Perceptions from a Pewboy

One of my core theological convictions is that humankind has been created with an innate desire for relationship and meaningful connection. No matter whether one is an introvert or extrovert, a homebody or a social butterfly, somewhere beneath the layers of one’s unique personality beats the heart of a very particular desire—a desire to know and to be known, to love and to be loved. It is precisely this relational impulse that inspires the cultivation of friendships and romance, the accommodation of spontaneous conversation and impromptu interaction, and, most certainly, the pursuit of authentic community.

As a Christ-follower, I conceptualize this ontological impulse toward relationship in a very particular fashion. I see it as nothing less than a portion of the Imago Dei—the Image of God—finding expression in the nooks and crannies of the human pilgrimage. An atheist or an agnostic humanist, by contrast, may be inclined to interpret the human desire for connection as the inevitable flourishing of a functional socialization or an outgrowth of one’s biologically-fueled emotional yearnings. For the Christ-follower, however, humankind’s relational proclivities are something more than anthropological happenstance. In fact, among people of faith, these relational proclivities are seen as nothing less than the handiwork of a relentlessly-relational God who breathed into us, not only a breath of life, but also a yearning for intimacy.

Not long ago, I encountered a song that has helped me to think even more deeply about the urgency and theological significance of humankind’s hunger for connection. While the song to which I am referring did not emerge from a specifically Christocentric perspective, it speaks volumes about our culture’s attentiveness to a spiritual longing that can be felt even when it cannot be named: a longing for transformational intimacy and holistic relationship.

“The Shins” is an American indie rock band that has been around since the mid-1990’s. The band’s recently-released album, “Port of Morrow,” is as lyrically clever as it is musically compelling. For me, the high mark of the album is the hauntingly evocative song, “September.” (To watch the video for “September,” click HERE.) Written by James Mercer (The Shins’ lead vocalist and guitarist), “September” calls to mind a love relationship that is transitioning from playfulness to profundity—or, as the song’s title suggests, a love that is moving from summer breeziness to autumnal complexity.

“September” begins in the strange territory of ancient Greece:

Into this strange elastic world
Pontus kindly gave up a pearl
Of his eternal stone and mud
Ain’t she lovely bone and blood

“Pontus” (Greek for “sea”) is a term that has both geographical and mythological significance. Geographically, Pontus was a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea. Mythologically, Pontus was a Greek pre-Olympian sea God. The reference to Pontus giving up “a pearl” is a clear reference to Aphrodite who, we are told, emerged as a pearl from the foam of the sea.

The exaggerated imagery tells us that the love relationship at the heart of this song is not to be taken lightly. In the eyes of the songwriter, the relationship about which he writes is the stuff of divinity and mythological grandeur. Far from a maudlin overture, these words reflect the heart of a contemplative lover who recognizes that this “strange elastic world” has pulled him into a relationship that seems to be imbued with an eternal significance.

Born of the sea
A thousand miles away from me
A court of angels, a ward of the sun
A future forming, a curse undone

Who is this one who has been “born of the sea, a thousand miles away from me?” Is it Aphrodite? Or is the songwriter speaking now of some other “goddess” he has grown to love? Could the songwriter be moving from ancient Greece to present day?

These lyrics compel us to visualize the people with whom we share intimate relationship—the people we love, the people we trust. The lyrics draw our thoughts to the people in our journey who have emerged from the sea of our shared humanness in order to become a “ward of the sun” for us. Their lives shine upon ours, thereby undoing the “curse” of isolation and ushering us into a “future forming.”

Under our softly burning lamp she
Takes her time
Telling stories of our possible lives
And love is the ink in the well when her body writes

Perhaps the deepest portion of the human hunger for relationship is the desire for some new narrative that will bring to us a fresh way of telling the story of what our life means. Holistic relationship has a way of generating new stories, new poetry, new energizing narratives. The songwriter evokes this reality when he speaks of a loved one who concerns herself with “telling the stories of our possible lives” and writing those stories with the mystical ink found in the well of a devoted heart.

