Many poets, prophets and even Jesus himself lived and spoke enigmatically. At times, their writing seems prophetic and clear and other times, deliberately confusing. Truth is often hidden, not because these writers have any care of what others think, but because what they are saying is a treasure hidden from plain sight.
Bob Dylan’s writing and spirituality have always been something of intrigue to me – I think his poetry in song fits the wandering and the wondering souls. Bob has had a particularly interesting relationship with his Jewish roots and, in his later years, the teachings of Jesus, even publishing three gospel-based albums well into his career.
Now that he’s older and out of the major limelight, his spiritual persona only gets more mysterious. This really puts into context one of his greatest works as a songwriter, released in 1998 and called “Not Dark Yet.”
Anyone who has gone through a season of wrestling, doubting and questioning the convictions they were given and the convictions they developed over the years about God could find themselves drifting into an empathetic state of reflection as they listen to this particular piece. Musically speaking, it’s stripped down and beautifully foreboding, but not hopelessly so.
As the chorus line communicates, “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there,” Dylan speaks of a drifting – a drifting that brings him to the edge of chaotic unknowing. Many of us have been at the edge, peering into the potential meaninglessness of our own existence. It is these places of unknowing and dying that actually enable us to find the pure and present hope that is available. It is actually the clinging to other hopes that makes the only true hope elusive and perplexing.
At the end of the song, there’s a devastating line, “Don’t even hear the murmur of a prayer.” The honesty of it quite frankly makes me shutter. In my own journey of having to let go of even the healthy spiritual practices that had been the containers and vehicles of my daily encountering of God, this line says what I needed to say at the time.
I recollect moments where murmurs of prayers were about all I had to give, where the sense of God toward me still remained immensely present, but the sense of me toward him was almost non-existent…yet hope remained. Hope always remains.
JORDAN SUTTON
Shadows are falling and I been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep and time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t let me heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
Well my sense of humanity is going down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing, there’s been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writin’ what was in her mind
I just don’t see why I should even care
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
Well I been to London and I been to gay Paree
I followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down to the bottom of a whirlpool of lies
I ain’t lookin’ for nothin’ in anyone’s eyes
Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
I was born here and I’ll die here, against my will
I know it looks like I’m movin’ but I’m standin’ still
Every nerve in my body is so naked and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear the murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
Songwriters: Bob Dylan
Not Dark Yet lyrics © Bob Dylan Music
JORDAN SUTTON
Spiritual Director of ClearPath Church in Dallas, TX
Co-Director of Clearpath.life
Image via Averie Woodard
