To Hear Where the Music Lives

Tonight, I experienced a great fullness in the music that I've been privileged to write - a fullness that I had not known until this past concert. I played at Johnson's Brewing Station for a small crowd made up mostly of folks I know and love. Nathan Sharpe joined in on Wurlitzer and electric, Britta Adams sang and played phenomenally on percussion, and Andy Vandergriff sang and played guitars. I really felt the beautiful twinge of blessing that these great folks chose to spend their time making my music sound like a good story ought. And it was even more amazing that people, even - and perhaps especially - people I know, gave of their time to sit and listen to my play and sing for an hour. I played a new song called Fight With Skin, with is essentially about my wife being wonderful enough to be honest with me - specifically when I really need to be told that I'm being an idiot - and about the beauty of taking this allegory called marriage very slowly, savoring each other's presence.

I can't describe to you the feeling when the art you're taking part in comes to a head and, at least to you, sounds like an entirely new creation that you were never really a part of in the first place. I suppose it's quite akin to that first breath of today that I took as I stepped outside into the cool air. The day, and indeed the year, from that point on, becomes something else entirely. It ever longs to be violently alive.

If you came to the show, or if you're reading this, thank you. Seriously, it's incredibly heart-warming that you should care what I might have to say. Even if it is the internet, it almost feels as if we were sitting in a living room together. God has surely blessed me in what He has done. I won't say I'm no longer ambitious, but I'm a little more content (and not just because I feel that things went well). Content enough to be divinely discontented? Now that's another story for another day...