Sometimes, people who make no profession of allegiance to Jesus shame me through their telling or enactment of the gospel story.
I’ve commented about the Mountain Goats here several times over the past few weeks. Monday I was looking for some copyright information for the song Love, Love, Love and stumbled across the liner notes for The Sunset Tree.
I already knew from listening and the buzz on the street that this album is heavily autobiographical. And that autobiography entails a childhood deeply scarred by an abusive stepfather. The songs are often moving and hard to listen to as they chronicle personal pain through sung stories.
Today I saw that the following notes are on the liner:
Made possible by my stepfather, Mike Noonan (1940-2004): may the peace which eluded you in life be yours now
Dedicated to any young men and women anywhere who live with people who abuse them, with the following good news:
you are going to make it out of there alive
you will live to tell your story
never lose hope
The first thing that got me was the wish of peace upon the abusive stepfather who “made possible” this chilling album.
And then, there is the proclamation of good news: you who are captive will know freedom; you will know new life. You have hope.
John Darnielle lives within, and creates a world in which, eschatology matters. The end shapes our stories. The coming ending of our stories gives us hope. And, it gives him the confidence to wish a blessing of peace rather than a curse of retribution.
When I listen to the Mountain Goats, I always feel dwarfed by Darnielle’s spiritual perception. Now I can feel similarly humbled by his dedication to the ethic of forgiveness.
I saw Darnielle performing tracks from Heretic Pride at the Troubador not long after moving to Pasadena to attend Seminary. I made the mistake of making a theology reference in a pre-show conversation with a fellow-concert goer and watched the walls go up and the conversation end as they detected “religion.”
Halfway through the show, Darnielle played a “Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?” a song (from Sunset Tree) in which he appropriates the imagery of Jonah to describe the abuse on a number of levels, evoking the sense of being crushed under the waves, the escape “wriggling” up on dry land.
Something powerful happened during that song, that moment of profound spiritual connection between artist and audience. On an emotional level I felt it as my mind was reeling with the implications of how he was reading his story in and through the biblical narrative. He brought this deep story about hardheartedness and survival through trial to an audience who would never read it or hear it “preached” in any traditional way, but who were nevertheless caught up in his story.
How could that close a reader of the Jonah narrative miss the lesson of pronouncing benediction on those who have hurt us most?
I’m hearing about the Mountain Goats for the first time through your post, but a friend sent me a quote today which seems to apply here. It’s from Irish writer Josephine Hart:
“Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.”
Yeah… there’s something about having gone already from death through to the other side of resurrection that makes you unstoppable.
I don’t know if you’ve heard his latest album (The Life of the World to Come–yes, he dared to use that title, bless his heart), or how familiar you are with his back-catalogue, but JD is and has always been profoundly spiritual. More, he has talked about a strong Roman Catholic influence on his life, even if he’s no longer a part of the Church Universal. Another Christian blogger somewhere described it as “the Word interacting with a life that is fully cognizant of the pain and suffering of others; and a life interacting with the Word”, and I couldn’t agree more.
Yes, I’ve been listening to it. LotWtC isn’t my favorite–too much 70s style musically for my taste, but I’ve been regularly impressed by the ways that the religious imagery of the Christian tradition impacts his songs for the better. JD has a hopeful eschatology. That adds untold depth to his lyrics.