From Other People’s Minds | Having Decided To Stay

May 8, 2013

Some New Songs and Some Old Ones

Over the past few months, I’ve been introduced to some fresh music that has substantially enriched my life. Some of this was recorded decades ago and some of it only just released this year on Noisetrade. As a symbol of appreciation for those who have compiled and composed all of this beauty and for those who have presented it to me, I have created a little list in order to present these songs to you in turn, and hope you will find something here that stays with you a long, long time.

Through The Deep, Dark Valley (The Oh Hellos) – [This album is still available as a FREE download over at Noisetrade] The Deep Dark Valley, which I discovered courtesy of the Inkslinger, is one of my favorite finds of this year. Tyler and Maggie Heath’s exquisite concept album explores themes of creation, sin and renewal in language that avoids clichés admirably and employs melodies both fascinating and surprising. With a folksy style that features festive rhythms and powerful backup vocals, The Deep Dark Valley is sharply reminiscent of The Lumineers and some of the tracks (especially The Truth Is a Cave) sound almost like a redeemed version of Ho Hey.

It seems impossible to pick a favorite piece from this album, (especially since the tracks are intended to flow into one another) but I found the songs on prodigality to be particularly well-realized. Second Child, Restless Child captures the wildness of the universal runaway with its intense tones. Wishing Well and In Memoriam are two winsome and heartfelt laments and the Lament of Eustace Scrubb is eerie and hopeful. All told, if this album weren’t being offered for free right now, I’d consider it worth paying for, and will be eager to hear more from The Oh Hellos in future.

Where Eyes Don’t Go (The Gray Havens) – [This album is still available as a FREE download over at Noisetrade] How can you go wrong with a band called The Gray Havens? A relatively short collection with its six tracks, Where Eyes Don’t Go is newlywed Dave and Licia Radford’s very first album. These artists certainly have room to grow, but the album includes at least a couple of especially enjoyable pieces. I was quite taken with the swinging poetry of Silver and the delicious hopefulness of Let’s Get Married.

2ndacts The Hymns Collection (2^nd Chapter of Acts) – Even before we were old enough to read C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, my sister and I already knew by heart some of the songs from the 2^nd Chapter of Acts’ concept album, Roar of Love, which explores themes from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. One of my earliest memories is of putting that cassette into the tape-player in our family living-room and dancing in circles around the carpet to Are You Goin’ to Narnia? (Oh, take me along with you!)

This was the only experience I had with the 2^nd Chapter of Acts until I discovered their lovely (and rather old, seeing that it was released in the year I was born) Hymns Collection a couple of months ago. I suppose that, given the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that I fell in love with this album immediately. It sounds to me like Edmund and Lucy singing our triumphant melodies of declaration, and there is really something irresistible about hearing the same voice that celebrated redemption with Something Is Happening In Me rejoicing in turn with, “my sin – of the bliss of this glorious, thought – my sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more…”

Matthew Ward and his sisters deliver a grandiose rendition of A Mighty Fortress of Our God, and chorus the Ode To Joy delightfully. Some other highlights for me are their passionate renderings of Fairest Lord Jesus and Be Still My Soul.

The Lord of the Rings: Complete Songs and Poems (The Tolkien Ensemble) – This massive project is one of my family’s favorite finds of this year. The collection of four albums and over 60 tracks includes musical renditions of every song and piece of poetry included in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien’s ideals and moods have been remarkably well-realized by over 150 professional musicians. The CD lyric booklet includes illustrations by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. These albums have been a wonderful supplement as my sister and I are taking turns reading the trilogy to our little brother, who has finally come of a suitable age to be introduced into this great and exciting story, which is a thing he has been anticipating expectantly for over half of his life.

Some pieces which I felt were captured especially well include Bilbo’s “Old Walking Song,” (the road goes ever on and on) “Tom Bombadil’s Song” (which we sang in our house for weeks after first finding this music), “The Merry Old Inn” song, (which continues to be sung all too often around here) “The Song of Beren and Luthien,” “The Song of Earendil,” “Galadriel’s Song of Eldamar,” and “Sam’s Song in the Orc-Tower.”

