After church, someone in the circle brought up the age-old question, “So what are we allowed to do on Sunday anyway?”

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Being a student requires me to read and to listen to lectures for many hours each week. What follows are not my own ideas – but a condensed version of reading from Peter Scazzero’s “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” and today’s lecture on creation by Dr. Wanner.

Work and Rest

To understand rest, we must understand work. God works for six days, creating a flawless (yet imperfect and incomplete) world. On day seven God is enthroned over all he has made, and he hands the work of creation completion over to us. With the charge of authority and creativity, we are told to keep creating and bringing order to the world – and in this God delights. Today, there ought be no distinction between “my job” and “God’s work.” Regardless of our occupation or position, Christians must approach their daily tasks as work to bring the world closer to completion. It is our purpose. The rest of the world does not participate in this sacred work, striving only towards their own gain. And from this good work we are also called to rest.

Scazzero writes about two ways in which God invites us to rest, the Daily Office and Sabbath keeping. These two practices are “an entirely new way of being in the world…[they are] ropes that lead us back to God in the blizzards of life.”

The Daily Office

The Daily Office might be different from your devotions in that it doesn’t fill you up for the day, so much as ground your being; it centers your focus on God. It is a time during the day set aside for the Lord, a time to be with him. There are monks who stop seven times a day to practice the Daily Office:

Vigils: 3:45 a.m. (middle of the night)

Lauds: 6 a.m. (predawn)

Prime: 6:25 a.m. (“first” hour)

Sext: 12:15 p.m. (“sixth” hour)

None: 2:00 p.m. (“ninth” hour)

Vespers: 5:40 p.m. (“evening”)

Scazzero encourages that we set our own time and length (anywhere from two minutes to forty-five minutes). “The great power in setting apart small units of time infuses a sacredness into the rest of my daily activities. The Daily Office, practiced consistently, actually eliminates any division of the sacred and the secular in our lives.”

This elimination of sacred and secular is something I long for. I want to grow into a frame of mind where every moment is holy, and I no longer see the work of God as separate from my daily tasks. This is what the Daily Office helps us do. “At each Office I give up control and trust God to run this world without me.”

Sabbath

To observe the Sabbath is not to rest our bodies in hope we will accomplish more in the long run. Sabbath is choosing to stop being productive, a rest where we lay down our work and trust our Father to provide what we need.

So what are we allowed to do on Sunday? Scazzero says, “Whatever delights and replenishes you.” Sabbath is about trusting God enough to stop being productive and taking time to delight. “Sabbath delight invites us to healthy play. ” After all, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)

It’s also important to note that not everyone’s day of rest can be on the same day of the week. So we don’t have to feel guilty about forcing others to work. That is between them and God. Paul says, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord.” (Romans 14:5-6).

I love how Scazzero compares Sabbath to a snow day. In the south, we get about one snow day every year. Everything stops – school is cancelled – work is cancelled – the plans you had are cancelled. And what do you do? You do whatever you want. You go out for a late breakfast with friends. You make a muddy snowman. You lay on the ground like a child and make angles. God offers us a snow day every week, even if July, if we’re up for it. It’s up to us to lean into to the concept, and it’s hard because the rest of the world never stops.

A snow day is a free day. There aren’t lists of things you cannot do. So I say, imitate your heavenly father. He moved from six days of work to enthronement and rest. Likewise, take a day to enthrone yourself on the ole armchair and put down the good work you’ve been doing. The snow soon melts, and Monday always comes around.

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I like to think that I have logical, well developed reasons for liking and not liking the things around me. Yet when I really examined why I prefer what I do, the answer was not what I expected –  it was a little disappointing to be honest.

Donald Trump and country music have always held a special place in my heart alongside black olives, paper cuts, and other things I don’t like very much. But until recently I’d only assumed I really knew the reasons why.

Country Music

Music is a an important part of my life. I love to listen to music with my brother Luke who has a great sense for good songs. We enjoy the same kind of stuff. Genre is hard to describe, but it’s something like light, alternative rock. The other day we were listening to “High as a Kite” – Weezer by Weezer, and he said that song, that sound, was the best summation of the music he liked. Mine might be “Up & Up” – Coldplay. Whatever the case, it’s a far cry from the pop-country played on the radio.

Country music actually affects my mood – I just really don’t like it. And I thought that it was the content, namely the lyrics. I thought that the reason I found it distasteful was because the songs were written poorly, or about things I thought were stupid. Being a person who tries to write songs here and there, I pay a lot of attention to words. And for a long time I thought that was the reason I hated country music: it’s bad writing.

But when listening through a playlist I recently made, I realized that I didn’t know what any of the songs were about – I didn’t even recognize the lyrics. When I sit at coffee shops to do homework, there’s almost always music playing. If a song catches my attention, I’ll let my phone listen to it, then screenshot the title and comeback to it later. This was how I made the playlist, and it became obvious that I didn’t screenshot these songs because they were good lyrically…you can never hear words well in coffee shops. So it wasn’t the words at all.

I concluded that I dislike country music (and like other music) largely because of the vibe. All the songs on that playlist were songs I liked because of how they were sang, and how they were played. The vocalists are generally not aggressive, or overbearing, or arrogant. The song sounds like something I can trust. They fit my vibe: mellow, thoughtful, poetic. In country songs, I don’t hear those things that I like. So in the end, it was more my tastes than anything that told me what was good and right in terms of music. I still believe the music I listen to is far superior and more worthwhile than country, but perhaps the reason I think so is different, less arrogant even.

