Vienna Teng - Lullabye for a Stormy Night

*Note: We're now on Day 3 of trying to publish this baby. Getting back in the swing of posting things may be more difficult than I'd originally anticipated.

I'm trying to re-establish the habit of blogging, since I know how frustrated I have been when I haven't know what's been going on in the lives of those I love. No excuses for my negligence of late, 'cept that I'm a creature of habit and I fell out of the habit while we were in Utah.

Anyway, one of the things I love more than anything is sharing my taste in music (as, I expect, do many people), and I decided that a way to help myself structure my posts would be to share tunes and lyrics I find particularly meaningful. I've got a long and growing list of things to share this way, but I think I'll start with doing it once a week. We'll see how this goes.

So! First up, of course, is Vienna Teng's "Lullabye for a Stormy Night." Here's a YouTube vid someone put up, using footage from Bambi (blast from the past!). Mainly chose it because the audio quality was good, not because I'm a particular fan of Bambi. (Also because most of the other vids were CHEESY. C'mon, really? This song overlaid on clips from Titanic? Schm-ALT-zy!)



Lyrics as follows:
Little child, be not afraid
The rain pounds harsh against the glass
Like an unwanted stranger
There is no danger
I am here tonight

Little child
Be not afraid
Though thunder explodes
And lightning flash
Illuminates your tearstained face
I am here tonight

And someday you'll know
That nature is so
This same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
And forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you see
In the morning

Little child
Be not afraid
The storm clouds mask your beloved moon
And its candlelight beams
Still keep pleasant dreams
I am here tonight

Little child
Be not afraid
The wind makes creatures of our trees
And the branches to hands
They're not real, understand
And I am here tonight

And someday you'll know
That nature is so
This same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
And forest and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you see
In the morning

For you know, once even I
Was a little child
And I was afraid
But a gentle someone always came
To dry all my tears
Trade sweet sleep for fears
And to give a kiss goodnight

Well, now I am grown
And these years have shown
Rain's a part of how life goes
But it's dark and it's late
So I'll hold you and wait
'til your frightened eyes do close

And I hope that you'll know
That nature is so
This same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
And forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you see
In the morning

Everything's fine in the morning
The rain will be gone in the morning
But I'll still be here in the morning

So, why do I like this song so much? I definitely love that it's so melodic -- that's one of my favorite things about VT overall -- but I think most of it has to do with the overall arc of the song. I really appreciate the image of comfort represented by the narrator, as well as the idea of things which may seem scary being necessary for us to have beauty, etc. My favorite stanza is this one:
Well, now I am grown/And these years have shown/Rain's a part of how life goes/But it's dark and it's late/So I'll hold you and wait/'til your frightened eyes do close

I think I love it because of the idea that even if there's no need to fear--even if we're being counseled by an older and wiser someone that it'll all be okay--it recognizes that sometimes all of that is meaningless and what we *really* need is someone who will understand (and not belittle) our fears, and just hold us until we can come to grips with whatever it is we're fearing in our own time.

Of course, as a Christian I'm supposed to know that none of this is particularly NEW, right? I mean, there's the whole Romans 8:28 thing ("And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose"), and I can't even count the number of times pastors have tried to drive home the point that periods of darkness and pain are God's way of helping us grow. (That takes care of the 'purpose for pain' aspect of the song.) Then there's the "in God you will find peace" thing, which takes care of the 'comfort' aspect of the song. Right?

That said, I don't know about you guys, but I've never derived much utility from either of those arguments, despite rather frequently seeing, in retrospect, how I have grown or changed or improved as a result of crises that, at the time, shook my life or my faith.... While I imagine knowing that your suffering has a grand or ultimate purpose may be comforting in some instances (thinking here of our servicemen and -women), I don't find that to be the case for me. Why?

Probably because the explicit message of these well-meaning preachers is "You're not good enough." Well, you might say, so what? None of us are, right? I mean, that's the entire reason we *need* Jesus according to Christian doctrine. (Romans 3:23-4, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.") Well, in my experience, that is just a spectacularly unhelpful thing to hear.

When your self-image contains a particularly strong ingredient of "you'll never measure up," I don't think that verse really helps much, because there are really two options:

a) If paired with the "God is purifying you!" argument, you are suffering/being tormented (or *being allowed* to suffer/be tormented) for the purpose of being refined/purified/improved...and yet no matter how much you suffer (and, in turn, "improve") you'll still never be good enough. So, really, your pain is for naught.

b) If the purification argument isn't tossed in, the message you get is "Sure, *you* are 'less than', and you'll never measure up, but neither will anyone else!"...and that's cold comfort. *I* am not particularly made to be feel better by knowing that no one else is good enough either, since my sense of failure derives not from comparing myself to others but from comparing myself to my ideal. So you all fail too? Whoop-dee-doo.

Of course, the take-home message here is that this is where we're supposed to turn to God, and find in Him the rest and peace and everything that's supposed to soothe our troubled souls. Right? Right. And yet that's practically never been the case for me--and that makes it particularly infuriating when people speak/sing of it so blithely, as though it's *so easy* to receive God's peace.

In many cases, I have found that the Christianspeak that pervades popular Christian culture is a significant barrier to actually *experiencing* God. Dunno if it's because I wind up looking to feel/experience Him in a very certain/specific way, or if I just can't identify with the language being used, or what. All I know is that it's one of the reasons I particularly dislike hearing people speak about these sorts of things in any public setting or in front of an audience: there is a strong tendency to fall back on platitudes and meaningless phrases that serve little purpose beyond establishing or confirming their Christian bona fides to the people who are listening to them, and those often come at the expense of presenting a genuine, naked picture of the struggles they've experienced and the fact that sometimes *it's just not that easy*.

...which, perhaps, is why I love hearing the message here, in an utterly secular context. There's none of the Christianspeak to get in the way, there's none of the sense that in addition to being a failure as a person, I'm *also* a failure as a Christian because I don't experience my faith and my God the way everyone else *claims* to. There's just an articulation of the hope that there is a purpose for things that may frighten me now, and an assurance that in the meantime I will be comforted and protected.