Recently to celebrate my husband’s birthday we went to Deep Ellum to see Trevor Hall.
And just in that one short sentence there are two things that might sound strange to people that have known me for any length of time.
First: Deep Ellum.
For those of you not from around these parts, Deep Ellum is an artsy district of Dallas.
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives has made at least two of the restaurants there must-visit attractions, and that’s not including the place with the cake balls.
It features a lovely view of the Dallas skyline, great vintage shopping, large-scale art installations, and I really like the vibe of the entire place. Now!
In fact, we’ve been spending a lot of time down there this past month eating, sight-seeing, eating, attending church, eating…
But, and this is a Sir-Mix-a-lot sized but, when I was a teenager, Deep Ellum scared the absolute crud out of me. (It may still scare a lot of parents.)
In high school we only ever braved Deep Ellum when we were in the mood for adventure and danger. And the second we saw the graffiti-laden tunnels that led into the area we knew we were in for trouble.
Tattoos. Motorcycles. Bars. Darkened doorsteps. Metered Parking. Burly, bearded men.
Deep Ellum was like a foreign land when I was seventeen. (To be fair anything further than McKinney was foreign to me at that age, but Deep Ellum was especially so.)
Now that I’m a bit older and living less than 30 minutes from the area… I find it funny how much time can change things. And Deep Ellum has changed a lot.
Hipsters have softened the scene. A brand-new Seven Eleven on a pivotal corner, regularly monitored by police patrol, has lent it a sense of newness and safety.
But funnier to me than seeing things change, is realizing how time can change people. And I think I am a pretty good example of that.
A lot of those things that used to scare me about Deep Ellum, for instance, have become dear to my heart for one reason or another. (Metered parking excluded.)
The Husband’s arm tattoos, for instance, make me a bit weak in the knees. And my family-in-law is filled with brave chicks and dudes that ride big bikes.
My own father is currently a burly, bearded man (roughing it vacationing in Colorado).
Plus, in the past month Mikael has had the opportunity to play at one of those formerly “shady” venues. It turns out the people there are really nice… even if the bathrooms are still sketchy at best.
The point is, we’ve had lots of chances to eat good food with great friends, all on those streets that used to strike fear in me.
And it’s neat to realize that it’s not at all the place I remember.
But it's sobering to realize that Deep Ellum suddenly seeming so much better has more to do with how I’ve changed than how it has.
Adjusting to Deep Ellum was only part of that first sentence that needed some clarification, though. The other was Trevor Hall.
Hall is a dreadlocked, barefooted, North Carolina musician. He sings part reggae, part pop, but all mellow, globally-influenced music encouraging “Unity” and asking questions like “Where’s the Love?” (Don’t worry. His version is far less painfully-catchy than the Black Eye Peas’.)
Before meeting Mikael I had never heard of Hall (or a lot of other artists) nor could you have persuaded me to listen to anything labeled even part “reggae” or “globally-influenced.”
But… after wisely choosing to introduce me to some of Hall’s sweetest (acoustic) love songs first, I caught myself hitting repeat in iTunes. (“The Lime Tree” and “All I Ever Know” are excellent examples of his work – gateway songs if you will.)
So, all that to say, by the time the concert rolled around last night I expected to enjoy the event.
I figured I’d recognize a few songs and get a good workout nodding my head to the other soothing tunes.
Mikael even warned me what to expect so I wouldn’t feel quite so unprepared.
“It may stink,” he said, as unkempt dreadlocks have a tendency to omit odor.
I doubled up on deodorant, as if that would somehow help the overall air quality in the venue. And off we went.
After waiting in line for an hour and sitting through - not one but two - opening acts, I was anxious to see if Hall would be worth the wait.
Instead of coming out with fancy light shows or theatrics to steal the stage, Hall appeared nonchalantly, and barefooted, with musicians that didn’t even share his penchant for hippy-esque fashion.
The electric guitarist in the band wore striped green socks and red tennis shoes. The bassist looked like a walking ad for Izod, and the drummer could have easily sat in with Blink 182 or some other more relevant band. (I’m clearly way out of the “cool” scene “these days,” which is code for “I always have been.”)
