sarah masen
Sarah Plain and Tall Melissa Riddle - CCM Magazine
Its a most unusual day. Bone-chilling cold and overcast at the start, but by mid-morning, the sky breaks open, bathing the streets and lawns and people of Nashville in winter white. Snow has fallen already this winter, but still people are standing on their porches, frozen hands in pockets, looking upward and shaking their heads as if to say, What in the world is this stuff?
Its a question Sarah Masen who sits, sleepy-eyed, across the table, a sprig of dried lavender perched in her casually disheveled hairknows well. In fact, its a question a lot of people still seem to be asking about her music nearly five years after the release of her self-titled professional debut. Though the album sold well, thanks in large part to radio hit All Fall Down, it also raised a lot of questions.
When I did the first album, Sarah says, [the response] was like, Well, its kind of ambiguous. Maybe shes writing about her faith, but it could be about a relationship. For a girl who grew up listening only to Christian music, the idea that her album wasnt being understood was disturbing. After all, Sarah Masen was an album she considered an invitation to conversation. I was the one who would be seen reading my Bible at a coffee shop, Masen explains. I was writing all about my faith… so it was kind of confusing to me [why people didnt get my songs].
On her second album, 1998s Carry Us Through, Masen tried to respond to her critics. I was still writing the songs about what Im going through… but Carry Us Through, to me, was answering the ambiguity for people.
But the questions about where she was coming from remained. I was starting to think, Why isnt this working? Where is the breakdown in communication? Or as her husband, David Dark, puts it, matter-of-factly, She thought she was being clear in the past but was told that she wasnt.
Sarah continues, I think I felt like I did something wrong somewhere… I can see clearly what Im saying, but I lost confidence in my ability to communicate.
That lost confidence didnt come only as a result of her musical expression. Masen admits her actions were often misinterpreted as well. For example, she recalls an industry event several years ago in which she and other artists were supposed to be signing posters for a long line of Christian retailers. I wanted to write something individually so it wouldnt be such a cattle call.
But, flustered by the number of people trying to hurry her along, Masen engaged her sense of humor to try to make light of the situation. It wasnt taken well. On one of the posters, I wrote Weve gotta move this crap off the shelves. You just dont do that… even though theres truth to it. Nobody came to me directly, but I heard about it and got in trouble.
While Sarah readily accepts responsibility for getting some of the wires crossed, that doesnt lessen her discouragement over the fact that the Christian community doesnt seem to get her. Sometimes calling someone artistic or artsy becomes an excuse for not talking to them, Masen says. I dont know that I explained my work well enough or let it explain me well enough to the gatekeepers. But it needs to be understood in context, and there doesnt seem to be a lot of room for that.
[This is] a business that sells image, and there isnt a lot of room for growth and conversation. Unless you have a really strong image, unless youve won the confidence of the people, its difficult… And I feel I dont have that. Steven Curtis Chapman could pose some really radical ideas that, coming from him, people would say Hmmm, maybe. But coming from me, they say There she goes again with another crazy idea.
Nevertheless, Sarah Masen is one artist who values music for the powerful connection it makes with people, and because she does, she is not likely to quit anytime soon. Her latest offering, The Dreamlife of Angels (Word), lands with one foot firmly planted in stories of struggling humanity and the other steeped solidly in songs for the Christian community. I think were purposely more clear on this album, she says. These are specific stories from my own life experience, but again, saying to the church, This is what were made up of. The community is made up of complicated, hard and redemptive, but ultimately hopeful stories… I struggle with these things, and thats why I write about them.
The most remarkable life experience for Masen as of late, though, has little to do with music and everything to do with motherhood. At 18 months, Dorothy Day is the sun around which Sarahs world turns. And as with most new parents, life with a toddler requires one to get down to basics. Im living very much in the moment, she says, after Dorothy wipes her mouth on mommys T-shirt and wanders off to find her daddy. Thats pretty much my life these days… When she wakes up, we make breakfast. Maybe she eats it; maybe she doesnt. We get dirty; we take a bath. Its very earthy and laid back. Were meeting immediate needs. Its the normal, mundane but important things, very basic but complicated in its own way.
Becoming a parent is complicated, she says, because while it has made her more conscious of her fears, it has also made her strikingly less fearful overall. She is at once more self-aware and yet less self-absorbed than ever before. How can that be?! she wonders aloud. Im so much more aware of my motives, more in tune with my intentions, but Ive also learned how selfish I can be.
Such personal lessons have impacted both spiritual and professional aspects of Masens life, making her more passionate about doing the work of the gospel, more aware of the importance of community and more desirous of being understood.
Most of the songs on this album came out of being at home doing the everyday stuff of life, Masen says of the three-year span since her last album released. Weve been very busy interacting with our neighbors, fixing dinners and celebrating birthdays and talking through things with our friends and crying with each other… Life brings all sorts of good and hard things to the surface.
The everyday stuff is where we can and must put hands and feet to the gospel. That, clearly, is the point of The Dreamlife of Angels. Im trying to make a plea to the listener to be awake to that fact that all people bear the image of God. It is personal, but its just asking God to open our eyes and show us His face in the eyes of others. Feed somebody, clothe somebody, visit somebody in prison or talk to your husband or wife if they need to talk… Its very basic stuff really.
As Eugene Peterson puts it in his book Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination (Harper San Francisco), The plainest details of our daily faith are significant factors in a cosmic drama… [guiding] us into the maturity that pours intelligence and energy into what is before us, making a work of holy art out of the ordinary.
In the early church, Masen continues, Christians were known for not throwing away children and for taking care of elderly people, and we should be known for those things. They were also known for not participating in war. We should be known for these kinds of mercies.
On such an unusual day as this, perhaps there is a new kind of mercy to be found among the Christian community for Sarah Masen. Perhaps there are people who will shake off preconceived notions and look beneath the artistry to find the truth that connects us all. Truth as simple and complex as the driven snow.
I have a lot of hope for the church. I grew up in it, and so naturally I want to see these songs embraced by the community. I want my music to inspire people to think differently, to talk less and take more action, to say Lets deal with these issues; lets take care of these people, and not just swallow a happy pill, which isnt what Christianity is… So much is happening around us, I hope I can be a bridge of some kind, a voice that inspires people to feel more free, free to get the work of the gospel done.
