Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The next three days just might be total insanity for me. This is a whole new ballgame. Well, sort of. Tomorrow kicks off the beginning of a three-day Christian music ministry festival called Ichthus (Greek for fish in the New Testament, and the symbol [IXOY∑] for Christianity and that silly Jesus fish we see graced on the backs of cars of really bad drivers). Created as a Christian alternative for Woodstock, Ichthus is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year, and this happens to be the year I join in the party, rather unexpectedly.

Christian music is not exactly my chosen form of entertainment (or worship) on any particularly regular basis. In fact, I’d rather have silence over Christian radio stations. They sort of make me want to vomit, or at the very least, blow my ear drums out. But God, it appears, finds this really funny, and put me in a class last Fall with Ichthus’ ministry coordinator. I wasn’t aware of this until about a month ago when he asked me to be one of the photographers for the event. He first asked if I might want to work in the prayer tents for the alter calls and I hemmed and hawed, because nothing about that sounded enticing for me, and then I was asked the photo question, and I was sucked in to three full days at a Christian music festival. But here’s where God’s humor surpasses it all. I’ve been asked to be a ministry photographer. This means, I must take pictures of worship and…drum roll…the alter calls. For the entire weekend. Don’t laugh. Well…laugh, because it’s really ridiculous and I’m laughing. I may be laughing all weekend, because God is absurd, and she makes me smile. I love you, God. I love how you take me for a ride and remind me I’m not really in control. I’m rolling my eyes at you. But I’m also smiling and giving in.

But before all of that became my main thought process today, I got to have a good phone conversation with my dear friend Sarah from back home. Sarah has made the same move I made only in the opposite direction, from Wilmore to Newberg and it is good to talk to someone who knows the people and places in both my worlds. She doesn’t, of course, know my fellow students, but she knows many of the staff and faculty that I am getting to know, and it has been fun to get to see who knows her. It was wonderful to talk to someone who asks me questions because she’s interested in knowing the answer and who asks questions without judgment but simply because it came to mind. Processing my life is something I find myself doing most of the time, but I have been learning over the school year that some people do not have the capability to appreciate the space and grace processing requires. Talking with Sarah was like getting to breathe clean air in a place that feels often polluted. I get whiffs of that clean air sometimes. I get it when I talk with Peg. I get it sometimes when I talk with Marilyn. And it’s so validating in those moments. My conversation with Sarah was brief, only an hour. That may seem long enough, but I felt as if, despite having talked to her numerous times since coming here, I had an entire year’s worth of stuff to say. I can look back on everything now and not just pieces of it. I’m not far enough away to understand it yet, but I can at least see it all in one direction. As I talked with Sarah, I watched out my window as a storm began to roll in. Just after hanging up, I heard the first roar of thunder, and for the next few hours, storms reeked havoc outside as I sat peacefully inside and reflected on that hour long phone call. It was a delightful conversation. I hope to get to do it again before the summer disappears too quickly.

Back to my previous topic, another Sara is also on my mind. There is, surprisingly, at least one Christian musician I enjoy. She is a true musician and brings a fresh breath of honesty into her music that I don’t often see in the Christian music genre (which I still think is a strange way to classify a genre—by subject matter and not by style). Sara Groves gives me hope that even in the world of Christian music, truly gifted people exist. And Sara Groves will be at Ichthus, performing on Saturday evening. She is the only one I look forward to seeing, the only musician, actually, whose name I even recognize. The best part, though, is that as one of the photographers, the only place I don’t have access to is on the main stage (there are multiple stages). Since I’m uninterested in being seen on stage, I could care less about this. But what this means is that I have the pass that gets me anywhere else, including backstage. I have a job to do, and I can’t stop everything I’m doing during the hours she’s there, but I do hope that by chance I will get to meet her. For this pathetically crappy year I’ve had here in Wilmore, KY, I think that would make it all worthwhile. Every bit of it.

It’s 12:30am now and I actually have to get up at a designated time in the morning, so I will end on this wishful note. I have no idea if I’ll be able to write posts for the next few days, but expect a few pictures when the three days are over. And hopefully, I’ll have exciting news to report.