The crowd was even more eclectic. There was a mob of Hawaiians there, literally with flowers in their hair. And beside them were some teenage jocks, who macho-ly chanted “One More Song” after Hall had left the stage.
There was a pint-sized blonde girl with jewels around her eyes standing in front of us most of the time. Her boyfriend was a hipster type wearing a plaid-button down and a Hawaii ball cap he either picked up from Urban Outfitters or an Ashton Kutcher garage sale.
There was also a 60-year-old version of Hall himself standing nearby. He had long dreadlocks and a smiley-face t-shirt that I would catch, out of the corners of my eyes, calmly bobbing along with the grooves.
And in front of him there was a super young, scrawny couple squished against the stage. They looked equal parts excited to be together and nervous about being in the big city. They couldn’t have been older than 14.
Even Mikael and I are an odd pairing to look at. I was in a striped yellow tank (one of three things I’ve ever owned from the ultimate preppy shop – J. Crew). And blue jean mom shorts. (Morts!)
He was wearing a classic-looking black linen button down with his favorite, ragged jeans and a hat. His tattoos were showing. My awkwardness was apparent.
We were and are an odd couple for sure.
But so was everyone there.
In fact, “What a mismatched crowd!” is what I kept thinking, as we waited for Hall to take the stage. I caught myself crowd-gazing more than usual, trying to make sense of it all.
(I don’t know why I’ve spent so much of my life trying to make sense of everything instead of just taking it all in. But it’s what I do, and the concert was no exception.)
But then, the music started to suck me in. And we – as a couple – as a crowd – seemed to make more sense.
There was something uniting us together.
Driving to Deep Ellum I knew I would have a good time, but I did not expect to get so swept up in the experience.
And though there are no dreadlocks in my future, there will probably be iTunes purchases ahead.
I am a Trevor Hall fan now. I’ve said it. And Instagrammed it.
There is no turning back.
Even more surprising to me than how much I enjoyed the concert, or even how different Deep Ellum seems to me now, though, is the fact that I am okay with the changes.
Still, I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me all this when I was a teen.
Do you wanna know something really funny? Wanna know the one thing that scared me more than Deep Ellum when I was entering junior high?
Youth Group!
I was absolutely terrified to enter the “youth” at my church.
For some reason I thought all they were ever gonna talk about was sex. And that freaked. Me. Out.
I didn’t want to hold hands with a boy in seventh grade, much less let him anywhere near my Bonne Bell-scented lips.
I would have stayed in sixth-grade forever if they had let me. That’s how much I didn’t want to have conversations about growing up.
But, like it or not, (and I definitely didn’t) I entered seventh grade and I was forced to start youth.
In one summer I went from being labeled a kid to a teen, and people treated me like it. They acted like sixth grade had been perfect and safe and seventh grade (housed in the same school building I might add) was laden with conflict and temptation.
So standing up to peer pressure became lesson number one. In fact, it's pretty much the only lesson I remember from those early youth days.
Our Sunday School teacher at the time felt the best way to prepare us for this pressure was by playing Devil’s Advocate.
Anything we said to “defend our faith” she shot down. It wasa pretty enfuriating.
And in hindsight, I don’t think these exercises had the effect they were meant to. After all, no seventh-grade student took attacks at me the way the big-haired Devil’s Advocate teaching class did.
Still… it became clear to us… sitting in those metal folding chairs, being drilled to know how to respond to “But everyone’s doing it!” that we were entering a war.
And the enemy wasn’t those “principalities of darkness” the Bible talks about. It was all those evil kids we would encounter at school, the ones the Bible teachers were warning about us.
Though I’m overgeneralizing based on fuzzy middle school memories, and I don’t have the notes to prove it, I’m pretty sure the lesson I learned that year was basically this… “Don’t trust anyone without a WWJD bracelet.”
So mostly, I didn’t.
I realize I’m skipping around my life a lot. I realize I’m hitting strange points here and there, that may not make much cohesive sense.
