Category: Heartening Companions

The rest of this series: Intro and Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5

Jon Foreman, Switchfoot and Me

Chapter 6 – The Weight of Gravity

At the age of 26, I was up to my neck in life. A husband employed in full-time ministry, three little girls – one learning to read, one learning to behave, and one learning to sleep – and a tired mind that had daily internet access for the first time. I was learning the hard way about all the negative impacts that endless information and never-ending stories could have on a sensitive heart, as well as trying to savor the life of my dreams while feeling like it might be draining the life out of me.

It was a time when music was a happy retreat, and there entered Switchfoot’s 2006 album Oh! Gravity.

The songs that got my attention the most at the time were Oh! Gravity, and Awakening. These two songs went on repeat every time we entered the car, and will forever remind me of tiny little sandaled feet bouncing against the bases of car seats as small souls immersed themselves in the thrill of music. The upbeat music lifted and carried me, forming happy memories for me and my daughters that will always make us smile.

These days I find myself drawn into the heady lyrics of some of the other songs on the album.

Faust, Midas and Myself is an intriguing contemplation of life. I was first exposed to the legend of Faust in high school, and the tragedy of it has both fascinated and haunted me ever since. The myth of Midas has a similar affect on me. This song that enters into those two stories and brings them to touch on real life always reminds me of how easy it is to seek fulfillment in all the wrong places, and to miss the gift of what’s right in front of us.

My heart beat once or twice, and life flooded my veins
Everything had changed
My lungs had found their voice
And what was once routine was now the perfect joy

Another song that captures my thoughts is Let Your Love Be Strong.

When my world explodes
When my stars touch the ground
Falling down like broken satellites

Let your love be strong and I don’t care what goes down
Let your love be strong enough to weather through the thundercloud
Fury and thunder clap like stealing the fire from your eyes
All of my world hanging on your love

Last year my world was hit with an explosion that shattered it in a million pieces. In that place of having no control and life feeling like the endless, thundering crack of violent lightning, there was nothing to do but surrender. Nothing but “all of my world hanging on your love”.

As the pieces seem to be slowly coming back together, I find myself wondering if I will ever experience that utter and complete surrender again.

Leading up to, during, and after that time of breaking I lived with a sense of not knowing which way was up. Where is home? Where do I belong? Is there anywhere that everything is okay?

As I’m slowly finding the answers to these questions in a temporal, tangible, imperfect way, I’m also finding the words from this last song to be unshakably true.

In this life you’re the one place I call home
In this life you’re the feeling I belong
In this life you’re the flower and the thorn
You’re everything that’s fair in love and war

All lyrics are in italics and written by Jonathan Foreman & Tim Foreman

The rest of this series: Intro and Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

Jon Foreman, Switchfoot and Me

Ch. 5 – The Sound of Truth

Another album. Another step forward in life. I was now chasing two little girls (one of whom had no interest in sleep.) The only thing I remember noticing initially about Switchfoot’s album Nothing is Sound was the artwork. For some reason this album cover fixed in my mind and has remained one of my favorites.

As seems to be my tendency with this band, the music from this album came around to accompany me years later. In 2009 I had three little girls to keep up with, the confusion of a global recession to process, and was amid what I look back now and see was a season of intense personal crisis. The year opened with broken health and the shock and fallout of unexpected deaths, and ended with my husband’s job layoff and the beginning of watching a long line of friends lose their homes. At the time I was just trying to survive.

The beauty of that time was smiling little faces with bright eyes and full cheeks. The chatter of little girl voices and laughter filled our home, and days of tea parties, digging in the dirt, and styling doll hair were treasures I will never cease to be thankful for. To say our daughters were the light in the dark during that time would be an understatement. The beautiful miracle of small children looked me in the face every day, and it was an unspeakable gift.

During those days, we spent lots of time in the kitchen, because baking is such a happy occupation. Because we were living the days before MP3s or streaming, a little “boombox” cd player sat on my kitchen counter. One day I turned on a random, caseless CD that I hadn’t listened to before.

