'My soul is troubled' is a line from John 12:27, it's perhaps one of the greatest understatements in human history. I'm sure Jesus was troubled, in John's Gospel he seems to know what is going to happen and he is fearful. Foreknowledge can be paralysing with the fear of the future preventing any action in the present.
I fear that my soul is not troubled enough. I look to the news and see troubling events, yet the constant flow means that it all sits on the surface. I'm troubled, but then I move on to be troubled by the next tragic event. My soul is not deeply troubled. Perhaps this is the common human experience, we cannot cope with the multiplicity of troubles and so they barely scratch the surface. When we see people truly troubled by events we can't cope with the raw emotion that a troubled soul brings. Do I pray for a more trouble soul? Probably not.
Holy Week is a troubling week. Globally today is a troubling day, innocent people are still being slaughtered just as an innocent man was slaughtered. Last night many were killed in Syria and Libya and no doubt many will continue to be killed. With them there is no hope of physical resurrection, but the ideology must never be allowed to be killed - the ideology of freedom and the believe in a better world. They shame our political apathy - we should be troubled at ourselves as well as their plight.
Okay, the music. I've gone for Leonard Cohen's 'The Future'. It's a great track and this is the live version from Jools Holland. I'm sure that there are many different interpretations of it, but the reason that I have chosen it is because it is in part about the fear of the future. We can look around us and be so trouble that we're paralysed in the present, or look back through rose tinted spectacles at the past dreaming of a past utopia. Or, our troubled souls can bring about change for a better future...
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