Mr. Donald Trump

I also like politics. When I went to Tri-County Tech, I was part of a club that mostly just met in a classroom to talk about current events. While there, I took a philosophy class in which we read “The Republic,” a book written by Plato about two thousand years ago. In it, Socrates describes his ideal leader, the philosopher king. This ruler is one without falsehood, who refuses to accept what is false and has a love for the truth. He isn’t money-loving or a boaster. He is graceful, high-minded, a friend and relative of truth, justice, courage, and moderation. (485-486). It makes me happy inside thinking of this kind of leader.

In my mind, Mr. Donald Trump is a country song. He too puts me in a bad mood. I fell in love with Socrates’ idea of the philosopher king, and this is clearly not Mr. MAGA. His speeches, his Twitter, his campaign jargon about “making (and now keeping) America great” almost make me nauseous. He is not intellectual – he is not mellow – he is not personable or well spoken. I think we could have picked a better face for our nation.

But when I stopped to think about it, I realized that I don’t actually know very much about Mr. Trump’s ideology or policy. I’ve heard his talking points (build the wall – make America great – get better trade deals), but I have very little idea what most of it means. I don’t know what it actually means to have him as our president, what he actually wants to do, or what he is actually about. Perhaps then it’s not so much his content, his policy. Just as with the country music, I am deeply opposed to his vibe. I don’t like how he says things. But from another mouth…who knows?

Conclusion

The bad taste that Trump puts in my mouth is not simply because I have studied his policy and found it wanting. It’s because I’ve heard him speak, read his words, and found them extremely distasteful. That’s not how I would speak at all. And I don’t like country music on my radio. That’s not how I would sing at all. But I’d wager that my decisions to like and not like things are about as reasonable as those who do prefer country music and Donald Trump.

It’s not to say that there are no right answers when it comes to music and politics, only that it’s all too easy to claim the moral high ground without really considering what has led you there. As the Dude would say, “It’s just, like, my opinion, man.” And sometimes I forget that.

I recently became fascinated with “Old Town Road,” which has topped charts and become a sensation. I’d heard it played several times before I looked up the lyrics and was somewhat shocked. But the longer I thought about it, the more curious I became. And I came up with three ideas of what this song might be about.

A Good Ole Cowboy Song

The obvious, first listen interpretation is that it’s just about a cowboy hauling horses around in a trailer. He’s trying to get to “the old town road,” and he’s ready to ride him some horses. It’s got Billy Ray Cyrus; it mentions horses, a porch, wrangler jeans, hats, boots, bull riding, and a tractor. This is just a trap artist trying to work in as many feel-good, pop-country vibes as he possibly can.

A Really Shady Song

Secondly, I thought that this song could be really shady, everything meaning something else. This guy has got him some “horses” that he can’t wait to “ride” until he “can’t no more.” He’s got “lean” in his bladder (a drink that involves mixing prescription cough syrup, codeine, and promethazine). He states, proudly, that he’s cheated on his woman. His life is about “bull riding and boobies.” So this cowboy is pretty…less than noble.

A Protest Song

Lastly, I thought that maybe this song was written as a jab at hip, redneck culture – that it was taking a shot at pop-culture “cowboys.” I listened to a Broken Record podcast episode where Malcomb Gladwell interviewed David Byrne about protest songs. Byrne notes that sometimes these protest songs are big pop hits that no one understands. “They’re made in such a way that they blend in with other music…if you didn’t listen to the words, you might think it was a love song or a big pop hit…and then you listen to the lyric, and you realize Oh, this was about something else.

You don’t even know how badly I wanted this third one, the satire idea, to be true. That this song could have been a mockery of pop-cowboys, only to become the anthem of pop-cowboys, would have been wonderfully ironic. The vocals sound like a mockery of the southern drawl. He boasts about his black boots, matching hat (from Gucci), and a pair of Wranglers on his booty. He’s “riding on a tractor,” his “life is a movie” (about bull riding and boobies). He even croons, “Can’t nobody tell me nothing, can’t tell me nothing.” (that’s a triple negative).

I thought, maybe he’s just writing a song to make fun of rednecks who can’t be reasoned with cause they just want to ride their horses and wear their garb. No one could actually write a song this stupid and be taken seriously. And now it’s become an anthem of the ones it’s making fun of. How fun!

And it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. Gladwell’s podcast talks about a song by the punk band Black Flag called “TV Party.” According to Wikipedia, it was “a satire of boredom, drinking, and America’s obsession with television.” The song was supposed to be making fun of people who just wanted to sit around and watch TV all day. It said things like, “I wouldn’t be without my TV for a day, or even a minute, I don’t even bother to use my brain anymore, there’s nothing left in it. What actually happened was that crowds loved it – it was an anthem. They just wanted to scream about having TV parties.

After several days of wondering about the true nature of “Old Town Road,” I looked it up. And I found a video of Lil Nas X himself explaining the song. I was really disappointed. He said,

“It’s about getting to a better place than where you’re at and saying ‘forget you’ to everyone who doesn’t want to see you there…The horse is a symbol of not having much. Cause when the car came in, the horse is like obsolete. The old town road is like a path of success.”

He was serious the whole time. My hopes about this song being clever were dashed against the rocks of how incredibly pathetic our collective tastes can be. This song is actually about a cowboy who just wants to make money and cheat on his woman and wear Gucci. It turns out Lil Nas X bought the beat for thirty bucks from a guy in Europe, and he got the music from a Nine Inch Nails song (34 Ghosts IV). Essentially, he wrote a pretty ridiculous poem, paired it with some stuff other people made, posted it on Twitter, and became a sensation. This world is a strange place. Good luck with your newfound fame, Lil Nas X. But I had really hoped for more.