Tin Man

You can't be like me

but be happy that you can't
I see pain but I don't feel it
I am like the old tin man

I'm as worn as a stone
I keep it steady as I can
I see pain but I don't feel it
I am like the old tin man

I used to fill the sky around
with happiness and joy
I had news to give the wind
to keep my sails and heart employed

I felt people move around me
I felt loneliness and shame
back then everyday was different
now each moment is the same

Baby bring me life or something else

So it goes a man grows cold
some would say a man grows strong
they say life only grows short
I say the road only grows long

As long as there's a road
my feet will never touch the ground
if you won't give my heart back
I've no need to stick around

-The Avett Brothers; Tin Man

The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to ‘inject’ His kind of life and thought, His Zoe, into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.

-C.S. Lewis; Mere Christianity

I am becoming a real live man.  Its been a long and difficult process and I'm sure there is great work left to be done.

I'm afraid that it has taken so long because I had gotten to the point where I was looking for the something else.  I was aware I was tin and didn't like it.  I hated it so much I was willing to try the something else. The song is powerful because its the way most people live.  At the first hurt or disappointment so many of us "go tin."  We don't like the loneliness and shame so we harden, its only then that we realize we have lost the happiness and joy along with the pain.  Its difficult to come to the place where you welcome the pain if it means breaking the apathy and monotony that has begun to consume you.  Jon McLaughlin has a song where he says, "No one's intended to die with their heart still intact."  I believe that - for the most part - this side of Eden I think its true.  If we are not broken by our sin there is no repentance and no redemption.  We never know the life (Zoe) of Christ. 

I'm aware part of me hates this conversion.  Fortunately its less than it used to be.  The taste of life that has come is addicting - I'm becoming alive and I don't want to stop.  Part of me still wars against it.  The rest has seen enough to know it is good. I want the change. I need the wind.  This road is difficult but each step brings breath.  The tin in me is pushing back hard, but the man has tasted enough to know its worth the fight.