All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands

Isaiah 55:12, creating in the midst of shadows, and Sufjan Stevens' lyrics

If I am alive this time next year
Will I have arrived in time to share?
And mine is about as good this far

There is a weight that comes with a creative calling—a burden that carries questions and doubts, lingering even in the act of creating. It asks the kinds of questions that don’t always have answers.

Is it worth making new things in a world already filled with so much noise? Is my work part of something greater, or is it merely part of a fleeting moment? How do I create something true when I’m surrounded by uncertainty and shadows? Should I keep creating when I find myself in the midst of those shadows?

These questions echo in the heart of the creative process, much like the pieces of uncertainty at the start of Sufjan Stevens’ song, “All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands.” It opens with a question that carries its own weight, even before considering the title—a direct quote from the scripture Isaiah 55:12:

For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

This verse is part of a larger story about God inviting us to him, his restoration of us, and the way we will receive its glory—a restoration so beautiful with a joy so rich and real that creation itself joins in, mountains singing, trees clapping.

Perhaps we will sing and clap with the very nature that surrounds us.

But the glory only comes after the possibility of death. In “The Sower’s Song,” writer and musician Andrew Peterson laments:

Oh God, I am furrowed like the field
Torn open like the dirt
And I know that to be healed
That I must be broken first
I am aching for the yield
That You will harvest from this hurt

This death, whether physical, spiritual, or something painfully close to it, doesn’t hurt any less just because we have the hope to carry on. It might not make sense—not now, not ever—but we still cling to the promise that something good will follow.

In the same way for artists, it is often in the aftermath of our darkest, most uncertain moments that our most beautiful work is born.

And I'm still applied to what you are
And I am joining all my thoughts to you
And I'm preparing every part for you

But the act of creating requires something more of us in the face of those deaths: surrender. Surrender in the way of deciding to create despite a plethora of excuses and surrender to keep creating in the face of the unknown, in the midst of the shadows.

It’s a death of its own, the dying of those doubts and fears we’ve been harboring.

For Christ-following artists, this surrender isn’t just to the creative process, but to the creator, the one who created creativity itself. Staying applied to what he is, joining all our thoughts to him, preparing every part for him…it’s a dying to the doubts and fears, but it’s also a dying to ourselves (a motif in spiritual life that is also the way of rebirth).

Maybe next year, our stories and songs will join the mountains and trees.

And I heard from the trees a great parade
And I heard from the hills a band was made

Even the earth itself will be made new in this restoration. Later in scripture, it’s written that “the whole creation has been groaning together” as “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan” (Romans 8:22). The world has been mourning in its brokenness as we have—we have all been covered in the shadows. And that makes the hope of all things being made new all the more beautiful.

Just as the world itself has lamented, it will rejoice.

And will I be invited to the sound?
And will I be a part of what you've made?

Next, Sufjan Stevens poses questions that are stained with the same uncertainty, but he asks them in a more confident place, after hearing the trees’ parade and the hills’ band. These questions are the crux of the matter, the heart of the song; I think it’s something that artists who believe in this restoration and New Earth should contemplate. Even in—perhaps, especially in—the times we find ourselves wondering if we should continue the art of making in the midst of shadows, we can ponder this.

We will be invited to the sound, and we will be part of what he’s made.

This art isn’t merely part of a fleeting moment, no, it’s part of something far greater than we can imagine.

And I am throwing all my thoughts away
And I'm destroying every bet I've made
And I am joining all my thoughts to you
And I'm preparing every part for you

In this knowledge of something far greater that waits beyond us, surrender becomes transformation—a transformation that we are invited to, but must accept and be willing to take part in.

In another song—“Baptize My Mind” by Jon Foreman (which has the most wonderful sound reminiscent of the Sufjan Stevens song)—I find the same idea:

Reaching always reaching
Never reaching solid ground
Seeking always seeking
Never seeking what I've found
…
Hey, Baptize my mind
For these seeds to give birth to life
First they must die

Baptism is transformation—death, burial, and resurrection. This transformation is not a one-time event but a continual process, in life and in the act of creating. Every work of art we offer could be an invitation to remember the beauty that can emerge from the shadows…beauty both in spite of and because of brokenness.

The act of creating is a reminder that all shall be well, and all things will be made new. We shall go out in joy, and be led in peace.

For believers in the life that follows this one (a life in the New Earth, a life unfathomably more beautiful, with no tears and no death), it might be hard to not wonder how our art may play a part in it.

But even now, we can reach past uncertainty to simply know that our act of creating in the shadows, in some small way, has already joined the chorus.

For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Isaiah 55:12