song of songs: the fray's "you found me"

“I found GodOn the corner of First and AmistadWhere the westWas all but wonAll aloneSmoking his last cigaretteI said, "Where you been?"He said, "Ask anything".Where were youwhen everything was falling apart?All my dayswere spent by the telephoneit never rangand all I needed was a callit never cameto the corner of First and Amistad”

It is said that God is big enough to absorb everything into Him-self. It is said that He can swallow our dark moments with His light. Why does He not swallow all our dark moments with light? This is the question anyone who is walking in present darkness, in stopping grief, in stumbling fear, in pain, hurt, ache, and despair has asked. It is the question the song asks: Where is God at our desperate moments?
The dark always seems to thrive beyond the light. It seems that when you are in the thick of it the light is off somewhere, probably flaming God’s cigarette. This is the brilliance of the song. It is honest enough to imagine that deity is not concerned with the problem at hand. That God is somewhere doing something for himself while we call and call and call in vain: “Eli, Eli lema sabathchani...”
The songwriter goes further in this to imagine a whole play, a short one, where face to face with the light you are allowed to ask your questions. In one real sense the whole song is the soliloquy that the other character, the one that is not God in the dock, is allowed to embark on. It is the interrogation of God. Before you go off on a rant about how one cannot question God remember “come let us reason together…” I doubt God is afraid of our misplaced rants. The ‘reasoning’ can only end one way.

The first question asked is the most vital to the human experience and the modern impression of God; “where you been?”

“Everyone ends up aloneLosing herThe only one who's ever knownWho I amWho I'm not, who I wanna beNo way to knowHow long she will be next to me”
The idea of God missing has been persistent for a while. Can’t you hear Nietzsche declaring “God is dead...for we have killed him”, Pacino, in character, calling him: “absentee landlord” or your own beating heart doubting the relevance of God in the high age of so-called enlightenment?
Perhaps that is too head. Let’s go heart. Does it not seem like you face the reality of your dim moments alone? Is it not in isolation that you grapple with the effects of life turning on you? Sure friends and family “defend the silver lining”. They do what they can. But they cannot share in physical pain, understand your most stifling fears or live with your deepest shame. They cannot live for you. “In the end everyone ends up alone.”

“Early morningThe city breaksI've been callin'For years and years and years and yearsAnd you never left me no messagesYa never send me no lettersYou got some kinda nerveTaking all I want”
And finally we get to the point of why we are angry at God. For those who have sought, even for a moment, to build a life around a belief in the right, in goodness, in love must have hit the heavy wall of reality a few times. Some right intentions have wrong consequences. Goodness does not win. Love can walk away.
It is not the event that bothers you as much as what it means. It indicts God as the watcher and not the doer. He gave no warning signals, he sent no sacred text messages, he let you delight in futility then he let you fall down.
I have asked so many times for the same thing: show me how to live, show me what to do, tell me the way to go. “Leave me a message, send me a letter” show me the way to live without the cross and its weight. “Is there any other way?”

“Lost and insecureYou found me, you found meLyin' on the floorWhere were you? Where were you?Lost and insecureYou found me, you found meLyin' on the floorSurrounded, surroundedWhy'd you have to wait?Where were you? Where were you?Just a little lateYou found me, you found meWhy'd you have to wait?To find me, to find me”

But it is the chorus that speaks to me. It is here that the song really takes off. These are the words that have not left my head for weeks. Before now it has been an interrogation of God. Here, finally we find an affirmation of His presence.

We have been warned before that “rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous”. Sometimes it is good, pleasant, cuddle-ready rain. Other times it is a raging storm that shakes every house on the street to its foundation. We know that faith must be tested, the world is full of cruelty, and our hearts carry limited glory. We know we should expect the worst but we hope for the best. And even when we hope we know by experience that pain is inevitable. We will face it and it may kill us.
Now, pain is not a badge of honour and the cross is a symbol of human weakness not strength. We fall down because we live in a falling and fallen world. We are lost because darkness has reached its summit. We are in the midnight of the creation experience. Man is at his/her ugliest hour.
We see evidence of this every day. The world is in an uproar. Poverty, disease, war are the prominent kings of our day. There is something amiss with the collective and individual human soul.
If you intend to be part of the solution you must feel the pain of the problem. If you want to be a light you must first be put into where the light is most needed: the dark. The proverbial seed first goes into the dark of the soil before it begins to grow out under the sunlight. It is said that Christ descended into hell.

All of this cannot answer the individual question of pain. I am not trying to. What I am saying and the thought I must end with is fairly simple: the pain has a reason. It builds us so we can build on. It is allowed so we may be prepared for the end of pain. It helps us toward that end. Our dissatisfaction with the darkness leads us toward the light. It is at this place, when we are finally fallen, broken and in need that He finds us. Pain, whatever its initial intentions, leaves us needing to be found.
If you will, go back to the first verse of the song with me. You must notice that the same place where the actor in our play called for God (“the corner of first and Amistad”) was the same place he found God. He had been found without even knowing it. The place where His tragedy had left Him was the same place God found Him. I believe it is the same for all of us. We are found at the point of our need.
Perhaps all we have to do is stand up and accept it. Perhaps the answer is to accept that you are no longer missing. Perhaps the trick is to start by singing a hymn. I suggest you sing one called “you found me”. It’s by a band called “the fray.” It is a song of songs.