Dolly Parton circa 1976
The Light of a Clear Blue Morning
Dolly Parton as a Spiritual Friend
Jay McDaniel
8/26/2026
This page is inspired by The Rev. Lindy Vogado, a native of East Tennessee, and associate pastor for belonging and outreach at Second Presbyterian Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. Lindy's love of Dolly Parton is contagious. She introduced me to idea that a person could "do theology" with help from Dolly Parton, and she introduced me to the song "The Light of a Clear Blue Morning." Thank you, Lindy. And thank you, Dolly.
The Light of a Clear Blue Morning
In the Sweet By and By
There's a land that is fairer than day, and by faith we can see it afar for the father waits over the way to prepare us a dwelling place there. In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore. In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore. We shall sing on that beautiful shore.
-- In the Sweet By and By
I used to always sit in church looking out the windows at the boys, wondering if I could make an excuse to go out and, you know, go to the bathroom because all the outdoor toilets. But anyhow, I was only going out to see the boys...I had a deep faith in God. But I was high-spirited and fun-loving. And I, of course, was led to believe that everything you did, you know, was a sin. But I don't believe that now. I think it's a sin if you believe it to be, and if it hurts somebody else, it's a sin.
-- Dolly Parton
The Novelty of New Mornings
The Little Girl Voice
What is it about Dolly Parton? I think it is that her voice reveals the freshness of God, the novelty of new mornings.
I know that her appearance is distinctive; Andy Warhol was fond of it, too. And I know that, for more than a few of her fans, she presents the image of a self-defined, vivacious woman who sings to the rhythms of her own spunkiness. I like this, too. Dolly is not simply a person or even a voice. She is an ideal.
I am confident that academics can analyze her music and career in more sophisticated terms, placing them within a social nexus of pop culture, capitalism, gendered complexities, and crossover country-rock cultures. The Frankfurt School of academic philosophy might see her as part of a questionable culture industry in which even she has been co-opted into the false consciousness of market-driven fantasies.
Still, it seems to me that much of what draws us to Dolly is the clarity of her voice—both vulnerable and powerful, sometimes whispering and sometimes wailing. She calls it a “little girl” voice. And her voice inspires us. Not her voice alone, of course. We are also inspired by her philanthropy. her stage presence, her persona, her spunkines, her transcendence of divisions her incredible talent as a songwriter. But, yes, her voice.
Many people imagine the voice of God in male terms: deep and magisterial, dominating and controlling. But I wonder if God’s voice isn’t much more angelic. Surely God sounds more like Dolly Parton than, say, Sylvester Stallone. Or maybe like Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers in Islands in the Stream. Christians say that God is three persons in one divine reality. I suspect that, if two of the three sing a duet, it’s a lot like Dolly and Kenny.
The God of Free Spirits
In any case, those among us who really like Dolly Parton hear in the lightness of her voice something that reminds us of the Light that is God’s presence in the world: a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, like the Light of a Clear Blue Morning, even on a cold, cold night.
If we take Dolly as our example and assume that she, too, is receptive to its promptings, then this Light does not obliterate a fun-loving spirit. It may be a lure toward lightheartedness and fun. It takes so many different kinds of personalities to form a world: introverts and extraverts, melancholy people and high-spirited people, serious people and playful people, fuddy-duddies and free spirits. Dolly is on the free-spirited side.
A free spirit is someone who knows that life is not simply about meaning. Some people think that the purpose of life is to find meaning, as if meaning is a kind of glue that sticks to a person’s soul when he or she becomes humble and virtuous, having fought the good fight of life. But surely the purpose is also to become fully alive: to be immersed in the joys and struggles and times in between, and to enjoy a sense of harmony and intensity along the way.
One thing about Dolly: she knows the harmonies, and she loves the intensity. Her laughter is infectious, introducing us to the God of free spirits. I do not know whether, as an actual human being, she is as free as she seems. Sometimes you can see a sadness in her eyes. But I bet that is who she wants to be, and that is good enough for me. Who among us is perfect?
