Linkin Park: Crawling
by Donald E. Hester
on Wednesday, 08 April 2009
Philosophy
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Donald E. Hester
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I've wanted to write about this for awhile. For many people their only source of philosophy comes from the media. Their philosophy is built from songs, movies, TV shows, and the Internet. There is so much rich material out there to draw from. I will do a number of other posts on philosophical truths that come from popular culture.
The one I want to talk about this time is a song by Linkin Park called ‘Crawling’. The song is about an inner struggle we all have. Look at the words to the song and see if you can relate:
"crawling in my skin, these wounds they will not heal, fear is how I fall, confusing what is real"
Can you feel the anguish of the author? Inside of them they have wounds that will not heal. I know what that is like. A pain deep inside that is like a cancer without a cure but death."there's something inside me that pulls beneath the surface, consuming/confusing, this lack of self-control I fear is never ending, controlling/I can't seem"
There is something inside of us that controls us. We cannot control it. It has a death grip on us. No matter how much we struggle its grip only grows stronger. Yet we fight it and it only grows stronger. Like an addiction we cannot escape.
"discomfort, endlessly has pulled itself upon me, distracting/reacting, against my will I stand beside my own reflection, it's haunting how I can't seem... to find myself again, my walls are closing in"
A pain with no end. A life of torture. I am helpless to resist, I am powerless against it. Worst of all we brought this upon ourselves. My only recourse is death.
However, there is an answer for Linkin Park's dilemma. When I hear this song it reminds me of Pauls words to the Romans. Paul feels the same way about sin.
"For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but I cannot carry it out. ...but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members... O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" - Romans 7:18, 23-24 ISV, NASB & KJV
Paul is saying that sin is a wound that will not heal, a cancer that is crawling in his skin. This sin confuses us to what is real, it distracts us with the here and now form the reality that we have yet to see. Sin pulls us under the waves and we cannot get a breath. We look up to see the surface but cannot reach the air that is so close. We cannot control sin and it is never ending.
This is a bleak existence and Paul recognized this. Linkin Park can see the struggle we all know is real. We are slaves to it. Just like any slave we can be set free. There is a solution. There is a cure. We can escape from the grips of sin and death. We can't do it on our own. Paul answered the question, 'Who will rescue me from this body of sin and death?'
"Thank God through Jesus the Messiah, our Lord, because with my mind I myself can serve the law of God, even while with my human nature I serve the law of sin." - Romans 7-25 ISV
Looks what follows:
"Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus, because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son in flesh like ours under sin’s domain, and as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be accomplished in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those whose lives are according to the flesh think about the things of the flesh, but those whose lives are according to the Spirit, about the things of the Spirit. For the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit itself to God’s law, for it is unable to do so. Those whose lives are in the flesh are unable to please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God lives in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you." Romans 8:1-11 Holman Christian Standard Bible
If you want to be free, true freedom, a way has been made. You cannot get there on your own. You know, you have tried, and never have been able to set yourself free.
Check out my past post on Linkin Parks song 'What I've Done'
I've wanted to write about this for awhile. For many people their only source of philosophy comes from the media. Their philosophy is built from songs, movies, TV shows, and the Internet. There is so much rich material out there to draw from. I will do a number of other posts on philosophical truths that come from popular culture.