Andrew Petersen has a new album releasing at the end of next month. Yay!. In his delighful and brilliant way of pulling back the curtains that veil us from realizing God, he reflects on the title of his new album.
'God is at home. We are in the far country.'- Meister Eckhart
I read that quote in an Annie Dillard book several years ago and it never left me. Too often we tend to imagine that heaven is a cotton-white cloudscape, a place that doesn't seem desirable to us here in this sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrifying world. We're comfortable here, and the skewed notion we have of eternity is that it's like a never-ending church service, where we'll be standing mindlessly around a throne, singing bad praise songs to a white haired God for the rest of our existence. From what I know about God, what I've read of Him in scripture and what I've seen of Him in what has been made - towering mountains, howling wind, purple budded trees, a baby's touch and a panther's roar - He is not a tame God. The City He's prepared for us is not a retirement home. Zion is not a country club. Death is but the cusp of a great adventure, hinted at in Hebrews 11, 'People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own...they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.' The songs on this record were born out of a longing for that better country, and it's my hope that whoever listens to them will feel that God-given flutter in the stomach that reminds us who we are - and where we're bound.
I was deeply moved, and even more deeply excited about this 5th album by such a talented singer/songwriter.
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