Day 23: Back into Blue

Have you noticed that things don't tend to go the way we think they will? Even good things, as they play out in real time, take twists and turns we don't see coming. I'm thinking about that this morning, the word "mystery" echoing over and over in my mind. The reality of our relationship with God is that much of it is a mystery. We're not entirely sure how things work, but we do our best. And I think this is mirrored in our human relationships (despite our odd conviction that with enough psychoanalysis/contemplation of our inner child/comparison of our Myers-Briggs types and sun signs we can figure out what makes things tick). Mystery is everywhere, and we're never sure what's coming next.

One of my favorite songs ever is Ryanhood's BACK INTO BLUE. When I emailed the guys, asking about the behind the scenes stuff on their album, this was one of the songs I was most curious about, because if you know them at all, the song is a little curious. When I first heard it, I was pretty sure this was a love song by Ryan, for his wife Abby. But it's sung by...Cameron.

Here's what Ryan told me about what went into getting that song on the album:

"This is a love song for Abby. Three weeks after getting married, Cameron and I went away on what was then our longest tour. It was really hard for our fledgling relationship. So lyrically, it's about having to be apart from someone you love, and longing to be together. A prominent radio music director heard a demo of this song, and LOVED it. He couldn't wait to for us to record a proper version of it so he could start spinning it. However, when we began the recording process, our record producer felt differently, and he clearly did not care for the song. At some point along the way he learned it was written for my wife, so he felt like he had to record it so as not to offend me. We had the strange hurdle of recording a song with someone who made it fairly clear that he wasn't into it. Ultimately, this led to the song being re-written about 15 times in an effort to gain his approval. We changed the melody about a dozen times. We wrote a bridge. We changed the key. And then changed it back. We even went back and forth on which one of us should sing the lead on it. At one point during this re-writing process, I felt so frustrated that I requested we scrap the song altogether. It was frustrating that a simple, beautiful little love song to my wife would be made into such an ordeal. Like coming home with flowers, but getting into a fight at the front door before you could even hand them over. But eventually, the flowers did reach their intended recipient, which is you, and everyone else who hears it. And amazingly, when I hear it, it sounds like the essence and fragrance is still there."

Intense stuff. How often does that happen in life--the road that looks so straight & easy turns out be riddled with potholes and roadblocks we never saw coming, tempting us to give up? (While meanwhile, something we spent hours stressing and fretting about goes off without a hitch...)

Today's chapter in Luke is filled with these potholes. Jesus' followers thought he was going to be a reigning king to save them, and instead he starts spouting off all this weird stuff about the coming end of the world. I would have been a disaster if I'd been with Jesus when this happened. I like my spiritual leaders upbeat & optimistic. But now, thousands of years later, we have the benefit of knowing the whole story: that this road has quite a few twists & turns left, but where it ends up is well worth hanging in there to ride it out.

Today, let's not give up. On our song, our prayers, our hope. A special note for those of you praying for husbands: listen to BACK INTO BLUE, and ask God to help you recognize when the man he sends loves you like that (and not to settle for anything less!)

And as a spiritual exercise, drop a note in the comments section, writing "I'm not giving up!"
I have a friend who always says, "Maybe tomorrow I'll give up. I leave myself that option. But not today..."