Johnny take a walk with your sister the moon
Let her pale light in to fill up your room
You’ve been living underground
Eating from a can
You’ve been running away
From what you don’t understand…
Love

She’s slippy
You’re sliding down
She’ll be there when you hit the ground

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways

Johnny take a dive with your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things you can’t explain
To touch is to heal
To hurt is to steal
If you want to kiss the sky
Better learn how to kneel

(on your knees boy)

She’s the wave
She turns the tide
She sees the man inside the child

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
Lift my days, light up my nights

One day you will look…back
And you’ll see…where
You were held…how
By this love…while
You could stand…there
You could move on this moment
Follow this feeling

It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright

We move through miracle days
Spirit moves in mysterious ways
She moves with it
She moves with it
Lift my days, light up my nights

So read the lyrics of “Mysterious Ways” by U2. I’ve been puzzled by this song for a while, trying to figure out who “she” was. Is it his wife, or women in general? I think I finally cracked this one. In listening to “Grace” on All You Can’t Leave Behind, Bono says, “Grace, it’s a name for a girl, it’s also a thought that changed the world”. I think this is undoubtedly referring to the grace of God, as would be consistent with christian orthodoxy. But it seems that just like wisdom in Proverbs 8 is personified as a woman, so Bono has taken grace and personified it as a woman (as Kalila would say, it is like the pagan personification of “Genius” and the like). This tipped me off to look for a more parabolic, illustrative alternative to understanding “Mysterious Ways”. Even in the first stanza, “You’ve been running from what you don’t understand…Love”. Thus, I think Love/Grace is what moves in mysterious ways, much like in William Cowper’s Hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way”. I think this understanding beautifly illuminates the song and has fed me time and again since I’ve thought of it that way. I do believe this is what Bono intended. The worship theme is woven right in “…better learn how to kneel (on your knees boy)”.

Here’s a recent review I did of N.T. Wright’s book, “What Saint Paul Really Said”:

N.T Wright is a master of word and thought in biblical studies. It is very rare to have one biblical scholar brood over so many fields in his/her discipline; and Wright does just that. Not only has he published the standard work on Jesus (”Jesus and the Victory of God”), but he is planning to do the same for Paul as he gives us a preview in “What Saint Paul Really Said”. He begins by presenting the most influential Pauline scholars of the twentieth century so that he can put himself in context. One key feature to Wright’s approach is his agreement with Albert Schweitzer, W.D. Davies, and E.P. Sanders of the Jewish context from which Paul writes against the likes of Rudolf Bultmann and the increasing notion that Paul was primarily Hellenistic. Wright breaks down this dichotomy, though, in showing that both the Hellenistic world and the Jewish world overlapped in their categories, yet affirms that Paul was influenced chiefly by the Hebrew Bible and the burgeoning rabbinics of the Second Temple Period. This understanding is paramount to Wright’s discussion about the Gospel that carries the rest of the book. He explores the Isaianic roots of the Gospel and unpacks his biblical theology of covenant, sin, exile, and restoration as it strings together the Old and New Testaments. This is a welcome summation of Wright’s current findings, as he writes with clariy, precision, and provocation. It is hard to imagine someone not helped in their understanding of Paul by this book.

You can check out more about Wright at his website linked under Biblical Studies.