Breathe (2 AM)

There was a brief period in my life when I deluded myself into thinking I could make a living as a singer-songwriter (of the country/folk variety). That little daliance is well behind me now and I'd have to say my finger is far from the proverbial pulse of popular music. On occasion, however, some great piece of music will somehow reach me under my rock. Today was such a day; as I drove to Republic Coffee to meet a friend I stumbled upon a song on the radio called Breathe (2 AM). Two lines into this song I had no choice but to pull the truck over and give the song my full attention. What I heard was a 20-year-old girl from California named Anna Nalick laying bare her heart in a song that resonated as powerfully as anything I've ever heard Bob Dylan do. Listening to this song made me understand that what theologians call general 'revelation' is true. All things cry out to the glory of God! I don't know whether or not Anna Nalick is a Christian (some of the things I read on her website gave me hope that she might be) but her lyrics and imagery demonstrate an understanding of life in a fallen world that I'll probably never achieve: "Cause you can't jump the track we're like cars on a cable and life's like an hourglass glued to the table/no one can find the rewind button" That's as good a sermon on God's Providence as I've ever heard. What really knocked me over came in the song's bridge:"There's a light at the end of this tunnel you shout 'cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out/and these mistakes that you've made, you'll just make them again if you only try turning around". What a distillation of the Christian's condition. We live redeemed in a fallen world; faced with the twin realities that God's kingdom is both yet to come (the light at the end of the tunnel) and already here (hence our being just as far in as we ever were out)! Further, the more God uncovers the dirt in my life and shows me just how wretched I am the more I identify with "these mistakes that you've made, you'll just make them again if you only try turning around". The more I listen to this song (I downloaded it from her website as soon as I got home) the more I want to preach a sermon (or maybe a whole series) on the concepts in this song; but that's for another time. for now, I encourage anyone and everyone to take time to listen to a remarkable piece of music and art.