metaphors, myths and merry go rounds

nothing gets our attention like a good storm.

God often uses symbols and metaphors- things like storms and floods and such- to communicate with people. The problem with speaking in metaphors and symbols is that people don’t always get them right away… and yet, if God were to come out shooting straight with humankind, one of two things might happen:

a) heads explode while bodies are consumed by holy fire.
b) people would simply get used to God
(perhaps this familiarity is what caused the rebellion back in Eden)

see, God knows his created well enough to know that he must temper his revelation, lest we become so familiar with the stuff of the mysteries of God that God’s presence and revelation no longer matter to us… they become the feeling of life and are dismissed in the same way that clean air, fresh water and savory food no longer cause us to pause and be thankful..

in the regular things, we regularly fail to grasp the deeper meaning. we miss the poetry of God. falling back upon our need for literal meanings and empirical reasoning.

but nothing gets our attention like a good storm.

my son tells a story of a kid that he went to school with in the early grades. his name was leroy.

leroy was a thrill seeker and was prone to try anything, especially if there was sufficient adrenaline rush involved. as a ten-year old, he had already discovered the correlation between personal danger and social esteem, and had become somewhat of a folk hero among the fifth graders. however, his greatest feat was still ahead of him...

until the day of the big storm when leroy's social status was elevated from folk hero to local legend.

it was a beautiful, sunny saskatchewan day in the late spring. however, as is true of most beautiful sunny saskatchewan days in late spring, the wind picked and and started to take over everything. as clouds began to gather and darken and the ubiquitous wind rose to sculpt them in real time, everyone on the playground was running for shelter and safety. leroy, however, turned and ran right back through the wind to the dustiest spot on the playground.

where he ran in circles.

faster and faster he ran, kicking up a tremendous amount of dust until he was barely visible at all to his schoolmates, all watching the spectacle from safely inside the building.

but amidst the dust and the wind and the circular run, something strange began to happen...

now years later, the kids, all much older and more sophisticated, reflect upon the scientific possibility of it all and the realization that some stories do grow in the telling. however, on that day and for a long time afterward, the only fitting assessment of what they had all witnessed was that

that was the day that leroy started the tornado.

seeing something happening and participating in it
rather than fleeing from it…

what if one were able to measure the movement of the wind and build a merry go round right at the centre of where a storm were to touch down? what a ride that would be!
hmm...

Q: what do we do when we hear that God is moving?
A: head for the storm cellar?
A: go out and play in it- embracing it and being embraced by it, participating in the stories of God that people will tell for decades, maybe even centuries…?

window weather: this is another sunny day,
but i can't help noticing that the wind is picking up...

*youtube convergence credits: visuals from the wizard of oz and audio from great gig in the sky (pink floyd)... speaking of playing with serendipity, if you watch wizard of oz, having cued pink floyd's dark side of the moon cd on the third roar of the MGM lion at the beginning, you will experience one of the most interesting aesthetic coincedences ever discovered...

jones drove the train

the first record bought with my own money wasn’t a cool one…it was a ktel compilation of novelty songs from the late 50's and early 60's called Looney Tunes that would still find favour among Mad magazine reading 12 year-olds in the 70's. being that i fit the demographic targetted by the marketing strategies employed (there was a silly commercial with bad animation that offered cartoon exerpts of a few of the songs, making them seem far more brilliantly satirical and emotionally satisfying than they actually were) i rushed down to the closest retail store and bought my own copy full price. on it was along came jones- a song of considerable melodrama performed by a group called the coasters... not the craziest song on the record, but perhaps the most spiritually meaningful.

mel·o·dra·ma

1.	a dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization.

(huge thanks, as usual, to www.dictionary.com and www.biblegateway.com)

sometimes, in our desire to understand and summarize a lesson in scripture, we can reduce it to the level of melodrama…the depth of God’s desire to redeem his own, the crowned of creation, from an agreed-upon autonomous existence hell-bent on self-destruction can often come off as a simple white-hat versus black-hat cartoon.

and then he grabbed her! (and then?)
he tied her up! (and then?)
he threw her on the railroad track! (and then?)
a train started coming! (and then? and then?)

and then along came jones...

now, describing placing black hats and white hats upon real-life characters caught in a day to day existence on fallen planet earth is trickier than writing a simple plot with simple characters and putting it to music...

nothing is ever simple or tidy.

and yet scripture bears witness to the following through of God’s promises to remain involved. God promises a restoration of all things, and then takes humanity through a series of successive approximations, revealing in holy moments, glimpses of his glory; offering hope for the future of this fallen race in God’s bigger picture.

exodus 19.9-11, 16-20
2 chronicles 5.11-14
isaiah 6.1-8
acts 2.1-6
joel 2.28-32

at the end of his second chapter, the prophet joel describes 'day of the Lord' and in this description we read of an incredible deliverance that is promised to 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.' the UK band delirious reflects upon this to some degree in a song of theirs called God's Romance which has a rather catchy and intriguing chorus:

Everyone here is the kingdom come
Here is the God who saves the day
And we will gladly run into the glorious Son
Singing that Jesus is alive

what i find so engaging about this lyric is the melodramatic, saturday morning superhero phrase: the God who saves the day.

being that we read the phrase 'the day of the Lord' so often in scripture to describe a time when, according to Gospel.com, "God will make his creation whole again and destroy evil," i find the melodrama of the God who saves the day accessible and attractive.

having watched too much tv as a kid, i remember the song along came jones being most poignantly enacted on the old irish rovers tv show…

in it, jones drove the train.

I don't care about economy, I don't care about astronomy
But it sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets
There's slow, slow train coming up around the bend. (Bob Dylan)

from the summit of my father's mountain

Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11.4)

zig·gu·rat

(among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians) a temple of Sumerian origin in the form of a pyramidal tower, consisting of a number of stories and having about the outside a broad ascent winding round the structure, presenting the appearance of a series of terraces.

in my home town there is a ziggurat of sorts. upon a hill that is dangerously close to the local airport there is a beacon. this hill has trails that encircle the thing like the terraces on the ziggurati, allowing climbers young and old to take a one hour round trip hike to the summit and back. kids in gym class at the nearby high school regularly ascend this thing for credit, as do my 70 year-old parents, not so much for any credit as simply to stay agile and 'young.'

on holiday recently, i decided to ascend the ziggurat and talk to God about a couple things that were on my mind. now when the babylonians presumed to simply knock on heaven's door uninvited, God made it very clear that relationship with God had to be on God's terms. God treated me gently, but surprised me by doing all the talking when i climbed up to see him that warm day in july, 2008. honestly, i can't even remember what i was going to bring up for discussion. all i remember is what God taught me as i journalled at the summit:

***

the path:

others have gone before me. i can vaguely see their footprints. so much comes down to which path- which set of footprints i choose to follow.

my parents say it is a one-hour round trip to climb this hill... but they go the nice, well-travelled, gentle slope. so i'm thinking :

i'm way younger- i can go directly up the mountain- there is evidence all over it that others have done it and i'll make quick work of this thing... did i mention i'm way younger?

so i set out clambering frantically up the steep slope, scurrying over the scree, sweating grasping and gasping; pausing with trembling legs and burning lungs. i see the mountain pather running almost parallel to mine, but getting onto it would require descending a bit and i'm just too stubborn (that's the easy road) and i continue on my frantic own way.

eventually the gentle path meets mine and i conclude my morning climb leisurely... arriving at the summit at almost exactly forty-five minutes' climb. i save myself no time, but get a better workout, i suppose.

question is, at age seventy-four will i be interested in a better workout? will i be able to maintain this pace over the long haul or will mountain walks go the way of running marathons, swimming laps and pushing weights in the basement?

oh to be a long distance runner instead of a sprinter.

respect the river
respect the rock

God has given you dominion but there are things in your domain that will take you if you fail to afford them the proper respect. remember that they are partners with God in that they have been here since long before you and will remain long after. remember that flippant disregard of their awesomeness will result in pain and potentially even death in consequence...

lessons about God to be learned everywhere...

***

The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;

for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters.

Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ?
Who may stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false.

He will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from God his Savior.

Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, O God of Jacob.

Lift up your heads, O you gates;
be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.

Who is this King of glory?
The LORD strong and mighty,
the LORD mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O you gates;
lift them up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.

Who is he, this King of glory? The LORD Almighty—
he is the King of glory.
(Psalm 24)

the challenges invite, in us, a sense of humility in the light of God’s revealed Word. however, we have an important role in this education, this initiation…

we need to be paying attention.

praying with our feet

open up the doors and let the music play
let the streets resound with singing
songs that bring your hope
songs that bring your joy
dancers who dance upon injustice
((m. smith/ s. garrard, circa 1994)

years ago i had a conversation with a pastor who disagreed with singing the words above in church gatherings because he contended that no one knew what dancing upon injustice was, so why would we invite people to sing words they couldn't embrace?

one could probably say this about pretty much any congregational song, not because of the inaccessibility of the songs but because the more heterogenous the group of people, the greater the likelihood that someone is there who doesn't have a clue... however, perhaps it's the job of everyone else (as per 1 corinthians 14.24-25) to worship so intentionally, so meaningfully that the individuals in their midst who are exploring the faith are challenged to look closer and ask questions.

but what does it mean to dance upon injustice?

a friend of mine used this phrase "praying with our feet' on another blog to attempt to explain the meaning of a smudge walk. nice- occurs to me we should all be doing this more.

joining with our community in a smudge walk, i prayed with my feet this week.

for me, the most impactive moment in the day took place before the walking even began. to hear a father who had lost his son to gang violence speaking words of peace just days before the one year anniversary of his family's great loss was astonishing. to hear him confess that, while his healing journey had not yet taken him to the point where he was able to forgive...

1) he trusts Creator to bring justice and comfort and

2) refuses to vengefully raise his own hand against another son of another and

3) extols all of his friends and family to do the same- i was deeply moved. romans 12.19 came to mind.

and in this moment, i pondered the cost of peace, checking my own balance in the grace column and wondering if, were i to be in this man's shoes, the cheques i wrote with my mouth might all come up NSF in my heart.

i mean, i get so wound up and passionately intense about things that are really very little of a big deal.

example: at the international tattoo celebration (not what we typically think of when we read the word 'tattoo'... google 'saskatchewan international tattoo festival' for more conext) there was a hoop dancer performing for the crowd. surrounding him were dancers fancy dancing and all of this was accompanied by a band of singers and the drum. awesome. stole the show.

but during the intermission, a guy who had been sitting in front of me turned to me and asked 'so what do you think?'

and i, being an idiot in many ways, told him. i reflected upon how magnificent i felt that this portion of the show was...

(tangent: but left out the bit where i was moved to tears by the moment in the show when all these other cultures with their ring-around-the-rosey dances poured onto the floor taking up all the space that had been so luxuriously occupied by the hoop dancer and his troupe until there was just this mass of people all crowding together waving their hands in the air, pressing in and affording the dancers and the drum no room to do anything but stand... now i know we like to celebrate canada as a diverse mosaic and all, but this portion of the show illustrated the cost of our culturally diverse canadian identity. perhaps this is what an aboriginal friend of mine meant on msn last week when he confessed to not actually feeling 'canadian' at all)

... and how it seemed like this performance had owned the room. to this, the guy began to go on and on about how the men around the drum weren't wearing 'ceremonial costumes' and how it looked as though they 'didn't even care enough to dress up' for this show.

there are two things that challenge my grace reserves with limbic system precision: 'rednecks' and the 'religious right.'

so i was in it now and i knew there was no way out because i was all emotionally involved and yet was trying very hard to speak words of peace, not violence, recognizing all the while the bitter taste of argument rising up like bile in the back of my throat.

it didn't help that i love the sound of the singing and the drum- always have. it didn't help that just earlier that day i had been attending the regina version of 'national aboriginal day of action' at the legislative building and had been served a satisfying dose of drum band singing already. it didn't help that i have issues with people imposing their views upon others as to what to wear and what is appropriate in any cultural context- much less contexts that the opinionated may or may not understand deeply enough to offer their 'direction.'

so i pushed back, challenging this guy with the idea that perhaps this was that chosen 'uniform' for the guys playing the drum. i invited him to look at the orchestra and note that those in the orchestra were dressed neither uniformly, nor in culturally distinctive colours and patterns- that they were dressed as people in an orchestra 'should dress' for an event like this... bla bla bla- who cares?

my wife just rolled her eyes and went to buy a coke for our son. no guilt by association here! ha ha.

