Psaltery, Organ, and Song #1
a regular feature of prayerful reverie in culture: "When I Get to Heaven," John Prine
John Prine has been in low orbit to me since 1995 when I arrived on the campus of Mercer University. I played in a band that did a lot of covers of music that is now called Americana and John Prine’s droll wisdom was very much a part of our repertoire. My then-girlfriend-now-wife and I saw him once in concert, about 3 hours of story and song. A real treasure.
I especially loved Prine’s cheeky bawdiness that’s in deep embrace with committed intimacy. For sure the only lyricist that outnumbers him in citations in my sermons is Charles Wesley1.
Once at a wedding, when I arrived at the venue the couple had made a banner, “In Spite of Ourselves,” a quote from a Prine classic duo with Iris Dement. It’s a ribald and loving testimony to love in a low anthropology2.
Once I saw that banner I threw out my prepared sermon and preached on the sacrament of marriage and the grace found therein amidst staggering selfishness.
John Prine was the first public figure that I knew of cared about who died of complications from Covid. I said this on Facebook on April 8, 2020 the day after his death: “I never really mourn the death of a famous person, but the world simply is worse off without John Prine in it. We are truly blessed to have had him and his music.” [btw, a look at one’s social media from 2020 will show you how crazy things were for us]
Now, it’s been said that comedy is like a frog: it doesn’t survive dissection. In commenting on the limits of the historical-critical approach to the study of the Bible, Hans Urs Von Balthasar said that you can only study anatomy on a corpse. I’m trying to say that the epiphanies of art can just be that, we need not wrestle every angel we find down to the ground. That said, what follows is a free-association theological reverie on a song I love. My deepest desire is actually to start a conversation here on a regular basis. What would you like to see or hear here?
Without further ado, here’s “When I Get to Heaven,” by John Prine, the song is below, you might listen once and on a second listen, check out my commentary next to the lyrics in (italics):
When I get to heaven (he’s certain about this, not “if,” but “when.” Of course, Heaven is getting here, we aren’t going there, it’s coming here: Revelation 21)
I'm gonna shake God's hand (God the Son’s wounded hand, we will know him by the marks. Take note of Christian art, it is the wounded Jesus who ascends and the wounded Jesus who returns)
Thank Him for more blessings than one man can stand (gratitude is baseline human spirituality, the collect for the sixth Sunday of Easter: O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire…” God’s love and goodness surpasses what we can understand and desire; “more blessings than one man can stand.” In the third canticle of Paradise section of the “Divine Comedy,” Dante asks what he thinks as a lower echelon blessed soul and asks her if she desires more. Her answer, “Brother, the power of love appeases our will so—we only long for what we have; we do not thirst for greater blessedness.”)
Then I'm gonna get a guitar
And start a rock-n-roll band (“till we cast our crowns before Him, lost in wonder, love, and praise.”)
Check into a swell hotel
Ain't the afterlife grand? (there’s something about this line that makes we weepy as I laugh.)
Chorus:
And then I'm gonna get a cocktail
Vodka and ginger ale
Yeah, I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long (the fulfillment of all desires. The spirit in Paradiso, continues, “Should we desire a higher sphere than ours,
then our desires would be discordant with the will of Him who has assigned us here, but you’ll see no such discord in these spheres; to live in love is—here—necessity,
if you think on love’s nature carefully. The essence of this blessed life consists
in keeping to the boundaries of God’s will, through which our wills become one single will.” This is very classical Western Christian understanding of the Beatific Vision or perhaps the purification of the will. I’m not entirely clear on the difference between the Consummation (Parousia) and the Beatific Vision)
I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl (Reconciliation, Prine was married three times.)
'Cause this old man is goin' to town
Then with God as my witness
I'm getting back into show business
I'm gonna open up a nightclub called "The Tree of Forgiveness" (The Cross? This nightclub, it’s the Church.)
And forgive everybody ever done me any harm (no notes needed)
Well, I might even invite a few choice critics (“you set a table for me in the presence of my enemies.”)
Those syph'litic parasitics (well, they are still his enemies. We should take care to identify our enemies, then we’ll know who to pray for.)
Buy 'em a pint of Smithwicks
And smother 'em with my charm (he’s getting there)
Chorus
Yeah when I get to heaven
I'm gonna take that wristwatch off my arm
What are you gonna do with time
After you've bought the farm? (time is a creation. The classical vision of God is that God exists outside of all creation including time. This is the meaning of eternal: no time. What I wonder: since Christ will be all-in-all in three dimension space, what will that mean in the dimension of time at the Parousia?)
And then I'm gonna go find my mom and dad (the commandment to honor one’s parents is a recognition that we didn’t earn our existence, God’s gifts precede us. Also the group precedes the individual. This is one of the major philosophical root values. There’s individualism, there’s collectivism, and then there’s personalism. For me, a theology developed from the Personalist school is where’s it at, starting with the persons of the Holy Trinity.)
And good old brother Doug
Well I bet him and cousin Jackie are still cuttin' up a rug
I wanna see all my mama's sisters
'Cause that's where all the love starts
I miss 'em all like crazy
Bless their little hearts
And I always will remember these words my daddy said
He said, " Buddy, when you're dead, you're a dead pecker-head"
I hope to prove him wrong (is this a faithful refutation to atheistic materialism?)
That is, when I get to heaven
Chorus.
Many thanks for your interest in this song and my thoughts. What did I miss? Let’s discuss in the comments.
What movie, art, song, etc. should we talk about next?
What is Low Anthropology?
Cool post. Can I get a definition of Parousia for those of us who didn’t go to a fancy backwoods theological school?
I really liked this post--thanks. Would love to hear more about the Beatific Vision and (vs.?) Parousia. (I'm tempted to try to work "Parousia" into an everyday conversation sometime...but probably shouldn't).
I also really like the brief mention about the dimension of time at the Parousia--and makes me wonder about the point at which time comes into contact with eternity. Pretty mind-blowing, to me at least.
Re the comments around individualism (best exemplified by Ayn Rand at an extreme) vs. collectivism (which maybe starts off as a nice thought but seems to inevitably devolve into dictatorship and atrocities): I had not heard about Personalism before, but am glad to know about it now--and look forward to learning more about it.
Finally, one song that has always had very spiritual overtones to me is Bridge Over Troubled Water. Maybe this could be a discussion subject sometime?