19 posts tagged “jesus”
"Every year the shadow's darkness fades a little more." -Emily Small
I had a bunch of ideas for this week's clip. The normal routine of school is starting to set in again, and it seems like this term's pace will allow for more blogging than previous terms have, I look forward to writing for fun again on a more consistent basis.
However, I decided to forgo any of the previous ideas I had, to save them for tomorrow or next week. Instead I wanted to direct you to Red Pen's blog, who embedded a clip from The Daily Show back in 2001 in the show's first episode after the dark events that September.
My wife's father was a firefighter who was bravely running into the World Trade Center when everyone else was running out, and his life on this earth ended when the first tower collapsed. I say this to point out that for Emily, 9/11 never became a political lightning rod. It was never a justification of war, it was never used for leverage in an argument. For Emily, it was simply the tour Daddy never came home from. It was a very personal tragedy, played out on a very public stage.
I ask for everyone to take a few moments to remember what 9/11 and the events surrounding it actually mean in our country's history, and also that it is a microcosm of so much of the pain and ugliness that fills our world... but as Jon Stewart points out in the video clip, it is also a microcosm for how beautiful humanity can become, if only in brief glimpses.
So, while a day like this reminds Emily, and all of us, of Daddies who will never come home and hatred that leads to horrible violence and destruction, I hope that it also might remind all of us, as it reminds Emily, of people like her father, who died because he put himself in harm's way to get as many others as he could to safety. His life and death was a testimony to the potential for human beauty, and bravery, and love. I hope I can learn from him to do likewise.
So, all exaggeration aside, I am in fact excited.
There’s some pretty cool stuff going on at TOJ, such as a book coming out next month. New stuff over at the journal is an interview with Jim Wallis, and another with John Milbank. The current issue's focus is atheism.
You should check it out for yourself here: The Other Journal
Recently, I was looking through some of my old blog posts for the first time since I actually wrote them. I decided I wanted to revisit some of them, mostly because I liked a few of them more than I remembered.
The first one I decided to rewrite was a post from my old, old blog, the one I had before I had ever heard of VOX.
It's about free hugs, and I posted the new version over at There's Treasure Everywhere if you care to read it. =)
I realize this blog may be a little lacking in the area of fluidity and it might jump around a bit. I've just been living from deadline to deadline at school this month but I didn't want to miss a week so soon. So, I hope everyone can bear with me, and perhaps it can still work as a means of grace.
I've blogged before about my affection for the often covered, Leonard Cohen penned masterpiece "Hallelujah". Since Cohen originally wrote the song it has taken on a life of its own, for a variety of reasons. As one of the many aspects of the brilliance of the song, one of the reasons for the remarkable cover life the song has experienced would be the reality that over time Cohen continued adding verses to the song, performing the song in different forms throughout the years. Apparently, in total, the song has 15 different verses, and Cohen himself performs only a few at a given time when he plays the song.
This is significant because when an artist covers the song they are able to pick which of the 15 verses they will perform themselves, thus drawing upon what the song means to them so they can truly make the song their own. This is significant with this particular song because, as is often Cohen's tendency, the Biblical metaphors he uses to sing about life and romantic love gives the song layers that make it possible to interpret "Hallelujah" in a seemingly infinite number of ways. I won't go into much more detail about the song's history because, as I said, I've blogged on the song before.
The last time I blogged about the song I included various versions that are among my favorite covers, such as the immortal cover by Jeff Buckley (which is actually what many are covering when they perform the song) and the Rufus Wainwright version. However, as of the time I wrote that blog, I hadn't yet heard David Bazan perform the song, a moment that instantaneously pushed this particular performance to the top of my list.
There are many covers of the song that I love, but none have hit me with the force and depth of David Bazan's, due in large part to his choice of verses (which is actually the original version I believe) along with the desperation and subtle intensity with which Bazan performs.
Bazan's version somehow hits the heart of my faith, or perhaps my consistent lack thereof, as much as any other song I know. I'm sure part of it is the history of what Bazan's other songs have meant to me.
/i heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord/but you don't really care for music do you?/it goes like this, the 4th, the 5th, the minor fall, the major lift/the baffled king composing hallelujah/
I can't recall hearing a version of this song that doesn't begin with this same opening line. This beautiful, poetic description of a baffled King David composing what could only be described as 'Hallelujah'. This idea resonates in me because in a way I relate to it.
