On Saturday night I finally fulfilled my dream of seeing Derek Webb in concert. If you don't know Derek, I suggest you familiarize yourself with his music, because he is simply amazing. I'm not very fond of most things I hear coming out of the Christian music scene these days, but he defies the narrow musical/lyrical confines of the genre. He's pretty uncategorizable, actually....some have called him the Bob Dylan of Christian music, and I think that's a pretty good description. He actually played a cover of a Bob Dylan song at the concert ("With God On Our Side"...really incredible). His lyrics are raw, honest, and passionate, something you don't hear very often on fluffy Christian radio stations....hence him never being played on Christian radio.For those of you who do know his stuff, the song set was:
A Love That's Stronger than our Fear, A Savior on Capitol Hill, Name, I Wanna Marry You All Over Again, Can't Lose You, Lover, I Just Don't Want Coffee, A King and a Kingdom, I Hate Everything (but you), and A New Law. He closed with This Too Shall Be Made Right and Wedding Dress, arguably his two best and definitely two of my favorites.
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But there was more to Saturday night than just the music. I reunited with my recently married friends Andrew and Katherine, saw my old camp friends Rachel, McKinney, and Megan, and as I drove to the concert, I talked to my fellow Prague intern Lindsay. It was an intersection of interactions with people from all different parts of my past life, and I was reminded of how catching up with old friends is equally wonderful and painful. People change and conversations aren't the same and you're reminded of all the time you can't get back. It's inevitable, but it's not easy to face. I wished I could run down the halls of my old college dorm, talk by moonlight on the porch of my cabin at camp, or sit around the kitchen table eating chips and salsa in Prague. As I poured over the evening driving home, my head felt like a muddled collage, flooded with times and places and people and stories that were everything but here and now.
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But here and now are where I am....so I will keep on struggling to surrender those chapters of my story into the hands of the One who gives and takes away, and press on torwards a sure and certain hope in the midst of continual change.
September 16, 2008 at 6:37 PM
I had a similar experience when I went to a Derek Webb concert in college. I really enjoyed the concert and it was before he went solo, so I got to hear Wedding Dress before he recorded it. Still a very offensive and brilliantly written song, sad and beautiful all at once.
I also feel you on missing people, except I am always here and everyone else is leaving. I nearly cried the last night of camp. I grow so weary of seeing people leave. And then I hear For the Sake of the Call by Steven Curtis Chapman and remember that I am called to serve Him here, and abandon it all, even the closeness of friendships.
Once again, you have written well. And that is truly what makes your blog beautiful - your words paint an amazing picture.