I was in college, Cedarville College…. now Cedarville University. Cedarville is a Christian liberal arts college. We had mandatory chapel every day. Most of the chapels were great, but after a while they became rather trite and were viewed, by the less than completely spiritual folk, as a bit of a necessary evil as part of going to college at Cedarville. Two chapels stand out quite vividly in my mind. The first and greatest was the chapel when Dr. Dixon, the president, found one pour sap sleeping and decided to unfurl his rage so as to make an example of him. The second was the chapel on post modernity. I don’t remember how it exactly started out, probably with the usual singing and announcements and so forth. But then they had some crazy video graphics up on the screens and some guy came walking out on the stage with a “big hair” wig on. He proclaimed himself “Post Modern Dave” and said he was from MTV. Well he was actually a professor of physceology at the college. He went on to introduce us to the latest evil that had been concocted by the world to thwart decent Christian thought and the progression of the gospel. I remember a few main points from is talk… 

Post Modernism = Bad
Post Modernism = No Absolute Truth
Sheryl Crow = Hot  

 

The last point of remembrance was ground into my memory by my good friend Kurt Oetkin. You see, they had played a Sheryl Crow video during post modern Dave’s discussion in order to highlight how post modern thought was infiltrating our generation. I think Kurt made the connection, but like most of us fine young Christian men we were connecting more with Sheryl Crow. Anyway she sang…  

Every day is a winding road  I hitched a ride with a vending machine repair man
He says he’s been down this road more than twice
He was high on intellectualism
I’ve never been there but the brochure looks nice
Jump in, let’s go
Lay back, enjoy the show
Everybody gets high, everybody gets low,
These are the days when anything goes 

Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer to feeling fine He’s got a daughter he calls Easter
She was born on a Tuesday night
I’m just wondering why I feel so all alone
Why I’m a stranger in my own life
Jump in, let’s go
Lay back, enjoy the show
Everybody gets high, everybody gets low
These are the days when anything goes 

Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer to feeling fine 

I’ve been swimming in a sea of anarchy
I’ve been living on coffee and nicotine
I’ve been wondering if all the things I’ve seen
Were ever real, were ever really happening Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer 

Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer to feeling fine  Everyday is a winding road (repeat until song fades)  

 

From there the philosophy major went on to dissect this music video’s meaning and the hidden message behind its imagery.  In the video there is a toy plane that flies by a variety of locations and people, never landing and never being caught.  In one shot it flies by a church and then continues on.  This was deducted to be the failed attempt of the church to capture the meaning of life.  I don’t remember where the plane eventually landed, but I believe it ended in a circular analogy pointing out the whimsical hopelessness people encounter in trying to make sense of life. I see the inherent danger in a life that is lived with a full embrace of the post modern life style.  In an attempt to honor the subjective nature of everyone’s perspective it could be possible to promote or allow all sorts of evil in the name of tolerance.  Perhaps Miss Crow is the epitome of this error in thought and deed, I don’t really know… I am not really that up on my celebrity dirt.  At the time, my friends and I had a few difficult moments trying to reconcile her obvious hotness with this terrible post modern world view.  In the end I think we all kind of threw up our hands and decided that she was just another tool of the devil using her sex appeal to promote yet another false world view that contradicted everything that Christianity stood for. 

But now I am not so sure… maybe she was just being honest.  It’s a personal song about someone’s struggle to make sense out of life and cataloging the disappointments along the way.  I think we all have a story something like that.  We thought we knew what it was all about, but then the meaning flies away right between our fingers.  You believe in someone and they fail you.  You trust something and it breaks on you.  You figure something out and then it gets complicated again.  You go to church every week, but nothing ever seems to get better.  Maybe it’s all our fault or maybe it’s the fault of a post modern mind set.  Regardless it seems to be the life experience of many people, even celebrities with everything they want and nothing to complain about.  Perhaps the Church has real answers for these questions and perhaps Christ can satisfy all our yearnings for meaning.  Many of the answers seem to come in the form of paradox an almost mystic trust in something we will never understand, people call it faith.  These ideas are not modern, they were established well before modernity, and perhaps post modernity is really just a desire to remember what it was like to not have to figure everything out.  Sheryl Crow’s video seems more pessimistic than it is post modern.  The opposite of pessimism is not a return to modern analytical thought, its hope.  Christians engage in this post modern exercise every day.  

2 Corinthians 4:18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  

 

Categories: Post Modern, Music