How its done 101. Prof. Bono

This is an excerpt taken from that terrific book/interview "Bono In Conversation with Michka Assayas"













Bono: (talking about debt relief in third world countries)... And whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, God has a special place for the poor. The poor are where God lives. So these politicians should be nervous, not me.

Michka:"I'm surprised at how easily religion comes up in your answers, whatever the question is. How com you're always quoting the Bible? Was it because it was taught at school? Or because your father or mother wanted you to read it?

Bono: It's strange, I couldn't know. Whenever I hear people talking from the Scriptures, I always manage to be able to see past their sort of personality, to see past the difficulties of the environment I was listening to them, and the hypocrisy. I always manage to get to the content.

Michka: "When was the first time something happened when you thought about a line from the Scriptures? When you first said to yourself: Yes, I can see beyond that and see how it applies to such and such situation?

Bono: "Let me try to explain something to you, which I hope will make sense of the whole conversation. But maybe that's a little optimistic. This was not the first time, but I remember coming back from a very long tour. I hadn't been at home. Got home for Christmas, very excited of being in Dublin. Dublin at Christmas is cold, but it's lit up like a Carnival in the cold. On Christmas Eve, I went to St. Patrick's Cathedral. I had done school there for a year. It's where Jonathan Swift was dean. Anyway, some of my Church of Ireland friends were going. It's kind of a tradition on Christmas Eve to go, but I'd never been. I went to this place, sat. I was given a really bad seat, behind one of the huge pillars. I couldn't see anything. I was sitting there, having come back from Tokyo, or somewhere like that. I went for the singing, because I love choral singing. But I was falling asleep, being up for a few days, traveling, because it was a bit boring, the service, and I just started nodding off, I couldn't' see a thing. Then I started to try and keep myself awake studying what was on the page. It dawned on me for the first time, really. It had dawned on me before, but it really sank in: the Christmas story. The idea of God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw poverty, in shit and straw... a child... I just thought: Wow! Just the poetry... Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable. There is was. I was sitting there, and it's not that it hadn't struck me before, but tears came down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this. Because that's exactly what we were talking about earlier: love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered. To me, it makes sense. It's actually logical. It's pure logic. Essence has to manifest itself. It's inevitable. Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh. Wasn't that your point earlier?

Michka: As I think I am beginning to understand religion because I have started acting and thinking like a father. What do you make of that?

Bono: Yes, I think that's normal. It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.

Michka: I haven't heard you talk about that.

Bono: I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into Grace.

Michka: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put our comes back to you: an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics-every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "As you reap, so will you sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like and consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.

Michka: I'd be interested to hear that.

Bono: That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep shit. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins on the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.

Michka: The son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: "Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions." The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled...It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of Heaven.