Music to My Ears

A good song must have a rockin' tune. Some major build into a moving chorus is preferred. A solid beat I need so I can hum and hum and hum and hum. This is music to my ears. But a favorite song needs a little somthin' more. To be a favorite, it needs to move me with its lyrics. (Well, I am a writer, after all).
And I have a new favorite song - you know the type...the one you listen to again and again and glean something from it each time. This is my current fix that keeps me jonesing. I love couples; more specifically, I love marriage. I love the concept, the content, the conundrum within it, and the complete freedom and blessing it can be. "Poison and Wine" by The Civil Wars (appropriate band name for this song) is a soulful rendition of what marriage is like for, quite honestly, the majority of Americans today. As we've become more self-obsessed, we've entered a realm where looking out for own #1 has long surpassed any procurement of unity and self-sacrifice in the social institution.
But I still have hope.  I remain privileged to know great marriages that are lasting a lifetime in opposition to this growing trend. But this song - this tension of hating and loving so intensely you don't know which way is up, of wanting and despising, of choosing and resigning to having no choice at all - is one reason we know God's called us to minister to couples. Because the plain truth is, even if this isn't you and yours, it could be any of you and any of yours at any moment. This covenant is precious, precarious and, for so many of us, a precipitant experience...we call it not just falling, but falling and falling in love, over and over again. And hoping you don't crash at the bottom.

The Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfzRlcnq_c0

The Lyrics:

You only know what I want you to

I know everything you don't want me to

Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine

Oh you think your dreams are the same as mine

Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will

I always will

I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back

The less I give the more I get back

Oh your hands can heal, your hands can bruise

I don't have a choice but I still choose you

Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will

I always will

I always will

I always will

I always will

I always will