The Psalms as Stepping Stones from Darkness (Pt 2)
/A Conversation with Mike Janzen
Musical Artists, Writer & Composer
PART 2
(To watch or listen click these links or the ones at the end of the blog)
NORM: Welcome to the second portion of ‘On Further Reflection with Norm Allen’ – in our conversation with Mike Janzen about his Psalms Project. The two volumes are titled, “The Carried Words,” and “The Lifted Songs.” And last time we focused on Psalm 42, and today we are going to discover some of the other Psalms that were Mike’s companions in connecting with God and connecting with his physical and mental health. So – welcome, Mike, again. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us.
So – stepping-stones, or milestones… You’ve got a song – I think it’s on the second volume: Milestones. If you were to look at these songs… Psalm 42 was sort of an invitation to move towards the light. What were the next progressions – the next phrases or things that comforted or guided you?
MIKE: My good buddy Steve Bell always talks about the Psalms being a big springboard. They bring out – through your own life, resonating off the Psalms, something new. Musically, lyrically. I was writing stuff on the Psalms, but I was also aware there is just this spirit of the Psalms, which is just being honest before God. So, the next song, I think, was ‘Remembers Me.’ Which was one of those songs – it doesn’t happen too often – but every year or two, you get this song – it just – it’s downloaded very fast. Within half an hour, an hour, it’s all done – and that was one of those songs for me. The words were: “The Lord remembers me in my low estate. He keeps me near his heart and restores my soul”.
A really simple song: it had four stanzas, and it moved from personal (my own low estate) – it moved into other people, it moved into more personal to God, and then it eventually moved into corporate. Thinking about the world as a whole, you know, with this pandemic – all the losses, with so many horrific things all over the world – that Jesus will one day make right all the wrongs in the world. So that one was probably the next one, I think.
NORM: I really like it. It’s a very profound song. I like it for the reasons that you’ve just mentioned. I imagine knowing that you’re remembered when you’re stuck in a basement is a pretty big deal. But then, to be able to - by virtue of that being remembered - develop a larger view of the world: that is an interesting process.
MIKE: I can’t say in those days, I kept thinking, “I wish I could do more for others,” because everyone is helping me out, and my family – I can’t say I was necessarily in a place where I felt like I was in that bigger, corporate world sense – but there is something about that – that even though I was going through my thing; everyone is going through their stuff. And in the world especially, that is true, too. And I do love the picture of Jesus restoring, making right all this stuff. It really is not right in this world right now.
NORM: Now the interesting thing too about – maybe only a couple of the songs (certainly the Psalm 23 – and there is another one, where you follow the text of the Psalm relatively closely). The rest of them are what you are saying: there are a reflection on, or picking up on one line, and doing sort of what the monks did: when they would hear a Psalm read several times, a word or a line would come to them, and they would go back to their cell and meditate on it. So, you are doing a meditation in a sense, on some aspect of a Psalm.
MIKE: Yes, exactly.
NORM: That is a profound kind of thing.
Mike: I think Psalm 116 is almost word for word. There are a couple, like you said, but a lot of them are just going with the spirit of what the Psalm is saying, or jumping off a verse or two. It’s interesting, a lot of my projects (when I look in the rear-view mirror) – I don’t always want to listen to them that much for a long time, and then eventually you want to – but this one – what was special about it for me is so often I don’t have words to pray to God. I wake up, maybe I am in a bad mood; or I wake up and I just sort of feel – you know – mundane. The Psalms, and these words that really are based out of the Psalms: they give you some kind of vehicle to travel to God. They give you a chance to lament for people who are going through problems, they give you a chance to remember what God has done, the milestones in your life and what He has done. Really, each one of them in a special way can lead you to God, as you try to pray the words that you are hearing sung.
NORM: Psalm 105, ‘Remembers me’ – you feel like that came almost as a complete package. So, talk about some of the other songs on the project – where they were in your process of recovery, and what they meant to you, what they mean to you today, in a sense.
MIKE: There was one song too, that didn’t come all at once, but I remember waking up, and just feeling really down, really discouraged. I wasn’t getting any better, if anything, I was getting worse. I sort of stumbled to the studio feeling all dizzy, and I had a couch by the window, I just lay down, trying to be okay with the fact that I wasn’t going to do anything useful today. I remember lying on the couch, and just praying to God: “God – you know I’ve got nothing today. Just speak whatever words you want me to hear, but I am just going to hang out here, if that’s all right”. So, I just closed my eyes, and rested. Within a few minutes, I had these words pop into my head. It came out of Psalm 97. I didn’t know where it really came from. Some of the songs, I didn’t actually know where is this theme coming from? I had to discover it after. But it was just: ‘The Lord is God, and towering clouds enshroud. Deep fire burns in his eyes’. It’s sort of a weird song to think of when you’re not having a good day.