Clear Blue Mornings
Is there one Light, or are there many lights? In process theology, we say that there is one Morning that can be seen through the lights of many brand-new mornings. This capacity for self-multiplication is how God is at work in the world—not by causing everything to occur as it occurs, or even by permitting things to occur that could have been prevented, but rather by availing us of possibilities for responding to whatever happens, as it happens, with strength and courage.
How do we experience these possibilities? Not always as memories from the past, but rather as hopes from the future: as inspiring dreams. “I got my dreams to see me through.” God is in the dreams.
To the extent that these dreams animate our lives, we experience freedom from the vines of fear, hatred, and what one philosopher of the world’s religions calls the cramping confines of the ego.
These crampings include ego-deflation as well as ego-inflation. Feminists invite us to recognize that too much pride is not the only sin. Too little pride is also a sin. Sometimes our calling is to say, “I need others in order to survive.” But sometimes it is to say, “I am strong, and I can prove it.” It is to live with one of the most important forms of spirituality: true grit.
Creative Transformations
To be sure, the vines of self-elevation and self-hatred are very powerful. Do they cling to us, or we to them? Sometimes it’s hard to know whether we fall into sin or sin falls into us. So often the spirit is pure, but the flesh is weak. In any case, with help from clear blue mornings, something happens. New births occur.
Process theologians speak of these new births as moments of creative transformation. As Bob Mesle explains in Creative Transformation: Three Reflections, creative transformation occurs when we discover new possibilities for responding to the circumstances of our lives, such that we grow just a bit closer to the people we truly want to become: carriers of compassion and vessels of wisdom.
The good news is that, as we respond to possibilities for transformation, our souls grow wider. We can enter into relationships more fully; we can be more accepting of other people’s points of view; we can embrace rather than hide from the enriching tensions of life; and we can be true to ourselves and connected with others, neither to the exclusion of the other. In the words of Patricia Adams Farmer in What Is Fat Soul Philosophy?, we become fat souls.
For the Christian, Jesus was a fat soul and thus a revelation of the power of creative transformation at work in the world. To be sure, he needed a little work on accepting other people’s points of view. But, like I said above, nobody is perfect.
If we are Christian, our calling in life is not to repeat the beliefs of Jesus, but rather to be open to the power of God in our way and our time, as he was in his way and his time. The vocation of the Christian is to share in the faith of Jesus. It is to live, as best we can, from the light of clear blue mornings.
Divine Freshness
Christians such as John Cobb say that these fresh possibilities are manifestations of the λόγος. In Greek philosophy, the λόγος was the living spirit of God at work in the world in a continuous way. John Cobb speaks of the λόγος as the universal Christ, who was revealed, but not exhausted, in Jesus. Jesus was a window to the New Morning side of God.
According to the stories, the New Morning took the form of an infant lying in a manger, seen by wise men and shepherds, by his mother and father, and by the animals. They looked into the manger and saw a light. Later traditions called it a halo, but really it was a New Morning.
But the Christian story does not stop with Christmas. On Good Friday, Christians realize the preciousness of the New Morning through its absence, in the pain of the crucifixion. At Easter, they realize that the New Morning reappears with another New Morning: the reappearance of Jesus to his disciples after his death. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are a vivid instance of the Light of new mornings.
In the Sweet By and By
The New Morning existed long before Christianity emerged on our planet, and it will be at work long after Christianity perishes. And God is really more than the power at work in the world, the λόγος.
Process theology says that there is another side to God: a deep listening that feels everything that happens in the universe as it happens and perpetually weaves the multitude of happenings into the most beautiful melody possible.
The melody is partly composed of the melodies of the world itself, both painful and pleasant, both delightful and tragic. But it is also composed of the tenderness of God, as God weaves the melodies into a single song. If we imagine this song in visual terms, it would be a coat of many colors.
On a clear blue morning, before the day begins, there’s a special kind of song that everyone can hear. It’s quiet, vibrant, and hopeful. It doesn’t take a perfect ear to hear it. It is that side of God which takes all the melodies of the world, painful and sorrowful, and blends them into a freshness that is inherently beautiful—in the sweet by and by.
Thank you, Dolly.