There seems to me to be an undercurrent of redemption and beauty under all there is. Often I feel disconnected from this redemption and beauty, and attempting to reach out and touch it by choice is an almost sure way to miss it, but there are countless times when, without expecting it, I have been struck by an overwhelming sense of this beautiful secret hidden in all reality. At times, as with this series of music posts, I try to point out the places where this redemption and beauty appear to me so that I can share it somehow, so that maybe others can experience the feeling I had at unintentionally uncovering buried treasure. Usually these attempts are feeble and misguided, and yet somehow there are times, be it a preaching moment, or when something I've written has been a means of grace to someone else, or even just through a conversation with a friend, when I've been able to be a part of composing hallelujah. There is never a moment, during my part in this, where I could be described as anything other than baffled, and so this understanding of the baffled composing the very essence of hallelujah reminds me that this is the nature of things, it is mysterious and unquantifiable and strange.
/she broke your crown and cut your hair/she tied you to her kitchen chair/and from your lips she drew the hallelujahs/
/you say i took the name in vain/well i don't even know the name/and if i did/well, really, what's it to you?/
And yet, for all of these moments and discoveries, overwhelming doubt is a part of my life as frequently as (and at times, it seems, more frequently than) faith. We've all been crushed and had our 'glory' taken from us. Perhaps it was by those we loved, or by losing that which we cherished, or by pain of many kinds. It's so easy to lose that which makes us feel like ourselves, to forget who we are or to have sudden moments where we realize we never knew. Life constantly seems to throw things at us that break our crown, that leave us powerless, and that take the very hallelujahs from our lips, leaving us empty and without hope.
In these moments, I often rage at a God I feel I hardly know. I kick against the absence and darkness and loneliness that so often seem to be the hallmarks of my relationship with Jesus. And yet at times, it seems that these moments of darkness lead to a brokenness which, while I can't articulate why, I sense may be my only hope for redemption.
/cuz there's a blaze of light in every word/it does not matter which you heard/the holy or the broken hallelujah/
It seems the prosperity gospel most peddle on television and in books speaks of faith as if it is supposed to be an answer to our problems. We'll be happy and wealthy and free from stress and pain, and if not, it just means we don't have enough faith. Once we get rid of that last little bit of sin, once we learn to pray with a heart of faith, all those problems go away. Yet it would seem to me that a life where we were constantly happy and wealthy and free from stress and pain would leave us shallow and empty. Although, even with that said, the pain of this world is unevenly distributed, and to attempt to answer it with a glib "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" type philosophy on life is full of holes. Pain is a mystery. And yet somehow, the only hope for making sense of it is that somehow it is in fact a part of our redemption. God has never explained to us why we suffer, why we are allowed to continue hurting, why children are allowed to pay so dearly for nothing. And yet, the understanding that Jesus is God means that while God doesn't tell us why suffering happens, he sanctified it as holy by coming down amongst our suffering and questioning and tears, saying to all who hurt, "Me too." I don't know how it works, and I avoid suffering as much as anyone I know, but somehow it really doesn't matter whether or not we hear "the holy or the broken hallelujah," because each is brimming with redemption.
Yet, while I write this, hoping for it to be true, I must admit that my suffering and, even more, the suffering of others, often makes it hard for me to believe. But of all the things that make it hard for me to believe there is truth in the Gospel, none strike a deadlier blow than my own life.
/i did my best, it wasn't much/i could not feel so i tried to touch/i told the truth, i did not come to fool you/and even though it all went wrong, i'll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah... Hallelujah... Hallelujah/
The greatest argument I know against the transforming power of the Good News is my own seeming inability to be transformed. I fuck up so constantly. I hurt those I love, I am petty and selfish and lazy, I consistently cooperate with darkness and evil as opposed to Light, as opposed to the Kingdom.
And that is why it often makes me cry when Bazan cries out, with what feels to me as vulnerability and desperation: /And even though it all went wrong I'll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah/. Because this is my only hope, that for all the miserable mistakes I make, for all the ugliness I unleash on those around me, for all the times I allow materialism and selfishness to keep me from doing the right thing, that it might be enough when I stand before the Lord of Song to simply cry out "Hallelujah" in my brokenness. To sing out, with my woefully inadequate singing voice, the broken hallelujah.
