Held

Last week I had the pleasure of watching Natalie Grant sing this song on television, and then hearing friend sing it in church. It's a strongly sentimental song, and I think it contains some good advice. If not, it's a song that opens peoples' hearts, and allows them to receive comfort from the Lord.

It goes like this.

Two months is too little;
They let him go
They had no
Sudden healing.
To think that Providence
Would take a child
From his mother while she prayed
Is appalling.
Who told us we'd be rescued?
What has changed and
Why should we be saved
From nightmares?
--- I'm not sure what she means by "what has changed." The tone of the song has changed abruptly and it's a little confusing. Does she mean that thinking that Providence would take an infant from his praying mother is appalling is a change? But anyway, it's a good question that she asks: why should we be saved from nightmares?

We're asking why this happened
To those of us who have died to live
It's unfair.

--- Of course we ask why this happened. We want things to make sense. There's a question of enjambment here - is it, "we're asking why this happened to those of us," or, "to those of us who have died live it's unfair"? After this ambibuity comes the chorus:

This is what it means
To be held
How it feels
When the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is
To be loved
And to know
That the promise was when everything fell we'd be held.

--- I know that I am held all the time by the Father, not just when everything else falls - in fact, to some extent, it's all already fallen - I mean, who do I really have but God? So I wonder what the song means when it says "this is what it means." What does it mean to be held? The best sense I can make of it is that it's about resting in God's protection and sovereignty when everything else falls apart. But that's not an answer to the mistaken notion that we'd be rescued and spared from nightmares, which belief can cause a person to become bitter against the Lord.

Speaking of bitterness, the song talks about it. This is my faavorite part:

This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it
Let the hatred numb
Our sorrow.

The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and
Tomorrow.

--- This part makes sense to me impressionistically; it's pretty deep and analytical, too. That I would want to focus on the hatred so I wouldn't hurt so much is interesting; I think hatred functions as another form of self-hurt. My hurting can not give any grief or in any way affect the original cause of my hurt, so hurting for hurting's sake only causes more personal hurt. That's why I like the next line - the wise hand opens - slowly - to possible blessings in the future.

I hope this song and these notes bless someone. Good things can happen when you really think about the words of songs.

KMM

Christ the Lord is Risen Today!

Easter Sunday! I love worshipping with my church, but I especially love it on the day when we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. My music minister tells me that it was customary at some point in church history for the leader to call out, "He is risen!" and the congregation to respond, "He is risen indeed!" We like this tradition, so we do it at our church every Easter. Such an exclamation expresses the joy of one simple but life-changing truth. It is life-changing because death is the great equalizer, and the great inevitable for all of us, and yet, it is not unconquerable, because God has power over it. I gotta say it - Hallelujah!

Apparently Charles Wesley felt the same impulse, because he punctuated each line of his hymn, "Christ the Lord is Risen Today," with an "Alleluia," which is the holy equivalent to "woohoo" and actually means "Praise God." So when you hear someone say alleluia instead of "woohoo," or "great!" they're not just trying to be stuffy, they're being specific in directing their praise.

I'd like to interpret a few of the alleuias in "Christ the Lord is Risen Today," because I think I can. Someone else might choose different lines or interpret them differently, and that would actually be great. Being different or seeing things from a different angle doesn't make us contradictory or prevent us from getting along. This is my blog, though, so I'm going to tell you which of the alleluias really swelled in my heart.

Lives again our glorious King!
Alleuia! He did not stay dead!
Where, O Death, is now thy sting?
Alleluia! That was a line from scripture. Nicely rhymed.
Love's redeeming work is done
Alleuia! God loved us enough to bring us back to Him, and the project of forgiveness is complete!
Fought the fight, the battle won!
Alleluia! I could not have won that battle on my own.
Made like Him, like Him we rise,
Alleluia! But wait a minute, there's some serious theology packed in this tidy little line. I think it means that when we become Christians, that is, when we accept God's gift and God's authority, we become like his son, Jesus, somehow. And the Bible says that one day the dead in Christ - Christians who died - will be brought back to life and given new bodies, like Christ was. It's even too complicated for me, but it sets up this next line:
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies
Alleuia! When a writer deliberately omits conjunctions from a series it's called "asyndeton," and it is often done at the end of speech or other discourse. This is the last line of the song, and it's a big finish. Forgiveness comes through the cross. The grave proves that the work of sacrifice was complete. As Christ was resurrected, so will we be one day. No need for extra padding of conjunctions to make it seem significant - the cross, the grave, the skies. What can we get that is worth more that that? Alleluia!