I also realize I may be alienating friends on all sides of the conservative line talking about things like tattoos and peer pressure and WWJD and spiritual warfare all in one messy blog post, while trying desperately to make a point, mostly to myself.
But as someone that’s spent a lot of time lately playing Devil’s Advocate myself, not defending my own beliefs but the very people that taught me those lessons while I sat sponge-like in those uncomfortable metal chairs, I have grown weary.
Super weary. And I've grownincreasingly uncomfortable, too, trying to defend the “good intentions” of those people that seem to most proudly and loudly label themselves God’s… all the while alienating (intentionally or unintentionally) entire people groups in our culture.
I’m tired of hearing clichéd words come out of my own mouth. Words that boil under the surface as they make their way through rote memories… and up into my throat.
Words I choke on as I try to convince others, myself that the little Christs are getting it right, or at the very least, trying to get it right, laboring under the best intentions.
The truth is, I don't feel like it's working anymore.
And I don't think I’m convincing anyone, because I’m not convinced myself.
As a reluctant adult, I’m finding that what scares me more than shady streets, or mean kids, or the “sex talks” being had or avoided in homes and churches across America… what scares me more than peer pressure or sin cycles… universalism or backsliding… beer or gays… reggae music or even Lady Gaga (shutter)…
What concerns me – what scares me more than anything – is how so many people (myself included) can so easily lose sight of the one thing that matters more than anything else.
And it’s a word that came up a lot at the concert, while I was surrounded by that odd crowd… getting lost in a moment with a bunch of hippies, high schoolers and hipsters.
"The love wouldn't die."
I’m embarrassed to say that for a very long time I was pretty much only friends with people that were a lot like me. They looked like me. Talked like me. Thought like me. Believed mostly the same things I did.
Maybe it was my all-out effort to avoid conflict. Maybe it was my fear of feeling left out if I ventured into unknown territory. Maybe I was a selfish idiot. Whatever the cause, I’ve spent a great deal of my life surrounded by like-minded individuals.
And the result of that has been a life that’s been pretty comfortable, relatively conflict-free, but also… sheltered.
And lately, I’ve been thinking that “sheltered,” while it implies a safety and self-preservation, can also be another word for closed.
Which in turn means small. And unchallenged. And being sheltered in that sense, can feel a lot like being trapped.
Unable to grow. Or move. Or appreciate anything outside that small box.
And I’m not okay with living that way anymore.
Trapped. Imprisoned. Not by sin or evil or peer pressure or liberals… But by fear.
Standing beside my husband, and a few hundred strangers, staring up at a stage, I felt like I was part of something bigger than myself.
I was uncomfortable at times. I was unsure of my place there. And yea, I wished that some people had showered more effectively. I wished some weren’t acting like they were in a Shiner commercial, waving their cans sloppily above their heads. (I loathe the smell of beer.)
But I was also exhilarated. And encouraged. And open.
I felt free.
To think. And breathe. And bob my head to the music. And close my eyes. To be present. Fully.
And at the end of the night no one seemed to mind that I had doubled up on the deodorant, just like I didn’t mind as much that others hadn’t. We were all just there. Together. As this motley, mismatched crew.
Singing along in harmony. Inadvertently, peacefully bumping into one another while swaying to the music.
And that made me wonder what would happen if people from diverse walks of life were able to peacefully bump into one another on the streets the way we did in the concert hall.
I started wondering what would happen if those kids sitting in the metal folding chairs on Sunday mornings
were taught how to be free instead of learning how to fear.
Last week at “Life” (which is basically a church disguised in urban camo) we talked a lot about relationships, and one thing that stood out was the idea of learning to appreciate and honor each other’s humanity.
We were challenged to identify the intrinsic value in every human life.
At the concert I wondered what the world would look like if we began to deem that intrinsic value more important than bumper sticker politics, religious affiliations, upbringings, looks or economic status?
What would happen if, instead of treating other humans as problems disguised as "issues," we chose to acknowledge and get to know them as humans… What would happen then?
Would we still still sit around waiting for time to change things?
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