An Open Letter to Sufjan Stevens

Dear Sufjan,

I would like to thank you for writing good music. Thank you for expressing "the overflow of your heart." Thank you for writing songs that are real, that are honest, that are transparent. Thank you for writing in a way that reflects Christ's forming in your heart. Thank you for creating, and thus acting in the image of God. Thank you for being concerned with beauty. Thank you for taking a part in the redemption of the arts. Thank you for playing the banjo.

Sincerely,
Laura Beth Atwood


"To Be Alone with You" by Sufjan Stevens

I'd swim across Lake Michigan
I'd sell my shoes.
I'd give my body to back again
in the rest of room.
To be alone with You.

You gave you body to the lonely.
They took your clothes.
You gave up a wife and a family.
You gave your ghost
To be alone with me.

To be alone with me
You went upon a tree.
I've never met a man who loved me.


"Abraham" by Sufjan Stevens

Abraham, worth a righteous one.
Take up on the wood
Put it on your son.
Lake or Lamb.
There is none to harm.
When the angel came
You had raised your arm.

Abraham, put off on your son.
Take instead the ram,
Until Jesus comes.