It strikes me as I write this that perhaps my theology is just a theology of wishful thinking. Maybe I'm just hoping against hope that there might be a place in the Kingdom for someone as screwed up as me. But perhaps it's 'too good not to be true,' to paraphrase C.S. Lewis. Maybe a God who truly knows us intimately understands that while the Gospel is madness, it is even crazier to expect anyone to become a part of the Kingdom if it costs any more than a broken, often half-hearted hallelujah. For my sake, I sure as hell hope that's true; and with the little I've learned about people in my lifetime, I think there's a good chance you do too.
As I continue doing these music posts, there will undoubtedly be artists that have been particularly important to me in various ways who will inevitably end up making appearances multiple times. One example of this would be Tom Waits, who was the subject of the first ever official untitled music posts, and will certainly show up again from time to time.
I bring this up because this week’s band will be towards the very top of the list when it comes to repeat offenders. The band of which I’m speaking being U2.
This week’s song is actually three songs, taken from the recording of a live performance in Boston, Massachusetts. The clip was included on the band’s Electrical Storm single back in 2002, and the concert audio is from the band’s Elevation Tour.
Many who have seen U2 live refer to their experience there as ‘religious,’ and those who know much about U2 recognize that this is no accident. U2 has an uncanny ability to turn a stadium into a sanctuary, to turn an entire arena into an altar, all the while without the false religious theatrics and buzz words that officially “Christian market” bands often utilize. This three song medley of sorts is a prime example of U2 at the top of their game, and while I know that 12 minutes and 28 seconds is a long audio clip, I urge you friends to listen to the whole thing. Do it for me if for no other reason. The songs that make up this 12:28 are “Bad”, a brief piece of “40”, followed by “Where The Streets Have No Name”. Maybe you can open up another window and listen to the song while you read the text, that would probably save considerable time, and I imagine it would enhance whatever you might get out of the post.
As an aside, if it weren’t for Bono’s continued articulations of his faith, this clip alone would be enough to convince me that at the very least he was the unwitting instrument of the hand of God.
/if i could, you know i would/if i could i would let it go/surrender/dislocate/
/if i could/through myself/set your spirit free/i’d lead your heart astray/just to see you break/break away/into the light/
The clip begins with "Bad", which just so happens to be one of my favorite U2 songs (which for those who know me is saying a lot). When it comes to U2 songs, you can't pin them down to mean only one thing, even the most straightforward songs have taken on new meaning when the band performs them in new contexts. Yet, among other things, Bad is a song about addiction, brokenness and sin. It’s about being trapped in a cycle of self-abuse and destruction and being unable to free yourself. And it is also about being unable to free the one you love from their addiction, about finding ourselves ill-equipped to give someone else the strength and courage they need to break out of the darkness and into the light. The song doesn’t end with much hope aside from the reality that we are facing the darkness, we are aware of the deadliness and power of our addictions. We understand our powerlessness, and also how destructive our sin is to ourselves and those who love us. /I’m wide awake/I’m not sleeping/
Then, without hesitation, Bono’s cry of finally being wide awake moves into “40”, taken mostly from Psalm 40, as he leads the audience which has now become the congregation in a desperate plea to know how long we have to sing this song of brokenness and sin. And yet while the chorus they sing from “40” is a desire to know /how long to sing this song?/, the Psalm on which the song is based is a remembrance of God’s faithfulness. There is a shift from the hopelessness of our broken hearts toward a remembrance that God hears our cries and will deliver us from the darkness into new life.
Then Bono’s voice breaks off as the crowd, whether they realize the significance of their words or not, continues to cry out both in desperation, and in remembrance of God’s faithfulness. And they continue to sing, and at first, they are unaware of what is stirring in the background. The music is shifting behind their prayer of remembrance with a shift from “40” to “Where The Streets Have No Name,” a song about the Kingdom of God. “Where The Streets Have No Name” slowly starts to break in, much like the Kingdom it points to. It is subtle at first, and then it begins to take shape, its form taking on greater and greater complexity as it grows. And then the congregation realizes what’s happening. Seemingly as one, the crowd recognizes the song and begins to cheer its arrival. They do the only thing one truly can do in response to the Kingdom, they celebrate. And as the song continues to take its shape the celebration grows in pitch and intensity, until, over their voices, Bono begins to pray.
