Tour Day 1
The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath your feet. It’s not Bible, it’s actually a Chinese proverb, but I think it applies here. HERE, that is right where you are, the ground under your feet.
And then a step. More ground. A new place, but still the place where you are. Here. Now. Two steps; then three. More ground. Still here. Four steps… five. Somewhere in there, without noticing, the journey dissolves. There isn’t a thousand miles anymore. Just this ground. Then the next step.
When we put our feet on the ground this morning as we each rolled out of bed, we were suddenly on tour – not wishing we were on tour like the last time I wrote; but really on tour. Last week our minds were THERE, but now we are HERE – doing the thing. No need to be distracted now, this thing we’re all part of has suddenly grabbed our focus.
Of late I’ve had the thought that I want to try to stop looking forward to things. Getting ready for tour this week I must have found myself 10 different times bemoaning the fact that I wasn’t on tour. That week was an entire week of my life that I kind of wished didn’t exist at the time; I wished I could skip over that week and get right to the good stuff. I do that a lot. In years past I have found myself at the tour send-off hoping it was over soon so we could get on the bus, and then the last day of tour wishing I could get off the bus and see my people, and then for the homecoming performance to be over so I can wash my clothes and sleep in my bed, and then to get back to work because I know all this stuff is hanging over my head, and then, and then, and then… I look back at the last 13 years that I have been affiliated with New G, and I think I’ve been “and then-ing” the vast majority of it.
Some of our singers are already recognizing this, which I definitely wasn’t at that age. Our worship committee put together a book this year to be read right after lunch in a time we call bus worship. Garrison Bradley, who, if you didn’t know, has quite a knack for the written word, talked about Jesus saying “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself.” (Man, that dude could turn a phrase.) Garrison went on to say “we can’t live tomorrow before it’s here”. I disagree, Garrison. I regularly live the future in three year chunks; I do it every day. I bet I’ve lived several entire lifetimes that never happened!
So, this morning as we met together I was determined to not let myself walk past send off as a throwaway before the good thing gets here. I wanted to hang on every word Ava Gaddie and Pastor Doug said so that I could have it – really possess and let it become a part of me. I was resolved to try once again to taste the elements of communion and try to put myself both in the disciples’ shoes and put my mind where my body was, right there in that room. I think I really sang the benediction; I did my best to not just recite it. While it was there, I held on.
But as always, I’m now here and not there. It’s a memory and I find myself trying to relive it a little while still being here. No matter how hard we hold on, life remains a little ineffable. When we try to put our fingers on it, it moves. So, my goal for this tour remains to soak it up; like Thoreau, to suck the marrow from the bone. If any of our singers are thinking like Garrison, that’s their goal, too.
So, not a thousand miles today, but 418 miles ain’t nothing to shake a stick at. Ogallala is a church several of the singers have performed for before when we came this way back in 2022. It’s probably not the biggest church we’re going to perform for this time around but they were very appreciative. A standing ovation even! I often find that it is little churches like this that end up stuck in your memory somehow. It was a long drive and everyone is tired after all of the oscillating emotions throughout the day. In some ways you couldn’t blame them for just wanting to crash into bed at the hotel, but I hope that they took a little bit of the note from Garrison and try to hold on to it while they have. It seems like we have far to go, but the weird thing about the journey of a thousand miles is that when you start with one step, suddenly you find yourself at the end of the journey wishing it had lasted a little longer.
