What It Means to Have a Friend

WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE A FRIEND

Bono and the band known as U2 have been active in crusading for a number of causes. Once, in the 1980s, during their Rattle and Hum tour, the band was campaigning for states to ratify the bill to create a new holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

While they were in Arizona, they stirred up opposition and Bono even received a death threat. The letter said, "Don't go ahead with the concert. And, if you do, don't sing 'Pride On the Name of Love)' be-cause, if you do, I am gonna blow your head off, and you won't be able to stop this from happening."

The band decided to go ahead with the concert and to go ahead and sing "Pride." In the middle of the song, Bono says, it suddenly hit him, What ff this death threat is for real? What if someone is in the rafters of the building or someone up close has ,a hand gun? What if someone really does want to blow my head off?"

He said, "I just closed my eyes and I sang this middle verse, with my eyes closed, trying to concentrate and forget about the ugliness and just keep close to the beauty that's suggested in the song. I looked up, at the end of that verse, and Adam [one of the other members of the band] was standing in front of me."

Bono concluded, "It was one of those moments where you know what it means to be in a band."

Jesus once put it like this: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (Jn 15:13).