Bob Bennett’s “Heart of the Matter”: If this doesn’t sum up life, I don’t know what does

In this post, I share yet another song from my childhood that was pivotal in the formation of my very worldview: Bob Bennett’s “Heart of the Matter.”

On the same album with A Song About Baseball, Bob Bennett had a song entitled Heart of the Matter—it served as the closing song, and given the fact that the first song on the album (as well as the title for the album itself) was Matters of the Heart, it also served as an appropriate bookend to the album. As you’ll see, the end of Heart of the Matter actually takes the listener full circle with another verse to the tune of Matters of the Heart. Even as a 12 year old, I remember being thrilled with how Bennett so creatively structured the album, and how the title of the last song was a clever variation to the first. I suppose I just see a poetic structure to life as a whole, and I love it when I see that sort of thing in a song, poem, or story.

Since Matters of the Heart came out in 1982, that would have put me in my 8^th grade year. As I have mentioned in a few earlier posts, junior high  was not fun for me. If you were one of those people who experienced bullying in either junior high or high school, you can attest to the fact that being picked on and bullied tends to force you to be a lot more serious about life—I know for little 12 year old Joel, those experiences made think a little more deeply about life, for sure.

When you’re not picked on, it’s easy to just go along and think that it is really that important to win that baseball game, get a perfect grade on that test, or have your parents buy you that new Luke Skywalker action figure. In reality, though, those things aren’t that important. To allude to Bennett’s song, none of those things—and indeed none of most of the things we are so easily conned into longing for—get to the heart of the matter of our lives. In fact, those trivial things tend to distract us from ever having the courage to get to the heart of the matter.

For whatever reason, it seems that most people never get to the point in realizing that. Especially in this day and age, it seems we are a society of individuals suffering from with existential ADHD. We’ll let ourselves become distracted by anything, so that we don’t have to gaze upon, contemplate, and truly grasp the reality regarding ourselves, God, the world, and the often painful riddle of living a life that means anything.

Nobody likes suffering—that’s why we’ll avoid it if we can. But, as I wrote about concerning Irenaeus, one of the truths found within Christianity is that as bad as suffering is, it is an inevitable prerequisite of salvation. Unfortunately, it seems too many people would rather try to build their own smoke-filled illusions than allow themselves to be broken on the stone of suffering. Yet that’s the irony of going through suffering—when you find yourself already broken, the solidity of stone and good earth is something you cling to. All you want to do is rest your broken bones on something that is sure. But until that happens, you mistakenly think that the one thing that gives you firm footing is the one thing to avoid.

In any case, 8^th grade Joel found Bob Bennett’s Heart of the Matter to be perhaps one of the best appraisals of the human condition in this confusing world ever written—I still think that is the case.

Heart of the Matter: Bob Bennett
I’m just a man in a world full of men just like me
With a heart full of questions and answers
That seem to be somewhat connected
And a head full of preconceived notions
That manage to get in the way

And I find myself longing to return
Back to the place where I started
Back when I knew next to nothing
Back to the heart of the matter

Hand reaching out for another one
Love leading into the light

Hearts alterning between tears and rage
A short journey through the human zoo in this mortal cage
Words, like weapons, ask no questions as they kill
People, wounded, once dancing, now they’re standing still

And all these things I can’t explain
They keep on running round my brain
They drive me deep, deep to the heart of the matter

Lamb to the slaughter, well aware of the consequence
Saving fallen men, living and dying in this present tense

So many things I can’t explain
They lose and confuse me again and again
They drive me deep, deep to the heart of the matter

A light shining in this heart of darkness
A new beginning and a miracle
Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual

You can show me your sales curves
Plot my life on a flow chart
You can count up your converts
And miss where it all starts

But there’s just some things that numbers can’t measure
These fragile pieces of priceless treasure
But there’s just some things that numbers can’t measure
Matters of the Heart

A spark of truth that catches on fire
These Matters of the Heart

COMMENTS
I’m telling you, that is theology right there–not systematic theology, but truly creative theology. Not only that, but man, I wish I could play the guitar like that. I’ve been listening to that song for over 30 years, and it still makes my hair stand on end.

