On this third
Sunday of Easter, we continue to celebrate the new life offered to us during
this season, with the glory of spring all around us on our campus. Oh wait, it seems to still be winter, despite
the calendar. It must be some kind of
cosmic joke, but the snow did make the campus look pristine for a few days. There is so much beauty to see when spring
comes in earnest, but we get even busier.
There is so much going on, every day on this campus.
How should we
approach the new life that is all around us now? The Easter season is all about new life, and learning how to live more
fully into God’s victory over suffering and death. In the Easter showings of the Risen Jesus,
there is a gap between initial perception and a full recognition of the resurrected
Jesus, as you heard in John’s gospel this morning with Peter seeing a stranger
on the beach. Then he sees that the
stranger is the risen Jesus. There is a breakthrough
of seeing in all of the resurrection appearances, a beautiful new way of being
with the Risen Lord, one that is surprising and deeply personal. Resurrection makes sense of the past, even
the most heartbreaking events, even our worst failures and stupid
decisions. There is still the chance to
live anew, with full hearts. These
moments of encounter with Christ transfigure seemingly ordinary events, like
the simple scene of fishing with Peter and the other disciples. Simple events become loaded with joy. New life can hit us the same way in our daily
rounds.
I
know something about the dawning gap between initial perception and then
spiritual recognition; of being clueless about what is really going on, and
then suddenly getting the big picture.
My story, which will be very scary to some of you, has to do with
music. I’m not talking about rap, indie
rock, hip hop, classic rock, house music, classical, jazz, or even Motown. What’s left?
Uh Oh.
That’s right. My scary resurrection story this morning is
about… country music.
Just
a show of hands: how many country music fans are in chapel today?
When
I was young and unwise, I hated country
music. It was hate. I was a hater. At best, I thought it was a cultural
nuisance. But, over the many years of my
life, something changed. I changed. Like St. Paul
on the road to Damascus,
I saw the light. And I blame Easter for
the change, this new life I am living. I
blame resurrection, that wild, unpredictable force that makes all things new,
even musical genres once rejected by a teenager. There is a prayer from the Good Friday
liturgy which helped me understand that my world could change drastically, even
overnight. The prayer goes like this:
“…let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being
raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new.” For me, this is country music.
So here’s my sad
story, my small-change Easter miracle. I
grew up in a small, agricultural town called Turlock, California. Actually, compared to Kent, Turlock
is huge, but so is almost anywhere. The
subject matter of country music songs always seemed dangerously close to my
life growing up in Turlock. At my high school, your social status could
go sky high by driving to school in a pickup truck…or having a new tractor on
your farm. You may have heard the
tractor lyrics from that Kenny Chesney song.
“She
thinks my tractor’s sexy…” You’ve heard
this one?
“She thinks
my tractor’s sexy
She’s always starin’ at me
as I’m chuggin’ along.”
That was my hometown. I didn’t have a pickup truck or a tractor: I
was the outsider, the persecuted intellectual. I actually rode a bicycle
to school.
What
scared me most about country music was the twang. You know exactly
what I mean. It seemed to emanate from
an agrarian madness, undoubtedly classifiable as a type of mental illness. And yes, I feared the fever because it was
Southern. Forgive me, Lord, I knew not
what I did. This madness might run in my
family if I weren’t very, very careful.
There was a lot of pesticide used in the Central Valley of
California. I grew up in the age of crop
dusters. Who knows about the long-term
effects?
But
back to the twang. Its dangerous alchemy
has finally gotten the best of me; my
inner redneck has fully surfaced.
The twang for me is a kind of lunacy, a bemused and crazy peace of mind,
which carries us forward more or less gracefully, even when the past wasn’t
graceful or pleasant. The twang carries
with it the wounds of the past, but somehow the burden is different,
transformed, even lifted. There is a new
order: our lows become highs, we have indeed rolled with the many punches that
life has to offer. I am starting to
sound like a country singer myself.
The pesticide is
no doubt kicking in.
As
an English teacher, I also couldn’t help but notice that many country songs are
ballads. They are stories about the
human experience, our common ground.
Some of the funniest lyrics can also be found in country songs, and
today you will hear some of them. The
weird lyrics, the wacky expression, the absolutely preposterous rhyme can wake
you up—like a Zen koan—snapping you into a new reality.