He prays from Psalm 116, closely referencing the way it appears in Eugene Peterson’s The Message: “What can I give back to God for the blessings he’s poured out on me? I’ll lift high the cup of salvation - a toast to God! I’ll pray in the name of God; I’ll complete what I promised God I’d do, and I’ll do it together with his people.” And by the end of this prayer, the song is in full swing, and the only thing left to do is join the party.
/i want to tear down the walls that hold me tonight/i want to reach out and touch the flame/where the streets have no name/i want to feel sunlight on my face/i see the dust cloud disappear without a trace/
/i’ll show you a place/with no sorrow and there’s no shame/where the streets have no name/
I’m not sure what else to say to articulate the way this moves me. When I listen to this final transition my eyes fill with tears, my heart welling up with a sense of joy it doesn’t normally know. So, in my lack of words I’ll simply point to how Bono closes out the song: “This is all we can do.” Because this is all we can do. All we can do in this world in which we are constantly exposed to darkness, is to celebrate those areas where we see light. All we can do in this valley where the shadow of death threatens to overwhelm, is to throw a party whenever the rays of new life touch our faces, dreaming of the day when finally the dust cloud will disappear and we will see clearly for the first time.
If nothing else, U2 reminds me that we can never forget the power of evil in this world, we can never close our eyes to the pain and suffering and darkness that fills our world. And yet they remind me that sometimes the best way to combat the evil in this world is to get together in as large a number as possible, dance like our lives depend on it (because they do), and sing at the top of our lungs about a day when our tears of sorrow will forever disappear, and shame will be a distant memory.
This is all we can do. Amen.
/if heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied/and illuminate the nos on their vacancy signs/if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks/then i'll follow you into the dark/
So it's time for another music post, these posts that it appears will never have a name. The song I decided to do this week isn't actually on the original list I came up with when I initially brainstormed to see if I could come up with enough songs off the top of my head to make starting the posts worthwhile. The song actually came to mind last night when I was hanging out with my friend Carl, as I told him about these particular posts I was doing.
The song is "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab For Cutie.
/no blinding light or tunnels to gates of white/just our hands/clasped so tight/waiting for the hint of a spark/
[Since I bought the song on iTunes it doesn't work on VOX, so I posted the video instead.]
There are a seemingly infinite number of songs out there about love. This is another one of those songs, but with the quirk that it is also about death. While it certainly isn't the only song about death and love, most songs dealing with these topics are about pain, heartache, loss and angst. Not so with singer/songwriter Ben Gibbard. Instead the song is sweet, and about as hopeful as a descent into utter darkness can be.
We hear Gibbard sing of the approaching death of his loved one, promising he won't be far behind. His promise includes that if by some chance heaven and hell are full and won't let anyone else in, he will follow his love into the darkness. For my money, this is a spot on articulation of what real love is. And when we look at the story of Jesus we see the story of a God who loves a suffering Creation and chooses to join them in their pain.
There is a story in Christian tradition that tells of Jesus going to hell between the time of his crucifixion and his resurrection. He went there to break down the gates and free those trapped there. Now, without getting into a discussion about the existence of hell or any of those issues, I still enjoy the story from the standpoint that Jesus was willing to go to the ugliest place imaginable to set captives free. So, this song makes me think of that same sort of idea, that somehow this mysterious unfathomable God would follow us into the darkness rather than exist without us in the light.
I suppose in the Cartesian world many people think we're still living in, there is no room for a love that can overcome even death. Fortunately, many are finally beginning to catch up to the reality that the idea of a purely material world that can be reduced again and again until we completely understand it all is a myth. There is room for mystery again. I truly hope it is true that somewhere in this mystery, somewhere in this space of nonlinearity and beauty, there really is a love that assures us that we won't be alone. That there truly is a God, who sings to us, who assures us we're understood in our pain and in the fear of our approaching death, and who promises us that we will not be alone and that we will be followed even into the darkest of places.
