I ask you a question dear friends. Is it automatically wrong to be Episcopal?
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Well, it’s another Saturday, and church is half a day away once again.
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LOVE’S GROWTH.
by John Donne

I SCARCE believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass ;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make it more.

But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But mix’d of all stuffs, vexing soul, or sense,
And of the sun his active vigour borrow,
Love’s not so pure, and abstract as they use
To say, which have no mistress but their Muse ;
But as all else, being elemented too,
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.

And yet no greater, but more eminent,
Love by the spring is grown ;
As in the firmament
Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,
Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough,
From love’s awakened root do bud out now.

If, as in water stirr’d more circles be
Produced by one, love such additions take,
Those like so many spheres but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee ;
And though each spring do add to love new heat,
As princes do in times of action get
New taxes, and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate this spring’s increase.

From the lyrics I post on my blog, you might get the impression that I only listen to CCM. Don’t worry. When I sleep, I listen to country, classical, chants, or hymns. When I drive, I listen to jazz. When I’m around the house, I listen to all different sorts of stuff, depending on my mood. Most often, I get one stuck in my head for a week or two, and then I switch. I had Avril Lavigne stuck in my head for awhile, then it was Jason Mraz, then it was Kasey Chambers. The last couple, which I have blogged the lyrics to are CCM.

The first of those two was Every New Day by Five Iron Frenzy. Cheese aside, every once in awhile a simple line strikes me. In that song, the line “Father, I need you” seemed apt to how I was feeling. I was having a hard time with being anxious about certain things. The total dependence of God was in my head.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about when this is all over, so naturally, MercyMe’s I Can Only Imagine fit with my psyche. Several of the lines fit…pretty much th whole thing except for that whole “forever worship you” part because I get the sense that CCM artists think that after we die, all we do is get on our knees and bow down and sing. We don’t eat or work or anything. We just sing. Okay, but this is a positive post.

Bart Millard, who wrote that song, suffered the loss of his father when he was 18. I believe his dad was dying of cancer. Before he died, his dad set up a fund that would give him a sum of money once a year for ten years so that Bart would not spend it all at once. His dad promised that he would take care of him after the money was gone, even after his death. The week that money ran out, I Can Only Imagine hit Number 1 on Christian Radio. It would go on to win something big at the 2002 Dove Awards.

Recently the song has been on the secular radio. This kind of happened by accident. A caller at a secular Dallas radio station kept requesting the song. Finally, the DJ played the song as a joke. Hundreds of people called to find out, “What was that song?” The song has gotten the same reaction around the country with DJs saying in their sometimes 20-30 year experience, they’ve never had a reaction like this. When the song was played for the first time in many cities, the phone lines were tied up, and people would drive to the radio stations to ask, “What was that song?”

I find it a bit creepy because the song is blatantly saying, “I can only imagine what it will be like with you Jesus.” I guess people are all spiritual and stuff. I can see the reaction somewhere like I grew up near Tulsa, but in places like Washington where being a Christian isn’t the cool thing to do?

When Bart Millard’s dad died, people would try to console him by saying his dad was in a better place. So he would jot down the phrase, “I can only imagine.” Well, one day he went to write a song. On his notebook were the words, “I can only imagine.” The song was written five minutes later. A song written in five minutes and about Jesus was a Top 40 secular song?

The lyrics of the song are something I’ve tried to think about many times throughout my life. How would I react if I was before Christ, in the flesh? The most familiar lines are “Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you Jesus, or in awe of you be still? Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing ‘Hallelujah? Will I be able to speak at all?”

Seriously, how would I react? I have no idea! I tend to dance when I am giddy. And singing Hallelujah is probably one of the most common ways I praise God. I love singing Hallelujahs. But Jesus Christ. He’s perfect. He’s God. How? What? Huh? How can you fathom that? Would I be able to move? Able to talk? Or would my mouth just be gaping open?