Lark

An odd introduction to a band back sometime last year. I might not have noticed them or decided I like them otherwise, something was played in class, I scrawled the artist name in my notebook and remembered it months later. David Crowder Band. Their stuff's a bit unusual. Some of it I actually don't like too much, but the majority of it grows on you and becomes excellent to the point of, "I'm insanely curious to hear more of it". There is a song title at the end of the Beautiful Collision CD that refers to a poem by George Meredith, below is a shortened version, you can click here for the full.

A Lark Ascending He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound, Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake. For singing till his heaven fills, ‘Tis love of earth that he instils, And ever winging up and up, Our valley is his golden cup And he the wine which overflows to lift us with him as he goes. Till lost on his aerial rings In light, and then the fancy sings.

"There's sky and there's ground and somewhere in between we live." - David Crowder There is an explanation I found about the secondary title of the CD, (3+4=7):

"You see, when these two symbols, 3 and 4, are inserted into a mathematical proposition of addition, the sum of them is 7. This numerical representation has the obvious implications of quantity or amount or measure but it also is a signifier of perfection. It, as a symbol, is symbolic of ‘numerical value’ but also of ‘good.’ It has biblical signification, one of my favorites being 7 days to create the earth, the seventh day for rest. We have culturally set aside the seventh day of the week for our corporate worship. The number 3 holds similar significance, it being symbolic of the divine; the three in one, while 4 has often been figurative of humanity. It is the collision of the two, divinity and depravity, that meet in the number 7. I believe art aspires to this. When it happens it is a moment of the divine stepping into our human experience. It is our ascending. It is his descending. It is a collision of the earthly with the heavenly. It is what often happens in moments of the corporate worship experience that in some mysterious way seems to transcend our common everyday experience. It is the divine and the depraved interacting and it seems our feet lift from the ground for a second. We rise from our condition. When our depravity meets his divinity it is a beautiful collision.' - David Crowder

The lark is an interesting picture of who it is to be born of God and that brilliantly sharp point of living worship or if you'd like to call it such, living life. I sincerely doubt we live up to this reaching, this focus upon God. Here's where the 'depravity' part fits in. It is something I am far too familiar with. It invites disappointment despite it being fudamentally easier. It is far simpler to just go about daily tasks, be they study, social, work or even church. None of it has to mean anything. We slide beautifully into autopilot. God is there but God does not mean a whole lot. We talk at God, but not with God. We talk about all manner of things theological and entirely miss the God behind it. We find relationships as crucial and love as the centre of life and sideline the creator, the instigator and the model of perfection in this area. It is what counts. The trinitarian God I think really wants us in the centre of this threefold paradox. Love. They say, "Love from the centre of your being." Taking the lesson from Meredith's lark; His voice the outlet, there to live Renew’d in endless notes of glee, So thirsty of his voice is he, For all to hear and all to know That he is joy, awake, aglow, The tumult of the heart to hear. We could all use a little renewal sometimes. A little shove, a reminder on who God is and who we are and just how amazed we should be that he even bothered with us in the first place and in this amazement make a priority shift back to the Creator.