A Walk with Aqualung – My God

Greetings Dear Reader,

This song leads the B side of the original album.  The soft guitar at the outset is deceptive and lulls one into a false sense of calm.  The words are tumultuous and raw.  The song also clarifies that any religious hints on the A side were intended.  The song stands on its own musically.  I will focus on the words and their impact on me.

The accusation in the first line is not directed at the church organization but rather the people in it.  It is not allowable for the people of the church to put responsibility on the organization for the truth of who God is.  If we remember the words on the album cover this is a continuation of the problem of making God in our own image.  We take Christ, who conquered death through the resurrection and force him into the mold of a religious construct.  If the construct is all we can see then the God we worship is not a god at all.

In contrast Ian Anderson expresses that the God who is part of all of us is the God of everything.  He then insists that we not ask him to save us from our own accepted sins.  It is not the construct of the church or religion that leads to salvation.  It is arrogance to think that we can demand God’s presence in our rituals when we do not acknowledge him everywhere (Windup).

We turn leadership into graven images by assigning them power they do not have.  We make things and people our gods instead of turning to that with real power.  We use guilt, sin, and confession to control people instead of love, grace, and mercy to spur them to greatness.

I must follow Christ, not any construct or organized system.  I must allow the trappings of religion to be the man made things they are and follow only what Christ teaches.  This does not mean that I abandon the church but rather that I work within it to build it into what it is meant to be for God.

Back then, in 1971, it was not that I did not believe in God.  I was in full belief and so angry at him that I was rejecting everything about him.  If all God cared about was my sin and my confession then I wanted nothing to do with him.  It would be some time before I realized that the God of the universe was not what the church told me he was.  Rather I would come to learn that he was much more than that.  On the night of that realization this song was running through my head.

My God  – Ian Anderson

Oh people - what have you done

Locked Him in His golden cage.

Made Him bend to your religion

Him resurrected from the grave.

He is the god of nothing

If that's all that you can see.

You are the god of everything

He's inside you and me.

So lean upon Him gently

And don't call on Him to save you

From your social graces

And the sins you used waive.

The bloody Church of England

In chains of history

Requests your earthly presence at

The vicarage for tea.

And the graven image you-know-who

With His plastic crucifix

He's got him fixed

Confuses me as to who and where and why

As to how he gets his kicks.

Confessing to the endless sin

The endless whining sounds.

You'll be praying till next Thursday to

All the gods that you can count.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."