Bon Jovi and other Worship music

Half of the writing I do is merely expelling thoughts from my head... maybe you can help me sort out fact, fiction and significance from my observations.

I was able to attend Jubilee this year for the first time, and it was excellent. I mean, it would have been mind-blowing if I attended as an undergrad, but as a grad student who has well and truly bought into everything they're selling, I found it an encouraging and exciting experience. It helped that Hearts&Minds had a massive number of books there; I may or may not have spent two full workshops perusing. More than that, however, I appreciated the together-ness of the large meetings when, among other things, we stood together to worship.

The band was great. I come from a church - well, several churches in succession - that leans hard on acoustic, contemplative, traditional music, but that doesn't mean I have a problem with amps, drums, electric keyboards and the like. It was louder than I was used to but it was good... and then they brought the violins out. I play the violin. I love listening to the violin. When I hear the violin, especially in worship, I remember a line from a book I read as a child: "I thought my soul would rise and fly." Between the togetherness, the power of the music, and the rising and flying of my soul with the violins, I had an exceptionally amazing time of worship that weekend. I believed I felt the Spirit moving.

Fast forward about a week and a half, and picture me and my friend Kara headed to a concert. Not just any concert, a BON JOVI concert. I'll pause while you laugh. Here's a treat:

Lots of interesting things happened on the way there, including my applying eyeliner for the second time ever in a dimly lit restroom (welcome back to the 80s), a snooty waiter at Mad Mex (I know, right?), people selling t-shirts on a busy interstate, and almost losing the tickets after we drove all that way... but eventually we made it there. The tickets were a white elephant gift, and I was surprised - and surprisingly pleased - to discover that we were behind the stage at the Consol Energy Center. We were literally looking down on the band, and they had the courtesy to run 360degree sound so we missed nothing (especially not the awesome dance moves). One beer and a few shockingly famous songs later, and we were singing and dancing with the rest of them, cheering until our throats were hoarse because he absolutely refused to play "Livin' On a Prayer" until the very end.

Something was bothering me, though, and it didn't take that long to put a finger on what it was; namely, I had pretty much the same experience at that Bon Jovi concert as I did during worship at Jubilee. I mean, the words I was singing were different. The instruments were different. The company was (really) different. But there was a deep similarity of my feeling, my attitude... my soul? There were no violins, but that light, flighty sensation and the power of the words I was singing hit me the same way.

This was (I hope) understandably distressing to me, and as I reflected I came up with a few plausible explanations:

1) We're doing worship wrong. What I perceived to be a powerful worship experience at Jubilee was little more than the adaptation of a technique, perfected in rock music, that inspires a particular emotional response. It's not completely unheard of, and it fits with a certain view of reality (the one I was raised with, in fact): most emotion is suspect.

2) There's nothing wrong with the worship, and nothing wrong with the Bon Jovi concert. If everything is spiritual and feeling - physical or emotional - is an expression of God's good creation, then maybe the Holy Spirit was in both places. But then... why worship?

3) It's not really the worship or the concert, it's me. It's perfectly reasonable to consider that I am not as dedicated as I seem, nor as wise as I would like to believe... perhaps I simply don't recognize the Holy Spirit, and I was fooled by the music into believing that he was there. Either time.

This is just the beginning, I know, of the explanations that could be proposed, but it's all I've got. I have to acknowledge that there was a substantial difference between these experiences, and that is that I was intensely aware of the words I was singing. You simply cannot confuse Bon Jovi lyrics with most worship lyrics, because the rebellious humanism comes through loud and clear... but that's a conversation for another day.

That's all she wrote!

Oh, except for this great picture. That's a Terrible Towel, btw :)

a new (yet very old) kind of adventure

If I said "Niagara," you would probably think "Falls." If I said "Lake Erie," you would probably think "dang lake-effect snow." If I said "sailing," you would probably think "yacht." If I said "War of 1812," you would probably think "irrelevant history." Such have been many of my conversations of late regarding my newest hobby - volunteering on the US Brig Niagara. When I was young, I thought it was cool to be one of the few people who knew about Oliver Hazard Perry, the Battle of Lake Erie, and the Niagara. To be honest, nowadays I tend to be disappointed that no one seems to care about important stuff that happened in our nation's history. That's probably why I want to teach.

But I digress. Once upon a time America was at war with Britain because they wouldn't let us trade with France because they were preparing to be at war with Bonaparte and they didn't recognize our right to trade with whomever we want. It's called the War of 1812, sometimes "The Second Revolutionary War." In the midst of this war it became apparent that the British Navy needed to be stopped in the Great Lakes, but there was no one to do it... until Oliver Hazard Perry built a fleet out of Erie that won a really important battle that pretty much secured the American border and ultimately contributed to winning the war. The Niagara was Perry's flagship for the second half of the battle and his victory. She's kind of a big deal.

I know all of this because once upon a time, my father sailed on the Niagara as volunteer crew. After being retired off-and-on in Misery Bay, Presque Isle, for 160-odd years, she was fully rebuilt in 1988 and is now a sailing school vessel whose mission is to preserve the history of the War of 1812 in the Great Lakes as well as continue the tradition of square-rig sailing. Now I get to be part of that, because I am a member of the Flagship Niagara League, and I am now both a trainee and a maintenance volunteer for the rest of the winter.

I have made a few observations in my five week tenure as a Saturday maintenance trainee. For instance, keeping a ship in safe sailing shape is a heckalot of work, and most of it involves sanding and paint. I can't wait to graduate to tar and rope. Also, although I really do look forward to sailing in the summer, it is going to be a lot of work. I had intended to journal while I sailed, but it seems less and less credible to assume that I will have the time to do so. Also, the two-hour commute is surprisingly worth it every time.

Most of all, I believe that this experience will be an adventure the likes of which most of you have only read about (if that). It has been the story of my life to read about these sorts of things and spend very little time trying to find a way to do them, and yet here I am, tarring rope and painting yardarms. Maybe my new - yet ancient - adventure can inspire others to take part in the Niagara's mission, or even Nike's: just do it.

Updates (hopefully) to follow in the coming weeks.