Dream a Little Dream
Illustration
Stories
(This particular installment of StoryShare is adapted from a review of “Seven Psalms” that I wrote for Messenger, our denominational magazine.)
During the night, Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” (v. 9)
It all began with a dream.
Singer/songwriter Paul Simon, who has shaped our lives over the past sixty years with songs such as “The Sound of Silence,” “Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” and “The Boy in the Bubble,” woke up one night a couple years ago from a dream where he learned he would write an album titled “Seven Psalms.” Simon drew upon his Jewish background from Queens, as well as his love for music, baseball, and poetry to craft lyrics that explore the wisdom, peace, and fears that come with age.
Though Psalms refers to the songs of the Hebrew Bible, but the word comes from the Greek “psalmos” which refers to a stringed musical instrument, making it especially appropriate for this largely acoustic not-quite-solo album. Simon plays various guitars, bells, drums, and harmonica, joined occasionally by his spouse Edie Brickell and others in backing vocals and instruments.
The seven psalms are seven separate movements of one continuous 32-minute song. The first movement, “The Lord,” is the most psalm-like of the set. It opens with the evocative line, “I’ve been thinking about the great migration,” grounding the song in that historical moment when African-Americans migrated north seeking jobs and escape from Jim Crow. From there he describes an ultimately unknowable God.
The Lord, we learn, is both “a virgin forest” and “a forest ranger,” a tenuous “face in the atmosphere,” but also the Covid virus. I especially enjoyed the couplet:
The Lord is a meal for the poorest of the poor
A welcome door to the stranger.
Just as the themes of biblical psalms are repeated, revisited, and reassessed throughout the cycle, “The Lord” is repeated twice more in the body of “Seven Psalms.”
In “Love is Like a Braid” he draws, I think, upon the three-fold cord of Ecclesiastes 4:12 to suggest love and devastating sorrow are necessarily intertwined with joy. The arch “My Professional Opinion” strives for objectivity but concludes:
All that really matters
Is the one who became us
Anointed and gamed us
With His opinions.
The theme of doubt, and the inability to resolve the sins of youth are intertwined in “Your Forgiveness.” The spare poetry of “Trail of Volcanoes” laments the brief window for receiving and granting that forgiveness, summarizing”
The pity is
The damage that’s done
Leaves so little time
For amends.
Simon struggles with life’s unresolved actions and omissions sharing the Confiteor’s admission of what we have done and what we have failed to do underly “The Sacred Harp.” The title is a direct reference to both David’s Psalms and a classic shaped-note hymnal. Simon recalls an incident when he and a companion offered a ride to a mother and her possibly autistic son, self-described
…refugees of sorts
From my home town
They don’t like different there
They would have mowed us down.
Unresolved but revisited, what little resolution that’s experienced is expressed with “The thought that God turns music into bliss… ”.
Finally, the poet addresses some unseen visitor (the Angel of Death?) with:
Wait.
I’m not ready
I’m just packing my gear
Wait
My hand’s steady
My mind is still clear.
Yet even in doubt Simon concludes:
Heaven is beautiful
It’s almost like home
Children! Get ready
It’s time to come home”.
In an era when some self-appointed Christians claim to speak for an angry, judgmental, hate-filled God it’s comforting to hear from an old friend (“Old Friends,” another old Paul Simon song) who doesn’t claim to have all the answers but who’s asking the same questions we’re all posing.
Have you ever had a dream so compelling you felt like you had to act on it? What happened? Paul had a compelling dream, and when he answered the plea of the man from Macedonia he met a woman named Lydia in the city of Philippi, which led to God’s will being done in surprising ways.
During the night, Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” (v. 9)
It all began with a dream.
Singer/songwriter Paul Simon, who has shaped our lives over the past sixty years with songs such as “The Sound of Silence,” “Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” and “The Boy in the Bubble,” woke up one night a couple years ago from a dream where he learned he would write an album titled “Seven Psalms.” Simon drew upon his Jewish background from Queens, as well as his love for music, baseball, and poetry to craft lyrics that explore the wisdom, peace, and fears that come with age.
Though Psalms refers to the songs of the Hebrew Bible, but the word comes from the Greek “psalmos” which refers to a stringed musical instrument, making it especially appropriate for this largely acoustic not-quite-solo album. Simon plays various guitars, bells, drums, and harmonica, joined occasionally by his spouse Edie Brickell and others in backing vocals and instruments.
The seven psalms are seven separate movements of one continuous 32-minute song. The first movement, “The Lord,” is the most psalm-like of the set. It opens with the evocative line, “I’ve been thinking about the great migration,” grounding the song in that historical moment when African-Americans migrated north seeking jobs and escape from Jim Crow. From there he describes an ultimately unknowable God.
The Lord, we learn, is both “a virgin forest” and “a forest ranger,” a tenuous “face in the atmosphere,” but also the Covid virus. I especially enjoyed the couplet:
The Lord is a meal for the poorest of the poor
A welcome door to the stranger.
Just as the themes of biblical psalms are repeated, revisited, and reassessed throughout the cycle, “The Lord” is repeated twice more in the body of “Seven Psalms.”
In “Love is Like a Braid” he draws, I think, upon the three-fold cord of Ecclesiastes 4:12 to suggest love and devastating sorrow are necessarily intertwined with joy. The arch “My Professional Opinion” strives for objectivity but concludes:
All that really matters
Is the one who became us
Anointed and gamed us
With His opinions.
The theme of doubt, and the inability to resolve the sins of youth are intertwined in “Your Forgiveness.” The spare poetry of “Trail of Volcanoes” laments the brief window for receiving and granting that forgiveness, summarizing”
The pity is
The damage that’s done
Leaves so little time
For amends.
Simon struggles with life’s unresolved actions and omissions sharing the Confiteor’s admission of what we have done and what we have failed to do underly “The Sacred Harp.” The title is a direct reference to both David’s Psalms and a classic shaped-note hymnal. Simon recalls an incident when he and a companion offered a ride to a mother and her possibly autistic son, self-described
…refugees of sorts
From my home town
They don’t like different there
They would have mowed us down.
Unresolved but revisited, what little resolution that’s experienced is expressed with “The thought that God turns music into bliss… ”.
Finally, the poet addresses some unseen visitor (the Angel of Death?) with:
Wait.
I’m not ready
I’m just packing my gear
Wait
My hand’s steady
My mind is still clear.
Yet even in doubt Simon concludes:
Heaven is beautiful
It’s almost like home
Children! Get ready
It’s time to come home”.
In an era when some self-appointed Christians claim to speak for an angry, judgmental, hate-filled God it’s comforting to hear from an old friend (“Old Friends,” another old Paul Simon song) who doesn’t claim to have all the answers but who’s asking the same questions we’re all posing.
Have you ever had a dream so compelling you felt like you had to act on it? What happened? Paul had a compelling dream, and when he answered the plea of the man from Macedonia he met a woman named Lydia in the city of Philippi, which led to God’s will being done in surprising ways.
