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I have put together the lyrics along with my “commentary” on them. Perhaps this gives some insight into the diversity of experience and thought that can combine inside of an artistic expression. The starting point was a story Jesus told:

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.”
 

I’m lost. I think I always will be.

There is a lot of theological baggage attached to the word “lost.” In Evangelical circles it is a synonym for “not saved”—someone who does not have faith in Jesus Christ. By default, everyone is “lost” until they are “saved.” But I am using the word in it’s non- theological and regular sense, the way we use it when we don’t know where we are. [An additional metaphor: A complicated or confusing plot unfolds in a book or movie. “What’s going on? I’m lost.”]

You can treat being lost in a number of ways. Ask directions. Look at a map. Use a GPS device. Keep moving around until you spot something familiar.

However, if you feel like you are never going to find your way then lost becomes a trait rather than a condition. That is the place I am at. Being lost is replaced by feeling lost. This is not necessarily a horrible thing, it just means there is a constant underlying sense of “not knowing.” For me, it means I have a continual, and obsessive, desire to find things out—a searching. I don’t see myself as someone who has answers, but rather someone who has lots of questions. It also means I get uncomfortable when everything is static.
 

I guess it’s who I am or something about me.

So, in some way I have to accept that this is a part of what makes me who I am. But it also alienates me from a large segment of organized Christianity that teaches that when we have faith, we are no longer lost (see above). They want their ideas of “being” to also include the idea of “feeling.” I don’t see it that way. I think that the “lost” part of my personality drives me in ways I wouldn’t otherwise go. There are positives and negatives to this—
 

Sometimes searching, sometimes longing,

Searching can be a good thing, longing usually is painful. I am a searcher. This is what makes me experiment, and also obsess. I have to know things, but I also realize I am not capable of knowing the answers to all the ontological questions I have. Meanings. Reasons. And this can really bother me. I want to know this Creator. I want to know God. And I do know. But then I’m not really capable of knowing, because something created cannot really comprehend the mind or hand of it’s creator. In another song I’ve written:

“Sometimes in the gray of the morning
I feel breath on my face,
Passing above me, passing right through me,
Barely perceivable as I awake.
Sometimes in the gray of the evening
Shadows are darker than I know they should be.
Silhouettes darken as if the background
Is casting some unseen light over me.”

I feel/sense this presence around me. It’s like light, dark, shadow, air are all these barely-perceivable hints that God is there. I look for symbols and metaphor in everything, and I find them. All of creation is metaphor. That is why it is so important for me in the practice of my art.
 

Wandering.
Or just ignoring the pain.

My mind loves to wander. I think my art likes to wander. Wandering brings me into contact with all these things I wouldn’t normally think of, and then I have to somehow connect them. But it also overwhelms occasionally with bouts of meaninglessness, purposelessness. When there are a thousand thoughts in my head at one time, or I am deeply focused on creating something, suddenly the thought can strike me: “But so what, you can’t really know anyway.” This kind or mild existential angst displaces all my sense of metaphor.

But this in itself is metaphor. Not being able to know means something is outside of me. There is something else there, otherwise I would be able to comprehend because I can assess my own experience and existence. Since I cannot, it means my own experience is not all-inclusive. There is something more beyond me. (A play on “The Ontological argument” for God’s existence, as first postulated by Anselm.)
 

But I know that I’ve been born again
Cause I know all these things that I’ve been

The phrase “born again” is often misunderstood. Fundamentalist Christians began to use the phrase “born again Christian” to describe themselves, and it has become attached to them exclusively: “Born again” means “fundamentalist,” and to most people it takes on negative associations of narrow-mindedness, or judgmental attitudes.

But the term, as Jesus used it, applies to everyone that follows him. He said, “No one can see God’s kingdom unless they are born again.” Everything starts over, there is a complete change in life, the same way as when someone is born. Only now, you are getting a chance to be reborn. This is a powerful way of expressing what I believe Jesus came here to do— provide a way for us to change by giving up his own physical life. Redemption doesn’t mean fixing, it means starting all over again.

I see this tangibly in my own life. I was (and still am, many times) in need of change. I have done things I am ashamed of, been things that are horribly unloving, selfish and harmful to others. I don’t like who I am, deep down I am self-centered, self-serving, greedy. The theological term for this is “sin”—all those things which we do that tear apart, that ignore responsibilities, that make us so focused on self we see neither others nor the metaphors which point to God. But I know that I have experienced a “starting over,” a rebirthing.
 

