The "Hallelujah" Song

Mary Beth Buchner Journal Entry # 9

Advanced Writing 3-29-11

Reflections on the Song entitled, Hallelujah, lyrics written by Leonard Cohen and sung by Jeff Buckley

First, I really enjoyed this song. I found it very moving and very touching. It stirred up a lot of emotions and memories in me.

These are some of the thoughts I had after reading the lyrics and listening to Jeff Buckley’s rendition. If you are interested in hearing it, you should be able to pull it up on the web (possibly on U-Tube).

Can we really understand life and love? In a certain way, throughout our life we have our own “music” and our own “lyrics”. We have a certain chord, a certain theme that we play throughout our life. Even if we don’t really, truly completely understand it and even if we sing off key or perform our piece less than perfectly or even rather poorly, still God finds our music/our song pleasing.

Our faith may seem strong at certain points in our lives but we are easily swayed by worldly temptations and are often brought down low by external circumstances and events. Love is not the unruffled happily ever after of fairy tale fame. We repeat the same mistakes over and over again in spite of ourselves. We will never really be able to claim victory during this earthly lifetime.

The Almighty laments that His creatures have turned their backs and refuse to relate to Him. His dream for us has always been to have his Spirit moving in us so we would be able to experience continuous absolute joy.

Because we are human and our lessons regarding Love are still being learned, we are currently only capable of singing cold and broken Hallelujahs.

PS. To those who have commented to me personally, please feel free to add your comments to the blog for others to enjoy.

Mary Beth