Does anyone here love Phil Collins’ 1981 song, In the Air Tonight, like I do?
The song’s mythological trait is unmistakable; The Barking Seals – An explosive 3-second drum riff mid-song where the mood shifts from subverted, simmering pain to full-blown expression, rising through the varied ranges of anger replayed in the isolated turmoil of a life event: divorce.
Many of us have been there; in the agony of separation, enduring the uncertainty of change, suffering the loneliness of loss. Every person who gets divorced, whether they initiate it or not, suffers greatly. So many readjustments are required, and for what seems like years we feel dismantled.
In the song, Phil Collins enunciates what we really can’t find words for. However, Collins himself says that all the lyrics were improvised. The song is full of anger, the expression of the depths of pain.
That is the nature of bread. Starting from my own divorce over a decade ago, I was in awe at one point. Life changed overnight. I no longer knew any more guarantees of the good life. I really had no idea what was about to happen. I had no idea how badly I was doing as a husband, how lonely my wife was. The barking of the seals summed up what my life, in its loneliest moments, had become.
You may be enduring the pain of divorce right now. Maybe it’s a friend or a relative. Such a tort of separation is the end of life. Life must end before it can start again. Being swept up in emotion seems cruel, but it is necessary. A grievance of the sort insists on our attention. What we cannot deny is for our own good. Anger, sadness, and fear are all too real and all too important. Without them we will not know how much we need God.
The healthiest response to grievance is the expression of our worst emotions.
In a season of loss, grief forces us to give up self-reliance for what God teaches in the wisdom of trust in God.
Though the loss is unbearable, ultimately what it teaches us is an abundant good thing.
We must be emotionally real.
May God truly bless you and yours who suffer with his consolation of hope.