A Burning Lot
A year ago today, I released my first album-- an EP entitled A Burning Lot. The project, produced, recorded and engineered by Chris Leonard at East Nashville's Iconoclast Recording Co., was the result of five years' worth of wading achingly through depression, observing relationships in despair, rediscovering how to write a song, and finding both joy and muscle in the music and creative process.
I think it's a good thing when someone looks at a lyric or an abstract concept and says, "What does that mean?" Sometimes I'll write a verse about which not even I, myself, know what I mean, only to discover the answer later through some life experience that comes unexpectedly. This gives me strength as a writer and lets me know that I may possibly be a keen observer of life, after all. One day in the studio that spring, Chris (aka Nard) asked this question of the lyric "I torch the sin and so it rises/ The fragrance of a burning lot." I believe his words were something like, "What's 'a burning lot?' Is it like one's lot in life?"
That little word "lot" has variations of meaning. We use the term a lot, I mean... often. It is commonly used to mean "much of" something, but it is actually that very something which we possess or which we are apportioned whether we have much of it or not. You may own your lot of land and may be handed your lot in life (your destiny, once revealed by the casting of lots). I allow for interpretive license here.
Essentially, the lyric (and the album) is about sacrifice. As I listened more and more through each song, what surprised me was that, even though the songs were each written at a different time of my life, sometimes years apart, this common theme ran throughout. Sacrifices had been made by either giving up what I had once held or by losing or missing someone or something.
Images of sacrifice are woven all throughout Scripture. Old Testament law prescribes burnt offerings to atone for sins: "It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord" (Lev. 1:9b ff). In Romans, Paul tells us to be "living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God (12:1)," and then in Ephesians he goes a step further and says to "live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (5:2). I like the images and the idea that the burning of something can be fragrant; that something pleasing can come from something as awful as smoke or as destructive as fire; that pain and loss can become something beautiful, and that there is atonement and redemption for sin. As the last line of the song verse says, "I know a love come to save us/ And so I give you all I've got." By giving it up, we are better able to give. And by this love, we hope.
That little word "lot" has variations of meaning. We use the term a lot, I mean... often. It is commonly used to mean "much of" something, but it is actually that very something which we possess or which we are apportioned whether we have much of it or not. You may own your lot of land and may be handed your lot in life (your destiny, once revealed by the casting of lots). I allow for interpretive license here.
Essentially, the lyric (and the album) is about sacrifice. As I listened more and more through each song, what surprised me was that, even though the songs were each written at a different time of my life, sometimes years apart, this common theme ran throughout. Sacrifices had been made by either giving up what I had once held or by losing or missing someone or something.
Images of sacrifice are woven all throughout Scripture. Old Testament law prescribes burnt offerings to atone for sins: "It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord" (Lev. 1:9b ff). In Romans, Paul tells us to be "living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God (12:1)," and then in Ephesians he goes a step further and says to "live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (5:2). I like the images and the idea that the burning of something can be fragrant; that something pleasing can come from something as awful as smoke or as destructive as fire; that pain and loss can become something beautiful, and that there is atonement and redemption for sin. As the last line of the song verse says, "I know a love come to save us/ And so I give you all I've got." By giving it up, we are better able to give. And by this love, we hope.
*You may find and read all the lyrics from the album here.*
Album artwork (c) 2010 by Sara Beth Merz
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