Happy Easter.

KMM

Music: Lyra Davidica

How Firm a Foundation

Again I owe inspiration and affirmation to a hymn. The first verse sets up that God's word is full of things I need to hear, and the last three are Him speaking to me through His word. That first verse reminds me to read His word and believe it.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

Words: John Rippon, Music: Joseph Funk

Smells Like ... Lifehouse?

So on my morning walk I was listening to the Stanley Climbfall album by Lifehouse and mused again at how much "Out of Breath" sounds like something by Nirvana. It's a really athletic song about pursuing a goal, and if you listen to it while you exercise, you will get out of breath, but in a good way.

The lyrics reminded me of a recent conversation I had with someone about Hebrews 12:1. That verse says: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance, and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us" (emphasis mine, and I'm quoting from memory, so there might also be mistakes, but I know it's close). I was having a conversation with a person who has made mistakes but now wants to really run after Christ. This person knew where they came from, and knew that to get closer to the Lord they needed to run, and to run, they needed to let go of some things. I praise the Lord that this person wants to run again! You know who you are, and this song reminded me of you.

I still feel the same
Though everything has changed
The pain it cost now I feel lost inside of my own name

The past has left its stain
Now I feel the shame
I'll seize the day if you take away the chains of yesterday

But I keep running
I am running
I keep living for the day that I'm with you
And I am waiting
I keep waiting for the day that I'm with you

A new day the sun is shining
Seems I'm closer to finding
That life is more than what we hide
No way that I am turning
As long as this sun is burning
It seems now that all I want is you...

When your past faces you, keep turning to Him, and when your present has extra baggage, let it go! Keep running the race!

And, you-know-who, I want you to know the Lord used you in my life, too, to remind me to throw off everything that hinders and sins that entangle, and run.

"Out of Breath," by Jason Wade and Ron Aniello, from the Lifehouse album Stanley Climbfall, published 2002 by G-Chills/ Songs of DreamWorks/ Aneillo Music (BMI).

How Great

Two songs from The David Crowder* Band's album Illuminate were on my mind this morning, and I thought they were the same song. I enjoy this album a lot, as it contains one of my favorite contemporary praise songs, "O Praise Him (All This for a King)" and also lots of lyrics and licks that make you realize that the Crowder boys are free-spirited but know exactly what they're doing. They're worshipping the Lord with new songs. Praise Him!

The two on my mind were, "How Great," and "Intoxicating." Squeamish listeners will have to get over that the Crowder Band, like Derek Webb, often uses metaphors of intoxication to describe the joy and rapture they find in the Lord. The lyricists creatively assist listeners in understand the spirit of the song. For instance, lyrics like:

If I'm out of my mind it's You, you
'Cause I'm crazy in love with You, You
Inebriated by You, You
'Cause I'm head over heels for You, You

(from "Intoxicating") make more sense when the song bursts into a chorus of -

La, la dee da
La dee da, dee da
Dee da da da

- with full vocals and a roaring band behind it. This song and this band is about being completely in love, captured, consumed, impassioned.

"Intoxicating" is a hard act to follow, but actually what I thought of first this morning were a few lines from "How Great." Sometimes a situation reminds you of a song, and in this case, the song helped me form an attitude of praise for the day. Like other Crowder songs, this one has some moments that are lyrically simple, but the parts of the song taken together add up to beautiful praise. In case you're wondering, here are the words I thought of this morning, that I hope run through my mind all day.

What a glorious day
What a wonderful day, today
Glorious day.

How great your love for us
How great our love for You
That grace could cover us
How great your love.

It could be a glorious, wonderful day! Peace out!

"How Great" and "Intoxicating" words and music by David Crowder from the album Illuminate, 2003, Sparrow Records /Six Steps Music.

The Church's One Foundation

I took communion at the church I visited while I was away from home last week, and it struck me as never before that we are all saved by one body and one blood. This morning I saw an Assyrian Christian man speaking on a U.S. Christian television program about the long-tradition of Assyrian (or Syrian?) Christianity. As He spoke I thought about the difference between his traditions and mine, and yet again, how we were connected through Christ. I read the words to this hymn this morning after listening to the tune, and I think it says it all.

The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord
She is His new creation, by Spirit and the Word:
From heav'n He came and sought her to be His holy bride,
With His own blood He bought her, And for her life He died.

Elect from ev'ry nation, yet one o'er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation, One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy name she blesses, partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses, with ev'ry grace endued.

'Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation of peace forevermore;
Till with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blest,
And the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.

Hooray! Peace to my brothers and sisters around the world in tumult and tribulation.

