goo goo dolls – Looking to God

Can someone love but not touch? Feel but not see? Hear, yet remain deaf? She is in despair. She loses something very dear to her. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get it back. Then Seth appears and everything becomes just as before. Better, in fact.

Meg Ryan as Dr. Maggie Rice in City of Angels

The film City of Angels tells the story of a surgeon (Meg Ryan) who questions her belief system soon after losing a patient. Some time after, she gains a friend—Seth (Nicolas Cage)—an angel. Women Who Wow Wednesday celebrates the life of Dr. Maggie Rice, the woman who can make angels want to become human.

They admire each other from a distance. She knows when he’s there. The storms may envelop her senses, but his presence comforts her. The warmth of his arms wrapped around her shoulders cradles her at night, lulling her to sleep.

“I don’t understand a God who would let us meet, if there’s no way we could ever be together.”

She’s also curious about Seth. He’s not like anyone she’s ever met. He’s different. Special. She hears about his history from a friend of his:

“Seth knows no fear. No pain. No hunger. He hears music in the sunrise. But he’d give it all up. He loves you that much.”

Maggie knows she’s not like him. She knows she will have to do something. She can’t see him anymore. It just isn’t right. So she visits him with the intention of making it the last time she talks with him. She says good-bye explaining the other man in her life asked her to marry him.

Seth doesn’t understand. How can she do that? How can she break his heart like so? Doesn’t she feel the same way? She doesn’t understand. Maggie makes him feel alive. Maggie makes him feel invincible. Maggie makes him feel…

Iris by Goo Goo Dolls

And I’d give up forever to touch you
‘Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be
And I don’t wanna go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
When sooner or later it’s over
I just don’t wanna miss you tonight

And I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah, you bleed just to know you’re alive

And I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am

I can’t reveal how the story ends. In some ways, the story doesn’t have an ending. At least not the ending we would hope. But isn’t that how life is anyway? Perhaps like Maggie, we find love in the oddest places. And try as we may, it takes a lifetime to understand it. At the same time, maybe we were never meant to understand it. Maybe, just maybe, love is a growing process that takes time to nurture, trusting in its power to lead us to have faith to understand it some day.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

Have you seen The City of Angels? What did you think of Maggie?

The Goo Goo Dolls’ Naked is a song that speaks to the heart. So many people have had so many interpretations for this anthem that no one’s willing to come forward to say it definitely means anything. For my Freedom Friday post I’d like to tell you what I think of this song and of what it means to me.

Recorded in 1995, Naked by The Goo Goo Dolls has raised questions among musical aficionados everywhere. Some have attributed this song to the band’s struggles with stardom within the music scene. Some have said this song is more about loneliness. To whom shall we lend credence?

When I first heard the song, it made me stop and listen. Something about it gripped my imagination and stirred my conscience. I suppose we all have something that moves us. An event. A photograph. This song, however, gave me pause, and I don’t think I would have looked beyond the meaning of the lyrics if it wasn’t for the Stairway to Heaven tribute guitar solo three-quarters the way through.

Now, I know you may be unfamiliar with the song, so I decided to reprint the lyrics here for your reading pleasure.

Naked

Yeah I’m fadin’ and I call out
No one hears me
Never been, never felt, never thought I’d say a word

Weighed down
Safe now

You’re naked inside your fear
You can’t take back all those years
And shots in the dark from empty guns
Are never heard by anyone
Never heard by anyone

Yeah I’m hiding in the fallout
Now I’m wasted
They don’t need me, don’t want me, don’t hear a word I say

Weighed down
Safe now

You’re naked inside your fear
You can’t take back all those years
And shots in the dark from empty guns
Are never heard by anyone
Never heard by anyone

Inside your head
No one’s there
And I don’t think I’ll ever be
And I don’t care

You’re naked inside your fear
You can’t take back all those years
And shots in the dark from empty guns
Are never heard by anyone
Never heard by anyone
By anyone
By anyone

The verse that absolutely shines for me is “you’re naked inside your fear.” I thought about this a lot. I think what it means is in our most vulnerable state—naked—fear is what dictates our behavior. This could mean physical or non-physical nakedness. Fear is a powerful component to our willingness to either live a life befitting of joy or walk around like zombies, never experiencing life’s true happiness.

Additionally, true joy, joy without fear, is being naked to the world having love in our hearts and in our minds. It’s not being afraid of injury by anyone while we accomplish the mission to love others as ourselves. Not to sound too preachy but to me, if we love others as ourselves, we’ve done all we could do to live a life worth living.

Have you ever heard of the song Naked? What do you think the underlying message is?