My music tastes have never tended too much toward rock.I’ve always liked classical music. I was more into folk music and ballads when I was in high school. There was a phase, when our children were in high school, when they complained that I played my music too loud and requested that I only listen to opera out in the garage. I haven’t invested in fancy stereo equipment and I often prefer to just have things quiet around the house. I do have a radio out in the garage and another in my library and with digital music, I can access the music that I have on my computer from my phone and play it through the speakers in the garage or in my library.

The place where I listen to music the most is in the car. It isn’t something that I do when there are others in the car. I’m most likely to turn off the radio and talk to the person with whom I’m riding.

Sometimes, however, when I’m driving alone I turn up the radio and listen to the music.

One of my concessions to rock music is that I like Bruce Springsteen. I’m not sure what it is about his music that puts me in the mood to listen, but I suspect that it is that he really is a balladeer. You can hear the influence of Bob Dylan in his style of singing. I guess he is a bit more like the electric Dylan than the acoustic clan, and his voice is really different, but there is something in his way of presenting a song that appeals to me.

Probably part of the reason I like Springsteen is that I can understand the lyrics. I admit that my hearing isn’t quite what it used to be. Unlike my peers and perhaps my brother, my hearing loss doesn’t have much to do with playing in or even listening to rock bands and having had my eardrums blasted. In my case the loud noise came mostly from operating machinery, flying airplanes and using chainsaws in the days before we were as careful about hearing protection as we are these days.

So there are probably teens who can understand the lyrics to the music that they listen to. But I don’t understand the words. Of course I don’t understand the words when I listen to Italian or German opera, either. I’ve never gotten past a few words here and there in Italian or German. The operas I enjoy, however, are ones where I know the story line and even though I don’t get the words to every song, I know that story and the music carries the story for me.

But when it comes to popular music, I like to be able to understand the words.

So I was running some errands yesterday and listening to Bruce Springsteen on the car stereo. I probably had the volume turned up a bit louder than usual. On the other hand, I’m sure that other drivers couldn’t hear the thump, thump, thump of the base as is the case with the sound systems in some cars. And I don’t think that the stereo was loud enough to distract me from driving.

Part of the refrain from “High Hopes” by Mcconnell and Timothy Scott, stuck in my head:

“Give me help, give me strength
Give a soul a night of fearless sleep
Give me love, give me peace
Don’t you know these days you pay for everything
Got high hopes”

Springsteen likes songs that tell the stories of everyday working people and there are lines in the song that speak of a mother with a baby crying in her arms and the aspirations of a working man with too little money for the things he needs.

It is a different mood and a different meaning than I often think of when I think of hope. Being a preacher, my thoughts are often a bit ethereal, I suppose, but I’m careful to not use the word “hope” when I am speaking of “wants” or “desires.” Hope is reaching for the transcendent, in my way of thinking. I don’t like to use it when I am speaking of material needs or getting through the hard days of a difficult life.

I think it is a distinction that would have made little sense to our biblical forebears. They lived their lives much closer to the edge of survival. When the people were crying out to God for food in the desert, they were really hungry. When they talked of deliverance from enemies, they were facing real physical threats. They probably didn’t have time or energy for esoteric, theoretical conversations about the transcendent nature of God. When they prayed, “God help us!” they were thinking about immediate and real needs.

They probably used the concept of hope much closer to the way it comes across in the Springsteen song than the way I use it in my preaching. Springsteen sings:

“Come from the city, coming from the wild
I see a breathless army breaking like a cloud
They’re gonna smother love, they’re gonna shoot your hopes
Before the meek inherit they’ll learn to hate themselves
Give me help, give me strength . . .”

“Tell me someone now, what's the price
I wanna buy some time and maybe live my life
I wanna have a wife, I wanna have some kids
I wanna look in their eyes and know they'll stand a chance . . .”

One of the basic truths of the Christian faith is that God is at once transcendent and present. The great creator of the entire universe takes on human form and lives and breathes the life we know.

We are as close to God when we are praying for strength to get through one more day as we are when we pray for world peace or a glimpse of eternal life.

Hope isn’t just reserved for intellectual explanations. It is a present force in everyday life.

May you find high hopes in your life today.

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