/the time for sleep is now/but it's nothing to cry about because we'll hold each other soon/
My wife told me after reading this post herself that I should instruct everyone to listen to the song once first, and then again after reading. Since the song is only 1:42 I will take her advice and recommend you do that if you so choose.
This week's song is the old hymn, “Blessed Assurance,” (here titled “This is My Story, This is My Song”) as performed by jazz icon Thelonious Monk. Now, I’m no jazz expert, the little I know about Monk is that he seemed to live a fairly chaotic and tortured life, as many jazz musicians seemed to live. Musically, I know it was common for him to use discordant notes and odd pauses throughout his music, causing some to refer to him as a musical humorist, and we hear that discord and awkwardness in today's song.
The beautiful thing about a master like Monk, and many others in jazz music, is the ability to tell a story with your ability to improvise. One of my favorite things about jazz is how through improvisation multiple artists, and at times the same artist, could take the same song, the same basic chord structure, and tell an entirely different story with it. One’s style transformed the way a song was played and received, reorganizing pre-existing themes to make something new. Miles could play a song with his lyrical, often sparse style and create one sound, and then Coltrane would play the same song with his chaotic “wall of sound” and create something else altogether. Then the two could come together and the extremes played off each other and created something else again, all the while the same base song was being played each time.
There has been plenty of conversation about how the improvisation of jazz is important as we look at theology, at how we approach scripture, about how we understand what the gospel looks like in different times and cultural contexts, being able to embrace the beauty and variety of life without changing the basic chord structure. I love these conversations, but they’ll have to be saved for another day.
I point out the beauty I see in improvisation, with my novice appreciation of jazz, because the way a jazz musician records a song is intentional and is part of how they are telling that particular story, or setting that particular mood, etc. That is what makes this recording of “This is My Story, This is My Song” so beautiful.
Now, let me establish, as is the case every time I’ll make one of these posts, I’m clearly not speaking for the artist or with any authority about the original intent. I’m simply sharing with you my own interpretation of songs that struck me as beautiful and gave me a glimpse of the Gospel in some way that perhaps the artist never even intended.
Monk was a master pianist who could clearly play such a simple song without any effort. Yet here he plays as if struggling through each note. He plays the song slowly, agonizing over each moment. He stutters and pauses in odd spots, he misplays multiple times, he sounds more like an 8 year old at a recital than one of the most important figures in the history of jazz. Perhaps this is just another manifestation of his typical style, but it takes on more significance given the song selection.
This.... is... my.... story. This is.. my song. Praising my.... Sav... ior.... all the day long.
He stutters his way through the song the way we stutter our way through ours; we forget the words, we play the wrong notes, we clumsily strike the wrong keys. At times we feel like we’re getting the hang of the whole thing, only to stumble and trip over ourselves all over again. We play like children, barely making it through each line.
And yet, for all our stuttering and through all of our mistakes the melody is still recognizable. For all our efforts to butcher the delivery, this is still our story of redemption, still our song of salvation. Our assurance rests, not in our clumsy fingers, but in the beautiful Composer, who joys in our feeble attempts at playing the music because it’s The Song that we’re bumbling our way through. The Composer watches with the agony and joy of a mother watching her child in that first awkward recital. This is our Story. This is our Song.
In the end, I’m weak and selfish.
/perfect submission/perfect delight/
I hurt others and live in ways that oppose everything I say I believe.
/visions of rapture/now burst on my sight/
My pride and fear are overwhelming.
/angels from heaven bring from above/
At any moment I feel ready to let go, to give up on belief because the Gospel seems like it can’t fully take hold of me.
/echoes of mercy/whispers of love/
Sometimes I stare at the ceiling in the dark, wondering where the strength will come from to face myself, and the harsh reality of life for one more day.
/this is my story/this is my song/
I doubt and I rage. My heart curses His name.
/praising my savior all the day long/
I scream and I spit. I lick my wounds of abandonment and loneliness. At my fingertips the story seems a lie, the song seems like so much meaningless noise.
/this is my story/this is my song/
And a voice whispers in the darkness. “I am here. You play so beautifully. Take heart child. This is still your story, this is still your song, and it will be until the end of the age.”
