Wednesday, January 29, 2020

The Arguments We Need To Hear

... are the ones we give everyone else.

As I've toured various Catholic evangelism websites, finding no one linking to each other and with all kinds of different angles, this song by Josh Wilson came to me.


Here's the part of the lyrics that perfectly encapsulates how almost all of us interact with each other.
See I got a microphone, and I'm on the radio
But that doesn't mean I know your hopes and fears
So I can not assume, I know what to sing for you
I can only write the songs, I need to hear
I need to hear, I don't need all the answers
That questions aren't a danger to the Truth
I need to hear that what I'm doing matters
But I'm loved, for who I am, not for what I do
We all give the arguments that convince us. We tell the stories, make the cases, plead our points with the ones that matter to ourselves. It's not because we're blinkered or selfish, it's because that's how we describe the world in our heads.

We all write the songs we need to hear.

5 comments:

ligneus said...

The backing music is impressive, too bad he can't sing, and the lyrics don't make a lot of sense to me, how are questions a danger to the truth? All a bit flaky for me. Didn't know I'm a curmudgeon did you!!?

tim eisele said...

I'm with Ligneus on that "questions are a danger to the truth" line. I mean, sure, when you are writing a song and trying to make it scan, you're likely to put in some nonsense just because it rhymes and has the right number of syllables. But this statement is pretty creepy.

K T Cat said...

Josh Wilson is a Christian pop artist. My bet is that he's an evangelical, perhaps even a biblical literalist. At least that's what I surmised when I heard that line. Questions would indeed by a danger to the truth if you thought Jonah had really been swallowed by a whale.

As for his voice, it's pretty weak, but that's par for the course these days. There aren't too many Nat King Coles any more.

Going back to the lyrics, I don't mind overlooking the stuff that's not aimed at me if the rest of it hits home as that one line did. It made me think of all the arguments I've had online and with family members about all kinds of things, not just politics or religion. I wondered if most of my points had been aimed at me.

K T Cat said...

Gaaaaaahhhhh!

Now I see what you meant. The lyrics I found for the song were wrong. Honestly, I wonder if the lyrics sites hire English-as-a-second-language people for transcription. The line in question is:

Questions aren't a danger to the Truth.

Does that help?

ligneus said...

In light of that I'll re-visit the lyrics and see if I can change my mind a bit but don't hold your breath!
Reminds me a bit of this:

A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying copies, and not the original books.

So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this. He points out that if there was an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies. The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."

So, he goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours later, nobody has seen him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears sobbing coming from the back of the cellar and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying. He asks what's wrong.

"The word is celebrate." says the old monk with tears in his eyes.