Burlap to Cashmere (Burlap to Cashmere) – Burlap To Cashmere’s 2011 self-titled album was my first introduction to this fascinating group of artists. A collection of upbeat music with strong Greek and Mediterranean influences and rhythms and gritty, thoughtful lyrics, this album packs a huge punch. One of my favorite tracks is The Orchestrated Lovesong, with its stirring refrain, calling, “I want to live on a boat and sail away with my children…” The Other Country, which exudes contagious confidence and urges us, “do not be afraid of this earthly city,” is strongly reminiscent of some similar words from another author, and is a fitting finale for this remarkable compilation of songs.

The Harvest (K.S. Rhoads) – [This album is still available as a FREE download over at Noisetrade] K.S. Rhoads is a talented artist, but I don’t feel that this album (From Outside The Wilderness) is his best work. However, it does include my favorite of his songs, The Harvest, and I feel it’s worth downloading the entire album for the sake of that one exquisite and haunting piece of music.

The Weight of Glory (Heath McNease) – [This album is still available as a FREE download over at Noisetrade] The Weight of Glory is a collection of songs inspired by the works of C.S. Lewis. I haven’t had an opportunity to listen to this in its entirety yet, but have enjoyed some of what I’ve heard, and look forward to an opportunity to listen to the rest of the album.

The Luggage of an Optimist (Miriam Marston) – I discovered Miriam Marston some time ago, but can’t pass up an opportunity to share a link to this album. Although it’s by no means a perfect compilation, The Luggage of an Optimist is riddled with poetry and cosmic ideas and the influence of Chesterton. I discovered this album at Christmastime and was particularly struck by two pieces dealing with witnesses of the Incarnation. Rumors of a Good Thing is presumably narrated from the perspective of one of the famed “kings of orient.” In tones that are wistful and awaken a wild longing, Marston sings, “I hear there’s a king on the other end of this star lit road,” and every single sense in us wants to take the road as far as it goes.

Simeon tells of the aged prophet in the “graceful moment” when he “finally sees what faith becomes.” When she tells how, “with his last breath he thought how we were in the best of hands, and at that he smiled,” we smile too.

In Morning At Ostia, Marston succeeds in imparting a sweet, strong flavor of the peace that passes understanding when she says,

“By the way there’s a chance I may seem relatively
Unattached to this place.

And he said to me ‘one day you’ll see, all of this will feel like one of your dreams,
You will wake up in my arms.’
And he said to me “all days can be steps on a road leading to me, til you wake up in my arms.”

And, oh! Maybe this is all that it takes to be satisfied.

So, what have you been listening to lately?

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May 5, 2013

George MacDonald on Life Itself

I’ve had to leave town again rather unexpectedly, in order to attend a funeral. Consequently, I’m not able to post anything substantial at this time, but will leave you with a thought from MacDonald as you enjoy the way the spring looks from your corner of the world.

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March 27, 2013

Pieces of Today, March 27th

#1. From the beautiful Starkindler album, this glad celebration of Psalm 23, in light of the good things that have come.

#2. The opening Spring. Like this:

#3. Recuerdo, testifying to the way that love makes everything an adventure after all….

RECUERDO
[by Edna St. Vincent Millay]

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

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March 22, 2013

The War From Where We Are

In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets,

writes Marilynne Robinson, in Gilead. If we are among the courtiers of the Kingdom that is coming, this fragile hope of glory should transfigure all our moments, make an epic out of our days. For a day is coming when all will be revealed, all uncovered, all told. The unsung heroes will be sung, the darkly glass will shatter, and everything will be seen exactly as it is.

Into such an existence have we been born – into a state of being that matters everlastingly.

I spoke of this to some young girls recently. We were discussing character, and I am weary of the words that traditionally accompany that one, weary of abstract exhortations that don’t take root in the reason for being. “Character,” I said to them, “is who you are in the story of the world.”