I’ve been selfish and full of pride
She knows deep down there’s a little child
But I’ve got a good side to me as well
And it’s that she loves in spite of everything else

Can one ever dare to love another without an ever-deepening attentiveness to one’s own brokenness and failure? Such honest self-inventory is part of the very nature of authentic love, is it not? Authentic love unsettles, inspiring both an honest confession and a passionate desire for sanctification—a passionate desire, in other words, to become something better than what we are. We seek this sanctification, not because we feel compelled to earn the love of someone dear to us, but because that love has already been offered to us (“in spite of everything else”), and we want to live a life that honors that unearned embrace.

A song in the tree has distracted her mind
Some other curious form of life
Has made its presence to her known
And she coos so gently, soft and low

Which one of us has not been distracted by some “song in the tree” that inspired us to look away from the things that matter most? Which one of us has not “cooed” over things that may not deserve to be cooed over? And yet, our deepest relationships have a way of patiently accommodating such distractions until the song in the tree fades and all that remains is the song in the heart.

Her shining face in a million reflections
On tiny raindrops that fall in a veil
Over our city like notes from above
It overwhelms me, just ain’t that tough

Its not that the darkness can’t touch our lives
I know it will in time, but she’s no ordinary valentine
And know when the sun goes down she sheds a darling light

The songwriter takes us beyond narcissistic obsession and “ordinary valentines” to a love that produces light and overcomes darkness. It is a love that falls like both gentle raindrops and overwhelming music. It is a love that can both radiate in a single face and cover an entire city. It is a love that illuminates even in those moments when darkness touches a life.

When I listen to this song, I am reminded that we are at our most spiritual when we are cultivating relationships that are big like the sea and gentle like soft raindrops; relationships that are mutually sacrificial and far too bright to be overcome by nighttime and shadows; relationships that tell new “stories of our possible lives” and that create new poetry with the ink of outpoured love.

Such relationships are possible, not because of our capacity to love (which is notoriously unreliable), but because of the indefatigable grace of the One who created us to need one another and who stubbornly refuses to allow our moments of hatred to have the final word. In the fullness of time, this One willingly “gave up a pearl,” becoming vulnerably and radically incarnate in “lovely bone and blood.”

In the light of such profligate love, how can I not hear in “September” the beating of a divine heart, whether the songwriter is aware of that rhythm or not?

In recent days, I have been journaling a great deal about my own self-centeredness—my frustrating penchant for slipping into the condition of believing that my journey is somehow all about me, my preferences, my comfort, my fulfillment.

When I enter into the deepest portions of introspection, I find within myself clear evidence of such self-centeredness. I also find it in the church. I find it in the manner in which people often discuss worship, stewardship, and mission (matters that are often approached with a spirit of narcissism rather than a spirit of obedience). I also find it in a world that would have us to believe that it is a good and healthy thing to satisfy every one of our appetites the moment it demands to be satisfied.

My reflections on the issue of rampant self-centeredness has inspired me to write a new song (which is often my way of processing things that are bigger than I can handle). My fear is that this song is far too “preachy” to be meaningful, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take for the sake of giving expression to what I hope is an authentically prophetic and accurate message.

The song is called, quite simply “Get Over Yourself.” Its message is for me as much as it is for anybody else. Here are the lyrics, for what they’re worth. I pray that they fall meaningfully upon your heart.

A story’s being told that’s very old
It’s a story that we hear from birth
“The fulfillment of our needs,” (so the story reads)
“Is the essence of a walk on earth”

Chorus:
Get over yourself
It’s not about you anyway
Why don’t you look past yourself
To see the panorama in which your life appears

I have recently become enamored of the music of Regina Spektor, a Russian-born, New York-educated singer/songwriter, whose lyrics are refreshingly evocative and whose musical style calls to mind the artistic eclecticism of Tori Amos and Joni Mitchell. Interestingly, when asked to name her primary influences, Spektor is quick to mention The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Radiohead, Tom Waits, and Frederic Chopin. Spektor’s songs reflect the diverse musicianship represented by this list of artists.