But another song that slowly came into my head – I went to the piano, and again within about 20 minutes, most of it was sketched out (not always the lyrics). I remember walking into the house at lunch (feeling a lot better), and I said to my wife, “I think I just wrote the first song on the album.” That was an interesting gift from God. Not all of them are like that, obviously. But the honest truth is: if you go to my computer, you would see probably hundreds of bad ideas that just didn’t turn out that great. But there were a few special songs that came pretty fast. And that was one of them.
NORM: Talk about further down the road. You would have glimmers of hope; you would get discouraged. Were there particular Psalms that have now become songs that became another mile-on-the-road for you?
MIKE: Yes, another really important one to me was ‘Abounding in Love’. That seems to be a really important one to a whole bunch of people. I had a jazz career for a lot of years, and it’s always hard getting hits on your YouTube videos – but that one somehow, had no trouble with that. It’s so interesting because as I was getting better, I had about six months where I felt like I could start playing and performing again, and then when that was over, the pandemic hit, and shut everything down. The interesting timing of that was that now everybody was isolated. A lot of people were lonely. Everyone had no idea what their future looked like. It was so interesting to me, the timing of all these songs that were written in this time of longing – suddenly were true for everybody. Which I didn’t see coming. Psalm 86 opens up with: ‘You hear the cries of our heart, the longing of our souls’.
And I had so many people contact me, saying, “That means so much to us in this season – that God knows our thoughts, He knows our longings, what’s not going right.” The chorus says: ‘The Lord is forgiving and good; abounding in love and slow to anger. He is full of compassion and mercy’. It shifts it from ourselves on to who God actually is. Somehow, that really lifted me too, just to know I didn’t have to do stuff to impress God. He wasn’t going to be impressed. But He was just full – like overflowing, like gushing – with love and compassion for me. That really helped me in those days.
NORM: So now – at this point in your journey, you’ve got this project – two volumes called The Psalms Project at mikejanzentrio.com, or on Apple Music just to do a little commercial in the middle of it. Where is it at? You’ve had a release concert – a virtual release concert.
MIKE: We weren’t sure – I wasn’t sure how to release it. I would have loved to book Koerner Hall, book a string orchestra, and just make it a great celebration with a choir and everything… Because there is something about these songs that have always felt very corporate. Even though they are intensely personal. There is something about the Psalms that way, too. They’re very personal, but somehow corporate. So, I wasn’t sure what to do with this release. I thought, well – maybe I could draw attention to so many of the people who actually made this happen. And that is really the truth. I couldn’t even sort through the songs and decide what was a good song or not. I would often send pieces to my good friend Kev, and he would go through them all – stop what he was doing – and tell me: This one is terrible; this one is good; this one is bad. And that kind of thing. I wanted to draw attention to some of the great people around me who actually made this happen. The CD release was an hour-and-a-half video where I interviewed 10 friends who helped me on it. Laila Biali is on it (who was amazing); Steve Bell is great on that video, he says so many profound things; and my wife – I sort of think she is the star – she is very honest and vulnerable. So, you can check that out, too, if you’re interested: more of the story. It’s on Eventbrite; it’s called the ‘Psalms Project Release’. And that was really fun to put together, even though I am not a video editor, I had to sort of cobble things together; which was actually an enjoyable process. Even though it led to a lot of tears shed.
NORM: What are your hopes and dreams as we get inoculated; we develop something that resembles a different kind of life than lockdown? What Psalm is on your heart to say: This is one that I hold on to for future hope?
MIKE: That is a great question. Nothing necessarily specifically comes to me. Psalm 25 talks about marking the milestones – and it is much more a prayer of - use me in this season. I’m a huge believer in that whenever we go through seasons where we do without (like during Lent season), a lot of people fast – they give up chocolates, give up something, you know? For God to fill our appetites and our desires with things that are more holy, to reorder our desires… I think out of these seasons where we do without, God puts something special inside of us. There is an opportunity for that to happen. So, I think my hope for us as a society as we come out of this, is that when we re-experience life again – faith with others, prayer with others, hopefully, singing songs with others, that we will really just let that be a very special time.
NORM: One of your songs has got: “I have found myself in expanding places, or…abundant places”. It was interesting as I listened to it – and I’m sorry I can’t tell you which song it is – it had that sense that the narrowness was going, and expansiveness was part of the story. Is that…?
