It is no secret I’m a music geek. It is also no secret that I am in love with words. When I was in high school a great deal of my life was determined by music. My friend Scott Beimler and I would listen carefully to all kinds of music, mining the lyrics for kernels of truth that would “relate” to our present life. We would spend hours picking through his expansive music collection, browsing sleeve inserts and reading through the printed materials that came along with some of his best boxed set collections. We were fascinated with lyrics. We would find words that possessed power, and those words were heightened by instrumentation and music that would resonate with the present state of our soul, whether we were soaring at our highest heights or had plummeted to our lowest of lows. I have continued to have friends with whom a shared love of music has been important to the relationship, such as Scot Huber or Mike Hibit, and I have been thankful for the sharing of harmony, rhythm, truth, and beauty that music has the unique power to convey.
Last week I had the opportunity to share the music of a community that has blessed me in recent years, and I took great joy from the conversations and shared passions which were born through those conversations. I asked a handful of students whom I walked alongside last week which musicians they listened to, and I came home with a list of 15 to 20 bands or performers they found compelling. I had work to do on iTunes. I also shared some of my musical preferences, most notably the work of Mike Crawford and His Secret Siblings. It was particularly exciting to share “Words to Build a Life On” and see the students incorporate that anthem into our camp worship experiences.
If you haven’t heard of Mike Crawford, check out his work at his MySpace page, and if you’re interested in learning how to play a couple of the songs that have been born out of the Jacob’s Well community, check out Mike’s YouTube Channel. You can also check in with Mike Crawford’s website, which is under construction, but according to Mike’s comment I found on this blog post, it is forthcoming soon and will feature charts and tabs. If you’re interested in picking up their two CD collection, you can click here or wait till mid-August, at which time you can purchase it through iTunes. Both the music and the lyrical content are fantastic.
Mike’s music is stuff I would recommend. I particularly love the way in which the words of Scripture are sung throughout the album, which, at this time in my life, are the very words upon which I feast. Mike’s music also allows for the Word to be heard in fresh ways, and, in a sense, recaptures the narrative of Scripture in a manner that ignites the imagination and opens up new possibilities for how that Word may be born in us as followers of Jesus.
T.S. Eliot, in his poem “Ash Wednesday,” observed:
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.
We live in a world where the Word is unheard and unspoken. But Mike’s music points to the Word, the light which shone in the darkness, which stands silent and waits to be spoken, and, even when it is unspoken, still stands at the center. Mike’s music is witness to truth and beauty that has a name, Jesus the Christ.
If you haven’t already picked up Mike Crawford’s work, do it, and let it bless you.
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Expectations :: A Pause for Thought
Posted in Church Ministry, Cultural Commentary, Music, Theology, tagged Christian, Church, Music, Religion on April 24, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Caedmon’s Call
Expectations :: From the 2007 release Overdressed
I normally have an aversion to Christian music (I listen to alternative rock, mainly), so my choice to listen to Caedmon’s Call this morning as I was brushing my teeth was a bit out of character. As I was listening to their album Overdressed this song caught my ear. I was reminded of similar impressions I had of church marketing while living in Dallas, Texas–something about the white, traditional family of four smiling at me as I drove north on 75 didn’t quite sit right with me. Since that time I have thought that such icons only affirm that Stanley Hauerwas is right when he claims that we have turned the family in to an idol.
There is a lot of truth in this song. The first verse exposes the fact that Jesus isn’t a magic bullet, though we commonly package him that way. The third verse addresses the common perception that religious, specifically Christian people, at times possess the fear that they must maintain an outward appearance of perfection when they are crumbling inside.
The chorus is what really grabbed me. We market and present ourselves one way, and then reality hits. What does our “marketing” say to people of diverse races and ethnic backgrounds? What does it say to singles? Senior Adults? Teenagers who have families who have no interest in a faith community?
When Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple,” it scares the living bejesus out of us (Luke 14:26-27). We like verse 27, but verse 26 is a challenge. Jesus is redefining our kinship in a way that makes us uncomfortable. It should make us uncomfortable, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us. Nevertheless, we should remember that the family of God includes people of all ages, races, genders, political parties, nationalities, and on and on.
What do you think?
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