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sunkissedliterarylightofchrist · 5 days ago

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Favorite line from each track on Now, Not Yet?

YAY! Now, Not Yet, my beloved. And even better, an ~analysis~ question. You know me well. Fair warning though, while there are some great one liners in these songs, I think that they are far better if you consider the entire lyric. So that's what I did. 😅

ok ok?

I think 'The animal of destiny' reflects how God pushes us into hard situations and times of life because they're what shape us. While the 'highs' of life are awesome and we all love them, the 'lows' are what really define us. What we do in them. Who we turn to for help and comfort in them. How we change through them. And tough periods we both see from afar, affecting other people, as well as up close and personal, in the midst of our own lives.

And that line, 'Far too great a toll it's played on me' I see with two meanings. First, that in dark and hard moments of life, that they are too much for us alone and we need help. We need Christ to come into our mess; whether its our own personal sin or us being affected by someone else's; and help us to grow through it and change through it and to lean on Him more because of it. And second, that 'the animal of destiny' is God Himself. Tearing us open and ripping us apart, but not to hurt us, but to help us and save us, both from ourselves and the outward hurt of the world. Because then he heals all the brokenness in us with His goodness.

RUNAWAY

Yeah I'm sorry I cannot possibly pick a single favorite line from this song it deserves an entire post of a line-by-line breakdown. But since I'm nice and I love talking about half•alive, here is one of the lines I love.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present, the human condition. But more specifically, what it looks like when you accept Christ and chose to submit to Him and His will for your life.

First, we've got him being faced with his own sin, having it reflected back at him. Exposed. He can't hide or run away from it any more. And his heart is naturally inclined to go try and run anyway. To choose the easy life. To escape the scrutiny that he's fallen under. But then he stops himself. He asks himself, Who do I really want to be? And he sees that by himself, he wants to be a selfish, wicked, sinful, despicable person. And that that life is empty. And messy.

Then he reaches the conclusion that all Christians face- that we need to give it up to God. Everything that you are is everything you shouldn't be. So he decides not to run away, but stay right where he is and give up his plans and dreams in exchange for what God has planned for him. We don't need to run away.

Man this song is incredible.

Maybe

Yeah this guy also deserves an entire post I'm not even sorry its too good. But here's a great verse from it.

I did not even know it was possible to so perfectly describe the concept of original sin in a single lyric but these guys did it. And they continued to do it in the rest of the song, but I'll focus for right now.

Romans 6:23 - "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 3:23 - "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 1 John 1:8 - "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Romans 3:12 - "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

We are dead in our sin. Enslaved to it. We are caught in our trespasses. Children of the Devil, apart from Christ. Read the entire book of Romans for this. And all alone, the story is over! There is no meaning to life! No matter what we do by ourselves, we are stuck in our sin and just truding to death with no purpose or meaning.

BUT GOD (best phrase in the Bible) rescued us from all of that. Which the rest of the song delves into.

1 John 2:1 - "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One."

This song makes me feel things and I will write a whole post on it just you wait.

the notion

I like the little interlude here. It's narrated by a British model, Liz Ord, who sent the voice note to the band after they toured in Europe, and she says how surprised she was that so many people there were Christian with so many people in Europe (and all around the West honestly) becoming more and more anti-religion. I think it's pretty hopeful honestly.

still feel.

Also cannot confine this song to a single lyric, it deserves an entire post. But I'll try.

As Christians, we are no longer slaves to sin and death and darkness. We are Children of God. Even when it feels like we are too entrenched in sin to escape, we still feel alive in Christ, and Jesus will pull us from the grave again and again and again. That's His promise to us.

TrusT

Being a Christian isn't easy. We feel everything wrong with the world just as much, nay, even more than the world does. Because we can see exactly how much evil is in it. But we also see the hope too- Christ. The book of Ecclesiastes goes into depth on this. Also this post.

Also its a great prelude to creature. For reasons I will get to.

arrow

I honestly don't even need to break this down, the rest of the song does that. But basically, the human heart is never satisfied with where we are at any one time. Even if we are on the top of the world, there is always something more we desire. Partially because of sin. But really more so for the human longing of our hearts for Eden. (Go listen to Blue Flower by The Gray Havens. Also I think I've written a bunch of posts on this idea specifically.) And that can be really hard, if the desire is pointed towards a bad thing, sin. But if we allow God to direct the arrow in our hearts towards Him, it can be good.

But actually more so we should seek to be satisfied with where we are in life and with what God's given us. Now that is Really Hard, but it's what we're called to do, so even if my flesh doesn't want to, I will be obedient and ask God to teach this to me.

Pure Gold

I like how this song is talking about how when you view everything through a Christian worldview, you can see so much beauty, and recognize how God is the purest gold of it all.

ice cold. (ft Kimbra)

I wrote a post about my favorite lyric once.

Rest (with Samm Henshaw)

Psalm 46:10 - 'Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!'

I tend to wildly swing between two extremes- either being stupidly lazy or overworking so hard that its really damaging. I have different ways to wrestle with each one, and I'm constantly working on steadying myself out, but anytime I start to get into an overworking high-achiever mindset, I use this song as a way to help remind myself to rest in God's presence, as well as physically rest my body and mind. We as humans are created to work, but we are also created to rest. Rest is where we find wisdom and often hear God's voice the most clearly.

BREAKFAST

Once again, deserves an entire post. But here's the best part.

Vunerability is just... really hard. Especially for me. It takes a lot for me to tell anyone anything. And even after I spill my guts about something I often instantly regret it, even if I knew it was the right thing to tell them. Everything just seems easier if I keep it to myself. Which is like... not true. I know that in my head. But not my heart yet. I'm working on it.

