Behind the Music: “A Mercy Severe”

Note; This is such a multiple layered song and has been through SO MANY re-writes, I felt I needed to give it more attention or explanation.

Winter Tunes Tuesday

This song will be live on Spotify on Tuesday, Nov. 17 but you can find it on SoundCloud now.

What happens when you pray really hard—and God says NO?

You aren’t asking casually. You have prayed, waited, searched your heart, and tried to trust Him. The thing you want may even be a good thing.

And still, the door closes.

“A Mercy Severe” lives in that difficult place.

 Alongside “Where the Might Have Beens All Hide,” - it may be my most complicated song. It brings together unanswered prayer, regret, fear, pride, and the unsettling possibility that grace is at work in circumstances I would never have chosen.

Of all the songs in my catalogue, this one has been given the most work- literally hours of re-writes.

I don’t always understand what God is doing. Sometimes faith means bringing that uncertainty into prayer—and staying there.

The phrase behind the title

The song’s title echoes a severe mercy, the phrase associated with C. S. Lewis’s correspondence with Sheldon Vanauken and the title of Vanauken’s 1977 memoir.

Vanauken and his wife, Davy, shared an intense love. They built what they called the “Shining Barrier,” protecting their relationship against anything that might pull them apart. During their Oxford years, friendship with Lewis helped lead them toward Christianity. But their conversion raised a difficult question: could their love make room for God to come first? After Davy’s death, that question became part of Vanauken’s struggle with grief.

In a letter, Lewis told him:

“You have been treated with a severe mercy.”

Lewis connected that mercy with Vanauken’s recognition that he had been jealous of God. Even something as beautiful as their love needed to find its place within a greater love.

That is a hard story to sit with. I would be very reluctant to explain someone else’s loss that way. We rarely know enough to tell a grieving person why something happened.

But Vanauken’s wrestling gives language to a question I recognize in my own life:

Could God still be loving me when His answer hurts this much?

This song has older roots

Some of the background reaches back to my 2016 post, “The Gospel Confronts Addicts and Cynics.”

That reflection grew partly out of the influence of my friend Bill Delvaux: the heart can keep reaching for something to fill it, or become cynical and try to stop feeling altogether. One heart keeps demanding more; another builds defenses against disappointment. Both need the gospel.

Those two movements show up in the song. There is the road I was certain I needed to travel. Then there are the frozen walls built when life refuses to cooperate.

I built my walls with frozen stone,
Crowned myself, but ruled alone.

That last line is uncomfortable. I can insist on having my own way and then discover how lonely my little kingdom has become. It is interesting to me that I have now about 6 or 7 songs that all contain this idea of ruling alone in my own kingdom....

Looking further back, I found another root in something I wrote about Hosea 12 during my 2012 journey through the Bible’s chapter twelves.

Hosea returns to Jacob—the grasping, maneuvering man who wrestled with God. What caught my attention was that Jacob wept and sought His favor. The man who had spent so much energy trying to secure his future was brought to the point of pleading for a blessing.

He came away blessed. He also came away limping.

I recognized my own story there. In that older post, I wrote about early success, the pride it fed, and the collapse of things I had arranged around myself. One of God’s mercies was helping me see my own responsibility—and giving me enough faith to believe the cross was sufficient for my return.

The pattern has repeated in smaller ways: blessing, pride, drifting, repentance, restoration.

Here is a little of that post... 'Feeding on an East Wind" in 2012

Hosea 12:1 Ephraim (meaning Israel, the Northern Kingdom) feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; 

You have to read all of the chapters leading up to this one to experience the starkness of this line.

It was first played out by Hosea, following the Lord's instructions, marrying the prostitute and experiencing what God feels like to be betrothed to a whore as a symbol of what God's people had continually done in forsaking the Lord and turning to idolatry.

Israel, thinking the were strong and prosperous, had manipulated and manufactured treaties with Assyria and Egypt. A move to pick peace and prosperity over being the 'set apart' nation who had the covenant keeping God as their source of protection and provision.

God says (I believe in a frustrated and 'broken' way) that my people are not only feeding on wind... but an EAST wind- coming out of the desert- offering NOTHING.

John Calvin said it all much better:

For when one gulps the wind, he seems indeed to fill his mouth, and his throat, and his chest, and his whole stomach; but there is nothing but air, no nourishment. So he says that Israel entertained indeed much confidence in their crafty ways, but it was to feed only on the wind. They dreamt that they were happy, when they secured confederacies, when they had both the Assyrians and the Egyptians as their associates. They are only blasts, says the Prophet; nay, he says, they are noxious blasts; for by the East he understands the east wind, which blows from the rising of the sun; and this, as they say, is in Judea a dry and often a stormy wind. Other winds either bring rain or some other advantage: but this wind brings nothing but drought and storms. 
...For unbelieving men, as we see, fabricate for themselves many excuses; and though they be impostures, they yet think themselves safe against all the threatening of God, provided they set up, I know not what, something which they think will be sufficiently available. 
God wished the people to be under his protection; and when God promised to be the defender of their safety, they ought to have been satisfied with his protection alone: but when they retook themselves to Egypt and to Assyria, it was a clear evidence of unbelief; for it was the same as to deny the power of God to be sufficient for them.  Whenever then we attempt to provide for ourselves by unlawful means, it is the same thing as if we denied God; for he calls and invites us to come under his protection: but when we run in our thoughts here and there, and seek some vain helps, we grievously dishonour God: it is, as it were, to fly into Egypt or into Assyria. 

Reading those words again, I can hear the beginnings of this song.

Why winter you ask? So I purposely sat down for a few weeks and contemplated winter- the time change- the darkness- the chill and I wrote some songs that delved into the purpose of this season- some of these songs are really dark... but they have a purpose.

Winter gives the song this landscape because it captures how this season feels.

A road disappears beneath the snow. Branches stand bare. The ground offers little evidence that anything will grow again.

When you are living through disappointment, the future can look like that. You remember what you expected to see. You struggle to imagine what could possibly come next.

The song begins there:

Winter fell where dreams once stood,
Bare branch prayers in frozen wood.

Even the prayers feel exposed.

But the second verse introduces a quieter movement:

Till grace moved in like thawing ground,
And hope learned how to make a sound.

I like that hope has to learn. Sometimes it returns hesitantly. You find yourself able to pray again. You receive a kindness. You begin to loosen your grip on the future you had demanded.

The landscape may still look like winter. Something is beginning to move.

The line I have to wrestle with

A mercy severe, that breaks but heals,
A love that wounds so hearts can feel.

Those are difficult words to sing honestly- but it comes straight out of Bill Delvaux's teaching- when the heart has become jaded or cynical- it becomes dead- and grieving is a type of healing- (sadly, it is why some people tormented with depression cut themselves- they just want to feel something).

Some pain comes from our own choices. Some comes from what others do. Some arrives without an explanation we can grasp. I cannot look at every wound and claim to know its purpose.

Yet I believe God can meet us in all of it. He can confront what is destroying us, restore what has grown cold, and bring life from ground we thought was finished.

When I speak of His discipline (Hebrews 12), I mean the care of a Father whose acceptance rests on Christ’s finished work. I do not have to earn my way back into His love through suffering.

And I do not have to call the pain pleasant to trust Him with it.

That is the tension in the chorus:

It’s the mercy I fear,
But it draws me near.

I want to grow, but I fear what change may require. I ask God to make me faithful while hoping He will leave certain comforts untouched.

This song lets that contradiction speak.

Fierce—but there

I took a risk making it a soft spoken line... but I wanted it to leap out of the ending.

The ending matters to me because it leaves us in the cold.

There is no sudden explanation for every disappointment. The road has not become completely visible. The singer has enough breath left to testify:

In the long night, the frozen air,
Your mercy remained—
Fierce… but there.

That is where I wanted to leave it.

I am still learning how to receive an answer I did not want. Still learning to bring regret into prayer without letting it have the final word. Still learning that I can trust God while admitting how little I understand.

