In light of my previous post lamenting the state of contemporary Christian music, I thought it best to offer an alternative. This post will hopefully be the first of multiple to show different Christian artists that I believe are using their gifts to create new and unique sounds and worshipping God through that creativity.
So, first up: Josh Garrels.
I have a problem with Christian music. Specifically, contemporary Christian music. As in, the modern contemporary Christian music that is frequently played over radio stations to be used as a banner for Christians to rally around and listen to exclusively.
But I suppose before I continue down this path and inevitably become bombarded with questions and possible accusations of heresy or not being a Christian, I should clarify myself.
He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life… Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.
abraham joshua heschel, The sabbath
Christian Wiman is a fantastic poet whose poetry has been the first in a while to make me stop and want to reread a poem to really internalize it. And then reread it again. And again. And again. His poem Every Riven Thing is a beautifully written poem (which you can read here) in which the line “God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made” is repeated throughout, but the syntactic structure changes each time, changing the meaning of the phrase and building upon itself in a linguistic and poetic crescendo. I highly recommend reading Every Riven Thing before reading on.
I didn’t grow up Catholic. Or Lutheran. Or Methodist. Or Anglican. Or any of the denominations that even remotely use liturgy. And while I did grow up in within the faith, I never used liturgy growing up.
One of the authors I have taken great pleasure in reading lately has been Abraham Joshua Heschel. If you haven’t heard of him, Heschel was a prominent Jewish rabbi, theologian, and professor during the 19th century. He authored a number of books – most notably his treatise on the importance of a holy day, The Sabbath, in which he compares that holy day to a “sanctuary in time,” one that we are called to uphold so that we may find ourselves coming closer to God.
You have a nice bottom, too.