My Favourite Lie - Arends

Holy Saturday is the perfect limbo-day to think about both death and resurrection ... the two sides of the Easter coin (and of reality as we know it).  If you'll indulge me I'd like to share two things with you this particular Saturday.  The first is an excerpt from an article I wrote last year (for TCW Magazine) called "What's So Good About Good Friday?"  The second is the lyric to a song called "My Favourite Lie".  Both the article excerpt and the song come from the same place -- a realization that you can't have the victory of Easter Sunday without the sacrifice of Good Friday.  Happy reading and Happy Easter.  Christ is risen, indeed.

Re-evaluate Death (excerpted from "What's So Good About Good Friday")

Almost all the new beginnings in my life have come from what felt at the time like terrible endings. So I know I need to re-examine my concept of "death." Frequently, what seems like a small (but devastating) death is actually a chance at new life. I can point to dozens of "dead ends" in my career, ministry, or relationships that turned out to be opportunities to change direction.

 

Nature gives us vivid examples of this principle. Like seeds, we must be willing to be broken in order to grow into what we were made to be. Like reptiles, we have to shed old skins. Like caterpillars, we must be entombed so we can emerge as completely new creations. When I think of all the energy I've expended resisting endings and change, I wonder what new life I've missed.

 

Jesus tells us to die so we can live. He invites us to surrender all the illusions we have about what makes a life good and worthwhile so we can discover real life. And then he walks with us, every step of the way, as we die a thousand deaths in the process of letting his life go deeper and deeper into us. Until at last we really and truly physically die, only to live forever.

 

The rumors of our demise, it turns out, are greatly exaggerated. With God, the end is the beginning.

 

My Favourite Lie (from my newest release, Love Was Here First)

My Favourite Lie
Carolyn Arends

I’m a caterpillar who will not cocoon
Feels like a tomb – I will not die
I am a seed that will not be broken
For the flower to open – no I will not die

I am a pilgrim on a dead-end road
Who refuses to go in a new direction
I am a sucker for my favourite lie:
That you don’t have to die to live the resurrection
I don’t wanna die to live the resurrection

I am a creature who prefers my cave
To the light of day ‘cause it’s what I know
And I am a sailor who will not leave shore
There could come a storm, the winds could blow

I am a pilgrim on a dead-end road
Who refuses to go in a new direction
I am a sucker for my favourite lie:
That you don’t have to die to live the resurrection
I don’t wanna die to live the resurrection

I am a girl who is sore afraid
That the life I’ve made’s no life at all
Can you find a pulse in this concrete heart
Could the end be a start after all

I am a pilgrim on a dead-end road
Who refuses to go in a new direction
I am a sucker for my favourite lie:
That you don’t have to die to live the resurrection
I don’t wanna die to live the resurrection

God help me die to live the resurrection

© 2009 Running Arends Music/ASCAP