and we'll scratch our heads.

["Lynzi Godlove" <suneidesis at hotmail_com>]

I find the nearest soap box.  I precariously plant myself upon it, and 
am quite ready to be toppled...


I had heard stories of Over the Rhine, in glowing narrations from a dear 
friend.  I couldn't tell you if I knew they were regarded by some to be 
a Christian Band or not.

He loaned me Eve, for as long as I wanted her.  I listened to that tape 
over and over, until I ruined it.

Because you, some days, don't have words for who you are, or what you're 
feeling or why.  because you are quite sure you can no longer be 
classified as sane or redeemed or good or any title that makes someone 
smile to greet you.

And Eve gave me words.  So I could sing into drainpipes:
"God, look over there.  there's pigeons nesting on your saints.
  God, all I can say is forgive us, rather than forgive me..."

"Scream like a silent movie, call of the curious fingers feeling my 
hearts, spring on an arctic island pushing against my ribcage..."

and I know I never got all the words right.
but they were words, dammit.


and one day months later, Good Dog Bad Dog arrived in the mail.
and I was motionless as "Latter Days" and I made aquaintance.
and then "All I need is Everything"  made me realise, for them, a 
measure of peace had been found, to a degree.  

I cried for them.  I cried for me.

If I beg for it, it won't come.
I find nothing but Table Crumbs.



I have heard, over and over, my entire lifetime in a lovely little 
upstanding Christian home, the arguments of Christian vs. Secular.  the 
arguments of who one serves.  The arguments of what makes it Christian.  
the resentment at the labels.  As a child, I remember watching the rise 
and fall of the "Christian Artist"  to adultery, drugs, unbelief.

and all of us fell to unbelief, at watching them fall.



I don't think we will ever figure it out.
I don't.


And furthermore, anyone trying to determine among themselves the faith 
of another will evermore be baffled.  I have enough difficulty 
determining my own heart and beliefs, I certainly would dislike someone 
scratching their head and wondering:

"is she a Christian, or isn't she?"

(you know what?  I am.  but most every day I don't deserve that honour. 
God only knows I can't determine their hearts, their motivations.  )


I do know this:  whether they intended it or not, whether it their 
"mission statement", underlined with stars and lines or a simply a 
backhanded idea, Over the Rhine has been, for me, one of the most 
effective things I have encountered to get through my thick skull, past 
a million melancholy lies, past everything I claimed I wanted

to get me on my knees.
to get me praising God.


if nothing else, for a handful of words.


This is just what I feel, what I wanted to get off of my person.  I've 
been wanting to say it ever since I began lurking in March.


Make of it what you will.


in peace,
Lindsey Godlove.

______________________________________________________
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