Have you ever had the experience where you went searching for something very specific in the place where that thing is supposed to be found only to realize it wasn’t there? I need the keys to my car, but they aren’t on the key hook. I need to pick up diapers for the baby, but they aren’t in the aisle of the store with the baby stuff; who puts diapers in health needs aisle? You’re in a serious relationship, one where you’d expect to receive more encouragement and support than anywhere else, yet it seems empty of such things. Regardless of how big or small the example, not finding what you need in the place it should be found is one of the most frustrating experiences you can have. This thing *should* be right here… Yet it is not. And we feel it. Things are not what you’d expect. And that is never an easy realization.

But have you ever found something wonderful and life-giving in places where you didn’t think you should be able to find it? Have you ever received the blessing of being surprised with the very thing you needed even if you weren’t looking for it? Have you ever taken a bite of food and been overwhelmed by the flavors that you had no idea were present there? Have you ever opened the envelope of last years’ birthday card to find $20 that had been forgotten a long time ago?

The reality is that we think we know where to look to find the things we are looking for. But life is way too beautiful and chaotic to be put in these boxes. Life is too dynamic and wonder-inducing to present itself to us in a manner that never surprises or disappoint us. This is the truth about life in general, but what I’m starting today is a series of blog posts in which I look at a very specific manner in which life showed up for me in a way that I least expected. Because of my faith, I understand these unexpected moments where deeper meaning and truth shows up to be works of God who is always speaking to us. And that God doesn’t just use the methods that we expect God to use. God, the creator of all things, has created the whole of the universe to speak to us. There are universal realities of life that, when we connect with them, shout at us that God was present here.

Ok, so enough of the philosophical stuff; what am I talking about? Well, I grew up attending church and my teenage and early adult years were some of the most formative times in my faith and my view of the world. As a teenager that was part of a youth group, music always played a big role in the faith conversation. There were the concerts and youth rallies that had Christian music. I liked some of the songs. I will even now occasionally cue up a few from my itunes. But at the same time that I found some Christian music that I liked, I felt like I went to the key hook and my keys weren’t there. It seemed to me that these faith-based songs should be the place where I found the deepest, most meaningful things in life. But I didn’t. At times, it felt to be about as spiritual as a bumper sticker or a novelty t-shirt. As a good conservative Christian teen, I was seeking to find truth and meaning in Christian music while simultaneously working on shutting the door to worldly music and its influence. This non-Christian music was portrayed as a threat to me, my faith, and thru the slippery slope construct, my salvation and life.

But not only did I not find the depth and meaning that I was so desperate for in my Christian music, but I started to find truth in the one place I had been conditioned not to look; what we called secular music.

What I found in secular music was a voice that spoke the things I wish I knew how to say, but wasn’t able to. I found truth, not based upon a church doctrine, but based upon real people’s experiences; their hurts, their struggles, their joys. These songs seemed to be more about the life that I was living than my Christian ones were. I loved DC Talk’s Jesus Freak. But it never connected with me on a spiritual level that pulled at my heart, that revealed my deepest fears, that gave voice to my greatest pains and hopes. It just didn’t.

So I’m writing the blog series called “Alternative Truth” because I found life and truth in the songs on the radio. Alternative rock was big in the mid to late 1990’s and more than anything else, I connected with these alternative bands that came to popularity at the time where I was open and searching for something. The radio station Q101 out of Chicago was my lifeline to a world that I did not know but was desperate to find.

And that’s the focus for this series of posts: finding truth and meaning and life in the place I was least expecting to find it. And I’ll do that by sharing and discussing songs from my past that taught me something, that met me where I was, that gave me the words that I couldn’t come up with myself. If you are a child of the 1990’s you’re in for a trip down memory lane. If you’re older than that, you may have to get past “that noise” to hear the truths. If you’re younger than this, you’re about to get exposed to a wide variety of music that influenced the artists of today. So here we go with some “Alternative Truths.”

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GONE AWAY

Because it took me so long and so many words to introduce what I”m doing here the first song I’m sharing is going to very straightforward and a bit obvious. It won’t take any unpacking to see the connection. And I guess that’s kind of my point in all this. There are truths and experiences right in front of us that can bring us encouragement, solidarity, joy, hope, etc, but we miss them because we expect it to come in a different package.

My Dad died of a heart attack when I was a sophomore in high school. We were close. He was my hero and I wanted to be just like him. But more than that, he gave me and my family our sense of stability and peace. He was the one who met the storms of life head on for us. And then he was gone. The stuff on the Christian radio stations and from the youth group concerts meant well, but they did little but scratch the surface of what I was experiencing. Then one day, I heard today’s featured song. And it grabbed me. It broke through all the noise in my head. It had my undivided attention. But more than anything it felt like it was saying something that I just couldn’t bring myself to say out loud. But I could lock myself in my room, put this CD in my Discman and pour myself into this song with the all the emotion and pain that was communicated by the lead singer and the lyrics. There’s some angst and unresolved anger bubbling beneath the surface too. And that was exactly what I was feeling. A mess of pain, loss, anger, confusion, desperation, but without the vocabulary to express it.

The song is Gone Away by The Offspring. The Offspring wasn’t known for its depth of thought or emotional development. They were punk, and on more than one occasion, a bit inappropriate. But this song met me at this moment. It let me feel the things that I was feeling and didn’t try to rush me to a place where I thought everything was ok. It acknowledged my pain. It helped me find the words to express the heaviness I felt. And so I share it today as the first example of finding Alternative Truths.

“Maybe in another life
I could find you there
Pulled away before your time
I can’t deal it’s so unfair
And it feels
And it feels like
Heaven’s so far away”

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