SEEK and Ye Shall Find
While those five little words--"seek and ye shall find"--should probably draw to mind the Bible verse Matthew 7:7 (Ask, and it will be given you, seek, and you will find, etc.), the first thing that comes to mind is Ella Fitzgerald's "Someone to Watch Over Me." If someone simply says, "Seek and ye shall find" automatically I hear the soft piano and the soothing pulsation of Ella's voice flowing between the words. I hear her emphasize "seek" and "ye" and I begin to drift into the following lyrics, "So I'm going to seek a certain lad I've had in mind." And the song continues to play in my head...
Needless to say, every time someone at FOCUS's recent SEEK Conference in Orlando, FL, mentioned Matthew 7:7, and began to read, "seek and ye shall find," my mind had gone down the river of musical lyrics, not stopping until the song had ended. (At which time I was completely lost as to what the actual talk was about). While this actually may have been a distraction at times, I have found that the lyrics of this Ella Fitzgerald love song capture something from not only the five days that we (6000 students plus 340 missionaries plus many others) spent at this Catholic Conference, but from our every day tango and search for God, someone to love and watch over us.
The first time I really encountered this Ella Fitzgerald song I was actually at a Lady Gaga concert in New York City. As I heard this theatrical pop star enter into the jazzy song that I had heard in the background of commercials and on television shows, I was struck by the beauty and gentleness of the music and the sincerity of the lyrics. "Oh, how I need someone to watch over me," she sang. Many members of the audience began to complain and shout at the stage wondering why "Bad Romance" or "Paparazzi" wasn't being performed, after all they went through so much to get to the concert. Here Lady Gaga (originally known as Stefani Germanotta) was pleading for someone to watch over her and care for her, and the audience's response wasn't that of admiration of her humility or even admiration of the display of her talent by performing this classic song. Rather, they met her performance with selfish desires. Why isn't she performing what I want to hear? Why isn't she playing the songs I like? This captures the tension we meet on a larger scale today--our heart's deep desires to be cared for and to be loved being met by selfishness and use.
Why should we seek out love, truth, beauty, and goodness, if we have only ever seemingly encountered selfishness, pain, hurt, and frustration? Nevertheless, despite the brokenness of this world, 6000 college students went seeking this past week and what they found was the incredible, bold, unconditional, uncalculating, merciful love of our Heavenly Father! I can't really put words to the things they experienced at talks or at keynote events or at the Matt Maher concert or the women's sessions or at confession or in Mass. But if 5000 college students standing in line to go to the sacrament of Confession isn't a witness to the transformative experience that happened at SEEK then I don't know what is. If 6000 college students kneeling in awe of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at Mass isn't a witness to the transformative experience that happened at SEEK then I don't know what is. If seeing student after student after student walk to the front of the bus on our long 22 hour journey back to New Jersey to share with a bunch of people they don't necessarily know how the Lord worked in their lives in the past week isn't a witness to the transformative experience that happened at SEEK then I don't know what is.
6000 students sought something, anything to tell them they were loved, and what they found wasn't "the lad" that Ella Fitzgerald was looking for, but it was the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who loves each of us so intimately and so much that he sacrificed everything for us. Everything. While Ella sings, "Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?" I can only say to her and to anyone else who might sing that song longing for someone to watch over them that he can be found in any tabernacle of any Catholic Church anywhere in the world. He's waiting there for you to come and find Him. He's waiting to enter into you and your life. Seek Him.
Needless to say, every time someone at FOCUS's recent SEEK Conference in Orlando, FL, mentioned Matthew 7:7, and began to read, "seek and ye shall find," my mind had gone down the river of musical lyrics, not stopping until the song had ended. (At which time I was completely lost as to what the actual talk was about). While this actually may have been a distraction at times, I have found that the lyrics of this Ella Fitzgerald love song capture something from not only the five days that we (6000 students plus 340 missionaries plus many others) spent at this Catholic Conference, but from our every day tango and search for God, someone to love and watch over us.
The first time I really encountered this Ella Fitzgerald song I was actually at a Lady Gaga concert in New York City. As I heard this theatrical pop star enter into the jazzy song that I had heard in the background of commercials and on television shows, I was struck by the beauty and gentleness of the music and the sincerity of the lyrics. "Oh, how I need someone to watch over me," she sang. Many members of the audience began to complain and shout at the stage wondering why "Bad Romance" or "Paparazzi" wasn't being performed, after all they went through so much to get to the concert. Here Lady Gaga (originally known as Stefani Germanotta) was pleading for someone to watch over her and care for her, and the audience's response wasn't that of admiration of her humility or even admiration of the display of her talent by performing this classic song. Rather, they met her performance with selfish desires. Why isn't she performing what I want to hear? Why isn't she playing the songs I like? This captures the tension we meet on a larger scale today--our heart's deep desires to be cared for and to be loved being met by selfishness and use.
Why should we seek out love, truth, beauty, and goodness, if we have only ever seemingly encountered selfishness, pain, hurt, and frustration? Nevertheless, despite the brokenness of this world, 6000 college students went seeking this past week and what they found was the incredible, bold, unconditional, uncalculating, merciful love of our Heavenly Father! I can't really put words to the things they experienced at talks or at keynote events or at the Matt Maher concert or the women's sessions or at confession or in Mass. But if 5000 college students standing in line to go to the sacrament of Confession isn't a witness to the transformative experience that happened at SEEK then I don't know what is. If 6000 college students kneeling in awe of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at Mass isn't a witness to the transformative experience that happened at SEEK then I don't know what is. If seeing student after student after student walk to the front of the bus on our long 22 hour journey back to New Jersey to share with a bunch of people they don't necessarily know how the Lord worked in their lives in the past week isn't a witness to the transformative experience that happened at SEEK then I don't know what is.
6000 students sought something, anything to tell them they were loved, and what they found wasn't "the lad" that Ella Fitzgerald was looking for, but it was the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who loves each of us so intimately and so much that he sacrificed everything for us. Everything. While Ella sings, "Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?" I can only say to her and to anyone else who might sing that song longing for someone to watch over them that he can be found in any tabernacle of any Catholic Church anywhere in the world. He's waiting there for you to come and find Him. He's waiting to enter into you and your life. Seek Him.
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