spiriutal pieces: goodbyes and another advent of something new.

goodbyes are always something. sometimes good. sometimes not so...but regardless they are something. some goodbyes feel significant and yet they're not really goodbyes.

a number of years ago, in this space, i was lamenting what 30 would mean. it came and went. but one of the areas of loss i was dealing with at that time, perhaps for the first time, was the end of delirious?, a band that had been rather significant for me post-1997. with delirious? it was sort of an odd couple. give or take, i'm probably into 73% of their songography. now, that impact of that 73% cannot be overestimated. the lyrics, the music...the whole package still captures me.

but the other 27% was more of an unfortunate personal preference (unfortunate on my part, i'm sure), with roughly 2% of it going into the category of just not getting it. as for the personal preference, there are times i really enjoy the whole notion of some kind of blended pop-ish rocking out. but give me the mello, the emotional, the arising, the acoustic, the stripped down and i'll be fully satisfied. with delirious? i could overlook the pop and the harder stuff because i had been led by them over and over and, for that reason, "i knew" them...and trusted them. so, if they wanted to discuss "heads spinning" and "the world spinning around," i wasn't necessarily into it, but i just figured they were delivering a message to some other set of personal preferences. it's the same with the stuff i didn't get. i mean, if they wanted to talk about being an "eagle rider," splendid...i wasn't interested, but i was more than willing to listen to the first five seconds of such songs, or however long it took me to press the "back" button to repeat "love will find a way" one more time. 

late last night i was reminded via twitter that the Dave Crowder Band...wait, i mean the Dave Crowder*Band...had released a Christmas album - their second to last project. (the via twitter bit is just a funny to say. yes, while i was away i started a twitter account. it's much like my blogging, i.e. nobody reads it. but it doesn't require as much thought or time and i get instant updates of daily book deals)

now, admittedly, i haven't been listening to crowder all that much the past couple of years. living in wilmore with no commute and a two year old who requires 'praise baby' puts a damper on lengthy listening to anything. but they remain close to who i am, in some sense who i have become, and what i enjoy about Christian music...thoughtful, creative and worship-oriented. crowder would probably be around 94-96%. though i haven't been enthralled in their albums of late, the news of their imminent end was saddening and feels like another change.

here's why:

it was may 20, 2000. this little known thing called oneday happened at the shelby farm in memphis, tennessee. i don't remember all the details of how i got there, but i still remember it all being last minute. a group of friends from another college were going and i joined. when i attended that...event?! (which it was) my heart was still radically captivated by Christ's love and by His still recent work in my heart. although it didn't come as a surprise, i was all but unaware of the wounds that would be inflicted on that heart through death and all sorts of loss just two weeks later on june 4, 2000.

not two minutes ago i hung up the phone with my mom to make sure i wasn't losing it and misremembering the date my dad's death. much of the ensuing days and weeks after june 4 remain a fog. i knew oneday happened in the same chronological vicinity, and, for that reason, have always said how crucial and stabilizing that experience was. but i seriously had no recollection of it happening just two weeks before my dad's passing. kind of makes me laugh about the "how" and "last minute" part.

but that's where i was introduced to the dave crowder band (pre-* and even found they had gone by another name previously, the ubc band). because of dr. Mac's influence on me i had a growing penchant for hymns, but it was Crowder who sealed it - come thou fount...more particularly, , the hidden track on the 'all i can say' album, #34...which doesn't begin until 3:40. i still remember that dude walking around the oneday masses with his guitar as his backpack.

after the summer of hell, i got back to cincinnati disillusioned and broken. and everybody knew it...and i did too. the only other thing i knew was that there was, in the midst of everything changing from what i had known it to be in my first three years of life in Christ and the visual unease that such things brought with it, an undergirding that was taking place that i was grasping for and grappling with.

so as i grasped, i turned to crowder and this newish thing called the internet. pre-google i don't even know how i found the ubc project, but i did. and when i did, i don't even recall any fear of an turning over my credit card number to the much less safe worldwide web. i still remember getting that package in the mail. "you alone." "how long, how wide." the more original, stripped down - and better - version of "come and listen." through the music, i came, i listened. hell still raged on, but i was reminded over and over again just how long and how deep.

after that it was just a steady succession of albums that captured my attention. in no particular order: "can you hear us?" "collision." live napster downloads (....haha). "remedy." "illuminate." and "church music."

i still remember driving my prayer route in jackson sometime in the fall of 2002. yet another moment i can't believe was nine years ago...not because i'm going through a midlife crisis...but because i'm still in the blue sunfire weeping because i too needed words.

as i get ready to say goodbye, here are the words that immediately come to mind: inspiring, reminding, creative, and stabilizing.

well, anyway, after Hannah had gone to bed, i bought that album and listened. there as i sat in the quiet, reading leviticus (just because i'm like that), and listening to Christmas music at the beginning of october, i was again captivated. kind of a generic term? sure. but i was drawn into "let earth receive her king"...for the briefest of moments, crowder and crew had me again.

i'll soon miss the newness of getting one of their just released albums and wading my way through it. but this goodbye, while it surely suggests i keep getting older, the band's music will maintain the possibility to move me toward the one they have always sung of...now, during the coming advent and those that will follow.

i had forgotten how therapeutic blogging was.
-scott|e.