Special Guest Writer: Adam Busch

Today I welcome Adam Busch to the blog. He is my bil (brother in law) and what a brother he is! I am honored to call him family and always amazed at his talent.

It's been 8-months since Bono took that dramatic spill near Central Park possibly ending his ability to play the guitar again.  Now he and his band-mates from U2 are back in the Big Apple performing to crowds of aging 40-somethings and dancing millennials who weren't a sparkle in anyones eye when U2 released their first album in 1976.  The rockers are in New York performing this week on a leg of their iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour, named as much for the message they're preaching and the name of their 13th studio album, Songs of Innocence (2014).

U2's album covers like those of Led Zeppelin, The Ramones, Pink Floyd, The Beatles and others have wrapped the musical innards with images to evoke and enhance the passion of the lyrics and rhythm contained in tape, CD, or streamed.  Starting with U2's first studio album, Boy, where a young, pre-teenage boy inspects the depths of your soul with dark, doe like eyes.  Or, who of you haven't at one-time recreated the 1987, Joshua Tree cover.  I know some pilgrims that have been to that barren spot in the middle of the Mohave Desert to pay respects to the fallen tree.

The Songs of Innocence cover speaks to me like no other.

No,  I'm not talking about the meant-for-the-masses cover that we all have in our iTunes download.

I'm talking about this one.

The one of U2's drummer, Larry Mullen Jr.

Depending on the filter you view life through, what in the black and white image shouts at you? Is it the tattoo on Larry's shoulder?  Is it Larry himself?  The cross on the other man's chest?  I would imagine for a good amount of you, a shirtless Larry Mullen Jr. is heavenly.  Does an image of a man grabbing onto the waste of another man make you squirm?

"It doesn't sit terribly comfortably, but it's a good image," said Mullen Jr. in an interview to The Observer.

So, what's the story?

The guy Larry's holding on to is his 18-year-old son, Aaron Elvis Mullen.  There is a unique, dynamic, sometimes volatile relationship between a parent and a child.  Not to mention a teenage boy with his father.

How would we have staged the picture?  Most likely we'd reverse the role.  The boy holding grabbing on to his father.  It's what we hope for with our children.  It's what we beg God for.

But we know parenthood does not consult with us when making plans.

So we hold on.

We grab our sons and say "It's OK.  I've got you. Please....don't...go."

Please.

Please!

You know we do it for years.  From that moment of that first vocal announcement of their presence on Earth.  We train them to go.  We nourish, encourage, scold, teach and prepare them to walk away.  Like a mother bird we nudge them to the ledge,

inch-by-inch, year-by year; they look over.  We nudge.

Nudge.

Push.

Boom, they're gone; and with them a piece of our identity goes too.  And they soar, they fall, they are injured, they grow, and struggle.  Some come back; and as the father in Luke 15, we get down on our knees and hold on.  We show them it's OK.  The son has returned.  

We shield their Innocence from Experience.

"Hold me close,
Hole me close and don't let me go
Hold me close like I'm someone you might know
Hold me close, the darkness just lets
us see
who we are
I've got your light inside of me."- “Iris”-Songs of Innocence-2014- U2

Adam Busch- Houston, Texas by way of Colorado, Oregon and California.  I am the husband of an amazing and gracious woman coming up on our 20^th anniversary.  I have three crazy, wonderful kids that are becoming unique individuals.  Looking for more opportunities to allow me to spend more time on vacation; let me know if you’ve found the secret.