Flying with the Goose

I just returned from The Wild Goose Festival at Shakori Hills, NC.  It was an amazing experience.   I am still pondering and processing all that I saw and heard.  It was a fusion of justice and Jesus!  It was a place where anyone and everyone was invited to walk together in faith.  The website for the festival states that “the Wild Goose is a Celtic metaphor for the Holy Spirit. We are followers of Jesus creating a festival of justice, spirituality, music and the arts. The festival is rooted in the Christian tradition and therefore open to all regardless of belief, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, denomination or religious affiliation.”  (http://www.wildgoosefestival.org/intro).  That says a lot and it was all that + a bag of chips.   It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

I came home with renewed faith in the power of a community of believers.  I came home with a new sense of the spread of progressive Christianity – not just in typical Progressive circles, but also into Evangelical circles as well as into numerous denominations and faith traditions.  I came home with a sense that our collective stories of faith are more similar than different.  I came home with a belief that together we can envision a world where we can overcome the differences in our theology.  I also came home with chigger bites and a sore back from sleeping in a tent, but those inconveniences were far outweighed by the blessings of being there at the first ever Wild Goose.

I heard music by Michelle Shocked, Over the Rhine, Beth Nielson Chapman, and many others.  One of the highlights was talking with Vincent Harding who worked with MLK in the Freedom Movement (he believes the name Civil Rights Movement limits it too much).  I heard Jay Bakker talking about grace, Jim Wallis talk about the mess in Washington, Brian McLaren talk about the future and the church, Tony Jones talk about sexuality, and so many others.  I was part of a panel on Church Planting with Nadia Bolz-Webber and Cheri Holdridge.  It was held in a geodesic dome in the woods.  It was a blessing to be there, but there were too many people to hear and too little time.

Little kids were running around playing Duck, Duck, Goose with painted faces.  Families were camping out and cooking on camp stoves.  Conversations about faith and life were taking place all around the festival.  There were 20-somethings covered in tattoos and 60+ folks in their Dockers and bow ties sitting on the ground and on camp chairs enjoying the festivities together.  Folks painted each other with water and mud and brought yarn to unite in a beautiful prayer tree.  The Goose – the Holy Spirit – was everywhere.  The Spirit was in the trees, the camp tents, the contributors and participants, the face painted little kids, the breeze blowing through the fields, and the s’mores offered by tent neighbors. 

I am glad I went the Goose.  I was blessed by the Goose.  And I will return to the Goose.  In the meanwhile – I will fly with the Goose in all I do.  The Goose is with me always.  And also with you!!

On Being from Lubbock, Texas

I was born in Slaton, Texas in June of 1962 in a little community hospital.  Slaton is a small farming community outside of Lubbock, Texas – an area with lots of cotton farming, oil pump jacks, and cattle ranching in the surrounding area.  Lubbock is mostly remembered as the home of Buddy Holly, the location of Texas Tech University, and as the topic of Mac Davis’ song, “Texas in my Rearview Mirror.”  It is part of the Llano Estacado in the northwestern part of the state.  It is known for cattle – lots of cattle.  There is even a story floating around that Lubbock’s City Council once hung little green scented car freshener trees all around the cattle pens in answer to complaints about the smell.

Lubbock is also known for the 1951 Life Magazine publication of photos of “The Lubbock Lights,” a series of photos showing a V-shaped unexplained light configuration in the night sky.  And it is known for chuck-wagon cook-offs, Old West celebrations, great Tex-Mex food, fantastic football, and wonderful views of the plains of Texas.  It is the birthplace of Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, Joe Ely, Chace Crawford, and Delbert McClinton, among others. 

We were living in Lubbock during the 1971 F5 tornado that took the lives of 26 persons and did $125 million in damage.  I remember my parents were out that night and neighbors took us into their storm shelter to survive the storm.   The city was rebuilt then and is a thriving community now.  Today there are windmill farms and wineries sprinkling the landscape along with the farms and ranches that are the norm.  It is flat as the eye can see – so the sunsets and vistas are spectacular.

But it can also seem monotonous driving through the region for the uninitiated.  When I took a roommate home once from graduate school in Kansas, as we drove from Amarillo to Lubbock she screamed with glee after an hour on the road, “We’re turning, we’re turning!”  Ok, the road is pretty straight.

But the thing I love about being from Texas – despite the fact that we just do things BIG down there – is the pride of the folks who live there.  They love their Cowboys or Texans, Mavericks or Rockets, and their Big 12 sports – Tech, UT, OU, K-State, KU or whatever team they follow.  They love their music and culture, their art and just being from Texas.  They have big hair, big stories, big mouths, and big pride (not everyone has equal big hair or mouths but I am speaking in generalizations here).

To be honest, though, there have been times when I have not enjoyed being from Texas.  The Redneck sexism that still is a part of Texas drives me crazy.  The racism that is still part of Texas makes me sad (it is everywhere else too – unfortunately).  The political changes that have turned it from a Blue state to a Red one have me perplexed.  And the remarkable variety of places and things to do is mind-boggling in diversity and sheer number. 

