Add to the Beauty

Unintentionally, I began writing an album review in my journal this morning, because the songs on Sara Groves' album Add to the Beauty are so closely knit thematically. The title cut says "this is grace, an invitation to be beautiful... and I want to add to the beauty." All of the songs are about beautiful things that can't be explained other than through grace. It's a truly inspiring album, and inspired me to seek God's beauty today.

And so I have. It's been a good day. I thought about His artistry this morning, and wrote a poem about it. It made me think about the fundamentals of art. I had to actually look them up online. In case you're curious, here's the poem I wrote:

There is a beauty
In all His processes
There is a harmony
In demand and supply
There is a purpose
And a poetry of motion
When a flower drinks the rain and hails the sky.

There is an artist
Who is the living Light
His works engage the heart
And His word gives sight
He mixes pigments
On a pallette of the spectrum
The details of His masterpieces fill me with delight.

Not bad for sitting on the porch on a rainy morning. It felt like the perfect way to spend my time.

In the midst of my reveries I checked the headlines for today. Hamas vs. Fatah vs. Israel and the US. International intervention? War, scandal, hatred, deceit, death. I had to ask myself, is it puerile to live my life wanting to add to the beauty in times when it doesn't seem like there's even any beauty to begin with?

So I read along in Genesis, where I left my bookmark at the begining of the story of Joseph's trials. His brothers hated him, almost left him for dead, then sold him instead. Awful. But he was sold into an Egyptian official's house, where God was with him. Then the official's wife wanted him so badly, and her pride was so injured when he refused to offend his master that way, that she accused him of rape and had him sent to prison. Terrible. But God was with Joseph there, too. I know the rest of the story; he was kept in jail for a time, until he began to interpret dreams. Eventually he rose to become second in command to Pharoah, and had the responsibility of managing Egypt's reserves in order to get them successfully through a famine. Because of him, many people lived who would otherwise have died, including his entire family, and as part of that provision, his entire was reconciled. Reconciliation, favor, provision, from an awful story about hatred, demise, deceit, and jealousy.

I may not understand what's going around the world, and it may be hard to see beauty in it. Frankly, God's beauty is more and more astounding to me the more I look at the world. Even when I look at the world, though, I know that somehow He is working all things out for His glory, which is in turn for my good. There is a process to it, but I believe, still, that God has beautiful things in store.

For better or for worse, this is really as deep as I get. I'm not trying to make commentary about world events, I'm just building a worldview that incorporates beauty and art. A friend e-mailed me this link to a group thinking through how art relates to God: http://www.thegauisproject.org/. I'm sure they've done some better thinking on the subject but I have yet to read it through.

Less like scars

Sometimes a good writer has the power to inspire their readers' expression. Writers like that are worth attention and worth keeping in circulation. I've written about Sara Groves before, and maybe I've even written about this song before. Looking through the leaves of All Right Here's CD insert I see big blocks of text that I know Sara worked hard to write. Songwriting is an intense process. To end up with as many words as she has that do have the power to speak to and even for her audience is a notable lifetime achievement. Keep writing, Sara!

It is "Less Like Scars" that I thought about today. It's a song about when the breaking down process has already occurred, and there is a change in the air and you realize that God is started to rebuild you. If it hadn't been for this song, I wouldn't have really understood what God was up to.

Her songs have so many words that I feel it would be ineffective for me to write many of them here. I'll just post a few representative lines and explain the frame. The song starts:

It's been a hard year, but I'm climbing out of the rubble
These lessons are hard, and healing changes are subtle
But every day its..
Here are a few from the "less like/more like" sections:

Less like tearing more like building
Less like captive more like willing
Less like breakdown more like surrender
Less like haunting more like remember

I love the chorus:

I can feel you here, and you're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
Seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
You are able
And in your hands, the pain and hurt
Look less like scars and more like character.

This is really good. Sara is gifted and using her gifts to bless the body of Christ. I for one want to say how thankful I am!

You go, Sara! God uses your songs in my life, and as the guestbook of your website attests, He uses them in others' lives as well. Thank you for using and sharing your gifts.

That goes for all good songwriters, and that is really the point of this blog. God gives gifts of various kinds to the body, and whatever we have, we're supposed to give back. It blesses me to no end that God has given each believer a gift to bring, and that each believer in turns receives gifts from the rest of the body. I'll never get over it; I'll just keep watching it and participating into it until He leads us all up to one big celebration in heaven.

"Less Like Scars," by Sara Groves and Nate Sabin. From the album All Right Here, 2002, Sponge Records and INO Records. To hear a song sample and see all the lyrics, go here: