A Rush of Blood to the Head  |  Coldplay

             release date:  2002             record label:  Capitol  

 track listing:  1) Politik                 
                        2) In My Place                  
                        3) God Put a Smile upon Your Face                   
                        4) The Scientist                   
                        5) Clocks                   
                        6) Daylight
                                                                              7) Green Eyes
                                                                              8) Warning Sign
                                                                              9) A Whisper
                                                                             10) A Rush of Blood to the Head
                                                                             11) Amsterdam 

                                                                                      "open up your eyes..."

My New Year’s Resolution this year was to read the Bible, cover to cover.  I’ve tried this once before.  I came face-to-face with defeat somewhere deep in the bowels of Leviticus.  It wasn’t pretty.  This year things have fared better.  I am just now finishing up the first five books of the Bible, known collectively as the Books of Law.  As the name suggests, the majority of these first five books are lists of rules detailing how God’s people were to live their lives.  The Laws cover everything from what food can be eaten, to what material can be used to make clothing, to when a man can sleep with his wife.  Between these lists of laws, however, an important narrative is sprinkled.  It starts with the creation of the world by the spoken words of God.  It details YHWH’s promise to make Abraham into a great nation.  This nation grew until it is enslaved by Egypt.  God dramatically came to their rescue through plagues and the parting of the Red Sea.  Freed from their Egyptian masters, the fledgling nation of Israel went through a rollercoaster of up-and-down faith as they attempted to follow God through the desert on their way to the Promised Land. 

As a child, I remember being frustrated with the Israelites.  They witnessed so many miracles during and after their rescue from Egypt, but they struggled to hold on to faith in their God.  I was sure that if I could see just one of the miracles they witnessed, my faith would be stable for the rest of my life.  The Israelites, on the other hand, seemed to always be forgetting.  God led them through the Red Sea on dry ground, yet only a few days later the nation complained about a lack of food and water.  God provided a miracle – food literally falling from the sky – but this was not enough for His people.   Shortly thereafter, they grumbled about the choice of food God had given them – they would rather have had meat.  Ever-patient, God met the request of his people, but like clockwork, more complaining surfaced.  Moses left the people to obtain the law of God and, upon returning, found the entire nation worshiping a golden cow.  In terms of their relationship with YHWH, the nation of Israel seemed to always be taking one step forward and two steps back.  It drove me mad. 

As an adult, however, I find myself sympathizing with the perpetually unbelieving Israelites – mostly because I see the same faults in myself.  I want to be coddled by God; for the Creator of the Universe to hold my hand through each and every step of life.  I want Him to make my life easy, ensuring that I never have to wander in the desert of doubt or unbelief.  I cry out for His hand to touch my life, and when it does, I forget it almost immediately.  He works miracles before my very eyes, and yet days later I am grumbling about unanswered prayers.  I am as short-sighted as those first followers of YHWH.  Like them, I need a reminder.

For the Israelites that reminder was the Ark of the Covenant.  It was both a symbol of the presence of God and a reminder of what He had accomplished for them.  The Ark was a holy box; its contents, symbols of miracles worked by YHWH.  Inside the Ark were the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, a jar of manna, and Aaron’s flowering staff – each of these items, reminders of specific events in the history of Israel in which God had been intimately involved with His people.  Having such proof of the goodness and power of God should have given the Israelite people ample ground upon which to build their faith.  Even with these symbols, though, God’s people found it difficult to trust Him.  Brought to the brink of the Promised Land, they found their faith replaced with fear and refused to take the land set out before them.  The Ark of the Covenant begged the Israelites to look to the past; to remember, once more, how God had worked.  Taking time to remember could have developed, within each of them, the faith needed to step into the Promised Land.  Unfortunately, their focus remained squarely on the fear, doubt and disappointments of their present situation. 

A few years ago, the lead-pastor of my church encouraged us to create our own Ark of the Covenant by keeping a record of the times in our lives when we had felt God’s presence or seen His hand at work around us.  In times of doubt and questioning, our arks would serve as a reminder that God had been personally present in our lives.  It was a deliberate step to counter the human trait of forgetfulness.  I rushed home that Sunday afternoon and recorded a number of events on scraps of paper, placing them in a jar for safe keeping.  I found my “ark” about a month ago.  Ironically, after that initial afternoon I had forgotten to add anything to it.  I’m more like those ancient Israelites than I would care to admit.    

A Rush of Blood to the Head is the sophomore album by the now-internationally-known rock group Coldplay.  Recorded shortly after the events of September 11, the album hit stores in August of 2002.  At the time of its release Coldplay was not the success story that they are today – their first album, Parachutes, caused waves with its single Yellow, but it remained to be seen if the group would become more than just a one-hit wonder.  Receiving much radio play with its three singles In My Place, The Scientist, and the brilliant (yet vastly overplayed) Clocks, A Rush of Blood to the Head proved that Coldplay could be, and would become, a force to be reckoned with.  In 2003, Rollingstone magazine set out to name the top 500 albums of all time; A Rush of Blood to the Head was given a spot on that list at number 473.  Parachutes introduced Coldplay to the world, but this album established them as a permanent fixture on the landscape of modern music.  

Growing up, I listened almost entirely to Christian music.  Not until the last two years of high school did I begin to explore other genres.  I did this mostly in my car by surfing through the radio stations being broadcast out of Lexington.  In My Place was the first Coldplay song I ever heard.  I had no idea who the band was, but that guitar lick found its way into my head and I’m not sure if it ever escaped.  That song was one of the first simple melodies I learned to play on guitar.  Since that fateful night when I stumbled upon Coldplay on the radio, my love affair with their music has blossomed.  Five albums later, and the near religious experience of seeing live in concert, has only stoked that fire. 

I’ll admit, though, that it had been a while since I had listened to this album.  Doing so took my thoughts back to the time of its release:  August, 2002.  I was a junior in high school, with dreams of graduation and the freedom of college life filling my head.  I had just gotten my driver’s license and spent most of the income I earned from a paper route on gas for my ’95 Crown Victoria.  The thing was massive – almost boat-like; my friends and I named it “The Tank.”  I spent a lot of my after-school time studying; I was a serious student.  I loved biology, mostly because of my teacher, Mrs. Calvert.  When I wasn’t studying or running cross country for my high school, I was most likely hanging out at a certain girl’s house, trying to convince her that she did, in fact, love me (and not the other boys she was dating).  Church was a major commitment in my life as well.  A year or so earlier, the youth minister, around whom much of the youth group was built, had decided to take a position at another church.  He had always told me that I was a leader and finally, after he left, I attempted to live into that role, trying to bring some stability to the now-struggling program.  It was with this youth group that I went on my first mission trip to eastern Kentucky, patching a roof on a home in the shadows of the mountains of Harlan County. 

There is something to be said for looking back at where we’ve come from.  When I do that – take time to examine my past in light of my present – I can more clearly see the hand of God at work.  In fact, this looking back, for me, serves the same purpose as the Ark of the Covenant.  It reminds me that God has been present and active in my life and that, although I may feel alone at present, He has brought me to this point for a reason.  In fact, He promises to work all things for the good of those children who love Him.  I look back at that nerdy high school science student and realize that God was preparing him, even then, to become a high school biology teacher.  I was learning from Mrs. Calvert, and through my own experiences in high school, just how a life-changing teacher interacts with his or her students.  Years later, when God brought me into the high school classroom, I was ready to be used.  I have progressed quite a ways from those high school days of begging a girl to notice to me.  I have been blessed with a woman who daily teaches me what it means to be emotionally healthy and how a Godly dating relationship works.  I think it is safe to say that, in the dating world, I had to learn the hard way.  In high school, while I was trying to help hold my youth group together, God was using this experience as a training ground.  He knew that, in my future, I would be helping lead a large and diverse group of middle and high school students.  And that mission trip to Harlan County, Kentucky – it changed my life.  As I got to college, my heart was tugged back in that direction and I was able to volunteer for three summers with that ministry.  I made lifelong friends and grew to love those mountains.  Even now, I feel that God is in the process of pulling me back to that little corner of Kentucky. 

The finish line of life is not stationary – it is always being moved forward.  Just as I think I am finishing a project, a stage of life, an idea, I find that something else is waiting for me.  I am comforted by the fact that what is happening today will be used by God to build my tomorrow.  When I find myself in a particularly trying time, I must learn to look to my ark and dwell on the times when God’s hand was present in my life.  As my present becomes my past, I trust that I’ll be able to look back at these days and recognize the unseen hand of God at work.  As they say, hindsight is always 20/20. 

Where will my finish line be?  Chris Martin sums it up best in God Put a Smile upon Your Face:  “your guess is as good as mine.”  What I do know, however, is that if God is writing the script of my life, the future will be far beyond anything I would even dare to imagine.  For now, I’ll trust that today is one step toward that moving finish line – one brick in the future that God is building.        

                A Place Where You Belong  |  The Normals   
      
        release date:  2001                   record label:  ForeFront
 
track listing:  1) I’ll Be Home Soon                  
                       2) Romeo on the Radio                    
                       3) Innocence                    
                       4) Grace                    
                       5) Less than Love
                       6) King
                                                                              7) Happiness
                                                                              8) We Go On
                                                                              9) On My Own
                                                                            10) Brittle Bone
                                                                            11) Epilogue

                                                             "help me remember my way home..."

There is one place on earth where I feel completely at ease, overwhelmingly comfortable.  A place where I know I am always welcome, even wanted – one place where I know I belong.  It’s a two story house in a little town in the heart of central Kentucky.  It’s where my brothers and I played baseball on a narrow strip of road until the sun went down, where I learned to appreciate music and the importance of hard work, where my family sat down together for dinner every night and where I learned about the grace and love of an Almighty Savior.  It was, and still remains, home. 

In the basement, at the end of a long hallway, is my room.  Although I sleep there only a handful of times a year, it’s still mine.  Granted, it doesn’t look much like it belongs to me anymore; it’s gotten a paint job, some finer furniture, made itself more presentable.  In middle school the walls were plastered in Star Wars posters and lost hubcaps I’d collected while walking home from school.  I’d kick my brothers out and lock the door so I could listen to music or talk to my best friend about girls.  As I changed, so did my room.  In high school the Star Wars posters were replaced with concert bulletins and band posters.  Instead of hubcaps littering the floor there were piles of clothes and books lying open, half-read.  When the church my father pastored decided it was time for new furniture in the Sunday School rooms, I commandeered my favorite chair.  It was bright yellow, with a tear here-and-there exposing the stuffing inside.  With my father’s church keys and the help of a friend I saved it from the junkyard, giving it new life in my room.  My mom hated it.  Before graduation my friends took turns signing it like a yearbook – now reminders of people that I haven’t seen or heard from in years.  Time robs us of so much, including home.

In the fall of 2003 I left that house to attend the University of Kentucky.  I enjoyed my new found freedom, but make no mistake, the dorms were not home.  Five years in student residence halls earned me a Bachelors degree in Biology and a Master’s in Education.  My first job afforded me enough income to live on my own – an efficiency apartment in a converted home in Georgetown.  A year later, a move back to Lexington found me claiming a new space as my own:  a small room in an aging community house.  Each residence had its own set of positives and negatives, but none provided the feeling I got as I walked into the front door of that little house in Danville.

For almost a year I’ve been living in someone else’s home – my grandparent’s.  Serving as an in-home caretaker changes the “home” dynamic.  Home doesn’t completely become work, but to a degree, it does.  I possess many fond memories of this house that nothing will be able to rob from me – spending the night with my brothers and cousins every Friday, staying up late to watch T.G.I.F. on TV while my grandmother cooked Bagel Bites and cookies.  The roles have been reversed; it is now my turn to get up early and prepare meals for them.  I take great pride in being able to serve my grandparents, but it prevents my current house from granting the freedom and relaxation of home.  Since I left as an eighteen year old, nothing has been able to replace it – nothing else can be home.  

The Normals are, hands down, one of my favorite bands.  I used to tell people that if I could choose to play with any musical group it would be this one.  Formed in 1998 by songwriter Andrew Osenga, the band was together only five years but the music they produced remains timeless.  Interestingly enough, in high school I was a big fan of their sophomore release Coming to Life.  Although I had a copy of A Place Where You Belong shortly after it was released in 2001, I didn’t fully discover it until I left home for college a few years later.  I’ll be honest with you – the majority of the music I listened to in high school isn’t worth remembering.  The Normals, in that regard, are a rarity; the further I get from high school the more I find myself connecting with their music.  Do yourself a favor and find any of their three superb albums.  

Recorded in a house the band rented, A Place Where You Belong was The Normals’ final release; they disbanded a year later.  If the title doesn’t give away the theme of the album, then the songwriting surely does:  of the eleven songs on the album, eight of them mention “home.”  Perhaps this is why this album first came alive to me while in college. They say you never really miss something until its gone; I couldn’t appreciate an album written around the theme of home until I was away from mine.  Years later, its message rings truer than ever. 

I’ve tired to call Lexington home for the last six years.  Honestly, I’m ready for a change.  I’m burned out.  I’ve looked for home here and found it lacking.  The feelings of belonging, of acceptance, of rest have eluded me; I often catch myself dreaming of a move, leaving everything behind and starting over somewhere else.  I can echo the words of Andrew Osenga in We Go On:  “I took the long way home but it led to the same apartment, no one’s paid the phone bill and no one really cares.  When will that road go somewhere beautiful and somewhere safe?”  I’ve learned, the hard way, as Andrew sings in I’ll Be Home Soon that “time has no respect for a lonely man with a longing heart… if you have a place where you belong, then you’re a lucky one.”  The more I look around town, the more I believe that “this place tries so hard to break a man” and like Andrew, “I’ve tried to stand, but I’m drowning in its sorrows and I need to catch my breath.” 

In my dreams I see myself living on a farm in eastern Kentucky - close to friends and the mountains that I love.  I walk outside my little house and am surrounded by crops that I tend to, the produce feeding my family.  In the corner of the farm are fruit trees, on the other end, chickens laying eggs.  With excess produce God blesses us with my family starts a little farmer’s market in town, allowing fresh produce to get into the hands of people who, for economic reasons, have only be able to eat processed food much of their lives.  Slowly and over time, the culture is changed.  People learn the importance of eating real food; some plant their own gardens, others support local farms.  Every October, when the first chill gets into the air, we host a big party at the farm:  a fall festival complete with a big harvest meal and live music.  As the sun goes down on a hard day’s work, I can sit on the porch of my house with my family, drinking lemonade and playing with the dog.  In the peacefulness of the night I am able to tend to my other passion:  writing.  When I tire I’m blessed to crawl into bed beside a woman I love, a partner at life who works as hard as I do; we wake up the next morning excited to do it all again.    

Lexington will never be able to provide that idea of home for me.  Unfortunately, neither will a farm in eastern Kentucky.  In fact, no place on earth can provide the sense of hope, the acceptance and the unconditional love, of home.  That’s because this planet is not our home.  We were created in the image of the perfect God to dwell with Him.  Instead we find ourselves living in a broken and dying world, one that can never provide what we need. Nothing in this world can be home – relationships, money, vacation homes in exotic places – they will all eventually leave us unfulfilled.  We were created to find home in our Creator, the only place where acceptance, hope and love intersect in perfect harmony; as Andrew sings on Brittle Bone “its here where I can find the grace of a Savior, the face of a lover, the absence of what I fear.  I’m not alone, for here I’ve found my home.” 

We must, however, still live in this broken world; yet we yearn, as a traveler does, to finally make it home.  The last book of the Bible describes this home, saying that “the dwelling of God is with men and He will live with them.  They will be his people and God Himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away… there will be no more night, for the Lord God will give them light.”  Perhaps taking a cue from this, A Place Where You Belong ends with a description of this celestial city: “home, to the land of our fathers, where the sun rises forever, we rest in its splendor, and our questions have answers, when the traveler comes home.”  As the book of Revelation ends, it reads “blessed are those who wash their robes… that they may go through the gates into the city.”  Indeed, blessed are those travelers who find that city, who find their Creator, and in so doing, finally find their way home.   

            A Momentary Lapse of Reason | Pink Floyd 

        release date:  1987                record label:  EMI  

track listing:  1) Signs of Life                                        
                       2) Learning to Fly                                       
                       3) The Dogs of War                                       
                       4) One Slip                       
                       5) On the Turning Away     
                       6) Yet Another Movie / Round and Around 
                                                                              7) A New Machine Part I 
                                                                              8) Terminal Frost 
                                                                              9) A New Machine Part II
                                                                            10) Sorrow                    
                                                   
                                                                "one slip and down the hole we fall..." 

Pink Floyd moves through the ears and plants itself firmly in the mind.  It is cerebral; the sound of uncontrolled thoughts, and at times, perhaps even nightmares.  The music is forceful; it asks us to stare into the darkness, not giving our eyes time to adjust to the low light, yet demanding that we see.  Pink Floyd is shadow music; with the lights out and the volume high the music surrounds, filling every crevice of the room as it slowly encroaches upon the listener.  It is perfect on summer nights, with the windows down, driving a car to nowhere, the music just loud enough to drown out every sound but your own thoughts – in fact, it seems to make those all the more audible.  Pink Floyd is about exploration – it was the first rock-and-roll band to be played in space.  But more than that it demands we explore a much darker, colder and lonelier place than the universe:  ourselves.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason was the first Pink Floyd album recorded after the departure of founding member Roger Waters.  Apart from serving as the band’s bassist and principal songwriter, Waters was also their de facto conceptual leader, the dominant creative force behind such classic albums as Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975),Animals (1977), and The Wall (1979).  In the early eighties resentment over Water’s growing control of the band reached a crescendo, most famously from lead guitarist and co-vocalist David Gilmour.  By 1985, Waters had left the band to pursue solo recordings and tours, even suing the remaining band members for use of the band name they once shared.  Without him, Waters felt Pink Floyd was finished; Gilmour, on the other hand, dug in his heels and promised to continue on.  A Momentary Lapse of Reason, for all intents and purposes, is a David Gilmour solo album on which the other members of Pink Floyd, Nick Mason (percussion) and Richard Wright (keyboards), play only minimal roles.  Pink Floyd lived beyond Roger Waters primarily on the determination of David Gilmour.

The loss of their principal songwriter and main creative guide, however, does not go unnoticed.  While the music remains distinctly Pink Floyd, highlighted by the raging guitar solos of Gilmour, the lyrics do suffer a bit.  Still introspective, and certainly thought-provoking, they do not reach the genius of earlier collaborative efforts involving the whole band.  Under the leadership of Waters the band created concept albums, songs centered on common ideas or thematic elements.  For example, The Wall, written entirely by Waters, focuses on the loss of his father as a child and the effects of an English society depleted of men due to the Second World War.  In a radical departure from their previous albums Gilmour designed A Momentary Lapse of Reason as a record in which the songs are not linked; each is asked to stand on its own two feet.  Although at times the songs appear shaky, in the end they do manage to stand tall, willed that way through the grit of a band member not willing to see his life’s work end without a fight.  That I can respect, even if the album isn’t artistically on the same tier as Dark Side of the Moon.

Like other Pink Floyd albums this one offers plenty of fodder for introspection – shining a light on dark areas within ourselves that we’d much rather remain hidden.  But is this necessary?  Do I really need to examine my thoughts, feelings, dreams and nightmares?  I have a friend whom I’m convinced would make an outstanding writer – yet every time I approach the subject the answer remains the same:  “I’m afraid to go that deep into myself… to wrestle with my thoughts and feelings… to be that honest.”  It wouldn’t be prudent for everyone to publically broadcast their innermost emotions as many writers do, but it is essential that everyone, writers or not, truly know themselves.  Unfortunately this end cannot be achieved without spending a little time staring into your own darkness.  It’s scary, dirty, uncomfortable work but it is vital, for if we do not know ourselves, how can we hope to know anyone (or anything) else in this world?  The ramifications of this, however, go beyond even our human relationships.  Augustine asks in Confessions, “how can you draw close to God when you are far from your own self?”  Similarly, Saint Teresa of Avila wrote “almost all problems in the spiritual life stem from a lack of self-knowledge.”  If we cannot be honest with ourselves could we even pretend to be honest with our Creator?  Funny thing is God already knows our feelings, our worries and our doubts – instead of hiding them perhaps it would do us better to air them out to Him.  If we aren’t in touch with ourselves enough to recognize and name our feelings, worries and doubts, then we need some alone time, unplugged from our society and normal lives.  French philosopher Blaise Pascal touched on this when he commented that most of our problems as humans arise from the fact that we don’t know how to sit still in our room for an hour.

At various times throughout the fifty-one minutes of this album I found myself prompted to reflect upon my own feelings regarding such weighty issues as mortality, innocence and the role of fate.  Later, as a result of Gilmour’s lyrics, I began examining my life in search of how I view myself, the world around me, and even my Savior.  The beautiful thing about art is its subjective nature; I so often see the fingerprints of Christ in “secular” art that the line between it and what is considered “sacred” has, in my mind, become permanently blurred. As unlikely as it sounds, a band from England known for its somewhat dark take on life consistently produces, a least for me, a push that sends me falling into a rabbit hole.  One slip and I am plunging inward, forced to come face-to-face with my fears, doubts, failures and even joys.  To be honest, Pink Floyd may not do that for you, but I encourage you to find something that does:  other music, silence, prayer, hiking – the possibilities are as endless as the positive results.  Society reasons that we have no need to know ourselves – instead we need only consume what they offer us.  As we learn to know and accept ourselves, however, mindless consumption no longer remains an option.  Unplug yourself from entertainment, from busyness, from task-oriented-living and make time to just be. Think your own thoughts, doubt your own doubts and find the faith to believe your beliefs.  It just may prove to be the most important lapse of reason you ever experience. 

                A Collision (or 3+4=7)  |  David Crowder* Band

            release date:  2005        record label:  sixstepsrecords

track listing:  1) Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven 
                           (A Walk Downstairs)                 
                       2) Come and Listen                 
                       3) Here is our King                 
                       4) Wholly Yours
                       5) Foreverandever Etc...
                                                                             6) (A Quiet Interlude)
                                                                             7) A Beautiful Collision 
                                                                             8) Soon I Will Be Done with the Troubles of the World
                                                                             9) Be Lifted or Hope Rising
                                                                           10) I Saw the Light
                                                                           11) O God Where Are You Now 
                                                                               (In Pickerel Lake?  Pigeon?  Marquette?  Mackinaw?)
                                                                           12) (B Quiet Interlude)
                                                                           13) Do Not Move
                                                                           14) Come Awake 
                                                                           15) You are my Joy
                                                                           16) Our Happy Home
                                                                           17) (Repeat / Return) or When the Seventh Angel Sounded
                                                                                 His Trumpet, and There Were Loud Voices in Heaven, 
                                                                                 Which Said:  "The Kingdom of the World Has Become the
                                                                                 Kingdom of Our Lord and of His Christ, and He Will Reign
                                                                                 Foreverandever, Etc..."
                                                                           18) We Win!
                                                                           19) Rescue is Coming 
                                                                                (B Walk Downstairs)
                                                                           20) A Conversation 
                                                                           21) The Lark Ascending 
                                                                                (Perhaps, More Accurately, I'm Trying to Make You Sing)  

                                                                        "You and I collide"

I want to go on record saying that the David Crowder* Band is one of only a handful of Christian music artists who I perceive to be exactly that:  artists.  When everything on Christian radio sounds like it was cast in the mold of popular music with a touch of Jesus sprinkled on top, it’s refreshing to recognize an artist moving in the other direction. One who takes risks (like creating a record with twenty-one tracks), writes songs that aren’t destined for radio play (like Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven or my personal favorite, The Lark Ascending) and isn’t scared to incorporate work from other artists, even if they aren’t on a “Christian” record label (Sufjan Steven’s O God Where Are You Now?).  Crowder has become an inspiring songwriter while remaining willing to challenge the boundaries of what it means to make “worship” music.  David Crowder will never fit into the cookie-cutter outline of most Christian musicians; mostly because his beard is too long for that. 

If you have followed his music for any length of time, or read either of his two magnificent books, then you know that that Crowder is quite a character; perhaps eccentric is the best word.  Knowing this I didn’t give much thought to the title of this album, A Collision (or 3+4=7), when I received it for Christmas about five years ago.  But last night, as I sat listening to this album again, it was as if my eyes were opened for the first time. Unexpectedly and suddenly, I was seeing a message in a simple math equation.  Perhaps it was because I was finally in a place where I could really listen.

I can think of no other word in the English language which creates such a disparity of emotions as “Revelation:” as soon as it is spoken, one of two things has occurred to everyone within a hearing radius of your voice.  Either you have their attention and will be able to hold them in the palm of your hand or they have checked out and will no longer hear anything else you may say.  Believe me, I led a bible study on the apocalyptic visions of John last year; nothing created more positive comments and negative controversy as that eight-week study.  One thing I learned while studying Revelation was that numbers do not always hold value; in fact, numbers in the Bible are oftentimes used to represent an idea or a reality.  The numbers in the book of Revelation are more like letters.  For instance, we relate the letter “A” with a good grade and positive outcomes, while the letter “F” represents quite the opposite.  Likewise, if we see a sign with the letter “P” and an arrow, we can surmise that there is parking available in that direction.  When we understand the symbolism behind the numbers found in the equation 3+4=7, then the title of this album will take on a dramatically different meaning.  In fact, we may realize that not only this album, but on a larger scale our entire lives, are nothing more than a dramatization of that simple equation: 3+4=7.

In the Biblical book of Revelation the number three represents holiness and perfection and, ultimately, the Godhead – The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which exist as three, and at the same time, as one.  The number four represents the natural realm, the created world, and includes God’s most significant creation:  mankind.  Finally, the number seven represents completeness – truth and beauty that can only be found in God himself.  I find it humbling that the nature of our God is reflected not only in the beauty of His creation but also in a simple mathematical equation.  When the Godhead collides with the natural world then, and only then, can a perfect completeness be achieved; only then will three plus four actually equal seven.    

Our very lives are to be as simple as that equation, but reality sets in.  Most of the time they are not; we get lost, we forget, we fall down.  Knowing this, David Crowder crafted A Collision as a reminder of that profound addition equation.  Listening to the entire album one moves through the equation:  from songs surrounding the holiness of God, to anthems about the human condition, to a culmination, ironically, of seven songs reveling in the completeness that can only be found in the arms of our God.

The album starts with Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, a recording that sounds as ancient as the equation that it introduces to the listener.  The next four songs that follow are quintessential Crowder worship songs:  Come and Listen, Here is our King, Wholly Yoursand Foreverandever.  Each one can stand on its own feet as an outstanding expression of worship, but when experienced as a part of the entire album, these songs come to represent the number three.  They remind the listener of the holiness, the set-apartness, of our God. These songs proclaim Christ as “our King” and “the antonym of me.”  Foreverandever uses a seemingly endless chorus to describe, not a believer’s commitment to his Savior, but to reflect upon the security of God.  The fact that “I am yours forever and ever and ever and ever” has nothing to do with who I am – in fact, it has much more to do with who God is. Come and Listen urges the listener to “Praise our God, for He is good… come and listen to what He’s done.”  Because God withheld nothing, including His own Son, to secure the redemption of his creation, He can be considered nothing less than eternally good.  I am tempted to evaluate God’s goodness based upon what He is personally working in my life but that line of thinking is dangerously shortsighted.  Even if God never personally touched my life, He would still be good; the sacrifice of Christ shows this.  But our God goes beyond good – the fact that He reaches down and touches humanity, even now, makes His benevolence more than we could ever comprehend.  God loves every one of His people to the same degree (He sent Christ for each of them) but He doesn’t fail to love them as individuals as well, working in each of our lives in His own mysterious ways.  We serve a God that isn’t afraid to work us into His equation; that is nothing short of a miracle.

The choruses concerning God’s holiness, the “number three” songs, are separated from the rest of the album by (A Quiet Interlude), a forty-eight second instrumental meant to create space in this equation.  If there is a thesis statement to this album, then it’s the next track,A Beautiful Collision.  I think of this song as the addition sign in the equation 3+4=7. Crowder sings “here it comes, a beautiful collision, is happening now, there’s seems no end to where You begin and there I am now… You and I collide…”  No song sums up the collective experience of humanity with its Creator better than that; a collision we could not see coming, but which can be described as nothing short of beautiful.      

Soon I Will Be Done With the Troubles of the World cues the start of the next part of the equation:  the songs representing the number four, each concerned with the human condition.  The world is dark and left to our own devices humanity would remain that way: lost, groping for answers but finding none.  Be Lifted or Hope Rising asks God a question that plagues every believer, “how long till you hear us… till you mend us… till you come back?”  What song says more about our depravity than the bluegrass standard I Saw the Light?  “I wandered so aimless life filled with sin, I wouldn’t let my dear Savior in...I walked in darkness, clouds covered me, I had no idea where the way out would be.”  Crowder, echoing something every human has felt, asks O God Where Are You Now?  Luckily, we serve a God who is not content to leave His creation hopeless.  Praise God that the equation does not end with the number four.         

“Be more quiet now and wait…” Crowder sings over and over as the music builds to a crescendo in (B Quiet Interlude), another track which creates space in the album, while at the same time, reflecting a profound truth.  In the equation of life, 3+4=7, the fact that the three comes first is not by accident.  Even just a cursory glance at the equation allows one to see that the three is adding itself to the four, and not the other way around.  The Godhead brought salvation to humanity; there was nothing that mankind could do to earn that grace or speed up the timing of God.  It is humbling to know that hundreds of Old Testament heroes lived their lives without tasting the sweetness of God’s promised salvation through Christ; it can only be God’s grace which has allowed me to be born into a time in which Christ’s sacrifice is fully known.  I have to believe that nothing happens by accident.

Near the end of Do Not Move, Crowder sings of “the costliest of costs, the deadliest of loss, the wonder of the cross” and then begins to repeat that phrase, “the wonder of the cross” through the remainder of the song.  If 3+4=7 is the equation of our lives and describes our interaction with God then the equal sign, the portion of the equation that secures the addition of three and four, must be the cross.  Before the cross God was involved with His people but in an almost indirect way; prophets were His voice and priests His hands.  The Holy of Holies, the innermost room of the temple where God dwelled, was only accessible to one man – the high priest.  But at the death of Christ the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple was torn in two.  The holiness of God was “set free” to invade His people that we might, through Christ, finally and irrevocably, as the next song on the album describes, Come Awake!  The imagery of what it means to be caught up in this beautiful collision of three and four reaches new heights in this next song.  Crowder begs “from sleep arise, you were dead, become alive… wake up, wake up, open your eyes, climb from your grave into the light.” 

When three meets four, seven is produced; when the Godhead comes crashing to the created world the result is holy completion.  The final seven songs of A Collision look, with hope, forward to that day when the troubles of this world are swallowed by the all-surpassing presence of Christ; to the day when God’s children find themselves complete in the eternal presence of their Savior and all is made new.  The title of the seventeenth track of A Collision, borrowed from Revelation 11:15, alludes to this day “when the kingdom of the world [will] become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.”  On that day all of God’s children can echo the words of You Are My Joy and as Our Happy Home proclaims, we will make our home in the New Jerusalem where “the weak shall dwell in endless peace and never hunger more” and where “Christ Himself is King.”  Even now, though, we look forward to the completion of the equation proclaiming, as Crowder’s songs do, that “we have already won” and that “rescue is coming.”    

The final two songs of A Collision, A Conversation and The Lark Ascending, are actually just one track.  A Conversation starts as David Crowder is presumably being interviewed by a radio DJ about his new album; the conversation proceeds awkwardly until the DJ references the picture of an atom on the album cover, asking if it is metaphorical.  Crowder responds “yeah… it’s a symbol… you see that and think atom.  It shows electrons moving in elliptical paths around a nucleus [but] we know that’s not how an atom works… or even looks for that matter.”  The DJ doesn’t quite comprehend the metaphor and asks Crowder to connect the dots.  He continues “what we mean to say is that the elements of worship are inadequate, much like the atom description.  But this is what we have, you know?  It helps us carry the idea.”  The track changes into The Lark Ascending with the conversation still going on – slowly the music builds and the song overtakes the interview.  The last words of the album find Crowder admitting that “I’m trying to make you feel that this is for real, that life is happening… I’m just trying to make you sing.” 

Like the metaphor of the atom, the equation 3+4=7 isn’t perfect, but, as Crowder says, “its what we have… [and] it helps us carry the idea.”  What idea is that? The understanding that we are broken and will only find ourselves truly made complete when our lives are invaded by the Messiah.  Crowder admits that he is only trying to make us sing.  Why?  Because through singing these songs we experience the holiness of the Godhead, come face-to-face with the human condition and find ourselves looking forward to the completion, the end of the story that is surely coming.  Perhaps through singing a few songs we can finally recognize that our God is not only the answer to the equation of our lives, but He is also the hand doing the addition.  When our depravity meets God’s divinity, it is truly nothing less than a beautiful collision.  Praise God that three plus four can never equal anything but seven.                
          

               A Charlie Brown Christmas  |  Vince Guaraldi Trio
               
                release date:  1965             record label: CBS  

track listing:   1) O Tannenbaum                 
                        2) What Child Is This?                   
                        3) My Little Drum                   
                        4) Linus and Lucy                   
                        5) Christmas Time Is Here                   
                        6) Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal)                   
                                                                               7) Skating
                                                                               8) Hark, The Herald Angels Sing
                                                                               9) Christmas is Coming
                                                                             10) Fur Elise
                                                                             11) The Christmas Song

                                                         “Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer…”

I think it’s safe to say that, in terms of the music world at least, there is nothing I hate more than Christmas music.  Except Nickelback.  They’ll always be at the top of that list. 

But before you cast me as the Grinch, let me explain.  It’s not really the music itself that makes my heart shrink to two sizes too small; in fact, some of the Christmas hymns, like “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” are among my favorite songs of all time.  My main complaint is with timing.  In my world, and I realize I’m the only one who lives there, Christmas music should not be heard in public, like on the radio and in stores, until December.  As soon as December 1st rolls around, please feel free to play the same fifty Christmas songs that we’ve been listening to since the middle-ages; if it makes you happy, play them on repeat for the better part of the next month.  Listen to those songs to your hearts content.  But please don’t start in November (or even October) or I may have to run you down with my one-horse-open-sleigh.  Not really.  But I’d want to.

All that to say, A Charlie Brown Christmas is the exception to that rule.  I was given this album as a freshman in college; it was love at first listen.  Of course I knew most (if not all) of the music from watching the Charlie Brown Christmas Special on TV as a child, but that did nothing to dampen the magic contained within the songs found here.  Even apart from the fond childhood memories, the Vince Guaraldi Trio holds its’ own musically.  This album contains deep jazz grooves, highlighted by the piano playing of Guaraldi and underscored by the bass of Fred Marshall and percussionist Jerry Granelli. Although it was composed for a thirty-minute cartoon, this music has some serious kick to it. 

Like much of the world, I consider myself an unabashed fan of all things Peanuts: comic strips, TV specials, and music.  There is not much in our world that has transcended both time and place quite like Charlie Brown and his cohorts.  At the height of its popularityPeanuts was being printed in 2,600 newspapers, with a readership of 355 million in seventy-five countries; eleven years after the death of artist Charles Schulz, repeats of his comic strip still appear in newspapers nationwide.  It’s a sure bet that as the days count down toward Christmas, the Charlie Brown Christmas Special will be taken down off shelves and enjoyed by both the young and the young-at-heart. 

Only two of the eleven songs on this album contain lyrics making this the perfect music for my all-time favorite pastime:  thinking.  In college I would often study with A Charlie Brown Christmas playing in the background, no matter the time of year.  As I sat, listening to this album deep into the night, my thoughts turned to the universality of Peanuts.  It appears that Charlie Brown, Linus and Lucy all belong to that rare form of art which becomes timeless; art that lives beyond the lifetime of the artist.  But why did a comic strip about a kid, his friends, and his dog come to mean so much, to so many people?  What is it about Peanuts that keeps generation after generation coming back to spend more time with Charlie Brown and his pals?