SAW THIS PROGRAMME A while back. About this nice family who sold up, quit their high-powered jobs, and went bush with their kids – living simply and self-sufficiently six hours from the nearest shop.
My cup of tea? Nah, not really. I’m too fond of my comfort and mod-cons. But every now and then I sense that something’s missing. I mean, look at us:
We work at a pace we wish we didn’t have to … to earn money that’s never enough … to buy things we don’t really need … to impress people we don’t really like. We put so much effort into having a good time, it fair wears us out.
We’re like Bono in that U2 song: ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for …’
He explained it once in an interview: “You don’t become a rock star unless you’ve got something missing, that’s obvious to me. If you were a more complete person, you could feel normal without 70,000 people a night screaming their love for you.
“Blaise Pascal called it a God-shaped hole,” says Bono. “Everyone’s got one, but some are blacker and wider than others. It’s a feeling of being abandoned, cut adrift in space and time. I was like the character in that old blues song, ‘Sometimes I feel like a motherless child …’
“My own hole can still open up. I don’t think you ever completely fill it. You can try – with songs, family, faith, and a full life. But when things are silent you can still hear the hissing of what’s missing …”
Ouch – touché! Bono’s words seem to echo Saint Augustine’s: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless ‘til they find their rest in you.”
