he draws near with great love to his fallen creation. There is a reminder in these verses that we are fully known by God. He knows all our ways, and all our wilfulness, yet he remembers our fragility and chooses to come close to us with incredible, yet entirely dependable, faithfulness. ‘I have seen his ways’, says God. Nothing is hidden from him. The good, the bad, and the ugly. ‘But I will heal him’. What an incredible promise. We are fully known by God; and yet, we are fully loved by God. |
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December 2020
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