Never See the Light

People come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. And with widely varying music tastes. I’m a boomer, so Taylor Swift doesn’t do much for me. Yet, that might not be the only reason, O Reader, that you may avert your eyes or click away from this post. I will try to keep you here a bit longer before revealing why you might find what I say here distasteful.

I play acoustic guitar and love to hear great guitarist do their thing. In Bluegrass, David Grier is spellbinding. I must also pay homage to Doc Watson and Tony Rice. Other guitar greats, of course, include Bob Dylan, Tommy Emmanuel, Phil Keaggy, and Chet Atkins.

I’ve been a Bruce Cockburn fan since the early 80s. He and Dylan have profound lyrics to go with their music. Being more than a decade older than myself, these two have experienced plenty of history. They document in lyrics a prophetic witness. Take a few Dylan lines:

Hurricane (1976)
    …that’s just the way things go
    If you’re black, you might as well not show up on the street
    ’Less you wanna draw the heat

Political World (1989)
    We live in a political world
    Wisdom is thrown into jail
    It rots in a cell, is misguided as hell
    Leaving no one to pick up a trail

What Good Am I? (1989)
    What good am I, then, to others and me
    If I’ve had every chance and yet still failed to see
    If my hands are tied, must I not wonder within
    Who tied them, and why, and where must I have been?

While Dylan’s lyrics throw little clear light on his religious inclinations, he espouses some of its wisdom. On the other hand, the oeuvre of Bruce Cockburn reveals his Christian faith and journey of spiritual growth and maturity. Not that he would always have called himself a Christian.

You won’t hear Cockburn on Christian radio stations. He is less known in the USA and may have fading renown in his native Canada. The way Christianity seems to have been steered in America, at least–rightward, fundamentalist, litmus test political stands–Cockburn would be judged an outlander.

My spiritual kinship with him might brand me an outlander, too. Below, I express a yearning to see manifestations of the Holy Spirit in a world of suffering people continuing to lash out and harm themselves. Inspired by this two-decades-old Cockburn song, my musings may not further compel a curious reader. Teasing out rock-solid wisdom from Dylan and Cockburn may take more patience and introspection than most people can muster today. In the title track from You’ve Never Seen Everything (2001), Cockburn tells a few horrendous stories illuminating how evil seems to reign in this world. And his chorus laments that we never see the light falling all around. These lyrics from over two decades past seem prophetic today.

You’ve Never Seen Everything (2001)
    my mind goes blank before the unbelievable indifference
    shown life
    spirit
    the future
    anything green
    anything just
      (chorus)
    Bad pressure coming down.
    Tears – what we really traffic in.
    Ride the ribbon of shadow.
    Never feel the light falling all around.

Of course, the music sets the mood and drives home the message. But as a Christian, I ask myself, “Do I see the light falling all around?” Does he mean that we should see signs of the Holy Spirit present here and feel some consolation? In many other songs, Cockburn calls on us to notice such signs. Let’s go more than twice as far back to his song In the Falling Dark:

In the Falling Dark (1976, last lines)
    Light pours from a million radiant lives,
    Off of kids and dogs and the hard-shelled husbands and wives.
    All of that glory shining around and we’re all caught taking a dive.
    And all the beasts of the hills around shout, “Such a waste!
    Don’t you know that from the first to the last
    We’re all one in the gift of grace?”

I don’t want to be so downtrodden by the chaotic world that I don’t sense God’s grace or see the light falling all around. Like a physical trainer might help one get in shape, maybe I need a spiritual mentor to help me sharpen my spiritual senses. Where is this light falling all around? It must have to do with love. It must have to do with grace, the Creator’s acceptance of us even as we can’t help constantly screwing up. It must have to do with retaining humility and not judging other people. Finally, it must become more visible in a community of like-spirited people, not a tribe but an extended family, encouraging each other to sharpen these dulled senses.

Are you still with me, O Reader?

To finish off, here’s what Cockburn himself said about this album (April 2003):

    We’re confronted with great darkness as a species right now, as spiritual creatures
    on this planet. I don’t think it’s hopeless, and I don’t want this album to make
    people feel hopeless. But I think we’ve got to call a spade a spade.

This website says the quote is from his Rounder Records bio page, but that page doesn’t currently exist.