Living Loud vocal thoughts on life, liberty, and spirituality

People find the Lord in music in various ways–worship songs, psalms, hymns, instrumentals, a capella, rock, jazz, and many others. Sometimes the context in which one listens to or participates in the music makes a significant difference. My best friend enjoys soothing, Vineyard worship music in the quiet of her home. I find it most in songs of deep, yet profound and meditative lyrical content, specifically in the music of Steven Curtis Chapman and old folk hymns.
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On March 13 Shiree and I spent some time in New England, at a wedding in Massachusetts, and then skiing in Vermont. We went to Killington and skied all day Sunday in sunny grandeur, enjoying the Lord’s beautiful creation together.

I want to be big and let go
Of this grudge that’s grown old
All this time I’ve not known
How to rest this bygone
I wanna be soft and resolved
Clean of slate and released
I want to forgive for the both of us

Maybe as I cut the cord
Veils will lift from my eyes
Maybe as I lay this to rest
Dead weight off my shoulders will rise

from “This Grudge,” Alanis Morissette

Not really going to say much about this specifically, but I’ve come to a place where forgiving someone in my past is the only place to be able to let the wounds of my heart to be healed by the Lord. Difficult to forgive something from so long ago, and I never thought I’d ever have to go through this kind of experience: I generally don’t hold things against people in my life. But I was hurt deeply, and never let the hurts go.

Alanis Morissette has been reflective over many things in her songs, and I’ve found myself in many of them. This one came to my mind after I wrestled through the healing process and made peace with what I was to do.

For about a week already, the Lord has been showing me some tremendous things in my life. I had come off a “spiritual high” after getting a long-awaited full-time job that I had been praying for for many months. And I knew I wasn’t going to stay on the mountaintop for too long, so I prayed, “Lord, I don’t want to abandon you now when things are very good in my life. I want to stay deep with you and remain in fellowship with you, so please keep me close to you, and when we go off the mountain, I will have you with me still.”

He has been there with me as we’re coming off the mountain. For the past week, I’ve had a tremendous time of self-reflection and inner healing through prayer, about some things that have been haunting me and plaguing my life lately. I started to feel my “performance orientation” again, acting like I needed to earn love from even my closest friends, rather than not trying to earn their love or keep it.

I have been selfish lately with a friend, and it grieved me much to realize after the fact that I had been selfish and uncaring. I had gotten back into an old habit of pushing myself into others’ lives more than I am initially welcome. And while my friend was gracious, eventually I was faced with my selfishness.

This morning I was reading Brennan Manning, and I found some insightful and helpful words:

[Silence] is much like the story of the harried executive whoe went to the desert father and complained about his frustration in prayer, his flawed virtue, and his failed relationships. The hermit listened closely to his visitor’s rehearsal of the struggle and disappointments in trying to lead a Christian life. He then went into the dark recesses of his cave and came out witha basin and a picther of water.

“Now watch the water as I pour it into the basin,” he said. The water splashed on the bottom and against the sides of the container. It was agitated and turbulent. At first the stirred-up water swirled around and inside of the basin; then it gradually began to settle, until finally the small fast ripples evolved into larger swells that oscillated back and forth. Eventually, the surface became so smooth that the visitor could see his face reflected in the placid water. “That is the way it is when you live constantly in the midst of others,” said the hermit. “You do not see yourself as you really are because of all the confusion and disturbance. You fail to recognize the divine presence in your life and the consciousness of your belovedness slowly fades.”

I’ve found solace and comfort in silence more and more as I’m getting (slowly) older. And I’m sure once my new job starts, I’ll need this time more and more in order to be able to love others. Waiting patiently for the Lord in silence is scary and unsettling, but it brings inner healing. “Draw close to God and he will draw close to you” is a very real truth in my life right now.

People often ask me why I don’t listen to much Christian music, or Christian radio stations. I don’t really explain myself too much, except that there tends to be a lack of creativity. But there also seems to be a “bubble” of sorts when Christians only write overtly Christian lyrics to their songs, and when Christians listen to only “Christian music.”

A quote from a book I’m reading, Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2, struck me as particularly profound:

“When Jesus told His disciples they were the light of the world, where did He want them to shine? (Matt. 5:14) As more beams of light that make the light shine blindingly bright upon itself, or as strobes of illumination flashing radical alternative lifestyles across the darkness? Do you blame the dark for being dark, or the light for not shining?

I particularly like how that question sheds light on our role as believers in our world.

In his Everyone commentary series, Bishop N.T. Wright has this to say about the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:

[N]obody would have missed the underlying meaning. Yes, Jesus was saying; what you have been longing for and praying for is really coming true. I’m here to make it happen. It’s going to be hard for you to understand, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Stick with me. Listen to me. Figure it out. Come back for more.
Like the crowds on the lakeshore that day, our task, again and again as we read scripture and think about God’s work in our own day, is to think it through and figure it out. Matthew’s gospel is designed to help us do that. It won’t always be easy. Christianity isn’t about cosy little lessons to make us feel better. It’s about what God’s doing in the world — what he’s already done in Jesus and what he wants to do through us today. What stories ought we to be telling to get people to listen? Where can we tell them so that people will be able to hear, like the crowds on the lakeshore?

I’m becoming increasingly aware that Jesus would not do ministry like the Church today does ministry. Not that all we’re doing is wrong or misguided. It probably isn’t. But like he was in his own day, everyone around him had to realize that it’s not being done the way we thought it should anymore. We’ve missed something. We’re off course. What is it that we need to do?
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Last night I watched a film that is very personal to me, in a journey sense. Many don’t like Fight Club, some don’t “get it,” but for me, it describes much of my journey in the past two years. To be sure, the depravity and darkness of the film doesn’t fit precisely where I’ve been, but the redemption of finding myself does. Fight Club is a film about self-realization, but without the Holy Spirit. Without a divine presence within me, the film would be void (and it tries to be). A close friend of mine describes psychology as “Fallen man’s search to understand fallen man.” Fight Club, similarly, is fallen man’s search for significance. Unfortunately, the result is insignificance and nihilism.

What does this have to do with falling into grace? Much–for me, at least. I am now near the end of what I’m calling my “postmodern journey.” A few months ago I read Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel, which was a redemptive piece of literature that simply put my life back into the grace of God. My sense of self was changed, my identity in Jesus was re-established, and I was able to own my faith in a profound, drastic, and truly radical way.

Tonight, while meditating on the Lord’s presence in my life recently, praying and listening, a song came to mind. From what I can tell, its context fits this one, but even if not, as always we can use artistic expression in a variety of ways to transcend context for ourselves. Lifehouse performed this on their first self-titled album. Here are the lyrics important to where I’m at right now:

I am falling into grace to the unknown to where you are
And faith makes everybody scared it’s the unknown,
The don’t-know that keeps me hanging on…
To you i got nothing left to defend
I cannot pretend that everything makes sense
But does it really matter now if i do not know how
To figure this thing out

Falling into grace is, essentially, the gospel. It’s finding ourselves in Christ–”Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39 ESV).

Not all of these were published in 2004, but I read them this year, and they have been a blessing to me. I would highly recommend all of them.

• The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning (devotional/inspirational)
• Beyond Foundationalism by Stanley Grenz and John Franke (philosophy/theology)
• The Sacred Romance by John Eldridge and Brent Curtis (devotional/inspirational)
• The Next Reformation by Carl Raschke (philosophy/theology)
• Peace Like A River by Leif Enger (fiction)
• The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey (devotional/inspirtational)