Music is an odd creature. Its effect doesn’t welcome analysis. As with a
pet dog the emotional animal that rises in us loses something important upon
dissection. To want someone else to feel
a special song like you do is a delicate thing. One can play the song, and with
detachment let the person make of it what they will. To push much further, even
to verbalize the feeling, is to get a little naked. I suppose artists must
build callouses against the emotional exposure.
I’m going to cut the dog.
I appreciate the song “Unless I’m Led” by Mates of State (1).
Pitchfork singles it out as a low point in the album, calling it “a bit too
maudlin even for the Mates” (2). And “maudlin” it may be; as far as I reckon
from the lyrics, the song reflects on experiencing frustrating emotional needs,
doomed relationships and breakups. What can I say? I have maudlin tastes.
Artistic expression is evocative by nature, and I find this
piece clearly evokes an aura of emotionally rich reminiscence. I bet that this
much is actually communicated: that the artists meant to evoke something like
that, and that listeners reliably tend to receive something along those lines. But
then sometimes when I’ve listened to the song, It’s evoked something more: I experience a celebration of life, brining inspiration
to live out the time given to me with fullness and gratitude.
I think I might like a fig leaf now. Did the artists intend that
flavor of inspiration? Maybe but I doubt it. And should it matter? I doubt the
reviewer from Pitchfork experienced much along those lines. Is it a legitimate
hearing of the song? And supposing they didn’t have this inspiration in mind, should
the artists behind the song be credited as a source of this inspiration?
Maybe one of the roles of art is open-ended. Asking a great
question can yield responses in another that the asker did not anticipate. The
one who responds may learn and articulate something that the asker doesn’t
understand. And yet the asker deserves some credit for the artfulness of the
question. Like questions waiting to be asked, maybe we each have unique spirits
waiting to get stirred. Each is a potential that takes on form when called.
~~~~~~~~~~
I took a class once on tissue engineering. We learned about scaffolds.
Suppose a piece of tissue is missing: a big piece of bone was removed, or the
spinal cord broke, and the gap is too big for the body to fill on its own. Scaffolds
in this context are materials that engineer re-growth. They give cells colonizing the area something
to hold on to, direction on where to go, and a cell’s equivalent of comfort and
reassurance. The scaffolds temporarily fill the gap. Your body fills in the
blanks with the goods. And then, when the new tissue is ready, a good scaffold fades
away, leaving only healed tissue behind.
Some art is a scaffold for the heart. Or the gut. For feelings
and intuitions and values, and seeds that sprout those things that need some
soil. The artist experiences a gap in themself and fills it with a creation-
something dead per se but hospitable to a certain sort of life. The artist
hands the creation off to others, who colonize the scaffold with a little piece
of themselves.
~~~~~~~~~~
I think poetry can do this. Many other writings really
don’t: they mean one precise thing and if
you hear something else, you’re mistaken. If the text encouraged you in that,
it’s to the writer’s discredit. I believe there’s a legitimate place for both
types of writing.
Some writings aren’t easy to put in one box or the other.
Take the American Constitution for instance. I haven’t studied legal theory, so
take my speculations with a grain of salt. From what I can tell, some people
believe upholding it means strict adherence to the particular notions that the
authors had in mind as best as those notions can be discerned from what they
wrote. Others take it as more of a projection of general values that can be
adapted to our context in ways that may diverge from the authors’ personal notions
at the time but (in theory) embrace the spirit of what those authors were
pursuing in the constitution.
Scripture, it seems to me, often functions along these
lines. Believers look for, find and mediate on ideas perceived in scripture
that resonate with our deep intuitions and values. We tend to seek ways to
interpret texts so that they are at peace with those intuitions and values
rather than accepting interpretations in which we smell any hint of ignorance,
folly or vice. For instance, in this age
we refuse to believe God endorses racism, bigotry, and the denigration of
women. Most of us resist believing God teaches things that clearly contradict
our understanding of nature and history, or recommends observably dysfunctional
ways of thinking and making decisions, even when our sacred texts could easily
be interpreted in those ways, even when perhaps they have been interpreted in
those ways by many people for a long time.
Our predispositions shape what we see, but what was there in
the text already also spurs us on, inspires us and directs our values and
intuitions to develop in certain ways instead of others. We may wrestle with a
passage that at first seems to demean women. After thinking and talking and
reading about it we may then come to interpret it as meaning something
different at second blush, something actually honoring and empowering women in
a counterintuitive way—a way we hadn’t thought of before. So the words of the text,
as well as the interpretations of those who came before us, shape our
interpretation… but part of why we find what we do, part of the very thing we
see is the body of values and perspectives that we ourselves bring, values that
colonize the words on the page and are oriented and perhaps transformed by
those words.
This is part of what happens, and I believe it happens in
all believers to some degree. Still, some people probably don’t try to attend
to their sense of goodness in this way when interpreting their scriptures. Fear
of putting our own words in God’s mouth may hold us back. Some parts of the
Bible are meant to be more dynamically evocative in their interpretation than
others. Personally sometimes I accept interpretations that chafe against my
intuitions of what is good.
In texts that are hybrids between evocative scaffold and
explicit, instructive communication, disagreements about interpretation seem
inevitable. Many of us will make
innocent mistakes. But we may also take the opportunity to deceive ourselves
about the intent of the text.
We may also each form views that resonate appropriately with
the text but contradict each other for other reasons. In science this seems to
happen sometimes with our theories about physical reality: like how Newtonian
physics is basically true and useful for our normal circumstances, but amounts
to a simplification of reality that doesn’t apply to stuff that moves really
fast. Yet teaching kids Newtonian physics is perfectly appropriate. I’m not
sure how much it actually happened, but it’s easy to imagine one set of
scientists arguing that light essentially consists of particles, and another
saying that no, it really consists of waves. Maybe God paints us metaphors in
the Bible’s teaching that can be integrated with our extra-Biblical perspectives
in multiple appropriate ways, despite the apparent contradictions that may result.
I don’t know how far to go with this in my dealings with the
Bible. There are still issues concerning which I don’t know how to reconcile my own sense of
what’s good with my reading of the Bible in a way that I trust. These thoughts
are part of me searching for solutions rather than the solutions themselves. I
welcome your thoughts and reactions.
(1)
For lyrics: www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858889505/
Music
video: www.stereogum.com/1027451/mates-of-state-unless-im-led/video/
(2)
pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15787-mates-of-state-mountaintops/
