Point of view… looking for a change

Today I gave a homeless woman five dollars. I had to leave and break my 20, and she thought that I was just trying to walk away from her. I promised her that I would come back, and after I handed her the money I told her God bless and meant it with all of my heart, and told her I would pray for her. She sat on the sidewalk and cried.

It is too easy to get caught up in your problems, your failures, your trivial little vanity conceived trifles.
But sit down and think just how much you have to be thankful for.
Because the everyday burdens of the people you don’t hear about on Oprah are far more unwelcome than everything you can only pray won’t happen to you.
-Zach Gilbert

Looking At The World Through The Eyes of Another

Wisdom calls aloud in the street,
She raises her voice in the public squares;
At the head of the noisy streets she cries out,
In the gateways of the city she makes her speech

Bryan Wentworth noticed something that I was completely blind and oblivious to. Hindsight 40/40 right?

So good ole Amidst The Affliction just played a show in Ottumwa, IA last night and the town itself was like no other town I have ever been in. The downtown part of the city was relatively small, and was mostly shops and businesses along Main Street. This part spanned down Main Street about six or so blocks. Our venue was called the Lava Lounge and was a Christian oriented place. It didn’t seem too surprising because blocks away were huge, old, beautiful churches. Now when I say old, I mean built out of solid stone, with huge steeples, and very medieval looking. But what did surprise me, were all of the bars, strip joints, and even an adult theater just down the block of Main Street. This was not the wholesome, family fun, West Des Moines kind of place my eyes are so used to seeing. These fine places were located the same block as our Christian venue that we played. It was very… how do I say it… lewd. At first, all I noticed was that it seemed very strange to me to see those certain establishments so… in your face, right after driving by these massive structures of God.

After the show on the way back, I was driving. It was just Bryan and I, and he shared the most engaging idea I have heard in a long time. So his thoughts are the basis of this blog. Good job Bryan.

This town was literally caught up in a spiritual war. Just like the ones from bible times. It was literally an angels versus demons battlefield. This was the kind of place that Jesus would go to. Lowly, poor, and humble, Jesus would sit with the grime of society, bursting with hope, like a much-needed beacon of light. In the bible it says that he ate with sinners. Sweet, so Jesus chilled with hookers and crooked tax collectors, but I have never gave it too much thought. How much more obvious could it have been.
We played in a place where we got to eat any food we wanted, on the house, and kids could come and hang out during the week (Xbox, arcade games, ping-pong, pool tables) for free, and could learn about God. Then, just down the block there are two or so bars, and a strip club, Chills N’ Thrills. In between these two places was a youth center (not sure if it was necessarily a Christian, but a positive place nonetheless). On the other side of the street, there was a mission’s establishment not far at all from an adult cinema theater. It just blows me away to think about it now, and how blatant this spiritual game of tug-of-war was… and is. Not a literal bombshells and anti-aircraft missiles war, but a very symbolic, very in your face, very pull on your soul kind of war. It just made the churches that were geometrically large seem far bigger and more powerful. They almost don’t fit because they are very elegant and proud, and nice to look at, but then are right next to buildings that are run down and just look like hell. It seemed like a town divided.

There were a lot of Hispanics there because of the meat packing plant, and I guarantee that most of the locals probably had a lot of animosity towards these people. Nothing obvious happened while we were there, but I could sense that the city was dripping with a disdain for having to have all of these not white people now residing in their formerly all white town. Actually, I remember I saw some graffiti out the back door of the Lava Lounge. It said: Fuck Latin Kings. So my original thought was Hispanic gangs fighting with each other, but now that I think about it, I feel as though it was probably tagged by some ignorant redneck fool who felt it was his endowment to share from his ladle of intellectual wealth, by using a can a spray paint and far too many shots of Jim Beam Whiskey.

Touring, and getting paid to play music seems like such a trite task compared to what other people are going through. But, it has also shown me, on a very small scale, what the world is like. When I am out of the comfortable walls of my new house, hundreds of miles away from the people that I care so much about, I am forced to think, to notice, to appreciate and detest what the world is really like. As much as it makes my heart ache to see people who don’t even get to live a life of enjoyment and opportunities, I wouldn’t trade a second of it for all the money, any currency, that has ever been printed in the entire history of the world.