So Erika gave me a book as a belated Christmas present last month called Surfaces and Essences, and I haven't yet read more than a couple pages of the preface (which is pretty intimidating, by the way!), but I've gathered from that skimming and from conversations about the book with Mr. B and Mr. L that it heavily considers analogies.
I love analogies. I'm trying to incorporate them more into my daily speech. But I also note that songs and books and movies and people have been analogous of each other, which is an idea that my friend Vicki has written about! Here I'll discuss two such analogous songs and how they both are analogous to Christ and the Christian's life, or at least the way that they're analogous to my life. And from there, dear reader, you can take my life as an analogy of your own and learn from me, for in the end we're not that different.
"Yesterday," (The Beatles)
Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away!
Now it looks as though they're here to stay;
Oh, I believe in yesterday...
Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be:
There's a shadow hanging over me:
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go I don't know; she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong; now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away;
Oh, I believe in yesterday...
Here the singer has harmed a woman: he admits that he must have "said something wrong" that made her go away, and that now he "long[s] for yesterday." This guilt weighs on him like a shadowy cloud hanging over him, like a thundercloud that crept up overnight. His loss comes upon him "suddenly" and the narrative gives us a glimpse of his failure: he was playing a game of love that blew up in his face today and shames him into hiding, looking wistfully backwards at yesterday. He is a cheating man, and "suddenly" he realizes how much love has exacted from him: a Shylockian pound of flesh.
"Suddenly" (perf. by Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables [2012])
Suddenly I see! Suddenly it starts!
Can two anxious hearts beat as one?
Yesterday I was alone; today you walk beside me...
Something still unclear, something not yet here has begun.
Suddenly the world seems a different place,
somehow full of grace and delight!
How was I to know that so much hope was held inside me?
What has passed is gone; now we journey on through the night.
How was I to know at last that happiness can come so fast?
Trusting me the way you do; I'm so afraid of failing you!
Just a child who cannot know that danger follows where'er I go;
There are shadows everywhere and memories I cannot share.
Nevermore alone, nevermore apart,
you have warmed my heart like the sun.
You have brought the gift of life and love so long denied me...
Suddenly I see what I could not see: something suddenly has begun!
The word "suddenly" is repeated over and over again in this NEW Les Mis song, lending itself to the title. But it only triggered this sudden epiphany when I heard the Beatles' "Yesterday" when Paul McCartney suddenly picks up the tempo of the strings and the timbres of his voice when he enters the short bridge with that one word: "Suddenly!" And the reason that I remembered this song so well from the Les Mis film is because these NEW dialogue lines resonated so clearly with me and my mother's role in life:
VALJEAN: Where I go, you will be.
COSETTE: Will you be like a Papa to me?
VALJEAN: Yes, Cosette! This is true! I'll be father and mother to you!
Havingbeen raised lived in a one-parent home for the majority of my life, I've seen and witnessed just how desperate and wary a question Cosette asks her immediate savior. But God is able to do more than we ask or think or reasonably expect: He raises the church to be a mother and promises Himself as the great Father to the fatherless. (Furthermore, he gave my grandparents to me as surrogates, so you needn't despair for me, O reader.) In this, the Les Mis "Suddenly" portrays a more true and lovely depiction of love and self-sacrifice.
Ah, self-sacrifice. This is the second analogy I draw from these songs, and they both say the same message, but only one is salvific. Paul McCartney croons "Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be," but his love song has no resurrection. His love's story is dead and gone, and he longs for yesterday before his love died. On the other hand, Hugh Jackman sweetly asks God, "Suddenly it starts: can two anxious hearts beat as one?" His love song isn't even romantic, yet still all love requires sacrifice: truly Jean ValJean died the day he adopted Cosette as his very own daughter. But because his is a true love in that it is a hopeful and enduring love (a la 1 Corinthians 13), it has a resurrection and a new life that opens with Jean ValJean's defrosting heart. He's not half the man he used to be, but he's a better man for the division since the new life is better.
1. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/2012/12/29/the-les-miserables-movie-suddenly-theres-a-new-song-spoiler-alert/
2. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lesmiserablescast/suddenly.html
3. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/yesterday.html
I love analogies. I'm trying to incorporate them more into my daily speech. But I also note that songs and books and movies and people have been analogous of each other, which is an idea that my friend Vicki has written about! Here I'll discuss two such analogous songs and how they both are analogous to Christ and the Christian's life, or at least the way that they're analogous to my life. And from there, dear reader, you can take my life as an analogy of your own and learn from me, for in the end we're not that different.
"Yesterday," (The Beatles)
Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away!
Now it looks as though they're here to stay;
Oh, I believe in yesterday...
Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be:
There's a shadow hanging over me:
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go I don't know; she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong; now I long for yesterday.
Yesterday love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away;
Oh, I believe in yesterday...
Here the singer has harmed a woman: he admits that he must have "said something wrong" that made her go away, and that now he "long[s] for yesterday." This guilt weighs on him like a shadowy cloud hanging over him, like a thundercloud that crept up overnight. His loss comes upon him "suddenly" and the narrative gives us a glimpse of his failure: he was playing a game of love that blew up in his face today and shames him into hiding, looking wistfully backwards at yesterday. He is a cheating man, and "suddenly" he realizes how much love has exacted from him: a Shylockian pound of flesh.
"Suddenly" (perf. by Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables [2012])
Suddenly I see! Suddenly it starts!
Can two anxious hearts beat as one?
Yesterday I was alone; today you walk beside me...
Something still unclear, something not yet here has begun.
Suddenly the world seems a different place,
somehow full of grace and delight!
How was I to know that so much hope was held inside me?
What has passed is gone; now we journey on through the night.
How was I to know at last that happiness can come so fast?
Trusting me the way you do; I'm so afraid of failing you!
Just a child who cannot know that danger follows where'er I go;
There are shadows everywhere and memories I cannot share.
Nevermore alone, nevermore apart,
you have warmed my heart like the sun.
You have brought the gift of life and love so long denied me...
Suddenly I see what I could not see: something suddenly has begun!
The word "suddenly" is repeated over and over again in this NEW Les Mis song, lending itself to the title. But it only triggered this sudden epiphany when I heard the Beatles' "Yesterday" when Paul McCartney suddenly picks up the tempo of the strings and the timbres of his voice when he enters the short bridge with that one word: "Suddenly!" And the reason that I remembered this song so well from the Les Mis film is because these NEW dialogue lines resonated so clearly with me and my mother's role in life:
VALJEAN: Where I go, you will be.
COSETTE: Will you be like a Papa to me?
VALJEAN: Yes, Cosette! This is true! I'll be father and mother to you!
Having
Ah, self-sacrifice. This is the second analogy I draw from these songs, and they both say the same message, but only one is salvific. Paul McCartney croons "Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be," but his love song has no resurrection. His love's story is dead and gone, and he longs for yesterday before his love died. On the other hand, Hugh Jackman sweetly asks God, "Suddenly it starts: can two anxious hearts beat as one?" His love song isn't even romantic, yet still all love requires sacrifice: truly Jean ValJean died the day he adopted Cosette as his very own daughter. But because his is a true love in that it is a hopeful and enduring love (a la 1 Corinthians 13), it has a resurrection and a new life that opens with Jean ValJean's defrosting heart. He's not half the man he used to be, but he's a better man for the division since the new life is better.
1. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/2012/12/29/the-les-miserables-movie-suddenly-theres-a-new-song-spoiler-alert/
2. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lesmiserablescast/suddenly.html
3. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/yesterday.html
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