Pastime Paradise

[Still Daniel posting for Alex.]

 

On the songs and futures theme, I heard Patti Smith's cover of Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise" this morning. (Think, "Gangster's Paradise," and you're on the right tune.) Here's a snip of the song that reveals "the problem":

 

They've been wasting most their time
Glorifying days long gone behind
...Tell me who of them will come to be
How many of them are you and me
Dissipation
Race relations
Consolation
Segregation
Dispensation
Isolation
Exploitation
Mutilation
Mutations
Miscreation
Confirmation...to the evils of the world

The call of the song is to look forward to the rectification of these evils:

 

They keep telling of the day
When the savior of love will come to stay
...Proclamation
Of race relations
Consolation
Integretion
Verification
Of revelations
Acclamation
World salvation
Vibrations
Stimulation
Confirmation...to the peace of the world

 

As in our little look at "Busload of Faith," I think that we see again the importance of knowing the future, of hoping for a future, and the calling that Christians have to bring the future to bear on the present. This is what Rom 8 is all about: the future resurrection life that we have in Jesus is something that we begin living out here--that's why we're adopted children, that's why we're justified, that's why we have hope.

 

Looking forward to the coming day, to the "future paradise" is not a call for detached withdrawl. It is a call for faithfully connecting the dots between then and now. Will we be sanctified? Then we are called to pursue holiness. Will the world be redeemed? Then we are called to restore its order. Will the people of the earth be one? Then we are called to the things that make for peace and unity.