Much Afraid

Jars of Clay is an important band to me, but their lyrics are kind of hard to figure out, in fact, sometimes they only make sense years later, and then I'm impressed; it's like there was this final insight I had to get that turned the key to unlock the song.

I guess it's been that way with the title track to JOC's 1997 album today. I've known it very well for close to ten years, but it just clicked. I feel that grace was extended to me through this song.

All of these things
Held up in vain
No reason or rhyme
Just the scars that remain
Of all of these things
I'm so much afraid
Scared out of my mind
By the demons I've made
Sweet Jesus, you never ever let me go.

A song like that is different from the Ricefoot Groves lyrics I like so much. The latter are usually about something abstract but not quite as introspective. I heard recently that the default mode of the pop song was to sing about the self; but there is self-obsession, and then there is self-reflection. In this case, it seems like the author of the song is contemplating his habit of entertaining senseless fears, and then realizing that he was held even while he held onto them. Thus, mercy turns the inward gaze upward.