Something Different

Today, I was driving home (I now realize a lot of my posts seem to start this way!) and the song "My Last Amen" by the band Downhere came on the radio. It is a wonderful song, and I highly recommend it. I wanted to write about some of the lyrics, specifically:

"Somewhere in the grand design
It's good be unsatisfied
It keeps the faith and hope a little more alive"

 These words struck me, perhaps especially on the day after Thanksgiving, where a big meal was shared with family and friends and in general it was a time of plenty. Good to be unsatisfied? I wanted to tie it somehow C.S. Lewis' essay "The Weight of Glory," probably where Lewis writes,

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

The two thoughts reminded me of each other. It's good to be unsatisfied here on earth; it keeps us longing for those greater rewards that God has offered us. Now, granted, we are to be thankful for what God has given us here. Indeed, some would say the pleasures here on earth are a foreshadowing of what God has promised, a glimpse of the pleasures to come, and not all of them are bad. I think I agree. However, a healthy dose of the knowledge that this place and time are indeed not our home is, in my humble opinion, not a bad thing.

In preparing for this blog, however, I think God threw something different in my path. In looking for the lyrics to "My Last Amen," I also wandered into the lyrics to another Downhere song I was not familiar with, called "Cathedral Made of People." I find the lyrics both challenging and amazing, and so, in lieu of needlessly expounding upon the thoughts above, I will simply share the lyrics to this song and encourage you to give it a listen. Enjoy!

If they shut down the churches,
Where would you go?
If they melted all the stained-glass windows
Replaced every sanctuary with a condo
Where would you go?
Where would you go?

(Chorus)
We are a cathedral made of people
In a kingdom that the eye can't see
We're a house, we are the bride
Where God's Spirit lives inside
And nothing ever could stand against her

If they burned every Bible
What would you know?
If they tore your marked-up pages
How would you grow?
And declared your devotion to be criminal
What would you know?
What would you know?

When they throw you in prison
What will you do?
When they hate you for the things that you know are true
They can tear down this temple,
But they can't touch you.