"It's like one of the great Psalms of David," Bono says about "Every Grain of Sand," the spellbinding ballad from Shot of Love that concludes Dylan's overtly Christian songwriting phase. Equal parts Blakean mysticism and biblical resonance, the song abandons the self-righteousness that plagued Dylan's religious work to offer a desperate prayer for salvation. Shadowing Dylan on vocals is gospel great (and Dylan flame) Clydie King: "I get chills when I hear her just breathe," Dylan said. "Every Grain of Sand" taps into a moving humility ("Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me," he sings). As Bono puts it, "Dylan stops wailing against the world, turns on himself and is brought to his knees." Dylan later described "Every Grain of Sand" as "an inspired song that just came to me.... I felt like I was just putting words down that were coming from somewhere else."
In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There's a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.
Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment I can see the master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.
Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.
I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.
I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other time it's only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.
The song is about the moments in which we accept our pain and vulnerability and bow down (and are lifted up by) the will of God'. "Every Grain of Sand" is one of Dylans greats as it 'elicits from Dylan one of the most ethereal, healing harmonica solos he has ever produced. Dylan in the song first pays attention "to the time of his confession" That must have been sometime in 1979 when he was in the hour of his deepest need when he realised how lost he was, when everything turned against him, when the hunger inside him could no longer be denied, when he was broken, shattered like an empty cup, when he began to realise that he had escaped death so many times, when there was this pool of tears and sorrow beneath his feet that made him cry out to God for help. It was in these moments that Dylan is confronted with the truth that God is not far from each one of us. This is greatly echoed in the song. The scripture passage we are going to look at this morning says just that.
After his escape from persecution at Thessalonica and Berea, Paul waited at Athens for Silas and Timotheus. While there, “his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.” (Acts 17:16.)
Paul, as you remember, had, through a great experience, gained for himself a knowledge that the Lord was not an impersonal essence, but rather an individual so near that He could and did speak to Paul, and gave instruction on what Paul should do for his own welfare. (See Acts 9.) It was this knowledge which caused Paul’s spirit to be stirred in him when he beheld the idolatry of the city.Not only did such knowledge stir his spirit, but it also gave him the desire and the strength and the courage to do what he could to enlighten the people of Athens. He took every occasion to teach “them Jesus, and the resurrection.” Some called him a babbler; others said, “He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods.” So much attention did he attract that many people gathered about to learn what he had to say.
This sermon of Paul’s was preached some nineteen hundred years ago, but it has its application to us. Truly, the intervening years have brought great changes in some things, notably in the fields of science and industry; but the world today is in about the same status as it was then, for God to many is still an “unknown God,” and therefore, ignorantly worshipped. Perhaps he is not thought of as being “like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device”; yet superstition and idolatry, in some forms, are still the order of the day. Some deny the very existence of God; others define him as “cosmic energy,” as though he might be a current of electricity. He has been spoken of as “the first great cause,” and as the “universal consciousness.” God would not be described in such vague terms if men had the knowledge of him possessed by Paul.
There are some people in the world today, however, as there were in Paul’s day, who know that God is their father and that he is not far from them. If they were to speak on the subject, they would tell you that of all their possessions, this knowledge is the most precious. From it, they obtain power to resist temptation, courage in times of danger, companionship in hours of loneliness, and comfort in sorrow. This knowledge of God gives them faith and hope that tomorrow will be better than today. It is an anchor to their souls which gives purpose to life, though all men and things around them be in confusion and chaos. They know that such conditions have come because men are without that knowledge and are, therefore, not guided by God.
Here is the rub and the revelation that is being sung by dylan in the song that we all can possess this priceless knowledge and may enjoy the blessings it brings, for, as Paul says, we are the offspring of God, who is no respecter of persons but wills that all men should come unto him. He it was who said:
The price of obtaining this knowledge is to take upon us the “yoke” of Christ, which means to follow the way he marked out. The gate to that way is a desire to know God, consumed with a passion to do what is needed to obtain that knowledge. In these uneasy days of fearful suspense and tragedy, there is comfort and strength in the knowledge that God is our Heavenly Father, that he is not a distant, indefinable abstraction, but a loving and understanding Father who is near that we can have daily communication with him. He can reach each of us with his strengthening and protecting power. This is what Dylan is grasping at in the song is tis what is being communicated that despite your problems God is near and has always been so.
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