November 1, 2008
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Michael Card
Last night, we saw Michael Card in concert. He had 7 stringed instruments (mandolins, banjo, guitars), a piano, an accordion, a pipe of sorts, a baby grand, and a fellow musician as a backup. He played his right-handed guitar left-handed, mindboggling to this righty who likes her thickest deepest strings at the beginning of her strum.
I had forgotten what a wise teacher he is, in addition to being a versatile musician. Sometimes his recordings are too much the same sounding for me—and very soft. In concert, the music is more raw, the emotions likewise. The lyrics, however, are the same—profound.
Listening to his Hidden Face of God today, I found this quote about the album in a Christianity Today interview:
“We can’t worship God without recognizing our woundedness. We have a
worship revolution going on in the U.S., but we’re not worshiping.
There is no woundedness in it. True worship celebrates God’s worth, and
without experiencing woundedness, you don’t know his worth. You don’t
have that experience of God’s presence over God’s provision. You
experience his worth in the wilderness, not in the picnic grounds. ‘Amazing Grace’ says, ‘I once was lost, but now am found.’ Without that
acknowledgment of loss, what do you have to worship him for, unless
you’re just worshiping feeling good? Lament is the lost language of
worship.”Card is not a lightweight Christian thinker. The Hidden Face of God is a an album about brokenness, silence, and loneliness, but begins with an invitation, a droplet of light in a dark place:
If you are wounded, if you are alone,
If you are angry, if your heart is cold as stone,
If you have fallen and if you are weak,
Come find the worth of God
That only the suffering seek.(Chorus)
Come lift up your sorrows
And offer your pain;
Come make a sacrifice
Of all your shame;
There in your wilderness
He’s waiting for you
To worship Him with your wounds,
For He’s wounded too.He has not stuttered, and He has not lied
When He said, “Come unto me, you’re not disqualified”
When your heavy laden, you may want to depart,
But those who know sorrow are closest to His heart.In this most Holy Place
He’s made a sacred space
For those who will enter in
And trust to cry out to Him;
You’ll find no curtain there,
No reason left for fear;
There’s perfect freedom here
To weep every unwept tear.
****Come Lift Up Your Sorrows****
by Vance Taylor and Michael Card|||||| (six guitar strings) lynard