Vunerability with people is one thing, but with God its a whole other. Because, you can choose what people do and don't see about you. But God knows everything. He knows me better than I know me. He created me. Knows every bit of my heart. Which is scary. Every terrible thing I've ever done that no one knows about, He does. Even bad things I don't know about myself, He knows. And He is utterly aware of my heart posture at all times. If I'm ever holding something back from Him- He knows it. Which is why if we as Christians ever chose to live in intentional sin, it feels so icky. We've drunk from the Living Well, and ran right back to the poisonous slimepit because it's familiar to us and tastes better to our flesh, but eats at our souls.

But after the scary bit, God knowing us is the most comforting thing in the world. Really. Because He saw all the broken and evil and terrible things about us- and still chose to die the death that we deserved to die for us anyway. I can't think of a greater gift. One I don't deserve, truly. He's been there for me when no one else has. And He's sent people to me to help me learn to be vulnerable with them as well. And when you open yourself up to Him, and surrender everything, and chose over and over again to repent of your sin and to be with Him and to lay on the floor sobbing about your pain, begging Him to help you with what you're going through- He will be there. Vunerability with God, while scary at first, is one of the most beautiful things in the entire world.

Anyway, to bring it back to the song, we can't flee to the mountains and hide ourselves from God, or other people who want to help us. Even if it feels better temporarily. When you feel so utterly broken and exposed, well, its actually when you are the strongest. Which it won't feel like, but it is. You decided to open yourself up to be comforted and having the Spirit poured into you, and the brokeness will be filled in because you chose to be vulnerable and humble. God sees that, and He will give you rest and His love.

creature

Its my favorite song of all time I have elaborated very heavily on this. Best line is 'I am creation both haunted and holy'. Which is also my bio. Because it perfectly describes the Christian life.

Yay, made it through! I love this album so so so much. I think it's the best allegorical album of all time. Just listening to it at a surface level, it has very spiritual themes and mentions God a few times, but the more you sit and think about it, the more apparent it becomes just how much they are pointing to Jesus through it all and pleading others to find Him through the music. I think this lyric in TrusT sums this album up perfectly. I know I already picked a lyric from that song already but shhhhhh

From a storytelling perspective, it's an incredible journey.

Life Hurts -> We See Our Condition -> We Want to Run From It -> We Can't Improve Alone -> Seeing Sin -> Explaining Sin -> Even in Sin, I Feel Alive, But Not Because of Me, Because of Something(One) Who Saved Me -> [Big Shift in the story right here] Maybe I Don't Have to be Stuck in this Sin -> There is Certainity in the Goodness of This Thing(Person) -> This Good Thing(Person) Has Saved Me -> Oh Wait but I Still Feel All That Pain -> I've Been Saved from my Sin but it's Still There -> I Long for Pure Goodness -> I Find it in this Thing(Person) -> I Need to Rest In It -> True Goodness is Revealed to Me -> I Can Surrender Myself to It -> Jesus is the Answer

Point-blank period, no grey area. Up until creature, you could intrepret different songs in different ways, but at that point when they pull off the curtain and show God at the center of it all, everything else suddenly clicks into place and becomes so much richer and better. It starts off pretty ambiguous, but with each song the final point becomes clearer and clearer.

This album is called Now, Not Yet because that's the theme. We are Creation, both Haunted and Holy. And we feel the tug of the world between our flesh and our souls. We've been saved already, its guaranteed. But until that day, we've got to continue to fight. And for His Glory, pointing it back to Him in all that we do.

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biggest-gaudiest-patronuses · 1 month ago

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main take aways from Halloween (1978) rewatch:

michael myers is canonically 21??? this bitch should be at the club

*sees tiddies* ***MURDEROUS RAMPAGE NOISES***

that's it that's the movie

outside of the fact that everyone who has sex is murdered by the narrative, this is a surprisingly chill portrayal of female sexuality? these teen girls are horny and actively enjoying Getting It On with their boytoys. no pushy boyfriends sneaking in through their bedroom windows--these ladies are taking the initiative to sneak out and GET SOME. one of them gets laid and then immediately orders her boyfriend to get her a beer. (yes she gets Slashered soon afterward, but so does the boyfriend so honestly, gender equality.) yes the Final Girl is the only one not having sex, but she's not bullied for that, nor are her friends slut shamed except possibly by being murdered by the narrative

actually the only character who is shown being morally condemned on-screen is michael myers. specifically FOR his violent overreaction to other people's sex lives. (people he is spying on). metaphorically, the villain is American Puritanism sticking its judgy nose into other people's business.

aka Michael Myers Is A Republican

but actually the real villain is the doctor. guy's a judgemental, shaming, pathologizing asshole. and he's been in charge of michael's care since he was SIX YEARS OLD? kid never had a chance. i'd go on a killing spree too

also the parents. where are the parents? it's halloween night and all the teenage girls are home babysitting their younger siblings? come to think of it, michael's first victim was his own older sister, whom he killed while she was babysitting him. teen girls are really shouldering a labour burden here. maybe parentification is the true villain

side note: mike commits his first murder wearing a clown costume...which is never referenced again? his 'iconic' costume is a generic mask and wig and jumpsuit, when we coulda had a Killer Clown Michael Myers??? travesty

i like how the Final Girl and her friend casually smoke weed in her car. yeah she's an honor student and her friend is the sheriff's daughter. yeah they smoke weed. so what it's 1978

(to reiterate, mike is 21 and should be at the club. im not saying he shouldn't be rampaging, im saying it's sad that he broke out, tasted freedom for the first time in his life, and immediately snuck back into his childhood home to go rampaging. let's have a remake where he goes to a nightclub and has a few beers. maybe some slutty dancing. then rampage)

oh no he's hot