Music: Matthew Smith's Goodnight, and the Sadness and Hope of Death

Last night, my husband and I heard our favorite band play a very small concert at a church in Bossier City, LA.  If you've never heard of Matthew Smith and Indelible Grace, then you're missing out.  We've been enjoying their music for nearly a decade, ever since my cousin and his wife gifted me with their Pilgrim Days CD at my college graduation party. 

Matthew Smith takes old, often obscure hymns and rewrites them into modern music.  The Indelible Grace sound is very folksy, almost country.  Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken are two of their more well-known artists, but even Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay has recorded with Indelible Grace. 

The hymn writers seem to understand the depth and beauty of God as well as the ugliness of this earth, so to me, hymns seem to be both more worshipful and more real and honest, all at the same time.  I also find their view of God, their theology, to be so much bigger and so much richer than most of us grasp now in the 21st century.  So for me, I'd rather sing along to Indelible Grace than just about any modern worship song I can think of.

Many of you know that my step-father passed away two months ago.  It's been a hard two months with lots of tears.  That's one reason I find it hard to write anything "real" right now, beyond my tips and tricks of motherhood.  I've also been trying to keep my focus on my kids and my home, and figuring out how to manage and balance it all.  In the past few weeks, my love for homemaking has been rekindled, and I'd much rather cook or clean than blog.  So that's just where I am right now, and I'm also trying to decide how a blog fits in with that, and how to use it to honor God.   

Last night, I heard a song that was especially comforting for me right now, since it was a beautiful depiction of death, from the perspective of a man dying and speaking to his loved ones.  Matthew Smith introduced it by talking about the world's advice and admonishment to those grieving death.  The world often says that it's just a part of life, but as he pointed out, death is the exact opposite of life.  I found the song "Goodnight" to be incredibly comforting because it talks of both the sadness of death and the hope of what is still to come. 



Here is an interview with Matthew Smith about the song.