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“So needless to say I’m odds and ends
But that’s me, stumbling away
Slowly learning that life is O.K.
Say after me
It’s no better to be safe than sorry.” A-ha — “Take On Me”
I keep up with a few blogs in addition to my own.
Each one on my short list is a unique expression of its keeper, but our shared passion is a love of the written word. At one time or another, each of the blogs I follow have inspired my own words, as I believe mine, at times, has inspired theirs.
My friend Linda’s latest post at The Task At Hand inspired me today to select a Lenten anthem to listen to daily for the sheer joy it will bring me. I chose an eighties pop song released by the Norwegian band A-ha, a song that holds special meaning in my life.
My favorite line in the song — “Say after me… It’s no better to be safe than sorry” — are words I must take to heart. And in fact, a few times in my life, I’ve given up safe to avoid being sorry. One time occurred just as this song was flying high on the music charts in late 1985, when I was slowly teetering off the edge of my own safe world to the riskier world of what has become the loving home of my second marriage.
I hear the song’s opening beats and I feel better instantly. It wipes away clouds and shines me with hope. And my hope during Lent is that by keeping daily company with this song, I will be empowered to become who I wish to be and what I wish my writing to become. Like an apple a day that keeps the doctor away, I pray that my Lenten Anthem will become good spiritual medicine in supplanting negative voices of doubt with positive messages of ‘can-do”.
The original music video, featured above, won six awards at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards. The story it tells holds a powerful Lenten message, as it depicts a cartoon fighting to become real. And becoming real, becoming our true selves before God, is what Lent is all about. We give up something say — or we take on some practice. But all the giving up and taking on is done in order to know who we are and who we are not — and importantly, to know whose we are and are not — and to discover our current weight on the scale of Reality. As one of my favorite authors, Frederick Buechner, writes,
“During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.”
Lent invites us to put down all of our props and take off — or in some cases, pry off — all of our masks so that we once again become true to our own reality, so that we can breathe free again, so that without constraints, nothing gets in the way between us and a God called Reality, to borrow that God-word used so often by Evelyn Underhill.
Rather than give up something this Lenten season I choose to Take On Me.
an everyday life 
Janell, I’m just astonished on so many levels by this video. I’d never seen it, but it’s no wonder it was an award winner. It’s smart, sophisticated, and perhaps even more relevant today than it was in its own time.
Arti, over at Ripple Effects, was writing about Somerset Maugham’s Theatre when we were writing our new entries about Lent. I really think you’d enjoy reading what she has to say in her review about acting, artifice and reality in Maugham and in today’s cyber-world.
After commenting there, I went back and added this video. I think you’ll see why. It perfectly illustrates her words.
I’m increasingly amazed at the way blogs written by people who never have met and who don’t communicate about their intended writing path can add to and mesh with one another. Who knew that Somerset Maugham and A-ha could be so happily linked?
Native Americans(of whom I count a number as dear friends) say “We are all related” and I think one of the marvels of the digital age is quite how easily we find our closest spirit kin.
Every living thing on earth shares at least a tiny proportion of its DNA code with everything else; some like Orang utans are very close to us indeed. If I am physically related(by great distance) to jellyfish and algae, then to find those with whom I am spiritually related so readily(compared with 20 years ago) is a miracle beyond wonder.
For me, this Lent is about surviving the rest of the winter without going stir crazy. I’ve taken on things, not especially for the season but taken on anyway. part of me missed going to an Ash Wednesday service this year; it’s not bothered me the last years. Maybe some hidden and lost part of me is waking up again…
Linda & Viv,
It seems good and right to respond to both of you in one note — as your separate comments converge on that point of interconnectedness.
I enjoyed reading Arti’s most recent post on reality and artifice — thank you Linda for sharing the link. Hearing the ‘rest of the story’, as originally told by Somerset Maugham, certainly helps make sense of the movie “Being Julia” by revealing that elusive hidden point — that comes through the dialog of mother and son. I recall walking out of the movie theater a little lost — however long ago that was now — wondering what it was that I had missed.
The opening paragraph in Viv’s comment, penned only minutes before Linda’s, was certainly underlined by Linda’s message on cyber-connectivity. And Viv’s thought of some hidden and lost part of her waking up during Lent has stirred to life my own thoughts about Jung and his concept of the shadow side of personality.
Specifically, I’m wondering what answers toward becoming more real might come from exploring my own shadow side during Lent. I was told about a year ago that mining the shadow (hidden) side of my own personality could yield ninety percent gold — it seems a worthy spiritual practice for Lent — especially if the work were to lead to wholeness — reality — intra-connectivity.
What began with Linda’s idea of a Lenten Anthem ends with these two comments on hidden points and interconnectedness — which have pointed me toward a desire to look at my shadow side for ‘gold’.
Interconnectedness… all. Indeed I will … “Take On Me”.
Thank you for sharing.
Janell
This looks like pleasant and safe water… allow me to plunge in. Yes, it’s amazing how connected we all are, not only the literal sense that we can ‘talk’ to each other in cyberspace, but that we seem to be preoccupied with similar thoughts more or less the same time. Thank you Linda for linking my latest post here. Janell, isn’t that true… I was a bit lost too after watching the curtain closes on Julia and I thought “uh… that’s it?” So it’s good to be able to read the source material. Roger is the only one who seems to be able to see through it all, and brave enough to confront his mother, while everyone either is deceived or has bought into the acting life.
The A-ha Take On Me Video is brilliant, it illustrates vividly the fluidity of our identities, of realities… this ‘liminal’ existence Sherry Turkle mentions. As for the axiom ‘It’s no better to be safe than sorry’, I’d like to say I embrace it whole-heartedly, but, you see, I would always test the water first, even as I write now, before I plunge in head first to this fine pool of thoughts and sharing. Thank you for this post and allowing us to further our connectedness through the exchange of ideas.
Arti,
Even now, as I think about the common threads of your post and Linda’s post and my own words — and those words and images of older vintage, like those of W. Somerset Maugham and A-ha — I shake my head in wonder. In spite of technological progress, the human experience in striving for reality seems constant and never-ending.
Yet, I wonder — how many of us are ‘lucky’ enough to have a Roger in our lives — to let us know when we are not being true to ourselves? And if we did, would we count ourselves lucky…. or not? These words make me think of that haunting question that Jesus asked of Pilate — “What is truth?” And would we know truth if we saw it — in real time?
“It’s no better to be safe than sorry” goes against everything I was ever taught — in words and in actions. Working as a CPA for so many years served to reinforce that early learning, when I was trained to cross those t’s and dot those i’s and create a little cushion for the fall — just in case.
It strikes me that daring to speak the truth to one whom we love is a person who truly lives the principle — it’s no better to be safe than sorry. Is this what Roger did I wonder? Or was his confrontation done without love? I can’t say as I’ve never read the book — though your review has sparked that desire.
Arti — it was good of you to visit — and even better to let me know of it. I apologize for failing to extend the same courtesy to you. Next time I will.
Janell
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