Yesterday, while driving home from a week of holy conferencing in Grove City, Pennsylvania, I spent some time listening to “The Spectrum,” which is one of my favorite channels on satellite radio. It was during that drive home that “The Spectrum” introduced me to one of Regina Spektor’s most recent songs. Entitled “Laughing With,” the song is the most starkly theological portion of popular art that I have encountered in a long time. If you have a few minutes, give a listen to “Laughing With” here.

The song borrows its sentiment from the old adage, “there are no atheists in foxholes,” but gives to the sentiment new poetic expression—the kind of poetic expression that makes clear that some of our “foxholes” are deeply familiar and immensely personal:

No one laughs at God in a hospital.
No one laughs at God in a war.
No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving or freezing or so very poor.
No one laughs at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests.
No one’s laughing at God when it’s gotten real late and their kid’s not back from that party yet.

No one laughs at God when their airplane starts to uncontrollably shake.
No one’s laughing at God when they see the one they love hand in hand with someone else and they hope that they’re mistaken.
No one laughs at God when the cops knock on their door and they say ‘We’ve got some bad new, sir.’
No one’s laughing at God when there’s a famine, fire or flood.

Spektor, who is Jewish by birth and who has never publicized a personal adherence to a particular creed or set of doctrines, seems to be reminding her audience that there are moments in the human pilgrimage in which one’s mortality (or the mortality of those one loves) becomes so unsettlingly and terrifyingly clear that, at least for a moment or two, cynicism about the possibility of the Divine gives way to a desperate—and perhaps even unarticulated—reverence and hope for that which is beyond us.

In my own ministry, I have found this to be true on a number of different occasions. I have been frequently surprised, for example, by self-desribed “agnostics” or “atheists” in hospital beds who have grabbed my hand tightly and called upon me to pray for them just before their open-heart surgery or in the recent aftermath of their cancer diagnosis. I have stood in funeral homes with seemingly hardened cynics whose hearts suddenly became soft enough to acknowledge the possibility that death somehow bears witness to the reality of the One who is the Resurrection and the Life.

Please don’t misunderstand my point. I am not suggesting that all moments of life-threatening crisis lead to sudden conversion. In fact, in many of those moments, I have heard people curse God for what they perceived to be God’s absence or cruelty. But Spektor is right about this much: Irrespective of one’s theological persuasion, none of the people in life-threatening crisis whom I have encountered were laughing at God in those moments. None of them were reducing God to a theological debate or a casual afterthought. In moments of tearful mortality, it seems that God has a way of becoming very serious business.

And yet, as Spektor reminds us in the rest of the song, people of faith have a proclivity for “laughing” at God in a different way—by transforming the Gospel into a self-serving formula or by making the Holy Other into little more than a means to our personal ends:

But God can be funny
At a cocktail party while listening to a good God-themed joke.
Or when the crazies say he hates us and they get so red in the head you think that they’re about to choke.
God can be funny
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way.
And when presented like a genie
Who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious
Ha ha
Ha ha

When I heard these lyrics yesterday, I found myself suddenly convicted of the myriad of moments in which I have, in essence, laughed at the holiness of God, mocking the very One who breathed life into the universe and life into my lungs.

Case in point, yesterday morning, I had the honor of being present for a Service of Ordination in which I sang hymns of praise as passionately as I could, prayed with conviction, stood with ordinands who offered themselves to the covenant of ministry, and opened my heart to the proclamation of God’s countercultural Word. In those moments of worship, I felt an intimacy with the presence of God that I wanted to preserve for ever.

Less than two hours later, as I drove home, I found myself deliberately creating in my thoughts a disparaging laundry list of all the things about the time of conferencing that did not suit my personal taste. It was a list that led me down a highly critical road against some of my brothers and sisters in Christ. In the privacy of my thoughts, I was quick to denigrate them for all that they did or didn’t do, for all that they said or didn’t say. As you might imagine, none of the criticism was constructive, since the people against whom I was offering it were not present to receive it or offer their perspective.

