"Pop Songs Can Heal the Soul" - Sufjan Stevens

I may have an unhealthy love for Sufjan.  With each new song, he becomes more and more of a musical genius to me.  Why?  For one, he is insanely talented, with the most soothing voice (see here) and musical ingenuity (see here).  Two, all of his (good) songs instantly communicate a deep intimacy with the listener (see here) (and here).   And finally, for his unshakable view and love of God.  Let me camp here for a second.  


Through his songs, he is able to communicate this being, who loves us so much, who wants the best for us, and who is already so close... A great instance is in this song.  When I listen to it, I am comforted, not by Sufjan, but by this infinitely intimate being he describes:

I always knew you / in your mothers arms 

i have called your name / i have an idea 

placed in your mind / to be a better man 

ive made a crown for you  / put it in your room 

and when the bride groom comes / there will be noise 

there will be glad / and a perfect man

and when you write a poem / i know the words 

i know the sounds / before you write it down 

and when you wear your clothes / i wear them too 

i wear your shoes / and your jacket too 

i always knew you / in your mothers arms 

i have called you son / ive made amends 

between father and son / or if you havent one 

rest in my arms / sleep in my bed 

there is a design / to what i did and said

Man, gets me every time.  


Anyways, I saw him in concert this week, and it was... different.  Sufjan is still himself, but he has moved into a strange world of synthesizers and auto-tune.  From the stage, he said for this album, he was giving up all his comforts (basically any classical instrument + the banjo), and just getting down to pure sound.  There is one story I wanted to share.


He said he was going through a time of intense isolation, heartbreak, and loneliness.  During this time, he found the work of one Royal Robertson.  Still on stage, he explained to us Robertson's life.  Royal was a painter living in Louisiana, with a deep fracture.  "His work struck me as beautiful and divine and tragic," Stevens said.  Royal dove deep into this futuristic, spacey art world, dealing with his own heartaches and a serious mental illness: schizophrenia.  "During this time in my life, Royal's art was a kind of guide," Sufjan claimed.  


(He dedicated the next song "The Dress Looks Nice on You," "Heirloom" to Robertson's widow, who was at the show.)


And voila - he released 'Age of Adz', a complete detachment from his usual folksy music.  In 'Adz', Sufjan relies on drumbeats, synthesizers, and other crazy sounds in-betweeen.


BUT - the music is still awesome.  Sufjan is still Sufjan, and his CD, most of which he played in Dallas, was his own psycho-therapy session, he claims.  


As for the concert, the show was amazing.  Like a broadway production meeting a laser-light show, he rocked.  Throw in dueling drumsets, trombones, space-dressed backup singers. . . and you have quite a show.  


Like I said before, Sufjan's music brings an instant intimacy, and his presence on stage did the same.  He laughed at a few mistakes, and expressed the pain which produced this album.  


For the finale, he played the epic 25-minute long song "Impossible Soul."  He calls this his personal psycho-therapy session, and if you take the time to listen, he invites us into his most intimate doubts, pains and struggles.  The lyrics are wrought with statements like "Do you want to be afraid?", "Don't be shy in the window / come down and give your best", "Don't be distracted","It's a long life /Better pinch yourself /put your face together / better get it right / it's a long life / better hit yourself /put your face together /gotta stand up straight / it's a long life / only one last chance / couldn't get much better / do you wanna dance? "  


He said, (jokingly?) in explaining the different parts of the song, "I believe pop songs can heal the soul.  At least mine."


It's like Sufjan is reminding himself of who he is, what his weaknesses are, and how to act when he doesn't know what to do.  Uh, hello, I can definitely relate to that!  He ends the song with the refrain "Boy, we can do much more together!"  Taken one way, this could be a woman speaking... But to me, I see it as simply we can do more together than alone.  A lesson I need to remember, and one I think Sufjan portrays as well (he's quite an isolationist).  


The best part is during this song, he broke out a shiny wig, the autotune, and danced!  (hilarious/epic video here).


So, I'm not sure where this was headed. . .


The concert was great, and Sufjan is still making great music, sharing his talents, his love, fear, and disagreements with of God, rolled up with songs about the apocalypse (see here), death, afterlife, love... 


He may want to get a restraining order against me.  

