REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER
“Don’t Think Twice” came up on my personal playlist the other day. I’ve always been intrigued by that song, and by the young Bob Dylan who wrote it. I was a new young campus minister when Dylan started writing, and I felt that he was saying significant truths that we could hear better because of the way he sang them.
“Don’t Think Twice,” of course, is a love song, or an anti-love song, a breakup song. His songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” are more obviously meant to apply to world conditions, but psychologically, “Don’t Think Twice” is a universal theme, too. [You can read Dylan’s lyrics online, of course, or get an audio to hear.]
The young Bob Dylan was a remarkable combination of clever poet, insightful psychologist, double-edged social commentator, memorable song-writer, and surfer on the rising wave of youthful 1960s hopes.
In “Don’t Think Twice,” his use of colloquial grammar—ain’t, dropping the “g” at word ends, knowed instead of knew, etc.—masterfully indicates an indifference that really is a yearning. Of course, I’m not the only one who thinks he’s a good poet, since he won the Nobel Prize for Poetry in 2016. [Explanations for the images I used that might be obscure are listed at the end of the column.]
Anyway, as I listened to that song in my final-years attempt to confront God directly, almost without conscious thought, I began to hear Dylan’s song as me talking to God, yearning for clarity—was I really called to be a preacher?—but willing to accept mystery. Also, of course, in the last stanza, speaking a word of farewell to the world.
My muse told me to use Dylan’s song as a way of saying to God some things I needed to say, and to write it down before I lost it, which is why I posted it here, 4-23-21, even though I didn’t intend to write any more columns for this blog. [1]
In my writing I have often referenced the three strangers John S. Dunne, SJ, talks about—mortality, sexuality, and world. Dunne says that if we make friends with those strangers, life goes well. If not, life goes poorly. I have always said that there is a fourth stranger, God, and the same applies: if we make friends with God, life goes well, even if the friendship is carried out in mystery.
I have tried my best to make friends with all those strangers. The first three have taken a lifetime, but we’re now friends, even if we don’t understand each other very well. That fourth stranger, though, God, I’m still trying to make friends. Well, I guess it would be safe to say that we are friends, but the first responsibility of friend is to listen to the other, and I have more listening to do.
John Robert McFarland
1] I usually say that my muse comes with raspberry jam smeared on her face, meaning that she doesn’t take her job too seriously. I think her casual approach to inspiring me is why my poems usually sound like they intended to make a sophisticated entrance, but tripped over the cat as they came through the door.
EXPLANATIONS FOR THE POSSIBLY OBSCURE IMAGES IN MY VERSION OF “IT’S ALRIGHT…”
When the rooster crows thrice A reference to Jesus’ prediction to Peter that he would betray him 3 times before the rooster crowed.
I’m following Jesus so I’ll be gone Those who follow Jesus in life must expect to follow him into death, and hope to follow on to resurrection and new life.
You’re the reason I did any travelin’ at all Back when I first thought God was calling me to be a preacher, Methodist ministers were designated as “traveling elders” because we went wherever the bishop sent us.
I’m walkin’ toward that ash tree wood In early America, cemeteries were often situated in ash groves, leading to folk songs like “The Ash Grove’s My Home.”
I’ll just ring that final bell. In recent times, cancer centers have started having patients ring a bell at the time of their last chemo or radiation treatment. Death is the end of all our earthly treatments, “the final cure.”
A hell of a good wife Helen doesn’t comment on all my columns, but she specifically mentioned that she likes this one. The point is not that one must have a good spouse, or any spouse at all, for a good life [although that rhymes nicely with wife.] But “wife” here represents personal relationships. As we come to life’s end and evaluate, it’s the personal relationships, not the worldly acclamations and achievements, that matter.
If there are other images
or lines you think obscure, well, you’ll have to figure them out on your own.
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