associated in random thought

oh my god

i am at the tail end of a lunch break here, just having pulled headphones out of my ears.

the only songs i am listening to are the ones of jars of clay's new record, good monsters. as most of you know, i walked away from the emptiness of christianmusicland a few years ago with an angry heart, and very bruised pride. i've shut my ears to most of what sounds to me like a clanging gong industry, but i hang around the edges still, mostly because of folk like nichole and flibbity flu, who are the only "inside" connections i have in that world anymore. i still believe in what they do, who they are, and their amazing gifts and visions.

which brings me to good monsters. in may, schmelen and i sat on flibbity's porch, along with the wonderful carlen, listening to a few good monsters tunes. we laughed and ooed and awed, and then flibbity played a song called "oh my god". (dan brought us that song, he always says.) what begins as a quiet confession builds to repetition and anger and longing and hope and despair. it is a psalm rivaling king david. there is no resolution, no "but now that i know jesus, i know peace". it's simply "oh my god".

i listened in darkness that night and the ache and truth of that song cloaked itself around my shoulders like it knew my name--like it knew all of our names. not just the christian. not just the faithful. but, as etty hillesum would say, "the wreckage of the human being underneath".

i knew i would remember that song.
only i couldn't remember more than the rhythm.

i did my civic and moral duty and preordered "good monsters" on itunes last week. and as soon as the album finished its download, i chose "oh my god". pressed play. and once again i was on flibbity's porch--helen and carlen were there, too--and i got the kind of chills i had as a teenager, blasting sarah mclachlan's love laments into my ears on a schoolbus. i haven't felt anything like that in at least a decade.

it happened again when the same song shuffled itself into being on my drive home the other night.
Sometimes I can not forgive
and these days mercy cuts so deep,
If the world was how it should be, maybe I could get some sleep.
While I lay, I'd dream we're better, scales were gone and faces lighter,
When we wake we hate our brother, we still move to hurt each other,
Sometimes I can close my eyes and all the fear the keeps me silent,
Falls below my heavy breathing, what makes me so badly bent?
We all have a chance to murder, we all have the need for wonder.
We still want to be reminded that the pain is worth the plunder.

Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of heaven,
All the times I thought to reach up, all the times I had to give up.
Babies underneath their beds, in hospitals that cannot treat them.
All the wounds that money causes, all the comforts of cathedrals,
All the cries of thirsty children, this is our inheritance,
All the rage of watching mothers, this is our greatest offense
Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.

i told flibbity shortly after the tears dried that this was the first "christian" song i had heard in a long time that included me, unabashedly. that the playing field was leveled, and oh my god, we are all in the same boat already.

another layer healed itself. my angry heart is a little more hopeful.

thank you, boys.