Tonight's pseudo-profundity arrived courtesy of the Frozen 2 soundtrack. Cards on the table: I liked Frozen 2 just fine. It was, I recognized, exactly the sort of stuff that would have captured my fantasy life for months had I viewed it when I was a preteen. It's little gay me crack. That water horse Elsa rides? The quasi-superhero elemental battles? The gorgeous (for a cartoon) Kristof? All of it.
Old boring woke me recognizes the problematic colonial subtexts that the script attempts to grapple with. (The story ends up with a kind of utopian Canada arrangement.) And of course I know that there's a good bit of cynical cash-grab behind the whole sequel endeavor.
But I do like the songs. Lyrically, I think Moana's the stronger contender. But Frozen 2's "Into the Unknown" has a surprising climb up to some soaring heights:
Just a fun, stirring song. And Panic! At the Disco's cover is equally fun.
As I ran and listened, though, I started thinking about some expanded meanings for some of those songs.
Context: I just came from my church's quarterly council meeting. All went well, no big conflicts. Of course, unspoken were the conflicts facing the United Methodist Church. The pro-inclusion folk in Louisiana are circulating a letter to sign on to, asking our Bishop to agree to a moratorium on trials and disciplinary actions against clergy who violate the new (and incredibly restrictive/punitive) rules about LGBTQ issues. Schism is coming to the Church. It's now just a question of what kind of schism it'll be (sorta amicable? horrifically messy? mutually destructive?) and what remnant will survive.
It's a scary time, I reflected, going into the unknown. Suddenly, I started seeing all the Frozen 2 songs as commentary on the future of my Church.
Consider Kristof's Chicago-inspired "Lost in the Woods":
Again, you're gone, off on a different path than mine
I'm left behind, wondering if I should follow
You had to go, and of course it's always fine
I probably could catch up with you tomorrow
But is this what it feels like to be growing apart?
...
Up 'til now the next step was a question of how
I never thought it was a question of whether
Who am I, if I'm not your guy?
Where am I, if we're not together forever?
Where indeed? What can we as a church be without each other? I do fear that, in venturing into the unknown, each side following what it hears as the Spirit's voice, we're destined to spend time lost in the woods.
And in such a situation, what can we do? Anna's "The Next Right Thing" fits perfectly:
I've seen dark before
But not like this
This is cold
This is empty
This is numb
The life I knew is over
The lights are out
Hello, darkness
I'm ready to succumb
I follow you around
I always have
But you've gone to a place I cannot find
This grief has a gravity
It pulls me down
But a tiny voice whispers in my mind
"You are lost, hope is gone
But you must go on
And do the next right thing"
Look, I get that all this is a stretch, a juxtaposition of an overstressed brain high on running chemicals and caffeine. I'm reading way against the grain here, recruiting pop culture fluff into my own spiritual processing. But hey, if I were a pastor (which, under the Traditional Plan of the UMC, I'm not able to be), I'd be building a sermon around some of these songs.
It's a confusing time. I'll take whatever vehicle the Spirit uses to impress on me some comfort and guidance, even if the ultimate message here is less a happy ending for the Church as I know it and more permission to let it go.
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