Life's dialectic: love, hate, and indifference

Today is the day, I guess. As noted a few Sundays ago, I have felt the need to re-dedicate myself to this small patch of cyberspace. One of the things I want to get back to is posting a Friday traditio. Because it's been a while since I have posted them regularly, the Καθολικός διάκονος Friday traditio consists of a song or a piece of music that is worth handing on. In Latin traditio is a noun that refers to what is handed on. By contrast, tradere is a verb that indicates the act of handing on.

In addition to a song, I usually post some thoughts from the preceding week. Sometimes it is a coherent observation and sometimes my commentary is multifaceted, one thought not necessarily flowing out from or into others. Oftentimes, my thought is related to the song I am posting.

Ian Curtis, by Zoa Studio

Today's traditio is a live version of U2's "With or Without You." Released as the lead single the band's 1987 album The Joshua Tree, "With or Without You" was ranked 131st on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of the top 500 songs of all-time. In 2017 the band a live performance at Abbey Road Studios. The program was "U2 at the BBC."

It's a nice, lightly orchestrated version of the song with the band front and center. You can hear Adam Clayton's nice bass work. Like most bassists, Clayton is the least heralded member of the band. Another nice aspect of this delicious live performance is Bono's evocation of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" toward the end of the song. This is a nice video with Bono talking about Joy Division's Ian Curtis, who left us far too soon.

Especially now, we seem to forget that to love someone, to really love an other, is to make yourself vulnerable. Love is always a risk. There is no hurt the rivals a broken heart. As Leonard Cohen sang, it's the cracks that let in the light. These things, until very recently, were common wisdom. Hate is not the opposite of love. The opposite of love is indifference.

Pope Francis speaks often of indifference. In a video message to the Fifth Festival of the Social Doctrine of the Church, delivered on 29 November 2015, the Holy Father said

Our life is made up of many things, a torrent of news, of many problems: all this leads us not to see, not to be aware of the problems of the people who are near us. Indifference seems to be a medicine that protects us from involvement and becomes a way of being more relaxed. This is indifference. But this non-involvement is a way of defending our selfishness, and saddens us

You don't play life not to lose. You play to win. In life, love is victory, the ultimate victory. Christ's resurrection shows us that love conquers even death. So, love can tear us apart or love can hold us together. There is a dialectic of love.

Like it or hate it, this is the music of my people. It's nice to resume the tradition of the traditio: