Reflections on Monty Python's Galaxy Song
(In case you're not familiar with the song, it can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk The video does get rather NSFW around 1:40, so it might be wise to let the audio play and navigate to a different window and/or tab at that point. When Eric Idle starts to sing again, you're good to go back.)
(Also, I've been listening to the Stuff Christians Like audiobook a lot today, so if I sound like I'm ripping off of Jon Acuff, I'm not meaning to, it's just that his style is addictive and it gets all muddled around in my head. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, anyway, so if you read this, Jon, I hope you see that it's because I think you're awesome, not cause I'm a thief.)
The basic message of the Galaxy Song is that we are ridiculously insignificant, so our problems don't matter. Or, as the last lines assert, the universe is pretty amazing, which is good, cause it kind of sucks here on earth. But - call me crazy - I see a connection to Job in this song.
Yep. Like the book of the Bible. Job. Right before Psalms, if you care to look it up. It's 40-odd chapters long, so maybe you want to grab the cliffnotes version to brush up if you're a little rusty, though. Anyway, the reader's digest version of the reader's digest version is that Job is suffering and searching desperately for some kind of answer to his predicament. His friends can't really provide it to him, but in the end, God shows up and gives him an answer that is laced in creation theology even though it doesn't seem to have much to do with Job's situation. And I think that actually has something in common with the Galaxy Song. This IS an amazing and astounding universe, and Job gets a laundry list of things about the universe that are amazing and astounding, but he never gets an explanation for his suffering. The Galaxy Song gives much the same answer, with one crucial difference: God is not present.
I don't want to explore why God is not in the Galaxy Song, nor do I mean to spend the rest of this post bemoaning the usurpation of God by scientists or secularists or any other ists whom Christians feel so threatened by. What Iwas really struck by is that even Monty Python turns (albeit jokingly) to creation imagery when talking about human suffering (or at least human frustration, anger, feelings of futility - you get the idea.) Do we have no other category to use when we talk about such things? What is it that leads us to the vast and mysterious and uncontrollable of the universe when we are dissatisfied with our lives?
I'm going to guess that it must be God, because that's where he led Job. Not that Job and his "miserable comforters" hadn't thought of it already. I mean, they all bring up creation imagery (or un-creation imagery, if you want to explore that aspect of Job's speeches, which is fun to do if you're a nerd like me) in their dialogues. But God takes it further. He doesn't just dip a toe in the water, he sends a hurricane of chaotic creation rushing to Job's waiting ears. I don't think it's exactly what Job had in mind when he brought up creation or demanded God to come and defend himself. But it's what he got.
Weirdly, I think in this way the Galaxy Song gets it more than Job did. I know, that seems somehow blasphemous, but stick with me here. God comes in and lays before Job all the vastness, the incomprehensibility of the universe. The Galaxy Song comes in and lays before Mrs. Brown all the vastness, the incomprehensibility of the universe. It even has someone (Eric Idle) show up out of nowhere (well, out of the refrigerator) and act as Mrs. Brown's guide as he walks her through the mysterious wonders of our universe. Almost like God shows up and guides Job through the mysterious wonders of our universe. It's like we all - even the minds behind the crude brilliance of Monty Python - are deawn to the parts of creation we simply do not understand when faced with the unjustness of life.
That isn't to say that Monty Python is the best way to understand things when life sucks, because Job gets something right that Eric Idle and co neglected to mention: God. You've got to involve him in your search for answers, because otherwise all you're left with is the universe, cold and unresponsive and uncaring, and a futile prayer (to whom?) that there's intelligent life out there somewhere, "cause there's bugger all down here on earth." When you put God in the equation, at least there is something - someone - behind that vast, impersonal universe. We still have chaos and mystery and a lot that we just don't understand, but behind it all we can find the Creator God, and we have his word to us, and we can trust him. And that part is super important. It's just that sometimes it's hard to get there if you don't go through the Galaxy Song and see the terror of the chaos first hand. Even in jest.
(Also, I've been listening to the Stuff Christians Like audiobook a lot today, so if I sound like I'm ripping off of Jon Acuff, I'm not meaning to, it's just that his style is addictive and it gets all muddled around in my head. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, anyway, so if you read this, Jon, I hope you see that it's because I think you're awesome, not cause I'm a thief.)
The basic message of the Galaxy Song is that we are ridiculously insignificant, so our problems don't matter. Or, as the last lines assert, the universe is pretty amazing, which is good, cause it kind of sucks here on earth. But - call me crazy - I see a connection to Job in this song.
Yep. Like the book of the Bible. Job. Right before Psalms, if you care to look it up. It's 40-odd chapters long, so maybe you want to grab the cliffnotes version to brush up if you're a little rusty, though. Anyway, the reader's digest version of the reader's digest version is that Job is suffering and searching desperately for some kind of answer to his predicament. His friends can't really provide it to him, but in the end, God shows up and gives him an answer that is laced in creation theology even though it doesn't seem to have much to do with Job's situation. And I think that actually has something in common with the Galaxy Song. This IS an amazing and astounding universe, and Job gets a laundry list of things about the universe that are amazing and astounding, but he never gets an explanation for his suffering. The Galaxy Song gives much the same answer, with one crucial difference: God is not present.
I don't want to explore why God is not in the Galaxy Song, nor do I mean to spend the rest of this post bemoaning the usurpation of God by scientists or secularists or any other ists whom Christians feel so threatened by. What Iwas really struck by is that even Monty Python turns (albeit jokingly) to creation imagery when talking about human suffering (or at least human frustration, anger, feelings of futility - you get the idea.) Do we have no other category to use when we talk about such things? What is it that leads us to the vast and mysterious and uncontrollable of the universe when we are dissatisfied with our lives?
I'm going to guess that it must be God, because that's where he led Job. Not that Job and his "miserable comforters" hadn't thought of it already. I mean, they all bring up creation imagery (or un-creation imagery, if you want to explore that aspect of Job's speeches, which is fun to do if you're a nerd like me) in their dialogues. But God takes it further. He doesn't just dip a toe in the water, he sends a hurricane of chaotic creation rushing to Job's waiting ears. I don't think it's exactly what Job had in mind when he brought up creation or demanded God to come and defend himself. But it's what he got.
Weirdly, I think in this way the Galaxy Song gets it more than Job did. I know, that seems somehow blasphemous, but stick with me here. God comes in and lays before Job all the vastness, the incomprehensibility of the universe. The Galaxy Song comes in and lays before Mrs. Brown all the vastness, the incomprehensibility of the universe. It even has someone (Eric Idle) show up out of nowhere (well, out of the refrigerator) and act as Mrs. Brown's guide as he walks her through the mysterious wonders of our universe. Almost like God shows up and guides Job through the mysterious wonders of our universe. It's like we all - even the minds behind the crude brilliance of Monty Python - are deawn to the parts of creation we simply do not understand when faced with the unjustness of life.
That isn't to say that Monty Python is the best way to understand things when life sucks, because Job gets something right that Eric Idle and co neglected to mention: God. You've got to involve him in your search for answers, because otherwise all you're left with is the universe, cold and unresponsive and uncaring, and a futile prayer (to whom?) that there's intelligent life out there somewhere, "cause there's bugger all down here on earth." When you put God in the equation, at least there is something - someone - behind that vast, impersonal universe. We still have chaos and mystery and a lot that we just don't understand, but behind it all we can find the Creator God, and we have his word to us, and we can trust him. And that part is super important. It's just that sometimes it's hard to get there if you don't go through the Galaxy Song and see the terror of the chaos first hand. Even in jest.