If you know my taste in music, you'll know how much I love Matt Maher. A Christian music artist gradually gaining recognition in the genre, Matt has an incredible gift for creating beautiful music and leading inspiring worship. I've seen him a few different times both in a typical concert setting and at prayer-centered events. When I read online that he was coming to a suburb just 15 miles outside the city, I was convinced I
HAD to see him. Thankfully, one of my housemates is equally as obsessed with Matt as I am, and was instantly committed to coming with me even though it was on a Thursday night.
Everything felt
perfect. It was less than a full week away, but it was going to happen. That is, until I spotted the ticket price: $20. I stared at the screen for a solid two minutes until it fully registered.
$20?! All right, any other time in my life I wouldn't have batted an eyelash at that price, especially to see one of my favorite artists. But, when you're living on $100 a month, $20 is a hefty toll. In a pitiful last ditch effort, I e-mailed any contact I could get my hold on - the Church, the booking agency, you name it - explaining the situation (i.e. we are poor volunteers serving the city who love Matt). I got one response after another informing me that regrettably, there was nothing anyone could do. Then (
aaaahhh, hear the angel chorus) a lovely woman from the booking agency offered an out - if we worked the merchandise table, we could have free tickets.
SOLD!
The prospect of the concert pulled me through the week at work. That is, until Thursday came. It was an average morning at work, until a frustrated coworker got snippy with me. It was one of those scenarios where any other day, I would have brushed it off and we both would have moved on with our days. Except instead of being any average day, it was a Deirdre-is-not-in-control-of-her-emotions-and-has-hit-her-breaking-point kind of day. Instead of brushing off the remark, I stifled tears long enough to walk away from the conversation and return to the front desk. I then proceeded to cry quietly until a coworker offered to take over the desk so I could take a walk. I walked around the block until I composed myself, only to walk back into the office and lose my cool once again. I took a lunch break, crying all over my peanut butter and jelly in a back corner of a storage room. I met with my boss and a friendly coworker to discuss the incident, and was finally sent home early so I could cry the whole way home and for another hour afterward. (
Before you become alarmed, I feel the need to remind you I am by nature a crier, and yet have somehow managed to only cry a few times in the months I have been here.)
I used the afternoon to refresh and put myself back together. I sipped tea and read my book and talked to my best friend back home. I went on the computer for a bit and was surprised to find an e-mail from Matt's booking agency saying they no longer needed us at the "merch" table, but we should just say our names at Will Call and mention that we are on Matt's guest list. (I'm sorry, what? His guest list?!) I took this as a sign that I needed to shake my funk because the day was going to have a happy ending after all.
When my housemate got home from school, we headed out to the Church hosting the concert. Giddy as little children, we chatted the whole way there. When we arrived we were bounced around from one person to another as we had to awkwardly repeat what we had been told - we were on "the list." Finally we found the aforementioned list (a program with names scribbled on it) and told to go ahead into the theatre. As we approached the doors, though, the two teenagers working as ushers asked us for tickets. We had to awkwardly go back to the person who had granted us entrance who walked us back to the doors and said, "You can let them in, they're with the band."
Well, we nearly passed out. It was just too surreal that these people all thought we actually knew Matt, and that we were actually about to see him perform. Let me tell you, he did not disappoint. The concert was incredible - my housemate and I laughed, cried, and sang along enthusiastically at different points in the night. It was hands-down the most spiritually enriching experience I have had since coming to Chicago. I felt the presence of God so strongly in that place - it was beautiful, and it simply could not have come at a more appropriate time. (And beyond the spiritual effectiveness, the giddy preteen in me will inform you that I shook Matt's hand after the concert and thanked him for the gift of his music).
On the ride home, my housemate and I had a conversation that was almost as perfect as the concert itself. We dissected the experience, raving about our favorite songs and the quality of the music, but then we delved deeper. We opened up about our past experiences, explaining why the music meant so much to us and why we hold certain songs close to our hearts. We also discussed in depth our faith experience at Amate. I told her the realization I had come to during the concert: some part of the sadness and emptiness I was feeling earlier in the day, while triggered by a snippy coworker, had a lot more behind it, and one major element was my lack of active faith expression. I have faithfully gone to Mass every week and I pray daily on my own and with my community, but I had not managed to live out the faith I know that I have. All the ways I practiced my faith back at school are missing here. I don't lead faith groups or coordinate liturgies, I don't lector, I am not a Eucharistic minister, I don't sing in a choir, I don't go to adoration or pray the rosary regularly, and I have not been to reconciliation. Who am I?
My housemate was very affirming, and said she had experienced similar difficulties over the past months. Treading a new path for experiencing and living faith in this new place with these new people is a challenge. We agreed that clinging to the past is not going to bring us forward, but it also doesn't mean we have to leave it all behind and never look back.
So now, with a thankful heart full of grace, I must put myself in true conversation with God to figure out just what it is God is calling me to this year - to understand how to love and serve God in a way that reflects my new life and experiences.
Here's to the journey.