For this week’s Winter Tunes Tuesday, the full lyrics belong here. The movement from frozen ground to the first sound of hope needs room to unfold.

“A Mercy Severe”

Verse 1
Winter fell where dreams once stood,
Bare branch prayers in frozen wood.
A road I swore was meant to be
Now disappears in white mystery.
Regret hangs heavy like a silent hymn,
But mercy calls through the northern wind.

Pre-Chorus
I’ve wrestled angels in the night,
Fire and smoke in pale moonlight.
When every comfort disappears,
There’s a mercy—fierce and near.

Chorus
A mercy severe, that breaks but heals,
A love that wounds so hearts can feel.
Through the cold, through the pain,
You shape my soul in snow and rain.
It’s the mercy I fear,
But it draws me near.

Verse 2
Fear’s cold hands around my chest,
Whispered lies I never confessed.
I built my walls with frozen stone,
Crowned myself, but ruled alone.
Till grace moved in like thawing ground,
And hope learned how to make a sound.

Pre-Chorus
The fields lie bare, the past undone,
Yet mercy waits beneath the sun.
Even loss has life to give
When mercy teaches us how to live.

Chorus
A mercy severe, that breaks but heals,
A love that wounds so hearts can feel.
Through the cold, through the pain,
You shape my soul in snow and rain.
It’s the mercy I fear,
But it draws me near.

Bridge
Every scar, every tear,
Counts the seasons I survived this year.
The pruning knife, the barren land,
Are still held in a faithful hand.
What looks like death, what feels unkind,
Is mercy working overtime.

Outro
A mercy severe, relentless, true,
It stripped me bare to make me new.
In the long night, the frozen air,
Your mercy remained—
Fierce… but there.

Election Analysis? Nothing New Under the Sun

 

As John explored urban life in his Latin poetry, real-life London was becoming increasingly volatile. The City of London itself was growing more hostile to the Crown, mirroring the mood in the country ..... Apparently minor issues assumed new importance, such as the changes being made to St Paul’s Cathedral. Just as John’s education had encouraged him to see London through the filter of Ovid’s Rome, King James I and his architects were attempting to transform the chaotic medieval city into a capital of Classical regularity. ......The King was in severe financial difficulties, yet the City refused point blank to ‘lend’ him £20,000. In turn, the Crown resorted to unauthorised, non-parliamentary forms of taxation, sometimes with the claim that the King had a traditional right to levy ‘tonnage and poundage’ duties, but also simply insisting on a forced loan from its subjects. These measures were enforced by martial law and imprisonment without trial. Particularly inflammatory to City interests was the move to imprison merchants who refused to pay customs duties. (Beer, Anna. Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot pp. 55-56).  

I have been reading about John Milton again. Somehow, a book about a seventeenth-century poet keeps interrupting my thoughts about the twenty-first century.

The London of Milton’s youth was increasingly volatile. People distrusted the Crown, resented financial mismanagement, suspected corruption, and argued over taxation. Under Charles I, the government demanded loans from its subjects and imprisoned some who refused to pay. Political grievances were becoming deeply personal.

Sound familiar?

I hesitate to write anything about the midterm elections. There is already enough commentary to keep us angry until the next election, when we can begin the process again. But reading about Milton has given me a little distance from the noise—and a few questions worth considering.

What, exactly, are we expecting an election to fix?

Certainly, elections matter. Policies have consequences. Leaders should be evaluated, questioned, and held accountable. A government can make life harder through incompetence, corruption, or foolish decisions. We should take those things seriously.

But I wonder how much of what we bring into the voting booth is discontentment with life itself.

Young people, especially, have real financial concerns. Harvard’s October youth poll found that more young Americans expected to be worse off financially than their parents than expected to be better off. That deserves a hearing from those of us who have had decades to establish ourselves.

It is difficult to preach patience to someone who cannot see a path toward a home, a family, or financial stability. We ought to listen before we lecture.

Still, I wonder whether our culture is losing the ability to wait.

The movement among young voters away from Republicans after their gains in 2024 was substantial. But a change in voting patterns does not tell us everything about the people casting those votes. Some were reconsidering policies. Some were responding to their circumstances. Some may have been expressing disappointment with promises that had not become reality.

My concern reaches beyond which party benefited.

Have we begun to expect national renewal on the timetable of a tweet?

We want prices down, wages up, opportunities open, and the future secured. We want the results quickly enough to feel them before the next campaign begins. When they do not arrive, we reach for someone else.

I remember my grandparents’ willingness to save, wait, repair, and do without. I would not pretend their generation had every virtue or that ours faces the same circumstances. But I do wonder what happens to a people when deferred gratification begins to feel like an injustice.

That question shapes my concern about the appeal of socialism. Gallup’s recent polling found that adults ages 18–34 viewed socialism more favorably than capitalism. Those labels do not mean precisely the same thing to everyone answering a survey, but the appeal still gives me pause.

I understand the desire for fairness and security. I share the concern for people who work hard and still struggle. My worry is that frustration can make sweeping promises sound more credible than they deserve.

When we are desperate for relief, we may stop asking what the relief will cost.

A drug dealer understands the power of that desperation: promise an escape, deliver a temporary feeling, leave the consequences for later. Political promises deserve scrutiny whenever they offer immediate comfort while avoiding hard questions about incentives, responsibility, power, and who eventually pays.

I'm sorry- anyone who thinks socialism is a good road is no different than a drug addict wanting the short term fix and being chained by more addiction.

Reading about Milton reminds me that public dissatisfaction did not begin with our politicians. People were struggling with authority, money, unfairness, and an uncertain future four hundred years ago, under conditions most of us would find extraordinarily difficult.

That does not make today’s burdens imaginary. It does suggest that human discontent has survived a remarkable number of changes in government.

“Nothing new under the sun.”

Perhaps that is why I keep returning to questions an election cannot finally answer.

How do we find peace? How do we cultivate joy? Where do contentment and hope come from when circumstances remain unsettled?

Paul wrote that he had learned to be content in differing circumstances. That word challenges me. Contentment required learning. It did not simply arrive when his situation improved.

And Christian hope asks something deeper of me than confidence that my preferred candidates will win. It asks whether I trust God while I work, vote, speak, serve, and live with outcomes I cannot control.

That trust should make me more attentive to my neighbor’s burdens. It should also help me resist the temptation to make every disappointment proof that life has become unbearable.

We should reflect after an election. We should communicate honestly, evaluate policies, and expect responsible leadership. We should help young people build a future worth anticipating.

But I also need to examine the expectations I place on politics.

I can ask government to protect liberty, administer justice, and govern responsibly. I cannot ask it to give my life its ultimate meaning or secure my soul against disappointment.

Milton’s London had its grievances. We have ours.

The question I carry away from this election is whether I am learning to live faithfully amid them—with patience enough to work, gratitude enough to notice what is good, and hope rooted in Someone who will still be sovereign when the next results come in.

Behind the Songs: November with Jayopsis

Seven songs are coming to Spotify this November, and I thought I’d share their stories together.

 Looking over the list, I see a little of everything: childhood fear, fatherhood, getting older, difficult seasons, and the occasional urge to quit playing it safe.

Some began with a Sunday School lesson. One began with a guitar in 2016. Another came late at night while I was lying in bed, praying for my daughters.

I’m also learning a lot about how these songs take shape. The more specific I get with prompts—describing the sound, instrumentation, mood, and delivery—the more carefully I have to listen and understand what I’m asking for. It’s teaching me a lot about music.

I increasingly feel like a lyricist and a producer. Every song on this list went through many edits and different musical styles. Finding the right relationship between the words and the music takes patience. What you’ll hear this November grew out of writing, listening, revising, and trying again.

November 6 — Fugitive Fear (this song now live, click on title to hear)

When I was eight or nine, I ran from a German Shepherd. I was so full of adrenaline that I cleared a chain-link fence. When I finally looked back, the dog wasn’t even chasing me!

