Paradox
You’re the riddle and the lullaby
The puzzle and the missing piece
The gold I own and the untapped mine
The thirst I know and the hidden wine
The paradox and the light to see
‘Cuz you’re the builder and the homeless man
The broken jar and the glory full
The word of power and the silent lamb
The crimson blood and the white-washed wool
The righteous judge crucified by thieves
And I am one of them, I am one of them
I am one of them, I am one of them
Still you’re the place running and the place I flee
The one I love in my apathy
The song I sing in the silence bare
Still the one who’s faithful there
The God of those who wait, yet hope in you
And I am one of them, I am one of them
I am one of them, I am one of them
Will you heal me, will you heal me
Will you heal me, will you heal me
Will you heal me with your scars?
Song notes:
There have been a few books that have stuck with me and my thinking over the years, one of which is Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. In one chapter he describes the cross this way:
“As we have taken the circle as a symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as a symbol at once of mystery and health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its head a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms forever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.”
Just recently (long after writing this song, which begins with “you’re the riddle”), I read this quote regarding the resurrection in an article: “For those words [Christ is risen from the dead…] to gain meaning, we must have our hearts at least a little broken by the brokenness of the world, and yet have felt eternal things that this world suggests but for which it cannot satisfy our desires, so that the Resurrection becomes, not an arbitrary violation of natural laws, but a possible answer to a riddle that pervades the world, the riddle of glory and mortality woven together in all things yet irreconcilable, unless it be in Christ” (The Grand Coherence by Nathan Smith, Touchstone Magazine, May/June 2019, p. 46).
Paradox can be a way to describe many things or pairs of things about God that, while we know they are both true, they are hard for us to understand and so we have to hold them in tension with each other. While certainly not on the same level as true things about God, paradox can describe things about myself such as how I both seek after God and am apathetic. This has a parallel in Paul’s description of himself in Romans 7:19, ‘For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” In this case however, it is something I (and Paul) ultimately hope will be changed, and it is changed through something else paradoxical: “by his wounds we are healed.”