Psalm 42 personalized

Based on Psalm 42. Album here. Lyrics: 

I have lost my appetite
And a flood is welling up behind my eyes
So I eat the tears I cry
And if that were not enough
They know just the words to cut and tear and prod
When they ask me “Whereʼs your God?”

Why are you downcast, oh my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
I can remember when you showed your face to me

As a deer pants for water, so my soul thirsts for you
And when I survey Your splendor, You so faithfully renew
Like a bed of rest for my fainting flesh

When Iʼm looking at the ground
Itʼs an inbred feedback loop that drags me down
So itʼs time to lift my brow
And remember better days
When I loved to worship you and learn your ways
Singing sweetest songs of praise

Let my sighs give way to songs that sing about your faithfulness
Let my pain reveal your glory as my only real rest
Let my losses show me all I truly have is you

So when Iʼm drowning out at sea
And all your breakers and your waves crash down on me
Iʼll recall your safety scheme
Youʼre the one who made the waves
And your Son went out to suffer in my place
And to show me that Iʼm safe

Why am I down?
Why so disturbed?
I am satisfied in you

New Old Hymns

When my wife's grandfather's church started using guitars in their service, he complained that all they sang was 7-11 songs: seven words, sung eleven times. Issac Watts, Gadsby, Wesley and Luther had been replaced by Chris Tomlin, Third Day and Matt Redman. The exchange left a dearth of theological content to the songs the congregation was to sing as worship. Lately, some artists and churches have recognized they have been robbed by contemporary artists that have more musical passion than theological knowledge. Without chucking the guitar, many have begun to bring back the meaningful lyrics of the old hymns to new musical arrangements for guitars and a folksy style. Here are a few of the groups if you tire of being told to "sing to the Lord" without being told why:

Indelible Grace: Based in Nashville Tennessee, Reformed University Fellowship PCA pastor Kevin Twit enlists the few Reformed leaning artists in the Christian Music scene (Derek Webb, Andrew Osenga, Sandra McCracken, Dan Haseltine - of Jars of Clay, etc) to put old hymns to new music. I think this is the best produced of those engaged in this project of new old hymns.

Red Mountain Music: a Church in Alabama started their own goal of putting old hymns to new music. They have especially focused on Gadsby's hymnal and William Cowper's hymns and poems, returning the lament to our hymn catalog.

Sandra McCracken - new old hymns: Two of Sandra's hymns have focused on new old hymns, many of which have ended up on the Indelible Grace albums. (BTW - this is Derek Webb's wife)

Soujourn Music : a community church influenced by Indelible Grace, I am less familiar with their works.

Matthew Smith: one of the artists involved with Indelible Grace, his solo projects pick up on the theme and include many great selections not on Indelible Grace's albums.

Favorite Christmas Albums

I'm not much of a Christmas music fan. For that measure, I'm not much of a "Christian music" fan, (which I think is largely a ghetto for untalented musicians to take their cruddy mushy songs about their girlfriends and sing them about Jesus). But anyway, there are notable exceptions to both. As Christmas nears, I start dumping these albums into my playlist.

Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas

A set of Christmas songs and just great hymns. The selections range from silly to nostalgic to moving. This album is simply beautiful. A work of art.



Andrew Peterson - Behold the Lamb of God

Two years ago, we caught the live performance of "Behold the Lamb of God" in Dallas. Peterson tells the Christmas story in a fresh way: as part of the story of redemption, from Moses to the cross. The must is great, especially "Gather Round" and "It Came to Pass." I appreciate "Labor of Love" that doesn't idealize the birth of Christ as a "silent night" but as bloody and hard as any pregnancy...why do we rob Mary of her honor by thinking it was an easy happy affair?

Vince Guaraldi - A Charlie Brown Christmas

Who doesn't love this album?

In the United Kingdom

I, Jared, will be in the United Kingdom with the PCPC Choir for their mission trip from July 24-August 4. You can follow us and attend to our prayer requests at:

http://uk09.pcpc.org/

Derek Webb's new album...

