Diamonds, Rust, and Gratitude
Open and relational theology proposes that the universe carries within it a spirit of Amipotence. This Spirit is not all-controlling, but it is on the side of each and every person, indeed each and every life, seeking the well-being, indeed the flourishing of each and all.
The Spirit is within each person as a lure to create meaning out of the past: meaning out of broken relationships, for example, not by ignoring the pain but by recognizing that, sometimes, even amid the pain there was also a kind of beauty. There was rust, to be sure, and also diamonds.
I offer on this page an open and relational approach to Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust." The song serves as a meditation on memory, loss, and beauty. In its lyrics, Baez revisits a past relationship with Bob Dylan with both sorrow and fondness, acknowledging the lingering emotional complexity. Her words capture the bittersweet interplay between pain and beauty—the rust and the diamonds—that shape human experience.
An open and relational interpretation suggests that this interplay mirrors the divine lure present in each life. The Spirit does not erase the pain but invites us to find meaning and beauty within it. The memories Baez recalls in the song—images of laughter, shared moments, disappointments, and haunting regrets—become part of a process of transformation. They are not discarded but woven into a larger, more complex movement of experience.
In this way, "Diamonds and Rust" can be seen as an invitation to embrace the fullness of our histories, holding space for both joy and sorrow. It encourages us to trust in the Spirit's presence as a companion in our journey, gently guiding us toward wholeness and reconciliation. The Spirit's lure toward meaning does not deny the wounds of the past but helps us to see them as part of a larger story—a story in which rust and diamonds coexist, and both can shine in their own way.
- Jay McDaniel
The Spirit is within each person as a lure to create meaning out of the past: meaning out of broken relationships, for example, not by ignoring the pain but by recognizing that, sometimes, even amid the pain there was also a kind of beauty. There was rust, to be sure, and also diamonds.
I offer on this page an open and relational approach to Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust." The song serves as a meditation on memory, loss, and beauty. In its lyrics, Baez revisits a past relationship with Bob Dylan with both sorrow and fondness, acknowledging the lingering emotional complexity. Her words capture the bittersweet interplay between pain and beauty—the rust and the diamonds—that shape human experience.
An open and relational interpretation suggests that this interplay mirrors the divine lure present in each life. The Spirit does not erase the pain but invites us to find meaning and beauty within it. The memories Baez recalls in the song—images of laughter, shared moments, disappointments, and haunting regrets—become part of a process of transformation. They are not discarded but woven into a larger, more complex movement of experience.
In this way, "Diamonds and Rust" can be seen as an invitation to embrace the fullness of our histories, holding space for both joy and sorrow. It encourages us to trust in the Spirit's presence as a companion in our journey, gently guiding us toward wholeness and reconciliation. The Spirit's lure toward meaning does not deny the wounds of the past but helps us to see them as part of a larger story—a story in which rust and diamonds coexist, and both can shine in their own way.
- Jay McDaniel
BBC Interviews with People
Moved by Diamonds and Rust
"Joan Baez, also known as the "Queen of Folk", is halfway through writing a song one day when she gets a call from Bob Dylan. It’s 1974; almost 10 years after their relationship ended. The song went on to become the iconic ‘Diamonds and Rust’, an outpouring of memories from their time together in the early sixties.
Music writer Kevin EG Perry tells the story behind Baez and Dylan’s relationship, how they shaped each other’s worlds, and how this song came into being a decade later. Folk legend Judy Collins, also a good friend of Joan Baez, shares old memories of Newport Folk Festival alongside more recent memories of performing ‘Diamonds and Rust’ with Baez at her 80th birthday. And we hear from people whose lives have been touched by the song. Classicist Edith Hall listened to ‘Diamonds and Rust’ on repeat when she ended her first marriage, on the night that the Berlin Wall fell. And writer John Stewart looks back on a heady relationship from his early twenties, which was always bound up with the lyrics of this song. Decades later, this formative time in his life continues to resonate with diamonds, rust, and gratitude."
