Andrew Peterson has a fairly simple approach to songwriting: He writes the songs that he himself needs to hear, trusting that there are other people out there who might need them as well. And by the tens of thousands there have been. Peterson’s most loyal fans in fact, tend to be those who find resonance with the “glowing ache” that permeates his body of work. But it’s never been the ache of hopelessness or despair. Instead it’s the ache that comes from deeply loving something that has been lost, and from daring to hope that it will one day be restored. It’s the recognition that any pain we now feel is somehow inseparable from the joy that was intended for us from the creation of the world. And it’s the undying hope that that same pain is also a promise, a forward longing, a deposit of the redemption and restoration of the greater joy that is ye t to come.
The songs on Peterson’s new Centricity Music release Light for the Lost Boy are deeply rooted in such paradoxes of the human condition, reflecting a grief permeated with light and hope and beauty and love. Andrew, perhaps better than any other songwriter today, recognizes the echoes of Eden and eternity that fill our daily lives for what they are.
Andrew’s willingness to acknowledge the realities of life without ever loosening his grip on eternal hope has won him loyal and highly relational fans worldwide, as their ongoing involvement in his online forum (www.RabbitRoom.com) demonstrates. His journey as an artist, author (of “The Wingfeather Saga”) and disciple is one that he’s long attempted to make openly and in community, using his songs and stories as an invitation to others walking the same road. Light for the Lost Boy artfully and stirringly documents the last couple years of that journey, and in so doing, should give thousands of new listeners a point of connection with his music.
