How Long to Sing This Song?

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reading time: 8 minutes.

I want to run, I want to hide. I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside. I want to reach out and touch the flame… where the streets have no name.


Of all U2’s songs, this one (Where the Streets Have No Name) has been most commonly understood as the band’s clearest longing for heaven. The joyful beginning to their album The Joshua Tree, this song explains that what is now earthly, bland, and painful will one day turn into something elevated, passionate, and complete. For example, Bono understands that people suffer these days: they are “beaten and blown by the wind, trampled into dust.” Likewise, He sings that while we suffer (that is, while we try and “take shelter from the poison rain”), he hopes to witness the end of such temporary, earthly things-- to “see the dust cloud disappear without a trace.”

He wants to “run”—to be free—yet, he feels compelled by fear to “hide.” He is torn in this world right now. He knows there is heaven awaiting him, but he knows that he must endure the suffering and the sacrifice. He wants to be free of all of the crap down here, to “tear down the walls that hold me inside,” and to encounter the Risen Christ: to “reach out and touch the flame, ” experience His pure joy and beatific vision (“sunlight on my face”), and His companionship and Love (“when I go there, I go there with you”). Ultimately, Bono longs for heaven. He longs terribly.

Tonight, after a wonderful two hour journey and after a fantastic dinner at Lambert’s in Sikeston (home of the “throwed rolls”), my friends and I headed towards home, stopping briefly in rural Missouri to sit and stargaze. It was here, under the warm night sky, surrounded by good friends and soft, twinkling stars that I began to ponder heaven and the stuff of life before it.

























I want to run. I want to hide. I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside.

Earlier in the week, I had called my brother Chris to see if he was coming down to St. Louis. He said that he was and we were going to go swimming together. I was psyched about it. During the same conversation, we talked about how I had been formally accepted to the seminary and how, God willing, I would be ordained in four years. Somehow, though, we began to talk about Jen and about how she was going to the Nashville Dominicans and how, during her first few years of formation, she would be unable to see much of family and friends. And she could not communicate with men during that time either.

“That’s horrible.” My brother said. “In fact, that’s ridiculous.” He was angry about it, that a religion would “force” women to “avoid” men. It was another notch in his belt for why religion is a bunch of hocus pocus—magic to the degree of lunacy.

On the other end of the phone, I stood amazed. I didn’t know how to respond. How do I explain the beautiful commitment that Jen is making? How can anyone explain the rationale behind the decision to withdraw from society for a while—or even forever in the case of cloistered nuns? I came up with a poor analogy which he easily dismissed. So, we said our brief goodbyes and hung up. I could tell that he thought me to be a moron to believe in such non-sense. And he was upset about it.

I thought about this conversation as I tried staring at the stars. Being night-blind, I could not see many; so I stared at a few in the hopes that more would “show up.” I hummed a praise and worship song. And I thought. Jen was close by and beginning to tear up—she knew it was one of the last nights the four of us would have together. We did, in a sense, just celebrate our Last Supper together. Now came the Agony in the Garden.

I did not know how she was doing it, how she was being able to say goodbye to so many people at once—her close family, her friends, her coworkers. Everyone. And she was giving away all of her possessions. All of it. In a few weeks she would have nothing of her own and no persons of her past to comfort her. She would have only her memories, her new sisters, and God.

So I continued to think. “How much suffering she must be going through! How she must long for heaven!” In fact, “How I long for heaven! How I wish it were here today!”

And then, I got it. I understood how to address the questions regarding religious life.

The answer was death-- specifically, Christ's passion and death.








I waited patiently for the Lord, He inclined and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit, out of the miry clay.


Now, I know what you’re thinking: Gerb has lost his mind. Kind of, but not really.

In this world, we must all answer three questions: 1) Where have I come from, 2) where am I at, and 3) where I am going. If we cannot account for where we have come from, where we are at, or where we are going, then we are lost.

I began to look at Jen’s decision and the entire religious life in the context of the third question: where are we going. And a simple fact raised its little head: we are all going to die. I do not mean to be overly morbid, but there is going to be a time when we have no possessions, no earthly contacts, no phone calls or emails. There is going to be a time when we are face to face—and quite dramatically might I add—with God himself. There is going to be a time, no matter what, when we realize that we are truly His. Likewise, there will be a time when we realize whether we lived according to that fact of being truly His.

This is the beauty of the religious life. Here is death itself glaring at all of us who watch Jen entering the convent. And here she is, in a very real way, dying to this world. Like Christ, she is agonizing over saying goodbye to friends and in giving away all that she owned. She is giving her life in a way that many people often fear to give-- yet nevertheless must face. That is, she is embracing the very thing which so many people fear and which all people must encounter: death to self.

Yet, in this giving-- in this sacrifice and suffering-- she is also receiving. She is giving herself to Christ entire and, in return, she receives Him entire! And haven’t we heard all of this before? Haven’t we encountered Christ agonizing in such a way before his crucifixion? Have we not seen him dead on the cross? And have we all not reaped the fruits of that sacrifice???

Jen, as Jesus once did, will die. And there was and will be a giving up of possessions, family, friends, everything that is of this world. Yet, Jen experiences this death right now—but not of the body, but of the world.

“How horrible!” my brother might say. And yes, I would agree--only if such statement refers to the nature of death itself. Yes, it is tough that we all have to suffer. And yes, sacrifice is not easy. And yes, death is a mystery that often strikes fear into the most hardened of sinners. But if we turn to Christ and we see how much he suffered and how much he sacrificed and that he-- God himself--passed through the portal of death, how much peace we must receive from Him; for how glorious is the resurrection! How glorious is this vocation where all around Jen witness a passing from darkness into light. How glorious that there are people right now who desire Christ so much that they will become completely unattached to this world and completely and totally God’s. This is our hope. And how much this calls us to examine and perfect our lives!

As we drove towards home, I couldn't help again thinking: “How I long for heaven! How I wish it were here today!”


At the end of the evening, Jen requested that we play “40” by U2 (who else!). It is based off of Psalm 40—a psalm of hope and renewal whose message is simple: we currently sing a song of suffering, but soon we shall sing a song of joy. I quote it entire here.

And sure, we are all going to miss Jen. Of course, we are all crying at her departure. But she is not dead. She is so incredibly alive in Christ! She has “torn down the walls that held [her] inside.” She has “reached out and touched the flame.” And His sunlight is on her face.

To die with Christ means to rise with Christ. May we die with him! And, with all the angels and saints, cry out: Come, Lord Jesus! Come!




I waited patiently for the Lord, He inclined and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit, out of the miry clay.
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song

How long to sing this song! How long to sing this song!
How long...how long...how long... How long...to sing this song!

He set my feet upon a rock and made my footsteps firm.
Many will see--Many will see and fear.
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song

How long to sing this song! How long to sing this song!
How long...how long...how long... How long...to sing this song!





















We love you, sister!