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.

*You may find and read all the lyrics from the album here.*

Album artwork (c) 2010 by Sara Beth Merz

Love, Value & Identity ~ Part I

One of my favorite places in Nashville is the Main Branch Library, downtown on 7th and Church. After dining outside on a recent, windy, Sunday afternoon, I stepped into the calm warmth of the library to 'find what I could find.' I had no plan except for the possibility of finding something I've never read before by C.S. Lewis (I recently finished re-reading The Four Loves). I stepped up to the catalog and wrote down a few call numbers, happy to find that one such number- 230.2- was right in front of me. What better place to start than right there! As I perused each book, each work, each colorful binder, I decided to pass on The Joyful Christian and slid from the shelf a book whose title and author both gleamed at me-- Love and Living, by Thomas Merton. I searched a few of the pages and stumbled upon this passage:

"Our conception of ourselves is bound to be profoundly affected by our conception- and our experience- of love. And our love, or our lack of it, our willingness to risk it or our determination to avoid it, will in the end be an expression of ourselves: of who we think we are, of what we want to be, of what we think we are here for."
~Thomas Merton, Love and Living


I've been through all four of these stages and am only now compelled- or perhaps able- to clearly define them and who I've learned I am because of them. Here, I'll begin with the last and briefly share them in reverse order.

In my mid-twenties I was determined to avoid love. It was the most selfish time of my life. I had no real desire to have children, nor felt the need to ever get married. Admittedly, it was wonderful, and I was carefree. I thought love was an obligation to those who chose it, and I, in my independence, had no desire to be attached to such a thing. But my heart changed forever about a month before my 25th birthday; my first niece was born. A love unlike any other affection I'd ever felt for my family or friends, and completely unlike Eros, led me to (if I may borrow an image from the Psalms) "the rock that is higher than I." This love was profound. This love swelled and breathed. This love made me think of something greater than myself. This love meant that Love is inevitable.

My willingness to risk love is trickier to define. I suppose hospitality is a risk. I've discovered that you learn who you are when you give of yourself because you learn what you are capable of, or not, your strengths as well as your weaknesses. It may energize me to express hospitality, to give joyfully- without expectation from another- but even I get worn out when I'm risking my heart only to receive little or nothing in return. The risk of love, largely, is not knowing whether you will be loved in return, or especially equally so. And there will always come a point when you have to decide whether or not risking it will be worth it.

To lack love, in particular areas, is something most of us seem to know all too well, and this, in our human view, is where we put too much emphasis on our identity. I know the pain of years lived without true intimacy. I know loneliness. I know how crippling it feels to fight, and fail, and fight some more against the lies that I'm not loved, or not loved well-enough, and that therefore I must be unlovable. God (who is Love Himself) knows love is necessary and important to our well-being-- so important, that when asked what the Lord's will is, He answers, "To look after orphans and widows." The second greatest commandment is "to love your neighbor." Because we are all in need of love, love must be shared. Love must fill us up.

Our love. The love we have, the love we give, the ways in which we are loved. These tell us the greatest truths about ourselves. Whether we realize it or not we are always seeking love. Our souls require it and demand it for our healing, our health, and our happiness. Too often we are confused into thinking we require approval when what we truly need is an acceptance that is so unconditional that we succumb not to the darkness which has crept into our being but that we raise up to the light that has always been there. We already have value. Accepting and being accepted in this way gives us the strength to believe in our own value as well as the value of the other person. Love is strongest in it's each-otherness.

I got up early this morning to drop a friend off at the airport. I came home, sat down on the living room couch, and, with my steaming caramel decaf coffee in hand, opened my Bible to a passage in Romans where I read for a bit. I prayed about all sorts of things. As it often happens on mornings like this, I soon discarded my cup of coffee, laid down, and drifted off to sleep.

I dreamt I was at my wedding, waiting in the bridal suite. My mom was there, along with three or four of my best friends, bridesmaids, of course. I wore a long, slim, perfectly white gown covered in lace from neck to toe, but sleeveless and quite elegant. I carried lilies in my arm. I should have been happy. But I was about to marry the wrong man. Everyone expected me to marry him, this perfect mystery man, and everyone was excited but me. I was in love with someone else; him not-so-perfect, but him I loved and knew I was supposed to be with, for the happiness of us both.

