King of Pain

Yesterday, a Pastor friend told me "I feel like I'm drowning!" In the evening I attended a funeral visitation for a high-school friend's father. He was 59 and looked like the epitome of health -- dropped dead going to the refrigerator at supper.

The Police recorded a song in 1983 on their Syncronicity album called King of Pain. Listen to the metaphor on pain:

There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall
There's a dead salmon frozen in a water fall
There's a blue whale beached by a springtime's ebb
There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web

There's a king on his throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

There's a red fox torn by a huntman's pack
There's a black winged gull with a broken back
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
That's my soul up there....

It seems to me that Christianity oftens pretends like this pain only exists because of a lack of faith. That is to say the least, annoying. It is at most, tragic, because the path to Christ is found through the pain. Sting (the former lead singer of The Police) is a guide into that pain. He just doesn't know the way out.