That memory found its way into a song inspired by a Sunday School lesson I teach from 1 Kings 19, where Elijah runs from Jezebel. There’s something familiar in that story: when we run, our fear can grow. We imagine what’s behind us and keep picking up speed.

(Chorus) Help me stop running from my fugitive fear, It’s been chasing me down all these years. Out of time, out of fight, No more hiding in the night. Help me stop running from my fugitive fear.

Sometimes we need to stop long enough to look back. I’ve certainly spent some energy clearing fences I didn’t need to jump.

This song on SoundCloud has over 4,000 listens from 2 different versions.

November 10 — Difficult Daughters (this song now live, click on title to hear)

This one came to me late one night, lying in bed and praying for my daughters.

As they’ve gotten older, I’ve had to learn how to connect with them as adults. I hear other dads talking about the same struggle. We love our children deeply, but understanding how to listen, when to speak, and how to help takes some learning.

There’s affection and a little humor in the title. There’s also a dad who is still figuring out his part.

I am really proud of this song- I love it. I have no clue if it will resonate with anyone at all.

Here is the entire song:

[Verse 1] I grew up in a house full of brothers, Every argument settled outside. You just punch each other in the shoulder, And be fishing again by five. Then you came to me with your feelings, bringing questions of pain and fear. I kept reaching around for a hammer, You kept saying”I just need you to hear” [Pre-Chorus] I said, “Tell me what you want me to do.” You said, “Sit there, look at me. Let me talk to you.” [Chorus] You roll your eyes at all the things your daddy doesn’t know. Somehow you still love me when I just don’t understand, I’m learning how to listen, you’re learning who I am. We laugh till we cry, sometimes cry till we laugh, Both say a little we wish we could take back. Difficult daughter, through the good times and the bad, I’m finding out you’ve been living with a difficult dad. [Verse 2] I’ve been outvoted on the music, Lifted up many Friday nights My “You’re wearing that?” from the doorway, Proved that never starts things right. But you’ll call me out when I’m stubborn, And you know when my “fine” isn’t true. I thought I’d be teaching you everything, Wasn’t counting on learning from you. [Pre-Chorus] Some nights I still get the whole thing wrong, But I’m getting better at staying that long. [Chorus] You roll your eyes at all the things your daddy doesn’t know. Somehow you still love me when I just don’t understand, I’m learning how to listen, you’re learning who I am. We laugh till we cry, sometimes cry till we laugh, Both say a little we wish we could take back. Difficult daughter, through the good times and the bad, I’m finding out you’ve been living with a difficult dad. bridge Now you’ve got a life I get glimpses of, And I’m learning when to leave things alone. But I love when you call for no reason, And it goes by quick on the phone. You say, “Dad, this family is something.” I say, “Yeah, and you’re telling me.” Then we laugh about whatever happened— Thank God you still tell it to me. (Chorus] You roll your eyes at all the things your daddy doesn’t know. Somehow you still love me when I just don’t understand, I’m learning how to listen, you’re learning who I am. We laugh till we cry, sometimes cry till we laugh, Both say a little we wish we could take back. Difficult daughter, through the good times and the bad, I’m finding out you’ve been living with a difficult dad. Outro My difficult daughter I love being your difficult dad.

November 13 — Just Now Figuring It Out (this song now live, click on title to hear)

Getting older is strange. You gain some understanding of life, then wonder where all the years went while you were learning.

This song lives in that tension. There’s nostalgia, some regret, and the feeling that the fire inside hasn’t caught up with the face in the mirror.

“I don’t want youth to leave me now / Not when I’m just now figuring it out.”

My favorite section- my heart aches for this- but as Eddie Money sang in the 80's- "But I can't go back, I know"

If I could steal one more summer night Drive too fast, hold on too tight I’d tell that kid staring back at me Don’t waste what you can’t keep

November 17 — A Mercy Severe

Part of Winter Tunes Tuesday, this is probably the most complex song of the month. It explores the painful seasons we have to learn to embrace while trusting that God is still there and still cares.

When you pray really hard.... and God says "NO".

The title echoes the phrase “a severe mercy,” associated with C. S. Lewis. It captures something difficult about faith: sometimes the work of grace hurts.

I don’t always understand what God is doing. Faith sometimes means bringing that uncertainty into prayer and staying there.

This one deserves the entire lyrics as well- there are so many backgrounds to this song, going all the way back to posts I wrote The Gospel Confronts Addicts and Cynics in 2016.

Verse 1 Winter fell where dreams once stood, Bare branch prayers in frozen wood. A road I swore was meant to be Now disappears in white mystery. Regret hangs heavy like a silent hymn, But mercy calls through the northern wind. Pre-Chorus I’ve wrestled angels in the night, Fire and smoke in pale moonlight. When every comfort disappears, There’s a mercy—fierce and near. Chorus A mercy severe, that breaks but heals, A love that wounds so hearts can feel. Through the cold, through the pain, You shape my soul in snow and rain. It’s the mercy I fear, But it draws me near. Verse 2 Fear’s cold hands around my chest, Whispered lies I never confessed. I built my walls with frozen stone, Crowned myself, but ruled alone. Till grace moved in like thawing ground, And hope learned how to make a sound. Pre-Chorus The fields lie bare, the past undone, Yet mercy waits beneath the sun. Even loss has life to give When mercy teaches us how to live. Chorus A mercy severe, that breaks but heals, A love that wounds so hearts can feel. Through the cold, through the pain, You shape my soul in snow and rain. It’s the mercy I fear, But it draws me near. Bridge Every scar, every tear, Counts the seasons I survived this year. The pruning knife, the barren land, Are still held in a faithful hand. What looks like death, what feels unkind, Is mercy working overtime. Outro A mercy severe, relentless, true, It stripped me bare to make me new. In the long night, the frozen air, Your mercy remained— Fierce… but there.

November 20 — Feeling Reckless

I rewatched Vision Quest a few months ago, and it sparked this song.

There’s something stirring about giving yourself completely to a challenge—taking a chance, finding out what you have left, and letting yourself care enough to risk disappointment.

This one is a fun look at life and the desire to stop always playing it safe. I’m getting older, but I still want something worth leaving it all on the field for.

The irony is that I also have written about the problems of living reckless.... there is a balance there LOL.

November 24 — Rain on Me

This takes me back to the beginning: the first song I ever wrote on guitar, in 2016. I used to play it for my kids.

I probably will regret sharing this original recording - Rain on Me (2016)

It was a hot stretch of summer, and everything seemed to be begging for rain. That was the beginning of the song, and over time I’ve come to understand its meaning more deeply. Rain is a blessing. Dry ground knows it.

The version coming this month is much better than those early performances, but it carries that same simple prayer.

November 27 — Struck By

A news report about a man who survived a lightning strike sparked this song. I started playing with the thought that life strikes us in enough strange ways that lightning might hardly surprise us.

The years fly by, but a bad night takes its time. People with everything keep counting what they lack, while someone with almost nothing shares what he has. An empty chair somehow fills a room.

Here is a brief example from verse 2 (my favorite part of the song)

I’ve been struck by little people Who grow tall with borrowed power, And giants shrinking to their shadows When they finally face the hour. How we spend our youth in hurry, Then beg the years to slow, How the things we swore would matter Are the first things that we let go.

But the song eventually turns the mirror around. What strikes me most is how easily I recognize someone else’s faults and how slowly I see my own. Mercy sounds simple until I’m the one being asked to forgive.

There’s some humor in the idea of being harder to shock after enough years of living. There’s also a little confession. That feels like a fitting way to close November.

Seven songs from different corners of my life, arriving as the days get shorter. I hope you’ll find something familiar in them—a laugh, a memory, a little encouragement, or a reason to keep going.

A quick word on December- traditionally, I used to put a Christmas album up in December on SoundCloud- but I think it is just going to be all rock except for a new Christmas themed song on Christmas Eve.

Thanks for listening.

