Shattered Glass

SHATTERED GLASS
You’re waking up in my car
For now we both are safe 
Where you roll into 
Becomes my favorite place 
-So lay your head down for a while
And just exist tonite
Later on we’ll drive around
No one’s looking now
-I wanna hear
How your day was spent
Think I could know all they can’t comprehend
Do you wanna see
A smile that comprehends
CHORUS:
After they bleed your dreams of hope
Where do they run?
Who will stitch them up when you call?
Why do you run home before its time?
But that’s a secret yours to keep and not mine
Through the shattered glass you see it all
And sometimes our visions get so broke
We can’t see at all
Don’t let the rocks they throw
Shatter all you’re hoping for
-Behind a broken telescope
Last night you found your star
Between the broken strings
A best friend plays your song
With a broken pen I’m writing you letters
To be read aloud, on the radio
About the moments we’re drunk
On the moonbeam’s undertow
In that same coffeehouse
Where your smile first shone
-So lay your head down for a while
And just exist tonite
Later on we’ll drive around
No one’s looking now
CHORUS: After your star burns out where does it fall?
We could go pin it back up, let me know
Someone needs to take a picture before your smile is stole
Another dollar for some fuel
Is all we’re waiting on
Off into that marble sky we drove
And never looking back
Cause no one’s going to hang our portraits once we’re gone
But that’s a secret ours to keep and the world will never know
Through the shattered glass we see it all
And sometimes our visions get so broke
We can’t see at all
Don’t let the rocks they throw
Shatter all we’re hoping for
-Hey I’m always here to answer when you call
For a while we’ll drive around
Then I’ll take you home
I will not be cut-by the shattered glass
From the rocks they like to throw

Shattered Glass is about the best kind of romance and also the best kind of friendship, the feet on the dashboard, late night radio, drive to nowhere kind. It’s also really about a true intimacy, one that’s based on waiting for her to get off work so you can take her to dinner after a torturous distance between your hearts all week, cooking his favorite meal because you know he is stressed and needs to feel honored, holding hands as you drive the same street over and over and over until your baby falls asleep kind of intimacy. We have really lost something precious with these magazine romances and “skinny loves”, and we often lose the genuine romance full of dashboard confessionals and late night ice cream chasing these Hollywood Fables and Disneyland Fairytales that we were spoon fed our entire lives. Then later in life we are shocked that our emotional bloodstream is found to be “poisoned by these fairy tales”. We have essentially been making all of our romantic and covenant decisions “under the influence” of well-crafted stories written by people who are often divorced and miserable sitting at a conference table at 10pm on a Wednesday instead of tucking their daughter in bed, because they are busy bouncing ideas back and forth on how to make their studio another almighty dollar playing your broken heartstrings. They have abandoned reading fairytales to their own children to fill their hearts because they are writing some for us to fill their wallets from our delusions.
This song is also essentially about two kids that have nowhere to be, but also many places such as home, that they have so many reasons not to be, and they find some relief and some escape in each other. It’s about the once in a lifetime friendships that don’t always turn into Eros (Romantic Love) because sometimes the Romance would be a lesser love than what they have already, which is a Kinship, a relationship where care and concern doesn’t depend on a Facebook Status. It’s a love that doesn’t go away when the bathroom scale turns up with the wrong numbers, or the hospital tests come back with souring news, or neither of you like the person that wake up one day seeing in the mirror. It’s not a “Skinny Love”, it’s a real love. Of course honoring your spouse means giving them the best you possible, as you are all they have and you have Covenant Promised them you, and they have Covenant Promised themselves to you alone as well, no one else. But at the end of the day, a Feet on the Dashboard Love isn’t fickle like a Heavy Breathing in the Backseat Love. Both are needed, but only one is everlasting.
Rabbi Sha’ul (the Apostle Paul) spoke of a feet on the dashboard kind of love, where the husband drives the car and the wife enjoys the ride, which unfortunately often turns into the man driving recklessly and the woman becoming a backseat driver, which is more like a traffic jam in July not a romance.
“In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Messiah does the Called Out Ones, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. ”This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Messiah and the Called Out Ones. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
Ephesians 5:28

Sometimes a writer shares from the History Books of their own life, and sometimes they share from a film preview in their mind about a movie they have never experienced in their heart, a story that has always been about someone else and not about themselves. They tell the story of someone else, wishing or anxiously waiting for it to be “the story of us”. Shattered Glass has never been “my” story, not for long, but only for a few fleeting moments of a 35 year lifetime.
I remember those moments though, and I hold them dear in my memory, even if I do not still hold dear the hand I was holding for reasons of betrayal or loss or the relationship not being part of the greater plan. Sometimes we recall these moments of a past romance with “A friend I lost somewhere in the bitterness” as The Fray sings of with the same sting that they convey in the song. Sometimes we are truly missing the romance, but most often just kicking ourselves for losing the rarity of the friendship. If we truly cherished the person who once had their feet on our dashboard driving down some old country road or passing through the green glow of the city lights, we will miss the friendship more than the romance.
I still hold onto the moment waiting for it to come again. It is often what occupies my thoughts as I drive down lonely highways and what directs the radio dial as I cruise through the moonlight to mend my heart of clear a troubled mind or just to get groceries after the gymn or a late shift at Lowe’s delaying the inevitable arrival at an empty house that has been empty for years on end. Life not as imagined is one pain we all face, but life not as intended is a different sense of loss. We are all called to, intended to, live in community, if we are called to marriage as nearly everyone is, or are one of those rare few called to lifelong singleness, no one was intended to always drive without feet on their dashboard.

Prayer for Those Walking On Shattered Glass

To The God Who Places the Lonely in Homes

We ask that You see all that we have Missed.

We ask that you Ride with us on our Lonely Drives through the Night

We ask that you Hear our Cries into our Pillows

We ask that you Sit beside us at our Tables for One

We ask that you dry our Tears at the Movies

We ask that you Play these Love Songs when we forget the Sound

We ask that you Hold us as we Hold our Children by Ourselves

We ask that you Hold up our Arms as we do the Holding meant for Two

We ask that you give us Friends who Witness our Lives

We ask that you give us Companions who will Hold our Secrets

We ask for all of this until you bring us a Covenant Love

“God settles the lonely in a home. He leads prisoners out to prosperity.

But the rebellious live in a parched land.” Psalm 68:7

Resource: Celebrate Recovery Groups www.celebraterecovery.com