Last week, my wife and I had an opportunity to get away for a few days together and leave our daughter with the grandparents. It was a brilliant time of refreshment, reflection, prayer, and reading - with very little technology to provide any “background noise.”
On our way home, Kristy put in a CD of one of our favourite albums, Death Cab for Cutie’s “Plans.” I’d forgotten how much I loved that album. When it rolled around to a song called “What Sarah Said,” I was blown away.
It’s a rather somber song with a hospital waiting room as a backdrop. On the surface, the song is a nervous reflection of someone waiting for the doctor to come out with some bad news of a loved one (maybe Sarah?) who didn’t make it through an operation or an accident of some sort.
However it takes a rather unexpected turn at the end when Ben Gibbard sings, “Love is watching someone die. . . . . So who’s gonna watch you die.”
At first, it sounds kinda sadistic, if even a bit obscure. (And if you consider other lyrics from Gibbard, you realize he may be defining love in terms of spending a lifetime with someone.) But as I drove and let those words sink in a bit, I began to think of those lyrics in the context of the great conversations I’d had with my best friend over the previous three days.
Kristy and I often talk about how much of a challenge it is to our character to be married and having kids. With every new season, we both realize how self-absorbed we are. Both marriage and parenting has decreased the space in my bloated ego for ME. Primarily as a result of my faith, I choose to come to terms with this by dying to myself in order to live the way I was created to live. Just like it sounds, it’s a difficult, painful, and messy process. And nobody knows this better than my wife. So in that way, we get to watch each other die.
Great song. Thanks for the thoughts.
Posted by: Matt Kingsley | Wednesday, 06 May 2009 at 06:02 AM
Couple Thoughts:
1) How come you never hear this part of the Gospel? There are scads of verses concerning it. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live" Example: Paul did start some Megachurches, but died for the effort.
2) Neat story: A gal in our small group has a really sweet and innocent faith. With us, she is finally building on her Grace-alone approach to life by looking into His Word. First step? In tears last week, she asked for prayer as God is showing her how selfish she was (we had discussed Matt 16:24-28 ... deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me) ... I tried to encourage her afterward with my own stories of being made into a servant ... Ps 123, Phil 2:1-11, Luke 9:23.
3) This might be the way to get rid of sin ... Rom 6:1-7 ?!?!
Great Post, Doug
Posted by: DougG | Sunday, 24 May 2009 at 02:57 PM
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Posted by: writing a dissertation | Friday, 29 May 2009 at 04:36 AM
Upon hearing the twist to the song, my thoughts went right to John and Mary, who stood before the cross and watched a man, a son, a teacher, a best friend die. The one THEY loved.
Posted by: Dave | Friday, 03 July 2009 at 06:32 PM
we do a lot of that kind of dying over here as well - and I think we love more because of it. Thanks for the post - good to think about.
Posted by: Tara | Saturday, 01 August 2009 at 12:30 PM