Last night I bit the bullet and put our fine CD collection into alphabetical order. I am aware that makes me a geek of the highest order but, really, I wanted to find the CDs I was looking for and the alphabet is a useful invention for such sortings. I didn’t quite go as far as the main protagonist of High Fidelity and organise them into chronological order of when I discovered which band. That would have taken a good deal longer than the 2 hours of alphabetising that went on last night. It would also have been too hard to incorporate Husbandface’s contribution to the collection into that method, I never discovered Blue, it’s a measure of my love for him that Blue is allowed to stay in the collection. (He did also contribute some good albums I promise, before you judge too quickly).
I did rediscover some gems, renewed my love of Bruce Springsteen, shook my head over the varying quality of the last few REM albums, was glad I didn’t update all the Queen albums from cassette to CD and delighted in anticipating some reunions with old friends. If I was of the sort to make grand sweeping promises I’d probably vow to blog about rediscovered album each week. You never know, I might manage one or two a month from the back catalogue. On the player as I write is a genius collection of covers of Johnny Cash, fascinating to have such familiar songs reworked and re-imagined, no-one can beat the gravely voice of the Man in Black but it’s fun listening to people try, or ignore imitation completely and take the songs in a whole new direction.
I know I’m meant to be downloading songs from the internetski now, I know I’m not meant to care that HMV is on the way out of our lives, I know that it’s all about mp3s now but I can’t stop caring about the product. There is still something deep within me that loves the thrill of buying a CD, getting it home and pressing play. Something satisfying about looking at long lines of CDs on our shelves. I’ll hold onto that pleasure as long as I can.
Yes, it’s another Psalm, about you guessed it, the love of our God. My head is tempted to skip to another topic, to redress the balance with some fire and brimstone talk. (I’m not sure why, I’ve never been much of the fire and brimstone kind of person). There is something deep within me that seems to be afraid to believe that God really is this kind and compassionate. I know I’ve done wrong, I know that I get this life wrong lots of the time, but in the face of that, instead of a God who wearily puts up with me I find myself again in the face of a God who has great love for me and his people.
What I’m slightly more interested in is the ones who despised God, who rebelled against his ways, who became fools. These seem to me to be the unworthy ones, the ones for whom crying out to the Lord seems like a futile exercise, surely they’ve blown their chance of being loved by him? But there comes the shock, it’s these people who are facing the consequences of their rebellion, who are stumbling, suffering because of what they’ve done that cry out to the Lord. The surprising thing is: he answers them, he rescues them, he heals them. Crazy. Not logical, if people have hurt us we are wary of them, we pull back, we withdraw, not so with our God, he comes closer. He disciplines and then welcomes back with open arms.
I think somewhere along the line I need to get this into my thick skull, that God really really loves us, really really really wants relationship with us and does wonderful deeds for us. The only way to avoid that love is not to cry out to the Lord, rebelling against him isn’t the end of the story, not crying out to him is what ends the story. He wants continual relationship with us, one where we can stuff up and it not be the end, one where we say sorry and he forgives us and we carry on together. That’s an awesome story, an amazing friendship, a incomprehensible love it’s a great love that keeps on loving us.
My question for myself and for you is are we crying out to the Lord? If we’ve got lost in the land of apathy and general awareness that our lives should look more like Jesus, if we’ve got lost in active rebellion doing all the things we know God abhors, if we’ve done that thing over and over again, if we’ve failed to love yet again, if we’re jealous, envious and proud are we crying out to God about it? Are we prepared to accept his long term love that will walk with us as we deal with these sins? Are we prepared to accept grace again and again and again.
The Long Walk Home 
