Re: and we'll scratch our heads.

[Cygnet <sswans83 at calvin_edu>]

Dear LG,

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

Toppled you probably will be, but stay up as long as you can and remember
that there are those out there who agree with you.

> 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.

ditto here.  I wish that I could be as elloquent as you, but I'm just a
big dumb film major who speaks better with pictures than words.

Whether you think OTR is made up of Christians or not doesn't really
matter becuase they are tackling the same problem that people have been
tackling for millenia, "Why are we here?"

I have about had it up to here <make chopping motion at head level> with
people who bash those who give their opinion as to the band's faith.  I'm
sick of being called close-minded by those whose ideals are as locked as
the proverbial Knox fort.

OTR, through their music, paints beautiful pictures of the striving for
peace in the soul.  Sometimes they think they're there, but most times
their still fighting to hold onto something (Poughkeepsie, Latter Days,
All I Need, and many more).

> 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.

	I have similar experiences with so called "Christian" artists.  When
they're put up on a pedestal for role-modeling, it's much easier to fall
farther than bands like VoL, and I believe, OTR.  

	I spent a good amount of time last year talking to Bill Mallonee's
wife during one of his concerts last year at my school (Go Knights!), and
she told me about the struggles that her husband goes through with being
defined as a Christian or a Christian band.  He says, and I agree, that
it's his job just to speak the truth about where his in his life and the
truths he encounters.  If people agree with him, then that's great, but if
they don't get it, then he hopes they enjoyed the music.

> 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.  )

It's not my/or anyone elses anyway.

> 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.

It definitely makes me and, from what I've encountered, other people think
about things.  you know.  Life, the Universe, and Everything. ;)

> 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.

Thanks for speaking out, and I hope that people take it easy on you, and I
guess me.

Steve Swanson

---

References:

• and we'll scratch our heads.
• From: "Lynzi Godlove" <suneidesis at hotmail_com>

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