IN THE MOMENT
/"Sometimes we don’t recognize a narrative when we’re living it." That's not a quote from a famous speech or a book or movie. I read it in the comments of a sports blog. That doesn't make it less thought provoking though. Does it?
You know the analogy about future/past perspective: "You can either look through the windshield or you can look in the rearview mirror."
There's at least one other option (we'll get to that in few more paragraphs), but first let's step out of our car and pretend we are watching it from the outside as it goes through life. Try this: imagine you're in one of those Little Tikes cars going through Kindergarten. Looking through the windshield at your future is myopic at best. We can barely see past recess and naptime to gathering our jacket and lunchbox to head home for the day. This little car doesn't even have a rearview mirror which is fine. There's just not much "past" back there to view anyway.
How about the cool car of our adolescence? Again, there's not much in that rearview--little experience to inform the decisions about the road ahead. We’re probably more enthralled with what’s happening in the car rather than what’s ahead. Hopefully we see the next curve coming,
It seems like this is where we can fall prey to the third option in our windshield/rearview mirror metaphor. This is the one where we are looking at the windshield but not through it to the path ahead. We are in the moment and the moment only. Next time you're in the car try it. Just look at the windshield. Focus on some bug guts if that helps. Don't try it long because it can be disorienting. It's like time is marching on, the miles are passing but we're neither forward-focused or looking back to inform the future.
Ever have one of those moments when you're driving, your mind drifts, all of a sudden you realize you've driven several miles but you can't remember the details?
Don't get me wrong; I'm not disparaging living in the moment. I'm a big fan of daydreaming and peaceful reverie. Maybe though, I need to replace the blank stare at the bird poop on the windshield with an occasional look out of the side windows, taking in the moment, making the most of the trip.
All this introspection about introspection turned to some recent soul searching for me. It all started when watching a documentary called "The Jesus Music". It dawned on me just how formative that era and that music was. Jesus Music was at the heart of what Time magazine called "The Jesus Movement". This thing that started in southern California, and as it spread across the country and my psyche, became part of me and I became part of it in a small way; maybe a few small ways.
The whole hippie movement had an appeal. I was fascinated by the whole "antiestablishmentarianism" of it all. (Ever since I learned that word and discovered it was one of the longest of our language I've been trying to find a way to use it in a sentence. Check that off the bucket list.) This movement gave me a way to be a little transgressive but still compliant with my upbringing.
Not only did I quickly adopt this new genre of music, setting "christian" messages as lyrics to the rhythms, melodies and chord structures and instrumentation of folk/rock music of the 60s and 70s, but I got the opportunity to join some fine musicians as the drummer in a Jesus Music band called "Light". It was largly bank-rolled by a man named John Frank who was the founder of Frankoma pottery. He had a heart for ministries to kids.
We played in coffeehouses, which were springing up in empty downtown buildings all over (places for young "Jesus Freaks" to hang out), and at "Jesus Festivals" (outdoor mini Woodstock type gatherings). We didn't play in churches. At that time, drums and electric guitars were the devil's instruments.
a concert poster i saved from back in the day. according to the u.s. inflation calculator $2.00 in 1972 would be about $15.30 today. Still a pretty cheap date.
People like evangelist Jimmy Swaggart had a few things to say about the music:
"Swaggart, was conducting one of his mass revival crusades in New Haven, Connecticut. Before the cameras and the glare of stage lights he paced back and forth, waving his arms like he was fending off a swarm of bees. He raised his Bible high above his head. He shouted at his audience about the moral degeneracy that dragged reprobates through the gates of hell. He took aim at ‘the devil’s music’: rock and roll. How had Christians made peace with this vile, hideous music, he asked with urgency in his voice: ‘You cannot proclaim the message of the anointed WITH THE MUSIC OF THE DEVIL!’ shouted Swaggart. —https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/god-gave-rock-and-roll-you
One of the earliest pioneers of Jesus Music, Larry Norman, had a hard-driving song to counter Swaggart's point:
I want the people to know that he saved my soul
But I still like to listen to the radio
They say rock 'n' roll is wrong,
We'll give you one more chance
I say I feel so good I gotta get up and dance
I know what's right,
I know what's wrong,
I don't confuse it
All I'm really trying to say
Is why should the devil have all the good music?
I feel good every day
'Cause Jesus is the rock and he rolled my blues away!
larry norman from his album “only visiting this planet”
Apparently a real rocker, with shoulder length hair, swatting the hornet's nest so to speak, didn't do much to smooth the gap between this new movement and the established church. It took Billy Graham himself to calm the panic of church leaders and help them see that there can be other songs along with "How Great Thou Art" and "Just As I Am" to move people.
By 1969, Graham had launched a series of youth nights during his crusades, which attracted young Jesus Freaks with a laidback coffeehouse vibe, and folk singers. By 1994, huge acts such as DC Talk and Michael W. Smith headlined a series of revamped Billy Graham crusade youth nights. Teenagers could belt out Smith’s “Place in This World” and headbang to DC Talk’s “Jesus Freak” before hearing a “grandfatherly” Graham deliver a short gospel sermon. Graham’s reaction after the first such concert, held in Cleveland: “Personally, I didn’t understand a word of those songs [as they were being sung]. But I had all the lyrics written down, and they were straight Bible; great lyrics.” —https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/04/songs-love-sing-billy-graham-edith-blumhofer-crusades/
Shortly after that, I toured with a youth group, playing drums in a musical, performed in a number of churches. Teens and young adults gave great reviews. More than a few old deacons gathered on the church steps afterward to have a cigarette and wonder out loud what fresh hell they had just witnessed, no doubt prophesying the end of the world as they knew it.
As Jesus Music was taking root I began working with youth in local churches. I always made it a priority to try to expose as many of them as possible to a wide spectrum of music and musicians, not just as listeners but as participants themselves. Now, many years later, I look in the rearview mirror and realize I am grateful for those early troubadours, those ground-breaking disciples. I am grateful to courageous leaders like Billy Graham, to my own Dad and Brother who were open to new expressions of the power of music. I am grateful for the vulnerable who let me set up a drum kit and play in the Sanctuary of the church they led. And I'm grateful to some of my favorites:
Larry Norman
Randy Stonehill
Second Chapter of Acts
Jars of Clay
Jennifer Knapp
Audio Adrenalin
A Few Small Fish
U2
DC Talk
Switchfoot
Sixpence None The Richer
... just to name a few.
Now at 70-something, most of the ride is in the rearview mirror--not trying to be morbid, just honest. If I'm not careful though about too much longing for the good old days, I'll wake up and someone else will be doing the driving. I'll be in that rear-facing seat in the back of the station wagon, which is terrifying because we had one of those in a family car of my youth and I would always get car-sick riding in the way-back. It's a wonder I don't have a drug problem; I always enjoyed the haze of a Dramamine induced nap on a long, long road trip.
Here's a suggestion for road trip music for this stage of the journey:
Now think back to when you were a child
Your soul was sweet, your heart ran wild
Each day was different and life was a thrill
You knew tomorrow would be better still
But things have changed, you're much older now
If you're unhappy and you don't know how
Why don't you look into Jesus?
He got the answer
--lyrics from verse 2 of "Look Into Jesus" by Larry Norman.