Dogwood drive

 

            For a brief time, I had the pleasure of residing in the commonwealth of Kentucky, and travelling up and down interstate 65 several times a year. My mother was from Kentucky, near the place where the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers near each other in the southwestern part of the commonwealth. I felt some affinity for the for the place outside the decay urban center where I happened to be studying.

            The affinity I felt for the real place drew me to a work of art. That work of art resonated deeply with inner world of thoughts and imagination. As studied things too great for me, and tried to help a few souls, I also studied this artistic narrative intently.

            It was game, but it was different in its presentation. You never really had control, only agency to interpret and respond to the event presented. The story could only play out one way, and I never actually played it at all. I watched it being played. I never felt the need to play it myself, I was happy just to watch. The scenes were atmospheric, the music ethereal yet familiar. The characters were people I knew in real life. The secret underground highway, robots, and glowing orange skeletons were perfect representation of the things that happened everyday made more real by a magical interpretation.

            The great debate was all about the meaning of the piece, the message it was meant to convey. I do not believe there has ever been a definitive answer, and that is probably best for the longevity of the work. A mystery solved is not nearly as compelling as a mystery which remains mysterious. It leaves room for each new player, or viewer to explore the possibilities. Yet, there must be some ultimate meaning, some true interpretation in the mind of the creator. I wouldn’t claim to have any insight into that, but I do have my own pet interpretation.

            The first character we meet is an aging man who has a rough life. The bottle kept him down, and it is only with help from friends that he has scraped by. Now, those friends are passing on, and he is facing his last delivery job before he is sat adrift. He hasn’t really got anything beyond that last delivery that we known of.

            Then he meets a girl chasing the ghost of a cousin with a future. A little boy and his brother looking for parents who disappeared suddenly. And two performers determined to live free. All of these people take up the cause of the old man. They join his mission, because they feel they are directed, or it is something to do, or they owe it to the others.

            The old man doesn’t make, his age finally catches up with him, and his leg is badly hurt. He gets help, but the cost undoes him. He turns back to the bottle to cope, and that finishes him. He comes to owe a debt to a company that reaches nearly everywhere in the world of the story. No one can save the old man. All that can be done is to finish what he started.

            In making the delivery everyone else finds a place to live. The purpose of their elder delivered them. There is something here, a passing of a torch from a generation that knew how to work for living to a generation who knows that living is more than work. Each one lacks something, and while it is too late for the old man to learn and gain, it is not to late for the others.

            Some say the story is really about death, and think that is half-right. I think it is about dying while you still live. Dying through addiction, dying through aimlessness, or through recklessness, or through looking backwards, or through feeling sorry for yourself.

            If just a few lines were altered there might be a virtue at the end, a true lesson for living; but that isn’t the way it goes. At the end is just a bunch of theories. Maybe the real lesson is that there are a lot of people out there feeling lost in the night, and looking for a little magic in the mundane to make life feel worth living again.

            Christianity has magic for the mundane, in the most wholesome and wonderful sense. We have a direction through the darkness. We have answers to the problems, real answers. What we seem to lack is the ability to reach the resonate level of people’s day-to-day struggles in a compelling way, and guide from that place we all start somewhere in the night to the place we belong in the light of a new day.

Slow down

 

With the release of Hal Linsey’s “The Late, Great Planet Earth,” and the “Left Behind” series by Jerry B. Jenkins end times prophesy went mainstream in ways seldom before seen in Church history. While some of the fervor has died down, the subject remains widely popular within conservative evangelical circles. Indeed, there is a whole subculture surrounding the relatively new doctrine of dispensational eschatology as espoused by Linsey and Jenkins. Through books, conferences, podcasts, and radio and television programming a dedicate cadre of teachers inform many thousands of believers of what is soon to come. They are very focused on putting together a definitive timeline, and forecast precise event. They call for preparation, and that call has a decided bent towards acceleration.

            From time to time there have been fringe elements in or near Christiandom which have felt they could bring about the second coming through some action or other. Much as some philosopher believe they can hasten the collapse of civilization in order to rebuild it better than it is, so these theologians believe they can bring on the second coming. Some focus on zealous prayer, others on cultural conquest, and others on destruction. All of them believe they are doing something good, even if their acts have little or no biblical justification.

               While the original thread of Chrisitan accelerationism was formed around a dispensational, pre-tribulation, pre-mil framework the impulse is now most widespread through the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) with its notion of conquering the major mounts of human culture which will usher in the millennium. The triumphalist perspective sharply contrasts with the grim prospects put forward by the dispensationalists. The NAR borrowing somewhat such men as Bill Gothard put victory within the grasp of mere mortal, which is very appealing to mortal pride. The theology is obviously lacking, as the focus is way off center more on man than God. Nevertheless, the ideas have reached far into evangelicalism through the music of Hillsong, and Bethel: with Elevation beginning to make headway as well.

            This is concerning, but more concerning still is the rise of post-mil accelerationism within the most conservative of theological circles. A small, but growing group of staunchly reformed, zealous teachers have begun to push the vision of a triumphant Church through rigorous theological teaching. They see the coming of a great theocracy through simple and direct ministry defying the worldly powers, and the culture. It is an appealing vision because it biblically grounded, but it is quite focused on results. Achieving those results might become an overriding priority, and there are some signs it is already happening.

            There are many theological routes which lead to Chrisitan accelerationism. None of them are correct, nor is the idea of speeding up God’s plan. It is of course impossible to do, but acknowledging that as truth does not prevent us from trying to do it anyway. We simply say that God’s timing is evidently our timing and go right along. We lose sight of God, and once that has happened there is no end to the evil that might befall.

