Symbols

She keeps a lock of hair in her pocket
She wears a cross around her neck
Yes the hair is from a little boy
and the cross is someone she has not met
not yet

She Talks to Angels The Black Crowes

She Talks to Angels is not one of my favorite Black Crowes songs, though I am a big fan of the band and their music. However, these lines have always captured my imagination. In case you are not familiar with the song it is about a woman who is a drug addict. The little boy is likely her child, though her connection to him is reduced to a lock of hair she carries around with her. The cross she wears around her neck, at least at this point in her life, is just jewelry. She may not even really know what the cross symbolizes, what it means. If that is the case she is not alone.

When my wife and I lived in Kenya we had a good friend who was a strong opponent of alcohol consumption. Part of his dislike of liquor was rooted in his religious convictions, part in his experience with an alcoholic father. So it took my breath away to see him walk into the office one day wearing a Budweiser t-shirt. I asked him about the shirt. He said it was one of his favorites and that he, like many Kenyans, purchased it at an open-air market. See, many of the clothes that you and I take to places like Goodwill end up in Third World countries. Importers will bring in huge containers of shirts and hat and pants and then sell the clothes to small business owners who sell them on the street. That is how my friend ended up with his Budweiser shirt. They have beer in Kenya, but not the Budweiser brand (not being a fan of Budweiser, or its flavorless sister, Bud Light, this is not a bad thing). So he had no idea what Budweiser was or what the logo on his shirt represented. If you really like irony then you will love the next part of the story. I have a t-shirt I bought in Kenya. It has the picture of an elephant's head and the word "Tusker" on it. People in America think the shirt is really cool (it is). What they don't know is that Tusker is a brand of beer in Kenya (and a much better beer than Budweiser, thank you very much). Seems beer logos are not as universally recognized as advertisers would like. Bummer. World domination is not yet in reach for the great breweries of the world.

There are lots of symbols and logos in the world. Sometimes people know what the symbol/logo represents, sometimes they don't. It is not uncommon for folks to wear something with a symbol or logo on it because, like my friend, they think it looks nice. If they knew the meaning of the symbol, if they understood what the logo represented, I wonder if they would still wear the shirt or hat or piece of jewelry.

The cross is a symbol of the Christian faith. Its meaning is found in the story of Jesus. Two thousand years ago the cross was an instrument of death. People were executed on crosses, hung in public so everyone could watch them suffer and die. So why do Christians wear such a macabre symbol? Because of God's power to transform it. Jesus was hung on a cross but God raised him from the dead. The cross, the symbol of death, became a symbol of life.

That is why I love the lines from She Talks to Angels. The broken, hurting, drug addict wears a cross around her neck. She does not know Jesus or about the power symbolized by the cross. She does not know about the healing and the newness of life that Jesus offers. No, not yet. What the song offers up is hope that one day this woman will meet Jesus. And when she does that cross around her neck will take on a whole new meaning. What great lyrics and what wonderful imagery. May all that is symbolized in the cross - healing, forgiveness, love, life, be yours today. And may you meet the one who makes it all possible, Jesus.