Growing up a pastor's kid I understood that the church is where you get fed. Not just eating the leftover bread on communion Sunday as a kid, but being spiritually fed as I grew older.
The feel of an old hymnal in my hands to the music of an old piano slightly out of tune.
Passing of the peace, taking too long to get back to your pew.
Scrawling notes in my journal and on the backs of offering envelopes.
There was a certain comfort in those things that I didn't think existed anywhere else.
I was under a spell that the only place you could be spiritually feed was within the walls of a church.
Mmm... Nope. I couldn't have been more wrong.
My spirit comes alive on my first day at classes at Malone when my professor teaches us the two meanings of entertain:
1. to distract you from what is important
2. hospitality, to hold- warm.
Later that day I journal:
I had learned one of the most important lessons in my life.
Your spirit can be feed in more places than in the church, and by more people than your pastor.
So my life has led me to last night. A simple night. A house concert with less than 50 people. There was no sermon, yet I left wiser than I came. There were no hymnals, but oh was there music.
Last night I was entertained by the Rough and Tumble.
I sat in a home surrounded by life and my heart weighed heavy with beauty.
Crowding as many people as your can onto a couch.
Closing your eyes and imagining dancing in the rain
to the sound of broken glass shards in a wine bottle.
The intimacy of being barefoot with strangers.
A bookshelf in the corner standing still
to the sound of applause.
I felt alive.
In communion with the culmination of God's creation: people.
Moments like last night are few and far between for most people.
We go through life only capturing glimpses of what God desires us to experience at all times.
Yes it sounds a little silly that a crowded couch, a bookshelf, and some music would make me feel so alive.
That's the fun of it though. It is silly.
It is free. It is organic.
and warm.
and captivating.
It is like the music of The Rough and Tumble:
