Sufjan is the glue

Leigh Ann and I discovered late this past summer that we both share an enthrallment with the music of Sufjan Stevens. We tend to go through similar spiritual depressions and doubts, and through the past few months have been listening almost exclusively to, and talking to each other about, this music.

Because this man speaks our language. His album from last July, The Avalanche, was my first exposure. From there I've gone on to buy everything he's done solo – an endless supply of songs upon which to fixate and meditate, and in which to find healing.

His songs tear me apart. The lyrics and instrumental arrangements and vocal ensembles dive past my consciousness and hit me right in that semiotic area of unspeakability. I can't describe exactly what it does to me to listen to him – it calls up a joy so intense it's pain.

One of the sources of his power is his use of repetition. Some of his songs repeat a single cycle of lyrical and musical phrases for three minutes or more, and, far from irritating, it strips away the automaton, the careless listener that evolves from too much casual listening, and forces a sharp confrontation with the music. Repetition does something to the human mind and soul. Some of the Psalms repeat one phrase over and over; hymns have choruses. Repetition is one of the backbones of human understanding.

To use a pop culture reference, the climactic moment of Good Will Hunting underscores the force of repetition to dismantle psychological walls. The first time Will hears, "It's not your fault," he responds with an automatic, "Yeah, I know." The second time, he repeats, "Yeah, I know," but gets agitated saying it. As he continues to hear, "It's not your fault," he gets progressively more upset – because the repetition of that powerful truth pierces through all of the shields he's used since childhood to cope with his abuse and anguish, and brings him face to face with a reality so intense he almost can't bear it, and it calls out the grief and brings him to peace.

That's what Sufjan's music does for me. I've buried a lot of spiritual hurts and damages, have watched them scab and scar over, and have gone on with my life; I came to an intellectual understanding of the forgiveness and love of God; but it was never really healing. The repetition in Sufjan's songs holds me firmly by the chin and directs my face toward God – a God whose love is so persistent and all-consuming as to be terrifying, and whose tenderness brings me back to the simplicity of my identity as His child. And it breaks me down. And holds me together.

It's been a strangely depressing and uplifting winter -- full of violent turns for the good and the bad: spiritual reawakenings, physical illness, amazing resurrections in familial relationships, money troubles; moments of joy, contentment, restlessness, despair. And through it all I keep turning to God, and to Illinois, Greetings from Michigan, Seven Swans, The Avalanche, and Songs for Christmas. (There are two others -- A Sun Came and Enjoy Your Rabbit -- which I have yet to listen to, although I have them; I'm half-afraid to. When I put in one of his albums to hear the first time, I have to put it in first as background, to get accustomed to it, before I'm able to sit down and concentrate on it, because otherwise the power would bowl me over.)

His art taps into the wellspring. And it's terrifically fun to live near the states after which he named two of his albums -- to drive past Ypsilanti, Michigan, to plan trips to the Sleeping Bear dunes, to turn the car toward Chicago. There's a weird visceral connectivity with place.

And, on a more frivolous note, I love hearing the Midwestern dialect in his pronunciation of the short "a" sound. "aa."

*Credit to Leigh Ann for the title of the post.