OPINION:
I was listening in the car the other day to an old Jackson Browne album.
Don’t judge. The man has talent, even if, in his 70s, he still suffers from chronic liberalitis.
Contracted in adolescence, liberalitis is a mental block against reality that usually fades in most people with the passing of time. For some reason, people in show business seem more inclined than others to have an antibioticlike resistance to the kinds of life lessons that constitute a cure.
For example, consider actor Robert De Niro, whose anti-Trump rants grow more profane by the day, or any number of other Hollywood stars who have taken to social media to warn us that the Trumpapocalypse is upon us.
Anyway, in “My Problem Is You,” one of Mr. Browne’s songs from his 1993 “I’m Alive” album, he proclaims a heartfelt desire that could at first be misread as a yearning for God. “I wait for the sun to rise over the mountain, I wait for your touch. I wait for your angels to carry me home, but I wait too much. Waiting for you.”
The rest of the song makes it clear that he is not waiting for God but for a woman with whom he is perhaps in love but who is wary of entanglement.
At first, I took a sort of “Waiting for Godot” meaning from the song, thinking that it was along the lines of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist 1953 play whose message is not to expect God to be real or relevant anytime soon, if ever.
No wonder the liberal critics love this play and Broadway keeps staging revivals. Artful existentialism will never go out of style as long as people want to pretend there’s no God.
John Lennon’s song “Imagine” is still wildly popular. It’s a catchy, atheist anthem that I imagine Lennon is now somewhere regretting. Speaking of such folks, at a recent Washington Nationals baseball game, I sat a few rows behind a bearded guy in a hat who wore a shocking yellow shirt, the back of which was emblazoned with this: “‘When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.’ — Sinclair Lewis.”
This was just two days after a transgender-inspired “anti-fascist” fatally shot Christian conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah college on Sept. 10 and a couple of weeks after a leftist transgender shooter killed two children in a Catholic church. The yellow-shirted man’s open bigotry was on display where people go to enjoy a great American pastime together, regardless of race or politics. It was annoying, but it was not worth my ruining the game for everyone near us by asking him a series of pointed questions. There were lots of kids around us too.
Given the left’s penchant for politicizing everything in life, the man’s bluntness wasn’t as shocking as it should be. It probably didn’t matter to him that Lewis’ authorship of that quote has never been verified, although it does reflect Lewis’ atheist philosophy and his 1935 communist-inspired book warning about fascism in America: “It Can’t Happen Here.”
I turned my attention back to the game. The Nationals were wiped out, 8-0, on a nearly perfect game by White Sox pitchers, who gave up a measly single to the home team to end the 162-game season for both squads.
The only highlights came early, when the incomparable D.C. Washington sang “God Bless America” and the giant “Teddy” mascot won the Presidents Race.
Upon leaving the stadium, I thought of the yellow-shirted guy and felt sorry for him. Why had he felt the need to inflict his views on the rest of us? I know why I do it.
Some more lyrics from Jackson Browne’s song came to mind. “I need your wonder and I need your light; I need your tender touch to heal the night.”
This could have been about what happens when people stop resisting the pursuit of the Hound of Heaven and accept God’s love. That’s what Sinclair Lewis’ fellow atheist, C.S. Lewis, did in 1931 after conversing with J.R.R. Tolkien.
A scholar in Old and Middle English at Oxford University, Tolkien wrote “The Lord of the Rings.” He explained to his friend Lewis, a professor of medieval studies, that all the pagan myths about dying gods and resurrection before the coming of Christ moved the human heart because they were “splintered fragments” presaging the real thing. Allegorical poetry, in other words.
The difference is that the Gospel account is true. Jesus Christ came, died and was resurrected. That makes all the difference. The question every seeking soul might want to ask is, “Who is waiting for whom?”
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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