Mel McDaniel the Philosopher

I spent much of my childhood anchored in one-seventh of the occupied seats in the family van as it hopped historical markers around North America. Often the only peace to be found from interstate potty-training and trucker talk on channel 7 was in an unchanging three-cassette rotation of country music. Mel McDaniel was fortunate enough to be a part of that trio with whom we grew up.

I quickly discovered that Mel is fond of Louisiana. He sings songs with titles such as “Louisiana Moon” and “Louisiana Saturday Night” (a personal karaoke favorite). And I once scoffed to a friend that you know that a state must not have much to offer if, in a song title, the state becomes an adjective to things that are held in common by anyone in anyplace, such as the moon or a particular day of the week.

I thought it might be a good idea for Mel to travel to Arizona or to Canada before he cut another record. I was ignorant to an important truth of what was being said (consciously or not) in his songs about Louisiana. Perhaps what Mel is saying is that he recognizes the value in the consistent aspects of his life like the moon that always adds its glow to the night and the reoccurring Saturday evening celebrations.

Oddly related to this, I am currently reading Orthodoxy with some guys from my church. G.K. Chesterton explains this truth that Mel eludes to and that often eludes me:

“All the towering materialism that dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption – a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead, a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe were personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance… it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due not to lifelessness but to a rush of life… people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony... It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.”

Chesterton got it. Mel gets it. I am trying.

It’s not the variations that make places special or the differences in people that are of true importance. Those things are good, but it’s the things that persist; the things that are faithful in their rhythm. These are the things that our unchanging and faithful God exults in. The people that Jesus was drawn to during His ministry were not extraordinary. For His last dinner, before His death, He chose to eat bread and drink wine. When God is involved the ordinary is the extraordinary.

I know that I wouldn't choose bread to eat as my last meal on this earth. The problem is that we are all A.D.D. in our humanity. We want something to excite us because it’s an easy and quick thrill. But to exult in something for its constancy is difficult, it requires thought, effort and perseverance to grow in deep appreciation; it’s not something that naturally occurs.

A first kiss at the end of a date is a burst of nervous excitement, but a man kissing the same woman every morning for forty years is something truly amazing.

There are many talented musicians in my church and it is much fun to hear them perform, but the incredible part of our musical worship is that we sing, in unity, the same words to the same God; and brothers and sisters throughout the world and history sing those same words (although different languages) to the same unchanging and faithful God.

A new song with a fun beat can give us a quick thrill. But there are songs that we have heard a thousand times and with every listen they only grow deeper in their meaning. For me it was worn out songs making up a three-cassette rotation that maintained sanity on the highway.

There is something of deep value in the same moon that lightens the night sky just as it did last night, and in another Saturday evening with the same friends and the same family, even when this occurs in Louisiana.

This is what I am learning now as I prepare for marriage. I must learn to appreciate the rhythm that God has created in my fiance and soon-to-be wife. And to see that it is God behind her fascinating, not mundane, sameness. I believe recognition of this in my heart will be the difference between a life that strives to be a fluid act of worship and a life filled with merely points of worship.