If you want a sneak listen to any of these- I have them on a SoundCloud playlist

NOVEMBER RELEASES

An Ordinary Day, an Extraordinary Echo

As I continue reading Milton and Donne- I found that they actually crossed paths! What must that have been like!

Milton’s disillusionment with Cambridge was sharp. Reflecting later on university education, he complained that young men were:

“sent to those places, which were intended to be the seed plots of piety and the liberal arts, but were become the nurseries of superstition, and empty speculation.”

That is quite an assessment from someone whose appetite for learning seemed almost inexhaustible. He wanted an education that could nourish the mind and soul. What he encountered could leave him impatient with both the institution and its methods.

Then, reading Anna Beer’s biography, I came across a possibility that stopped me.

During Milton’s Cambridge years, John Donne was dean of St Paul’s.

The two writers I have been studying occupied the same world—and could have crossed paths.

Beer describes the intellectual life surrounding the cathedral: sermons at Paul’s Cross, booksellers and printers crowded into nearby streets, people gathering to hear, argue, browse, and exchange ideas. She suggests that this patch of London might have offered as much intellectual vitality as the whole of Cambridge.

Milton was back in London in the spring of 1626. He was seventeen. Donne was about fifty-four.

We have no documented meeting. But imagine one.

A young university student, already gifted and restless, pauses in the churchyard. The older preacher exchanges a few words with him. Perhaps Milton asks a question. Perhaps he simply listens.

Around them, books change hands, conversations drift, and London carries on.

Here is my speculative thought: perhaps encountering Donne—whether through a sermon or a passing conversation—could have given Milton an example of the vitality he found missing in university learning.

Donne had wrestled with desire, ambition, grief, mortality, and faith. His religious language bore the marks of those struggles. This is something that has drawn me to both men: their willingness to acknowledge the powerful forces within human nature while considering their spiritual consequences.

For a dissatisfied seventeen-year-old, hearing such a voice might have mattered.

Perhaps Milton heard learning brought into contact with life. Scripture, poetry, argument, and imagination could all serve the urgent work of examining a soul.

I cannot establish that connection. It is an imaginative possibility, prompted by their proximity and by the questions their writing continues to raise for me.

But the ordinary quality of the possible encounter is what I find most compelling.

Donne might have seen another bright young student with a question. Milton might have seen a celebrated preacher whose words deserved attention. Neither could have seen the centuries of readers ahead of them.

There would have been no reason for a passerby to stop and remember the moment.

Yet here I am, four hundred years later, reading both men and discovering how much their words still have to say about the things that trouble and sustain us.

Perhaps they once shared a few minutes on an unremarkable London day.

Their thoughts and words are still traveling.

Latin Is Dead. I’m Still Kicking (Reading Milton)

Reading Anna Beer’s biography of John Milton, I came across a description of university life when he arrived at Cambridge in 1625. 

Latin was everywhere: lectures, debates, speeches, scholarship. It connected educated people across national borders. For a young man hoping to make his mark, Latin offered a stage.

That brought back a memory of my own university experience.

Latin offered me a stage, too. Unfortunately, mine was an 8:00 a.m. performance every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I entered the University of Alabama in 1982 as an honors student coming out of high school. I was also the first person in my immediate family to attend college. My Aunt Janis had gone, but I arrived with very little understanding of how any of it worked. Even enrolling was a mystery.

An advisor suggested Latin.

“It’s a great introductory language.”

I had never taken a foreign language. Looking back, that might have been useful information for both of us to consider a little longer.

Meanwhile, I was playing football for Coach Bryant. We practiced live tackling, to the ground, every rep. I would walk into Latin covered in bruises and scrapes, looking like somebody had beaten me up in a bar fight.

You think I’m joking.

There were fifteen students in the class. Fourteen had studied Latin before.

Then there was me.

The professor would assign a passage, and we would take turns translating aloud. My classmates read Latin like they were reading the morning newspaper.

Then my turn would come.

“Uh … sky … uh … blue … uh … river. No, lake.”

It was humbling. An honors student in high school, and suddenly I couldn’t tell you whether we were standing beside a river or drowning in one.

So I developed a system.

I stayed up late cramming Latin into my head. Then I would sit in the middle section of the classroom and count ahead. If there were six people before me, I figured out which sentence would be mine and went to work.

And it worked!

By the time the professor reached me, I could deliver my translation at approximately the same pace as the people who actually knew what they were doing.

For a brief moment, I belonged in Milton’s world.

Until one late night and one hard practice too many.

That morning, I counted ahead, found my sentence, worked out the translation …

And fell asleep.

I woke up just as the student before me was finishing a translation with the confidence of an ancient philosopher.

My turn.

I sat up and announced, with vigor and cadence:

“Our city will not be strong because of foolish men!”

Every head turned. The professor. The students on either side of me. Everybody.

I had delivered it beautifully.

It was also the wrong sentence.

While I was asleep, the professor had changed sections.

“No, no,” he said. “Page 65, number six.”

I looked down.

“Uh … tree … uh … grass …”

Apparently, our city was in more trouble than I realized.

Here is where the funny story gets a little sad. I was so embarrassed that I never went back. And because I understood so little about college, I didn’t know there was such a thing as dropping a class.

I just quit attending.

The grade, unfortunately, kept attending on my behalf.

My first semester was a disaster. I ended up on academic probation. And in the football program, poor grades earned you additional running after workouts.

Latin was now hurting me academically, emotionally, and physically.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the end of my college story. Starting in my second year, I made the Dean’s List and continued making it through graduation. I eventually learned how to navigate college, though the lessons came with a few extra laps.

Reading about Milton now, I can appreciate what Latin meant in his world. It gave people access to learning, credibility, and a conversation that stretched across countries and centuries. Over time, other languages took over much of that work.

I can also look back with a little more sympathy for that bruised freshman trying to survive an unfamiliar world. I needed some guidance. I needed to learn how to ask for help. And I needed to discover that one embarrassing morning didn’t have to end my education.

But I stand by my translation:

Our city will not be strong because of foolish men.

I had some firsthand evidence.

Latin may be a dead language, but I’m still kicking.

Coach Bryant made sure I could keep moving.

Song #10 on Spotify- Where Are We Going From Here?

Song #10, “Grace Alone,” is live today on Spotify, and it feels like a good time to share where Jayopsis music is—and where it’s headed.

If you enjoy “Grace Alone,”or any of my 10 songs- tap the + to save it to your Liked Songs on Spotify—and follow Jayopsis while you’re there. Thanks for listening!

You can listen to the new song here: GRACE ALONE . 

I thought it was a good way to begin Reformation Day weekend.

These first ten songs have given me a chance to take a fresh look at some familiar biblical themes. Today’s release brings those reflections together, drawing from Romans 1–3 and 6–8, Ephesians 1–3, and 1 John 5:11–13. We confront our sin, run out of excuses, and discover that our hope rests in what Christ has done for us. Grace alone. That’s good news worth singing about.

Looking ahead, the next 20 songs will cover a wider range of genres and themes. Beginning November 10, I’m adding something I’m calling “Winter Tune Tues”—seasonal vibes, slower songs, and some chill sounds for the colder months. New Music Fridays will continue, too, with some fun southern rock and country additions along the way.

One surprise has been the response on SoundCloud: 165,000 all-time listens, with an average of almost 10,000 listens a month lately. Spotify has been a much slower start, but we’ll keep putting the music out there and watching it grow. I’m grateful for every person who takes the time to listen.

Through all of it, my purpose remains the same: to add some positive messaging to a part of our culture that often tends to go dark. There’s room for honest songs about struggle, songs about faith and grace, and songs that simply give us a reason to smile.

If one person enjoys something I’ve made and it helps them along the way, I’m satisfied. My hope is that you’ll find something here that encourages you, too.

Thanks for listening—and for being part of Jayopsis.

History Is Merely a Circle: How Milton Would Comment on the State of Our Affairs Today

For about six months now, I have been working my way through Immortal Poems of the English Language. I have loved every minute of it.

