The Meaning of a Song

I am quite sure that I drive myself a little crazy with a constant search for the meaning of things. I am convinced both that we often miss the meaning of some things but also that some of us might give too much meaning to other things. There is both a lack of appreciation of the mystical in our culture and a misapplication of meaningfulness.

This struggle developed partly out of my intuition, a wonderful gift and a scary gift. I often know what people are going to say before they say it, know that something will happen before it does, know that there will be an opportunity for me to act, know what someone is feeling without a word about it. But such understanding is hard to trust - where does it come from? Is it real? How much of this am I making up? Why didn't I trust my instinct? And my logical part quips, you're crazy! Life is more logical than that. And it is scared when I trust my intuition and watch what I knew to be true unfold.

Some of this comes to me because of my relationship to books. I remember a wonderful revelation about ten years ago, a relief that there is no time limit on how much time I have to read all the books in the world (why this would be anyone's goal, is beyond me, but I felt the need to explore them all as I looked around at the shelves of books at Kepler's Bookstore in Palo Alto when I was in ninth grade) because I will always be able to read books. When I am feeling down and defreated, lost and unfriended, my heart takes me to my bookshelf, where I read the titles, brush the books, take one out and read a few pages. It's like having a summer evening conversation with wine and a close friend. I imagine being able to swim in books, surrounded by words and words and all these friends. Books are trusted friends, and in fictional literature, so much of what is written, so much of what these friends say, is symbolic. There is foreshadowing, meaning beyond what is written, meaning in how an inanimate object appears. And so I try to draw these things in life, seeing may things as dripping with meaning. But is it?

I found two more dead birds in my yard. They looked to have been dead for quite some time - dried out, grey, barely recognizable. I wrote in my last post that if I found more dead animals on my homestead, that I'd be worried. I was worried. When Poe wrote, black birds were a foreshadow of death. What about dead animals? I wondered if I really should be worried. When is a dead animal, just a dead animal? When is a dead bird, just the victory of a quick cat?

The second week of July, I got to spend a week in Panama City Beach, Florida, staying across the street from the Gulf of Mexico with my kids, with a youth friend, Hannah, to help with the kids, and with a slew of old friends we met in seminary. Many of them met Asher when he was first born and were seeing him for the first time in almost three years. It was a reunion and a time to relax and enjoy the sacredness of water and gathering of friends.

I experienced a great healing during the week. It feels a little crude to say, but in some ways, I developed a patronus to cast before dementors. The Fray has a song called, "How to Save a Life." The rumor is that this song was written about a young man who was a resident at Shelterwood, a residential treatment center where Michael used to work. When it first came out, this was a fun connection. At the beginning of this year, the song brought up painful memories of Shelterwood, a home to some of the trials I faced. It was absolutely perverse how many times I heard the song in preceding months - in the radio on the car, in my house on satellite radio, on the radio in my therapists office on my first visit (what are the odds?!), in a store. The song constantly pestered me. And I would cry, either from the reminder of deep pain or from frustration that the horrible song was playing again!

What, I wondered, was the meaning of this? Why did I have to hear this song all the time? What was God telling me? Or was it the devil tempting me?

I was in Panama City Beach to help with a youth conference. At the last worship service, the second of nine that I was able to attend because of my kids' sleep schedules, the conference band played a hilarious spoof on the song called, "How to Say Goodbye," razzing the high schoolers about saying goodbye to a sweet summer love they met at the conference. One of lines was, "I could have prayed with you all night." I was rolling. I was laughing at a song that had caused me pain.

I am sitting in my office today, radio on for company. "How to Save a Life" came on the radio (yet again - gritting teeth), and I laugh remembering the beach, my friends, a room full of 600 high schoolers laughing at a "How to Say Goodbye," giving a standing ovation to the band. I have a patronus to cast, a protection. It is only a song, and it is a mysterious part of this chapter. Life is life, and life is dripping with meaning.