In less than two hours, I had moved from reverence to mockery. In less than 120 minutes, I had left behind the intimacy with the Divine that I had experienced in the ordination service and returned to the comfortable sin of unbridled negativity and disparagement of others.

I am not certain of how to describe the specifics of how such a transition happens so quickly. But, metaphorically speaking, such a journey is tantamount to the kind of unholy laughter at the Divine that Regina Spektor describes. In a sense, by moving so quickly to unbridled negativity in the aftermath of the ordination service, I was, to borrow Spektor’s poetry, crafting my own “God-themed joke,” in which my brothers and sisters were the punchline. I was reducing God into a comedic “Houdini” who appears whenever I feel like being reverent but who disappears whenever I want to be less than reverent.

So, in a strange way, Regina Spektor’s “Laughing With” brought me back to a spirit of reverence and holy awe, thereby making clear the fact that Jesus Christ is creatively at work, even in the artistry of people who may not yet be willing to acknowledge that it is Christ who inspires them.

My prayer is that, when I am tempted to trivialize or mock the Divine, my thoughts will be drawn to those moments all around me in which no one appears to be laughing. Because, after all, in the words of Regina Spektor,

No one’s laughing at God when they’ve lost all they got and they don’t know what for.
No one laughs at God on the day they realize that the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes.
No one’s laughing at God when they’re saying their goodbyes.

I have become increasingly interested in the imagery of margins as a means by which to conceptualize the human community. Where do we create margins, socially and spiritually speaking? Who occupies those margins? Where is the church in relationship to those margins? And, more fundamentally, where is Christ in relationship to those margins?

At any rate, in recent days, I have been wrestling with the creation of a song (which, quite frankly, is the best way to describe my songwriting process). I want the song to be an expression of my reflection on margins. Here are the lyrics that I have so far. I offer them as a prayer today.

“The One in the Margins”

Final Chorus:
Help me to see the Christ in the margins
Help me to know his journey’s design
Help me to be with Christ in the margins
Standing with him whose love is now mine

Have you ever felt particularly scattered and diffused in your pilgrimage? I’m having one of those weeks. Or months. Or years!

In my diffusion, I have found myself hearkening back to a song that I once wrote entitled “The Place Beneath.” Originally written as a love song for my wife, the song has become something broader than that. It has become, for my heart, a reference to the Holy Spirit’s capacity to regather and rejoin the scattered pieces of our lives and relocate us to that redemptive and holistic place that exists beneath the surface level of our scattered living.

Here art the lyrics at the heart of that song:

There’s a place beneath the nuance of our daily conversation
It’s a place that undergirds the words of our communication
It’s the place where all facades are cast aside without a fear
And never is a soul more known than when encountered here

It’s the place beneath the niceness of our everyday politeness
And the place where humble hearts do join in genuine contriteness
It is there God does anoint the weary soul with healing grace
And brings the rhythms of our life into a reverent pace

If you start to feel less real amidst the chaos and the clatter
Hold me in your arms a while and we’ll remember things that matter
If you start to sense confusion where discernment used to be
Our embrace leads to the place beneath where things are plain to see

To the place beneath, the place beneath
You and I will share something lovely there
In the place that lies beneath

If you are at all scattered or hyperactively diffused these days, I am offering a prayer for you even as I type these words. My prayer is that you will find your way to that “place beneath” to which the Holy Spirit is always eager to lead us. Beyond that, my prayer is that you will experience there the refreshment, the rejuvenation, and the redemptive silence that are often difficult to find in the “place above.”

On Sunday evening, Tara and I are scheduled to go to the Fleetwood Mac concert at Mellon Arena. It should be quite a nostalgic night for us—a musical journey into the classic rock of yesteryear. Mick Fleetwood will be there. So will Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie, and Stevie Nicks. The only glaring absence will be Christine McVie, who lives in England and has a disdain for touring.