With today’s tools, it doesn’t take long to learn something about a poet’s life before stepping into his words. A little biography, a little historical background, and suddenly a poem written centuries ago becomes a conversation with someone who once wrestled with many of the same things I do.

Sometimes I stop and think, I might be the only human on earth reading this particular poem right now.

Almost certainly an exaggeration—but there is something wonderful about the thought. Someone put those words on paper hundreds of years ago, and here I am, giving them another hearing.

I have now arrived at John Milton. This is going to take a while. He is someone I plan to sit down and camp out with. I added a biography to my Kindle, settled in, and promptly wandered off the poetry trail.

then suddenly-An essay caught my attention.Written to the English Parliament in 1644.

On freedom of speech.

So much for leaving our current arguments behind.

Milton’s Areopagitica challenged Parliament’s licensing order of 1643, which generally required official approval before a work could be printed. England was in the throes of civil war, while the Thirty Years’ War continued its devastation on the European continent. These were dangerous times for arguments about religion, government, and who possessed the authority to decide what others could read.

What especially caught my attention was that Milton was challenging people whose cause he supported. He sided with Parliament against the king. Yet here he was, asking Parliament to reconsider its own restrictions.

In my paraphrase: You opposed oppression. Be careful what you do now that you possess power.

Sound familiar?

I loved this quote:

when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for. 

Milton presses a question that reaches well beyond seventeenth-century printing:

Do we protect truth by controlling what people can read, or by teaching them to judge?

His argument assumes that readers have work to do. They must examine, compare, distinguish, and choose. Keeping every mistaken idea out of their reach will not produce the same wisdom as learning to recognize why an idea is mistaken.

One passage stopped me:

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed…”

“Unbreathed” carries the sense of being unexercised or untested. Milton is questioning a virtue that has never had to face opposition—a goodness that remains safely indoors while the struggle takes place outside.

Milton argues that “cloistered virtue” is goodness kept safely in seclusion, protected from temptation and opposing ideas. Its weakness is that it has never been tested: avoiding a difficult choice does not demonstrate the ability to choose wisely. Mature virtue understands why something wrong might be attractive and still rejects it. Reading widely offers a comparatively safe way to develop that judgment. Suppressing every competing idea may therefore weaken the very goodness we hope to protect. Like an athlete who keeps a spotless uniform by never entering the race, sheltered virtue has yet to develop strength through the “dust and heat” of competition.

As an educator and a Christian, I find that challenging.

We have a responsibility to guide. Age and maturity matter. Teaching children requires judgment about what they are prepared to encounter. But preparing them for adulthood must eventually include helping them examine arguments we believe are wrong.

At some point, they will encounter those arguments without us.

Will they know how to think through them? Will they understand what they believe and why? Will they have the confidence to listen carefully without assuming that listening amounts to surrender?

I want a faith that can withstand a difficult question. That requires more of me than arranging a life in which difficult questions never get asked.

With war continuing in Ukraine and fires and chaos in Europe, Milton’s argument deserves another hearing. Fear makes control attractive. When the stakes seem enormous, allowing people to speak freely can begin to look like a luxury we cannot afford.

But those are precisely the circumstances in which I want us to examine our reasoning most carefully.

Who decides which opinions are too dangerous to hear? How do we correct the people making those decisions? And would we trust the same machinery in the hands of our opponents?

That brings me to Elon Musk and X.

I wonder where our public conversation would be had Musk not acquired Twitter in 2022. I cannot prove what would have happened otherwise. It is a question, not a conclusion. But the question matters to me because so much public discussion now passes through platforms controlled by a relatively small number of people and companies.

Musk himself is a contentious figure. Readers will bring sharply different judgments about him to this paragraph. Still, my support for freedom of expression cannot depend on liking the person who owns a platform. The principle has to apply to his critics as well.

If I welcome room for opinions that were previously unwelcome, I must also defend room for people who criticize Musk, challenge my politics, or question convictions I hold dearly. Otherwise, I have simply found a gatekeeper whose preferences happen to resemble mine.

A privately owned platform is different from Parliament licensing a printing press. The comparison has limits. Yet the concentration of power over public discussion should concern us wherever we find it.

We should also remember that permission to speak does not establish the truth of what is spoken. A false claim remains false. We still have to investigate, answer, correct, and sometimes say firmly, “That is wrong.”

Free discussion asks something demanding of its participants.

Milton himself did not apply toleration consistently. His argument excluded Roman Catholicism from the freedom he defended for others. That limitation belongs in our reading of him. A man can recognize the danger of suppression and still make an exception for the beliefs he fears most.

Perhaps that is where the circle becomes most visible.

Each generation discovers compelling reasons why its own exceptions are necessary. Each is tempted to believe that power will be safe this time because the right people possess it.

I cannot know how Milton would vote, which platform he would use, or what he would make of our daily controversies. I suspect he would frustrate anyone trying to recruit him as a reliable spokesman.

But his essay gives me a question to carry into my own affairs:

Am I willing to defend another person’s freedom to make an argument I sincerely wish nobody would believe?

I can answer it confidently in the abstract. The test comes when I recognize the person, dislike the argument, and have the power to make it disappear.

I went looking for a little poetry and found an uncomfortable examination of my own consistency.

I think I’ll camp here a while.

By the way- my time with Milton pushed out a strange little tune.... the word be invented....

PANDEMONIUM

Milton coined “pandemonium”! He introduced it as “Pandæmonium” in Paradise Lost (1667), naming the palace in Hell where Satan and the fallen angels assemble. The name combines roots meaning “all” and “demons”—essentially, the place of all demons. 

It later became our everyday word for wild uproar, confusion, or chaos. So when we say “pandemonium broke out,” we’re borrowing from Milton’s capital of Hell! 

You can read Milton’s work here:  Areopagitica 

To write the life of John Milton is thus to survey a century of unprecedented religious, political, social and cultural struggles, and to consider a writer enmeshed in, and fascinated by, those conflicts. Milton’s genius lies in the extraordinary power and beauty with which he wrote from within this turmoil, and indeed wrote out of his own personal struggles – which include his blindness, endured in an unforgiving, pre-industrial society. Throughout his life, he used his astounding learning to articulate and explore with passion and eloquence the great questions that troubled him and his contemporaries: What constitutes human liberty and how can it best be supported? What is the nature of good government and how can it be sustained? How can we understand the divine – and each other? How can we find the strength to bear suffering and death? In reading Milton, therefore, we not only journey to a troubled and exhilarating past, but are challenged, as Milton challenged his readers in his own century, to consider those questions, and to provide some answers of our own.

Beer, Anna. Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot (pp. 8-9). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Behind the Song: Wrecked

This song is LIVE in prep for the song "Grace Alone" on Friday. It will create some head scratching- but hear it out all the way.....

Song Link: WRECKED

“Wrecked” starts under neon lights, with bourbon, smoke, and people laughing at the same old jokes. It sounds like the beginning of a familiar bar room song.

But then the song turns toward a different kind of intoxication:

Mine never came from a bottle on a shelf;
I got drunk on trying to figure out life itself.

That is where the song gets personal.

I know the temptation to believe that if I can just understand something well enough, I can finally make peace with it. Read another book. Work through another argument. Find the missing piece that makes the suffering understandable, the disappointment bearable, the unanswered prayer make sense.

There is nothing wrong with asking questions. I have spent a good portion of my life asking them, and I’m still asking.

But I can turn the search for understanding into a demand: I need an explanation before I will trust You.

And that is a heavy condition to put on faith.

The bottle can numb you for a little while,
Reason can keep you awake all night.
One hides the pain, one chases the “why”…
Neither can carry the weight of this life.

We have different ways of trying to carry that weight. Some are easy to recognize. Others can look respectable—even admirable. Being informed. Being productive. Being the person who always has an answer.

I can recognize someone else’s escape while giving mine a better name.

That is part of what I wanted to explore in “Wrecked.”

When the chorus says, “We’re all just wrecked the same,” I don’t mean that every wound is identical or that every choice carries the same consequences. Some things happen to us. Some things happen because of us. Often, we are living with both.