"The Churc's One Foundation," Words: Samuel J. Stone; Music: Samuel S. Wesley

Beautiful Letdown, part one?

Meant to Live

I don't know whether I'll write several posts over this album or not, but it sure deserves it. I've just begun to really listen to the Switchfoot Beautiful Letdown album, and it really speaks to me. Every other song lifts me, hauntingly, beyond my mundane thoughts. Let me start with the first one - "Meant to Live."

Fumbling his confidence and wondering
Why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he's bent for more
Than arguments and failed attempts to fly

We were made to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside.

Yowza! These California surfers have their finger on the pulse of what's going on in the world and its effects on the human heart. How about this, from "This is Your Life"?

This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything that you dreamed that it would be when the world was younger,
And you had everything to lose?

Whoa! I find myself trying to answer those questions. They answers would generally be, "I don't know," but that's the point; they're getting me thinking about stuff.

For another example of having their finger on the pulse of counterculture, here's a sample from "Dare You to Move":

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be.

These guys have thought about it and lived to tell about it, and I'm so glad to know there's someone else who feels like really living is resistance. Even though this album is two years old, it seems new to me and it really renews me. Thanks, dudes.

I must say a word about their musicianship; I think the main guy responsible is Jon Foreman, but there are four guys who are, like I said, surfer dudes (Switchfoot being a surfing term, I think). Anyway, Jon has a great voice and the music has a great kick to it; it's so good you'd almost ignore what they're saying, but ah, if you don't, you find that there's inspiration in the words as well as the music.

I must also say I have an automatic softspot for this band for two reasons: one, my husband has always really liked them (I'm just slow to get it) and two, they remind me of my California friends, who are really cool and love Jesus in a fresh way.

"Meant to Live," W&M by Jonathan Foreman and Tim Foreman; "This is Your Life" and "Dare You to Move" W&M by Jonathan Foreman. Beautiful Letdown, 2003, Sony/Columbia.

Emmanuel, God With Us

It has been an interesting Christmas shock. I'm not sure whether it was school shellshock or the state of global affairs or something even bigger - I'm not sure what that would be - or something smaller, like my metabolism, but I was just not into it this year the way I normally am. I normally love Christmas and just want the whole world to perk up to hear the angels songs again for a little while, knowing they might be listening, I usually sing louder. This year, I don't know - I guess I was just listening, listening, and didn't hear much.

So strange.

I thought of this song - it always makes me get a little choked up, and it's funny because usually this is not a band that makes me think much, but it's Point of Grace's song, "Emmanuel, God With Us." The lyrics talk about a woman left alone after her family is gone, spending a lonely christmas, when someone else invites her to become part of their christmas gathering. Simple, really. The chorus says this:

Oh, Emmanuel, God with us
Spirit revealed in us
That we may be your hope to the world
Oh Emmanuel, God with us
With a light to break the darkness
That we may share your hope to the world
Emmanuel, be God with us
Be God in us.

Selah.

Advent pt. 2

We actually got snow yesterday, and some of it is still on the ground. Everyone I talked to yesterday was at least a little bit enchanted by the snow. Speaking of enchantment, the Narnia film opens this weekend, and I'm planning to go see it with friends.

Today's song has been on my mind a lot. It's simple, not sacred, but special. "The Happiest Christmas" by Michael W. Smith has just this many words:

Oh the happiest Christmas
Is a homecoming Christmas
With the snow flutering down 'til the world seems new

Bright candles burning
Old friends returning
The wishes of children coming true.

And the happiest wishes
Are just old fashioned wishes
May your days be merry, your sorrows be small.

May the ones you love be near you;
That's the happiest Christmas of all.

I celebrate Christmas as Christ's birth, and I love a lot of the things that orbit around that celebration - wishes, candles, snow, homecomings, friends, merry-making. I am already enjoying it. To anyone reading this, I wish you a merry Christmas, too.

KMM

"The Happiest Christmas," by Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks.

Advent pt. 1

Christmas music is a comforting and catalyzing part of the Christmas season for me. I find it interesting to reflect on the words and imagine the circumstances that led to particular lyrics. For the first time, this year, I thought about "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." I'd never realized how much the song talked about peace and hearing God's message. It seems I hear so much about the Iraq "war" that my mind is distracted from the good news, and when I heard these lines, I felt that someone else had thought the same thing

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long,
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong.
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love song which they bring
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing.

The third and fourth verses of the song alude to some kind of prophetic hope - I don't entirely understand it, but I want it, and I want to be able to extend that kind of hope to those who toil "with painful steps and slow." What are those "glad and golden hours"?