Sad songs don't say enough...

 

“Guess there are times when we all need to share a little pain
And ironing out the rough spots
Is the hardest part when memories remain
And it's times like these when we all need to hear the radio
'Cause from the lips of some old singer
We can share the troubles we already know” Sad Songs, Elton John

 

 

            Let us pause whether enjoying life’s pleasures, or sufferings its sorrows and consider one of those little pleasures which comes amidst are many tears; sad songs. We all know them; we all have our own favorites. Some of them sound much happier than are, contrasting their appearance with their contents. Some sound even sadder than they really are, giving vent to every ounce of hurt and then some, even if their stories aren’t sad enough to warrant it. Some have a tinge of sweetness with the bitter tears, others season the sadness with defiance. Whatever the flavoring Sir Elton John is right about one thing, “Sad songs say so much.”

            They speak of another situation likes ours, heart to heart. Making us feel we are not so alone, while giving us an expression for the difficult things we feel and sense. The songs seem to understand us, and that is comforting in some way. The songs you know always come back the same as they were when last you called on them. You push play and there they are to say exactly what you remember them saying. It is safe, and reliable in way other comforts never can be. And it is all very good and well, isn’t it? We have an outlet to vent our feelings, help to say what we might otherwise struggle to say. We have a reminder that someone else has felt the way we feel. That is good. Sad songs really o say so much.

            Ah, but isn’t it a guilty pleasure? After-all, we are meant to be positive and upbeat. Christian radio has done a lot of harm in spreading the myth that Christian music is identified by its positivity. Psalm 88 a number from God’s own inspired hymnbook would certainly not play on contemporary Christian radio, and neither would a good portion of Lamentations, nor many of the cherished hymns of Church history. There is nothing wrong with a song being sad, sadness is part of life in this fallen world. Christians should feel free to express their many sorrows through those sad songs which say so much…

            And then they must go on to say a little something more. Christian music is characterized not by its upbeat stylings, or its sheer positivity; but by its truthfulness Colossians 3:17. The trouble with so many of our favorite sad songs, secular or Christian, is not that say so much, but that they do not say enough. They leave us with the same basic problem, all hope is gone.

            And the real danger of sad songs, and films, and games, and books, and all the sad stories in whatever media they are conveyed is that we will start to believe them. The danger is that we will start believing in them, and identifying with them. That is to say we start incorporating them into our identities. “I am the one they’re singing about,” and everything around me is interpreted by the lens of this new identity. Through subtle means we move from expression ourselves through the song, to finding ourselves expressed by the song. And when this happens, we become trapped in the world of the song. That is almost always a world we do not want to live in. Why?

            Look though the list of sad songs and you will see that many of them are left in sadness, with perhaps the vague hope that it shall pass, or worse that we will accept it. If an answer is offered, it is never a good answer. “Suicide is painless, and brings on many changes,” says one songster; but in fact, suicide is extremely painful to a whole host of people, and doesn’t change anything for the better. That is a rather extreme example, but the pattern holds true something critical is missing in all that sad songs say. Unless they something about…

            God, the ultimate truths that finally puts all of our sorrows in right perspective. God is the ultimate arbiter of truth, the definitive reality; when He truly enters a song that song must conform to His truth, the truth. Psalm 42 beautifully illustrates our point; the psalmist feels much and he has much to say about these sad feelings; but God is there and so His feeling must answer to facts. In this the psalmist see the way out of sorrow, he sees hope though he feels hopeless. Psalm 42 is not a prison of perpetual empathy, an echo-chamber of melancholy; a purposeful expression that leads to something more. Even Psalm 88, one of the grimmest and darkest expression of misery I know of in the psalms, finds God and so finds some glimmer of hope.

            With these songs we can identify because they are truthful, full of the full truth. We can identify with them truly, and run little risk of living a lie. These sad songs say so much more then their godless counterparts, and this is very good. So, what do we do with those lesser songs of sadness that simply don’t say enough?

            Well, we need to think carefully about them. We need understand that they do not express the fullness of our reality, and so we cannot rightly identify with them beyond a partial sentiment. If we find ourselves resonating more deeply with the godless sad songs, they need to go for own good. Otherwise, we are like poisoned men who drink more poison in hopes of being relieved. Get rid of them, and find some songs that speak to your feelings of sorrow, and then speak to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, I know it is tempting to think we have got this together, and can listen with impunity to whatever we want; maybe we can come up with some good reasons to keep on with our listening habits. Let remember though that we are very good at deceiving ourselves. Take care that you do not justify yourself back into the ditch you are trying to get out of.

            Without God we end up in a self-perpetuating feedback loop of, at best, in complete truth: and at worst outright lies. Even if the song claims to have God in it, it may only have some rip-off god that is too small and feeble to affect anything. God is so big and powerful He cannot help but affect everything, and our playlist should reflect this. Sad songs have a place, a limited place. They need to make room for happy songs which say just as much as the sad songs. More than happy songs we must have joyful songs. Happiness has to do with what is happening, but joy is the results of being in-touch with reality: the glorious reality of a good God.

            I am well aware that this step will put us out of step with the world around us. Good! We ought to be out of step with them, and especially in this area. Listen to their music, it is overflowing with sad songs, and so to is our Christian music. We are in danger of sounding just like them, of having all the same problems without any more answer than they have. This is not right! We have Christ and Him crucified! We have the ultimate answer to humanity’s problems! We have reason to sing joyful song, and to do so truthfully. In a world where sad songs are saying so much, the songs of believers in Christ ought to be saying a whole lot more.