I awoke from this dream, this discovery, still feeling the unease of the expectations and my near mistake, and also the joy of finally acknowledging a secret truth. Knowing who holds your heart is something worth fighting for, worth altering your life for, even sometimes worth waiting for. I don't know what happened next in the dream- whether I fought for him or ended up waiting for him- but I'm certain I left it all behind for him because I couldn't imagine it any other way-- two hearts nearly lost one another, once finally found each other.

Love is a risk, whether you keep it or not. There may be fatalities. The potential reality of this is startling.

Everything worth keeping comes through dying;
Love has come, love has come for you.
~Sandra McCracken

Be soon to sight,
Your loving eyes.
Be kind, reverence, kind
Toward loving mine.

Be soft and light
As touching fair;
Be always strength
As holds me there.

Be nearer now
Than yesterday,
Be always drawing
Closer, pray-

Be always mine?
See, take my hand-
Mine always light
And loving, grand.

Be simple, noble,
Sweet reverent charm.
Be with me, be
My strong, strong arm.

Oh. Is it winter?
I forgot my hat and gloves.

Oh. Is it nothing?
I thought that it was love.

My heart is strung,
It's threaded through.

You wake up early,
And I'm awake with you.

Somewhere out along the line,
Your heart to mine
Is threaded too.

Two minutes is enough
To harness pasts needed no more
And so I take my cuff
And roll it up, to fight the lore

I'll wrestle them aground
The memories of stones that I have thrown
The hope I never found
The hearts of men I've never really known

The ways I watched and prayed
And planned and dreamed so endlessly
How I tried so hard each day
To turn a head, to make them see

But time and time again
That game, it left me in despair
Swore I'd never think the same
And I've succeeded seven year'

So this is why the past
No longer follows anywhere
For ever since the last
My heart was changed, and now you're here

I barely feel the pain
The bitterness long, long gone
Purified and plain
As day, clear and bright and strong

My heart can love enough
And more than that you see
My heart can love forever, Love,
Full and proud and tenderly.

May I touch you? No-
nor hold you with mine eye,
nor think of you at late night hour
in bed or couch where cushions lie.

May I tell you? No-
I cannot cause the day to break,
nor prevent it even so
nor stop the thoughts with which I wake.

Shall I keep them between God, myself,
and no one else to know? Yes-
Still I cannot touch you,
nor ever let my heart be known.

"Humility is simply a basic awareness of my relationship to the world and my connectedness to all its circumstances. It is the acceptance of relationships with others, not only for who they are but also for who I am. I do not interact with others to get something out of it; I make my way with all the others in my life because each of them has something important to call out of me, to support in me, to bring to fruit a vision of God in my life."
~ Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled From the Daily


According to the official quiz, my top two love languages are tied- physical affection and quality time. I often end up suppressing my physical affection with others because I'm never quite sure how they will react- some people just aren't comfortable with it, or I might seem to them like I'm coming on too strong. So usually, I will pour all of my energy into quality time and building relationships that way, one-on-one. Meeting someone for coffee, talking into the early hours of the morning, clipping coupons at the kitchen table.

When I moved to Nashville, I was surprised to find that it was a terrible adjustment. Not in the ways of missing my family and friends back home, navigating my way around a new city, starting a new job, etc. More in the way of being forced to spend time with large groups of people that I hardly, if at all, knew (mostly friends of my three roommates and new, common acquaintances). That, to me, is not quality time. I tend to become the least interesting and most shy person in the room, and that makes me very uncomfortable and very self-conscious. But I'm willing to struggle through that because I so much want to be a part of their lives.

I have had to learn that my interaction with others is not about me or my comfort or how easily I can get along with people. Thomas Merton says that we must love people as if our love is an instrument of God's work in their lives, that without it, they may not become the people that God intends for them to become, as if their life and happiness on this earth depends on it. After all, He created us for relationships. And so, I have to overcome my introverted self. Investing in others, as difficult as it can sometimes be for me, has taught me more about myself in the past month and a half than I have learned in a very long time. These wonderful people have somehow shown me who I've been and who I have the potential to be.