The set list from Sufjan Stevens at SMU's McFarlin Auditorium (10-20-10)

1. Seven Swans (from 2004's 'Seven Swans')
2. Too Much (from 2010's 'The Age of Adz')
3. Age of Adz (from 'The Age of Adz')
4. Heirloom (from 2010's 'All Delighted People' EP)
5. I Walked (from 'The Age of Adz')
6. Futile Devices (from 'The Age of Adz')
7. Vesuvius (from 'The Age of Adz')
8. Now That I'm Older (from 'The Age of Adz')
9. Get Real Get Right (from 'The Age of Adz')
10. Enchanting Ghost ('All Delighted People' EP)
11. Impossible Soul (from 'The Age of Adz')
12. Chicago (from 2005's 'Illinois')

ENCORE

1. Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland ('Illinois')
2. Casimir Pulaski Day ('Illinois')
3. The Dress Looks Nice on You ('Seven Swans')

Video from the concert (not mine):

Seven Swans - http://www.youtube.com/user/bdkoehn#p/u/5/zY-im_2FG-Y

Too Much - http://www.youtube.com/user/bdkoehn#p/u/4/31HKfHIPD-U

Impossible Soul (pop part) - http://www.youtube.com/user/bdkoehn#p/u/3/wBTHwFIM2oo

Impossible Soul (end) - http://www.youtube.com/user/bdkoehn#p/u/2/CCGlCYAF1T

Chicago - http://www.youtube.com/user/bdkoehn#p/u/1/-URGNH_LTZA

Pursuing III: Frightening Biases and The Glory of 'Me' in Social Media

This is the third post in a series exploring the idea of Pursuing others and building relationships.  Check back each Thursday for more.  For the entire series, click here.   

Frightening Biases

Have you ever heard anyone ask, "Would Jesus have had a facebook? Would he have 'tweeted'?" ?  You won't get my answer, because I think this debate is pointless.  Having these social media outlets is not a moral issue; these technologies are simple tools, which happen to be very popular right now.  


I gathered these thoughts after a very challenging article by Shane Hipps.  I suggest you read it.  In fact, if you don't, you prove his premise that our generation is moving towards communication by short, simple statements and sustained illiteracy is becoming a thing of the past.  Here's his article.   

The article says some concerning things.  He explains how every technology we use has an innate bias; a pronounced side-effect.  For instance, in major cities, the technology of public transportation biases people to walk more, compared to smaller cities.  Facebook, Twitter and every other social media are simply technologies, neither good nor bad, but with key innate biases.  And the ones Shane brings up are frightening.  

First, he digs through facebook.  Essentially, facebook teaches us to be narcissists; although facebook is for 'connecting', our lengthy time spent creating our profile, which is how others see us, is leading us towards narcissism.  We end up staring at our own image in the water more often than others', just like Narcissus.  "Many of these technologies create a condition of absence in a world desperate for our presence."

And then there's Twitter.  Now, the interesting thing here is that there actually are good, profound quotes and experiences on Twitter.  BUT, the average lifespan of a tweet is less than an hour!  "Twitter has no patience for time.  Twitter bypasses these things so it can express... This does not make Twitter bad, invalid or useless.  It simply means twitter is a medium more likely to convey cliché's rather than deep aphorisms of profound insight."  We read, we are entertained and thought-provoked, then forget.

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So... what?

After reading this article, I had to take a deep look into why I updated my facebook status, and why I continued to tweet my boring life.  Also, why did I spend hours reading material I've long forgotten?  What was I seeking? What are we seeking?  

For a while, I was seeking a savior.  I believed that once I found that perfect quote or that awesome article, I wouldn't need all of this input.  I'd be set.  Yet, after what, 3 years now, I can barely remember the last tweet I read.  In a snowball of information, the profound is lost in the 'cute', the 'trend', and the endless hyperlinks...

So, back to the original question.  How would Jesus have used twitter, or facebook?  Would he tweet out his sermons?  Would he poke his disciples?  I don't think he would.  

It's interesting how many people Jesus, who himself came to pursue all mankind for his Father, turned so many people away, and wanted to keep things on the DL.  There was no 'You're invited, come to the sermon on the mount!!!!' facebook event and he never tweeted his location for the crowds.  In fact, I see the opposite.  

Check out these verses:

Matthew 8:4 - "See to it that you say nothing to anyone, but go..."

Matthew 9:30 - And Jesus sternly warned them, "See that no one knows about it."

