“Music is the universal language of mankind” - Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow
I woke up yesterday morning with a weird feeling. It was
almost… energetic! Yeah, that’s what is was. We had a plan for the day, and I
was very much excited to get it done, anxious even. I’ll even go as far as to
say that I was pumped! I looked out the window to see that we had beautiful
weather, which meant that we could easily complete the picture taking portion
of our mission. Thus encouraged, I jumped up out of the bed, threw my clothes
on and proclaimed to Sam that I was “ready to do this deed!” Since I’m usually
a very slow riser, as I’ve described in some of my earlier blogs, Sam was a
little bit surprised. I’ll be honest, I even scared myself a little.
Before we got down to business, we made a run into town. Sam
needed some kinda cord for his tablet, so we went to HMV (the equivalent of
Sam-Goody). Browsing through the computer parts easily evolved into browsing
through the movies and music, which evolved into looking through the massive
poster collection. Every few flips of the display posters had us saying, “hey I
know who’d love this one”. A great idea struck us and we started grabbing
posters left and right. After all was said and done, we bought 15 posters to
take home as gifts to different people. The idea of our friends and roommates each
enjoying their own posters and us taking the time to think of everybody’s
personality and which one they would like best, really made me miss a lot of
good people. I’m enjoying this trip, and the blessing are everywhere, but its
gonna be incredible when I get back to the people I love.
That afternoon, we got our act together and finished our
picture taking out on Falls Road. We reviewed our objective, initiated picture–taking
protocol, and moved like a couple of well trained commandos. Yes, we turn as
many situations as possible into a Call of Duty metaphor. It makes things more
fun that way.
That night, we went to a traditional Irish music concert at
the Culterlann. The room was small, holding maybe 50 or 60 people after they
added extra chairs to fit the sell-out crowd. The lights were low except where
the short stage was lit. We could see several instruments already set up next
to the unseen musicians chair. After a few minutes, a lady from the Culterlann
introduced the opening act. The curtain in the back parted and out walked a
young lady, who introduced herself in Irish, and then proceeded to belt out a
beautiful Irish ballad, in Irish!
I couldn’t pick out any of the words, but music is an art
form that transcends language barriers. The song was about longing for
something. It expressed a deep longing for something that was once lost, maybe
a lover, or a place that felt like home? It was a bit sad, but not mournful and
hopeless. It was about a love that was just out of reach, but not forever gone.
I envisioned the writer of the song, on a long journey, that would eventually
find them back in their hometown, that they love so much, and they only sing
this song to hurry the time along. That’s the emotion that the song struck me
with. And I find it really hard to think that I was the only person in the
whole room who felt something similar to that.
After the young lady sung a few other songs, another in
Irish and one in English, she Introduced the main performer for the evening,
the one and only Andy Irvine. Out walked this old songwriter (who to me looked
an awful lot like Kris Kristofferson), who picked up his odd looking guitar,
spoke into the mic, and instantly had the whole room under his spell. We
listened as he sang songs about little old ladies, places he had visited, old
friends he once knew, drinking and good times, long lost love, and about County
Antrim in the spring time. There was even an interesting little ditty about
cross-dressing sailors. He talked to the audience between songs, told a few
stories, and was gracious enough to take requests at the end. It was a doozy of
a concert.
But somewhere in the midst of the evening, among the
audience of mostly Irish speakers, a few other Europeans, and two clueless
Americans, a connection was made. There for a little bit, almost as soon as the
first song started, we were all on the same page. Feet tapped, hands clapped,
eyes closed so that heart and mind could focus even more on what the ears were
picking up. That crowded little room full of people became one unit, and we
were all enjoying ourselves. That’s the power of music. It unites people.
Later as I was thinking bout it, I thought “man, if only we
could stay like that all the time.“ And then I realized that of course, I’m not
the first person to think that. A ton of philosophers, hippies, and musicians
have all had that thought and even went so far as to try to put it into
practice. Its even a very common mindset across the whole country of Ireland,
everybody just wants what’s called “music and Craic”, or music and good times. But,
sadly, even that’s not enough. Human beings still wont let their differences
lie, they wont take time to welcome in their fellow man, to accept diversity
and just get along for anything. If you read the book of Romans, you’ll find
out that unfortunately, its sorta our nature to be that way.
So, as soon as the concert was over, even after the encore,
we left and everybody went back to being different again. That took my mind
back to the one thing that truly does unite estranged humans. In the body of
Christ, we are all one. You can have believers from different countries,
different backgrounds, and formerly from different religions come together and
have the greatest common denominator that ever existed. But even without that commonality,
its worth reaching out to our fellow man in order to reach them with the
message of Jesus, isn’t it? We shouldn’t be unwilling to find, or even create,
some form of commonality between people groups in order to reach them. That’s exactly
what me and Sam and the CeLT are doing here now, with the Irish language.
So the next time you run into somebody that’s not like you,
try to speak their language, whatever that may be. Open up and be on the lookout
for something that will untie you with them, instead of concentrating on
differences. That’s kinda what Jesus did after all.
-Ethan Bossier
Day 14 in Belfast
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