Introduction to Bruised Reeds

“Are you bruised? Be of good comfort, he calls you. Conceal not your wounds, open all before him and take not Satan’s counsel. Go to Christ, although trembling, as the poor woman who said, ‘If I may but touch his garment’ (Matt. 9:21). We shall be healed and have a gracious answer. Go boldly to God in our flesh; he is flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone for this reason, that we might go boldly to him. Never fear to go to God, since we have such a Mediator with him, who is not only our friend but our brother and husband.” 

—Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, 1630, Chapter 2

A Long-Envisioned Project

Growing up in a music-loving household full of CDs and cassette tapes, I long thought it would be fun to create an album. On July 10th of this year, that long-envisioned album finally went out into the world under the title of Bruised Reeds. 

The seeds for the shape the album would take began to be planted ten years ago, when Grant Dicks and I collaborated on a score for the film Deepstill in 2012. That was my first time composing a body of music and making it available to others, an experience so satisfying I’ve been making music as a hobby ever since. With the creation of the tie-in single, “A Song for Deepstill,” that collaboration also marked the first time I wrote and sang my own lyrics, and I soon began to think up more songs. But whereas in the following years I would make a few more acoustic instrumentals with Grant (see The Jabberwocky Years), film scores for student short films at Biola University (The Undergraduate), a short album of settings of George Herbert’s poems (Mend My Rhyme), and a collection of digital instrumentals (RE:), it wouldn’t be until the pandemic year of 2020 that I finally set out to realize the singer-songwriter project in earnest. Most of the work was done in the Spring and Summer of 2021, but it took another year for me to put on the finishing touches.

Biographically, this album is a time capsule of my nine years in California (2012–2021), as all the songs originate from that formative season of my life. Thematically, the songs are tied together by the album’s title, which was inspired by reading in 2017 the Puritan Richard Sibbes' 1630 book The Bruised Reed, which was itself inspired by reading Matthew 12:20–21: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will hope.” These songs bear witness to the experience of being bruised, and to the hope that, because of Christ who was bruised for us, those bruises will heal and pass away.

Track 1: “Greater Things”

“Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

The first song on the album was the first to be produced and also the oldest in origin. At first the melody and the idea developed separately. I recall coming up with the tune sometime in 2012, and that summer I formulated a sentence that went something like, “May there always be a limit to our happiness in this life, lest we cease to hope for the greater things.” It wasn’t until Summer 2013 that the two were fused together by the lyrics, which clearly had something to do with reading Augustine’s Confessions. In fact, for a time the song was titled “Augustine, Lewis, and I,” nodding also to C. S. Lewis’ sermon “The Weight of Glory.”  

Track 2: “Lonely One”

“There I was, locked out of my own house, sitting on the driveway.”

A song—the loudest, most energetic one on the album, and always intended for Track Two—about interrupting the inner monologue of self-pity. I thought up the first verse, the chorus, and the first two-thirds of the bridge circa 2014 (I did in fact lock myself out of my house that summer, though I sat on the back porch waiting for one of my housemates to return, not the driveway), but the rest of the lyrics didn’t crystallize until shortly before producing the song in Summer 2021. The challenge I set for myself with “Lonely One,” which I always envisioned being a rock song, was to see how closely I could imitate an authentic rock band sound using the virtual instruments of GarageBand. I think it turned out fairly convincing on that front. 

Track 3: “Man of Galilee”

“Is confession the only way out? Can’t we compromise and part as friends?”

One side of an imagined conversation between an early disciple, by turns curious and defensive, and the Teacher from Galilee. I wrote this song circa 2013–2014. I like the rhythms and the simplicity of the instrumentation, and in terms of the quality of the vocals, I think this is one of my best efforts on the album.

Track 4: “Just Stand”

“If you can’t fight, then just stand.”   

This is another song on the album that developed over several years. In a pattern typical for this project, the first stanza fell into place in a flash of inspiration, and I think the second stanza also came together easily when I set my mind to it months or years later, but for a long time I was stuck on how to word the third stanza and kept tinkering with it sporadically, whereas the fourth stanza and the interludes were relatively quick and last-minute additions only weeks before I finally produced the track in 2021. I don’t think there’s a single song on this album that came about from me deliberately siting down to write it from start to finish. Each one is the product of months or years spent singing it to myself while doing other things—walking, cycling, driving, cleaning—starting with what was already established and then trying out new additions line by line. Out of all of them, I’ve probably sung “Just Stand” the most. Whatever stage of development it was in, it was a continual support to steady myself through some of the hardest trials of the past decade.  

Track 5: “Glorious Savior”

“Who else could forgive sin, and still be called holy and just?”

