All posts in CMY(K): Letters From M

CMY(K): Diseases That Have Cures (“M” Track 5), Letter to an Affected Sister

Most of the songs that make up the CMY(K) project are written for and about friends. I am posting the letters I’ve written to these friends letting them know about their song.  Below is the letter I wrote to a friend for whom i wrote the song “Diseases That Have Cures,” which appears on the EP entitled “M.”

 

I wrote the song “Diseases That Have Cures” with you in mind. Below is a letter explaining a bit more of why. Also below are the letter are the lyrics to the song.

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Your heart breaks for the brokenness of things. You are one of those few who truly are moved by the stories on the evening news. Unlike many us who have grown accustomed to bad news, you sincerely expect that things ought to be better than they are. This expectation in you is valuable and true, thought it is often deeply disappointed; it is hope in you pressing against despair in your world. Don’t give it up. Neither should you give up your softness and sensitivity; they are not symptoms of weakness. They are part of the strength in you that shares in the suffering of others.

In our conversations, it seems that the thing that affects you most is feeling the shadow of God looming over the tragedies you are moved by. You have trusted God and come to know Him as both Sovereign and Good. This has left you torn between what you have known of God and what you have have seen in His world

When hunger takes a life, why does He not act?
When a child is sold for sex, is she not His child?

This tension doesn’t arise from a fault in your theology or your faith. Our tradition is filled with faithful women and men who struggled throughout their lives to hold the goodness of God in one hand and the darkness of things in the other. Few of these saints discovered or offered a cognitive, philosophical pathway out of that tension. Similarly, I can’t offer you a cognitive pathway out of your tension; I can share that tension with you. I can also suggest something I’ve learned from the lives of those saints as well as my own experience; That, even should you and I find a cognitive pathway or a satisfactory philosophical theory by which to explain suffering in the world, the pain in our hearts as well as the pain in those who directly suffer, would yet remain untouched.

Fred Friendly is noted to have said “The role of the newsman is to create a pain in the viewer’s mind that can only be relieved by thinking.” I firmly believe that the pain you experience at looking on the brokenness of the world can only be relieved in sacrificial action. The only ‘relief’ I’ve ever experienced in the shadow of violence, hunger and tragedy,.. the only reasonable response I’ve found has been to bear whatever degree of the world’s pain I can responsibly bear. You have chosen this way yourself; You have committed hours and resources to care for trafficking victims. You have worked to educate and inspire others so that they do not invest in a system of exploitation. You and your husband sponsor kids with Compassion… You have chosen to give of yourself… You have chosen the Way of the Cross. And though it seems like foolishness to some, those of us who have lived in this way know that it has power to change lives.

In the Scriptures, even when pressed by Job, God never gives a philosophically satisfactory answer to the ‘problem of evil;’ He does not wrap up the issue in an understandable and graspable package. Instead, and many years later through Christ, God offers the only response I’ve ever found to be satisfying on any level; the sacrificial action of the Cross. Certainly, there are philosophical implications to the Cross of Christ but they are peripheral to the act itself. It seems to me me that the pain in you is not so much a matter of philosophical crisis as it is a call to to suffer with those who suffer and to do so redemptively. I believe the philosophical crisis is real, but I believe the latter is more vital. Both offer a path a path of suffering: you will either suffer internally because you cannot make sense of the world and it’s Creator, or you will suffer in a way that brings healing. You have chosen the latter path. I believe you’ve chosen well.

I’m not suggesting, nor would I ever, that such horrors as sex-slavery are instruments in the hand of God and therefore justifiable. I sincerely don’t have a convenient theological category for such things. All I know is that, even should we somehow “make sense” of the darkness or “understand” it, the pain in us (not to mention the pain in those who directly suffer from hunger, oppression, slavery etc..) remains untouched until we act. You have chosen to act despite your confusion. I think that’s wisdom.

A couple added thoughts:

Pain is not a concept.. It is real. It seems sensible to me, then that our response to real pain must be real rather than conceptual.

It is, in many ways, a luxury of the well-off to philosophize and theorize about suffering; it’s meaning and place in the world.

 

Diseases That Have Cures from Justin McRoberts on Vimeo.

I wrote a letter to you, Lord
Not unlike the one You sent to me
Not to explain myself or anything I think
Just to tell you what I see

Which brings us to where we are now
Where I don’t know how to begin
You won’t explain Yourself to satisfy my mind
And I simply won’t give in.

