Ten-Thousand Blackbirds

Sometimes the Soul Needs a Metaphor

Sometimes the soul needs a metaphor.

Twenty years ago, I was driving home from Athens after a weary season of questioning everything—the horrors of this world, my lifelong faith in a God that may or may not exist, the absolute chaos and darkness that hovered like a cloud of smoke.

I was driving downtown in January
The cold all around had come inside me
I had just stopped for coffee, but nothing could warm me
So I got in my car and headed for home

That winter I was closer to despair than I have ever been in my life. I remember sitting at the piano, telling my husband through tears that I just didn’t know if I believed in God anymore. He listened. He told me it was going to be okay.

I was driving along past a cemetery
The stone on the ground like the heart inside me
What doesn’t die just gets buried alive
Lost my hope in the cold on these streets in the snow.

There was an anguish in my soul that I had never before known. I remember that winter, it felt that the sturdy structure of my whole contented life was crumbling to dust. That the real beauty I had known from my earliest childhood forward might somehow be a lie.

If You are the way, why are you so hard to find
If You are the truth, why don’t I believe You sometimes
If You are the life, why do I feel like I’m dying
And if You are the light of the world, open my eyes

I don’t remember all the conversations I had or books I read, the scriptures I read or the prayers I prayed. The details of my crisis of faith have faded from my memory. I only remember the moment that the crisis passed. I was standing in a cemetery in Athens, Georgia. I was looking up at a black tree, with thousands of dead leaves still clinging to it, when suddenly, in perfect synchronization, every leaf shook itself from the tree and took flight. Ten-thousand blackbirds.

You can take a black tree in a cemetery
With ten-thousand dead leaves
And turn them into blackbirds.

You can take ten-thousand blackbirds
Scatter them across the sky
And turn them in Your hands.
I am resting in Your hands.

Sometimes the soul needs a metaphor.

I was driving downtown in January
The cold all around had come inside me
I had just stopped for coffee, but nothing could warm me
So I got in my car and headed for home
Found my hope in the cold on these streets in the snow

Dear friends,

Sending this song out to anyone who can borrow my own story, as I borrowed the story of my husband’s faith to get me through a difficult season. I pray it is a soul-metaphor that someone needs today.

With Love,

Mackenzie

P.S. Our album, 4 and 20 blackbirds, is now available for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music. These are my first piano songs, recorded in 2006, with Randy on the bass, guitar, and fingersnaps... You can hear the song in today’s story (“Ten-Thousand Blackbirds”) above.

And in case you missed the video last week, I wanted to share Randy’s song, “Peace, Be Still (Drowning Man),” which tells the story of his own crisis of faith a decade before I ever met him.

And you can read more about Randy’s story in last week’s post:

To all of my journaling friends, I will be hosting a Journaling Circle Zoom event on Tuesday, October 22 from 12:00-1:00. Join us for an hour of kindred conversation over a cup of tea and open journals. This event is available to all paid subscribers and Patreon supporters, as is access to the in-progress first draft of my book, Journaling Your Way to the Sacred Everyday. (Friends, could you shoot me a message and let me know if you are hoping/planning to attend? Trying to start on a head-count so I can shape the event accordingly. Can’t wait to see you there!)

Thank you all for being here, for reading these words each week, for bearing witness to my life. I confess that sometimes I feel that week by week, I am just throwing out a few little crumbs into the sea. But I continue to wake up with the desire to share the goodness of God. This world is so dark, so broken, so helpless and hopeless without Him. But his light shines in the darkness. The story of my life is woven through with his help and hope, his lovingkindness and his unrelenting faithfulness. That’s why I keep writing these letters. My sincere hope and prayer is that God will use my life the glory of his name.