As trite as it may at first sound, my favorite Fleetwood Mac song is “Go Your Own Way.” Written by Lindsey Buckingham, the song was the first single released from the 1977 album, “Rumors.” Ostensibly a musical expression of a conversation that might take place between alienated lovers (a possibility made even more real by the fact that Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were in the midst of a complicated break-up at the time of the song was written), the song has survived for 32 years as one of rock and roll’s most bittersweet odes to the pain of letting someone go.

Some time ago, while listening to the song, it occurred to me that, if God were to sing songs to humankind (and I believe that God does just that), this could be something like the song that God might occasionally offer to a humankind that he desperately loves but refuses to coerce.

Think about it:

Loving you isn’t the right thing to do
How can I ever change things that I feel

If I could maybe I’d give you my world
How can I when you won’t take it from me

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way

Tell me why everything turned around
Packing up, shacking up is all you wanna do

If I could baby I’d give you my world
Open up, everything’s waiting for you

You can go your own way

“Loving you isn’t the right thing to do.”
(How “right” is it—in other words, how much practical sense does it really make—for a perfectly holy God to be in a passionate relationship with people who, on their own, can never be consistently holy? Can’t you imagine God acknowledging that it is neither pragmatic nor sensible to perpetuate such a love relationship? Can’t you imagine God singing, however God sings, “loving these people isn’t the right thing to do,” at least according to a moralistic and practical understanding of rightness. However…)

“How can I ever change the things I feel”
(God cannot change the very nature of divinity, and the very nature of divinity is to be inwardly occupied by an all-encompassing love for the created order. God essentially sings this kind of a song: “Though it may not make practical sense, I cannot purge myself of the love that I have for my people and the love that I feel for their journey. Nor would I ever want to purge myself of this love, since this love is who I am.”)

“If I could, maybe I’d give you my world”
(What is God’s world? It is the realm of eternity, the realm of perfect relationship, the realm of deliverance and ever-creative redemption. That is the world to which God has connected us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.)

“How can I [give you my world] when you won’t take it from me”
(I wonder how frequently God has sung a song like this over humankind. I wonder how many days and nights God has wept over a world that stubbornly refuses to receive the love, the grace, the Way—the “world”—that God has so graciously offered.)

“You can go your own way…call it another lonely day”
(What choice does a loving God have when dealing with hardhearted people whom he refuses to bully, coerce, or manipulate? God’s only choice is to allow us to “go our own way,” which, with apologies to my predestinarian brothers and sisters, is the way of a “freed will.” Not a “free will” that is inherently ours, but a “freed will”—a will that has been set free by God’s prevenient grace in order to be able to accommodate important and life-altering decisions without divine compulsion.)

“Tell me why everything turned around
Packing up, shacking up is all you wanna do”
(Sounds like the kind of lament that God might occasionally sing over a stubbornly wayward humankind, doesn’t it?)

“If I could baby I’d give you my world
Open up everything’s waiting for you”
(A final word of saving grace, offered by a loving Parent who cannot allow the song to end without a final pronouncement of the door to redemptive reconciliation that will always remain open. In the end, it is a song about a relentlessly self-giving, self-emptying Lover whose most passionate desire is to give us his World.)

Nobody has to tell me that Christian soteriology was probably the furthest thing from Lindsey Buckingham’s mind when he wrote “Go Your Own Way.” On Sunday night, however, when I hear the song, I hope that you’ll understand why I am tempted to offer my own interpretation.

Recently, I’ve been spending a good bit of time listening to Bruce Springsteen’s newest album. Bruce’s performance during the Super Bowl halftime show seems to have put me in an E Street frame of mind.

The title of the new album is “Working on a Dream.” There is an appropriateness about the title, since the album’s thematic and stylistic diversity calls to mind a dream-like progression through vivid landscapes that one would not ordinarily put together.