What is it about Dolly Parton? I think it is that her voice reveals the freshness of God, the novelty of new mornings.
I know that her appearance is distinctive; Andy Warhol was fond of it, too. And I know that, for more than a few of her fans, she presents the image of a self-defined, vivacious woman who sings to the rhythms of her own spunkiness. I like this, too. Dolly is not simply a person or even a voice. She is an ideal.
I am confident that academics can analyze her music and career in more sophisticated terms, placing them within a social nexus of pop culture, capitalism, gendered complexities, and crossover country-rock cultures. The Frankfurt School of academic philosophy might see her as part of a questionable culture industry in which even she has been co-opted into the false consciousness of market-driven fantasies.
Still, it seems to me that much of what draws us to Dolly is the clarity of her voice—both vulnerable and powerful, sometimes whispering and sometimes wailing. She calls it a “little girl” voice. And her voice inspires us. Not her voice alone, of course. We are also inspired by her philanthropy. her stage presence, her persona, her spunkines, her transcendence of divisions her incredible talent as a songwriter. But, yes, her voice.
Many people imagine the voice of God in male terms: deep and magisterial, dominating and controlling. But I wonder if God’s voice isn’t much more angelic. Surely God sounds more like Dolly Parton than, say, Sylvester Stallone. Or maybe like Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers in Islands in the Stream. Christians say that God is three persons in one divine reality. I suspect that, if two of the three sing a duet, it’s a lot like Dolly and Kenny.
The God of Free Spirits
In any case, those among us who really like Dolly Parton hear in the lightness of her voice something that reminds us of the Light that is God’s presence in the world: a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, like the Light of a Clear Blue Morning, even on a cold, cold night.
If we take Dolly as our example and assume that she, too, is receptive to its promptings, then this Light does not obliterate a fun-loving spirit. It may be a lure toward lightheartedness and fun. It takes so many different kinds of personalities to form a world: introverts and extraverts, melancholy people and high-spirited people, serious people and playful people, fuddy-duddies and free spirits. Dolly is on the free-spirited side.
A free spirit is someone who knows that life is not simply about meaning. Some people think that the purpose of life is to find meaning, as if meaning is a kind of glue that sticks to a person’s soul when he or she becomes humble and virtuous, having fought the good fight of life. But surely the purpose is also to become fully alive: to be immersed in the joys and struggles and times in between, and to enjoy a sense of harmony and intensity along the way.
One thing about Dolly: she knows the harmonies, and she loves the intensity. Her laughter is infectious, introducing us to the God of free spirits. I do not know whether, as an actual human being, she is as free as she seems. Sometimes you can see a sadness in her eyes. But I bet that is who she wants to be, and that is good enough for me. Who among us is perfect?
Clear Blue Mornings
Is there one Light, or are there many lights? In process theology, we say that there is one Morning that can be seen through the lights of many brand-new mornings. This capacity for self-multiplication is how God is at work in the world—not by causing everything to occur as it occurs, or even by permitting things to occur that could have been prevented, but rather by availing us of possibilities for responding to whatever happens, as it happens, with strength and courage.
How do we experience these possibilities? Not always as memories from the past, but rather as hopes from the future: as inspiring dreams. “I got my dreams to see me through.” God is in the dreams.
To the extent that these dreams animate our lives, we experience freedom from the vines of fear, hatred, and what one philosopher of the world’s religions calls the cramping confines of the ego.
These crampings include ego-deflation as well as ego-inflation. Feminists invite us to recognize that too much pride is not the only sin. Too little pride is also a sin. Sometimes our calling is to say, “I need others in order to survive.” But sometimes it is to say, “I am strong, and I can prove it.” It is to live with one of the most important forms of spirituality: true grit.
Creative Transformations
To be sure, the vines of self-elevation and self-hatred are very powerful. Do they cling to us, or we to them? Sometimes it’s hard to know whether we fall into sin or sin falls into us. So often the spirit is pure, but the flesh is weak. In any case, with help from clear blue mornings, something happens. New births occur.
