Phillip was headed south. He wasn’t given a destination.  Or at least if there was a destination, we’re not told what it was.  All we know from what is written is that he was to go south and that the road he was to travel was a “wilderness road.”  Most of us don’t travel on “wilderness roads,” so for the sake of cohesive imagery, let’s picture driving on any of the major interstates in PA.

On the way South, along this wilderness road, Phillip came across a eunuch from Ethiopia…

…you know,.. like you do.

Now, if you’re like me and you come across an Ethiopian eunuch in a chariot, you don’t think too much of it.  But in this case, something strange was afoot at the Ethiopian eunuch’s chariot. The Spirit of the LORD said to Phillip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

“…go to the chariot… stay near it…”

Not “go and plant a seed” or “go and deliver the message but don’t get involved.”

“Go and stay.”

This is not the language of agenda or strategy. This is the language of proximity; the language of incarnation.

Phillip ran to the chariot and upon reaching it, heard the man in it reading the words of sacred Scripture;  words of the prophet Isaiah; words Philip was familiar with which foreshadowed the life and death of the One Phillip had come to know as the resurrected Jesus.

What a strange twist to the story: Phillip did not bring the Word of God to the chariot; It was there when he arrived. In an setting Phillip was unfamiliar with.

It was already there.
Pregnant with life.
Waiting.

Phillip asked the Ethiopian: “Do you understand what you are reading?”  To which the man replied: “How can I, unless someone explains it to me.”  And then the Ethiopian invited Phillip into his chariot.

Go. Stay. Get in.

To be in the chariot is to for Phillip to no longer have control.  His feet off the ground, his “destination” was now wherever this man was heading; Phillip’s journey was now linked with the journey of this stranger; his story now intercepted and invaded by this stranger’s story.

And it is in that setting, unfamiliar and uncontrolled, that the conversation turned to the Story that is both their stories; the Story that is our story as well.  A story so deeply ingrained in this world and in our hearts that every story ends up being some shade of it, leaving us only with the option, the adventure, the joy and responsibility of discovering it… where it already is.

What I am doing, in part, with this new project is asking my christian brothers and sisters to approach chariots they might be unfamiliar with; even perhaps suspicious or afraid of… and stay.

… to make a discipline of engaging, listening and seeing… much as we have made a discipline of dividing, discerning and judging.

…to be actively present instead of eager to leave…

…and in that discipline of being actively present, to recognize the story and song of the Divine where it already is rather than believe it only ends up where we take it…

…to know well enough the texts our neighbors are reading that we could ask, knowingly “Do you understand what you are reading?”…

…to get in and see the story from the seat our neighbors are sitting in and “explain” as best we can, as best we know, as thoroughly as possible.. Life. Death. Resurrection. Covenant. Kingdom. Glory. Hope. Loss. Victory… Trusting not to our wisdom or education but to the pervasiveness of the Story Itself and to the Sovereignty of the One whose Story it ultimately is.

You can purchase the album at my web store now.
You can also find it at iTunes.

The first musical purchase I ever made was a the Police’s “ Synchronicity.”  I bought it on tape.  This wasn’t so much because I had incredibly discerning taste as a 9-year-old (in fact, my second musical purchase was “Chipmunk Punk” and I loved it with equal fervor).. it was that I lived in a neighborhood with a few older boys who did have excellent taste in music.  Because of these neighbors and their musical taste, I grew up on a steady diet of The Rolling Stones, Journey, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Run DMC and a whole grip of others including the aforementioned Police.

Of course, they didn’t only pass the music along to me; they taught me to listen to it.  Not as background, or something to listen to while heading somewhere else.. It was the destination.  I would get in my friend’s car and drive.. headed nowhere in particular..  just so we could listen to music on his stereo.  Sure, we were normal boys; we painted our faces and pretended we were spies or Green Berets sneaking through our own back yards. But we also donned black and white make-up, tore up some sleeveless shirts and put on a lip-synced concert of Kiss’ “Dynasty” for the our parents and their friends.  I assume they were proud.. between the safety flares we had stuck into the ground and the make-up running into my eyes, I don’t recall seeing their faces.  It was in experiences such as this that I learned to love music.

And that was just the beginning.

I remember being at the Warfield in San Francisco in 1987, bummed that we showed up so early to see The Cult.  I had never heard of the other band and braced myself for the excruciating boredom often associated with sitting through an opening act.  45 minutes later, I picked my jaw up from the floor and asked the mohawk next to me who that amazing band was.  “Dude” he said, placing his huge tattooed hand on my shoulder, which smelled like clove cigarettes and mouthwash, “they’re called ‘Guns n Roses.’  They’re from L.A.  They’re aaaaawwwsome.” And they were.

I remember seeing REM at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, playing songs from the album GREEN and being transfixed along with about 19,000 others when it got quiet enough in the basketball arena for Michael Stipe to sing “You Are the Everything” without the band… through a bullhorn.  We slept in the parking lot of the Coliseum and went to see U2 on the Joshua Tree tour the very next night.  The Bodeans opened the show followed by the Pretenders.  I held hands with 60,000 strangers and sang “How long to sing this song?” for a solid 10 minutes after the stadium lights came on to tell us that it was time to go home.

More recently, I remember watching Tom Waits sing “Day After Tomorrow” at the tail end of the Daily Show and hitting ‘mute’ as the song faded so that the commercials Comedy Central runs wouldn’t ruin the vibe… I wanted to sit in that moment for a while.  There was something special about it.. more than special.. was it sacred?

Well.. I suppose that is something I am comfortable saying about my new album and the song choices I made…

I believe there is as much of God in the songs of Glen Phillips as there is in the songs of Phillips, Craig and Dean; as much of the Kingdom revealed in the songs of Tom Waits as in the songs of Chris Tomlin.  It is my opinion that to believe otherwise is to believe in a god too small to truly be God.

In a book entitled “For The Life of The World,” Alexander Schemann (a household name for obvious reasons) writes..

“The world is a fallen world because it has fallen away from the awareness that God is all in all… And even the religion of this world cannot heal or redeem it for it has accepted the reduction of God to an area called ‘sacred’ as opposed to the world as ‘profane.’  It has accepted the all embracing secularism which attempts to steal the world away from God.”

The moments I’ve had with the artists whose music makes up this new project have been sacred… undoubtedly.  It is key to note that these sacred moments have, for the most part, taken place outside of the boundaries of the christian marketplace and the ‘area’ generally reserved for the the activity of God.  These artists and their songs have been central to the necessary undoing of the expectations and limitations I habitually place on God; expectations of how, where and through whom God is revealed.  I recognize God in their art and I believe it is a duty, as an artist and a christian, to point Him out where He is and celebrate Him there.

Here is the track listing:

1. Georgia Lee (Tom Waits)
2. You Can’t Always Get What You Want (The Rolling Stones)
3. Save Me (Aimee Mann)
4. Fly From Heaven (Toad The Wet Sprocket)
5. Wildflowers (Tom Petty)
6. Head Like A Hole (Nine Inch Nails)
7. No One Is To Blame (Howard Jones)
8. Stripped (Depeche Mode)
9. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want (The Smiths)
10. Freedom 90 (George Michael)

You can purchase the album here.