sanctus real, the big wide world, etc...

Hmm. The warm weather is coming back. :) It’s a wonderful thing; yesterday was all 30ish and snow thin on the ground. Ew. We’ve had enough of that –and more, this winter. Spring, come my way! I saw you last week, but I’d like you to stay!
I didn’t mean to rhyme. It just came naturally. (heheh)

Last night was the Sanctus Real concert, and it was really good.

Heather (hi!:)) met us there, and it was her first “ccm” (Christian contemporary music) concert. The whole night was a bit more on the mellow side; Me In Motion was good: loved the guitars, and watching the drummer is always fun –well, when you’re in a mosh pit. Sheesh. They didn’t have one at this place, this time. (sigh) I was quite disappointed, since I like to be right there, between the moshing peoples and the stage. :)

Then there was Above The Golden State. They were good; more soft than MIM (the above) and a bit more jivey. I told Heather it was kinda like café music; you sway and want to maybe snap your fingers, bob your head sideways. (haha) And drink coffee. Or tea. Whichever you prefer or are able to tolerate. ;)

Then…there was ^Addison Road. Man, they were good. I had gotten their CD from the library, and wasn’t too impressed because not a minute into each song I was tired of it, it sounded the same. They were way better live. I loved them. And it always helps when someone in the band likes to talk, and talks good. Well, interesting and different. That’s how Jenny was. She was the sweetest thing, introduced the band and her husband on a guitar to the right of the stage, and talked about their 11-month-old little girl who looks like a squirrel, crazy hair and oh so cute. They had some slower songs, but then they really got into a few that were almost dancy, a bit of attitude. I would look over in the middle of one of these songs, and see Heather moving more to the music than I was. I laughed, and she would just look at me, like I'd asked her if the music was loud or her hair was brown, and tell me “I like this song!” (okay, heather, i will refrain from writing about your antics...no need to worry for your reputation.;)) And the sad thing is, we were some of the most liveliest people in the crowd. And that's not saying a whole lot. All those privileged little stink-pots up in the first several rows were still as a bunch of frozen peony stems. Sheesh. :) (alright, i cannot deny it: i kinda like the sentence i just wrote...pshaw...it's kinda spunky/clever. haha!)

Then Sanctus Real came up, after a video of Sammy Adebiyi (add-ah-bee). I guess this is the second time he’s toured with them, speaking for 10 minutes or so, and it was good. The underlying subject was poor African people and making clean water available to them, but it was much different from your normal take-pity-and-give-money commercial. When the video first started, all you saw was a shockingly young black guy with a mop of dreads. I have to confess, I leaned over to Heather (you’re noticing a pattern here because she sat inbetween Anna and I) and said something like, “How old is he? Like 19?” I would’ve said 16, but I’m guessing you can’t adopt a child with your wife at that age. Har har. So the video turned out to be long, but he was fascinating and amusing, his imagination taking us for a loop. His accent came out in the really passionate sentences, which was especially near the end. He gave the example of 100 people in the room, all representing people from across the world. Half have clean water and food. The rest have malnutrition. Ten of the better-off half have access to internet and have a computer at home. And one –once again, of the better half-- (if I remember this right) has the choice to go to college.

It was fascinating. Heartbreaking. Like, how many of us actually think of the people outside of our busy schedule? Our busy little world.

So he spoke to us, all in the room. We were obviously part of the proven better-off half. We were in the front of the line. And we were doing nothing for the people in the back of the line, starving and thirsting and dying off as we sat there. We think we can’t do anything to influence change in this big wide world because we’re so small, we’re only one person; what can I possibly do that will make a difference? . . . but he spoke of how he’d always thought that way, but then Matthew 25 came completely alive to him—in that, at the end of time, if we got it the least bit right, when we stand before God, He’ll say “_____, thank you. Thank you for clothing me when I was naked, thank you for giving me that drink of water, thank you for feeding me. Because when you did it for those ‘least of these’, I care so much that it was like you were doing it for/to Me.”

And really, do we want to go through life and not have done anything? For His Truth, for Love? To me, that's one of the most important things.

There’s this thing called Mocha Club that he talked about. You can research it if you want to. It’s a 7-dollars-a-month dealy-o that seems quite doable for even me. Like, heck, I can do that.

Needless to say, it's got me thinking. A lot.

Life is nothing if we do not Love.

Life is nothing if we do not Give.

Life is nothing if we do not just be, and rest in Him as His children, His people, His beloved ones.

Because no matter what, He Loves us.

Sanctus Real started, then. They were really good. They played practically their whole newest album, which was kind of weird because no other band I know has done that . . . at least, none that I’ve seen.
But they were good. :) A few, like I Want To Get Lost, and Keep My Heart Alive, made you just stand there and feel the music. Others, like Forgiven, These Things Take Time, Take Over Me, and Dear Heart, made you move and sing –--thank goodness they had all the lyrics, because some lazy people like me needed them. I didn’t purposefully put the CD in to play, though Anna did, and a few songs sounded familiar.

Hmmm.
I'm tired. And going for a walk in the dark with Anna--one needs a walk when one has just finished a dinner of leftover seafood lasagna and fresh homemade apple-pie-in-a-pan. :]
So...goodnight.