Fire & Rain.
Just yesterday mornin', they let me know you were gone
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you…
Won't you look down upon me, Jesus?
You've got to help me make a stand
You've just got to see me through another day…
Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again
~ James Taylor, “Fire and Rain”
the james taylor summer series, 2
Despite its melancholy tone, “Fire and Rain” is one of Taylor’s most popular songs of all time—a deeply personal look into his experience of struggle and loss. And as I’ve said before, it’s songs like these that probe the human experience that make them 100% relatable and endearing.
The song opens with a reference to Suzanne Schnerr, a friend who committed suicide while James was recording his first album. The second verse makes allusions to his struggle with addiction and depression. And while we haven’t all suffered the symptoms of drug withdrawal, we all know the feeling of “You've got to help me make a stand, You've just got to see me through another day.” It was Jesus who first drew our attention to “do not worry about tomorrow” and “give us this day our daily bread.” Freedom indeed comes one day at a time.
The third verse of the song references “sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.” Turns out that The Flying Machine was the name of Taylor’s first band that fell apart early in his career. So this song is an exploration of grief and loss. While we sometimes avoid these feelings by instinct, eventually we learn that healing only lands when we fully feel our griefs and move through them to the other side. Take a listen…
Artfully, James brings the two poles of our human journey—”sunny days that I thought would never end” and “lonely times when I could not find a friend”—together in a way that feels both honest and hopeful. Which is a good lesson for our current days marked by lots of fire and lots of rain! Can we hold both our joys and our sorrows simultaneously? Can we name the full gamut of both ends of that emotional spectrum… and still feel held?
The 14th century Christian mystic Julian of Norwich is probably best known for a single line from her book Revelations of Divine Love, credited as the first book written by a woman in the English language: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." Even though affirmed by no less than C.S. Lewis, the line often gets stuck in the mouth. Shall all things really be well? Is that merely mystical blah-blah, or is that an unshakable truth that we can hold with confidence?
In the words of Gandalf, “What does your heart tell you?”
finding our way home
It’s risky to hope. But it’s devastating not to. Let’s hold hands and take the plunge together.
takeaway
3… 2… 1… jump.