Minor Threat, Salad Days, and the New Birth…

Minor Threat’s Salad Days from their final 7-inch record reflects the beginning of punk rock’s inclination toward introspective and existential themes that remained developed far beyond simple, 4/4-time, aggressive songs about the government, anarchy, etc. The song betrays profound angst about the aging process, which is an ironic preoccupation for a group of (then) 20-somethings to be concerned with. Yet, this only shows the effects of Adam’s curse, the condemnation of the law, and the imminence of death perpetually confronting us…Salad Days stands in contrast to Minor Threat, the eponymous track from their first release, in which a slightly younger (but not by much) Ian MacKaye declares, 

We’re not the first, I hope we’re not the last

‘Cause I know we’re all heading for that adult crash

The time is so little, the time belongs to us

Why is everybody in such a…..rush?

Make do with what you have, take what you can get

Pay no mind to us, we’re just a minor threat…

Salad Days is ultimately a cry for rebirth in which the songwriter in a more mature state pines “for the days when I first wore this suit”, as he assesses, “baby has grown older, it’s no longer cute…” In sober reflection, the lyrics continue, “Look at us today/We’ve gotten soft and fat/Waiting for the moment/It’s just no coming back…Dwell upon our memories/But there are no facts” Indeed, nostalgic longing for ‘glory days’ (in this instance, the early days of the D.C. hardcore scene) offers little relief from the dissonance we often feel between ‘what was’, ‘what could have been’ and what immediately ‘is’ in our present circumstances.

Such contemplation reminds me of the account in John chapter 3, where we read about a man named Nicodemus, who in an intimate dialog with Jesus, inquired, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he go a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”  Jesus informed him that he can’t in fact, go back to his mother’s womb, nor can he (or you…or I) reclaim days that have been lost or spent in vanity. The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes details the vain, wasted life we all experience, as The Preacher decries, “All is vanity…” (literally, ‘vapor‘) concerning the various endeavors he undertook to find meaning in life. Against such frivolity, The Preacher contrasts a better effervescence that supersedes the indulgent pursuit of self-fulfillment – namely the way of life in the Spirit. Consider Ecclesiastes 11:5 in which the King of Israel pontificates, “As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, So you do not know the works of God who makes everything.” Nicodemus, being the Teacher of Israel certainly recognized the allusion Christ was making when He described those who are born of God as being like the wind which though you hear its sound, you cannot discern its movement or predict its direction.

While the life the world offers appears to be freedom, often in the form of reckless abandon and unrestrained ambition, such living eventually runs its course and tends to encumber us in despair and disillusionment. In Christ however, we are set free by a greater spontaneity, one that is found by losing our lives, not ‘finding’ them. The apostle Paul describes as much in 1 Corinthians 15, where he emphasizes the necessity of death to one’s self as the prelude to the unpredictable life of liberty we find in Jesus. In reasserting the veracity of the Resurrection (a reality from which the Corinthians had drifted) and its implications for the believer, Paul notes, “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else...” The uncertainty of how life will unfold may tempt us to romanticize the past in search of some golden idyllic era that may or may not have ever been. The life of grace is no less elusive or mysterious – as the Apostle John notes, ‘what we will be has not yet been made known’. In Jesus however, the rebirth we think we will find via self-discovery, is freely given to us as a gift…Thankfully, we don’t have to “make do with what we have’ in this life or merely ‘take what we can get’. We can just receive the righteousness of The One who gives us everything we need…in this life and that which is to come. And that is a time worth longing for…