junkmail for blankets

enough to get away

One day soon, friends, I will be a writer again. I've been buried under student papers and hours behind the bookstore counter. The good news is that Joseph Arthur's new CD, Nuclear Daydream, was released yesterday. Driving around today, listening to "Enough to Get Away," I was tempted sore to throw the papers to the wind and drive around downtown listening to this song on repeat. It's what Belle and Sebastian would sound like if they were awesome. Download here (thank you TripWire). If you're not familiar with Joseph Arthur and want some background info, I wrote a review for Critique a while back, which review you can read if you click below on "continue reading. . . ."

Left to my own devices, as the saying goes, I would be so “unequally yoked” by this point in my life that I’d have forgotten to ask why I was plowing in the first place. That is, I find it easy to fall for non-Christians. Though I wouldn’t put “falling in love” with a non-Christian past myself, perhaps what I do most often is develop crushes on them. I regularly crush non-Christians.

Last year, after half a decade of cancelled concerts and interfering plans, I finally got to see Joseph Arthur perform a concert. Five years I’d waited, five years of nurturing a musician crush. No surprise, then, that my then-girlfriend, who was with me at the show, could detect the twinkle in my eye, the twinkle not-for-her, the twinkle for Joseph. But come on, the man was painting during his concert. Painting! Not just a musician, but an artist, too!

I’ve been listening to Joseph Arthur’s music since 1999, when I first heard his song “In the Sun,” whose refrain and chorus might have come from an early-church creed:

“May God’s love be with you always / May God’s love be with you.
Cause if I find, if I find my own way / How much will I find /
If I find, if I find my own way / How much will I find you?”

And the resonant lyrics from his song “Tiny Echoes”:

“Sometimes I feel like giving up, giving in to the dark /
Sometimes I feel like crying out, trying to speak from my heart /
I wish you could hold me here, give a reason whats it’s for /
I would try to become pure, a tiny echo of the Lord.

Sometimes I feel like loving you is all I have, holding on /
Sometimes I feel like letting go, but it’s a gift to be born /
I wish you could hold me here, give a reason what it’s for /
I would try to become pure, a tiny echo of the Lord.”

Arthur, based on the interviews I’ve read, does not claim to be a Christian, or at least hedges himself outside of Orthodoxy; rather, he’s a non-Christian who really likes God, perhaps has a crush on Jesus: Arthur writes songs to and about Jesus, reads about him, tells people about him, asks questions both to and about Jesus. It’s the questions that get to me, the questions—explicit, implied, and rhetorical—that Arthur asks that make me want to sit and have a conversation with him, that give me that “this person understands me” feeling that good art often exudes, that attracts me to both people and Jesus.

I speak facetiously about falling in love with Joseph Arthur, but not about the possibility of falling in love, as a Christian, with a non-Christian. Wade Bradshaw, in his L’Abri lecture “Non-Christians are Nice People, Too,” highlights this reality, pointing out some reasons that Christians often fall for non-Christians. All the reasons, ultimately, arrive at the same conclusion, the doctrine of common grace.

By common grace , I understand, basically, that all people, by virtue of having been created in the image of God and living in God’s reality, are capable of thinking, behaving, and speaking beautifully, rightly, and truthfully outside of a salvific context. I recently heard a Christian say, in reference to a non-Christian couple, that non-Christian husbands and wives can’t really love each other. That is not true. While no, non-Christians don’t live under the saving love of Jesus Christ crucified, resurrected, and ascended, they do live under the general, or common, love of God for his creatures. We are not, pervasive depravity granted, as bad as we could be, and even to imply that non-Christians aren’t capable of speaking or behaving truly is a slap in the face of both non-Christians and their creator. As Calvin writes in his Institutes (2.2.15): “If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God. For by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem, we contemn and reproach the Spirit himself.”

Thus, the Christian sees much goodness and value in the life of a non-Christian and falls for her. Thus, I listen to the music of Joseph Arthur, who isn’t a Christian, and am provoked to meditate on my relationship with Jesus by virtue of the hopes and fears and beliefs Arthur expresses, hopes and fears and beliefs that we share regardless of the different yokes we wear:

“In my heart is a hunger / I will never give away” – from “Speed of Light”

“We’re made out of blood and rust / Looking for someone to trust without a fight” -- from “Redemption’s Son”

“No one’s saying what you need to hear: ‘You’ve been loved, you’ve been loved, you’ve been loved.” – from “You’ve Been Loved”

The difference between me and Arthur, though we share many of the same questions, is that, for reasons I’ll never know, God has answered my most basic questions in the person of Jesus Christ. At some point, the triune God turned my crush on Jesus into a wedding. When Jesus takes you as his bride, he makes a definitive, at-death-we-do-not-part-statement, provides an eschatological resolution. That resolution, however, is not a resting point, no more valid a conclusion than a new bride’s saying, “Well, now we’re married, and I know you fully.” No, there are questions left to ask, answers left to find, a relationship left to nourish and be nourished by lest we emaciate ourselves with self-satisfaction. If we find our own way, Arthur rightly asks, how much will we find? It’s a rhetorical question, but it’s also a gospel question.

I don’t know, ultimately, how Arthur answers that question himself. I recognize in some of his lyrics my natural tendency to want to provide my own answers:

“Now Jesus he came down here just to die for all my sins /
I need him to come back here and die for me again /
Cause I cannot forgive myself for what it is I’ve done.” – from “Invisible Hands”

I’m reminded of Dick Keyes’ lectures on “Jesus the Questioner,” in which Keyes says, “We can discredit the gospel and God by asking questions that are based in our self-doubt rather than in his mercy: He says, ‘I love you,’ and we say ‘why,’ not to really know, but because we know ourselves, and we want to earn his love.” I believe that Arthur sometimes asks questions from this stance, but I know myself well enough to recognize that even as a Christian, I sometimes do, as well. Joseph Arthur, the non-Christian, turns me back toward God in this way, too.

Ultimately, what I like so much about Arthur’s music is that he reminds me of how easily I give away my hunger, and he asks me questions that get me asking questions again. Arthur’s lyrics and beliefs are often convoluted and pluralistic and new-agey, but they’re as often compelling and gospel-driven and nourishing, most notably in his third album, 2002’s Redemption’s Son, which is a must-have album for anyone with an appreciation for thoughtful songwriters. And I don’t say that just because I have a crush on him. I say that because, if you’re at all like me, you need grace as much from your stereo speakers as your theology. By God’s common grace, Joseph Arthur provides just that.

Posted by ghetto monk at September 20, 2006 05:56 PM | TrackBack