Ever have a dream you were so sure was real?

(Caveat: I just watched Carlos' talk on disturbing and disrupting the local church. It's long, but it's good, and let's just say it might be on target. That may have been one of the wells that my subconscious was drawing from here. Or maybe it was God trying to tell me something profound. Or maybe I'm pompous and presumptuous, and have a huge head. It's sometimes really hard to tell with this kind of thing...)

Just woke up from a dream. I was leading worship at the biggest Catholic youth conference I've ever been to, and which I'm sure I've talked about on here before, Steubenville (Mid-America, in this case). We had Mass, followed by Adoration, which for my non-Catholic people is a lot to get into, but it's basically a time of worship where, because of our beliefs about the Eucharist, we believe that Christ is physically present for us to look at, be with, touch (in some cases), and worship. The God of the Universe comes down, sits on the altar, and deigns to let us worship him.

Anyway, point of the story. Instead of leading from here:



I was leading from here:



and it made all the difference in the world. I was literally sitting in a stadium seat with my Adam Bitter hat on, my guitar strapped around me with a mic in front of me, my bass player to my left and a drummer somewhere behind. Presumably also in the stadium seats. A little impractical, maybe, but it was a dream. It was also the most incredible feeling: I could lead, but completely be myself because no one except for the people sitting around me had any idea who was leading. I was completely free to worship when I'd lead everyone to the point where the didn't need me anymore. We got to the Adoration portion of the evening, and I could worship just like I have been at every Steubenville I'd ever been to, sitting amongst the crowd, except that I was in charge of where the evening went. I don't remember everything I sang, but I ended with "How Great is Our God" and it brought tears to my eyes to hear all of these people surrounding me, worshiping along with me, with a song that I barely use anymore because "it's so old man! like from 2004!", but that was almost surely huge in my formative years when I was coming to know (Conocer) God after so many years of knowing about God (Saber) (when I, in actuality, had no idea what I was doing).

Then, in my usual way, to bring home the fact that this was, in fact, me doing all of this, Adoration ended, the host speaker took back over, and the youth minister I've worked with the most, the one who's been with me as I've been learning how to be a music minister, Jen, tapped me on the shoulder and told me that I did a good job, to which I replied, "Kind of. Could have been better. I don't know." Which is probably what I've said at the end of pretty much every Mass, Adoration, time of worship, whatever, that I've ever led. I'm really bad at taking compliments. But then one of my teens, who I was also sitting next to, said "I liked the way that you put your guitar down and prayed."

Interesting.

Audrey Assad

Okay, I figured I should put something music-related up here so that you don't think I've been doing nothing but drowning in booze for the last week. This probably would have been a lot more cutting-edge and "it's okay, I knew about her when she was indie" if I'd come out with this before she started making it to the main-stream of Christian music, but I did see her very recently. Kind of.

She came to one of my churches (I have so many...but this one was the one where I actually figured out that God likes me, specifically, rather than God likes me, in general. It's where I went to youth group, and I've still got so many ties and friends in that place.) and played a show with some chick named...Kerrie Roberts. Who has some pipes. But I digress. I Saw like four seconds of Audrey, and she still blew me away.

If you've figured anything about me, it's probably that I like artists who can be real with me. When they're singing or playing or leading worship, I know that they're actually worshiping. Karl had a really good post on this just recently. Point is, that's the vibe I got from Audrey. And I know how hard it is to worship, night in and night out, with an ever-changing group of people, on the road. And that's why I was so impressed. Here's her big song, called Restless.

With everything, with everything...

Just had an incredible adoration time. Played with my favorite youth music minister, Adam Bitter, at a Timothy 4 retreat. Played, among others, How He Loves and With Everything. Played my heart out, then played some more. Played electric, and really put my new pedal board through it's paces. Just. Awesome.

I don't really have a lot of words, so sufficient to say, it was a great, incredible worship experience. I really love being the sole electric guitarist in a band, because I have complete freedom to either add something pretty or interesting over the top of a song, or to take the song where it's going by really driving it rhythmically. And, it also leaves me free to throw up my hands and just worship sometimes.

