7-31-22
A few years back, a mighty powerful thought came to me.
I woke up feeling lousy and didn’t particularly want to roll out of bed because a voice like a dementor from Harry Potter told me that the day promised nothing worth rising for. Then out of nowhere an angelic voice whispered, Hey, something good is going to happen today.
I jumped up (well, maybe not jumped), eager to learn what the good thing would be.
Since then, I try to remember to, as soon as I awake, tell myself that something good is going to happen. And when I look back at the end of most days, I realize something good has happened. It may simply be that the Padres beat the Dodgers, or I get an idea for a passage in a novel, or gas prices drop, but it's something.
That day when the angel first urged me to look for the good that would happen, Bob Dylan won the Nobel prize for Literature. Now, the only way the Nobel committee could have pleased me more is if they had chosen me, and not only was that not likely to happen, if it had, I would have distrusted the wisdom of the Nobel committee.
I don’t attend a lot of concerts, but I have gone to watch Bob Dylan about a dozen times, in venues small and large. The best was in Tucson when he performed all Christian songs backed up by a group of six or seven gospel singers. I returned for the second performance the next day and landed fourth row center in a rather small theater. Going public with Christian belief substantially diminished his audiences. A shame but no surprise.
For at least two reasons, I’m delighted that Mr. Dylan won the Nobel prize. One, he has done wonders for America by adapting several American art forms, our folk tradition, our topical (protest) song tradition, and the blues, and made them his own, which is what artists do best, build on what’s come before.
Also, he has given us an honest Christian voice.
During his “Christian” period, surely -- I think of it as his churchgoing period, before he probably got disillusioned by churches as many of us do -- but also before and after.
The best way to make sense out of one of his earliest hits, “Blowin’ in the Wind” is to view the wind as the Holy Spirit: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8; “And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.” Acts: 22
“All Along the Watchtower” alludes to the prophecy from Chapter 21 of the Book of Isaiah, where two watchmen on a tower see two riders approaching. One watchman, the joker, a thoughtful and observant person of our own era, expresses his frustration about living in this consumerist world where nothing seems of real value. "There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief. "There’s too much confusion/ I can’t get no relief. Businessmen they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth./ None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.” The other watchman, a kindly thief, no doubt Jesus, who described his coming return to earth as like a thief in the night, consoles the poor joker. "No reason to get excited....There are many among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate."
Yep, we can rise above all that folly, which some call existential angst.
Go here for a longer and quite deft analysis of the whole song.
One of my favorites of Mr. Dylan’s later work is “Highlands” in which he sings in accord with W.B. Yeats’ “Sailing to Byzantium”, a poem I consider strikingly Christian in its preference for pursuing the eternal over clinging to the earthly. If you haven’t read it, please do. Yeats, by the way, also won the Nobel prize for literature. You might want to augment the poem with a movie based on a fine novel that played thematically off the poem’s opening line: “That is no country for old men.”
If you are not convinced Bob Dylan deserved the Nobel prize, you might want to listen to "Blowin’ in the Wind" (here at you tube) with an open mind and heart. .
Happy forever,
Ken