What the world needs now
Is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now
Is love, sweet love
No, not just for some, but for everyone
Lord, we don’t need another mountain
There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross
Enough to last until the end of time
This song was penned by Hal David with musical arrangement by Burt Bacharach in 1965, when the United States was deeply divided over the war in Vietnam. Although the song is simple and wildly popular, Bacharach admitted in his autobiography that the lyrics were among the most difficult David ever wrote. He revealed that they had the main melody and chorus written in 1962, but it took another two years for David to finally come up with the lyric, “Lord, we don’t need another mountain.” Once David wrote the verses, the song essentially “wrote itself” and was completed in a day or two. The pair knew it would be controversial given the times, but made the song anyway.
I was recently at a meeting where faith leaders were trying to determine how best to respond to “this moment in time.” Even this vague language evidenced a reticence to acknowledge the suffering and victimization being experienced in our congregations and communities. Some favored a contemplative approach, others advocated for mass protests, many felt passionate about galvanizing support for the newly disenfranchised and marginalized. What started as a good faith effort toward ecumenical justice-making quickly began to unravel as people dug into their positions. It got contentious and awkward, but we pressed on and produced the beginnings of a strategy.
The song resonated in my spirit – a reminder that this isn’t our first time being deeply divided. We’ve had to figure out ways to reach across our divergent convictions, opinions, and fears to reconcile. We’ve had to restore our social fabric and arbitrate our collective identity. We can do it again. But how?
In Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society, John A. Powell writes, “Spirituality is the practice of addressing ontological suffering by relating to something more authentic and larger than the egoistic self. It is informed by suffering on the one hand… and love on the other.” Could this be the answer? Spirituality? I believe our congregations and communities need us to reclaim a leading role in healing our world and addressing suffering by doing more than naming a list of ills, individual wrongs, and systemic evils. The world needs us to address suffering with/through the God who gave us God’s son. The love of God through Jesus Christ is the “something… more authentic and larger than the egoistic self.”
In The Soul Care Birthright, Guy Robinson stresses, “the urgent need for postmodern church leaders to retrain, reframe, and reclaim a leading role.” He writes, “the postmodern world is facing not just a mental health crisis, but a psychospiritual crisis that the church is duty bound to address as the heir of a soul care birthright bequeathed to it by the exemplary life, teachings, and ministerial practices of Jesus Christ.”
Leading and leaning into Spirituality as communal practice, rooted and rendered in love, might be the answer.
Sixty years later, I believe those songwriters were onto something.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
Discussion Prompts:
- What do the different types and varying degrees of suffering look like in your congregation, community, and/or neighborhood?
- How might communal Spiritual practices help address suffering in your context?
- How can we begin to retrain, reframe, and reclaim a leading role in addressing the mental health, psychospiritual, and/or political crisis of our time?
- In your context, how does “the exemplary life, teachings, and ministerial practices of Jesus Christ,” as well as Jesus’ death and resurrection, offer healing?
No Comments