High up above, or down below

In truth, I could hardly breathe... the two friendly French girls standing next to me made the tight quarters more bearable as we laughed and joked in both French and English, but the young man  in front of me who was smoking a bong and couldn't keep his shorts up wasn't exactly helping the general atmosphere. As I continued to dodge his second hand smoke, I attempted to sing along with the opening artists who flooded the stage one by one. I say "flooded," but in reality they were more like rain drops. Each voice, however marvelous; each band, no matter how perfectly tuned; and each beat, often perfectly dropped, were all just the raindrops. Precursors to the real flood. Forerunners to the experience of the perfect storm. A memory to compliment  a life change. The opening bands for Coldplay.
      
After all of the opening bands had finally cleared the stage, the crowds had only become more cramped; and after the laborious set-up process for the event of the evening had taken place, the lights fell. This was an outdoor concert and we all knew that the entire process had taken such a long time for only one reason: waiting for darkness. So, we waited as well. 50,000 French speakers, waiting for the English band to appear. Waiting for the first beat to drop. Waiting for Coldplay.  And then, it did ... 


I find myself in a whirl-wind of music, color, and heartbeats! I can't help but jump, spin, and yell along with the thousands around me as song after song floods out from the enormous speakers surrounding us. So many people! So much joy! So much unity! Here! Right HERE!!! I jump higher, I sing louder, "You use your heart as a weapon, and it hurts like heaven..." Again and again and again!! This is magnificent!  Look, world! THIS is magnificent!!!

Then I stop. I pull my right hand out of the sky. The flashing wrist band drops to my waist and I stare at it. Memories flash back to days in my church, with my youth group, worshiping. I start to feel almost unfaithful... The jumping, the joy, the unity, the singing at the top of my lungs... This was always worship for me. So what was I doing now? What was this now? What was I focusing on now? Was this okay? I lifted my eyes from my wrist band and began to look around, at the faces, at the sea of people. My eyes lock on one man -- to my left. Grey hair, old leathery skin, French. Yellow is playing. The man is crying. He's all alone in this audience. Alone and crying. I can only imagine the history behind his eyes, the content behind his thesis, and the reasons behind his tears. As Chris Martin repeats the lines, "You know I love you so..." his tears become more steady. My heart starts to break for him. Then God pops into my head, "Sacha.  I am healing the nations. This reminds you of worship because this is worship. I'm here... I am SO here. I'm in the yellow stars. I'm in the old man's tears. I love you ALL so..."


About a month ago, I had read my friend Becka Hanan's blog post about her Coldplay experience, and I couldn't help but let some of her words play through my head, along with Chris Martin's: "...each one of us became a light in a sea of 20,000 lights."  Maybe there was something bigger than a concert here...


And so, I take my right fist, blinking, glowing, shining, and I thrust it up into the sky. My wrist band is yellow, the stars are blue, and I'm going to be a part of something bigger than myself. I'm going to be a part of a concert. I'm going to be part of an experience. I'm going to be a part of 4 British guys, who are helping to heal the nations. 


The concert ends, and the encore comes. I knew the order ahead of time, so none of this is a surprise to me...  and I know that Fix You is about to start. I prepare myself, expecting to cry, expecting to be reminded of things long forgotten. And then it happens. The song begins and I cry, memories flood my head, and I stop singing. The old man next to me is singing and crying, the girls next to me are singing and crying. I become indignant. I refuse to sing... I want to hear Chris sing. But then I realize, that's what a CD is for. Right now it's about being a part of something bigger than myself. A being in an audience of 50,000 beings. A light among lights. A voice among voices. A healed soul among healed souls. This is about claiming my identity along with the French girls, the old man, and the short-less boy in front of me. It's about being fixed. Together. 


Fix You. He does... He fixes us. He fixes us in concerts, He fixes us in churches, He fixes us in distant lands, He fixes us in every language we can speak, He fixes us in every song we can sing. He fixes us. He fixes you. 


The climax of the song arrives, the guitar chords crash into my ears, fireworks and lasers rip the sky to shreds, and the confetti is creating a ceiling above us all. "Tears streaming down your face, I promise you will learn from my mistakes.... and I will try to fix you." By the light of the fireworks, I look and see tears streaming down the faces around me. I pull both hands down from the sky and I touch my cheeks. Wet. I let my hands drop to my sides and I stare up at the clouds above me... Healed.  So healed...


As I stand and feel the tears trickling down my cheeks, Chris begins to sing again... "Every teardrop is a waterfall..." Yes. It is. And I'm okay with that. I'm a waterfall, I'm a light in a sea of 50,000 lights, I'm healed, and I'm HERE. I'm here and I've learned a few things... I've lived a few things.  I raise my hand and look at my light. It's all yellow. I believe that lights will guide me home... ignite my bones... heal you...


and I'd rather be a comma than a full stop.

coherence?

