ColdPlay, the decorated British alt-rock music band, debuted their new song “We Pray” at Glastonbury 2024. Ever since the song was released, it got the attention of the public sphere with hashtag #Wepray. Cold Play brings together four amazing artists to perform it. British rapper Little Simz, Nigerian singer Bruna Boy, Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna and Argentinian singer TINI featured in this song, bringing in a global multi-cultural flavour to this ‘We pray’ number. It is modern, rhythmic, very catchy and groovy. Through their singing of this song, the group is praying, or to put it in other way, the strength of prayer is in singing it in a group, in and with a global multi-cultural group.
This contemporary song prayer doesn’t speak about whom to pray or how to pray, rather is about what to pray, which offers important insights about prayer. I have always affirmed that our prayer reflects the kind of God we believe and the kind of God we believe is known by the prayer we do. In view of that, Cold Play’s “We Pray” doesn’t name the kind of God they believe, but communicates that the God to whom they are praying is about care, help, shelter, and as. someone demonstrating love in action. From my Christian subjectivity, I cannot but resonate the Christian understanding of God whom I have known in Jesus Christ being reflected in and through this song. Prayer is not an abstract theory filled with words and rhetoric, rather is about “for someone to come and show me the way” in people’s need and is about offering love to one another, which Jesus Christ has demonstrated in action through his life, ministry, death and resurrection. “We Pray” also reflects the context today as “though I am in the valley of the shadow of death” from Psalm 23, informing that from God the shepherd there is comfort and care, for prayer is about love.
Praying about “Virgilio” and “Baraye” in the song, brings out the very essence of praying for the people and movements seeking justice in our world today. “Virgilio” is an immigrant who was wrongly accused of killing a police officer in the US and “Baraye” which in Farsi means “Because of" is a song in the context of a woman who was unjustly sentenced for wearing hijab wrongly in Iran shows their sensitivity and longing for a just world. Perhaps prayer is about grounding and working with struggles of justice for liberation. Prayer is about joining with the God of liberation for justice in our world today.
“We pray” is also a bold attempt to communicate that life is all about living it well with confidence, striving for a world well lived with respect, with dignity and with love. For it is about living well until the “end of the day” and waiting in hope for an unknown future where there is no pain and is so amazing. Prayer is about a realistic hope that comes at the end of the day.
Let us join in singing with Coldplay “We Pray” praying that “for someone to come and show me the way, for some shelter and records to play, we’ll be singing ‘baraye’, and pray that we make it to the end of the day. Thanks to Cold Play for bringing in the importance of prayer into the public sphere. May this song help us to prayerfully listen to it so that we can listen God's voice and become an answer to someone's prayer.
@rajpatta,
29.09.2024