This song was inspired by the many contemporary hymns, created or popularized or adapted from older sources by folks like Keith and Kristyn Getty or one of the hymnodist Matts (Matt Papa, Matt Boswell, Matt Merker, Matthew Smith), that I have been singing in church for the past several years, sometimes accompanying them on the cajon or djembe. These hymns combine doctrine and doxology—that is, they teach some rich truth about God and respond to it in praise and gratitude, engaging both mind and heart. In that spirit, this song is both an explanation of double imputation, or what has been more pithily called “the great exchange”—Christ takes on our record of sin and its punishment and gives us His record of righteousness and its rewards—and it is an exultation in that reality. Because in the church where I learned so many of these songs the instrumental accompaniment would be modest in size and sound—always a guitar, often some percussion, and occasionally a bass guitar or a piano—I wanted to keep the digital instrumentation simple and as organic-sounding as possible. However, one thing you can’t fake in GarageBand is the strumming of an acoustic guitar, so I asked my friend Anthony Chu to come up with chords for the hymn and to play on this track. His guitar is the one real instrument featured on the entire album. 

Track 6: “Not That Strong (Moving On)”

“Do you remember this one?”

Just as it is in the exact middle of the track list, “Not That Strong” is at the thematic heart of Bruised Reeds. Every song on the album was created over the course of my nine years living in California, and I had hoped to finish producing all of them the summer before I moved to Texas. However, I ran out of time to produce this one—indeed, though parts of it had been rattling around in my brain for years, I hadn’t even finished writing the lyrics before the move. So, fittingly for a song that includes the phrase “moving on,” I settled on the lyrics and then recorded myself singing the song a cappella while driving down I-35 in Texas. 

Track 7: “Waiting in the Wings”

“It was a good day I found you going my way.”

A buoyant, bouncy celebration of friendship, this one goes out to the close friends who share life with me. I’m particularly grateful for Mikhal Bester, who I’ve known for ten years now this fall, and who came over one day last summer to sing on this track.   

Track 8: “After All”

“I’d written out a script for us to use, and I memorized the cues.”

A song about how the imagined dialogues in our heads are really just monologues, and how in real conversations the outcome is in neither person’s control, which risks painful self-revelation but also makes growth and change possible. As I’ve noted before, most of the songs in Bruised Reeds took months or years to write. “After All” is one of the few exceptions. I made up the melody and lyrics in a matter of hours while working at and then walking back home from a campus job stuffing, sealing, and stamping university mailers—in hindsight, a fitting origin story for a song about communication.

Track 9: “Time Is Against Us”

“My fear finds foes in every shadow.”

For a long time after the melody and lyrics for this song came to me in my early undergrad days, every once in a while I would try to come up with ideas for a second verse. But I finally concluded that this song needed to stop where it does; the feeling of incompleteness or lack of resolution matched the uncertainty of the subject matter. I always envisioned this being a duet, and I’m grateful to Everlyn Rhee for lending her time and voice to help make that happen.

Track 10: “Adam’s Song”

“One will come and crush the serpent’s head, / One will come and raise us from the dead.”

I often wonder about what life was like for Adam and Eve after the Fall. I imagine they were hopeful that Cain or Abel would be the prophesied serpent-crusher up until unimaginable tragedy struck, and that they would have transferred that hope to their third son, Seth—a hope that would wane as they neared the end without ever seeing any sign of deliverance. I imagine the helplessness they felt in the face of hatred, pain, and death. All they could do was trust the word of the one who spoke them and everything they knew into existence. Although now we know who the serpent-crusher is, our own experience is still a lot like theirs: we’ve been promised the story will have a happy end, so we hold on to the promise even while we endure bleak chapters. We keep looking forward to Christ’s final victory even through tears.

Track 11: “No Way Out”

“Dear God Above, …”

The final track on the album, “No Way Out” is actually the fusing together of three song ideas that had developed separately over the years. First, I had composed the opening notes and the chorus. Second, I had started developing verses for what I thought was a different song, then realized the two songs should be one and the same. Third, I had come up with this vaguely Celtic-sounding jig, and it fit the rhythm and key of the song so well I put it at the end as an instrumental coda for the whole album.  

Outlets and Acknowledgements 

I hope readers will give the album a listen and, if they like it, share it with others. The album is available on my Bandcamp page, which is the ideal site for purchasing if listeners want their own copies, as well as on YouTube Music, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and virtually any other major streaming platform.

Many thanks are due to David Rhee for the bold artwork of the cover and the liner notes booklet, and to Everlyn Rhee, Mikhal Bester, and Anthony Chu for their musical contributions. But if there is anything true, lovely, commendable, or excellent or worthy of praise in the album, all glory goes to God, the giver of all good things.