I’ve got three sons whose names all happen to start with the letter “B.” As I sit and write this article their ages are 9, 13, and 15. This means that the focus of their curiosity (especially the older two, with the youngest in tow close behind) has shifted from Hotwheels and cartoons to professional sports and pop culture. It’s fantasy football and fashionable basketball footwear. I hear words like “cap” and “sigma” around the dinner table a good bit. If those mean nothing to you, you’re not alone. They did to me too, that is, until my wife explained them to me. One of the things I’ve enjoyed seeing rise to the surface recently is their interest in pop music. When I was that age my older brother, who is incredibly talented, was a gateway of musical discovery for me. There was a good deal of classic CCM in my house (Michael, Amy, and the rest…), but he opened the door to the world of Sting and The Police, Morrissey, and The Cure. By the time I was fifteen, I was doing my best to play along with Vinnie Calaiuta on Ten Summoner’s Tales on the drumkit in my basement. This is Sting at the height of his career, and I was aiming high. This past year saw Brody, my oldest, commandeer my old drum gear into his room where Ashley and I have heard him playing along with Weezer’s Teal Album. The sound of the kick and snare brought a smile to my face as I remembered my own journey and where it led me.
The Olson’s are predisposed to the effects of music on the soul. It’s just part of the way we’re wired out of the womb, emotionally attuned, and artistically minded. Like a person who succumbs to the effects of caffeine more than another, the power of a melody and lyric hits us in the heart in a different way. Music, all music, is mysteriously spiritual. It is impossible for it not to be because it’s place of origin is the human soul, which is a temple. This is why music has such an intense effect on the shaping of culture. If you want to know the essence of any given cultural environment, tune in to the sound that comes out of it. You’ll pick it up quick.
Naturally this makes me extremely sensitive to the music that makes its way into the hearts and minds of my boys. I find myself wanting to curate it to point them in the right direction.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4: 8 ESV)
I’m not a legalist by nature, and I certainly don’t want to raise my boys as ostriches with their heads in the sand of an evangelical subculture oblivious to the happenings of the broader culture. I would rather give them the tools to build a worldview steeped in capital-T Truth at the correct pace so they can navigate the rapid current around them. As time goes on, I am growing increasingly more aware of the lack of neutrality of the world in which they are being brought up. From my seat things seem far more extreme than they were when I was their age. There is more access to information, and as a result, more lies to weed through.
I’m a Coldplay fan. Have been for a while. I think Martin is a lyrical and melodic genius. The music that comes out of him is more intelligent than most in the mainstream. I pay attention to it. It’s not just me, if you watch Insta reels of their stadium shows you can see it work in mass. To say they invite people into an experience would be an understatement. I’ve been listening to their most recent record Moon Music in the truck, sometimes when my boys are in there with me. They soak it up like sponges, much like I did If I Ever Lose My Faith In You. As I’ve listened to Coldplay’s music over the years, I’ve observed a consistent leaning toward spirituality in it. It’s without a doubt an intentional move on their part, as it’s part of what has made their music so universally accessible for so long. For example, Fix You speaks to the universal soul wound: isolation due to separation. It actually posits, in an altruistic sense, that real healing can be found in the arms of another human being (i.e. “I will try and fix you”). Everyone needs fixed, very few would say they have over any length of time been fixed in the arms of another broken human alone. Hymn for the Weekend plays on Christian ecclesiology by title but ushers the listener into a smorgasbord of hedonism, humanism, and Hinduism in lyrical and visual theme. The music video was filmed in various cities around India during the celebration of the Hindu holiday, Holi. Higher Power is too obvious to miss. Their latest single Moon Music’s We Pray is no different. Lyric as follows:
I pray that I don’t give up
Pray that I do my best
Pray that I can lift up
Pray my brother is blessed
Praying for enough
Pray Virgilio wins
Pray I judge nobody and forgive me my sins (Coldplay 0:41)
As I sit and listen to the brilliantly hooky string line in my truck with the “B boys” buckled in, part of me is struck with the seemingly positive nature of what is hitting us from the speakers. I look in the rear-view mirror and see young Beckett mouthing the words “And so we pray…” and I think GREAT. I tease it out further. What if Coldplay’s global cultural influence pulls people into entertaining the idea of prayer? Could be cool…
But eventually I ask the question…pray…to whom?
For Beckett and for the world, the question must be asked. Who has authority? Who is in charge? For all of the universal desire in the human heart to reach out to something/someone bigger than us for provision and help, where does (can) it all culminate and find its resolution, purpose, and meaning? For this Coldplay gives no definitive answer. However, Chris Martin’s sensitivity and ability to put words and melody on the universally true phenomenon of the longing of the human soul to connect with the Divine is admirable. In his brilliant book Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the World, N.T. Wright discusses this very topic. The apparent interest in “spirituality” in broader culture is a signal, or a shadow, of a deeper and truer quest. Biblically speaking this quest starts in a garden, works through a tabernacle, builds a temple, and eventually finds its culmination not in a what or where, but in a Who. Although incredible narrow yet simultaneously all-inclusive, Christianity answers the question with blazing clarity. Who has the authority? Who is in charge? Or as the angel in John the Revelator’s vision asks:
“Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” (Rev. 5: 2 ESV)
For the believer the foundation and focus of Martin’s “And so we pray” is not nebulas but rock solid. He is Jesus. He is Isaiah’s stone that the builders rejected which has become the cornerstone, and he is John the Baptizer’s Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. What’s incredible (for some unbelievable) is that this Jesus is currently living as the first born from the dead and is active interceding and advocating for believers as a member of God expressed in three persons. Coldplay is so close, and so far.
We’ve been listening to Jacob Collier as well, who oddly enough has been a close collaborator with Martin in recent years. Together they have composed some of the most emotionally engaging music that I’ve heard in a long time. Namely the song When I Need a Friend, from Coldplay’s album Everyday Life.
Holy, holy
Dove descend
Soft and slowly
When I’m near the end
Holy, Holy
Dark defend
Shield me should me
When I need a friend
Slowly, slowly
Violence end
Love reign o’er me
When I need a friend (Coldplay 0:10)
Not only does the song employ words and ideas (“Holy,” a descending Dove, and a friend who defends and shields in the face of death) that find their place of origin in the biblical narrative, but it is also composed and produced in the style of cathedralesque choral music characteristic of the western Christian tradition. All this intentionally done to pull people into a sense of spiritual sacredness, quite effectively I might add. It is a breath-taking piece of music. But for all its aesthetic beauty and lyrical proximity to Christian ideas, it is avoidant of looking Jesus in the eye, saying his name, and grappling with his claims about himself. Collier, who identifies himself as “spiritual” takes a similar approach with his song Little Blue, which is in essence a prayer:
Little blue, be my shelter
Be my cradle, be my womb
Be my boat, be my river
Be the stillness of the moon
If I could, I'd go with you
To a place I never knew
In your eyes, so dark and open
There's a light that leads me back to you (Collier 0:05)
I was instantly taken by the musicality of this song. It hit me in the feels. It takes what people love about James Taylor, Lionel Richie, Take 6, and Paul Simon and rolls it all into one place adding a flawless vocal performance by Brandi Carlisle for good measure. I found myself cranking it in the truck with the boys, as I did Coldplay. Bentley was mesmerized by the song and started asking for it at night before he went to bed at night. Interesting. There was something in his tender, boyhood heart that resonated with the beauty of the music and the idea of asking somebody outside of and bigger than himself for sanctuary. Sounds good, right? The answer…kind of.
We are spiritual beings by nature, all of us. We all carry the desire to pray, to know, and to be known by something bigger than and outside of ourselves, even if that desire expresses itself in the profession of faith that God doesn’t exist. We were designed for the sacred and the Holy. It’s no surprise that Coldplay and Collier find themselves fascinated by it. We are also, because of a great and tragic wound, painfully avoidant of the way the Author of our spirituality has expressed Himself to us. We prefer the form and not the face. But he loves us too much to leave us that way. This is why Jesus came the way he did. God is no longer a grand, impersonal idea that we can shape ourselves. He is active in conversation and relationship. He can be known personally in that very temple where our spirituality resides. His Spirit is Holy because He is Holy, and he defines what Holiness is for us, not leaving us to come up with a definition on our own.
I’ve been trying to shepherd my boys into this reality. I’m acknowledging the beauty of the art and asking intriguing questions about what’s underneath it. I’m taking thoughts captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). I’m taking tips from Wright’s Broken Signposts. I’m praying that the Holy Spirit would do in them what He’s been doing from the start, illuminating the person and work of Jesus the Son. He is comforting and convicting and pulling us into the Truth. You might ask, “Why all this working and thinking, questioning and digging? Can’t you just listen to the music?”
The answer:
Because the reality of the person and work of Jesus is more beautiful. It gives a deeper sense of purpose. It shows me who I really am in light of who He really is. The reality of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, living inside the human temple offers a more compelling narrative than the vagaries of untethered spirituality. And…because there is a spiritual enemy who is at work blinding the eyes of unbelievers to the better beauty of Christ. He is not passive, so as I shepherd the hearts and minds of my boys, I can’t be either. Solomon said “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” (Prov. 14:12 ESV). We are not living in a neutral world where spirituality can be considered a general commodity. There is the path of life. There is the path of death. When it’s all said and done, being in the Truth offers true freedom.
Wright, N.T. “Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the World.” Harper Collins, 2020
Coldplay. “We Pray.” Apple Music. https://music.apple.com/us/album/we-pray/1751728791?i=1751728805.
Coldplay. “Everyday Life.” Apple Music. https://music.apple.com/us/album/when-i-need-a-friend/1484143590?i=1484143599.
Collier, Jacob. “Little Blue.” Apple Music. https://music.apple.com/us/album/little-blue-feat-brandi-carlile/1707252247?i=1707252567.C
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