now take this ridiculous situation and line it up beside the experience of this father whose home had been broken into and whose son had been killed while sleeping... suddenly all that other stuff feels like far too much about far too little.

we read paul's words in ephesians 6.15 about having our feet shod with readiness to walk the gospel of peace.

we sing about dancers dancing upon injustice in a song called 'did you feel the mountains tremble?'

praying with our feet indeed.

public service announcement

now typically, this blog has leftover sermon notes and youtube clips to illustrate them in the interest of continuing the dialogue that begins on sunday mornings.

however, it's not really fair to say that anything is 'typical' when there has not been a post in over two months...

in explanation, the 8 week series 7 Habits for Highly Reflective Families that we did on sundays wasn't really the kind of thing that i post. for the real continued dialogue, there are three things one should do:

1) buy stephen covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, and read it

2) read the narratives of the patriarchs (abraham, isaac, jacob, joseph) found in genesis 12-48,

3) talk about the connections between these 'less than perfect' families portrayed in scripture and the ideas put forth in covey's book with someone else who may or may not have read them...

that's what i did! ha ha

the face of the deep

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1.1-2)

The trouble with a classicist he looks at a tree
That's all he sees, he paints a tree
The trouble with a classicist he looks at the sky
He doesn't ask why, he just paints a sky

The trouble with an impressionist, he looks at a log
And he doesn't know who he is, standing, staring, at this log
And surrealist memories are too amorphous and proud
While those downtown macho painters are just alcoholic
The trouble with impressionist is The trouble with impressionist is

The trouble with personalities, they're too wrapped up in style
It's too personal, they're in love with their own guile
They're like illegal aliens trying to make a buck
They're driving gypsy cabs but they're thinking like a truck
The trouble with personalities is
The trouble with personalities is

I like the druggy downtown kids who spray paint walls and trains
I like their lack of training, their primitive technique
I think sometimes it hurts you when you stay too long in school
I think sometimes it hurts you when you're afraid to be called a fool
The trouble with classicists is
The trouble with classicists is
(lou reed, from songs for drella- a fiction
which is a musical and lyrical tribute to andy warhol)

see, the main problem with comparing God to anything or anyone is that the 'likes' may be poignant and meaningful, but they are infinitely outnumbered by the 'unlikes.' it's a given that any comparison metaphor is going to fall way short...

we are trying to describe infinity in finite terms
we are trying to describe holiness in fallen terms
we are trying to describe perfection in fatally flawed terms
we are trying to describe transcendence in descendant terms
got it.

so to subject the character of God to the defaults that people often have towards something like abstract expressionism and troubled, dysfunctional and in all ways lost characters like the artist jackson pollock is problematic at best...

kurt vonnegut, in his inspiring book of neo-art-historical fiction Bluebeard describes a scene between an older, more established artist (compared earlier on in the book to a taxidermist who 'stuffed and mounted and varnished and mothproofed supposedly great moments, all of which turn out to be depressing dust-catchers, like a moosehead bought at a country auction or a sailfish on the wall of a dentist's waiting room') and an impressionable young padawan who wants to be a great artist someday...

After Dan Gregory at our first meeting ordered me to make a super-realistic painting of his studio, he said that there was a very important sentence he wanted me to learn by heart. This was it: "The Emperor has no clothes."

"Let me hear you say it," he said. "Say it several times."

So I did. "The Emperor has no clothers, the Emperor has no clothes, the Emperor has no clothes."

"That was a really fine performance, " he said, "really topping, really first rate." He clapped his hands appreciatively.

How was I supposed to respond to that? I felt like Alice in Wonderland.

"I want you to say that out loud and with just that degree of conviction," he said, "anytime anyone has anything good to say about so-called modern art."

"O.K." I said.

"It's the work of swindlers and lunatics and degenerates," he said, "and the fact that many people are now taking it seriously proves to me that the world has gone mad. I hope you agree."

"I do, I do," I said. It sounded right to me.

"Mussolini thinks so, too." he said.