What a great night.

Is anyone else using this song?

How He Loves. It certainly seems to be the next new thing, what with DC*B having covered it on Church Music (and playing it live at a lot of shows, which is just awesome), but like a lot of people who have any inclination to read this, I'd heard it years ago. I talked to a worship leader that I respect, and he said that he had to hear how Crowder did it live before he'd play it, and that struck me as kind of odd, but again, I really respect his opinions. Now that he has started playing it, he's in love with it (as is everyone), and he can't believe he'd never done it before.

Long story short, this weekend I played it for the meditation song for both of my Masses, and it was incredible. The line that blows me away, even years later, is "if His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking". I don't do the little Kim Walker giggle, but usually there's some kind of crack or vocal break in there. I can't help it. I also tend towards the "emotional" side when I lead worship...

I also love the DC*B music video. I can't embed it, but you can find it here. It's messy and it's real, and it's so faithful, musically, to the band's style, both in the way that they play it there, and the way it's shot. Just wonderful. But I will leave you with the original, because it's also messy and real and beautiful.

Who says?

This is about a week late, but it's taken a little bit of reflection time.

Last weekend was our Fall retreat, called "Unstoppable" and based upon the life of St. Paul. I was, of course, music minister, and it was really awesome to be able to get back to that. It's been since the last MACCS retreat (I think) sometime last November that I've been a full-blown music minister on a retreat, though there's not much that would compare with THAT weekend. I played a lot less frequently this weekend, because we were trying to hit a bit more on silence and reflection, though I did learn "Party in the USA" and break that one out for the teens. Yeah, I know. My only saving grace is that I didn't completely memorize it. At least not the words. I couldn't help the chords.

We talked a lot about loneliness in terms of a God-shaped hole (which I'm sure you've heard of before, but it seemed to be news to all of the teens. Note to self...) and it was really very therapeutic. I think loneliness is something that everyone's felt and that everyone can relate to. We also talked about the dark night of the soul, which may be something a bit less well-known, but basically it's feeling separated from God and not being able to get back to Him. Mother Teresa is (now) well known for having had a stretch that lasted for the majority of her ministry which is absolutely incredible to think about, but virtually every Saint has struggled with it for varying amounts of time. It really hit home for me last night when I went to Mass at the church I grew up in and saw a teen there who was on the retreat, and he described himself as currently going through it, which really broke my heart. Then I started to think about it, and it's been a while since I've been able to really feel close to God, but I've been using it as an excuse to not give everything I have to try and get back there. I don't want to go around comparing myself to the Saints, but it seems to be pretty much universal that everyone feels lonely for God sometimes.

I think that for the people who serve the church, it gets really, really hard to take a break and take some time for ourselves. I've brushed this off for so long, sacrificing a real personal connection in order to "better" minister to everyone else, but it's really been taking a toll lately. I'm not sure I could ever know how it's affecting the teens or the core team that I work with, but I'm sure it's not a positive change.

Maybe some music will come out of it?

Side note, I'm trying to keep this thing from getting really whiny or bitchy, because come on, you didn't come here to read me whine and bitch. I need to track down a few different mics, and then I'll figure out a way to get some demos up here, and maybe some original stuff. It just seems like it's been a long week and a half, and also, Call of Duty 6 came out last week, so on Saturday I had a rocking LAN party that lasted until 2am. So yes, I have been "busy".

Also, John Mayer's new stuff is out. I haven't heard much, and I absolutely hated "Who Says" when I first heard it like a month ago, but something about the chorus has grown on me, to the point where the progression and melody is expressing something to me that I can't put into words. The best musicians write music that speaks to everyone in a way that's just so personal that you can't even stand it, and I think that the more I hear, the more his stuff does that for me. I've certainly taken a lot of crap from my friends for liking John Mayer, but I think he's a completely different person now than the guy who wrote "Your Body is a Wonderland". At the very least, he's a very different artist. I still don't think I'd be able to stand him as a person, but he's got a gift.