That’s the first time I remember hearing Stars.

When I look at the stars
When I look at the stars
I see someone else
When I look at the stars, the stars
I feel like myself

At that time star-gazing had become one of my most peace-giving ways of passing the time. This song captured what I was finding: in the middle of a fearful wrestling with my faith, the sight of the stars could always bring things back into perspective.

I was also captured by Happy is a Yuppie Word because it articulated the view of life I was attempting to come to terms with for the first time. (And since yuppie is a very dated word, here’s a definition.)

Jon Foreman’s repeated cry that “nothing is sound” echoed the desperate realization in my own heart, while his answer to that truth matched the shaky but persistent place I stood.

I don’t believe the emptiness
I’m looking for the kingdom coming down

Finally, the song I’ve turned to the same way I would turn to a hymn. Year after year it has been a trustworthy reminder of reality, when all the darkness hovers close; offering a question that changes everything… What if the darkness is proclaiming the light?

Oh Lord, why did You forsake me?
Oh Lord, don’t be far away
Storm clouds gathering beside me
Please Lord, don’t look the other way

I’m a crooked soul trying to stay up straight
Dry eyes in the pouring rain where
The shadow proves the sunshine
The shadow proves the sunshine…

Shine on me
Let my shadows prove the sunshine

The rest of the series: Intro and Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3.

Jon Foreman, Switchfoot and Me

Ch. 4 – Upside-Down Beauty

The year was 2003.  Switchfoot was releasing the album that brought them to the forefront of mainstream attention. And I was chasing a two-year-old who we affectionately called “Forrest” because she never stopped running. In a way, Switchfoot and I were growing up together. They were growing into themselves as a band. And I was doing the same in my life. It was a time of young married life, young motherhood, and music as my constant companion since a half-hour drive lay between me and civilization any time I left the house.

I didn’t think too deeply about the songs on this album when they came out, but again the words fixed in my mind and began to form me in ways I wouldn’t realize until years later.

Dare You to Move was revisited on this album and was a huge hit. The other two big hits on this album carried some of the lines that have stuck with me and shaped my everyday thinking.

This is Your Life offers anchoring focus to a brain that likes to bounce back and forth between past and future and struggles with simply being present:

This is your life
And today is all you’ve got now
And today is all you’ll ever have
Don’t close your eyes

These words come to me again and again, particularly when I am flooded with worries about tomorrow. Echoing the words of Jesus, I sing these lines and am reminded that today is where I belong.

Meant to Live was the hit that brought Switchfoot the most attention, had all kinds of influence in the music world, and gave words to the unrest in every human heart:

We want more than this world’s got to offer…
And everything inside screams for second life.

Another song I’ve continued to go back to over the years is On Fire… a beautiful song of surrender.

When everything inside me
Looks like everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You are the only chance I’ll take

This album was such a huge success that 20 years later they have released a new recording of it, and a variety of artists have released covers of it. (This one’s my favorite). Oddly enough, the title track from the album never really crossed my radar until this time last year.

The Beautiful Letdown came into my life at a time when broken and losing hope were the mildest words I could use to describe the state I was in. Knowing Switchfoot’s own story surrounding this album, this song felt like having them enter into my pain.

It was a beautiful letdown
When I crashed and burned
When I found myself alone unknown and hurt
It was a beautiful letdown
The day I knew
That all the riches this world had to offer me
Would never do

Again they gave words to my experience, and then they offered me a direction to set my sights.

In a world full of bitter pain and bitter doubts
I was trying so hard to fit in
Until I found out
That I don’t belong here (I don’t belong)
I don’t belong here (I don’t belong)
I will carry a cross and a song where I don’t belong (I don’t belong)

Once more, these men were companions when I needed someone the most.

Over the years, one song from this album has stayed with me more than any other. The song that makes me think of growing little girls singing from the back seat, while I got lost in words that set my world right-side up by turning “normal” upside down.

Where’s your treasure, where’s your hope
If you get the world and lose your soul

Ah, the liberating gift of perspective.