There was a time in my life when, like Mac Davis, I wanted nothing more than to leave Texas.  The song, “Texas in My Rearview Mirror,” came out in 1980, the year I graduated from High School in Andrews, Texas.  Like the song, however, I have learned to appreciate my Texas heritage and miss it deeply.  This part of the song means a lot to me.

I guess happiness was Lubbock, Texas

In my rearview mirror

But now happiness is Lubbock, Texas

Growin' nearer and dearer 

And the vision is gettin' clearer in my dreams

And I think I fin'lly know just what it means

And when I die, you can bury me in Lubbock, Texas'in my jeans

-          Texas In My Rearview Mirror, Mac Davis

I have lived away from Texas since 1993 when I left to go to graduate school.  I think of it often, visit when I can, and live with my longings to be there almost every day.  The bulk of my family – birth and extended – live there and I wish I could see them more often.  Leaving at that time in my life was the best for me and my future, but someday I hope to move back to my native state.  I love Texas – despite its flaws.  I wear my accent proudly.  There are very few times that I can open my mouth and not get asked, “Where is that accent from?”  So I get to claim my birth state almost every day living here in the Northeast. 

So, yes happiness is Lubbock, Texas growing nearer and dearer.  I love where I am from.  And I am proud to be a Texan – through and through.

My iPod Gives Me Whiplash

Music is something that has always fed me.  Music just makes me happy.  I remember singing with my parents as a kid, singing in church from an old hymn book, singing in my basement bedroom to music my parents hated, and singing lullabies with my son in a Russian orphanage when we went to adopt him.  Music has been a part of my life from my earliest memories.  I love pop, rock-in-roll, classical, country, jazz, Broadway musicals, Christian rock, blues, and more.  I love listening to music as we drive on trips.  I love listening to Christmas music as we decorate the house.  I love listening to jazz while I write.  I love listening to musicals and remembering being there in the audience in New York City.

Someone borrowed my iPod the other day and gave it back with this comment, “your tastes are certainly … ummm, eclectic.”  It sounded like a slam but I took it as a huge compliment!  However, I have to admit that here are times when my iPod gives me whiplash.  I had it on shuffle once (a mode that just randomly plays songs by various artists) and my head almost spun off my body.   First Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful Word” comes on – then Melissa Etheridge’s “I Run For Life” – then Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” – then The Benedictine Monk’s “Puer Natus In Bethlehem” – then KT Tunstall’s “Black Horse and a Cherry Tree” – and finally Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.”  Whoa.  It was like having extreme fluctuations of emotions and psychological reactions.  Music takes us places – in our heads, our hearts, and our memories.  Mine was taking me too many places at once though.

When I think of music, I am reminded of falling in love with my spouse at an outdoor Peter, Paul and Mary concert (that I went to despite really, seriously not liking PPM at all).  I am reminded of the begging for countless renditions of “You Are My Sunshine” from my toddler son before bedtime. And I am reminded of the moments of my life that music has been a vital part.

Nearly everyone I know has a soundtrack for their lives, for their faith, for their kids, for their relationships, etc.  Music speaks to us in ways that transcend easy explanations.  Some folks like music that I am not attracted to – like Hip-Hop or Rap – but it speaks to them.  Some have strong negative feelings about Country – while it brings me back to my Texas roots.  Different strokes for different folks, but sometimes debates ensue.

One of the places where music disagreements occur on a regular basis is the church.  These musical arguments are actually part of what are called – The Worship Wars.  Some traditional church members who love classical music and organs turn their noses up at the use of secular music in worship.  While other church folks who embrace secular and contemporary Christian music in their worship services cringe at the 18^th and 19^th century classics of their counterparts.  Some churches try to ride the middle of the road and employ a strategy called Blended Worship.  Often blended worship does nothing but make both music style’s proponents mad.  But some churches have still made this work for them.  They honor traditional hymnody and also introduce their congregants to new music on a regular basis. 

The Worship Wars are a testy thing.  They are about one group of folks basically saying to another, “Your worship, your music, your way of expressing your faith is wrong and ours is right.”  In my opinion, it is a very privileged and ego driven position to take.  It also assumes that all folks in one community of faith are attracted to the same type of music.  I do not find that to be true generally.

Like my eclectic iPod – there are a number of music styles that feed people.  I do not want to only listen to classical music any more than I want to just listen to Queen.  I want to have a diversity of music genres at my fingertips, in my worship, and in my life.  The churches that attract younger folks, typically, (not always, but typically) embrace newer music, different musical instruments, and more contemporary styles of music.  The Church needs to embrace this.  Diversity is a gift – in people, in worship, in music, and in life. 

No wars for me.  Diversity rules in my music world.  And I hope it does in the church of the future as well.  Give me a musical whiplash any day of the week.