Coldplay, Confetti and a Catholic Church

Coldplay, Confetti and a Catholic Church.

I recently stopped into a pretty, little Church to say a prayer (good boy that I am) and I was both amused and surprised to see the following sign on the way out the door

For a few different reasons this sign made me chuckle and I found myself reflecting on its intended and unintended meanings. On the one hand it’s not really a very joyful message, I mean no confetti is bad enough but no substitutes even?! That’s getting a bit restrictive. I found myself trying to picture what confetti was made of on the one hand and then about the possible options for confetti “substitutes” on the other hand. Rice is the only other one I have come across in my short years of living, but I guess you could start getting creative and try other foods or grains or whatever the spirit moved you to use. But to what end? ?The sign clearly stated substitutes were really out of the question as well.

Once I got past the sort of surface level of the thing then I started to wonder if maybe it was God talking to me in some way, some answer to prayer… but this didn’t seem very likely as ?I am pretty sure God would want confetti, and more of it, or at the very least a pretty decent substitute. There is a certain irony really in the audacity of this small sign. I am sure the well intentioned objective of the faithful volunteer who took the time to make it and post it with such fervour and thorough declaration so as to outlaw not only the traditional confetti but also the aforementioned confetti substitutes, meant no ill will to visitors such as myself or anyone else who entered the church, but it did seem to dampen the vibe and even deny the experience of the more spiritual type of confetti that we are often looking for when we pop into such a church for a quick visit.

You see though an empty church can seem quiet and plain, and maybe even lonely or sad, the reason we enter to pray is to find something or to remind ourselves of something, or to get more of something and to celebrate that thing. In withdrawing from the world or our busy schedule to make time for a quick visit we hope that we might see some sign of the opposite proclamation of the above sign, though maybe not as explicitly stated, so that we can be reminded why we ever wanted to use confetti in the first place or why we would ever feel such a need for it that we would seek out something else a substitute if necessary.

Why do we use confetti in the first place? We use it to celebrate and to express and to communicate joy. It is a visual and visceral representation of a truly happy reality that has occurred, a reality that we have experienced, touched, felt, and witnessed and we want to express it, be in it and be a part of it. Considering this it seems like we should always have confetti on hand in our lives, and that there might be no better place for it than in our Churches. Sacraments we are told are an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible reality that can draw us into the mystery of God reaching out and touching man (My paraphrase here but I think it’s something like that). I don’t know about you but for me confetti does the same thing and it never felt truer than the time I got to see Coldplay preform live on their “Head Full of Dreams” tour a few years ago, let’s just say that they had things covered in the confetti department.

?

?

?

I have become somewhat infamous among my friends and family for going on and on about how amazing this concert was, (except my Dad, who I went with so he gets it... shout out to him for saying we should check for floor tickets the day of I'm so glad we did!) but I am not exaggerating when I say that it was nothing short of a spiritual experience and it felt like a preview of some of the things that the big guy upstairs has planned for us in the next life.

You see we are human beings and as such we are sensual and emotional beings, we experience with our senses and our emotions and this helps us to conceive of those bigger and greater and more beautiful experiences than we can ever imagine. I imagine that the whole Coldplay tour with the lights the sound the fireworks and the confetti would look like a puppet show compared to what was really going on inside that quite little church if I had been at all able to experience it.

And that is the great irony, the great humour of our human existence. Our God is not a God of less confetti or outlawing confetti substitutes in fact quite the opposite, he invented it, he designed it and he gave it to us. He wants us to use it to express with it and to rejoice in it, but that is not all. You see there is more in this than coloured paper and grains of rice, we are talking about an expression of love and joy that cannot be conceived of by our limited human capacity. Even our greatest celebrations do not compete on the level of the divine confetti that is being showered down on us freely and without bounds.

So don’t be afraid to use confetti in your life and lots of it, but remember that even the confetti is just a substitute a sign a piece of paper printed out and posted up to remind you of some distant place where you will cross over from the fullness of the senses to the fullness of the soul, where you will walk up the steps of small church and open a door not to something lesser or lonelier or sadder than the entertainment of the outside world but to something infinitely deeper and fuller, a place where you will never be alone, never be short on confetti and never need any substitutes. And these doors are not far off, they are very close, and we don’t have to wait to walk through them, so don’t be afraid of the quite the loneliness and the sadness, don’t be afraid when you feel there is no confetti, for that is just the quit before the storm, the dark before the concert and the anticipation before the reunion. That is just the crossing over from the substitutes to the real thing and it’s a path that we all must take.

Where are you running out of Confetti substitutes in your life? Maybe it’s time for the real thing. Maybe you’re seeing some signs for the higher path, maybe it’s time to crossover, maybe it’s time to open the door on your loneliness and quiet and walk right in. You might be surprised what you find.

Yours in the Coldplay and the Confetti,

Ben

P.S.

Here is the opening song from the tour, still gives me chills