A New Song

"I will sing, sing a new song." - U2 "40", paraphrase from Psalm 40

Some of us have been singing the same song for a long, long time. "How long?" keeps being the question. For many, this is a song of suffering that has found no relief, a song emanating from a "miry pit." Personality type and neurotransmitters may have to do with the durability of that old song. Sometimes old songs are sung from wounds that run deep, pain from a past that was never healed or perhaps healed with a scar that pulls, pains or misshapes.

We are living in an angry culture these days, and that is reflected in traffic and in the grocery stores, sometimes at home and at work. In the balance, there is much to complain about: financial injustices, an education system that is failing many of our youth, political disunity, somewhat of an unedited rude style that pervades the media and popular TV shows, people living selfishly who should be contributing their share, and on and on and on. It is an old song that reminds us of the Fall. The imperfect world we live in has muddy trails, pitfalls, impassible routes, and final and certain death for all of us. This weighs heavily in our hearts and we sing a dirge. We look around the swamp and struggle to find the positive. It just seems that at every turn, roots are everywhere to trip us up and send us into muddy water.

Like so many others, I actually love blues music, partly because it rings so true and sings that song on my behalf. The Shakespeare tragedies can be as entertaining as the comedies, because human nature is understood and reflected outside of ourselves. There is the reminder that someone else always seems to be worse off than we are, or perhaps more laden with awful tendencies? Though often we see ourselves in even the worst of characters. We struggle and sing the old song in a minor key.

What would a new song sound like? Jesus is the one who gives me my new song, and the next new song, and the one after that. A new song is a song from the garden, a place of fruitfulness and joy, a place of living out our perfect design without fear of the future. A new song is sung from a place of security that knows perfect love and is not afraid. It is a song that leaves behind anger and bitterness, because old wounds and resentments lose their importance when we know that we are perfectly loved and forgiven and that nothing will ever get in the way of that. A new song is other-minded, not a solo, best sung in community, because together with others we are not impoverished. We grow in joy as we share the redemption story, and we know how the story ends.

It is hard to sing a new song in a world full of pain and suffering. All around us, every day, are reminders of hardship and sorrow. There are lots of songs everywhere, some old songs and some new songs. The song we sing flows out of what exists within our hearts. Our hearts are deeply in need of transformation, of a turn in the trail up out of the swamp and to higher ground. We are unable to struggle our way out on our own, but thankfully we are not on our own.

Last Sunday, I went hiking at Gunpowder off of Bel Air Road. As I went along, I was struck by how well that trail seemed to represent all of life at just this time between seasons. For a moment, I mused at what it would be like if fall were followed by spring. Yet winter always comes. The trail had a rocky ascent amid the trees, with views of fall colors deep into the woods, especially toward the top. There is a pine forest at the top that is so orderly and stalwart, like classical music, a reminnder of all that is good when things are in perfect place.

The trail went on to a scrub brush section where the leaves had fallen off of deformed weed trees, and all appeared barren. At one point, I was distracted by the view from a ridge and tripped and nearly fell over a rock that was underfoot. Thankfully, though clumsy, I have a good righting reflex and seldom actually fall. Tricky river crossings multiplied in front of me, and there were patches of inevitable mud, making things messy. All said, the most remarkable thing happened. As I neared the top of the highest ridge, I heard sounds of birds with jungle-like resonance. Before I knew it, hundreds of birds flushed from the valley below and went first one way and then another before turning upward and landing on tree branches above me. "Not even a sparrow goes unnoticed by our heavenly Father."

I had never before witnessed such a spectacle, a bird migration, with many voices but unified direction growing out of the movement of a few determined leaders it seems. I thought of the great encouragement that grows out of commmunity, how we are never really alone. One of my friend's brothers took his own life last Saturday. The old song drowned out the new, as he struggled with deep and deadly depression. Sometimes there is nothing to be done, nothing that can pull someone else out of the mud and mire, yet there are new songs still to be written. We have just got to sing the new song to one another and "sing, sing a song, sing out loud, and sing out strong."