I’ve been streaming this fantastic record. Glen Hansard, Lisa Hannigan (formerly of Damien Rice’s band), Josh Ritter, and more singing mid-tempo rock. Maybe too mellow for some, but I’m Irish; this sort of stuff is in my blood.
Give it a listen here.
And I, too, went on my way, the winning and losing, or what
Is sometimes of all things the worst, the not knowing
One thing from the other, nor knowing
How the teeth in Time’s jaw all snag backward
And whatever enters therein
Has less hope of remission than shark-meat
– passage from the poem American Portrait: Old Style, by Robert Penn Warren
This exchange between Jesus and Nathanael at the end of John 1 sticks out to me:
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Nathaneal’s response to Christ reveals a way of thinking completely unlike our own. He goes along with his brother to meet Jesus, skeptical, expecting to be disappointed. Jesus catches him off guard with a sarcastic comment–he could probably see Nathaneal’s furrowed brown a mile off. Nathanael asks (maybe defensively?) “How do you know me?” and Jesus fires back a bit of Nathaneal’s personal info, revealing that he knows more than Nathanael ever expected.
Here’s where Nathaneal responds as only a monotheist could: He immediately calls Jesus the Son of God, the King of Israel. He’s ready to worship Him on the spot. He has no doubt that a man with this kind of power must be from God. He doesn’t call Jesus a psychic, and he doesn’t double-check Jesus’ Jewishness. He believes, then and there, that this man is God.
For Nathanael, it seems, real power must come from God. There’s just no other source.