I am Kyle's self-indulgence

I am re-reading the book Everyday Apocalypse by David Dark. I read it a year ago, and it reaffirmed what I had started to think about popular culture at the time.

I decided long ago that it is not necessarily a sin to listen to "secular" music, but I still assumed, like most people, that it is exactly what the label implies: separate from God. I saw things as either Spiritual or worldly, and thought there was no overlap.

About a year ago, however, I was listening to The Flaming Lips very heavily (I go on these musical binges from time to time), and I realized that, though the band members are not Christian, their music is so astonishingly wonderful that it stirs my soul, and causes me to think of God. Some people can look at a tree, marvel at its natural beauty, and see it as a piece of God's amazing creation. I realized I was having a similar experience with music. The lyrics of the music didn't contain anything that was necessarily religious, but when I listened to the joyful noise of "When You Smile" or "Lightning Strikes the Postman" I was moved by the artistry in the music, and I was led to marvel at what a gift the Lord has given humankind to be able to create and appreciate beauty in the form of art. The fact that The Flaming Lips do not intentionally use their gifts in God's service doesn't detract from the beauty of their gift.

Follow up:

That's more or less what I began to realize a year ago, only I couldn't have expressed it so well then. I would have said something like, "Sometimes, popular music, although secular, is able to remind me of God." Just when these thoughts started to swirl in my head, I was in a bookstore and David Dark's book Everyday Apocalypse jumped out at me. Below the title it reads: "The Sacred revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons, and other pop culture icons." I bought it immediately.

This little book reaffirmed some of the thoughts I was just beginning to form. Dark reclaims the Biblical Greek meaning of Apocalypse (meaning a revelation), and expands it to mean any form of art that challenges our thinking and gives us a new view of the Universe. His definition of apocalyptic doesn't recognize a separation between religious and worldly. He says, "For the apocalyptic mind, there isn't a secular molecule in the universe, no matter outside the scope of its coming kingdom, no nook or cranny exempt from the redemption it announces." David Dark believes, as I came to realize on my own, that all people are God's creation, and thus anything that is beautiful has its roots in God's beauty. Dark takes it a step further, saying that since there is no division of secular and spiritual, then there is no Spiritual Truth and non-spiritual truth. There is only The Truth, and anything that attempts to open our eyes to the truth around us brings us closer.