The album begins with “Outlaw Pete,” a grandiose, eight-minute examination of the human condition though the eyes of a gunslinger. The song’s rugged instrumentation and desperate chorus call to mind the emotional rawness of a good western, complete with an Eastwoodian exploration of the themes of evil and redemption set against the backdrop of a rogue’s journey.

From there, Springsteen returns to his roots with “Lucky Day,” a contagious expression of rock and roll optimism with a New Jersey edge to it. It is a song best listened to in a convertible, preferably while driving along the Jersey coast.

The title song, “Working on a Dream” feels less like work and more like a nostalgic remembrance of what it means to be thoroughly engaged by the ebb and flow of hope. It is a musically winsome affirmation of the fact that all good dreams—even the American dream—become something real and redemptive only when they enable us to live and love more deeply.

“The Wrestler,” which Springsteen wrote for the film of the same name, ushers into the album’s conversation a broken-down soul who still believes that his voice is worth hearing, even though he feels like “a one-armed man punching at nothing but the breeze.” (By the way, “The Wrestler” is a film worth seeing, especially if you have any interest in catching a glimpse of the heart that beats beneath the ego and aspirations of an aging athlete that society has unceremoniously discarded. The film makes clear that Mickey Rourke still has the capacity to breathe a unique intensity into a character that few would be willing or able to bring to life.)

I think you get the point. Like a good dream, Springsteen’s newest album moves quickly and effortlessly through a panorama of moods and musical styles. One gets the impression that the Boss and his E Street Band are of the opinion that the current era demands, not the thematic symmetry of a well-organized plan, but the creativity and passion of a great dream.

My favorite song on the album is “The Last Carnival,” Springsteen’s ode to his longtime friend and E Street organist, Danny Federici, who died of cancer last year. The song represents Springsteen at his most poignant:

We’ll be riding the train without you tonight
The train that keeps on moving
It’s black smoke scorching the evening sky.
A million stars shining above us like every soul living and dead
Has been gathered together by God to sing a hymn
Over the old bones.

Through his musical grieving, Springsteen reminds us that, even in dreamland, hearts can break.

One of my favorite CDs from 2008 is the eponymous debut album from “Vampire Weekend,” released last January. I have been listening to the CD frequently in recent days.

The music of “Vampire Weekend” is, for many, an acquired taste. It is perhaps the year’s most vivid expression of postmodern eclecticism—an artistic amalgam of styles, including the unsettling syncopation of African rumba, the harmonic complexity of a baroque fugue, and the instrumental energy of American indie rock. Listening to “Vampire Weekend” is like eavesdropping on a jam session featuring Jack White (of “The White Stripes”) on guitar, G. F. Handel on harpsichord, and a Congolese rhythm section. It’s quite a ride.

Lyrically, I have been consistently impressed by the band’s unique blend of the cryptic and the concrete. Particularly meaningful to me is the song “I Stand Corrected,” the lyrics of which reflect a spirit of repentance that is not always easy to find in popular music:

I STAND CORRECTED

You’ve been checking on my facts
And I admit I have been lax
In double-screening what I say
It wasn’t funny anyway

I stand corrected

No one cares when you are wrong
But I’ve been at this far too long
To act like that when we should be
In perfect harmony

I stand corrected

Lord knows I haven’t tried
I’ll take my stand
One last time

Forget the protocol
I’ll take your hand
Right in mine

The song, in one sense, functions as a conversation between alienated lovers, a heartfelt acknowledgment of wrongdoing. In the wide open space of artistic interpretation, however, I also hear the song as a prayer—more specifically, the penitent prayer of a fallen sinner to the Creator from whom he is alienated. Think about what a prayer like that would sound like:

“You’ve been checking on my facts,” (i.e., “Lord God, nothing that I’ve done escapes the expansiveness of your discernment.”)

“I admit I have been lax in double-screening what I say,” (i.e., “I confess before You that I have offended you with my careless words and my unscreened behavior.”)

“It wasn’t funny anyway,” (i.e., “My sins have broken Your heart and the hearts of others.”)

