This song lived in the vault of my memory for years, and resurfaced yesterday. Perfect timing.
The short answer on this song for me interpretively is the experience of estrangement from God, followed by being welcomed home. I think there is an implication that this estrangement is self-imposed..."I've run a twisted line..." suggesting that he has gone without Spirit and tried to go it alone, and found himself a stranger to God--blinded by the finite nature of the world, and numbed by fear.
And in verse two, his reckoning comes from a figurative or literal Great Divide, and his experience is one of being rejoined by Spirit. It's not unlike Dar Williams' similar awakening in her "After All," when she says, "Well the sun rose, with so many colors it nearly broke my heart; it worked me over like a work of art; and I was a part of all that." In other words, sometimes when we realize our smallness against the vast beauty of creation, we open our capacity to connect to the Divine. So he is no longer a stranger to the Maker.
And in his heightened consciousness, he turns back East of Eden (referencing civilization and all the mess that's been made of it) and is moved by so many others who are experiencing separation from Spirit, or "homelessness." And as the flaming swords are "burning in the eyes of the Maker," Lanois points to the idea that God is the eternal witness, the infinite Consciousness. The metaphor of his eyes being a mirror reflecting human experience and suffering is so powerful--the notion that God is always present, waiting, available for our return, and always witnessing.
This song lived in the vault of my memory for years, and resurfaced yesterday. Perfect timing.
The short answer on this song for me interpretively is the experience of estrangement from God, followed by being welcomed home. I think there is an implication that this estrangement is self-imposed..."I've run a twisted line..." suggesting that he has gone without Spirit and tried to go it alone, and found himself a stranger to God--blinded by the finite nature of the world, and numbed by fear.
And in verse two, his reckoning comes from a figurative or literal Great Divide, and his experience is one of being rejoined by Spirit. It's not unlike Dar Williams' similar awakening in her "After All," when she says, "Well the sun rose, with so many colors it nearly broke my heart; it worked me over like a work of art; and I was a part of all that." In other words, sometimes when we realize our smallness against the vast beauty of creation, we open our capacity to connect to the Divine. So he is no longer a stranger to the Maker.
And in his heightened consciousness, he turns back East of Eden (referencing civilization and all the mess that's been made of it) and is moved by so many others who are experiencing separation from Spirit, or "homelessness." And as the flaming swords are "burning in the eyes of the Maker," Lanois points to the idea that God is the eternal witness, the infinite Consciousness. The metaphor of his eyes being a mirror reflecting human experience and suffering is so powerful--the notion that God is always present, waiting, available for our return, and always witnessing.