“Beside You”
We will get us through this night.
That’s the point: something unexpected.
For the most part, the video is pretty straightforward. It’s more or less what you would expect from a pro-life music video: Girl finds out she’s pregnant. Girl tells the guy. Guy reacts less than heroically. Girl feels lost, alone, doesn’t know what to do.
At the same time, running throughout the video is this light, almost playful undertone. And then we reach the pivotal moment: The guy begins to rethink things and comes back to the girl. He finds her at a party and pulls her into the bathroom to talk. Things look pretty hopeless for the pair until … enter the magician and his dove.
If you watched the video and thought, Where did that come from?, you’re not alone. In fact, that was the goal.
I had a chance to sit down with the music video’s director, Manuel de Teffe, and ask him that very question.
His response: “What’s the meaning of the musician and the dove? Everyone sees it and they laugh. Without any meaning, the magician enters. It’s a surreal moment. It’s a symbol of the grace that can resolve everything, that can illuminate.”
It’s that plot twist called grace that finds its way into each of our lives, taking our story from a tragedy to a divine comedy.
Trust in the victory of the cross.
We have to march on without giving in, keeping in mind what the Lord said to St. Paul: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Cor. 12:9). Christian triumph is always a cross, yet a cross which is at the same time a victorious banner borne with aggressive tenderness against the assaults of evil.
—Evangelii Gaudium, Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis
Trust in the victory of the cross.
Elizabeth Reichert
