A thing of beauty?

We haven’t had house group tonight – which generally means that I won’t have to record The Apprentice, Desperate Housewives or Grand Designs (The only 3 programs in a week that I follow in any real sense and there’ll all on the same night. And that night happens to be house group! How’s your luck!). Anyway one way or another Wednesdays are always good nights, particularly when we do get together, share some cake and talk about life and the Creator whose idea it was in the first place.

A couple of weeks ago we each shared and spoke about a song/piece of music that had impacted us as we thought about the various ways we have experienced God through music.

From Rufus Wainwright to The Divine Comedy, from Johnny Cash to Nine Inch Nails, there was even room for the Staff Songsters! (I'm not saying who brought the 'Staff' into it, but it wasn't me!!) As eclectic as the group itself, there was little doubt that we each experienced God through music in very different, yet no less powerful, ways. But for lots of reasons I was really taken by the following track…

For those like me who are new to the song, it’s ‘Hurt’ - written by Nine Inch Nails (a new one to me?!) but performed here by Johnny Cash.

I was immediately struck by how powerfully the song (and video) communicated even before we learnt that the song was written by a guy named Trent Reznor (from this Nine Inch lot!) who struggled with depression fuelled by drug and alcohol addiction. Yet this undeniably self-destructive and dark testimony seemed to be redeemed and transformed as Country-legend and committed Christian Johnny Cash covered the track.

Indeed Trent Reznor, who had initially opposed Cash’s keeness to cover the song, on watching the video commented ‘the video he made of that song was overwhelming. When I saw it the power and the beauty of music struck me in a really profound way. I was at a point in my life when I was really unsure if I was any good or if I had anything to say. The song came out of a really ugly corner of my mind and turned into something with a frail beauty. And then several years later an icon from a completely differenr world takes the song and juxtaposes himself into it in a way that seems more powerful to me than my own version. I was flattered as an artist and as a human being they could do that with my song. And it came at a very insecure time in my life and it felt like a nudge and boost and a hug from God. It said ‘everything’s OK and the world is bigger than what’s just in my head.’

A powerful, powerful reminder that beauty can emerge from even the darkest of places. Like I said, Wednesdays are always good.