Luke 8:38 - But Jesus sent him away saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you."

Luke 8:56 - And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.

There's a lot more, just look around...

I'm not sure about you, but it's simple pride for me.  I want people to see me, to retweet me, to think "OMG, that Bryce guy, he is hilarious!"  So, I've really had to check myself lately - facebook and twitter are fertile grounds for me to become more and more prideful, more and more narcissistic, building up my image, my glory, me.  

How does ANY of that line up with the gospel?  The Bible says I am dead, it is only Christ who lives.  In my pride, I build a castle of sand, just waiting to be washed away...  When Christ lived, he was homeless a lot, had few real friends (and even they left him in the end), ate from those he taught, walked everywhere rebuking people for their sins... He was no celebrity, and probably not very well-liked.  He did not try to grab any glory for himself, "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing...(Phil. 2)."  

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Well, I got a little off-topic here, but that's alright.  I hope this post challenges us to re-think why we're using social media, and how we could use it to bring glory to God, not ourselves.  I decided to add it to this series because I have learned that online-only relationships are hardly worthy of that word.  They are nice, cute, but in the end, bring each party little but entertainment.  

Before you go and join a monastery we'll talk next week at why we MUST influence.  

Yeah...

Sorry for the lack of updates.  Last week got a little crazy getting ready to go down to C-Stat.  This week has been surprisingly super-busy, but good.  I have a bunch of thoughts about the next pursuing post, but nothing concrete yet.  And now, this sickness I picked up in C-stat is getting the best of me.  But, I promise an update soon, and hopefully some thoughts from Sufjan Stevens' concert last night...   Stay tuned. . .

Why Pursue? A Disturbance in Perspective

This is the second post in a series exploring the idea of Pursuing others and building relationships.  Check back each Thursday for more. For the whole series, click here.  

This week, some visitors came to my small group.  My plan was to leave a little early, but I became entranced by their call to be missionaries in Papua New Guinea.  In a nutshell, their function would be a supporting role to the missionaries out in 'the bush'.  This may not sound like a big deal, but let me recount what I learned about Papua New Guinea.

Imagine a big island with 6 million people, and Hawaii-like jungles.  Now, take out all infrastructure, and rewind history to when people were separated into tribes; precisely 865 small bands of people, with a distinct language, living in an equatorial jungle.  That's Papua New Guinea.  There are currently 320-ish tribes living as animists, cannibals, or both, unreached.  

Back in the day, the first missionaries to go to the jungles were killed.  But, a second group was invited to live with a tribe.  They learned their language.  They shared the gospel.  A church was built.  Disciples were made.  And more missionaries went to more tribes.  Now, the husband that talked with us would provide construction of houses in each village, while the wife will work as a nurse to the missionaries.  They are committing four years of their life to simply support the missionaries living among the tribes.  

What possible motivation would it take for a couple to commit this amount of time and effort, losing all 21st century comforts, just to help people who are visiting villages?  

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I didn't walk away that night with a call to be a missionary.  But, my perspective was severely challenged.  I realized there are some KEY issues that I may 'say' I believe, but my actions prove me wrong.  What I saw in the young couple was that they DID believe these things.

1. Without the gospel, people who die will be in Hell. Forever.  
If I truly believed this, wouldn't the gospel be the only thing I ever talked about?  They are going to Papua New Guinea to literally save people from Hell.


2. ... and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."  (Acts 20:35)
I have found I like to receive, and take for myself... Meanwhile they are giving a huge amount of time and effort for people they've never met living in a jungle.

3. We are sojourners here.  
My lifestyle does not reflect this - I'm digging in, building up my nest.  They are living with eternity in mind, knowing that no treasure here lasts, and that people are eternal

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Wow, so that wasn't really where I thought this post would head, but I want to close with one final piece of motivation: your own story.

I am scared to think of the person I would be if it wasn't for someone who pursued me for Christ.  After years of attending church, I finally understood the gospel because my youth minister pursued me, and formed a relationship with me.  Without him or someone else pursuing me for Christ, I would NEVER have chosen God's way.

But, he did find me.  Someone formed a relationship with him, and before them another... all the way back to the disciples and Paul, telling everyone... even back to Jesus himself, pursuing others for His Father.

With this legacy behind us, isn't it our turn to pursue others for Christ?

He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves." 

(Luke 10:2-3)