We’ve just passed the anniversary of John Lennon’s death. December 8th.
That’s not something I keep up with; I was reminded of the anniversary by a friend’s Facebook post.
I was only a marginal Beatles fan. Oh sure, as an 8-year old boy I was fascinated by that first album, Meet The Beatles. But it faded pretty quickly after that.
The only Beatle music I own was heisted from my radio station. I could return it, but they have as much use for a CD as they do a cassette.
By the time the Beatles were finally done as a band, it was pretty clear to anyone with half a brain - and who listened to their later songs - drugs were a pretty big part of their music-making process.
Yeah, some of it was fun, but a lot of it was nonsensical (says the guy who writes a pretty goofy blog).
As for John Lennon in particular, I never cared much for his music as a solo artist. His most successful and beloved song, Imagine, seemed to me to be the musings of a stoner.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Fire up another one, John-boy, and let’s take a ride in a yellow submarine!
Alas, from the release of Imagine to where we are now is a lot of years. And somewhere in those years is my own spiritual journey, still a work in progress.
It’s a journey built on reading books dealing with religious thought including some that are a complete about-face to my Southern Baptist upbringing. Others deal with the history of religion itself.
It’s built on travel. Meeting people in other places, seeing how they live and realizing that people all over the world generally like each other. It’s governments that can’t get along.
And it’s built on just living life. Seeing things and forming ideas about what’s here and what’s next.
That brings us back to the heaven and hell John spoke of in his song, wondering if the world would be better off without them.
A popular movement in more progressive churches these days seems to at least partially embrace Lennon’s imagination. They are increasingly dismissing the existence of hell as presented in the traditional biblical sense.
After all, they question, why would an all-loving, forgiving God ever sentence anyone to eternal damnation in a pit of fire?
More traditional churches, especially in rural America, have noticed.
When you begin to see push-back, church marquees with messages like, “HELL IS REAL” or “THIS CHURCH BELIEVES IN HELL,” that tells you there’s a bit of a theological divide developing.
Like most things dealing with religion, it’s not worth arguing over. You believe what you believe, and you’re probably not going to change anyone’s mind in an argument.
But as surely as we grow older and change physically, we grow and change spiritually. We grow more secular or more devout. We believe a little less or a little more.
Regardless of which direction we take, it causes us to see things differently than we might have before.
So, I hear Imagine differently now.
Do I buy into every line? I don’t really think about it that deeply. But I no longer dismiss it as the hippy $#!+ I used to label it.
It has some nice thoughts for a more peaceful world, especially in these times when political nastiness is en vogue.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but…
‘Tis the season we celebrate love, joy and happiness a little more than usual.
I wish you lots of it all.