Note: Hey, it’s Miki. I wrote this a long time ago, right after we recorded The Unwinding Cable Car. Reposted on Indigo Mustache for the sake of having something on our Tumblr to read. Haha enjoy.

So, I’ve been listening to Anberin’s song, “Unwinding Cable Car” for quite a while now. Jodi, Clara, and I covered it last week. But up until now, I didn’t realize what the meaning was. Here’s how I see it :)

There’s that line in the chorus: This is the correlation of salvation and love (Don’t drop your arms). Correlation, in the pretext of mathematics, means a causal, parallel, or reciprocal relationship. (Excuse me, nerd coming through.) When applied to the song, I would guess it means something that two things have in common.

How I see it, the correlation of salvation and love is Jesus Christ. He is something (or rather, Someone) salvation and love have in common. Think about it: He gave us salvation, because he loved us.

In the first verse, the song describes a person (which it refers to as “you”) who is“emotive unstable” and “like an unwinding cable car.” Throughout the rest of the song, Anberlin continues describing “you” as someone hurt, lost, and deceived.

However, the chorus takes another tone. It says, “This is the correlation of salvation and love/ Don’t drop your arms/ I’ll guard your heart/ With quiet words, I’ll lead you in.” Here’s how I translate the chorus: “This is Jesus. He’ll guard your heart. With quiet words, He’ll lead you in.” In case you didn’t notice, the chorus takes back everything it says about the person in the verse. The person is hurt? Well, Jesus will guard his heart. The person is lost? Jesus will lead him in with quiet words.

Now you’re asking, “Well what about the deception? Will Jesus take care of that, too?” And here’s what I say. In the chorus, it says, “Don’t drop your arms.” He’s referring to “arms” in the pretense of weapons and armor, of course; he isn’t talking about our physical arms! We couldn’t drop those even if we tried (unless we amputated them, of course, but that would be gross, not to mention painful). In his book to the Ephesians, Paul talks about the whole armor of God (e.g., the Belt of Truth, Breastplate of Righteousness, Shield of Faith, Helmet of Salvation, Sword of the Spirit; you can read about it in Ephesians 6:10-18). So basically, “don’t drop your arms” would mean, don’t take off the whole armor of Christ. This would make up for the deception the person went through in the song.

The bridge of the song gives us this stanza: “You’re so brilliant. Don’t soon forget. You’re so brilliant. Grace marked your heart.” I think that the line, “You’re so brilliant” is somewhat sarcastic. That’s how I see it, okay? Because really, we’re sinners. Might as well admit it. We’re not brilliant at all. We see this wet paint sign on a bench in a park and we immediately reach out and touch it just to see if the sign that was meant to warn us was lying. In the same way, when the Holy Spirit is blaring a warning at us, we sin anyway. Aren’t we brilliant? :)

The next line says, “Don’t soon forget.” If I’m to be honest, I sin. Like, a lot. More than anyone could count. Really, if I had as many tickets for the lottery as I did sin in one day, I would win. Hands down. Jackpot prize for me! But guess what the jackpot is? It’s this gigantic, heavy item that they claim to be really expensive, but really, I have no use for it. I drag it home into my room and it only takes up space. Eventually, I’ll put all my effort and strength into lugging it out of my house and heaving it up so I can throw it into a garbage can. Can you guess what this item is? What’s that? Consequences and more sin? Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! Anyway, back to the point, I think the line “Don’t soon forget” warns us not to forget Who helped us out of our miserable condition anyway. But sadly, we (mostly me) tend to spend a little while thanking God for helping us, then after we’ve become stable, we forget all about Him. Then we lose sight of Jesus and we fall back into a pit, which He helps us out of, and the cycle repeats again.

The last line says, “Grace marked your heart.” I guess that speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Grace marked (and has always marked) our hearts. I don’t know about you, but I most definitely do not deserve Jesus. I’m a lousy little servant who won’t even get off her butt to do something for Him. I don’t deserve His favor. His favor is unmerited. It is, in the simplest of words, grace.

But notice: After revealing to us all our fatal flaws in the bridge, the song repeats the chorus just before it ends. It reassures us that the correlation of salvation and love is still there. Jesus is waiting for us. He’s telling us to arm up. He tells us that He’ll guard our hearts. And then, with quiet words, He leads us in.