The Canyon Lines Say Never Mind

Well, I wasn't lying. I did have intentions to blog! On the list of topics I posted the other day one of them was: "Evidence of God in Creation (and how/why people struggle to label it as such - perhaps a case study of John Mayer lyrics is in order here)." That is exactly what I'm going to do. I've been really obsessed with John Mayer lately and just bought his new live CD Where the Light Is. I have to admit, though, that I had put the CD on my itunes, compliments of a friend who already owned it. But it has been so good that I had to buy it. I listened to it all summer, and am still listening to it. The song above is the song I'm going to be discussing. Please, watch it.

Over the summer, my family and I had the privilege of being able to take a vacation to Florida together. We hadn't had a full-fledged family vacation since the early 90's. No joke. We've gone out of town and stayed with relatives or good friends, but as far as a stay-in-a-hotel-eat-out-
every-day-lounge-on-the-beach-when-you're-not-eating-or-swimming-vacation...yeah it had been a long time. The first morning we were there we decided to have a family devotion time while sitting on the balcony looking out at the Gulf and drinking our coffee. My mom had been up before everyone else so she already had some verses prepared for us to talk about. We all sat their groggy but happy taking deep breaths of salty air, listening to my mom read Scripture:

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Romans 1:20

So we sat there on the balcony, looking at creation and therefore witnessing His invisible qualities! By the end of our time together we actually invoked creation to praise God has we felt lead (sea oats, people, every grain of sand, etc). It was fun! The rest of the vacation I continued to listen to Where the Light Is and found that some of Mayer's lyrics were an example of someone recognizing the divine attributes in creation and failing to properly label them as such. Mayer sings:

"I think I'm gonna stay gonna stay, gonna stay in the grey, think I'm gonna stay
All the street lights say nevermind nevermind
All the canyon lines say nevermind
Sunset says we see this all the time, nevermind never you mind."

Here, Mayer is personifying street lights, canyon lines, and sunsets. He recognizes that these things portray a sovereign knowledge of mankind! Somehow the street lights (this one is man-made...but I'll shamelessly ignore that for the sake of my argument...), canyon lines, and sunsets have seen it all - heartbreak, war, love, and life. Mayer acknowledges this and even finds some sort of solace in it because the three personified elements are in a sense telling him that this too will pass by saying: never you mind. This sort of observation is exactly what Roman's 1:20 is talking about! These are the hidden qualities made clear in creation!

This makes me feel like John Mayer is not far from the Kingdom of God. He's so close and may not even know it. Just this past Sunday I listened to a sermon about the roads that lead to Jesus. The pastor, Matt Nussbaum, said: "The truth is that not all roads lead to Jesus! But, Jesus will travel down any road to find people who are looking for Him." People won't find salvation in the mountains or the sea, to worship such things would be idolatry; but, God will and has used those specific things as a road to the lost. And that gives me some hope - for John Mayer and for humanity.