Humbled

This past weekend i had the pleasure of attending the Sonshine Festival in Wilmar, Minnesota with my good friend Alan. We took a pop-up camper and camped out for 3 days and enjoyed a heavy dose of Christian music, most bands of the metalcore genre. it was awesome.

Some of you might know that i have a tendency to be judgemental, not so much to people's face, but judging of style/musical choices. i love to pick apart people at shows, even the bands, and do it from a distance. You might say that a Christian music festival is the pinnacle of targets to be judged from the youth-group leaders to the "cool" parents to the young awkward kids. This past weekend was no different, as the first night of metal bands were playing i stood there with my arms crossed and critiqued each kid's choice of shirt, or tight-pants, or dancing "style", or a band's tendency to by a little preachy, and so on. at one point during this, Alan and i got a chance to sit down and relax while waiting for the next band. We were talking about our history getting into music and whatnot, and i started to criticize some more kid's choice of style when Alan asked me a most impactful question:

"Were you always so cool?"

...uh...

i doubt Alan knew the impact of the question at the time, but i couldn't stop running the question through my head the whole night. Why did i think i was so cool? when i was in high school i started developing my "style", based off of bands that i enjoyed at the time; H20, Sick of It All, punk bands. I took a lot of criticism from everywhere, youth group, adults, fellow classmates, for sagging my shorts and wearing longer shorts that some said looked like capri's. i didn't care though, i was comfortable and confident.

and so are most of these kids at the shows, who am i to judge? here i am 27 yrs old going to metal shows with a bunch of 15 yr olds!?

so after a lot of thought i decided to let my criticism go, these kids love these bands and that's what mattered. after that first night i was really able to enjoy the weekend, worshipping with the Glorious Unseen and David Crowder, hardcore "dancing" with August Burns Red and Norma Jean, gettin' low with Big Al, even enjoying the Sunday morning church service at my wife's home church that is a little charismatic (and i've hated on a few times here and there). It was a great weekend, very humbling yet i felt so much better, and honest.

thanks Alan!