/praising my savior all the day long/
Lord, have mercy on these clumsy fingers. Amen.
So, I was reading for class the other day and decided to share the closing paragraph of said reading with you because it seems to fit well with the As Yet Untitled Music Post from the other day. The quote it is taken from a discussion by Robert Capon on this parable.
Surely it will lose some of its meaning since it is out of context, I would have considered including the whole thing but that's probably illegal due to licensing laws of some sort.
Anyway, I just appreciated his thoughts, so I decided to share them.
"On Shelter Island, where I used to live, there is an odd local custom. Every Friday evening, at exactly five minutes to five, the fire siren goes off. For years, I wondered about it. What was the point? They tested the siren every day at noon, so it couldn't be that. I even asked around, but nobody seemed to know a thing about it. Then one day it finally dawned on me; rather than run the risk of the festivity of rural weekend be delayed even one minute beyond the drudgery of the working week, some gracious soul had decided to proclaim the party from the top of the firehouse - the 4:55 siren was the drinking siren. Miller Time on Shelter Island.
Heaven is Miller Time. Heaven is the party in the streaming sunlight of the world's final afternoon. Heaven is when all the rednecks, and all the wood-butchers, and all the plumbers who never showed up - all the losers who never got anything right and all the winners who just gave up on winning - simply waltz up to the bar of judgment with full pay envelopes and get down to the serious drinking that makes the new creation go round. It is a bash that has happened, that insists upon happening, and that is happening now - and by the sweetness of its cassation, it drowns out all the party poopers in the world.
Heaven, in short, is fun. And if you don't like that, Buster, you can just go to... well, you'll have to use your imagination.
You'll need it: this is the only bar in town."
This may sound grandiose, and I urge those like myself who would often stop reading after this first sentence to keep reading a bit further, but, I want to make at least some posts that point toward Gospel.
Now, to avoid any misunderstandings, let me say that by ‘Gospel’ I don’t mean the strange, mostly Western concoction that turns the teachings, life, death and resurrection of Jesus into some sort of ‘fire insurance’ to save the immortal souls of a select group of individuals from hell.
When I say ‘Gospel,’ I’m referring to something so large it cannot be articulated in any way that nails it down. Called ‘the good news’ and ‘the Kingdom of God” by Jesus himself, mirroring closely what the Jews refer to as Shalom, it is some mysterious power or force that is breaking into the world, that is somehow present and not yet here. It cannot be defined in the modern, post-Enlightment, mechanistic terms many often attempt to force it into, instead it is illusive and mysterious, it can only be discussed in stories and riddles, in art and poetry. It can only be held in open hands, only encountered with a truly open mind, when one is willing to experience a life that is turned upside down, when one is willing to admit that our striving for power and control, to decide who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ is woefully backwards; when we realize that we’re not as good as we’d like to think at drawing neat lines between clean and unclean, black and white, good and evil. The ‘Kingdom’ or ‘Gospel’ is a mysterious in-breaking reign of universal love and forgiveness. It is redemption for all creation, it is a work of profound reconciliation between all things, and to a God that cannot be boxed in or contained by any metaphor or religious principle, that cannot be defined by theology or doctrine, but can only be known due this God’s desire to be known, to reach through our silly words and signifiers to meet us in our ramblings and confusion.
My hope is to play and imagine and enter conversations in the places where I feel I’ve encountered the mystery of God or perhaps encountered this mysterious insurgency of forgiveness and reconciliation in a profound and beautiful (or perhaps terrifying) way. To this end, I’ll be starting a series of posts similar to the old Sacred Sundays posts I used to do, although this time I’ll be sticking purely to music. Based on my track record I’m sure I’ll miss several weeks altogether, and I might stop for a while once I run out of ideas for a time. This feels, at least at this point in my life, like something that can’t be forced, but can only happen naturally. Thus, I’ll skip a week altogether as opposed to forcing the issue once my initial well of ideas runs dry. I haven’t decided on an official day yet for these posts, so I think for now they might be on Fridays, since Friday happens to be a day with no class commitments. Originally I had Monday in mind, but this was only because the name that initially came to mind was ‘Music Mondays,’ which isn’t a name I particularly like, and certainly isn’t worth the exclusion of other days of the week. PLEASE let me know if you have some clever idea.
