Thursday, July 27, 2006

"William & Maggie"

Although I don't generally think much of his singing ability or musical style, one of the better writers in contemporary Evangelical music is Charlie Peacock. About his only CD that I could really say I like to listen to (and when you listen to the interview at the end, you find out that he intended it to be different from his other stuff) is Everything That's on My Mind (1994). My favorite song on the CD--perhaps of any song he's written--is "William & Maggie." I've liked it for as long as I can remember, and perhaps now more than ever. Here's a lame attempt to render a song with its lyrics only:
William, to whom the world was given,
Dared not disturb the sleep of friends.
But one time in the night,
He turned to his wife,
And he whispered, "Remember
When I was young, and you were Maggie?

"'Cause I been thinking about
You and me and everybody in between.
It seems we've suffered one too many dreams
Of things that weren't so bad; it's just,
They were never things that we could trust.
Are we still pretending they're enough?"

Maggie, by whom all hearts were measured,
Kissed William softly on the cheek and said,
"Oh, it always amazed me
How someone could come
To the edge of the world,
Drop a stone down the side,
And turn and return
To the very same life. I remember
When I was young, and you were William.

"'Cause I been thinking about
You and me and everybody in between.
It seems we've suffered one too many dreams
Of things that weren't so bad; it's just,
They were never things that we could trust.
We must stop pretending they're enough."

"But what of the interval moment,
When you feel nothing,
And I feel nothing?
Maggie, I'm trembling in this interval moment,
When you feel nothing,
And I feel nothing."

Maggie, by whom all hearts were measured,
Kissed William softly on the cheek and said,
"Sometimes William,
William sometimes,
You've got to open up the windows
And let the wind blow through.

"You've got to let it blow through
You and me and everybody in between.
It seems we've suffered one too many dreams
Of things that weren't so bad; it's just,
They were never things that we could trust.
We will release them as they turn to dust."
I realize it's probably meant to be about the Christian life in general and how we sometimes lose our enthusiasm and our perspective on what a difference it should really make. But for me right now, it seems to sum up how I feel about Orthodoxy. I can't settle anymore for a form of Christianity that stops half-way, especially when I can no longer trust its method. I'm also finding it increasingly difficult to keep my mouth shut about this stuff with the people around me. I don't want to beat them over the head with it, but I want to speak out for what our Evangelical lives are missing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this song, too...was just googling it.

Pointing to a system of theological belief as the problem is tempting, but I've wasted way too much time doing this myself.

What we are all missing is a willingness to go to the Lord and say: "Make me entirely yours; take me forcefully if you have to. Break me in any way you have to and hurt me in any way you need to so that I will die to myself and lose myself in You."

Right belief can be a great head start - and indeed, we need that foundation - but only when we purpose to follow it up with right action. If we're railing against orthodoxy (or liberalism, or emotionalism, or the health & wealth gospel, or convervatism, or whatever) and yet failing to maintain the basic disciplines of reading / knowing / memorizing God's Word and getting on our knees each and every day of our lives, then Jesus' "plank / speck" analogy has to come to mind.

At least, that's what He's been showing me lately.

abuian said...

I think you might have missed my point. Reading more of the blog would probably help fill in some context. First, my problem is not with Orthodoxy but with Evangelicalism. Second, and more importantly, it's not that I just have this burning desire to correct people's theology. I was speaking more in terms of the whole system of faith and practice, and how I think Western Christianity has lost so much in its theology and disciplines. I've found a whole new world of Christian experience in Orthodoxy, and it's hard for me not to try to share that with others. I went for a long time keeping quiet about it, because I felt like shaking things up would just disturb my wife, who's not interested. At the time I posted this, I was coming to realize that there really was no way to "turn and return to the very same life."