They say Your love is great
But maybe they should wait
Until it’s their child dying of diseases that have cures

They say you’re faithful like the sun
I watch it rise most every day
But if I stand here still and wait here long enough
The sun will also go away

All you’ll say is…

You say your love is great
With Your body broken, Your spirit faint
For a world turned over and laid to waste
While your people treat each other like it’s some damned game
Cuz they’re all Your children aren’t they?
Yeah, they are all your children anyway
Yeah, they are Your kids dying of diseases that have cures

470 days ago 9

CMY(K): Heaven Knows (“M”, Track 1) Letter To A ‘Stuck’ Brother

Most of the songs that make up the CMY(K) project are written for and about friends, each of whom has or will receive letters about the songs. I’m posting a few of those letters here.  ”Heaven Knows″ is written for a young brother I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for years and seen wrestle with the authenticity of his faith.  This is the letter I wrote to him about the song:


Brother,
I wrote the song “Heaven Knows” for and about you.

You deeply desire to know and speak Truth. Your feet search for firm ground to stand on. You’d rather say nothing at all than echo the insane speculations of overconfident, arrogant and uninformed religion you remember from your past.  These things are honorable in you and worthy of celebration.  They are also evidence of a Divine work in you. The hard part of that work has been that it has meant years of restlessness and an inability at times to act with confidence.

You’ve engaged in many great conversations, read many insightful texts. Yet, more recently, the words of others have begun to fall short of your heart: you’ve not been moved and comforted by the same conversations and ideas you had been moved and comforted by previously.  I believe that this because it is your heart that needs to speak rather than be spoken to.  The time has come to act on what you do know rather than wait for further instruction, the next revelation or some deeper insight.

Until now, you have been full of words but few to none of them have been yours much less God’s. You have had little to no internal room for your own words because of the cacophony of voices swirling in you. Even the words you did speak were often arrangements of words you received from parents, your past or your former religion. But the time has come for you to speak your own words and to do so in confidence. You’ve come to know that the ground is there to stand upon and that the Truth is not as evasive as it once appeared.

You are not being asked to name anything. The time for conclusions and ‘naming’ has past (and another season like it is yet to come). For now, you are simply being asked to bear witness to what you have seen and let everything else be everything else. You are being asked to act according to what you know is True, regardless of the incompleteness of that knowledge.  Just as Phillip was bid by the Spirit of the Lord to “Go South” with no further explanation, you have your own “Go South” to obey.

So, I wanted to give you a way to see and remember that work begun in you is real and that it will be brought to completion; a way to see remember that your circumstances, present or past do not direct your path;  Your circumstances are not concrete; they are malleable.  The thing, moreso than any other that you are being asked to bear witness to, the thing that must direct your course of action henceforth is your identity in the Father, who calls you “son.”

Thomas Merton writes “God is not a ‘what,’ not a thing …there is no ‘what’ that can be called God. There is ‘no such thing’ as God because God is neither a ‘what’ or a ‘thing’ but pure ‘Who.’ He is the ‘Thou’ before whom our inmost ‘I’ springs into awareness. He is the I AM before whom, with our most personal and inalienable voice, we echo ‘I am.’”

You are not stuck. You are not paralyzed. Not anymore. You have come to a moment you do not recognize; one that you were not prepared for. It is a pure moment… a moment without further breakthrough… no more revelation.. no deeper enlightenment.. You know everything you need to know. This moment is not about deeper knowledge, it is about the choice to act on the knowledge you’ve been mercifully granted; that you are a son of God.

Justin

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You can pick up the EP at iTunes.
It is also available at my web store. 
For more on the whole CMY(K) project, visit the CMYK info page.

Heaven Knows

You have asked me to feed them
With my blood and my bones
But my body is burdened with concerns of my own

Heaven knows that I want to
I want to but I just can’t

You have asked me to follow
To believe and obey
But the very thought of it is what keeps me away

Heaven knows that I want to
I want to but I just can’t

“Do you want to get well?”
It always seemed like the strangest thing to ask a man

 

 

590 days ago /  Tagged: , , , , 9

CMY(K): 33 (“M”, Track 3) A Letter To My Dad

Many of the songs that make up the CMY(K) project are written for and about friends, each of whom has or will receive letters about the songs. I’m posting a few of those letters here.  ”33″ is written for my Dad, Jonathan Walter McRoberts, who ended his life on May 6, 1998.  This is the letter I wrote to him about the song:

You were thirty three years old when I was born. You were only fifty five when you decided the cards you had been dealt could not be played out and chose to end your life. I think of you often. You fool. I wish you were here.