Producer: Becky Ripley
Tragic Beauty
Turning Bitter Grapes into Sweet Wine
The podcast above is a BBC series of interviews on the emotional significance of Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust." At the end one Joan Baez says:
"It's such a powerful contrast, diamonds and rust, and of course in life we get both. The good times, the bad times; it doesn't matter who we are, what stage of life we are in, we carry that experience, which Diamonds and Rust does. It tells you that you can get through it. So there it is!"
The song carries bittersweet memories of her relationship with Bob Dylan in the early 1960s, creatively transformed into something beautiful, albeit tragically beautiful, in her song.
The bitterness is not an angry or vengeful bitterness; it is instead a sadness combined with a sense of what could have been, but was not. The song includes both emotions—the sense of loss and the sweetness—held in contrast, in ways that each enrich one another in the very memory of them.
The song belongs to Joan Baez as she sings it, but also to everyone who hears it and who, in their way, recall bittersweet memories in their own lives, perhaps in the context of unrequited love, and somehow manage, as did Joan Baez, to move on.
In this creative transformation of memory into tragic beauty, which in turn becomes a catalyst for survival, there is much open and relational theology or, as emphasized here, "process theology," which is one kind of open and relational theology.
There is the theme of contrast itself, which in process theology is one of the things that gives experience its meaning, especially when felt intensely.
There is the theme of tragic beauty, which in process theology is part of the beauty of life and, for that matter, the beauty of God: a "harmony of harmonies" which or who is everlasting and includes the tragic within its beauty.
There is the theme of memory, which in process theology is how every moment of experience begins, with a memory of what has been, whether physical or emotional or both, and whether conscious or unconscious.
There is the theme of loss, which is built into the very nature of life, as the perishing of what is "now" into what "has been."
There is the theme of creative transformation, which is one way—and a very important way—that God is present in human life: not as an external agent who makes everything alright, but rather as an inwardly felt spirit, within each human heart, that, by means of fresh possibilities, helps people transform what has been into what can be.
These many themes are not simply stated, they are sung, in a minor key (F minor) but also a major key (F major) which itself is a contrast, and which is simultaneously part of the beauty of the song.
The beauty of the song is the emotions it conveys and evokes, embodying the idea, essential to process theology, that emotions themselves ("subjective forms") are part of the depth of life.
And then, of course, there is the relationship between the singer (Joan Baez) and the subject (Bob Dylan), whose ghost has returned. The very idea of a person and a relationship being alive, at least as a ghost, illustrates the "objective immortality" of the past in the present.
But as the song makes clear, we cannot and do not live by ghosts alone, we live with a longing to be richly connected with others. There is something beautiful about the longing for connection, something inescapably human and, perhaps, inescapably sacred. Even the mystery at the heart of the universe, even the Holy One, seeks connections with the world and indeed with the universe, however much rust might be contained in the diamonds.
Some may wish for a world that is all diamonds with no rust, but I myself believe that the two together are not simply second best, but beautiful in their own right, perhaps even better than diamonds alone. We cannot and need not know if there is a world of all diamonds. What we can know, and do know, is that life is transient but beautiful, and perhaps beautiful in its transience, even with the rust.
For my part, I am guided here by the title of a book of poems by Mary Elizabeth Moore, a leading process theologian: So Much to Love, so Much to Lose. The title is a poem in its own right and its message is clear. We wouldn't be able to love so much, were there not so much to lose, and in the sense of loss, however deep, there is so much to love.
One of Moore's poems, "Germinating" opens with lines that bespeak the hope that comes with and after loss:
Hope is buried
deep in the soils of sadness
covered with tragedy and trauma,
held in hands of lament
until rain arrives
and caring hands till the soil
and nourish hope.
"Diamonds and Rust" is a catalyst for just the kind of hope Mary Elizabeth Moore speaks of in her poem. In the song Joan Baez tills the soil of love and lament, memory and beauty, so that we might till as well, when the rain arrives. Baez's telling of the story, as gratefully received by people in the BBC interviews, is part of the rain.
- Jay McDaniel
* Mary Elizabeth Moore's book, So Much to Love, So Much to Lose, was published in September 2023 by Resource Publications. Click here to purchase.