Being wounded is not the same as being guilty. But none of us gets through life needing only sympathy and never forgiveness.

Romans brings that truth home. “None is righteous, no, not one” (3:10). And then, in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

All includes me.

That admission takes away the comfortable distance between the person telling the story and the people standing under those neon lights. I need the mercy I hope they find.

Dr. Ray Ortlund, Jr., offers a warning that presses into this song:

“Every time you hear the Word of God preached, you come away from that exposure to the truth either a little closer to God or a little further away from Him, either more softened toward God or more hardened toward God…. What you need is more grace. Nothing else can save you from your deadness. Therefore, fear your own hardness of heart more than anything else. Beware of rigidity, ingratitude, a demanding spirit. Beware of an unmelted heart that is never satisfied.”

That last description gets my attention.

A person can endure disappointment and become more tender toward others. A person can also become harder, more suspicious, more determined to make God explain Himself.

I recognize that struggle. There are times when I am so busy examining what God has allowed that I stop receiving what He has given.

Even hearing the truth can become another occasion to defend myself.

What I need then is grace reaching into the very heart that keeps resisting it.

That is why “Wrecked” belongs before “Grace Alone,” which releases this Friday.

I wanted this song to leave us ready to hear the good news. The recognition of our need doesn’t earn us anything. We don’t become deserving by being sufficiently miserable. But when we stop insisting that we can repair ourselves, we begin to understand why grace is such a beautiful word.

The final chorus starts moving in that direction:

Grace doesn’t ask for perfect;
It only asks what’s true.

For me, that is the moment the excuses begin to fall away. I can tell the truth about the sin, the hurt, the pride, and the questions I still cannot answer. I can come to Christ with all of it.

His love has substance: a cross, a Savior bearing our sin, an empty tomb. My hope rests in what He has done, even when my understanding runs out.

“Wrecked” closes with a simple confession:

The bottle never healed me…
Love did.

I still have questions. I still carry things I wish had happened differently.

But I don’t have to solve every mystery before I can trust the One who loves me.

“Wrecked” is my admission of need.

On Friday, “Grace Alone” follows.

Behind the Song: We All Alibi

This song is live now- "New Music Friday" on Spotify

We All Alibi

I can usually explain why I did something.

Give me a few minutes, and I can supply the background, clarify my intentions, describe the pressure I was under, and help you understand why things weren’t quite what they appeared to be.

In my younger days I thought it was clever but looking back, many times, it was just pure manipulation... and demonstrated the truth that I really didn't trust God- I was always in charge of protecting myself.

And so over the years I have been in situations where either through interviewing students for discipline cases and trying to be a peacemaker in conflict situations.

I even remember the famous line from the Dr House series: "All people lie"

Those themes and memories is where  “We All Alibi” began.

We all know the famous words from Jesus: “The truth will set you free.” I kept thinking about how much effort we put into avoiding the very thing that promises freedom. We justify, rationalize, soften the language, and rearrange the facts until we can live with the version we’ve created.

Sometimes we even believe it.

The title turns alibi into something we do. We all build a case. We all have a story ready when the finger turns our way.

There's always more to my story
When the guilty one is here

There really may be more to the story. Circumstances matter. Motives matter. People deserve a fair hearing. But I have to ask why I’m so willing to consider those things for myself and so reluctant to consider them for somebody else.

The second verse puts that habit into everyday language- I wanted the lyrics to show juxtaposition:

Your anger is a bitter heart
Mine is righteous indignation
Your silence is a punishment
Mine is self-preservation

I recognize those distinctions because I’ve made them. I know what it feels like to give my behavior a respectable name while assigning somebody else the worst possible motive.

And once I start doing that, an honest conversation becomes difficult. I’m already defending a verdict.

This is an old human problem. In the garden, Adam points toward Eve—and even toward the God who gave her to him. Abraham conceals the truth about Sarah because he is afraid of what might happen if he tells it. Moses offers objection after objection when God calls him to go.

Those stories involve different circumstances, but I recognize the fear running through them: What will happen to me if I stand here exposed? What might the truth cost?

I understand that fear. An explanation gives me something to stand behind.

The bridge carries that instinct into a courtroom:

When it's you, I'm the prosecutor
When it's me, I'm the defense
Your worst day becomes the evidence
Mine gets labeled circumstance

That may be the most revealing part of the song for me. I can remember the stones somebody threw at me with remarkable accuracy. The ones that departed from my own left hand tend to require a little more effort.

Writing those lines is easier than letting them examine me.

I could turn this whole song into a complaint about people who won’t take responsibility. I could think of names, recall conversations, and build another convincing case. But then I’d be doing exactly what the song describes.

Before I weigh somebody else’s explanation, I need to weigh my own words. Am I telling the truth? Am I leaving out the part that makes me look bad? Am I explaining what happened, or trying to make sure I escape responsibility for it?

When Jesus speaks about truth and freedom in John 8, He is speaking about something deeper than getting an uncomfortable admission off our chest. He speaks about slavery to sin and the freedom the Son gives. That matters to me because honesty exposes a need I cannot explain away.

I need forgiveness. I need grace.

And yet I can spend an astonishing amount of energy trying to establish that I didn’t really need either one in this particular situation.

That tension led to the ending:

Here I sit in chains
With the key to set me free
All I have to do
Is admit the truth about me

The key is an image of the admission I keep refusing to make. It costs me the story in which I was innocent all along.

I wanted the song to end with that struggle still unresolved. The singer recognizes the cell, understands what he is doing, and still holds tightly to his defense. I know that hesitation. Knowing I should tell the truth doesn’t mean I’m ready to say it out loud.

“We All Alibi” is a song I need to hear myself.

Especially when I’m certain somebody else needs to hear it.

It was me. I was wrong. Please forgive me.

I can write a whole song about those words. I still need to learn to say them.

I know the early Jayopsis Spotify playlist has been dark- but I am trying to build a worldview that hopefully will soon show more light. The worse the bad news is, the better the Good News will be!

Behind the Song: The Abyss

Update: As this post mentioned, there are a couple of different versions of this song that I have worked and re-worked. We dropped an earlier version - but not the final one (which I thought was a lot better).

Here is the link to the latest on Spotify: 

The Abyss

Last spring, I spent a good stretch with Friedrich Nietzsche. I read large portions of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, worked through On the Genealogy of Morals, returned to the Madman passage in The Gay Science, and made my way through most of Kaufmann’s book.

It put me in a rather strange mood, to be honest.

That wasn’t casual reading. It was more like stepping into a different mental world for a while.

I’ve asked myself why I picked him up in the first place. Curiosity? The desire to understand someone whose influence reaches so far? Or was there a little intellectual résumé-building mixed in? Probably some of all of that. I ought to be honest about my motives, especially when reading someone who made me question them.

There is no denying the man’s intellect. Even in translation, the depth and range of his thinking can be breathtaking. I followed the arguments, sat with the tension, and let him press on some fault lines.

I played in his sandbox for a bit.

What I experienced was more than an encounter with ideas. It felt like a test of what I actually believed. What holds when it is challenged? What have I thought through? What have I simply inherited, repeated, or absorbed?

For a while, that was energizing. Then it became clarifying. At some point, I realized I wasn’t moving toward agreement -  I was moving toward distinction.

A few things stayed with me. His suspicion of systems made me more attentive to the assumptions inside my own frameworks. I came away wanting to examine those assumptions more honestly, with a little less confidence in my ability to have everything neatly arranged.

I was also drawn to the willingness to ask a question that puts something at risk. There is a difference between asking a clever question and asking one whose answer might require something of you.

And throughout the reading, I found myself thinking about how easily we outsource our thinking—to teachers, movements, cultural trends, even art. Reading about his break with Wagner sharpened that question for me: What is shaping me, and have I actually examined its influence?

That concern reaches into the growing AI age, too. I want these tools to help us discover, inquire, and learn. I worry about letting them do so much of our thinking that we stop doing the work ourselves. There is a responsibility in learning that convenience cannot carry for us.

