Post-9/11 Music, No. 10:

In September 2007 when this album was first released my friend Pam called and told me I needed to get it.  You can read my initial thoughts here.  I then preached about the album a month later -- it was a non-manuscript sermon, so I can't link to it for you.

Etheridge explained the provenance of the album:

After I was diagnosed with cancer, I spent 10 weeks on chemotherapy where I was forced to be still.  Although I believe this medical practice of chemotherapy to be rather barbaric, I walked away from the experience enlightened.  I no longer fear death, nor so many of the aspects I used to fear about life.  I began reading and searching for everything that had to do with my ‘awakening.’ I found a plethora of knowledge and accounts of other people and their spiritual journeys.  I now believe everyone is searching for these truths in some way, consciously or not.  We are the ones keeping this paradigm of fear in place, and it is up to us to shift it if we wish.

Like many of the albums on this list which came later in the decade, it is not explicitly about the day of the attacks or their immediate aftermath.  But it does address the larger cultural climate of fear and anxiety and how we ought to move forward.

No suprise, but the essence of the awakening is love: "All we can really do is love one another."  Or, "It's a simple love that holds us together."  About half the album is filled with fun or touching songs about love.  In the later half of the album this gets turned to a wider awakening.

In the song "Kingdom of Heaven," we hear:

A suffering soul on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven
Prayed in the dark, "Death to the infidel"
He strapped all his desperate pain and his faith to his body
And blew them away, blew them away

A suffering soul on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven
Shouts on the news, "They are the godless ones"
The anger inside and the fear that it hides
never leave her
When the cameras are gone, when the cameras move on

Oh, people, c'mon? tell me where is your Kingdom of Heaven?
Where is your faith?
Where do you put your fear?
Do you have a price for truth and a price for believing?
And heaven is here, heaven is here

My God is love
My God is peace
My God is you
And my God is me 

The simple, intimate love between two persons, reflected throughout the album, becomes a sign of God's love for creation.  I say that in all my wedding services and enjoy seeing it reflected here in this album.

In order to be receptive to this love, she sings "Open Your Mind":

If my choice is despair or wonder
On the line between truth and belief
Do I just let the tide take me under
Or do I let the fascination come on and rain all over me

Open your mind
'Cause you have been blind
Imagine the answers
Or questions will be all you find
Open your mind

Though I enjoy this entire album, what really captivated and inspired me was the three songs that together make up "The Awakening."  They are the climax of the album.

First, in "The Universe Listened" she diagnoses a common human problem:

But there's something wrong
We don't start living
Until we almost die

This leads to prayer:

Remove the dark
Heal my heart
Make my body whole

Next in "Imagine That" we are given three vignettes of surprises.  One is a scientist exploring the nature of the universe, one is a soldier objecting to the war, another is Cindy Sheehan:

A mother was grieving her loss
Her soldier the ultimate cost
She went to the man
Who's been told that he's a king
Waited outside of his compound
To ask him a few things
She said
"For what noble cause did my son have to die
Where are their weapons
Why did you have to lie"
Imagine that

But it is in "What Happens Tomorrow" that we encounter our call to action:

I believe that we are waking up from the spell
That those that profit from the fear
Cast so well
And good people of the earth now can tell
There is no us and them

If not now, when
If not today then
What happens tomorrow
What happens tomorrow

All is love
All is choice
Everyone and every voice
All of life that you see
All are possibilities
As above so below
To wed the sense into the soul
This is truth I believe
I believe I believe

Truth is of the people
By the people 
For the people 

And, so, this is where I intend to conclude this series of the music that has touched and inspired me in the decade since the attacks of September 11, 2001.  I want to leave myself, and us, with this call to action, this hope that we can change the world.  

Though the four years since this album have generated even greater cynicism, maybe with this anniversary we can renew our values and discover some unity and common ground again?