"It's such a powerful contrast, diamonds and rust, and of course in life we get both. The good times, the bad times; it doesn't matter who we are, what stage of life we are in, we carry that experience, which Diamonds and Rust does. It tells you that you can get through it. So there it is!"
The song carries bittersweet memories of her relationship with Bob Dylan in the early 1960s, creatively transformed into something beautiful, albeit tragically beautiful, in her song.
The bitterness is not an angry or vengeful bitterness; it is instead a sadness combined with a sense of what could have been, but was not. The song includes both emotions—the sense of loss and the sweetness—held in contrast, in ways that each enrich one another in the very memory of them.
The song belongs to Joan Baez as she sings it, but also to everyone who hears it and who, in their way, recall bittersweet memories in their own lives, perhaps in the context of unrequited love, and somehow manage, as did Joan Baez, to move on.
In this creative transformation of memory into tragic beauty, which in turn becomes a catalyst for survival, there is much open and relational theology or, as emphasized here, "process theology," which is one kind of open and relational theology.
There is the theme of contrast itself, which in process theology is one of the things that gives experience its meaning, especially when felt intensely.
There is the theme of tragic beauty, which in process theology is part of the beauty of life and, for that matter, the beauty of God: a "harmony of harmonies" which or who is everlasting and includes the tragic within its beauty.
There is the theme of memory, which in process theology is how every moment of experience begins, with a memory of what has been, whether physical or emotional or both, and whether conscious or unconscious.
There is the theme of loss, which is built into the very nature of life, as the perishing of what is "now" into what "has been."
There is the theme of creative transformation, which is one way—and a very important way—that God is present in human life: not as an external agent who makes everything alright, but rather as an inwardly felt spirit, within each human heart, that, by means of fresh possibilities, helps people transform what has been into what can be.
These many themes are not simply stated, they are sung, in a minor key (F minor) but also a major key (F major) which itself is a contrast, and which is simultaneously part of the beauty of the song.
The beauty of the song is the emotions it conveys and evokes, embodying the idea, essential to process theology, that emotions themselves ("subjective forms") are part of the depth of life.
And then, of course, there is the relationship between the singer (Joan Baez) and the subject (Bob Dylan), whose ghost has returned. The very idea of a person and a relationship being alive, at least as a ghost, illustrates the "objective immortality" of the past in the present.
But as the song makes clear, we cannot and do not live by ghosts alone, we live with a longing to be richly connected with others. There is something beautiful about the longing for connection, something inescapably human and, perhaps, inescapably sacred. Even the mystery at the heart of the universe, even the Holy One, seeks connections with the world and indeed with the universe, however much rust might be contained in the diamonds.
Some may wish for a world that is all diamonds with no rust, but I myself believe that the two together are not simply second best, but beautiful in their own right, perhaps even better than diamonds alone. We cannot and need not know if there is a world of all diamonds. What we can know, and do know, is that life is transient but beautiful, and perhaps beautiful in its transience, even with the rust.
For my part, I am guided here by the title of a book of poems by Mary Elizabeth Moore, a leading process theologian: So Much to Love, so Much to Lose. The title is a poem in its own right and its message is clear. We wouldn't be able to love so much, were there not so much to lose, and in the sense of loss, however deep, there is so much to love.
One of Moore's poems, "Germinating" opens with lines that bespeak the hope that comes with and after loss:
Hope is buried
deep in the soils of sadness
covered with tragedy and trauma,
held in hands of lament
until rain arrives
and caring hands till the soil
and nourish hope.
"Diamonds and Rust" is a catalyst for just the kind of hope Mary Elizabeth Moore speaks of in her poem. In the song Joan Baez tills the soil of love and lament, memory and beauty, so that we might till as well, when the rain arrives. Baez's telling of the story, as gratefully received by people in the BBC interviews, is part of the rain.
- Jay McDaniel
* Mary Elizabeth Moore's book, So Much to Love, So Much to Lose, was published in September 2023 by Resource Publications. Click here to purchase.