...should be coming out soon. A bit of the feel of the album is here below. I love the title: Stockholm Syndrome. This is "a psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed."
[UPDATE: Check out my take on Webb's use of explicit language here]


Sounds like what happen to us with Sin to me.


The Spirit vs. Kickdrum
(click here for an mp3 of an early mix)

I don’t want the spirit; I want the kickdrum
I don’t want the spirit; I want the kickdrum
I know how it works, so I’m not dumb
I don’t want the spirit; I want the kickdrum

Like sex without love
Like peace without the dove
Like a crime scene without the blood
I don’t want the spirit; you know I want a kickdrum

I don’t want the son; I want a jury of peers
I don’t want the son; I want a jury of peers
Stares go low when you see my tears
I don’t want the son; I want a jury of peers

Like lies without the truth
Like wine without the food
Like a skydive without the chute
I don’t want the son; you know I want a jury of peers
I don’t want the spirit; you know I want a kickdrum

I don’t want the father; want a vending machine
I don’t want the father; want a vending machine
I know, what’s your point if you know what I mean
I don’t want the father; want a vending machine

Like heaven without gates
Like hell without flames
Like life without pain
I don’t want the father; you know I want a vending machine
I don’t want the son; you know I want a jury of peers
I don’t want the spirit; you know I want a kickdrum

Theology by Music: Control

I love music. I also love finding Theology in music. That's part of why I love Johnny Cash and his display of total depravity in people through song. I wrote this short piece for a class, and since I am too busy right now to write an original post, I thought I would offer this piece now. I was hit anew by the deep truth of it while listening to the album while studying. The piece analyzes Pedro the Lion's 2002 album "Control.":

Pedro the Lion was a popular indy band early in the decade. Often drawing cult followings of “abnormal” Christians. I attended a concert by them at a liberal Christian fellowship on the campus of the University of Illinois. The event surprised me, as the “liberal Christians” loved this prophet of sin. I had always been taught that liberals did not believe in the inherent sinfulness of man. Yet, in conversations of those around me, this very theme connected with these college Christians. They gathered in corners, talking about religious topic like whether angels have free will (seriously!) and none of them wanted to hear a contemporary Christian band sing about how great everything already was with Jesus. Instead, they listened to the themes below and nodded in agreement.

The Universality of Evil, Fallenness.

“Control” is a concept album focusing primarily on a married couple. The album opens with the couple, seemingly happy, walking holding hands. Then we invited into the thoughts of the man, thinking, “I could never divorce you, without a good reason.” Later in the album we discover the fact that the man is having an affair. The adultery finds descriptions echoing religious themes “I hear the angels singing” and vulgar terms.

The next song describes the same man being fired from his corporate job. Bazan does not describe a evil man living in a good world, taking advantage of good people. Rather, Bazan focuses on evil men in an evil world. The man is fired from his job because

“if it isn't making dollars then it isn't making sense;
if you are not moving units then you're not worth the expense.”

People use other people as objects for gratification. The woman with whom the affair is committed is used for sex and left when the act is finished, and the company uses the man for profit and discards him when he is no longer profitable. The world values self advancement over any inherent worth in persons.

At this point, Bazan allows for a glimpse of common grace. When arriving home, the man’s children “hug his neck, unaware of their inheritance.” We see, briefly, that there are glimpses of better motives and love unconcerned with their personal advancement. This short glimpse of children as innocent may reveal a view of evil as learned rather than inherited.

The next song, however, explores the evil of the children. “Progress” describes multiple technological wonders, intended to make life easier. This leads the mother to conclude that this extra time will allow:

“the children to instead;
Grow into your molding;
Heed more of your scolding;
Go early to their new self-making beds.”

Instead, at the end of the song, the mother finds that there is no technology that fixes:

“A husband bent on cheating…
A child who's always bragging…
A wife's persistent nagging, though;
We're equipped to live though it were.”

Instead, technology merely makes us more efficient sinners.

Bazan refuses to leave the subject with us thinking evil exists in “evil people” but not good. Near the middle of the album, in the song “Magazine” Bazan distinguishes between

“on the one side; The bad half live in wickedness;
And on the other side,..The good half live in arrogance.”

