5DM: Broken (1st Verse)

5DM

About 5 or 6 years ago P.e.t.e.r. o.m.e.g.a (Emmanuel), Neosapien (Will) and myself got together on one of our many late night talks. Boy, I miss those talks. Our discussion got to Brokenness and what it means to us personally. The talk was so good, we decided to write a song about it. Emmanuel and I went on to write our verses and then recorded it for the song "Broken" on Birth Pains.

Broken by Truth's End (P.e.t.e.r o.m.e.g.a. & dogfight!)

Here's the breakdown of my verse:

walking on broken glass, pieces of my stained past/
shattered from my stained glass window/
what i held as a masterpiece/has been smashed in
pieces/
Jesus, i let go of my waxed ego/

Picture this: a beautiful masterpiece of a church complete with stained glass windows. The stained glass window signifies it's something religious. Everyone looks at it and says "wow! That's a beautiful church". Inside the building may be old and rusty; the windows may be all cobwebbed. But from the outside, you couldn't tell.

Now imagine that to be a person. Life seems pretty good from every angle. Good manners, debt-free, Sunday school teacher, praise and worship leader, etc. People look at him and say "wow! That's a good Christian." Maybe some say "I wish I had his life" or "why can't we all think and live like him?" Or maybe it's "He always has something good to say" or "Dude is so deep!" This guy knows others look at him the way they do; and he loves it. Not necessarily that it is true; but that's what it looks like in the eyes of observers. Now imagine if all that, for whatever reason, disappears. People don't look at him like they used to. That reputation? gone. That stained glass window? Broken. Shattered. Revealing the inside of the building. That's what I see when I think of brokenness. When we can take our past, accomplishments AND failures, and have them broken and shattered before a God who knows what's REALLY going on. Now imagine this man walking painfully barefoot on the
broken glass from the window before an omniscient God.

tired of running things/like you done made me King/
living life without love just like them crashed
cymbals/
tryna stay on my knees/i keep getting up please/
i got no peace, I'm dying! Lord i need You/

Sometimes it takes us losing our masks for us to realize we don't need them. Honestly, keeping an appearance of a "clean" life is worse than just being dirty (Revelations 3:14-18). And it's a waste of time. Same as doing "good" for selfish reasons instead of because of love. Sincere, pure love (1 Corinthians 13:1). When we do this, something inside of us should say "this doesn't feel right". It might take some time, but followers of Christ know better. Our Spirit is grieved causing us to say "I got no peace, I'm dying! Lord, I need you!"

reflect your light as it burns my eyes/
lose myself in your Glory if it hurt my pride/
hurts inside, requires humiliation/
but my obligation is Your illumination/
peel my selfish skin/cuz my self is sin/
and i'm tired of losing ground, now, help me win/

Now, the awesome thing that happens when we come to God truly broken is God is able to use us much more effectively. God wants to break down what we've built with our hands and instead build something more glorious. Something that glorifies and reflects Him. Yes it hurts. Believe me, I know. Letting go of what we have and what we know is not an easy task but it's required for us to truly illuminate our Father (Matthew 5:16). It requires us saying to God "My way isn't working. You can do this better than I can. Here, take my life. Help me win."

I know you love me, regardless of what I do/
but I want to make you happy, proud, when I'm through/
so what I'll do, place on the altar...my will/
Stay...like clay and let your have your way, till I'm
Broken

I'm not a parent yet, but I have siblings and close friends who are and I'm doing my best to learn from them. I know parents don't wait till their kids get it right before they start loving them. My sister doesn't tell my 4 year old niece she doesn't love her until she's able to cook perfect jollof rice and fried plantains. Emmanuel doesn't tell his son that he needs to start paying bills to earn his love. The children are loved WAY before they could earn that love. Even when all they do is keep their parents up all night and make them deal dirty diapers. They are loved. We are loved. And that's the good news I decided to end with. Though I really want to make my Heavenly Father happy (in spite of me failing frequently), it's not because I'm trying to earn his love. He loves the guy with the mask on and He loves the guy without the mask. That's HUGE! We're not just talking anyone's love here. We're talking about the being who created this whole planet and is still running things. The one who can start and stop the storming weather... figuratively and literally. If He loves you, then He's gotta be looking out for you, right? He's gotta be. So why not place your will on the altar and let it stay like clay and let Him have His way.

Now, listen again:
Broken by Truth's End (P.e.t.e.r o.m.e.g.a. & dogfight!)

5DM: 5th Dimension of Music

I can remember sitting in my English Literature class in college and listening to my lecturer give multiple lectures about one poem. Not multiple poems by a single poet; one poem. She picked a classic poem from poets like Edgar Allen Poe, Lord Byron, or John Milton; then spent the next few weeks breaking it down line by line, stanza by stanza. We not only learned what the poet wrote but when he wrote it, why he wrote it, and the underlying meaning. I actually enjoyed this but I wonder if we were correct in our analysis. Would it be any different if the poet actually gave a lecture about the poem himself?


The same can be done for songs. A lecture or a series of lectures could be done on songs by The Beatles or Bob Marley or better yet pick a song from your church hymnal. How much better if it were done by the author, lyricist, or composer. Well, that's exactly what I just decided to do. I'm going to take one of my songs or a verse from one of my songs and beak it down for you to read. I'm also going to get some other artists/writers/poets to do the same. I'm calling it the 5th Dimension of Music (or 5DM). Why that name? That's because I believe the first four dimensions are:


-Casual listening
-Intentional or active listening
-Watching (live or video)
-Reading the lyrics.


The 5th dimension is going beyond just reading the lyrics but also why they were written and the message the author intended his/her audiences to get out of it. Some songs are so well written that you are forced to enjoy them in 5 dimensions. As you would imagine, some will be more encouraging and inspiring; some just comical or simple. Some will be longer than others will. Hopefully none will be a waste of your time.