There's more great Christmas music and more yet to be written. I love the rich stuff.

"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." Words by Edmund H. Sears, music by Richard Storrs Willis.

Freedom

Listening to Darrell Evans' Freedom album is kind of like getting a glimpse into heaven - you want to go there but you're kind of ashamed at your unreadiness. That's how I feel right now, anyway. I'm encouraged by what he has to say, and yet walking in that freedom and liberty are something of a mystery to me in the path I'm on right now. The title track is a joyous celebration of the freedom we have in Christ - a freedom, I think, is from shame, legalism, and sin. All of the lyrics assume a closeness to God that I believe but want to experience more in my daily life.

Great Light of the World

Bebo Norman's "Great Light of the World" talks about both God's greatness in relationship to the world and His goodness to fill up something so small as a human heart. I know my human heart doesn't feel small - it feels big to me - yet it takes some gumption and the right amount of perspective to acknowledge God's bigness and yet ask Him to "fill up my soul."

I especially like what Bebo writes about nighttime - it is at night that he feels shame and loneliness, and in the dark when he calls on the Lord's grace. I'm reminded of the saying, "In the dark night of the soul, it is always two o'clock in the morning." Those who know the Lord still have those dark nights. Those who don't know the Lord need to know - there is someone to call on.

Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus)

This song caught me this morning, as it did the first time I heard it, in the shame of failure. I most appreciated its message of forgiveness. The forgiveness of Jesus is the most complete thing I know, and when it is put simply, well, it still says a lot.

Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head, for Love is passing by
Come to Jesus,
Come to Jesus,
Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden's lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain... so
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live!

Singing to Him - my privilege, my necessity, and my last resort.

Indescribable

I started to think about God this morning, trying not to think about His gifts, or His house, and I just got this image of a great God, above the round, blue earth. And the words came to me:

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea...

Then I thought more about how superior God is, and I realized I could hardly talk about it. That's a challenge, since I feel like in some way I'm meant to spread the knowledge of Him.

The more I think about the songs Chris Tomlin writes, the more I see where he's coming from. This morning, when I was searching for expression, I thought of words he's written that I have sung -

Indescribable, uncontainable, you placed the stars in the sky and you called them by name.
You are amazing, God.
All powerful, unstoppable, awestruck we fall to our knees and we humbly proclaim
You are amazing, God.

It's true - He is amazing. I don't often give any sort of charge, but today will be different. If you're reading this, I urge you to spend sixty seconds just thinking about God, and see if in doing so you remember what life is all about.

"Indescribable," written by Chris Tomlin.

Never Been Unloved

I work in an environment where it seems intellect is everything. Both pride and discouragement come very easily and sometimes in sudden turns, challenging my faith and testing my character. This summer I participated in a study on the life of John, the beloved disciple (Beloved Disciple by Beth Moore), knowing even without doing the study that I'd need to be convinced of God's love for me if I was going to complete the task to which God appointed me. The words "forsaking ambition for affection" really resonated with me. I know ambition has motivated me but it's a fuel that runs out when I get discouraged. Love is a more powerful motivation because it doesn't give up easily. The love of God is, I think, a river in which I occasionally wet my feet. Well, earlier this week I felt like the Lord invited me for a swim, and He reminded me of these words from the Michael W. Smith song "Never Been Unloved."

I have been unfaithful
I have been unworthy
I have been unrighteous
And I have been unmerciful
I have been unreachable
I have been unteachable
I have been unwilling
And I have been undesirable
And sometimes I have been unwise
I've been undone by what I'm unsure of
But because of you
And all that you went through
I know that I have never been unloved.

I must admit I've been all of these things - some of them at the the same time and some of them recently. To know that God loves me keeps me going even when I feel utterly unworthy by any standard. It is that knowledge that reminds me that my God is different - there is none like Him.

Holy Is the Lord

We stand and lift up our hands
For the joy of the Lord is our strength

... and my only strength, sometimes. Last night I felt musically weak, but even in the midst of the messy harmonies, I couldn't help but notice that the lyrics were saying there was more to it than the music, anyway.

We bow down and worship Him now
How great, how awesome is He!

I read something kind of bleak yesterday about a preacher - Bellamy, his last name was, a disciple of Jonathan Edwards, that preached in such a way that, as one congregation member put it, made God "SO GREAT!" The bleakness was that his preaching was frightening, of the soul-searing, insanity-producing brand of Calvinism, and that the author of what I was reading said that such preaching gave worshippers a definite purpose/goal/end - an intense, sublimely powerful God. Well, that made me think. See, I don't think we create God, and I think that emphasizing something about Him so that people can worship Him could in some sense be manipulative. However - He is sublimely powerful and awesome. If worship is an experience of the sublime, it could be because it is an experience of God.

