Why it is worth it

Warning: this is a rather long post saying that I both like this song a lot, and love my wife madly. You've been warned.

I can hear you downstairs crying on the phone
Telling someone that I’m here but you still feel all alone
Maybe we were too young
Goodbye, I’ve gotta go
I can hear the baby waking up
Got to get back to the life I know

I should have never believed him
Maybe I should just leave him

Maybe I’m not but you’re all I got left to believe in
Don’t give up on me
I’m about to come alive
And I know that it’s been hard
And it’s been a long time coming
Don’t give up on me
I’m about to come alive

(Charlie Colin, Pat Monahan, Jimmy Stafford, Scott Underwood, Rob Hotchkiss)

My musical tastes cover quite a range -- in fact it is often easier to say what I don't like. For example, I did not like opera unitl Marilee introduced me to Turandot, and things have gone gently from there. Well, like many children of the 1960's, a lot of my musical tastes were formed by the Beatles, and therefore I still have a love for the kind of strongly melodic pop and rock they perfected.

Working in radio some time back, I managed to keep up musically into the early 90's and then stopped trying. Lately though, lilke most of the Western world, I encounterd the former Bay Area cult band Train. I gave in last weekend and spent some birthday money to get their latest CD My Private Nation, hoping for something a bit higher energy to add to my music collection at work. The CD more than fulfilled that expectation, full of strong melody, lots of hooks and the big choruses that Train has become well known for.

But the last listed song, I'm About to Come Alive, snuck up on me like a 2x4 along side the head from behind. It is the quietest song on the disk, but it struck me hard emotionally as it described well I place I have found my self many times.

No one thought I was good enough for you
Except for you
Don’t let them be right
After all that we’ve been through
‘Cause somewhere over that rainbow
There’s a place for me
A place with you

Maybe I’m not but you’re all I got left to believe in
Don’t give up on me
I’m about to come alive
And I know that it’s been hard
And it’s been a long time coming
Don’t give up on me
I’m about to come alive

I was once, in the 1970's, a sort-of Evangelical. One problem I had was the attitude of many Protestants towards popular culture, especially popular music. To avoid some of the more offensive content (and there both was and is a considerable amount), there seems to be an approach of creating a kind of parallel media universe. This is allegedly aimed at proclaiming Christ's message to the world, but generally those who already believe are the main consumers of this kind of book, music and film. There are some great exceptions to this, but when I tune into some of the Christian radio stations, I find an attempt to "baptize" music of popular styles. The lyrics vary in quality from rather good to exremely trite. And in almost all cases the music is not only theologically but emotionally "safe". The problem is that art that can really reach far down inside us is a matter of more than skill -- and it is rarely "safe".

What strikes deeper into me is music created by gifted people who are trying to simultaneiously do something new and better (even in a small way), while being true to their own persons. If they, at the same time, produce something commercial, I don't have a problem with that. You have to pay for this somehow.

That's why some of the my strongest spiritual experiences with music, or any other art form, have been with works that are not explicitly or formally "spiritual". Some have strong spiritual content, but are not produced with an explicitly evangelical (in it's wider sense) intent. What the artist intended was to create the best song, picture, film, or book that they could. They were trying to create something that was, in the deepest sense of the word, true. But they have to be free to do more than polish the surface of our emotional and spiritual lives.

There are parts of our lives, sometimes the more broken places, where we can respond more to art created by someone who can understand our brokenness, who can convince us by their art that they have walked the same road. When they, instead of just leaving us leaving us is despair with ourselves, can share a little bit of the hope they have found themselves, it can be healing, affirming, cathartic or convicting.

In every frame upon our wall
Lies a face that’s seen it all
Through ups and downs and then more downs
We helped each other off of the ground
No one knows what we’ve been through
Making it ain’t making it without you

Maybe I’m not but you’re all I got left to believe in
Don’t give up on me
I’m about to come alive
And I know that it’s been hard
And it’s been a long time coming
Don’t give up on me
I’m about to come alive

We have never had a picturebook marriage. Nothing titanic -- just two rather broken people inadvertently hitting the other person's broken parts on a regular basis. There have been too many times that I, after proving how complete a screwup I could be, could sing that refrain maybe I’m not but you’re all I got left to believe in, don’t give up on me wth all my silly broken heart. The fact that I entered marriage not being able to express myself emotionally did not help at all. The song reminds me of all those times, and all the times that we have managed to get up and forgive each other. At those and other times, Marilee has been able to be an image of God's love to me in a way that nobody else has ever been.

While driving home from dinner Saturday night, Marilee asked my opinion about an issue she had at work. What floored me is the brief offhand comment at the end, that she really did trust my insights and intuitions about people. I told her later how surprising I found that, as I grew up somewhat detached from other people, and have had to work hard to open up over the years. We started talking about some of our problems and she said that while there were things about me that would grate forever, that she always saw me as a person of deep compassion.

I still have a hard time breathing when I think about that. What a tremendous gift to give to someone. Trust me, it's better than a card. I don't know yet what I can do in response to match, but I am working on it. We will have been married 25 years this coming December, and I would not have survived to now without her.