Last fall, I watched an inmate at a maximum security prison
weep. He was a murderer, twenty years
into a forty year sentence. The reason
for this uncharacteristic vulnerability—this rare show of tears—was a crayon
drawing. A six year old girl had heard
that I was going to the prison to do some ministry and she had drawn pictures
for the prisoners—stick figures with oversized smiles standing under sunny
skies with rainbows and bouquets of flowers surrounding them. For this particular man, the picture was devastating. He had lived so long in a place where
hopelessness, fear, and violence reigned supreme, that he had forgotten that
there was such things as innocence, beauty, and joy. The picture was, to him, both a tragic memento
of what he had a lost, and a hopeful reminder that good things still
exist. He carefully folded it up as
though it were an ancient treasure map, and slipped it into his pocket.
Last week, I watched as my youngest daughter celebrated her
fifth birthday. She spent the day
dressed in a princess outfit, playing with dolls, singing spontaneous songs
with an unashamed abandon. She was the
epitome of wide eyed innocence and untainted joy. At one point, I began to weep, not like the
inmate in memory of what he had lost, but like a father in anticipation of what
my daughter would one day lose. I knew that
the day was quickly approaching when she would stop wearing princess dresses
because she would fear the ridicule and mockery of her peers. I knew that the day was coming when she would
no longer play with dolls because she would be too busy worrying about how to
pay the bills. The innocence of
childhood is shattered, the curse of living in a fallen world exacts its toll,
and all of us-- murderers, fathers, and baby girls alike—grieve what we have
lost. There is hope, however. There is a light for the little lost child
who wanders through the darkness looking for their missing innocence.
Andrew Peterson explores both this grief and this hope in
his new album “Light For the Lost Boy.” The
album is a concept album, with most of the songs tracing the metaphor of a
little boy lost in the woods looking for his way back home. Sometimes the child is Peterson himself
looking for the lost innocence of childhood, sometimes it is Peterson’s son or
daughter trying to find their difficult way into adulthood, sometimes it is a
literary character such as Jody Baxter, the young boy who loses his beloved
childhood pet in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings book, “The Yearling.” In all cases, the heartache of loss is
embraced fully without ever losing sight of hope and beauty.
The album starts off with “Come Back Soon,” a haunting dirge
which mourns the effects of The Fall on our world and begs for the redemption
that God promised. In “The Voice of
Jesus” Peterson offers comfort by assuring that Jesus walks with us as we
wander in the dark woods of this world. “Day
By Day” cleverly blends Scripture with the story of a visit to Kensington
Gardens (where Peter Pan was written) to remind us that perhaps the key to joy
is not returning to the innocence of childhood, but pushing forward to maturity
in Christ. All the loose ends are tied
up beautifully with the album closer “Don’t You Want to Thank Someone” which zeroes
in on the grace of God, and offers us some serious fodder for thought: “maybe it’s
a better thing . . . to be more than merely innocent/but to be broken and
redeemed by love.” It is good and
right for us to grieve our exile from Eden, but Eden was never the goal for
God. He had a better plan, a plan to
make us not only perfect creations, but perfected
sons and daughters. And, yes, I do want
to thank someone for that.
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