The Songwriter

As a small child I remember seeing the album cover and recognizing his face.

This was not some far off person who had no connection to me, this was my uncle, the man who lived down the road from grandma and grandpa’s house, who played with me and my sisters, who smiled and laughed, and told stories.

His name was on the song, my favorite one, the song about rain, and his voice was comforting and familiar.

I heard him sing hymns, and favorite radio hits, but my ears were most tuned to the unique words that rang from his heart. The songwriter was speaking something true and real because the words were his own.

And I marveled at how a preacher could communicate for half an hour and get a few people to say a solemn, “Amen.” While the songwriter could sing six lines on the same topic and half the room would be moved to tears.

I can believe in miracles, in the brief and complete six days of creation, in water and wine, and oil filling endless jars, because words spoken from a heart of truth, and love, and even clumsy obedience, can sometimes do what time, and effort, and luck, cannot.

I fell in love with words as a child, and the songwriter showed me I wasn’t wrong. I watched and listened as he sang the words, his guitar followed along as if to confirm it was good, and the audience listened, and learned, and worshiped, and knew God a little better.

And I believed I could do more than sing along. I believed the words I loved could be added together like a math equation and form a solution to problems, and fears, and wounds. I believed that words could dance, and I believed that songs were more than melodies and rhythms. Songs had become messages and mirrors that told me epic truths, in short phrases, about God and about His love.

Hymns and Psalms became my devotions, and notes began to shape me, and God’s love was lit up inside my mind and I knew I was safe in the security of God’s Word, and all the songs that had been imprinted on my mind and heart. The poems that wouldn’t hold still.

The songwriter left us more than a few trite sayings, he left us words to question, words to hold to, words that will not fall to the ground. He left us songs. And songs stay with us, sometimes when we wish they wouldn’t. They are insistent and persistent, burrowing into our memory and staying quiet for years, only to burst out when our ears hear a phrase that unlocks their melody. And we laugh, because of all the other stories that were hidden and have now come racing out like school children, with the songs of our childhood. And we thank God, for the beauty of memory and emotions, and especially for the talents and gifts of the songwriter.