derek webb

here beginneth what i'm sure will be several days of rumination about derek webb song lyrics.

i braved a horrendous thunderstorm tonight, but it was worth it. i drove out to warrenton, va, to hear derek and his wife, sandra mccracken, play a benefit for blood:water mission, an organization "committed to clean blood and clean water to fight the hiv/aids pandemic, to build clean wells in africa, to support medical facilities caring for the sick, to make a lasting impact in the fight against poverty, injustice and oppression in africa through the linking of needs, talents and continents, of people and resources."

man, it was great. just derek, sandra and 2 guitars, exactly what i wanted it to be. i'm continually amazed @ derek's (and, now, @ sandra's) ability to cram so much provocative theology into a 3 and a half minute song. renee' doesn't get why i like it so much sometimes, what w/ his penchant for writing songs about ants and stained shirts and pennies under carseats. but the simple and mundane often communicate god to me better than flowery theologi-speak. i quoted "take to the world" in a trinity sunday sermon:

go in peace to love and to serve
let your ears ring on w/ what you have heard
may the bread on your tongue
leave a trail of crumbs
to lead the hungry back to the place you are from.

seems like derek's getting more aggressive in his songwriting lately -- i don't have the last 2 albums b/c, let's face it, i can't afford them (yet), so the songs were largely new to me -- but it was impressive tonight to watch this little guy in a plain white t-shirt up there boldly saying some things that may not play well in a lot of church fora. but stand he did, and his obvious love of christ and his church go a long way toward diffusing anything he might have said that ruffled feathers. (to get a taste, check out the relevant interview, in which he even says some nice things about episcopalians)

i'm way too tired from driving through a meteorological anomaly complete w/ hail and sideways rain to get into how moved i was by the night, but i'll leave you this:

who's your brother, who's your sister
you just walked passed him
i think you missed her
as we're all migrating to the place where our father lives
'cause we married in to a family of immigrants

there are two great lies that i’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that jesus christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it's to a king & a kingdom

(derek webb, "a king and a kingdom")