MIKE: Yes – I think that was Psalm 16. It’s called, “Overflows.” The idea that out of these seasons – Psalm 16 actually is really a hard season for the Psalmist who is writing. It was one of my grandma’s favourite Psalms. Even though she struggled with depression a lot. And I always wondered, why did she pick that one? It’s quite positive, in some ways. But it also shows obviously, the wrestling inside of her.
MIKE: The words of the chorus are: ‘Therefore, my heart overflows’. And the idea is that it is overflowing with thankfulness and gratitude for what God has done in your life, even though it hasn’t always gone right. I think we have a real opportunity for some beautiful things to come out of this season, as we let that gratitude actually come out, and overflow – to others, to helping out others, being more present to others – and also to God, as we remember that He gets us through these seasons that are hard.
NORM: So, one of the songs that has really stuck with me is a blend of Psalm 3 and 24: ‘I wait, because the Lord sustains me’. Those of you that receive my Wednesday missives during Lent will have seen that I talk about the Psalms being Jesus’ prayer book. Trying to imagine what it would have been like for him to go to sleep, and what would have been on his mind. Would he have said, “I wait because the Lord sustains me”? But at the same time, that particular Psalm has a lot of heavy pieces to it, where anybody who is reading that Psalm is under attack. They are feeling that people are conspiring against them. Jesus knew, weeks before his crucifixion that there was a world full of assassins out there. So part of his praying was stuff that I cannot pray, but we can pray on behalf of others. So – talk a bit about the development of that song: I wait because the Lord sustains me. Because in many ways – you must have some days been afraid to wake up, or you were so glad to get to sleep, you didn’t want to wake up, but…
MIKE: You’re right. And you know, waking up when you’re not feeling good every day, and you don’t really have work to do – it’s a tough thing. Most of us have careers to get to, and family and much to take care of in any given day. But it’s a reminder, that Psalm, to me, that whether we are being chased by who-knows-what, or we’ve got stuff in our own lives that we are trying…
NORM: We have internal enemies of Pride, Anger, Envy – whatever it is – as well as you had the enemy of whatever is causing the concussion symptoms.
MIKE: Totally. Despair sets in, right? You have these enemies speaking – I remember the first days a lot of different thoughts coming into my head – I was almost scared by them, sometimes. I did feel very much under attack. Maybe others have had injuries – brain injuries, or other things like that, where they feel that same sense. But the idea of waking – that our breath, the very breath in our lungs, if we are alive – we are here for a reason, we are here for a purpose, there is good to be done, and God has it. He has got it. The chorus of that song, I took out of Psalm 24, which is: ‘All the world and everything in it, is yours’. For me – that’s a really helpful reminder. Because I like to get my hands all over a bunch of stuff, and make it mine, right? How much we make, how much our living is, how good we are at things – we just like to get our hands on stuff.
So just to remember that in my weakness and brokenness, that God has got this – He’s got the whole world – everything is His, anyway, to begin with. That is helpful. And the other thing I think in that Psalm – is the idea of waiting. We really don’t love to wait. I don’t love to wait. But it was a sense of patience, of holy patience before God – that we wait, we take the time early in the morning or sometime during the day to wait, and listen, and let God fill the emptiness in our heads or our hearts. I think that is another real important part of that song, as well.
NORM: Well, Mike – I want to thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to offer some words of wisdom and encouragement to us. We’re going to end this as we did the first piece that we sent out a couple of weeks ago, with the opportunity for us to meditate and listen to one of the pieces that Mike has written – it’s a blend of Psalm 3 and 24: ‘I Wake Because the Lord Sustains Me.’
If you want to get more information about what is going on with Mike’s life,
Visit: www.mikejanzen.ca.
He’s got information about his whole career, as well as the Psalms Project. I (because I am a simple country boy) - I got his CDs on Apple Music – there are other places that you can find it. And I would encourage you to do as I have done – and I know many others have – I have brought it together into my personal devotional experience. I’ve been listening to one song every morning as I enter into my place of meditation, and sometimes, it just stays with me. So that’s an important part of what we are doing.
So Mike, thank you for this. May the Lord bless you, and keep you, and make His face to shine on this project – and keep your family safe and healthy and well. Let’s go into this moment of meditation – we’re going to finish this piece of video with this song, as I mentioned. I would encourage you to settle into whatever location you are in, calm your breathing, calm your body, let yourself relax – and listen with your eyes closed, and just let the words and the music touch your soul. Mike - Any thoughts to move people in?
MIKE: I think you said it perfectly. Just take the time to breathe in deeply. Breathe in the fact that no matter what you are navigating in this season that God has this. The world is God’s - everything in it. He controls our days; He gives us breath, and it is going to be all right. You will get through it with His grace.
NORM: Breathe in the spirit and breathe in the music.
Thank you for taking the time to read about Mike Janzen’s journey from darkness to light.