But the deepest clarification was about where I stand. For me, reality is ultimately personal. There is a Father to trust, a Savior to know, and grace I receive from Someone who knows me. That conviction became clearer during my time with Nietzsche.

Eventually, I knew I had read enough for now. I could respect his intellect, learn from the encounter, and recognize how far apart we remained.

Some thinkers sharpen you and unsettle you. You can be grateful for the visit without making their world your permanent residence.

It was time to close that chapter and move on. But one question followed me out of it: What am I becoming while I contend with the darkness?

His words stayed with me after I closed the books. In particular, I kept coming back to the warning in Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 146:

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

That warning gave “Staring into the Abyss” its central image. But the song’s story began before that season of reading, with a blog post and a line from The Dark Knight:

“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

When I first heard it, I thought it was a clever line. The older I get, the more it feels like a mirror.

I didn’t set out to become the villain. I just kept living.

You make decisions. Some are necessary. Some are mistaken. Some seem right at the time and look different years later. You disappoint people. People disappoint you. You gather wounds, learn to protect yourself, and discover that protection can become a habit.

Eventually, you begin to wonder what all of it is doing to you.

The original post was my attempt to put that uneasiness into words. It became a song. Then, after reading Nietzsche last spring, I went back and completely revised it—lyrically and musically.

The question felt closer now. I was thinking about the man I was becoming while trying to stand against the things I believed were wrong.

The first verse begins with the confidence of youth:

Bright-eyed, fearless, full of fire,
I thought I knew the man I'd be.
I knew the villains from the heroes,
And which one looked like me.

I remember that confidence. There is something beautiful about it, and something dangerous. It is easier to imagine ourselves as courageous and principled before those principles have been tested by disappointment, exhaustion, or the temptation to get even.

Then comes the discovery that changes the song:

I went looking for the darkness—
Found some of it in me.

That is a difficult confession. It is also one I cannot afford to avoid.

There is real evil in the world. There are things we ought to resist, people we ought to protect, and moments when silence is a failure of love. But standing for a good cause does not make every impulse in me good. I can be right about an injustice and wrong in the way I treat someone. I can defend the truth and enjoy humiliating the person who disagrees.

I can win an argument and carry its bitterness home.

That is how Nietzsche’s warning reaches me. The battle can begin shaping the person fighting it. Eventually, the anger feels necessary. The armor feels like part of my skin.

Some of the most uncomfortable lines in the revised song are in the second verse:

I learned suspicion dressed as wisdom,
Learned to keep my mercy small.
Built my walls and called them boundaries,
Till I couldn't feel at all.

Experience should teach us discernment. Healthy boundaries matter. But I have to ask whether every wall I build is serving a healthy purpose. Sometimes I am protecting a wound I have never surrendered. Sometimes “I know how people are” becomes my excuse for withholding kindness before anyone has had a chance to receive it.

I may see through illusions more quickly now. I also miss the comfort of having them.

And seeing clearly brings its own question:

But knowing everything that's broken
Doesn't tell you how to last.

You can recognize deception and still need help with your own heart. You can understand what went wrong and still have no idea how to forgive. Awareness alone cannot give me the tenderness I am losing.

This is where the song turns toward Jesus.

I am not suggesting that Nietzsche was pointing toward the Christian answer I find here. His warning becomes the starting point for my own examination, and that examination brings me back to Christ.

As the ugliness around me—and within me—becomes harder to ignore, Jesus becomes more radiant.

He endured betrayal, cruelty, injustice, abandonment, and death. He knew the evil He faced. He suffered it without becoming evil Himself.

Hebrews 4:15 speaks of a Savior who understands our weakness and was tempted, yet remained without sin. That matters to me more as I grow older. His purity endured suffering. His mercy survived rejection.

The bridge reaches for that wonder:

No bitterness upon His tongue,
No vengeance in His wounded hands.
He carried love into the grave
And walked back out again.

The resurrection gives the final chorus somewhere to go. The darkness has been faced, and death has been overcome.

There's a light the dark can't swallow,
There's a stone that's rolled away.

Easter feels increasingly necessary to me. I need forgiveness for what I have done. I need renewal in what I am becoming. I need a hope that can survive both the world’s brokenness and my own.

The grace of God feels like oxygen.

When the song says, “I don’t need to be the hero,” I hear relief from the burden of saving myself. I still have responsibilities. There are still battles worth fighting. But I can surrender the need to justify myself in every encounter, settle every score, and make my own strength sufficient.

I need the One who entered death and came back.

The song ends with a prayer:

So take the anger, take the armor,
Take the man I tried to be.
I went looking for a revolution—
Lord, begin it here in me.

That is where I wanted to leave it. I have plenty of opinions about what needs to change in the world. This song asks whether I am willing to let God change me.

I have lived long enough to recognize some of the villain in myself.

I have also lived long enough to know how much I need the Savior who never became one.

Lord, begin it here in me.

If you want to read more about my time with Nietzsche:

Where Do We Go When the Light Fades Away?

Is Art Lost?

Music Without Lyrics

Would Nietzsche Tweet?

Moving On From Nietz

Best Band and Song You Never Heard Of

I thought the whole world would eventually know that song.

Song Link: You’ve Got Another Thing Coming

That is what I remember about hearing Hotel’s “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming.” It had the pace, the beat, the harmonies, and that voice. To my ears, everything was there. Surely it was only a matter of time before everybody else caught on.

Some did. But far fewer than I expected.

Hotel was a Birmingham band, and I heard them at Brother's Music Hall back when I was probably too young to be there. I saw some things I have never forgotten. But after all these years, the music is what stayed.

I loved that band. I loved the album. Even the artwork—the tile and architectural themes on the covers—became part of the experience for me. Those images still bring the music to mind. An album could do that in those days. You held it, studied it, played it again, and gradually the whole thing became attached to a season of your life.

“You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” was the song I kept coming back to.

Hotel had the musicians to deliver it. The familiar six-member lineup included Marc Phillips, Tommy Calton, Lee Bargeron, Mike Reid, George Creasman, and Michael Cadenhead. All six contributed vocals, and those harmonies were a defining part of their sound. They had spent years building a following around the Southeast before the national records came. 

Written by Phillips and Bargeron, “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” appeared on their 1979 self-titled album. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 that July, climbed to No. 54 in August, and was gone after eight weeks. Hotel placed four singles on the Hot 100, but none reached the Top 40. 

I still find that hard to reconcile with what I hear.

Of course, that summer had no shortage of competition. Cheap Trick, the Cars, Supertramp, Little River Band, and ELO were all putting records into the same crowded musical world. Hotel got a hearing, but the larger breakthrough never came. 

I cannot tell you exactly why. I can tell you that the song has outlasted plenty of records that climbed higher.

Years later, I got Marc’s book and contacted him. We got to know each other a little, and in 2011 he spoke at a Briarwood chapel.

The students loved him.

That was a particular pleasure for me. Here was someone whose voice had been part of my younger years, now connecting with students through his own story. They were meeting Marc for themselves. I got to watch another group respond to a man I had admired for a long time.

His story had plenty of hard chapters. In his book, Pouring It Out on Me, he wrote about music, addiction, his battle with throat cancer, and his faith in Christ. There was a great deal of life behind the voice I remembered from those records. www.marcphillipsmusic.com

My last interaction with Marc was a few months before he got COVID.

He was singing at a restaurant in Brook Highland. Just Marc and a keyboard, playing to a small group. We chatted briefly during his break.

I did not know that would be our last conversation. It was simply good to see him and hear him again.

Marc died on January 21, 2021, after battling COVID-19. He was 66. 

When I think about him now, I have several memories to hold together: the band at Brother's Music Hall, the albums I loved, the man speaking to our students, and that last evening in Brook Highland.

And through all of them, I can still hear that song.

The title of this post makes a claim I obviously cannot prove. Some of you knew Hotel well. Some of you probably have your own candidate for the best band the world somehow missed.