Restless

This is more to get my thoughts down so I can maybe express them better this coming Thursday when I'm going to be talking to the teens at my parish. So if I ramble or go in circles, maybe it will help me not ramble then.

We've been talking a lot about Pope JPII's Theology of the Body, and about how sex, the body, everything, is so far from bad that it's ridiculous how it's been twisted by our culture. The song that keeps coming back to me is "How He Loves" which I first heard done by Jesus Culture, and that Crowder has since covered. The line that keeps coming back to me, the line that perhaps everyone knows but no one wants to sing, is "heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss". I'll admit, it's a little out there. But I've been thinking about it a lot in the context of TotB, and, let's be real. There is more Truth in that line than we're often comfortable recognizing.

And since I'm a sinful human, I've been thinking a lot about how, or more importantly, why God loves us the way that he does. I can't go 5 minutes without screwing something up. Even when I am trying specifically to love people, who I can see and have absolute, complete, total belief in their existence (yes, even after having watched The Matrix), things go wrong. I know in my head that our God is a jealous God [Exodus]. He wants us entirely to ourselves. He doesn't want us to be half for Him. He doesn't want us to put anything else above Him. He wants to know us more intimately than we could ever imagine. Or, rather, He does, but He wants us to know Him back.

We've been talking a lot about the book Song of Songs, too, which fits perfectly. It's a love poem to us from Him. It's sensual. It's ridiculously so. But that's how much God wants us, and how God wants us. I've thought a lot about passion vs. reverence; it's not something you can avoid as a music minister. And it's a hard balance to strike, mostly because you can't balance it. The paradox is that God wants us to honor Him, but wants us to know him more intimately than, frankly, is humanly possible. I think we use reverence as a shield so that we don't have to be real with God or with ourselves. God doesn't want our perfection or our grandstanding, He just wants us, right where we're at, no compromises. I get scared because all I can ever think about when I'm right there with Him is all the ways that I've screwed up. It's probably been a year or more since I've been real with Him. I've tried. So sometimes I'll go back to reverence, say things like "be respectful, you're in God's house" or try to quiet people down, or worst of all, try to bring God to them, as if I ever could, even in those times when I've felt really close to Him.

And the incredible thing is that everything that we use to keep ourselves from really sitting down and just being with God is, in and of itself, not a bad thing. For me, lately, it's been: school (a little while ago, but it's been a while since I've been really close), work, guitar, video games, relationships, time with friends, eating, sleeping, and a lot of things that maybe aren't inherently good. God's a jealous God. Even things that He loves about us, things that we do to help others, to love others, to live to see tomorrow so we have another chance to help and love others, even those can get between us and Him. And a lot of those things have to come between us. God doesn't want us to starve to death while in Adoration time. Part of being a human is accepting that you're not in heaven yet. And while God wants our everything, He loves us and loves our half-measures. He loves our trying. He is desperate for us, even when it's not mutual.

Can this familiarity with God go too far, to the point of irreverence? Can we get to a point where anything is acceptable as long as we're in love with God? I used to think there was a line. Now I'm not so sure that it could ever be sinful to love God as much as I possibly can. I need to get to a priest. I need to get some spiritual advising. I need to actually try to be with God first.


An aside to the non-Catholic Christians out there: I confess that I don't know what's in your particular bible. I know that they are different. If Song of Songs is not in yours, I really encourage you to go find a copy. It's not something that I hear anyone ever talking about, even though it is in the (Catholic) bible and is for a reason. It's also not something that they teach us in grade school, so I'm really only just now reading it. So if it is in your bible, then you probably know it way better than me and this is all common-sense. But even so, no one ever talks about it.

If you read this before Thursday, please pray for me. I don't know how it's going to go, or what I'm going to say, because I'm going to try to just be a conduit for God, try to let Him give me the words. I hope I can get out of the way and let God do great things, but it really doesn't matter if anyone comes up to me afterward and tells me how touched they were. I sure hope they are, but the fruit is probably years down the road, and likely not something anyone will ever see. And sorry for the long post at 6am. I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't sleep because it was on my mind.