"Sky May Fall" by Grits ft. Dan Haseltine and Annie Peters, Thursday, July 22, 2021

Starting as back-up dancers, GRITS released their debut Jazz-Hip Hop album in 1995. Their fourth album, The Art of Translation (2002) was their breakthrough album, establishing the group beyond the limited listenership of Christian Hip Hop and earning the band slots on MTV and movie and television soundtracks. GRITS is fun to listen to for how they incorporate their featured artists. The group has collaborated in the world of Christian Hip Hop and Christian Rock, featuring Toby Mac, Knowdaverbs, Out of Eden, Jennifer Knapp, Third Day's Mac Powell. Today's song features Jars of Clay frontman, Dan Haseltine. Unfortunately, though, this song (Like "Part of It" and several other tracks this year) won't make it the Apple Music playlist, as GRITS 2008 album, Reiterate isn't on AppleMusic or Spotify. So, I'll substitute with their 2002 Jennifer Knapp collaboration, which is also an interesting collaboration. "Sky May Fall" came out around the time of the 2008 Financial Crisis. The song talks about world-ending events happening more and more frequently to the point of desensitization. The song is a prayer for keeping your sanity in the midst of a chaotic world. 

SOMETIMES I DON'T KNOW IF I'M AWAKE. "People were claiming peace and safety. They said, let us tear down our barns and build bigger, better barns. But disaster struck them when weren't looking. And my friends, that is this generation." Some weeks after 9/11, the sermons at church changed in tone. Abstract holiness now had a focus, the coming of end of days, certainly in this generation, Pastor Jim said. It didn't matter that Allan's great grandfather had believed that he would live to see Jesus coming in the clouds. Still holding strong at 98 in 2001, but after his hundredth birthday in '03, he joined the millions of Seventh-day Adventists in the grave convinced that the Second Coming would happen in their lifetimes. But the fear that gripped Allan Sabbath after Sabbath as Pastor Jim pointed out the beast of the week: new signs and wonders and interpretations and reinterpretations. The church filled with people looking for answers, weird people with their own theories about government surveillance. Allan ended up at more and more of these events, playing revival songs as a guest performer or running the sound system for small churches at which Pastor Jim had been invited to speak. It was a weekly spy novel: what was the pope up to? Was President Bush and Black Water in on it? But ultimately that didn't matter. What did matter was unwavering faithfulness to the Sabbath. "If you break one commandment, you break them all," Pastor Jim told the congregation. "What is it in your life that could be keeping you from the kingdom of heaven?" He would frequently ask at the end of his sermons.

WARS ABROAD AND CHILDREN SUFFERIN', POLITICS AND TERRORIST THREATS. LOOKS TO ME LIKE THE SKY IS FALLIN'. After 9/11 every world event had Biblical repercussions. First it was the Tsunami in 2004. Pastor Jim claimed that an angel had spoken to a woman in Thailand, warning her that a disaster was coming from the sea and that a much worse disaster that would spark the end was coming soon to America. The angel also told her to find the Seventh-day Adventist church. Then there was the Hurricane Katrina the following year. But Pastor Jim's time at the church was cut short because complaints. The first was his sermon on not being complicit in the politics of the world. He told the congregants, "I don't want to be held accountable to God on judgment day for my role in bringing about Sunday law." The other was his son's involvement with one of the elder's niece. But thanks to Pastor Jim, Allan had been given tools to interpret the signs of the times into his college years, which included the financial crisis, Lady Gaga, the Fukushima disaster, and Obama's liberal agenda. Despite the financial instability, people started normalizing a post-9/11 world. Some level of "peace and safety" returned. But terrible dreams about being separated from God returned to Allan after a conversation with a coworker in 2015. "Economists are saying that the big financial crisis is coming this year. And that makes sense. It's the year of atonement. People are saying America is going to pay for legalizing gay marriage."

Lyrics published online are incomplete