A Bit Between The Ears: Leaving to Stay

This week I'm started a bit late on the blog. The weekend was chock full o' festivities and I didn't get to set any time aside to write, but so it goes sometimes. This week I want to write about 5 songs that have stuck with me over time. Not stuck with me in a -- Right Said Fred, Britney, Chumbawumba-type of nightmare, but songs that have stuck with me because they prodded my heart a bit.

I think we can all agree that music is a very powerful thing. I mean, who doesn't have a specific song that pulls up a certain feeling or memory. So I don't expect you to like these 5 songs, but if you give them a listen and let me expain why I like them, maybe you'll like them too.

Part 1: "Leaving to Stay" -- Jonny Lang

Listen to this song on YouTube.

I can't believe in what I've seen

I been forsaken. I been deceived

Cast aside and left behind

I can't believe my own eyes



I been waiting for the glory

Of the coming of the Lord

I heard a lot of stories

But all my prayers have been ignored

I been waiting in the wings

Between the ocean and the shore

But this time I'm leaving to stay

I'm walking away



I seen the red sky in the morning

I seen the low tide slipping away

I do believe I'll take warning

Taking my leave to stay



Like an angel afraid to fly

Like the last lonely rose hung on the vine


****

I was in a pawn shop in Harrisonville, Missouri -- probably around 2003 -- with my brother and a friend. We had never stopped in and we decided to peruse whatever goods may have been in this little haven of ill-gotten booty. We found this table that had CDs for sale. None of the CDs had cases, they were all just collected in black binders and priced at about a dollar each.

I love music. I love to collect new music. I love to listen to things I've never heard before. So for me, these black binders had the potential to hold real treasure. I flipped through each of the books: junk, junk, country junk, hair band junk, rap junk. There were soundtracks to awful movies and some CDs that I would rather be forced to eat than listen to. You know, it's a pawn shop, so I shouldn't have expected anything great.

I found, tucked in the back, a copy of Jonny Lang's 1998 album, "Wander This World." I had heard of Lang because of a cameo he had in Blues Brothers 2000 -- one of the ill-thought out plans that came with Y2k.

I picked this up and a couple of other CDs that had no words on them, but the artwork had caught my eye. I figured if nothing else, they'd make nice coasters.

I honestly do not remember the vast majority of "Wander This World." I've heard that it's one of Lang's best. As soon as my ears caught the song "Leaving to Stay" though, I stopped listening to any other track on that CD. I would put this CD into my walkman and just listen to this track on repeat, over and over again. I couldn't tell you why it struck me, but looking back, I think this song defined me for much of my early adolescence; especially between age 14-20.

Lang, covered this gospel song when he was an unbeliever. It wasn't until years later, that Lang would find Christ. (If you want to hear that Lang, the Lang who is alive today, you can check out his last two albums "Long Time Coming" and "Turn Around". ) This song was a song about a man who was leaving his faith. Lang had grown up in the church, but due to an increasing amount of unanswered questions and bad experiences with Christians, Lang left his faith.

I think this song hit me so because, I too had "left faith". I hadn't been raised in the church. I didn't hardly know anything about Christ or the Bible. I was always teetering back and forth between being an atheist and an agnostic; and I was proud of that. I was proud that I had "beat the system." I wasn't going to succumb to some superstitious religion with no practical application to my life or a false faith that was full of hypocrisy. Besides, I felt like I had seen enough of the world and enough of people hurting to know that, there was no God. There was no plan in this universe for any of us. Christianity was a joke and I had seen the punchline coming like a telegraph.

I was proud of the fact that I wasn't going to be one of them. Just like Lang, I was leaving religion to stay true to myself. But...the funny thing was, that Lang's song sounds like a declaration of independence from religion and superstition, but it didn't sound or feel like Lang was celebrating a victory of rationality or the mind...instead, Lang sounded...sad. I must have listened to this song 200 times before I really understood that.


I can't believe in what I've seen

I been forsaken. I been deceived

Cast aside and left behind

I can't believe my own eyes


I felt this. I had seen enough of TV news and had been to funerals to know better than to believe there was a plan. How could I believe that A) There was a God and B) God was good? "Cast aside and left behind," how could I believe that if there was a God, he had any good intentions for us? After all, I'm so small, what would a God care about me?


I been waiting for the glory

Of the coming of the Lord

I heard a lot of stories

But all my prayers have been ignored


When I was a kid, all I ever dreamt for and hoped for, was a better life for my family and I. I was a skiddish, weak, outcast who just didn't function well in society. My family didn't have a lot of money and my parents -- like all parents at some time or another may do -- fought. I was terrified of this world. I learned as all people do -- at a young age and from a hissing voice in our heads that has no good intentions for us -- that I wasn't wanted, I wasn't loved, and that all I could ever be in this world was hurting. I dined on despair, fear, and anxiety for breakfast, lunch, and diner. There were no cool waters for me to drink at. I had no Abba to comfort me. There was no light to be seen at the end of the tunnel. "I had heard a lot of stories, but all my prayers had been ignored."


I been waiting in the wings

Between the ocean and the shore

But this time I'm leaving to stay

I'm walking away

...

Like an angel afraid to fly

Like the last lonely rose hung on the vine


Have you ever felt marginalized? Sometimes, when life is tough and you don't have anything real to rely on, you feel like you are the most lonely person in the world. It's as if there's nowhere for you to belong. "Where is there room for me?" you ask yourself. You feel as if you are stuck in limbo...maybe between the ocean and the shore.

I was tired. I was tired of trying to believe in a God and a Christ that didn't give me what I wanted and didn't lift the pain from my heart. I left the search for God and decided to stay put in my lost world. What else was there to do but give up?


"Like an angel afraid to fly. Like the last lonely rose hung on the vine."

Years later, after finally finding God where I least expected to (in college) and finding a community of friends to love me as I continue to periodically strand myself between the ocean and the shore, I look at this song in a completely different light. Lang may too.

This song, for me, is not longer a sad enigma. It's no longer a song that barks "freedom" as it shivers in the cold...now this song is monument. This song, more than any other, helps me remember what it was like to be lost. This song helps me remember what it was like to not be in relationship with my God and how cold that felt. This song reminds me of the sadness of not knowing Christ and not feeling joy and hope.

This song is also a reminder that there are still lots of people who feel like that last lonely rose left to hung on the vine; lots of people who have heard a lot of stories, but their prayers have been ignored. They are looking for a God that's real. They are looking for a home to rest in and to rest their hopes in.

This time, I'm leaving to stay. I'm leaving myself to stay with my Abba.