Nine years after you left, on the morning I turned thirty three, I woke at 6:00am, put on a pair of your old running shoes and your favorite jogging shirt. I drove to the foot of Mt. Diablo, parked at the end of the Mitchell Canyon trail and ran up the valley where you and I most often ran together. Two miles into that valley is the place where your friends, along with Mom and I, scattered your ashes. I ran past that place and proceeded up the switch-backs, out of the valley toward Deer Flat. Deer Flat was as far as you and I ever ran together; It’s about four miles from the trailhead, every inch of it up-hill. I did not stop at Deer Flat this time. Though my lungs burned and my legs ached, I ran the entire 7 miles and over 1700 ft. of ascent to stand at the peak of the mountain. You never stood at the top of the mountain,save once when you came to pick me up the first time I peaked Diablo. That day I had done it in an act of youthful energy. But this time, on the morning of my thirty-third birthday, I did it to say something to myself and to you:

I am stronger than you were.

I know that now. I was afraid for many years that might not ever be true; You were a man of great strength during your short life. Yet, despite your strength you were broken down by the weight of the Market’s standard of success.  I have had that same yoke placed on me and had feared that I would not be strong enough to cast it off. I am. You fool. I wish you were here to see it.

So much has changed so fast since that New Year’s morning. Things have come about that I had not seen. I have a son now. His name is Asa Jonathan, his middle name is a tribute to you. His first name means “healer.”  His presence in my life is a daily reminder that the sickness your broken culture and fractured mother passed on to you ends with me.  Many times since his birth I’ve been struck by the realization that you didn’t see this day coming. He is your grandson. He will never know you. You fool. I wish you were here.

I don’t intend for this to sound harsh and I am not writing you out of anger or pride.  I’m supposed to have grace for you and I do. I always have and so did everyone in your life who mattered. I think that is perhaps the most tragic part of your foolish act: it didn’t matter to you that there was an abundance of grace available to you. You had judged yourself and had your verdict.  What you didn’t count on is that, in doing so, you judged me as well.  Just as you could not measure up to your own expectations, much less the expectations of your world, neither will I. None of us do, father.  But you were accepted by those of us who mattered regardless of your success and failure; you were always received in grace.  It is the knowledge that I am received in grace that saves me from your dark fate.  This grace is my strength and it will not fail. I will pass this grace on to my son and it will not fail him either. My hope is that Asa will grow in this grace and in the unbreakable strength it grants those who receive it; and that, just as is the case with you and me me, he will grow to be stronger than his father.

You can pick up the EP at iTunes.
It is also available at my web store. 
For more on the whole CMY(K) project, visit the CMYK info page.

33
At 33 I climbed the devil’s mountain in your clothes
And stood there choosing to believe what I had come to know
And reeling from the truth that I would heretofore live in
That some good thing must always die for some new good thing to begin

You were scattered at the devil’s feet; I was standing on his neck
So, I carried with me everything of yours that I had left
To say what broke you will not break me; I am stronger than you now
I am a father with no father but I will not let my grandson down.

 

 

 

593 days ago /  Tagged: , , 7
cmyksimpletrans

CMY(K): David Dark Weighs In On “M”

Just as he did with “C”, Author and friend David Dark has offered a generous and insightful overview of “M.”

“Listening to “M,” the second installment of Justin McRoberts CMY(K), I’m amazed by the way a determinedly hopeful affirmation of the always-redeeming presence of God in every aspect of everyday existence can sit alongside a derisive skewering of the easy “Praise God” talk that abides–and even sustains–everyday, human injustice. With an ear for righteous indignation, dark humor, and all the ways we pull the wool over our own eyes, Justin documents his own ambivalence and offers a lyricization of Flannery O’Connor’s adage, ‘It’s harder to believe than not to.’ ”

You can get a free single from the EP at Noisetrade
You can pick up both “C” and “M” at iTunes

598 days ago /  Tagged: , , 1