in a coma

I've got a secret to tell you:

When I was in grade 11 I obsessively listened to Matthew Good's Beautiful Midnight for at least two hours every day. I made a storyline for the album in my head. For some reason his words were always so powerful and poetic.

If heaven's for clean people its vacant

When I became a Christian I sold all of my non-Christian cds because I thought there was absolutely nothing of value written by people who don't know Jesus. Apparently I didn't pay attention to the above lyric. We are all dirty. God will be continually scraping the dirt off of me til I'm in heaven with him.

Anyway, I have casually followed Matt Good's career since without buying any of his records because I was still misguided and I dodn't like his love of four-letter words. Now I think that swearing can be effective at times.

Today I found Matt's best of album In a Coma: 1995-2005 at The Disc Depot downtown. I could not pass that up.

There's a couple new songs on it, and one of them has very intriguing lyrics. Here they are, be warned, it contains swear words:

"Oh Be Joyful"

Here I go
Pop my skull ready to lose control
Cruising slow
Live your life outside the life you know

Oh be Joyful!
Cause that s*** spreads

Here we go
Pop your skull -- off the air, lose control
Get up and go
Five fingers, one of them lets you know

Oh be Joyful!
Cause that s*** spreads

Just like that.

I find this song intriguing because it reminds me of all the Christian youth group rallies I've ever been to. For the uninitiated, a"Youth Rally" is when you take a bunch of so-called "Christian" (some sincere of course) youth, and all their non-Christian friends that they're trying to convert, and put them together in a room and play games and get emotional, and well, "be joyful! Cause that s*** spreads."

Worship music is played. Loud rock. So joyful. Do you get it? Do you understand God? Do you love him? Or do you just want to jump up and down and sing a song to feel good about yourself?

Worship is about Jesus, not us. A rally should be about Jesus too.

Rallies aren't bad. I recently went to a the Canadian national Promise Keepers rally. It was awesome. And some of my best experiences with God have been at youth rallies. However as a cynical older person, I can see now that the glitz and appeals to be so cool and fun dumbs down God.

One of my friends who appeared the most joyful and passionate of anyone at these events is now living a life of sin, getting drunk, having sex, and pissing her life away.

Oh be joyful.

In a world called catastrophe
My native tongue is blasphemy
So that's the one I'll write.

I cried at youth rallies. I sat in the corner by myself and wept. I felt God... his conviction. I felt like everything I had ever done and said was bull... that I needed to repent of my existence. I did need to. I still do. Without Christ I'm a useless piece of garbage.

I was not joyful. That was my sin. It still is, I stifle the Lord's joy. His joy is greater than all my clever complaining and sinful desires. I need to be joyful. With real joy.

I want it to spread, but not in the cynical way described by Mr. Good, but because people see Christ in me.

Now Christmas is for shopping
and the shopping God is everything

All verse in italics by Matt Good