More Mewithoutyou

OK, I have to write something about a Mewithoutyou song before it just claws its way out of my torso.

It's called "Carousels", from "Catch for Us the Foxes."

Aaron Weiss is his typical, maybe archetypal, dysfunctional mess:

On a bus ride into town I wondered out loud

"Why am I going to town?"

As I looked around at the billboards and stores I thought

"Why do I look around?"

And I kissed the filthy ground.

At the first dry spot I found

I didn't have to wonder why I was lying down

Before long I was too cold

Took a bus back to the station...

Then, at the chorus he sings:

But if I didn't have you as my god

I'd still wander lost in Sinai

Counting the plates on the cars from out of state

How I could jump in their path as they hurry along

Now, if you deploy your keen sense of the obvious, this will strike you as pretty odd. The man is in a losing struggle to successfully ride a bus. Is there any sense, at all, in which he is NOT wandering lost? He's a wreck! He's just barely hanging on to the will to live. What is he thinking?

Well, there actually is more to the story. First, imagine with me someone who is the opposite of Aaron Weiss. John Q Movershaker, we'll call him. He has it all. He's the CEO with the Audi TT. Sports wife. Yacht. Villa in Cabo. Pretty much takes control of everything he encounters. Self-assured. Power lunches. Broker on speed-dial.

OK, in the "not wandering lost" sweepstakes, anyone with their wits about them would put their money on John Q, right? Only stands to reason. At the very least, he's probably capable of riding a bus!

But suppose, with me, one other thing about John Q. Suppose that his god is not the god Aaron Weiss is singing to. It could be himself, or money, or power, or the light within, but it's not the guy who dropped in on Judea back when Quirenius was governor of Syria.

And there's something I didn't tell you about the song. Didn't catch it myself the first several times through. While Aaron Weiss is muttering about his lackluster encounter with public transportation, his band is chanting over and over in the background:

Jesus, remember me

When you come into your kingdom.

Ah. So this guy has nothing going for him-- but he has God. He's not an idiot. He knows he's wandering lost and alone, as far as he can see. But he also believes God. He's fervently, desperately claiming God's plan for himself. So, OK, this looks and feels and seems like wandering lost and alone, sure. But God is God, and eyes of faith see it for what it REALLY is. Aaron is marking time until God tips His hand and it all comes clear. Not that it's easy, but it's sure.

You surround me- you pretty much are all I can see

Through the thick fog

If there was no way into God I would never have lain

in this grave of a body for so long.

Aaron is with the program.

Now consider John Q again. He has everything BUT God. He doesn't know where he came from. He doesn't know where he's going. He doesn't know why. And he doesn't know he's in a heap of trouble. There's a slow train coming and he doesn't know he's tied to the tracks.

So who's really lost and alone? Don't let the Audi fool you. When the story is over it will turn out that the guy who felt and seemed lost and alone was wrapped in the presence of God the whole time. It was burning in him like a torch. He was lying shivering on the ground, and he was halfway into heaven at the same time. Didn't make life easier. Made it truer.

And that other guy? As lost as lost could be. He had the best deck chair on the Titanic.