Here’s a sample of
country music lyrics for you, as we continue in this Easter season.
“I bought a car
from a guy who stole my girl, but it don’t run so we’re even.”
That one often
hits you later. It will sneak up on you,
probably at brunch.
“If the phone
doesn’t ring, that’ll be me.”
That one is also a
little sneaky.
“I’d
lie to you for your love, and that’s the truth.”
“There’s
dirt roads and white lines and all kinds of stop signs, I’ll stay right where
I’m at, ‘cause I wear my own kind of hat.”
And
another.
“Easy
is getting harder every day.” Perfect
for April, when we think we’re on the home stretch.
Here’s
a good one for surviving at Kent
School.
“I
know I’m crazy, but it keeps me from going insane.”
Country
singers are also obsessed with geography lessons, mostly around the Southern
region of this nation.
“How
I wish Dallas was in Tennessee.
If I could move Texas
east, she’d be here with me.”
“You
walked across my heart like it was Texas
and taught me how to say I just don’t care.”
“All
my x’s live in Texas, therefore I reside in Tennessee.”
As
you can see, the Texas-Tennessee dynamic is frequently referenced.
Here’s
one that manages to cross the border.
“I’m
stuck here in Mexico
living on refried dreams.”
And
no discussion of country music would be complete without the wonderful,
sometimes tragic, often comic, relations between men and women. Unfortunately, this section had to be heavily
edited for chapel, especially all the honky tonk references.
“I
gotta girl who’s got her own money.
Somebody slap me, I can’t be this happy.”
That
one has a kind of feminist ring to it. I
think. Then again, I’m not so sure.
“You
don’t have to call me darling, darling, ‘cause you never even call me by my
name.”
“You can’t have
your Kate and Edith too.”
“I got you on my
conscience, but at least you’re off my back.”
Country music is
also unafraid when it comes to religious faith and God. The best lyrics in this category, in my
opinion, come from Iris DeMent:
“Some say once gone, you’re gone
forever
And some say you’re gonna come back
Some say you rest in the arms of
the Savior
If in sinful ways you lack
Some say you’re gonna come back in
a garden
Bunch of carrots and sweet little
peas
I think I’ll just let the mystery
be.”
Here’s another
classic in the religion section.
“I’ve been roped
and throwed by Jesus in the Holy Ghost corral.”
Here’s one that
subtly combines religion and romance.
“I fell in the
water that you walked on.” I really like
that one.
And this last
famous line brings together religion and football, which are virtually
indistinguishable in the South anyway.
“Drop kick
me Jesus through the goal posts of life.
End over
end, neither left nor right
Straight
through the heart of them righteous uprights
Drop kick me Jesus through the goal
posts of life.”
Though
football no longer uses the drop kick, that song will live forever. (Actually Doug Flutie did a drop kick with
the New England Patriots. It is still
legal.). But the twang of country is a
double-edged sword. For all of its
mighty humor, country music is at its best in the expression of sadness and
sorrow.
“Dreams
don’t make any noise when they die.”
This
next lyric comes from “Star of Bethlehem” by Neil Young.
“Ain’t it
hard when you wake up in the morning
and you
find out that those other days are gone.
All you
have is memories of happiness,
Lingerin’
on.”
And
the very best of them all, from Patsy Cline.
“I
sing just like I hurt inside.”
There is a kind of
moral wisdom here in all of these lyrics that steadies people through hard
times. In the language of country music,
the music makes better people out of worse people. The song allows you to get from where you are
now to the person and place you’re supposed to be, even when life is at its
worst. Hard times are democratic. They come to everyone.
In
country music, the broken heart is never the last word. Like the season of Easter, there is no quit
in country. It goes the distance, and so
can you. We can all grow strong at the
broken places, letting our sorrow mix with the Easter joy that comes from
God. May God bless all of us--in our
remaining time together this year.
I’ll close this morning with the
sweet words from a song by Tom T. Hall.
“I love honest open smiles
Kisses from a child,
Tomatoes on a vine,
And onions.
I love winners when they cry,
Losers when they try
Music when it’s good,
And Life.
And I love you too.”
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