The first two stanzas might very well be the lines I should put on my tombstone—the honesty and humility of those lines still leave me breathless. Admitting that the world is overwhelming and confusing is one thing; admitting that your inability to truly understand anything is primarily because of your own biases and limitations—that is quite another. In many respects, it’s the beginning of the possibility of repentance and new life. The thing I appreciate about these lines is that the singer isn’t saying, “I’m a filthy, disgusting, evil wretch,” but rather something, I think, a whole lot more honest: “I’m lost, confused, and longing for the simplicity (not simplistic answers) that lies within the heart of the matter.”

Short of men like Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, and child rapists, I think most people, if they are truly honest, would admit that they are more “lost and confused” than “evil”. Sometimes I think people who have grown up in Evangelical environments are led to believe that the only way to truly repent is to confess to God just what a maggot you are. But I don’t think God sees us that way…I think he sees us much like the way the first two stanzas depict us. That’s actually a comforting thought.

Another thing I think is revelatory is the idea that we need to go back to the heart of the matter—it is something we’ve wandered away from. In our attempts to “grow up” according to what we foolishly think is “grown up,” we actually simply pile on delusion after delusion and let ourselves be ruled by our passions and pre-conceived notions. Those things end up being blinders to the truth about ourselves and reality itself. In that sense, this common human dilemma is simply a replaying of the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden: foolishly grabbing for what they think is wisdom, they end up wandering in their own exile. As I’ve said before, the story of Adam and Eve’s folly is the story of us all.

But there’s no reason to despair, for just like the over-arching story of the Bible itself, the next two lines sum up the story of salvation: “Hand reaching out for another one; love leading into the light.”

From this point onward in the song, the melody changes to the melody from Matters of the Heart, but the lyrics remain a double-edged sword. What better stanza can there be to describe the state of the world—not just in this age, but in any age throughout history?

Hearts alterning between tears and rage
A short journey through the human zoo in this mortal cage
Words, like weapons, ask no questions as they kill
People, wounded, once dancing, now they’re standing still

Throughout my life, particularly starting in junior high, I have been able to relate to that last line—how many times have I been wounded so deeply that I’ve found myself just standing still in shock. But the fact is, that reality is reality, and no one is immune from it. Any attempt to get to the “heart of the matter” of our lives will necessarily demand that we stop for a time, feel those wounds inflicted on us, and mourn through joyful tears we don’t understand that these are the steps we must take in order to eventually receive healing.

…and it’s not going to be a one-time thing. Throughout our lives we will experience many crucifixions in our lives. Whether or not we also experience the subsequent resurrections is a matter of what we do with the wounds. I think that’s what the following lines are ultimately getting at:

Lamb to the slaughter, well aware of the consequence
Saving fallen men, living and dying in this present tense

Another line I’ve always found mysteriously enticing is: Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual. I’m actually very thankful that I came across this line while still a 12 year old boy. Why? Because all too often Christians are fed the line (by many in the church, nonetheless!) that salvation is some purely esoteric “airy” thing, completely detached from this material world. But the fact is, if you understand “spiritual” as “non-material,” then you’re not thinking Christianly—you have more in common with Buddha or Plato than you do with Christ.

The very purpose of the cross is the resurrection, not to some non-material reality, but of the very material creation that God has made—the resurrection of the flesh…and the resurrected transformation of the very creation itself. A good sign that your Christian walk is “going in the right direction” is that day by day you see more and more “the integration of the concrete and the spiritual”—that you can discern the Spiritual life of the Trinity in all aspects of life, be it movies, music, literature, or in the living of life itself…and you can rejoice it in, even in the midst of your suffering and confusion. And THAT is the mystery of the reality of the crucifixion-resurrection in our world today.

Finally, the last stanza should act as a challenge to anyone who equates spirituality with mere numbers—Sting, in another song, has a memorable line that somewhat fits with this stanza. It says, “Men go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one.” Ultimately that is true. The Christian life isn’t about big numbers, or being able to notch “50 converts” on your witnessing belt. It’s about “these fragile pieces of priceless treasure” that must be allowed to be crucified in this world’s confusion and chaos, so that they can be raised to incorruptibility in the Resurrection that we can experience “in part” even today.