u2areloved

Bono (Chicago 2015), Liz (After 4 Chicago SOI 2015 shows!), and more Bono.

Bono! It’s your birthday.  Since we’re born exactly a week apart, I’d like to ask you some questions–one bull to another.  As we U2 fans prepare for the Joshua Tree 40 tour, I have some questions I’d love to ask you.  What is it like:

• To have have orbited the sun 57 times and experienced so very much?
• To have a family and still make time for the world?
• To have written hundreds upon hundreds of songs that changes people’s hearts?
• To work with the infinitely and uniquely talented Edge and Adam and Larry ? For all these years–this incredible band of brothers?
• To have this blessed gift of voice that unites our souls? Helps the hurting? Entertains fans hungry for U2?
• To be one of the world’s most well-known, most vocally heard activists?
• To live in a fishbowl as well as be a FLY on the wall?
• To have zipped forwards and backwards across time as you’ve travelled to nearly every country on earth?
• To have jumped the fence to better know us?
• To have ridden a bike to better know yourself?
• To have have touched a teardrop on a hungry child ; to have just held and loved him/her?
• To have shaken the hands of American Presidents and world leaders? To have secured commitments for aid from poverty to AIDS?
• To have met Nelson Mandela? Hollywood friends? Irish friends? Friends from every continent? Fan friends? Johnny Cash? Billy Graham?
• To have collaborated with the best of music’s talent?  To have collaborated with God’s servants?
• To know that somewhere in the world, every single second of the day, someone is listening to U2; that your music’s “play time” has already exceeded millions of your lifetimes?  Somewhere, someone is being helped this very second–because of U2.
• To have have met hundred of thousands of us, but to continuously struggle to remember an ever-increasing and changing inner circle?
• To be deeply loved and admired by people you meet for only seconds?
• To sing to tens of thousands at a time, but also only one—the one who needs to hear it, in this place and time?
• What’s it like not knowing whose life you may have comforted, helped, touched, changed, inspired? What if somewhere out there, through music, you saved someone’s life?  

Maybe you didn’t ask for this much, but God gave it to you anyway. This voice—this voice that gives power to the silent, the abused, the ignored, the desperate. This magical voice that entertains those who can afford it—provoking and comforting, all the while, yet always on the move.

We hear you between the lines! We are getting the message. Even as you continue to entertain us as the years pass, we too are changing; ourselves, and the world around us.   We can CREATE change. There is true beauty in being able to do that. The divinely-inspired do more then just sit still.  We’re fighting for love and peace too, even as we do battle to settle the wars that rage within ourselves.  Your music helps us to be gentle with ourselves. Thank you for that.

You have a vast and diverse fan base.   Sometimes we may just appear as just a bunch of idolaters.  I dispute that.  If that’s all we were, then we’re all just reduced to a bunch of noise–people who don’t think or care, and it’s only all about you. But you know us better than that. It’s so much more. Because of your humility, we see past the rock star. We see a mirror; we see ourselves–#strongerthanfear; we too can be brave enough to be a kinder person, to be more tolerant and to help others.   Your music and your heart unites those of various faiths, it smashes barriers.  In the music of U2, we learn to see and hear the world differently. Thank you.

Your voice and music—this blessed gift of soul and sound, is the soundtrack that activates our inspiration and creativity too! Your music empowers our resolve. It gets us through when our hearts break, and it makes the good moments super amazing!

We know where to find you, when you’re not around. We’ll meet you in the sound!

Keep going Bono (and the rest of U2!). Keep creating song and art. Keep talking to world leaders and business leaders and everyday people too. May you always keep your heart and mind open as you always have. May you always find time to put your family and faith and your well-being before the rest of us. Trust in the God who gave a short man a mighty big megaphone! Make a joyful noise until your last breath and together, we’ll walk this magical journey of life as we each  find our way home.

And live. Just be. Until you give it all away.

Happy Birthday and love from one fan, as well as the rest of us.  Today, we remember you.  U2areloved

FOR U2 FANS:  Please contribute to Bono’s annual “Build a Well in Africa” fund.  This is a cause near and dear to his heart!