Naturally Selected

There are certain genes in our biological makeup that are dormant until something external triggers them to act. Our ability to use language for instance would be useless if we didn't grow up hearing a language spoken around us. Without being taught a language and how to effectively use it at a fairly young age, the gene itself doesn't do us much good.

The Lazarus Gene was a concept I came up with years ago, but for various reasons it lay dormant all this time. This year, something finally triggered it.

Many people will be familiar with the story of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha who Jesus resurrected from the dead. In a sense, this story is very appropriate for me. This last year I had the excruciating realization that my life up until now has been merely a shadow, a parody of a real human existence. I've lived in a cage. I've stubbornly refused to break the shell and hatch. And the thing about a bird that doesn't hatch is that eventually it runs out of yolk and dies. I was left with no choice but to break the shell or let myself rot. But, like Lazarus, I myself didn't just up and decide to resurrect. Something had to call me back from the dead. Lazarus heard Jesus. I'm not sure exactly what I heard, but I know that it left me little choice in the matter. As in evolution, I was left with two options: mutate or go extinct.

I chose mutate. Or the Fates chose it for me.

The word "Lazarus" in the band name refers to resurrection and redemption. But there's another Lazarus story as well. Jesus told a parable about a different man named Lazarus who was poor in life and died and went to Heaven. A rich man who knew this Lazarus dies and goes to Hell. The rich man begs the prophet Abraham from across the chasm between Heaven and Hell to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his loved ones about their fate should they behave as he had. Abraham says in response that if they weren't already obeying the Law and the Prophets then not even someone back from the dead would convince them to. This cynical view of the obstinate and blind nature of the human being is another reason The Lazarus Gene came to be called so.

The Lazarus Gene is the power of resurrection - on a global scale referring to the redeeming qualities of humankind, and more personally referring to my own struggles to continually move through my pain and to love myself. The Lazarus Gene is also our brokenness  - on a global scale referring to our violent nature, our divisionist rivalries, and the drive to conquer and own, which are only natural to a pack animal, and more personally referring to depression, anxiety, self-loathing, the things I face every day that try to drag me to Hell with them.

The Lazarus Gene is resurrection and death. The Lazarus Gene is choice and fate. The Lazarus Gene is religion and science. The Lazarus Gene is electronic and organic. That Lazarus Gene is everything you think cannot or should not coexist but in fact does because the world cannot be otherwise.

No shadow can be cast without light, and you'd never recognize light without shadow.

That is The Lazarus Gene.

- DBH