When a loved one dies, it is not unusual to question one’s faith. However, not everyone walks 600 miles in search of answers and then writes and records an album. Letters to Lost Loves is what Tyson Motsenbocker created from this sorrowful vision quest. In it, he questions the justice of God’s mercies. How could this all-knowing and all-powerful force grant requests for seemingly trivial requests, and yet when asked to save someone from the ravages of a terrible illness, the plea falls on deaf ears? It is the eternal question. “In Your Name” is an angry song that is softly delivered with broken vulnerability. It is sung for Motsenbocker’s mother, who lost her battle with a long-term illness, despite years of prayer.
This video for “In Your Name” was created by filmmaker Dustin Miller, whose friend in Florida travels around and takes pictures of people living in the shadows of society in coastal towns, on the main drags and in run-down motels. The hard lives of the country’s forgotten, living, as Motsenbocker says, “under the evangelical fear of the American South,” paints a stark potrait of those who seemingly haven’t been touched by God’s grace. He sees it as a parallel story to his song. Explains Motsenbocker, “It’s stumbling down half-paved roads on the side of a highway, it’s searching for words that have never been, it’s accepting what has been lost and searching for what that loss told you could be found.”
Letters to Lost Loves can be ordered from Tooth and Nail Records or from iTunes.
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