Looking Back

 As I was looking something up, I ran across this blog post. I wrote it almost 4 years ago. It made me smile, and it reminded me of the role that music has played in my life as far as faith. It reminded me how I seemed to be attuned to everything back then, so passionate, and nowadays it seems like that passion has waned a bit. And maybe not waned, but changed, evolved into something different. I love the person I was when I wrote this. I love the person I am today.

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Thursday May 31, 2007
"Clark Gable"

Some of you guys have been reading my blog since I started it. It's amazing to me that I've been writing on this thing for 2 plus years. A part of my life that has been consistent...not super consistent, but a place I could always come to. In my beginning writing stages there was this song called Clark Gable by Postal Service that really caught my attention. Well, pretty much the chorus caught my attention. It goes like this:

"I want so badly to believe that there is truth, and love is real. And I want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd."

The absurd extent. The title of my blog. That's were I got it from. I thought that chorus was beautiful and expressed exactly what I wanted in life. I was at a point where I was looking for truth. I was looking for something real outside of what everyone was telling me was real. I was looking for something more, something better than I had previously experienced.

I feel that I am at the point of finally beginning to realize what I want and who I am. I find that before, it was so easy to point the finger at others. Now it's so apparent that I need to point the finger at myself most of the time. I guess I'm learning that I had been part of the problem all along...and that I had to readjust MY thinking before I was ever going to make real change in people's lives. I could SAY all I wanted, but until I truly changed, my world would never change.

So, back to Clark Gable. I actually listened to the song. I mean, really listened. And I found that that line is part of the bigger picture of a song that I didn't even realize was pretty amazing and...surprisingly SUPER relevant to what I was going through then. Here's the song...the arrangement is my doing....

Clark Gable, The Postal Service

I was waiting for a cross-town train in the london underground when it struck me:
That I've been waiting since birth to find a love that would look and sound like a movie.

So I changed my plans, I rented a camera and a van and then I called you--
"I need you to pretend that we are in love again." And you agreed to.

I want so badly to believe that "there is truth, that love is real"
And I want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd.

I greased the lens and framed the shot using a friend as my stand-in.
The script it called for rain but it was clear that day so we faked it.
The marker snapped and I yelled "quiet on the set" and then called "action!"
I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would have admired--I thought it classic

I want so badly to believe that "there is truth, that love is real"
And I want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd

I know you're wise beyond your years, but do you ever get the feel,
that your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?
______________________________________________________

I was listening to this song on Sunday and I was like "Oh. oh, oh, oh." I got it. For so long, this guy was looking for love. He was looking for this perfect love. You know, the kind that they display in movies. The kind of love that happens like *that* You know, you meet someone, two dates later, you're together, you fall in love, and it's happily ever after. I think the happily ever after part is a big part of the "love" that we are looking for.

So, he goes to "make" this love. He find this girl that he used to love, and he makes this movie. This movie that is perfectly set up. This movie that had perfect weather...but "the script had called for rain" so they made it rain instead. They 'faked it.' I love the line that says "I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would have admired...I thought it classic." Suggesting that even that kiss...was fake.

Everything that we have been taught about love in the movies and books is...let's just say it...fake. We have been waiting and looking for this storybook romance. We have been looking for these men and women who "complete" us. We're looking, like Cinderella, for someone to rescue us from the mess that is our lives. Isn't this the theme of most Disney-esque movies? There's the main character, the main character's life is crappy, incomplete, whatever. They get into trouble, and then there's this person who swoops in and saves them from that trouble.

I know so many people who are waiting for a man or woman to fix their lives. To make it better than it is. I know so many people who WAIT for someone who is worthwhile enough for them to change. Change is inspired by the desire to impress that person...not necessarily improve yourself. And when that person doesn't "come through" all those changes disappear and you go back to the person you are.

Love...life...isn't a fairytale. We can't wait for somebody who will make us want to better. We have to choose to be better. We have to want to be better.

I know that there is truth. I know that love is real. But it's NOT what we've thought it was. Love is tears, heartbreak, loneliness, joy, peace, understanding, giving, taking...it's all those things. It's more than looks or a sexual connection. It's...ah I can't even describe it. But I know it's amazing. I know it's out there...I know I'm capable of it.

Of course, I can think of how this song can be an analogy of my life as a Christian. One day, it feels as if I woke up and realized that Christ (love) was exactly NOT who I thought him to be. And I had worked so hard to make him into this thing...and once I finally realized that what I was striving for wasn't real...I was able to find real love...real truth. The real Jesus.

But sometimes it's so much easier to go along with "the story." It's so much easier to go along with the "fakeness" because reality is hard. It's dirty and it comes with a lot of things that we would rather not deal with. It includes real change. I'm finding that living like Jesus is something totally beyond what I can do. But I know it's real. I read his words and I'm blown away by how revolutionary he is. There is truth. Love is real. And he has life in every word to the extent that it's absurd.