Process theologians speak of these new births as moments of creative transformation. As Bob Mesle explains in Creative Transformation: Three Reflections, creative transformation occurs when we discover new possibilities for responding to the circumstances of our lives, such that we grow just a bit closer to the people we truly want to become: carriers of compassion and vessels of wisdom.
The good news is that, as we respond to possibilities for transformation, our souls grow wider. We can enter into relationships more fully; we can be more accepting of other people’s points of view; we can embrace rather than hide from the enriching tensions of life; and we can be true to ourselves and connected with others, neither to the exclusion of the other. In the words of Patricia Adams Farmer in What Is Fat Soul Philosophy?, we become fat souls.
For the Christian, Jesus was a fat soul and thus a revelation of the power of creative transformation at work in the world. To be sure, he needed a little work on accepting other people’s points of view. But, like I said above, nobody is perfect.
If we are Christian, our calling in life is not to repeat the beliefs of Jesus, but rather to be open to the power of God in our way and our time, as he was in his way and his time. The vocation of the Christian is to share in the faith of Jesus. It is to live, as best we can, from the light of clear blue mornings.
Divine Freshness
Christians such as John Cobb say that these fresh possibilities are manifestations of the λόγος. In Greek philosophy, the λόγος was the living spirit of God at work in the world in a continuous way. John Cobb speaks of the λόγος as the universal Christ, who was revealed, but not exhausted, in Jesus. Jesus was a window to the New Morning side of God.
According to the stories, the New Morning took the form of an infant lying in a manger, seen by wise men and shepherds, by his mother and father, and by the animals. They looked into the manger and saw a light. Later traditions called it a halo, but really it was a New Morning.
But the Christian story does not stop with Christmas. On Good Friday, Christians realize the preciousness of the New Morning through its absence, in the pain of the crucifixion. At Easter, they realize that the New Morning reappears with another New Morning: the reappearance of Jesus to his disciples after his death. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are a vivid instance of the Light of new mornings.
In the Sweet By and By
The New Morning existed long before Christianity emerged on our planet, and it will be at work long after Christianity perishes. And God is really more than the power at work in the world, the λόγος.
Process theology says that there is another side to God: a deep listening that feels everything that happens in the universe as it happens and perpetually weaves the multitude of happenings into the most beautiful melody possible.
The melody is partly composed of the melodies of the world itself, both painful and pleasant, both delightful and tragic. But it is also composed of the tenderness of God, as God weaves the melodies into a single song. If we imagine this song in visual terms, it would be a coat of many colors.
On a clear blue morning, before the day begins, there’s a special kind of song that everyone can hear. It’s quiet, vibrant, and hopeful. It doesn’t take a perfect ear to hear it. It is that side of God which takes all the melodies of the world, painful and sorrowful, and blends them into a freshness that is inherently beautiful—in the sweet by and by.
-
Thank you, Dolly.
Lyrics to The Light of a Clear Blue Morning
It's been a long dark night
And I've been a waitin' for the morning
It's been a long hard fight
But I see a brand new day a dawning
I've been looking for the sunshine
'Cause I ain't seen it in so long
But everything's gonna work out just fine
Everything's gonna be all right
That's been all wrong
'Cause I can see the light of a clear blue morning
I can see the light of a brand new day
I can see the light of a clear blue morning
And everything's gonna be all right
It's gonna be okay
It's been a long long time
Since I've known the taste of freedom
And those clinging vines
That had me bound, well I don't need 'em
'Cause I am strong and I can prove it
And I got my dreams to see me through
It's just a mountain, I can move it
And with faith enough there's nothing I can't do
And I can see the light of a clear blue morning
And I can see the light of brand new day
I can see the light of a clear blue morning
And everything's gonna be all right
It's gonna be okay
I can see the light of a clear blue morning
I can see the light of a brand new day
Yes I can see the light of a clear blue morning
And everything's gonna be all right
Everything's gonna be all right
Everything's gonna be all right
It's gonna be okay
'Cause I can see the light of a clear blue morning
I can see the light of a clear blue morning
Yes I can see the light of a clear blue morning
Everything's gonna be all right
It's gonna be okay
I can see the light
I can see the light
It's gonna be all right
It's gonna be all right