 |
 |
a thing or 2 I
know a thing or 2 about love Your
kind of love is taking me over You
know a thing or 2 about me
You're taking me over, yeah
(Words & Music by
Sonia Vannest - copyright 2004
|
Behind the Lyrics – “a thing or 2”
Like much
of my music, I come up with these little ideas at the most inopportune times.
I’m never at home in front of my music station, keyboard or computer where I can
quickly put them down and record a little demo as not to forget them! “a thing
or 2” is no exception to the rule. It was one of my many “car tunes” that I
came up with while driving somewhere. Of course, I’m either trying desperately
to dig through my purse or glove box to find a piece of paper and pen and write
down the lyrics as they hover over me like a spacecraft, or filling up all the
voice memo space in my cell phone. And when those fill up, I call my home
answering machine! I once had a little voice recorder but I never use it! I
should have learned by now.
“a thing or 2” is talking about the kind of love mentioned in the Bible in I Corinthians, chapter 13, better known as “the love chapter”. After experiencing my own lifetime of disappointments with others who claimed to have Godly love, I started wondering why it is, that people who hear about how Jesus loves us and how we are to love others by His example, still fail to really grasp how we are to show that kind of love to each other. We truly fall short of the mark. We think we know “a thing or 2” about God and His love, but He knows “a thing or 2” we don’t and so much more on the subject than we will ever attain or hope to attain.
When I was thinking about recording a new project, I had no idea that “a thing or 2” would be the title track. But I did have the strong impression that this entire project would be geared towards, for the most part, a secular audience, and I wanted to write music that was relevant to the sounds of current hits and would use lyrics and language that any person from any religious or social background would be able to relate to. I wanted them to listen, not turn it off and say “that’s Christian”. It’s not that I haven’t written worship songs and blatantly Christian songs. Because I have – tons of them. It’s that I really felt that God had opened some doors for me and had designed me in such a way that I COULD relate to those kind of people really well. And I found that because of that unique design He had put in me, and the passion I had for reaching people and sharing “His kind of love” with them, that the songs came easily for me to write in a language they would understand without feeling they were getting religion shoved down their throats. So I was more than surprised when “a thing or 2” won Independent Album of the Year for the 2006 Independent Music Awards in the Christian album category. It told me that the music was doing it’s job and was relevant for a modern day society in the professional music scene.
Being “in but not of the world” is a common phrase we hear a lot. But I think a lot of people have its meaning confused. It does not mean cut yourself off from the world and never relate to or associate with it. Or only sing Church songs if you really want to serve God with your music. There are so many people who will never step foot in a Church or come to any of its programs that we think are going to win the lost. We are called to “go out and make disciples”, not just put up signs that say “if you want God, you can find him here in our Church.” We say “God loves you and so do we”, but sometimes we as Christian don’t really do a whole lot to reach out and show that kind of real love. We put conditions on it. We put conditions on who we will love and how we will love them. A common trait in most Christians that the world sees in us is that we are quick to judge and come across as finger pointers and hypocrites. We know the talk but we don’t walk the walk. I believe that the reason most people don’t want anything to do with God is that they have felt rejected by Christians who represent Him. And in the end, they feel unloved, not only by us, but by God. We are his representatives. If I were God I would want to fire all of us! But thankfully, I’m not. I could never fill those shoes!
Truly loving people means meeting their needs and meeting them where they are, not pointing out all their faults and telling them how they need to change in order to be acceptable. We read our Bible and the verses in the Love Chapter and about taking the speck of sawdust out of our own eye before trying to remove the plank from our brothers’, but we still don’t get it. We continue to be unloving, even to our own kind, all the while saying “I want to be like Jesus”. But being like Jesus means loving people in a way that is uncomfortable for us. It means putting your loving arms around someone who is dirty, unlovely, hurting, wounded, ugly, cruel, intolerable, and that you may not want to love. It means sharing people’s burdens, not just saying “I’ll pray for you”, but actually getting off your behind and doing something to help them with their situation. It means getting out of your comfort zone and doing things you feel insecure about in order to show love, it means sacrificing and giving up something you don’t want to give up for someone else. That’s the “kind of love” I’m talking about in “a thing or 2”. The kind of love that is patient, kind, unselfish, keeps no record of wrongs. That’s the kind of love I want to “take me over” and consume me so that all my selfish ambitions fade away and only His love remains. We can sing all the Christian songs in the world until we’re blue in the face, we can bang on drums and guitars, preach from the pulpit, start all kinds of ministries and organizations, and hand out pamphlets on salvation, but if we truly don’t know how to love people in our every day lives, none of it means anything and we gain nothing.