Sounds for a Easter Sunday
How would you set your playlist to score Easter Sunday. Might I recommend we start with with a Gospel ballad song by the blue-collar baritone of Mr. Bruce Springsteen: the great Baptist hymn, We Shall Overcome.
I have actually quoted this song in church on a Easter Sunday. My favorite song for a Easter Sunday is definitely the Hold Steady’s How a Resurrection Really Feels. I was reminded of this song this morning as I stood at the door and hugged two good friends who made reappearances at Church this morning (after decades of absence). To JB and RH I sing along with Craig Finn and say, “Welcome back! Now tell us how a resurrection really feels.”
While on the rock kick I must also put my i-tunes player to the hopeful joy of the Arcade Fire. The promise of a song such as No Cars Go is a must for the Easter celebrant.
Of course of I can also dig a little bluegrass with my rock, so a little Gillian Welch is always a plus. If one is to pull from her extensive catalog of greatness, one can do just as well with Winters Come and Gone. There has long been a welcome connection between the renewal of Spring with the renewal of Christ’s work. In this way to sing of the end of winter is to sing of the end of evil.
Of course while one is in a folksy vein why not little Conor Oberst with his Bright Eyes band. I really like the vibe of Old Soul Song (for a New World Order). It mixes with my previous discussion as it focuses on the way in which the beauty and wonder of the human experience seems to explode out of nowhere and nothing to bring the human into a place of liminity ( I hope I got that word right, I may have just pulled a Palin, if so, mea culpa).
Of course an discussion of the importance of Easter is bound to include the ideas of sin and salvation, and while we are folking it up I would point to Grayson Capp‘s amazing Washboard Lisa who is the very model of the mystery of the means of grace by which the God of Abraham moves in and through people (often times those who are overlooked by the finest members of a society).
Moving back to the start, I still prefer the talk of the Resurrection as the hope of the Christian, and love a good hopeful tune, and how it can surprise even the most jaded with its ecstatic sadness, for that I give you a final trinity of pieces.
Feist, Graveyard:
A Fine Frenzy, Hope for the Hopeless:
Bruce Springsteen, Land of Hope and Dreams:
I may be posting a little late on this Easter Sunday, but I hope that next Easter, you can join me and the Boss in singing:
Grab your ticket and your suitcase
Thunder’s rolling down this track
Well you don’t know where you’re goin’ now
But you know you won’t be back
Well darlin’ if you’re weary
Lay your head upon my chest
We’ll take what we can carry
Ya, and we’ll leave behind the restWell, big wheels rolling through fields
Where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreamsWell I will provide for you
Ya and I’ll stand by your side
You’ll need a good companion now
For this part of your ride
Ya leave behind your sorrows
Ya this day at last
Well tomorrow there’ll be sunshine
And all this darkness pastWell, big wheels rolling through fields
Where sunlight streams
Oh meet me in a land of hope and dreamsWell this train
Carries saints and sinners
This train
Carries losers and winners
This train
Carries whores and gamblers
This train
Carries lost souls
This train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This train
Faith will be rewarded
This train
Hear the steel wheels singing
This train
Bells of freedom ringing
A Reply to Job at Healtheland on the Subject of Evil and Its Relation to God
I thought I might look up an old friend and reader of the site: healtheland.wordpress.com, and read a few posts over there. I am happy to see his site maturing. The work is focusing more on exegesis and I applaud that (unfortunately Obama is still a big category for him and I did not dare look at that). I came across this article:
How the Penn State Case Reveals the Existence of God
I am a sucker for finding God in the most unusual of places and was intrigued by the title enough to skim the article for its argument that the existence of evil actually proves the existence of God (man, would I love someone to actually make that one workable, because then a lot of atheists would have to find a new argument). I posted a response and thought I might place it here as well:
Interesting response. Most commentators for the last 200 years at least have used evil in the reverse sense as the greatest problem for the existence of God. The line of logic would be that Sandusky is evil. If God was really good, really powerful, and really existed then He would have intervened and stopped the action. He didn’t so either He is not really good, really powerful, or does not really exist. As a line of logic it seems rather convincing. I, of course, would argue (as you hinted at) that God has intervened through the person of Son. That the cross of Christ represents Christ’s solidarity with the victims of Sandusky, as well as, his offer of healing to both victim and victimizer. Mix that with classical free will theory and I feel that the question has been answered; perhaps not superbly but answered nonetheless. You have sort of managed to argue that as well and one cannot argue with you on those grounds.
I do, however, have some concerns with the reverse logic, you used (if it had worked I would have loved you for it). You once stated that you enjoyed boiling down arguments to the logical extreme, and that is where pointing from evil to God fails. At it’s extreme it allows for no differentiation between evil and God. One might state that if evil has a positive outcome such as pointing to God; then committing evil cannot be entirely wrong (as it creates some good outcome). Therefore committing an evil act cannot be considered wrong and cannot then be evil. On another level it also implicates God in evil; because it seems to make God a participant in the evil action. Therefore one might question the goodness of God.
I prefer the Biblical account which simply claims that God is the good God who overcomes evil. He is the one that thwarts evil, and instead works good in the life of the believer where the evil one had sought to sow destruction. Evil, then, remains evil; and God remains good. It is not the evil action that points to God; but rather His action in turning away the evil and establishing his redemption in its wake. The redemption points to God.
One last point if evil has some positive function in our world then the ultimate destruction of it would in essence be destroying it, and with it destroying an important way of knowing God. Yet our God promises to end evil once and for all. That is our hope that on a day in the hopefully not-too-distant future He will return to bring into completion or fullness the reality of His Kingdom that he established in His previous visit. The cross is the seal of payment, and the spirit is his down payment asserting His intentions to return. Evil will be no more and His people will be entirely free to serve Him in eternity. We will then celebrate His victory, not His battle.
I’ll keep you posted if a conversation ensues…
Love / Hate Unsanitary