“No one cares when you are wrong,” (i.e., “It would be convenient for me to rationalize my dehumanizing patterns of thought and action, since many would be glad to turn a blind eye to the profundity of my sin.”)

“But I’ve been at this far too long to act like that when we should be in perfect harmony,” (i.e., “I know better than to do the sinful thing I’ve done, thereby causing a dissonance between my heart and Yours.”)

“Lord knows I haven’t tried,” (i.e., “Lord, you know that, in my sin, I have failed to be obedient to your Way and available to Your Will.”)

“I’ll take my stand one last time,” (i.e., “I will dare to stand before your righteous presence as a fallen sinner.”)

“Forget the protocol. I’ll take your hand, right in mine” (i.e., “I lay aside the conventional wisdom that would have me to defend myself pridefully. Instead, I humbly and unequivocally place my stained hand in Yours, which is always perfectly clean.”)

“I stand corrected” (i.e., “I stand justified before You, not because of my own righteousness, but because of the righteousness of your Son that You have graciously imputed to me.”)

I should point out that “Vampire Weekend” is not a Christian band (as some of the band’s other lyrics make clear). Nevertheless, I have find myself listening to “I Stand Corrected” over and over again. Somehow the song feels like home to me.

In what can only be described as a phantasmagorical manifestation of postmodern spirituality, the musical artist formerly (and presently!) known as Prince has been a Jehovah’s Witness since 2001.

I had heard about Prince’s conversion, but had never read about his personal testimony. However, in an interview appearing in this Friday’s “USA Today,” Prince offers some insights into his relatively new faith. The interview is part of a publicity blitz surrounding the release of “21 Nights,” Prince’s new book of poetry, lyrics, and photographs. In the course of the interview, Prince makes some comments that illuminate his conviction that his faith has been nothing less than personally transformational:

I’m single, celibate, and sexy. I feel free…I don’t celebrate birthdays or holidays. I don’t vote…I love to bring the Bible to the table and ask [people] if they believe in God.

According to interviewer Edna Gundersen, Prince has also surrendered his passion for womanizing:

The onetime voracious womanizer, who crooned ‘Scandalous,’ ‘Do It All Night,’ and ‘Dirty Mind,’ has purged his lyrics of naughty lingo and spends more time proselytizing than partying. He’s as likely to show up on a neighbor’s doorstep with a Watchtower Bible as he is to frequent a hot club.

“Sometimes fans freak out,” Prince says of his missionary endeavors.

I don’t really want to burden this matter with analysis. I do find it compelling, though, that Prince, who sold out a London arena this year for an unprecedented 21 concerts, has the opportunity to occupy a much more influential “pulpit” than any clergyperson.

Of course, I have not touched upon the theological question of how it is that Jehovah’s Witnesses relate to Orthodox Christianity. That is a matter for another time. Of greater interest to me right now is the transformation of a popular musician’s life, not to mention the postmodern context in which this musician’s spiritual voice is given permission to resonate.

So, let’s review: Prince is no longer partying “like it’s 1999.” Instead, his life has apparently become a “purple rain,” poured out as a regal libation to the One whose salvation comes like a “kiss” and whose grace covers one’s consciousness like a “raspberry beret.”

In other words, “let’s go crazy!!”

I’ll give extra points to anyone who can turn “Little Red Corvette” into a spiritual metaphor!!

On Sunday, I will leave for a special continuing education event at the Ring Lake Ranch (near Jackson Hole, Wyoming). The event is entitled “SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING: Music and Spirituality Crossing Over.” The facilitators of the event are Don Saliers (a professor of theology and worship at Candler School of Theology) and his daughter Emily Saliers (who is one half of the popular music duo known as Indigo Girls). The event is described as a unique opportunity to explore the spiritual bridge that postmoderns have built between the music heard in the clubs on Saturday night and the music heard in the churches on Sunday morning.

I will not be taking my computer with me, but I look forward to unpacking the event with you when I return next weekend.

By the way, are any of you fans of the Indigo Girls? I have enjoyed their music for years.