“Let the Mystery Be” by Iris Dement
— Friday, February 8th, 2013 —
Last night my wife Maria and I went to hear one of favorite artists, Iris Dement, who was here in Louisville in concert. Even if you’ve never heard of Iris, you’ve probably heard her. If you saw the movie True Grit a couple of years ago you would have heard her singing a hauntingly beautiful rendition of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.”
Dement describes herself as an agnostic, but she grew up in a Pentecostal Christian home in Arkansas. Her mother, a believing Christian, seems to shape her art to this day, which is why there are so many songs in her repertoire about Mom, and about God.
One of my favorite of her songs is the one we’ll listen to today, called “Let the Mystery Be.” Don’t be fooled by the lyrics. While it sounds like, simply, a relativist’s plea for dogmatic Christians to abandon their certainties and leave her alone, I think there’s more here. Let’s listen to Iris Dement, and then talk about what it means to live a life story that is, to us, a mystery.
Thanks for posting the Iris Dement segment on the Cross and the Jukebox. I have, to the best of my knowledge, only heard Iris Dement on one other song. I really like her voice. That other song was called something like “In Spite of Ourselves,” sung with John Prine. That is a song that would never make it to the Cross and the Jukebox. Ha ha.
I had a visceral reaction against Dement’s rendition of ‘Leaning’ at the end of True Grit, but it drew me back to the point where I had to get a copy of the Lifeline album it appears on.
Which I love.
And preordered ‘Sing The Delta’ when it was released last year.
It’s a challenging listen about lost faith and the attempt to build a new one.
Dr. Moore,
I don’t think there is more here at all than “a relativist’s plea for dogmatic Christians to abandon their certainties and leave her alone!” By her own admission: she doesn’t know where she came from; she doesn’t know where she is going; she doesn’t know about eternity. And not only is she ignorant concerning life’s great questions, she insists that everyone else is as ignorant as she is and that they ought to be content to “let the mystery be”–in other words, live in, and rejoice in their ignorance regarding the great questions of life! Christians reject this out of hand because we believe that God has revealed these answers to us in his written Word and in the person of His Son Jesus Christ. We know that God has created us to live with him as His children! We know the purpose of our life is to bear witness to our Savior Jesus Christ and follow Him as His disciples! We know that heaven is our home because He lives and reigns eternally! This is the real “mystery” that has been revealed to us in the pages of Holy Scripture so that we might believe in Jesus Christ and have life in His name! You encourage us to not be “fooled by the lyrics”. I’m not!
You lost me at a lyric about “Christians to abandon their certainties…” If I want to hear someone preach that message, I can just mire through the comments at the CNN Belief blog…
Quite sadly, far too many in the Christian community take great comfort from thinking that there is much that we are not meant to understand at this time.