(sorry, the link i copied and pasted here was broken by the blog template...
you'll just have to go out and buy the book like i did...)

still, when we look behind the mythologies of these stunningly original thinkers and the stereotypes arising from their difficulties with regular day to day relationships, circumstances and life, we are treated with a stunning metaphor that works on many levels... even many of the insults and accusations match...

i was reminded of God recently while watching one of my favourite biopics: Pollock.

there is a scene which is almost hypnotic, in which the painter gazes upon the canvas, deciding how to best place the essence of who he is; an image- his image- upon the canvas in a way that articulates who he is, not just his ability to create. viewing this film, i was challenged to consider to just what degree the comparisons can be faithfully made between the creation, intentions and involvement of God in life and the approach taken by the one particularly misanthropic artist.

(we just need to remember the earlier bit about the unlikes greatly outnumbering the likes, lest we default to a misanthropic God... although many of the insults and accusations hurled at God also match, i believe that they are more indicative of humankind's misanthropy, not God's. this is probably a tangent for a whole nother blog...)

in Possibilities I, published in New York, Winter 1947-8, jackson pollock describes his process:

My painting does not come from the easel. I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painting. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.

It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.

Narration Spoken by Jackson Pollock in the above posted Film by Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg 1951:
The method of painting is a natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

Sometimes I lose a painting. But I have no fear of changes, of destroying the image, because a painting has a life of its own. I kind of let it live.

(http://www.adherents.com/people/pp/Jackson_Pollock.html)

***

interesting that an adbar on the website from which i pulled the transcripted monologues above is inviting website visitors to purchase a 'how to paint oil' dvd on which a 'top world realist' teaches a 'simple method ANYONE can learn. i wonder if the realist's name is dan gregory...

see, my experience with art lessons was less than inspiring. however, my experience with worship lessons changed my life.

Q: What kind of teacher is God?
Q: How does God best express what God desires to express through us?
Q: How does God ready us for this expression?

i remember sitting in a seminar where the writer of many rich and meaningful songs had agreed to try to unpack his process for the would-be worship song writers in the room. before he went into his own songwriting preferences and processes, he was very careful to remind everyone in attendance that writing worship songs or otherwise reflecting the face of God aesthetically, bearing the image of God through art must needs begin with spending time with this God, reading, praying, practicing, journaling...

through an interesting string of miracles and redeemed accidents, i had found myself, over the year prior to this session, in a small subterranean room with a notebook, a bible and a guitar. Jesus' approach to teaching method had to do with placing opportunity before me and then inviting me to engage, to explore, to extrapolate. for me, there was no method apart from opportunity and invitation. the songwriter's words certainly affirmed this, as does the teaching in psalm 25.

perhaps our problem is that we are struggling so hard with how to be the artist that we have lost sight of what it means to be the art?

in 1 Thessalonians 5.17-18, we read ceaseless prayer.

keith green wrote an old song based on this verse called Make My Life a Prayer To You.

jim brooks, abstract expressionist colleague and friend of jackson pollack, painting around the same time said:

I lay on the first stroke of colour.
After that, the canvas has to do at least half the work!

john michael talbot, the singing, songwriting, secular franciscan monk who modeled worship and intimacy with God for me in his body of work that i have come to deeply love over the last quarter century or so put it this way...

An empty canvas waits before the Painter
It waits to be the painting it must be
Unto this end it’s rightfully been created
To reflect the rightful beauty the painter sees
A beauty that will surely find its life within its dying
So another might be born again
And in this constant death a constant beauty created
Within a constant love that never ends

Jesus is the Master Painter
The Holy Spirit is the Master’s brush
To be dipped within the colours that portray a father’s love
That the Master’s painting might be born of us
To portray the beauty of the Master’s brush
That the canvas of our life might know the Master’s touch

An empty canvas waits before the Painter
An empty canvas destined to be hung
Within the gallery once it has been created
Will the canvas bear the beauty of God’s Son?
(Talbot, 1980)

***

Life is to be an art work…
a thing of truth
and also a thing of beauty
in a lost and despairing world.
(Francis Schaeffer)

the psalms, the blues, the gospel truth

I DON'T KNOW IF I HAVE THE STRENGTH
WHAT IF I- WHAT IF I DON'T MAKE MY NEXT GOAL
I’M ON MY KNEES AND PRAYING THAT YOU’LL HEAR
YOU NEVER LEFT ME BEFORE AND
YOU SURE WONT LEAVE ME NOW (Wicks)

a friend of mine wrote this song and shared it with the crowd recently. as i read the lyrics, thinking about easter and the sacrifice of Christ offered to both God and man in an effort to reunite the two in deep and meaningful communion, i was impressed with how well my friend's lyrics seemed to reflect some of the same themes as the psalmist. in the psalms we read again and again how alone and helpless and subject humankind often feels (kinda tragic considering this autonomy was the thing that we wanted most in the cosmos) to the will of an invisible deity. we often catch ourselves saying things like 'all i can do now is pray' which carry with them a sense of spiritual and circumstancial impotence as the shoulders that have been humbled and bowed by whatever burden of fallenness has settled this week eventually are incapable of anything more theologically astute than a shrug.

