Serve Somebody

I began the sermon for Sunday, February 21 by playing an excerpt from Bob Dylan’s song “Serve Somebody”. This song was on his 1979 release “Slow Train Coming”. It was one of two albums Dylan recorded during his “born again Christian” phase.

“ You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody....”

During the summer of 1981 I worked for the Barnett-McQueen construction and engineering company in Thunder Bay. It was my third full time job in the hiatus I took between high school and university. During the week I took care of tools that were returned to the shop after jobs. On weekends I sometimes did odd jobs for the company, like re-painting the lines on the office parking lot. I have a clear memory of my boom-box playing one cassette tape over and over again while I free-handed yellow parking lot lines.

One side of the tape was “Slow Train Coming”, and the other was Bruce Cockburn’s “Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws”. It was immensely important to me that these two prominent artists were expressing faith. It made my own recent religious conversion, and decision to follow a faithful path seem more possible.

Even at the tender age of 19 I could distinguish that Cockburn was more mystical and less dogmatic, and that Dylan’s faith was rough-hewn and rigid, even brittle.

Over the almost 30 years since, both of these artists have continued to evolve, with their art, and in their personal lives. Dylan’s “born again” phase lasted about 3 years. He is said to have answered critics by saying that even that was longer than Jesus’ public ministry. Cockburn seems to have moved towards more of a Unitarian faith than a Christ-centred expression, and continues to inspire many with his music, and with his personal commitment to social justice and development issues.

These days, I listen to Bruce Cockburn for inspiration far more often than Bob Dylan. But Dylan still has things to say to me, and I continue to be challenged by his assertion from 1979, that each of us “have to serve somebody”.

Mountain Top Experience

The Bible stories for this past Sunday were about encounters with God on a mountain-top. During my sermon I made an extemporaneous reference to a moment in the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Viewers saw the snow-boarder Johnny Lyall on the very peak of a mountain, preparing for his exhilarating ride down. The panorama around the lone, daring figure, of a clear blue sky, pierced by the craggy peaks of other Rocky Mountains was breath-taking. I imagined myself in this young man's place. There is no way I could negotiate my way down that mountain as he did. I found myself wondering, "How'd he get up there?"

You can watch the snowboarding portion of the video of the opening ceremonies online at www.ctv.ca. The images are captivating. It is easy to think only about the amazing athlete who bursts through the Olympic rings in BC Place, after the crowd has just watched the mountain descent on the big screen.

It took a helicopter to bring the young boarder to that height. Helicopters were also used in capturing the video of his descent. Each helicopter would require a pilot, and a camera person. Each helicopter also has to be maintained for safety. The raw video footage would have to be edited. The sound track would have to be added in.

I began wondering how many souls were part of the crew that made this amazing mountain-top adventure possible, and then made it available for us to watch it. My research led me to www.snowboarding.transworld.net, which reports that Johnny Lyall “and pro riders Shin Campos, David Aubry and Benji Ritchie provided the action for the segment edited to look like one rider.”

So this “mountain-top” experience was anything but a solitary effort. Does this make it any more amazing? I choose to look at this as another sign that we need each other, and that together we can do incredible things.

I remember reading once that even religious hermits, like the monk and scholar Thomas Merton, who lived for many years lived a solitary life in a small cottage on the grounds of a monastery, need the spiritual and physical support of a community in order to thrive.