I've also been reading about the watering down of theology in the late victorian period in the U.S. - overemphasizing the love part of God. Why do these two extremes seem to be at odds? In beautiful music, we can say, "We bow down and worship Him now - how great, how awesome is He!"

I don't know the answers to these things. That is perhaps why I love to sing His praises - for a moment, I acknowledge and exult in what I know to be true.

Brethren, We Have Met to Worship

My pastor preached a really encouraging sermon on Sunday, based on Ephesians 5:18-19, which talk about being filled with the spirit and singing songs, hymns and spiritual songs. Not coincidentally, I'm sure, I woke up that morning with the hymn, "Brethren, We Have Met to Worship" on my mind. As I prepared for worship, I thought particularly of the lines that say:

All is vain unless the spirit
Of the Holy One comes down.

As I prepared, I desired that the Holy Spirit would empower our worship - would work in each heart, activate and release praise to Him. I'm not sure how that works, but I know that a redeemed heart longs to worship its redeemer, a creature longs to worship its creator, and that it is a spiritual act. I know that if it's just a show, regardless of how big or small, it's in vain. The song is a good reminder to people like me who feel like 'part of the show' because we're on stage on Sunday morning. It's all about you, Jesus.

This Day

I have had hard days this past week, and I have had really good ones. I want the good ones to last, but they don't. There's only enough grace yesterday for yesterday, as much as I want to stretch it out. I know God doesn't think in 24-hour time periods and is not regulated by a clock, but I know that the rythm of life makes a pattern from one day to the next, and that within that pattern, God chooses to act.

Legacy

In my weak pride, I have a hard time taking a compliment. In my strong pride, I want people to say I'm awesome - a prime example of what a human woman was meant to be.

Then, when I get real, when I get humble, I start to think about all the things I spend my time on and how much they matter. And all the things I want to be said about me. And most of it doesn't matter at all.

That's the point of Nicole Nordeman's song, "Legacy." The chorus says:

I want to leave a legacy
How will they remember me?
Did I choose to love?
Did I point to You enough to leave a mark on things?

It's a question I've been asking myself as I get into the prime of my life. I mean, what am I gonna do with myself? What will my life say? I think being well-fashioned in the eyes of the world, in many ways, is not bad - being well-read, being multiculturally literate, and having good manners are all good things. But at the end of my life -

I just wanna hear instead
"Well done, good and faithful one."

That will mean more to me than, "smart," "pretty," or "engaging." It's fairly easy for me to impress people if I want to, and it's somewhat meaningful. But to earn a commendation from my God, well, I don't think that's easy, and it is indeed meaningful.

In, Not Of

So, honestly, I really wanted to write about the Cheat Commandoes today (homestarrunner.com) because it is so funny - the good old laugh-out-loud funny that originally made me like homestarrunner.com.

However, in this blog I talk about songs. So, I'm going to talk about "In Not Of," by Avalon. It's based on the verse that says, though we are in the world, we are not of the world. That's a difficult position to negotiate. How to be in the world, but not of it, especially when it is so seductive an alluring?

This is a beautiful song - highly singable - in fact, I want to sing it in church someday. I think it speaks not so much to how hard it is to be in the world but, for starters, the importance of being in it. I know a lot of Christians are in the world, but some hide out. I sympathize, as did whoever wrote this song, which says,

I hide me far away from trouble
The world outside me grows darker by the day
And so I promise to stay here close beside you
Surely God would want His children safe.

I feel like that sometimes, and fear keeps me from taking the land. In fact, fear of explaining 'taking the land' is going to keep me from talking about it here. It's the concept by which I feel comfortable in the world at all. I hope I make a difference there. I know He's growing His love in me so that I can actually love the world, so even as this song challenges me, it encourages me that something is going right. Here's the chorus:

Come take the light to darker parts
Share His truth with hardened hearts
We are not like the world, but we can love it
Come take the hope to hopeless men
'Til the lost are found in Him
He came to save the world, so let us be
In and not of it.

I know being in the world can go too far, and there are people who've developed really complex ways of addressing how far too far is. I do want to find out more about that, but I know I also need courage to engage with my world.

(I can't tell who this song was written by; here's what the CD jacket says: "Vocal Arrangement: Chris Harris (Nick Gonzales, Grant Cunningham)". )