As far as the music is concerned, my selections will be about content rather than genre or whatever other criteria one might use to discuss music, although for the sake of transparency I do happen to enjoy all the songs I’ve thought of thus far. I say that only because I hope anyone who decides to take the time to listen to the track for a particular week isn’t too distracted from what I am trying to point out because they don’t like the song on the level of pure enjoyment.
At times I will go into great detail explaining what the songs says or means to me, at times I might say nothing at all in order to let a given song speak for itself. Wherever inspiration takes me.
Anyway, I suppose that is enough of an explanation. So, without further ado, here is the debut post of the as yet untitled music posts.
/there’s a place i know, where the train goes slow/where sinners can be washed in the Blood of the Lamb/
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
–Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 5.3
The first track, selected with no particular hierarchy in relation to the other songs I have in mind, is a song called ‘Down There By The Train’ by Tom Waits.
Now, I have no particular insight into the mind of Tom Waits. I can in no way vouch for his desire to use faith or spirituality as anything more than a storytelling device. And yet, Tom Waits articulates the beauty of the Gospel as well as anyone I’ve ever heard. He is, above all, a storyteller, and his stories are at times about the doubt and pain of the darkest of places, and at other times about beautiful love and hope and faith, and then more often than not, both the darkness and the light dance together at once. His lyrics regularly wrestle with the meeting place of doubt and faith, of life and death.
In this particular song, (some may be familiar with the performance by Johnny Cash on the American Recordings) Waits articulates the Kingdom as a train as he sings of a place he knows where the train slows down, allowing those who make it there to jump on and steal their way aboard. It is a place where murderers and traitors, outcasts and the unwanted, where “all of the shameful and all of the whores” can make it on, with the promise that once on board all passengers are treated the same, whether they have a ticket or not. “There’s no eye for an eye, there’s no tooth for a tooth.” It is a place where those in despair can take hold of a redemption they are in no way entitled to.
There have been many times this song has brought tears to my eyes as it reminds me of the beauty of the Gospel as I understand it. That somehow, God is a God who knows how costly it is to ride and thus makes a way for stowaways to sneak their way into the Kingdom. What a beautiful idea, that God creates a bend in the track that slows the train enough that the poor in spirit, who cannot afford a ticket of their own, can ride for free. I have fallen in love with this idea of a God who will bend the “rules”, who will do whatever it takes get people on board because the celebration just isn’t the same unless everyone can make it. How beautiful is the idea that amongst the lowly and the broken, who wouldn’t dream of affording the fare, there might be whispers that “there’s a place I know, where the train goes slow, where sinners can be washed in the Blood of the Lamb.” For my sake, I sure hope that it is true. Amen.
/i’ve never asked forgiveness/i’ve never said a prayer/i’ve never given up myself/and i’ve never truly cared/and i’ve hurt the ones who love me/and i’m still raising cain/i’ve taken the low road/if you’ve done the same, meet me down there by the train/
School work has begun again. I just finished my first real reading for the approaching trimester, Cornell Style notes and all. The reading was for my class with Dwight Friesen, The Kingdom of God and The New Sciences. If I wasn't excited about the class before I definitely am now (but I was excited about the class before). The reading thus far came from Fritjof Capra's The Web of Life. The first reading only consisted of ten or so pages, but it was bloody brilliant! There also seem to be a lot of parallels between it and what McLaren is saying in Everything Must Change. It makes me wonder if McLaren has read Capra himself or if perhaps they are just both reading the same women and men, thinkers in what is apparently a philosophical idea known as Deep Ecology, and related ways of thinking.
There are all these various strands of thought and experience in my life over the last few years, or perhaps the last decade, and this class seems like it could be another remarkable moment when those strands start coming together to help me see the world in a new and beautiful way, sort of like the deconstruction of the last ten years is starting to move toward new growth and life and understanding. I'll try to be accountable to continue sharing insights and thoughts in other posts as I continue to learn more and more and as I come to wrestle and/or dance with new ideas and different ways of seeing and following this Way that has captured my heart and not let go even in the moments I've wished it would.
This class is wonderfully exciting and it hasn't even started yet. As I look at the work it will require, it is also scary as hell at the same time.
I can't wait to get deeper into it!
