Perceptions from a Pewboy

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.

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