"Every Grain of Sand" (Bob Dylan): A Meditation

 I’ve recently read Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life by Scott M. Marshall. As the title suggests, it tells the story of Dylan’s spiritual life. What a terrific read!

Folks know about Dylan’s music and his rags to riches story. Born in Minnesota, his pilgrimage to New York City to meet Woody Guthrie, his involvement in the burgeoning Folk music scene in Greenwich Village, and his eventual Columbia Records deal, and the stardom that followed. 

Many of his early songs were seen as protest songs. “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Times They Are-a-Changin’”, and “Masters of War” are a few examples.

But Dylan didn’t accept the mantle of protest singer. In April 1962, just hours after he wrote it, a 21 years-old Dylan introduced his new song “Blowin’ in the Wind” by saying, “This here ain’t no protest song or anything like that, ’cause I don’t write no protest songs.” 

Dylan refused the title of a protest songwriter, instead favoring the simpler mantle, poet with a guitar.

Despite his resistance to the idea, he was still labeled a protest singer in the vein of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

Through the mid to the end of the 60’s, Dylan would continue alienating himself from folk music traditionalists and folks who projected him as a political artist. 

At the renowned Newport Folk Festival, Dylan famously put the traditional acoustic guitar down and went electric. And he began writing and performing songs that were not topical or overtly political but instead examined human life as a whole and he even sang love songs.

All of this upset the left wing of the American political sphere who were upset that he seemed to be separating himself from them. 

The right was already upset with him.

Dylan was a bipartisan iconoclast!

The Bob Dylan biographical film from last year, A Complete Unknown, ends with Dylan riding a motorcycle along a rural road. This final scene seems to be a direct foreshadowing of July 1966, when Dylan would narrowly escape death in a serious motorcycle accident outside of his home in Woodstock, New York. His physical recovery from the accident contributed to his decision to retreat from the public eye and ease his relentless touring and recording schedule. Dylan would take an 8-year break from performing. 

In his time of recovery, Dylan went inward. He tapped into his Jewish faith. He got married and had a family. He bought a house in Woodstock. 

His spiritual journey would take an interesting turn in the late 1970’s. Dylan shocked the world by converting to Christianity. The late 70’s-early 80’s period is known as Dylan’s “Born Again” years. From 1979 to 1981, Dylan released three overtly Christian themed albums, Slow Train is Coming, Saved, and Shot of Love. 

The book I mentioned earlier discusses this period in detail. 

As you can imagine, his conversion to Christianity, and his overt Christian evangelism in interviews and in concerts, alienated him from secular minded liberals like nothing else before. He lost tons of fans and received tons of ridicule from former fans and music critics. 

They didn’t call it this back then, but we would say Dylan got cancelled because of his spirituality. At least, he was cancelled in many people’s minds.

Tarred and feathered through the turn of the decade, Dylan became less and less an outspoken evangelist into the mid 80’s. His ’81 record Shot of Love was his last overtly Christian themed record. He ended his born-again period with the song “Every Grain of Sand.” 

However, just because he no longer made overtly Christian albums, that is if you don’t count his 2008 Christmas album, Dylan would keep performing his Christian themed music from those 3 Born-Again albums. He’s also known to throw in old gospel tunes and hymns at his concerts. 

Here’s an example of what I mean. From 1999 to 2000, Dylan performed the hymn we’re going to sing a little later, Rock of Ages, some 10 times in concert. In October 2007, on his radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour, Dylan featured the Stanley Brothers’ rendition of "Rock of Ages.”

As the spiritual biography argues, Dylan is still devoted to Jesus while maintaining his Jewishness. He’s not preachy about it. He lets his music do the talking. 

In a concert in Stockholm, Sweden just a couple weeks ago, Dylan ended his concert, as he has many times before, with this morning’s song, “Every Grain of Sand.”

Now, I know Dylan’s voice isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I personally love it! Even with his voice, Dylan was an iconoclast, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable! For the younger ones out there, Dylan was Punk Rock years before Punk Rock.

I won’t say too much, feeling the song speaks for itself. I will say this as we close. 

The song’s focus is human vulnerability. To err is human, indeed. And to be vulnerable is human. We experience this vulnerability in the ailments and illnesses we face. We experience this vulnerability in the anxieties and stresses we endure. We experience this vulnerability in the unresolved anger we feel watching the news. We experience this vulnerability as children dependent on the adults around us and as parents watching our children face such an uncertain world. We experience vulnerability with each loved-one that passes.

The reality of man is that life on this side of heaven is by nature uncertain and filled with uncertainty. As another singer once wrote, our lives are in the balance, always one moment away from an utterly changed existence. Just as the winds of life cause leaves to tremble, the winds of life clarify our own vulnerability. 

Have you ever trembled in the wake of loss and sorrow? 

Yet, even in the fury of that moment where we tremble in sorrow, the Master’s hand is there, resting on our collapsed shoulders, holding our tear-drenched hands, guiding us forward through the storm.

Sometimes external circumstances leave us trembling or feeling vulnerable. But sometimes we make decisions that hurt ourselves. We are vulnerable to ourselves falling, failing, flailing. Sparrows cared for by God, even us cared-for sparrows fall. 

Still, ancient footsteps of God move with us. The God that walks with us cannot be a distant one. God is not distant. God is here with us. 

And not only that, God knows us perfectly. God knowing the number of hair strands on our head, this is a metaphor that reminds us, God knows us intimately, inside and out, knows us perfectly, knows our propensity to fall and fail and flail, know us without the masks we wear and loves us anyway. 

The God that knows every grain of sound knows us and loves us into being. This is a God of matchless grace and compassion. This is a God personified in the life of Jesus. Dylan saw this. Dylan saw God in Jesus, in his, his death, and his indomitable spirit, and Dylan was transformed.

I close with some beautiful words from Mr. Rogers that come to mind. I’m pretty sure Bob Dylan would give a big amen to these gospel-infused words:

“At the center of the universe, there dwells a loving spirit who longs for all that’s best in all of creation – a spirit who knows the great potential of each planet, as well as each person, and who, little by little, will love us into being more that we ever dreamed possible. That loving spirit would rather die than give up on any one of us.”