The perception of good and evil becomes a self-label, both reacting in sin to their own title, one resigned to their evil, the other proud they are not like the sinners (much like the proud Pharisee in the gospels).

Act 2 - Everything Dies

The second part of the album focuses on the eventual discovery of infidelity by the husband. The wife has many reactions, first anger at the lies of her husband in the song “Rehearsal.” Then the wife tries to settle for “second best” in a song by the same title. In the crescendo of the musical flow of the album, the wife cries “after all, what’s wrong with second best?!” With only two songs left, an option arises of how to deal with evil in the world: accept it. The wife sees evil and tries to accommodate it, to live with evil.

The album does not end with a grand solution, a reconciliation or even with the option of settling. Instead, paramedics arrive after the wife has stabbed the husband. The husband screams: "oh my God, Am I gonna die?” The paramedics are there to help, but “as they strapped his arms down to his sides in times like these they've been taught to lie ‘buddy just calm down, you'll be alright.’" This next to last song is called “Priests and Paramedics.” My favorite, this song captures what many priests and pastors have told people in a fallen world in the present day. “They’ve been taught to lie,” to say everything is alright. The next scene is at the man’s grave. The man was going to die, but those who came to help were not honest about his situation.

The final few lines of the album summarize how shocking, but necessary, is the truth of men being essentially and unchangeably bad and the world being a Fallen mess. The only person who speaks the truth in the album is the priest at the funeral. Even though the people wanted a comforting answer, Bazan says, The priest saw

“the assembly craved relief but
…he offered them this bitter cup:
‘you're gonna die, we're all gonna die,
Could be 20 years, could be tonight,
Lately I have been wondering why;
We go to so much trouble;
To postpone the unavoidable;
And prolong the pain of being alive.’”

Everything is not ok. The people should not be told the world is as it should be and that there are words of comfort from this world on which to hold. Bazan ends the album with an eerie and short song that bluntly states:

“Wouldn't it be so wonderful?
If everything were meaningless?
But everything is so meaningful;
And most everything turns to sh*t.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!”

Bazan offers hope in the album, but only after all hope of goodness, salvation and beauty from this world are destroyed. But the final song says that it wouldn’t be so bad if everything were meaningless, but everything on earth has meaning. But everything on earth dies (as Bazan vulgarly states). The end of this world, the end of pain and loss, the end of “the pain of being alive” leaves the songwriter rejoicing.

The hopelessness of the world, however, is a true observation of this album. We should not disapprove of this observation, but offer an affirmation to the last song. The world of pain, evil and the prostitution of persons will die. Rejoice. Rejoice. Rejoice.

Theology by Music - Depravity

I love music. I find, even after I have just criticized the latest Matt Redman song that people have sung as “worship,” I will still go to my ipod and listen to Sufjan Stevens, or Pedro the Lion or Johnny Cash or even Derek Webb and feel like I am having a spiritual experience. I do not share Plato’s rejection of music as entirely base and animal. Words and music often can convey more together than apart.

Believing the above, I have sometimes pondered what songs best speak to the soul on truth. On one topic, the Depravity of man, I find I have a plethora of songs which come to mind. In fact, entire albums like Pedro the Lion’s Control, or Johnny Cash’s Murder thoroughly tackle the topic. But if I had to choose one song that conveyed the concept the best it is Sufjan Steven’s song John Wayne Gacy Jr. [video below]



Listen to the lyrics about the nice boy people described Gacy as. The later facts are starkly stated in the song:

(He killed) Twenty-seven people
Even more, they were boys
With their cars, summer jobs
Oh my God

Then the sickness of the acts linger, as Sufjan ends the haunting song with these lines:

And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floor boards
For the secrets I have hid

What was broken in John Wayne Gacy Jr., is shared in Sufjan, and in all people. The most haunting and gut-wrenching fact is not Gacy’s crime, but our common humanity; the capability of each man to do what Gacy did. Succinctly, Sufjan’s song communicates the first thing one must know to be a saint: you are a sinner…a greater one than you tell others or even yourself.