ok....I'll admit it. I'm on hippie over-load. Shortly after I finished writing my blog yesterday, they arrived. Ten of them, piling out of an old RV like it was a clown car at the circus, smiling, stretching, smoking (I'm still hoping it was just cigarettes).
We served them spaghetti and salads, for which they were genuinely grateful...and I sat down with Spinoza (not his real name, just something from my father's old works that came tumbling back into my mind as I spoke with him). I asked who was the author of the Psalter manifesto, and everyone looked at Spinoza, and he smiled quite sheepishly and admitted to penning it.
"It was back while I was in college...I need to go through and edit it." he said wistfully, pushing a spaghetti noodle around his plate.
"Really? What changes would you make?" I asked.
"It's a little pretentious...I use a lot of Hebrew words that get things convoluted" he trailed off, still smiling as though he were aware of some inside joke.
Then he looked up at me, and I saw something in his eyes that broke my heart, and I couldn't put my finger on it. All I know is that at that moment, I loved this kid, regardless of our differences.
The day went on, and I was busy herding them from our place to the band house where they would crash, and then on to Schooners to set up their equipment. There are a bunch of funny stories that filled that space, but I'm too tired right now to even start setting them up. Suffice it to say that they were smiling and smoking and stretching all the way through this.
The show itself was...well...it was something else. Performance art. How often do we get the chance to be exposed to performance art in Bay county?
I honestly enjoyed their sound, their passion, their creativity. Yet for all that, I was cringing through most of their protest songs. They mentioned soldiers and cops in one, and they left me cold. Their purpose is to put a face on the suffering innocents of war, and that's fine...but in the process it becomes easy to forget the face of the others involved...the soldier, who does his duty and carries the pain of it. The cop who does his best, but its a fallen world, and he wrestles with dreams that haunt him. They are people too, they are not a corporation. Its easy to forget that when your young, and you have a cause. To strike out that way didn't reflect the humility I saw in them earlier, and I didn't enjoy that.
Madison Greene was Madison Greene. No political agenda, no angst...just that wonderful worshipful attitude. I still love those kids. Sad news about their future though....(*cryptic sigh*).
Later that night, as Robbie was reheating the spaghetti for them at the band house, I got the chance to talk with Spinoza at length. He shared his heart with me, and say what you will, this kid is sincere about what he believes. It wasn't much different from the stuff written in the manifesto. I cautiously expressed my difference of opinion, and shared with him my heart. It was genuine, humble and loving interchange of ideas between two people who saw the same problem, but had polar opposite solutions.
This must be something these guys go through a lot, because the whole band cleared out of the room as we started talking. The Madison Greene guys engrossed themselves in a rerun of Saturday Night Live...gotta' love those guys.
In the end, I didn't change Spinoza's mind (I really don't think I was trying to), nor did he convince me that he had the solution. What did happen, was that a squishy, 43 year old suburbanite, and an idealistic, 20 something, activist hippie agreed that Jesus Christ and Him crucified was ultimately THE essential solution, and the only important thing.
We both sat quietly, listening to the sounds of a fake news report from the other room. I looked at this kid eating spaghetti and smiling quietly to himself, and I could so easily imagine Jesus hugging him.
"Pray for us...for me. We try to minister Jesus to the underground, to anarchists and nihilists...and you know." He looked up at me with a look of deep concern. "You know...sometimes you can end up mirroring them more than ministering to them."
"I will pray for you...and you pray for me, for us at Eastgate. That we won't come away from this encounter and lose the challenge of it...that we don't end up mirroring a consumerist culture instead of ministering to it."
He smiled broadly, and we shook hands.
That was good.
But today, I have a hippie hangover. Too many hippies, too fast. I need more sleep, or I'll start stretching, and smoking and smiling all the time.
We served them spaghetti and salads, for which they were genuinely grateful...and I sat down with Spinoza (not his real name, just something from my father's old works that came tumbling back into my mind as I spoke with him). I asked who was the author of the Psalter manifesto, and everyone looked at Spinoza, and he smiled quite sheepishly and admitted to penning it.
"It was back while I was in college...I need to go through and edit it." he said wistfully, pushing a spaghetti noodle around his plate.
"Really? What changes would you make?" I asked.
"It's a little pretentious...I use a lot of Hebrew words that get things convoluted" he trailed off, still smiling as though he were aware of some inside joke.
Then he looked up at me, and I saw something in his eyes that broke my heart, and I couldn't put my finger on it. All I know is that at that moment, I loved this kid, regardless of our differences.
The day went on, and I was busy herding them from our place to the band house where they would crash, and then on to Schooners to set up their equipment. There are a bunch of funny stories that filled that space, but I'm too tired right now to even start setting them up. Suffice it to say that they were smiling and smoking and stretching all the way through this.
The show itself was...well...it was something else. Performance art. How often do we get the chance to be exposed to performance art in Bay county?
I honestly enjoyed their sound, their passion, their creativity. Yet for all that, I was cringing through most of their protest songs. They mentioned soldiers and cops in one, and they left me cold. Their purpose is to put a face on the suffering innocents of war, and that's fine...but in the process it becomes easy to forget the face of the others involved...the soldier, who does his duty and carries the pain of it. The cop who does his best, but its a fallen world, and he wrestles with dreams that haunt him. They are people too, they are not a corporation. Its easy to forget that when your young, and you have a cause. To strike out that way didn't reflect the humility I saw in them earlier, and I didn't enjoy that.
Madison Greene was Madison Greene. No political agenda, no angst...just that wonderful worshipful attitude. I still love those kids. Sad news about their future though....(*cryptic sigh*).
Later that night, as Robbie was reheating the spaghetti for them at the band house, I got the chance to talk with Spinoza at length. He shared his heart with me, and say what you will, this kid is sincere about what he believes. It wasn't much different from the stuff written in the manifesto. I cautiously expressed my difference of opinion, and shared with him my heart. It was genuine, humble and loving interchange of ideas between two people who saw the same problem, but had polar opposite solutions.
This must be something these guys go through a lot, because the whole band cleared out of the room as we started talking. The Madison Greene guys engrossed themselves in a rerun of Saturday Night Live...gotta' love those guys.
In the end, I didn't change Spinoza's mind (I really don't think I was trying to), nor did he convince me that he had the solution. What did happen, was that a squishy, 43 year old suburbanite, and an idealistic, 20 something, activist hippie agreed that Jesus Christ and Him crucified was ultimately THE essential solution, and the only important thing.
We both sat quietly, listening to the sounds of a fake news report from the other room. I looked at this kid eating spaghetti and smiling quietly to himself, and I could so easily imagine Jesus hugging him.
"Pray for us...for me. We try to minister Jesus to the underground, to anarchists and nihilists...and you know." He looked up at me with a look of deep concern. "You know...sometimes you can end up mirroring them more than ministering to them."
"I will pray for you...and you pray for me, for us at Eastgate. That we won't come away from this encounter and lose the challenge of it...that we don't end up mirroring a consumerist culture instead of ministering to it."
He smiled broadly, and we shook hands.
That was good.
But today, I have a hippie hangover. Too many hippies, too fast. I need more sleep, or I'll start stretching, and smoking and smiling all the time.
posted by rob at
8:22 AM
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