Who Is The Master Of Our Fate?

Kevin Aldrich

I have just discovered that my high school freshman son loves music and listens to vast amounts of it, whenever he gets the chance. Believe it or not, I live in the same house as my son, and I even work from home. However, if you asked me yesterday, “Does your high school freshman son love music?” I would have had to say, “Um, I don’t know.”

One of the songs he loves is entitled Architects by the band Rise Against, an American punk band. I had never heard this song before, or the band. To be clear, this band and song shouldn’t be confused with the song entitled Rise Against by the British band called Architects. (I was confused about that until my son set me straight.)

Are We The Generation We Have Been Waiting For?

I’ve been listening to the song. I like it. It has what I would call three related but interestingly distinct rhythmical sections. It also has an earnest message about not giving up on your dreams.

In Architects, the singer has gotten older and those around him, who said they wanted to change the world, have now compromised themselves. It is a kind of take on the Dylan classic, The Times They Are A-Changin’ but instead the reality is that The Times They Are Not A-Changin’ Enough.

Are there no fighters left here anymore?
Are we the generation we’ve been waiting for?
Are we patiently burning, waiting to be saved?

Our heroes and icons have mellowed with age
Following rules that they once disobeyed
They’re now being led when they used to lead the way

Do you still believe in all the things
That you stood by before?
Are you out there on the front lines
Or at home keeping score?

And do you care to be the layer
Of the bricks that seal your fate?
Or would you rather be the architect
Of what we might create?

Clearly the singer, and you and I, ought to rather be the architects of what we might create. A better world of some kind? The singer still has his idealism and determination to change things, and admirably wants to motivate his old lukewarm peers.

Don’t you remember when you were young
And you wanted to set the world on fire?
Somewhere deep down I know you do

The words combined with the music stirred me. I do remember wanting to set the world on fire.

And don’t you remember when we were young
And we wanted to set the world on fire?
‘Cause I still am and I still do

Yep. Still am and still do, too.

Make no mistake, we are not afraid
To bear the burden of repeating what they’re thinking anyway
Let’s raise the stakes on the bet we made
Let’s decide to be the architects, the masters of our fate

The singer concludes that what “we” believed before, “unapologetically/We stand behind these words.”

The problem is that what he stands behind is content-less. To say, What I believed before, I still believe and I’m going to act on it, not like you guys who have lost your ideals hasn’t any value in itself. Like Dylan’s song, Architects carries a threat of violence. Dylan said get out of the way old people because the youth are going to change the world. Oh, yeah? To what? What do you stand behind, Rise Against?

  • I’m Barak Obama and I stand behind this message.
  • I’m Hugo Chavez and I stand behind this message.
  • I am Mao Zedong and I stand behind this message.
  • I’m Pope Francis and I stand behind this message.

What’s it going to be?

An author I know, who is about my age, wrote that when she was young she, too, wanted to change the world. But, she realized that what she really needed to do was to change herself into someone more virtuous. She did that. And she has had a positive impact. That was wise.

If Dylan had sung and it had actually been true, We young people are changing from unjust to just, from selfish to generous, from self-serving to self-giving, then the times would have been a-changin’ in a positive direction rather than just a-changin’, which happens constantly anyway.

So, of all the ideologies and -isms to which people can dedicate themselves to and never give up on, and stand unapologetically behind, how about this one?

I will love the Lord my God with all my strength and my neighbor as myself with the kind of self-giving love that God has shown toward me.

“Let’s raise the stakes on the bet we made / Let’s decide to be the architects, the masters of our fate.”

The True Master of Our Fate

Actually, let’s be builders, not architects, for the blueprint of the Great Commandment and the New Commandment are perfectly adequate for building a better world.

Are we the generation we have been waiting for?

No. At least, I hope not.

Although President Obama said, “We are the generation we have been waiting for,” the Savior has already come.

There is only one Master of our fate.

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4 thoughts on “Who Is The Master Of Our Fate?”

  1. I love the sound and style of all of Rise Against’s songs. However, if you do a little more research on them, their message isn’t always correct.

  2. Pingback: Rise Against - Architects - The Catholic Imagination

  3. Kevin this is awesome! Let me try that again, AWESOME! This is so encouraging and faith building, I really appreciate you sharing it. Pardon the pun – but you rock!

  4. Pingback: Shocked by Iraqi Christian Refugee Conditions - BigPulpit.com

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