I can’t tell you how or why or when

When I was in high school, I went to a very strict, fundamentalist Baptist school. They believed that a person would get “saved” at a very specific point in time. You are born at a precise time, you are ‘born again” at a precise time. But birth is a complex process. Conception, pregnancy, labor. I didn’t come to a point in my life where one second I was following the teachings of Jesus, and the previous moment I was not. (Not doubting this may happen for some people, though.) It was a drawn out process, which coincides with the searching and wandering which is part of my nature.
I certainly can’t begin to understand how this happened. This goes back to trying to understand what I can’t understand. And the why is even more mysterious—
 

Somehow, someplace, I’ve known grace.

But it happened. I’m just not sure of all the details.

The “why” really can get to me. I am the recipient of grace. Grace is another of those theological words, but it is really a simple and beautiful idea: The Creator wants to interact with me. There is no reason why, at least that I could understand. But God is willing to show me kindness and love, and it is only because God wants to, because God is God and doesn’t really have to do anything, particularly give me any sort of kindness. But God does, and this creates a problem for me. Why me? And why not others? I am provided for, shown kindness; while others suffer or starve.

Grace has two sides. If I go to a certain place and feed poor people, I have also chosen not to go to another place and do it, and therefore people there are not fed. When God makes this choice, it is incomprehensible to us. There are lots of attempts at theological explanations for this, but it is beyond me.
Still, I can’t deny that I have known grace. I have experienced it.
 

I’ve been this way since I was small
For as long as I can recall

I’m referring here to experiencing grace. I was adopted, my young life could have been much different than it was. I think about Jesus bringing in a child to stand in front of his disciples, and telling them they needed to be like children. Children don’t have agendas or ambitions, they have dreams. They are trusting, carefree and innocent.
Using the word “small” is kind of a play on words for me. My whole life I was always small, usually the smallest in my classes at school. (But then I grew 5” and gained 30 lbs my freshman year of college.) The idea of “smallness” has always suited me as a representation for my understanding. I can’t grasp the answers to my deepest questions, because I am “so small.”
 

Every day
I’ve tried to start back to that innocence
Find my conscience
Find my heart.

This is connected to the “born again” experience. I want to be a child again, in all the good ways. I want to be trusting. I want to have not done the things I am ashamed of. I want to be carefree. I want to have simple questions with simple answers. I want my innocence back.

In a way, these things happen. Imagine being able to relive your childhood, but with a mature understanding and your life-experience. You could do all those wonderful, carefree things, but avoid the mistakes. In a way, this is the place to which being born again brings me. I can choose to be trusting (rather than think about all the times people have screwed me up). I can choose to not do things which I will be ashamed of later. I can choose to be carefree (because I am experiencing grace). I can live with my difficult questions, because at some future point I will be able to understand the answers.

Strangely, being born again allows me the freedom to make choices about who I want to be. I am, in a way, able to pick and choose my own “inherited traits” and my own “environment.”
 

But I know that I’ve been born again
Cause I know all these things that I’ve been
I can’t tell you how or why or when
Somehow someplace I’ve known grace
 

There’s this field
Without a fence
And this little lamb
Without much sense
In the flock he feels
Constrained and unknown
So off by himself
And he just feels alone.

Returning to the imagery of Jesus’ story about the lamb. The flock of sheep is wandering about. The smallest lamb doesn’t seem to know what to do. The flock wanders, but he wanders on his own. I am uncomfortable with crowds. I don’t fit it. I feel “in a box.” I don’t want to be anonymous. But on the other hand, I also feel lonely.

The beauty of this story is that it is actually not about the sheep, but about the shepherd. One of them has wandered off, and he leaves all the others in order to find the single lost lamb.
 

I’m lost
I think I always will be
Searching around
But Jesus loves me

In my own personal theology, this is the final statement. It encompasses everything else. It’s what makes things personal, transforms a belief-system into a reality of relationship, and sets the ultimate example. It gives a hint of an answer to the “why” questions I have: if love is God’s motivation, then of course it is beyond understanding. Love is unexplainable. I don’t really understand it, but all good things seem to pass from it. Jesus said that the only way you could tell if someone is truly one of his followers, is if they show love. Not if they are perfect, not if they say they are a Christian, not if they follow some set of rules about right and wrongs. But rather if they show love to one another.
 

I know that sounds strange
But after all
In the end
I’m just lonely
Longing

It is strange. It is an incredible mystery to me. In fact, the intrinsic illogic of it all highlights to me the distance between creator and creation. If it is true, and I believe that is, then I really am longing—
 

And I’m still small

And I really am at a place of unknowing. I really am small. And that makes it all the more beautiful to me.
 

But I know that I’ve been born again
Cause I know all these things that I’ve been
I can’t tell you how or why or when
Somehow someplace I’ve known grace