When I decide to write a blog, there's a careful process I have to go through (meaning that it's something I should do, but I usually don't go through it...) before I can begin to type out my thoughts. This process frustrates me because it's not what I've always wanted it to be. In my mind, the ideal blogging setting would be casually scanning my friends' blogs, listening to some "Gotye" or maybe "James Vincent McMorrow" playing in the background, and methodically typing out my carefully articulated thoughts while I sit on my room floor and sip a bowl of tea (yes, I drink my tea from bowls).  But the truth is, I can't do that. The truth is, when I do that I become completely lost.


You see, I have this problem... I'm easily distracted. VERY easily distracted. No matter what I'm doing, where I am, or who I'm with, Sacha Kravig can be distracted. I may come back from class with several things on my mind that I want to articulate to you, the people who read my blog, but by the time I actually get onto my blog and have sorted through all of the new and interesting posts by my friends, my mind is so turbulent and inspired that I've completely lost my own idea in the midst of their greatness. Reading other people's work causes me to forget why my work might have been important. Drinking tea makes me... drink tea. I spend my whole time drinking tea, thinking about how I should brew it the next time, and why I like bowls better than tea cups, instead of processing my ideas. Music distracts me the most... which is frustrating. I've always wished that I could be someone who does homework, writes, and goes through most of life with music in the background. But the truth is, I can't. I get caught up in it, I get lost in it. I find so much beauty in what I'm listening to, that I forget to care about the beautiful things in my hands.  I lose my ideas.


My mind is such a fickle friend... 


Am I the only one who has those days?  Those days when you sit down to blog/journal/whatever and all you can think of is quotes? 
Where did MY words go???
Those days when I sit down at Sibelius to try and finish my composition and all I can hear in my head is other people's melodies. Those days when you're so lost in your own grey matter that you stick to writing poems instead of the well-constructed blog post you were going to write. Those times when the language you speak all day becomes so hackneyed to your tongue that you resort to communication through gestures -- convinced that you have nothing worth saying.


Today has been one of those days. English and French have failed me. Even my thoughts are ANYTHING but put together. I sat down to write a well-constructed blog post about my Major change and where it's taking my mind and my hobbies these days. But I made the mistake of reading the works of Emily, Becka, Heather, Amanda, and Elliot... I absorbed it all, I took it all in. 


I'm good at that. I'm good at taking things in. I'm good at appreciating things. But I can't seem to walk the fine line between appreciating something, and losing myself in it. 


So, what's the point? What's the point... ?


Maybe there isn't one. Maybe this is the scariest, most chaotic blog post I've ever written...  and maybe it doesn't go any further, and maybe I can't think of some great words to end this. But I got it out. I wrote it. I processed what was stuck in my head, clogging the sinuses of my thinking, and keeping me from breathing free. So it's gone. I give this chaos to you, my reader. 




Don't get lost in the minds of others. Appreciate someone else's beauty, but then endure the pain, and take the time to figure out what you think, what you believe, and what you want...


and then make it more coherent than I did.

THIS IS COMMUNICATION.

I am communicating. I am being communicated with. Efficiently, effectively, wholly, entirely, and passionately.

          Hands and voices.

                    Hands and voices.

The creation is cyclical.

       Passion drives the hands.

             Hands guides the voices.

                    Voices draw the passion from the core to the external world where sense have     doors open wide. Receiving

    And as the senses are satisfied, the hands will move. 

Hungry.

Passionate.

Desiring more...

From the voices.

Alleluia.

Let me cause men to sing.

       Let me draw passion from the core of existence.

             Let notes become beings.

                  Let these melodies sustain me, flow through my veins.

                        Let this existence be beauty and my song be mine.

Yours.

     Ours.

           The sounds of voices, men and melodies, instruments and organs -- the reverberation off of the stone walls around me. I weep.  My tears fall as the notes from my lips and my vocal chords vibrate as my heart fills. The chords grows, the swell is an ocean of sound ... I’m happy to ride this wave. This draws me to land, pulls me closer to life! It grows, ever larger! Ever stronger! I’m lost in the foaming blue of these powerful chords... and then, finally, it breaks upon the shore! The final crescendo!

and silence.

            I have no breath. Only tears. Nerves and senses searching for more... searching the echoing silence for more. Satisfaction and desperation. Hidden in my tears. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will do this for the rest of my life. I will write, compose, conduct, live the notes in my head. It's time to pursue my dreams.

The Conversation of Trees

A dialogue of whispers and gasps and air.

A conversation that moves my hair and my soul as well.

I thought the birds were beautiful, but then I looked higher...

The sky, a tower. 

The branches above my head create a darkened web of what is earth.

And the silence is broken by the sounds of soil... growing... 

Up.

I turn and sway like one of them, a crescendo fills my mind, my heart reverberates.

What is locked inside my ribs, and what is released in this clean air!

The same! 

The same are the lives of bones and marrow, leaves and roots, flesh and grass...

For all flesh is but dust, all dust is but soil. 

And soil is the mother of the greatness around, the leaves on the ground, the vibrations of sound that pound through my chest to where small birds make a nest...

To where the birds’ conversation is much like the trees, and the rhythm of movement is defined by one thing...

Up.

The earth is a slipper, and the quiet soles make no noise, no movement...

no awe-inspiring steps to jettison us on our way.

But yet it moves, yet it breathes.

In. Out.

Up.