The Lion Inside of Me

While on the subject of the spirituality or mysticism of Van Morrison’s music, the tracks that stand out for me beyond the seminal “Astral Weeks” are “You Don’t Pull no Punches” from the Veedon Fleece album and “Listen to the Lion” from Saint Dominic’s Preview.

For this latter song, as with much of Morrison’s more introspective music, it’s not so much the lyrics, as the way he sings them. After all the poetry in itself is pretty sparse

Oh, listen listen


To the lion


Oh, listen listen listen


To the lion...
Inside of me


Oh, oh, oh



And I shall search my soul


I shall search my very soul


And I shall search my very soul


I shall search my very so-o-oul



For the lion


For the lion


For the lion


For the lion...
Inside of me

But its the growls, the grunts and scats that make the song. The artist expressing the living breathing lion inside of him. And don’t we all have that? That inner self that wants to break out of the humdrum workaday life, to find expression and give vent to a mighty roar of “THIS IS WHO I AM” into the jungle of this world.

I have often been intrigued by the image of Jesus as the “Lion of Judah” that John paints in the Book of Revelation (Rev 5:7). I mean its only a single reference unlike the messianic metaphors of lamb, light, shepherd which pretty much run right throughout the Old and New Testaments. And its also a metaphor thats been taken up variously by Judaism, Ethiopian nationalism and the Rastafari reggae music of the West Indies, and C S Lewis of course in his Narnia books

John uses the metaphor it in direct contrast to the Lamb, looking as it had been slain (Rev 5:6) - meekness and power, suffering and triumph, gentleness and strength. Its a fantastic picture.

So Jesus is this Lion inside of me, roaring, His word consuming my being. Jeremiah talks about the Word of God being in his heart like a fire, a fire shut up in his bones. He is weary from holding it in. And that rugged old shepherd of Tekoa, Amos, declares in his prophecy, that the Lord is like a Lion

“The lion has roared, who will not fear.

The Sovereign Lord has spoken.

Who can but prophesy.” Amos 3:8

So ROAR, King Jesus. Consume me from within. Proclaim your lordship over my life. Declare yourself to be King of all creation

In the Garden

I was listening to a song on my ipod yesterday called “Garden” by Misty Edwards and it put me in mind of the track by Van Morrison, “in the Garden” from his album “No Guru, no Method no Teacher” that gripped me back in the eighties . Misty is a worship leader with the International House of Prayer, and the song is a relentless eight and a half minutes celebration of the intimacy God seeks to have with us if we would only draw near.

It's You and me alone God,

You and me alone

Here it's You and me alone

God, You and me alone...

Strikes me afresh just what a garden is. It’s an enclosed space. It’s a marked off territory that is owned by someone , cultivated by someone and to be enjoyed by someone. That’s why it was a garden planted in Eden and not a wilderness space, that became the backdrop for the creation of Adam. That’s where he found intimacy with his creator God. And in each one of our lives there’s a cultivated space that’s to be protected and kept. A place to retreat to and find oneself alone.

“And I felt the presence of the youth of eternal summers in the garden

Alright, and as it touched your cheeks so lightly

Born again you were and blushed

And we touched each other lightly

And we felt the presence of the Christ

Within our hearts in the garden

And I turned to you and I said

"No guru, no method, no teacher

Just you and I and nature

And the Father in the garden"

Listen, no guru, no method, no teacher

Just you and I and nature

And the Father and the Son

And the Holy Ghost in the garden wet with rain”

Amazing lyrics from the 1986 Van Morrison track, and maybe it won’t tick everybody’s theological boxes, but it’s an insight into the spiritual longing of the artist – a longing for intimacy, for acceptance, for transcendence and for understanding of the divine.

Back to Misty Edwards. She writes, in an interview

"I have a great desire to see the knowledge of God flood this generation. I mean the real knowledge of God, not the distant Sunday School version but the true encounter with the Uncreated. I have devoted my life to searching Him out through His Word, prayer and fasting, and to ask Him to reveal Himself in my day and time. There's no other point for my existence but to touch the Transcendent.”

That hungry generation was very evident at New Horizon last week. So good to see so many young people (and old) hungry for God and seeking his face here on the north coast of Northern Ireland

Van Morrison http://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Guru-Method-Teacher/dp/B0018PJF0W

Misty Edwards http://www.amazon.co.uk/Relentless-Misty-Edwards/dp/B001V6F840/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1280307941&sr=1-1