Questions
I’ve been listening to a song recently, If the World Was Ending. It’s a lovely little duet between two young lovers. The thing that brings it to the front for me is the question that gets asked, “If the world was ending, you’d come over. Right?” Think about that for a second. If the world was ending, you’d come over. Right? It’s that last word, said with a hint of doubt, that gives the song its poignancy. And ask it of yourself. Where would you go if the world was ending? And how would you tell someone no? Especially if they thought they meant something to you.
That’s a lot of information packed into a single line, and makes me remember a book of my youth, On the Beach. Back then we were always on the verge of getting bombed out of existence. The book told the story of group of people in Australia and what they did when the world was ending. Who came over and who did what. It made you think, just like this song makes me think. Which is a good thing for a song, or anything for that matter, making people think. Hard to do these days, and I wonder if anyone really did when the song came out.
It reminds me of another tune, One of Us by Joan Osbourne, where she asks what would you ask God if you just had one question, if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us. As the song progresses it becomes increasingly clear just how difficult it would be to accept God in our midst as one of us, because, well, we know what most of us look like. For someone comfortable in their faith, it might seem easy, but me thinks it might be harder than anyone imagines. And if he came, you’d come over. Right? And all of that is fun to mull over in your mind as you drift off to sleep, confidant in your world view.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale