Spiritual Meditations on Country Music

I punched the button again. No soccer. No futbol. No GOOOAAALLLL!!! Giving up, I hit button 1 - commercial. I hit button 3. Finally, something I had some interest in listening to. I settled in for the rest of the drive as the country singer strummed his guitar and crooned.

It’s these moments, with country music on the radio and a wide open road in front of me, that I remember. I remember my ancestors that made the Pennsylvania railyards productive. I remember the up-country farmers who carved a living out of stoney Pennsylvania hills. They too were the blue-collar folks who made work and Christianity happen for their family… their people. They too were the ones unafraid to talk about their faith one moment and how to repair a rail line the next, unlike so many modern people and musicians.

There was a dark side to that as well though. Like today’s country singers, faith could quickly become a passing topic that only women and children were  earnest about. God could become a powerful being up in the sky that you spoke highly of one minute while looking down on African Americans the next. As long as you were “good,” you could get away with cheating a neighbor.

And as I think about all this, I wonder. In what ways have I accepted a mediocre substitute for faith that truly changes things… for a relationship with God that hits on the deepest love I have to give… for a story that brings hope to everyone who hears it?