On Desert Places
My experience with desert places is pretty vast, and I find CCM to be one of them.
Desert places are those periods of empty, dry, stony-hearted, spiritual drudgery. We all go through them, although that’s hardly a comfort.
Many people mistakenly conflate ‘life going well’ vs ‘life going poorly’ as the desert places, but I think that is wrong. Some of my worst desert experiences were when I was surrounded with physical comfort and material affluence. Not always, but that’s undoubtedly true, now. I’ve been in a desert place spiritually for months, yet my life is, by all other measures, full of abundance.
If I’m honest, desert places make up a large part of my Christian walk. Looking back, often I chose to be in them, because I am utterly arrogant and hugely unfaithful. Occasionally, I believe, He led me to them, and I know I deserved it. Usually, when I am in them, I can’t find my way out. (One hint, it has often required brokenness–isn’t that a happy thought!) It requires getting rid of my self-centeredness, or as so many preachers say, “coming to the end of yourself”, as if that’s such a simple thing to do.
They are bad places to be spiritually. It’s not that there is no life in them, there is. Desert places only seem empty. But, they can hurt you if you’re not careful; you can end up seared, burnt, and calloused. If I’m in them too long, I stop caring about many things I should care about. I have created a lot of ruin in my life, and others’, during those times I stopped caring.
Desert places aren’t joyful places. I’ve gotten surprisingly good at enduring them. I am sure they are there for a reason, but frankly, I would prefer the green pastures He promised to make me lie down in. Still, the Scripture does tell us He disciplines those He loves, so I can at least take comfort in that.
This morning, in the barn, I found myself singing “Day by Day” from the musical Godspell. I do not know why. It could have been a subconscious plea. I didn’t even realize that I was singing it until I stopped to ask myself “Wait, what?”
Worse, I hate that song. It is just the same verse over and over, five times in a row. That may be the point of it, something like repetition as prayer unceasing. I always wrongly thought it was from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.
I have never seen either of those two musicals. I remember the kerfuffle around them when they first came out in 1971. My parents, ever fundamentalists, thought Jesus Christ Superstar was blasphemous, or sacrilegious, and they were almost certainly right. I’m fairly sure it was written to be more about “love” and rock-and-roll and less about the gospel. I remember Billy Graham did not think much of it.
But something strange started happening in my Christian world about that same time. My parents seemed to change, evolve, really, in their Christianity. For example, at church, they were no longer Mr. and Mrs. J to the youth in the church. They could be Papa Bear and Mama Bear or some other cool name. Dad’s sideburns suddenly grew Elvis-like and Mom’s sewing, her lifelong avocation, took on new colors, patterns, and flair.
My mother’s favorite radio station was WPEL in Montrose, PA. It was a straightforward Christian station, with old, glorious hymns and plenty of fundamentalist preaching. Suddenly, there was CBN, and it was okay to listen to that. Albums from groups I’d never heard of showed up in our house. I’m sure it was brother Ron’s doing. It started with The Blackwood Brothers, The Soul Singing Rambos, Bill and Gloria Gaither, Dave Boyer, and then soon, many others. They didn’t supplement the hymns, they replaced the hymns, albeit slowly. Ralph Carmichael, a prolific Hollywood commercial music writer, switched from writing the pop, jazz and television show theme songs he was famous for and invented Contemporary Christian Music, and a host of new Christian artists were born. It was all so cross-cultural and wildly successful. It was the Christian version of the 60’s and 70’s love generation. The takeover was dramatic; Christians were successfully convinced the only way to keep the youth, or reach them, was to speak their cultural language.
I loved it at the time. Any relief from the monotony of the Christian faith, with its old-fogy music. I hate it now. I hate what it has become.
To me, it is another desert place, filled with self-centeredness and emotion. I am certain the two most popular words in the whole catalog of Contemporary Christian Music are “I” and “me.” Focusing on those two words is what has inevitably put me in yet another desert place.
My church experience over the last few decades is full of that CCM. I laugh sometimes—they flash a self-centered Christian love song up on the huge media screen, we sing thru it and alternate the fast ones with the slow ones. It’s ubiquitous in any modern Protestant or non-denominational church, and inescapable. I’ve developed two defensive habits as a result. Often, I keep count on my fingers as we sing each verse over again, until we reach four times, unless someone is feeling especially emotional, then we may add another. Or, I just disappear into my own prayer and worship, turning my face to heaven, hoping He hears my heart over the pop music. Yet, that comes at the expense of the collective worship we attend church for.
When, by chance or condescension, we sing an old hymn, my heart soars! It is like coming across a stream in the desert, and I drink it in as much as possible, trying to fill up spiritually again.
“Streams in the Desert” is the title of one of my most favored devotionals. It was collected by L.B. Cowman and published in 1925. It’s a wonderful collection and it is often a stream in the desert to me. I read others, too–Elisabeth Elliot, Charles Spurgeon, Tozer, Torrey, Chesterton, MacDonald, Packer, Muggeridge. These older, more traditional writers stand above the contemporaries and their writing takes the focus off me and puts it where it belongs, on the Scripture, on others, and on my God. They refresh me, and they lead me to better places, and greener ones.
By now, I am sure we all realize my desert problem is all just selfishness; this essay alone is filled with “me” and “I.” But, in that, I am also certain that I am not alone. The state of our faith screams the self-centeredness of it all, what it has become, what we demand it gives us. Our sacred music reflects an emotional basket case personality wrapped up in a pop music culture. It’s not only disheartening, it is suicidal. Perhaps that is a good thing. Maybe when we die to self (once again,) we may ultimately live our faith again, in green pastures and beside still waters.
I don’t know when I will come out of this desert place, but I hope it’s soon. I’m getting weary. Surely, my writing is an attempt to understand it, yet that’s not the same as defeating it. But, as Hemingway says, the sun also rises, so this morning, “Dear Lord, three things I pray: to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, follow Thee more nearly, day by day.”