Springsteen and Life’s Mystery Ride

So much about life is a mystery, isn’t it?

Growing up in Jersey, my Mom, perhaps predictably, played the music of Bruce Springsteen constantly. I’m pretty sure I knew the lyrics to Thunderoad by the age of five. 

In one of my favorite songs of his, Walk Like a Man, the second verse goes like this:

By Our Lady of the Roses, we lived in the shadow of the elms. 

I remember ma draggin’ me and my sister up the street to the Church whenever she heard those wedding bells. 

Well, would they ever look so happy again, the handsome groom and his bride, as they slipped into that long black limousine for their mystery ride. 

Well tonight, you step away from me and alone at the alter I stand. 

And as I watch my bride coming down the aisle I pray for the strength to walk like a man. 

Marriage is a microcosm of life and marriage is a mystery ride. When you get married you promise to love and be faithful to the person who is right in front of you and the person they will become without knowing exactly who they will become. What will happen? Will you have children? Will they stick around when things get hard? Will they grow or stay the same? Will they stay faithful? Maybe you have a good guess as to the answer to these questions but you don’t know. Marriage, like life, is a mystery ride. 

How long will you live? How will you die? What will the last conversation be like with the people you love? When your number is called, how close to Jesus will you be?

There is so much we don’t know that it can be scary and overwhelming. So much so that we can think finding the answers or obsessing over solutions to things is the only thing that can mitigate the anxiety or fear we feel toward the uncertainties of life. 

But those kinds of answers can’t be found and they certainly can’t take away your anxiety. The only thing that can be done is the simplification of life. 

Who are you? And what are you here for?

You are a son or daughter of God who is loved and there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot lose it and you cannot earn it. 

And you are here to know, love and serve God in this life and to be with him happily in Heaven forever. 

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. It’s not more complicated than that. That’s not to say it’s easy to live out of those two truth’s but it is simple. Everything else is largely God’s business. What happens to you and how it happens to you is His business. 

Your sole job is to become who you are and serve as He calls you to serve. 

God bless and remember you were made to do hard things.