Our characters matter because there is a story, because to be alive is to be a part of a tale of deeds that will be a bit of the lore of the ages to come.

“I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales?” muses Samwise Gamgee, in The Two Towers, just a few hours before his own tale takes a particularly nasty turn. We laugh at him fondly and knowingly. We know, of course, that he is in a story now. We almost wish he could be out of it for a moment and witness the way the world is reading it.

Because the stories are not quite the same thing from the inside. We, looking in on the panorama of The Lord of the Rings, see a tremendous epic, a collage of action, a medley of intertwined adventures. But if you are Samwise Gamgee or Peregrin Took, or Frodo Baggins, you only get to see that story minute by minute, day by day, uncomfortable inconvenience by uncomfortable inconvenience.

One day you might wake up and life might proceed like this:

They made their way slowly and cautiously round the south-western slopes of the hill, and came in a little while to the edge of the Road. There was no sign of the Riders. But even as they were hurrying across they heard far away two cries: a cold voice calling and a cold voice answering. Trembling they sprang forward, and made for the thickets that lay ahead. The land before them sloped away southwards, but it was wild and pathless; bushes and stunted trees grew in dense patches with wide barren spaces in between. The grass was scanty, coarse, and grey; and the leaves in the thickets were faded and falling. It was a cheerless land, and their journey was slow and gloomy. They spoke little as they trudged along. Frodo’s heart was grieved as he watched them walking beside him with their heads down, and their backs bowed under their burdens. Even Strider seemed tired and heavy-hearted.

Before the first day’s march was over Frodo’s pain began to grow again, but he did not speak of it for a long time. Four days passed, without the ground or the scene changing much, except that behind them Weathertop slowly sank, and before them the distant mountains loomed a little nearer. Yet since that far cry they had seen and heard no sign that the enemy had marked their flight or followed them. They dreaded the dark hours, and kept watch in pairs by night, expecting at any time to see black shapes stalking in the grey night, dimly lit by the cloud-veiled moon; but they saw nothing, and heard no sound but the sigh of withered leaves and grass.

Even as a hero right in the middle of an epic that has captivated the world, you might have a day like that. You might have many, many days like that.

A girl in a remote corner of our own world, a great lady in our own story, was overtaken once by an angel who told her how her whole life would be utterly altered, how she would be swept up into the eternal company of heroes.

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God…nothing is impossible with God.”

What a place to be planted in the story of the world! What a splendiferous role – to carry in your own body the baby-flesh of the Wonderful Counselor! How happy we would all have been to be there!

And yet, that real life of hers – how different it must have been from our romanticized notions. For a revelation can change everything and still change nothing at all. That girl had to go on living as she always had – ground by poverty and oppression and now misunderstood by her own family, by the very man she was preparing to call husband. In solitude and loneliness she surely strove to work out some understanding of the Almighty power at work within her. She surely buoyed her uncomprehending heart with hope.

All the way through, she must have turned back again and again on this wobbly anchor. When her little boy was bleeding out under the spears of the very oppressors she had expected him to overthrow, did she lean into the hope that the story was somehow working itself out in spite of her confusion and her shattered expectations, and the intolerable bleakness of everything? Because in the end, hope was all she had.

Would you with joy trade your spot in the story for King David’s place, for the hands that strangled lions and bears and swung the pebble that felled the fell giant? How about for Esther’s? For the queen that tasted royalty solely for the purpose of saving her whole people? Would you trade your own dim, obscure chance of glory for that of Abraham, called out of his country to be still under the stars and hear the promises of God? You would be so glad to get to stand in that furnace with Shadrach and Abednego in the company of a shining one, and hear the stunned surprise of your enemies, wouldn’t you?

You think you would, because you are looking in from the end of things, you know the ends of all the stories. They are good stories. But a hero’s own story is never clear to him. And all these ever had was hope.

“All these,” so the Good Book says, “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”

Someday, we shall all step out of our story, and witness the way that the host of heaven is reading it. That prospect makes a good many things worth doing well, even when we are quite alone to our own eyes.

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