emo kids are my hippies

last night i went to the coheed & cambria show in chicago. it was phenomenal.

concerts do something to me that i can't quite explain. being able to watch a band find joy in playing their music for a crowd, brings me joy.

standing all around me were people wearing black shirts, with tattooed bodies, unusual facial piercings, and long shaggy hair. i found myself immersed in the emo world, feeling at first, out of place. my 7 ear piercings, which had always made me feel a little rebellious, suddenly made me feel like a pansy. as i stood around watching these people that were so fascinating to me (on a number of different levels), i wondered that maybe because i was obviously not living the emo life style, i became fascinating to one of them.

as coheed played, people sang along, heads bobbed up and down, hands flew up in the air, the mosh pit started up, and crowd surfing began... something about all of this fills me with an energy that again, i can't explain.

being surrounded by, and talking with these people, i was reminded of one of the last chapters in blue like jazz. donald miller shares about living out in the mountains for a month amongst hippies.

"i liked them very much because they were interested in me. when i was with the hippies i did not feel judged, i felt loved. to them i was an endless well of stories and perspectives and grand literacy reviews. it felt so wonderful to be in their presence, like i was special. i have never experienced a group of people who loved each other more than my hippies in the woods. ... so much of what i know about getting along with people i learned from the hippies. they were magical in community. people were grawn to them. they asked me what i loved, what i hated, how i felt about this and that, what sort of music made me angry, what sort of music made me sad. they asked me what i daydreamed about, what i wrote about, where my favorite places in the world were. they asked me about high school and college and my travels around america. they loved me like a good novel, a person john irving would write. i did not feel fat or stupid or sloppily dressed. i did not feel like i did not know the bible well or whether or not i sounded immature when i talked. i had always been so cautious of those things, but living with the hippies i forgot about myself. and when i lost this self-consciousness i gained so much more. i gained an interest in people outside my own skin... i cannot tell you how quickly these people, these pot-smoking hippies, disarmed me. because i grew up in the safe cocoon of big-christianity, i came to believe that anything outside of the church was filled with darkness and unlove... never in my wildest dreams would i have imagined there were, outside the church, people so purely lovely as the ones i met in the woods. and yet my hippie friends were not at all close to believing that Christ was the Son of God. this did not confuse me so much as it surprised me."

it's amazing how accepting and loving certain groups of people are. too bad christians are not usually considered to be one of those loving groups. that is down right sad.

these people at the coheed show were to me, what the hippies were to don. yes they drink enormous amounts. yes they swear uncontrollably. yes they smoke cigarettes. yes they smoke pot. yes they most likely do other drugs. but they sure do know how to love people. how is it that a lot of these people, who have no interest in knowing Jesus Christ, share so much love, while those who desire to be like Christ (love), are constantly judging and condemning people we don't know, along with our own brothers and sisters?

i think i love being at concerts like this because i'm surrounded by such loving people. people who want to hear your opinion, even if they don't agree with it. they love to hear others speak passionately about something. just as the hippies taught don how to love others... i feel that just being engulfed by different people at a concert or a bar teaches me more about how to love everyone i come into contact with. could it be possible that the Lord is using these people to teach me how to love more?

i know a christian organization that looks down upon hanging out with those who are not believers. going to clubs/bars, being in certain social organizations (sororities/frats, etc), and going to non-christian concerts is unacceptable. if you hang out with someone who doesn't know Jesus, it's because they are working on leading them to Christ, but once the person becomes a follower, they drop them and move onto their next project. yuck.

if i had to be around christians 24/7 for the rest of my life, i may go nuts. no... i would go nuts. i want to go into places like bars and nonchristian concerts. i want to go into these places because it's exactly where Jesus stood. i guess i want to be a rare example of a person passionate about the Lord, who listens and loves the people who hang out in these places daily. yes i will be persecuted at times, and yes some people will flee when they find out i go to church, and yes i will even flee at times, but i still have a deep desire to be put in the middle of this lifestyle.

plus... it's refreshing to be around people who aren't so tense and sheltered all the time. they're funny and really a lot of fun. now i know why i hung out with nonchristians all through high school. i'm able to connect with people who aren't believers on a level that i could never connect on with christians.

i'm ready to be put back in.
i'm ready to be taught more about love.
i'm ready to be a light.
i'm ready to be real.