But if you have never heard Hotel’s “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming,” give it a listen. I liked many of their other songs as well.

I have been waiting a long time for you to hear it. I think about those memories every time I drive down Lakeshore Drive in Homewood... now it is just a .... hotel. Ironic?

I published a song as a tribute to those memories on SoundCloud:

Brothers Music Hall 1979

Behind the Song: Flora-Bama

 

This song will release on Spotify on Dec. 4

Here it is on SoundCloud 

Flora-Bama

“Dad, you make people think too much. They just want a good song.”

My daughter may have supplied the most efficient music review I have received.

She had a point. I had a song with a groove people liked, Alabama imagery they enjoyed, and a title that seemed to require a little explanation before we could get to the music.

The song was called “Bama Gothic.” It is now called “Flora-Bama.”

How it traveled from one to the other still makes me laugh.

This actually began with an earlier song called “Southern Gothic,” my tribute to a literary world I have enjoyed: Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and others who could make a Southern landscape feel beautiful, troubling, familiar, and strange all at once.

That world has weathered houses, family secrets, religious language, buried guilt, and people who cannot quite escape what came before them. There is often something funny in the middle of something disturbing. Grace can arrive where nobody thought to look for it.

I wanted to see what that world might sound like in a song.

“Southern Gothic” picked up about 1,500 listens. And for all the weight of its literary background, it was actually a fun song. The music had life in it. That encouraged me to begin building an album around Southern Gothic themes. - “Bama Gothic” came out of that work.

It had moss-draped limbs, an old church hall, a rusted bell, roses behind a door, and secrets creaking through a pineboard floor. The chorus landed in “a cursed, sacred land.” That was the territory I was trying to explore: a South where beauty and brokenness live close together, and the past keeps finding ways to speak.

Then we started getting ready to move the music to Spotify.

A friend suggested that I find a way out of the word “Gothic.” My small vetting team liked the music. They liked the imagery. They liked the Alabama references. But the title was getting in the way. The literary connection that seemed clear to me was not necessarily what other people heard in that word.

Then came my daughter’s observation. I laughed ...... but I listened.

I do like making people think. I also want them to enjoy the song. I love literature but most people don't and would not get the allusions tucked away inside. If the groove gets them through the door, perhaps the ideas can meet them somewhere inside.

My first attempt was “Bama Slamma.”

It sounded like the music: loud, energetic, a little reckless. But it did not sound like the lyrics. I still had buried guilt, a preacher’s lies, dark rivers, and judgment hiding somewhere. Putting “Bama Slamma” over that world did not quite solve the problem.

The answer arrived from an unexpected direction: James Spann’s hurricane coverage.

As the recent hurricane came through, he was showing scenes of the Flora-Bama, and they talked about the place at length. Watching that coverage, something clicked.

I could move the song south on the same groove.

The red clay could meet the rising tide. The old church hall could give way to salt-worn beams. The haunted rooms could become a bar full of people carrying their own memories. I could keep the Southern voices, the worn wood, the ache beneath the noise—and put them beside the Gulf.

Once that idea arrived, the lyric began to move.

Under salt-worn beams where the last call falls,
Old names fade on the bathroom walls.
A steel guitar cries out its blame,
Every old song knows your name.

There was the new setting. But something of the old song was still standing in it.

That mattered to me. I wanted a lively coastal song with people in it, people who had brought a little more to the beach than a cooler and a change of clothes.

A boy arrives with his daddy’s rage and finds a little peace beside the stage. Someone leaves their worries behind, only to discover they are still somewhere nearby. An old friend calls your name. The music starts, and the night makes room for all of them.

And yes, I kept some of my fun lines in it.

One line came out of a convenience store moment I had when a guy was buying a zyn pouch. I said to him, everyone has switched to those pouches and he laughed and said, "Copenhagen ain’t what it used to be."

Some lines survive a move because they sound like somebody you know. I can hear that one coming from a fellow leaning against a railing, offering an opinion nobody asked for.

The chorus found its new home:

At the Flora-Bama—where the night won’t fade,
White sand shores and the bets we’ve made.
Saints and sinners go hand in hand,
Southern drawls where the Gulf meets the sand.

Then came the real test: putting the new words on the track.

It worked.

The meter and rhythm settled into the music, and the song suddenly felt at home on the coast. I sat there laughing.

Somewhere along the way, I started feeling like the Duke and the King in Huckleberry Finn, putting together the Royal Nonesuch. I had traded buried guilt and Southern Gothic shadows for salt air, neon, and the Flora-Bama—and the thing worked. Twain might have appreciated the showmanship. Hopefully, our audience leaves happier.

[Editor’s Note, introducing the scene: Halfway through their trip down the river in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim fall in with a pair of low-grade con artists. One fancies himself a king and the other a duke. Slipping into a small town in Arkansas, the two decide to put on a Shakespeare play, which fails miserably. This leads them to take revenge on the town, as Huck tells us...]
Well, that night we had our show; but there warn’t only about twelve people there – just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn’t come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted was low comedy – and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said:
AT THE COURT HOUSE!
FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!
The World-Renowned Tragedians
DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!
AND
EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!
Of the London and Continental Theatres,
In their Thrilling Tragedy of
THE KING’S CAMELEOPARD,
OR
THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! !
Admission 50 cents.
Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which said:
LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED.
“There,” says he, “if that line don’t fetch them, I don’t know Arkansaw!”

There is something funny about beginning with a tribute to Southern literature and ending up thinking about Twain’s traveling con men. I will leave the implications of that comparison alone for now.

But I like where the song landed.

The original still has its place. So do the writers who helped me imagine it. Their influence remains in the weathered surfaces, the complicated people, and the sense that an old song can know your name.

This version gives that world a little more room to dance.

My daughter may hear it and say, “See, Dad? That’s what I meant.”

She may be right.

For now, the band is playing, the salt air is moving through the screen door, and we are headed through a wild night toward the break of day.

Full Lyrics:

(Verse 1) Under salt-worn beams where the last call falls, Old names fade on the bathroom walls. A steel guitar cries out its blame, Every old song knows your name. A woman walks barefoot through the door, White sand grinds on a pineboard floor. Sunburned shoulders and bloodshot eyes— Where the red clay meets the rising tide. (Chorus) At the Flora-Bama—where the night won’t fade, White sand shores and the bets we’ve made. Saints and sinners go hand in hand, Southern drawls where the Gulf meets the sand. (Verse 2) A boy rolls in with his daddy’s rage, Finds a little peace by the edge of the stage. Smoke drifts out through the neon signs, Like prayers sent up at closing time. Whiskey breath on a salty breeze, Copenhagen ain’t what it used to be. Boots on the boards, footsteps upstairs— You left your worries, but they’re still somewhere. (Chorus) At the Flora-Bama—where the night won’t fade, White sand shores and the bets we’ve made. Saints and sinners go hand in hand, Southern drawls where the Gulf meets the sand. (Bridge) Sea oats bow where the fences lean, Names carved deep from a summer dream. Gulf rolls dark where the moon hangs low, Wash your feet but it won’t let go. Screen door swings and the night breathes in— You hear your name from an old lost friend. (Verse 3) A crowd runs wild in the heatwave haze, With too many plans and too few days. Peelin’ paint and a weepin’ moon, Somebody calls for another tune. Strings bend hard and the drummer turns, Every old flame gets a chance to burn. At the state line, callin’ out your name— Every heart beats with a different ache. (Chorus) At the Flora-Bama—where the night won’t fade, White sand shores and the bets we’ve made. Saints and sinners go hand in hand, Southern drawls where the Gulf meets the sand. (Outro) Carve it deep where the salt leaves marks, Old songs linger when the stage goes dark. At the Flora-Bama we find our way— Through a wild night to the break of day. At the Flora-Bama—where the night won’t fade, White sand shores and the bets we’ve made. Saints and sinners go hand in hand, Southern drawls where the Gulf meets the sand.