yet our sense of aloneness is reduced in direct proportion to the number of people we hear from who are also feeling alone.

in 1997, TIME magazine named industrial angst rocker, trent reznor (a.k.a. nine inch nails) as one as one of the year's twenty five most influencial people:

Trent Reznor INDUSTRIAL ROCKER

Trent Reznor is the anti-Bon Jovi. He is the lord of Industrial, an electronic-music form that with its tape loops and crushing drum machines, harks back to the dissonance of John Cage and sounds like capitalism collapsing. But Reznor, with his vulnerable vocals and accessible lyrics, led an Industrial revolution: he gave the gloomy genre a human heart. It's been said that he wrote the first Industrial love songs.

...On the hit song Hurt Reznor sings, "I hurt myself today/ To see if I still feel/ I focus on the pain/ The only thing that's real." The Downward Spiral sold more than 2 million copies; earlier this year Spin magazine named Reznor "the most vital artist in music."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986206-17,00.html

reznor is one of my all-time favourite artists because, call it what you will, his sadness offers the rest of us hope in that he reminds us that we are not alone in our feelings of disenchantment and pain. (originally posted at http://northvus.blogspot.com/2007/02/industrial-love-songs.html)

it’s knowing that somehow we are alone together that fosters hope within the most dire of circumstances.

it is the hope of the psalmist- that resolute 'yet i know that my Lord is able to rescue me' that often comes in the final strains of a psalm of lament- which is the poet's acknowledgement of God's sovereignty after having spent awhile unloading the burden.

bono recently wrote an introduction to the psalm installment of grove press' pocket canons. in it he states that:

Explaining belief has always been difficult. How do you expalin a love and logic at the heart of the universe when the world is so out of whack? How about the poetic versus the actual truth found in the scriptures? Has free will got US crucified? And what about the dodgy characters who inhabit the tome, known as the bible, who claim to hear the voice of God?

You have to be interested, but is God?

Explaining faith is impossible... Vision over visibility... Instinct over intellect... A songwriter plays a chord with the faith that he will hear the next one in his head.

One of the writers of the psalms was a musician, a harp-player whose talents were required at 'the palace' as the only medicine that would still the demons of the moody and insecure King Saul of Israel...

At age 12, I was a fan of David, he felt familiar... like a pop star could feel familiar. The words of the psalms were as poetic as they were religious and he was a star. A dramatic character, because before David could fulfil the prophecy and become the king of Israel, he had to take quite a beating. He was forced into exile and ended up in a cave in some no-name border town facing the collapse of his ego and abandonment by God. But this is where the soap opera got interesting, the is where David was said to have composed his first psalm- a blues. That's what a lot of the psalms feel like to me, the blues. Man shouting at God- 'My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me? (Psalm 22)

I hear echoes of this holy row when un-holy bluesman Robert Johnson howls 'There's a hellhound on my trail' or Van Morrison sings 'Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.' Texas Alexander mimics the psalms in 'Justice Blues': 'I cried Lord my father, Lord eh Kingdom come. Send me bakc my woman, then thy will be done.' Humourous, sometimes blasphemous, the blues was backslidin' music; but by its very opposition, flattered the subject of its perfect cousin Gospel...(Bono)

author francis schaeffer, in his essay Some perspectives on Art said that "If there is no continuity with the way in which language is normally used, then there is no way for a reader or an audience to know what the author is saying. (Schaeffer)

perhaps this is why Jesus came in the first place... to make the language of holiness as accessible as the language of fallenness and alienation…

as tom wilson of junkhouse quipped:

the devil gets all the glory
but it's Jesus that sings the blues...

interesting that Jesus invites us to share in his singing of the blues... to unite, as he did, blues and gospel- to become gospel, good news, for the other.