Salvation Song: Are The Avett Brothers Prophets?

The word "Prophet" is a weighty one, as it should be. It's a large and important concept. A prophet leads people to happiness, a better life, salvation. A prophet feels the touch of the divine and is able to show others how to feel it as well. A well-timed prophet can end a war, or start one. A successful prophet influences the lives of millions or billions of people for generations upon generations.

I say this not because I don't think you know what a prophet is, but instead to prove that I know what one is.

I do, and The Avett Brothers are prophets.

The first time I articulated this thought to myself was about 2 months ago, but I think the seeds were laid the first time I heard "Murder in the City" performed on their album Live, Volume 3. For those of you unfamiliar with the song, pause a minute and listen:

I've long despised the idea of revenge as a destructive act without any positive consequences, but in this song Scott Avett sings of a type of forgiveness and letting go and moving on that just makes sense. If I get murdered in the city, don't go revenging in my name. One person dead from such is plenty. He dismisses the idea of revenge that many people still find natural, and hints that he wishes his theoretical killer no harm. He feels compassion for the man who ended his life too quickly, who stole his future with his wife and daughter, presumably for nothing more than the cash in his wallet.

It's not a new idea - you've probably heard something similar. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Love your enemies; do good to them which hate you." The Qur'an commands, "If thou dost stretch thy hand against me, to slay me, it is not for me to stretch my hand against thee to slay thee." A famous parable of the Buddha includes a father advising his son that, "nonviolence ends violence." So, pretty definitively, prophets from many times and regions have shared this idea that love will conquer hate and that we should not strike out against those that strike out against us.

But being a harbinger of peace and love does not necessarily a prophet make.

Instead, I turn to the spiritual awakening I have felt as evidence of their prophet-hood. For a long time, I counted myself as an atheist. I'm still not comfortable with the idea of God in the way most people probably think of it - I just can't imagine that there's a 100 foot-tall man with a flowing white beard, sitting on a cloud deciding who gets AIDS or cancer and who wins the lottery or meets the boy of her dreams - but I do now feel a deep and spiritual connection to the people and world around me that I was not in touch with before. A life force, of sorts, that flows through and around us. While this awakening was not entirely the result of listening to Scott and Seth Avett's music, it does seem like with every personal revelation I have, the two have a song to correspond. The messages of forgiveness and thankfulness that they preach in songs like "Murder in the City" and "Nothing Short of Thankful", the spiritual renewal they sing about in "The Ballad of Love and Hate" and "Tear Down the House", the flat out joy they exude in "Kick Drum Heart" and "The Traveling Song" speak to the breadth and depth of their own living, which in turn inspires me to continue along my road of discovery.

And there's the crux of it. Embrace life. Treat people well. Do good. They share this advice with millions of people who buy their albums, watch their YouTube videos, and go to their concerts. They preach and live by example a lifestyle and attitude that leads to happiness, a better life, salvation.

Historical prophets - Jesus, Moses, Muhammed, Buddha - tend to seem more than human. With Scott and Seth Avett, it's different. They fully embrace their humanity; I think you might be hard-pressed to find two people who are more acutely aware of their shortcomings and willing to express the darkest parts of themselves to so wide an audience. Other prophets are treated like God chose them because they were special. Or maybe they were special because God chose them. The Avett Brothers are special because they are human. They shine a light on themselves, good qualities and bad, and allow themselves to be beacons for all of us who want to do better than we have in the past. And for that, I will follow them.

We came for salvation, we came for family, we came for all that's good, that's how we'll walk away.
We came to break the bad, we came to cheer the sad, we came to leave behind the world a better way.

So Long, Sweet Summer

This summer - the first of my adult life - was filled with travel, food, music, new experiences, friendships new and old, joy, crushes, mojitos, and the return of an ability to really feel experiences in a way that I thought I had had all along, but had clearly lost some of as I "grew up".

Today, I went back to work in preparation for the return of students in about a week and a half. Don't get me wrong - I really loved last year, and I'm looking forward to getting to know and teach and see a whole new batch of kids this fall - but I was a little bit sad to see vacation end. It's not because I had to start setting my alarm again, or resume the 45 minute commute, or spend my days in school - It's because, undeniably, Summer 2010 has been the best of my entire life. And I know part of what has made it so beautiful and special is the fact that time off is limited and fleeting and must be taken advantage of, but it's still hard to say goodbye.

The day after school ended, I went to a local massage parlor. I wasn't really feeling any specific pain - I just felt like I had worked hard all year, and so I was going to do something to enjoy myself a little bit. My school's graduation ceremony had been the night prior, and I was full of pride and excitement for all my students moving on to bigger and better things. I was proud and excited for myself, that I had made it through my first year teaching unscathed and with an even stronger desire to do this for the rest of my life. My head and my heart and my soul felt good, and 55 minutes later, my body did too.

I went into summer feeling relaxed and refreshed. I think having that mindset going in made me more open to experience the joy in all that happened. I'm not going to recount everything I did this summer - it would take far too long, and I'm not near a good enough writer to really make you feel all of the things I felt - but the point of this post, the point of this blog really, is to share all of the beauty and hope and pain and feeling that I see in this world, and hope that it moves you as much as it moves me. So I will share about 2 things. 2 wonderful, glorious weekends that I will remember for the rest of my life, because they taught me new things and showed me the importance of old things.

My best friend's younger sister and her husband are two of the coolest, most interesting, most fun people I have ever met. I have gotten to know them a lot better in the last few months; I've met many of their friends at monthly parties they throw at their house, and I feel richer for the opportunity. I like Kelsey and Ryan a lot, but I never imagined that I would be invited to their wedding. When I first learned I was going to get an invitation, I was excited and grateful that I was going to be able to share in their big day. And I knew that it would be one epic dance party at the reception. They held the wedding, both ceremony and reception, at Brae Loch near Roanoke. On top of a mountain, with the Star City below them, they got married with true class and, in true indie-kid style, with Jack White playing in the background.

The music at the reception showcased the bride and groom's eclectic tastes, with tracks by LCD Soundsystem, Lady GaGa, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Tenacious D all making appearances. I sang and danced with Travis, his sister, her new husband, and all of their friends and family for hours. I gave up for the night several times - and every time I did, a new great song would come on and I just had to go back out on the floor. I danced until my clothes were soaked, and I sang until my voice was hoarse. And the great thing was that everyone around me was having just as great a time as I was. A few times during the night I looked around me and realized that this is what life should be - people who love each other celebrating that love together with music, food, dancing, hugging, crying. We are meant to be surrounded by love. We should envelop ourselves in it. Love redeems us and makes us act like the people we ought to be.

I made new friends that night. I learned more about people I had only met in passing. I got to see Travis's mom drunk.

It was fun; hands down the best wedding I've ever been to, and I'm so thankful that I got to go and take part in such an amazing celebration of love.

I also was fortunate enough to spend a weekend at my friend Kendra's lakehouse in New Hampshire. I feel like this was really the centerpiece of my summer, and that almost everything since then has been caught up in a sort of storm following a few days of living life with such passion and urgency. Kendra is a friend from college; she was a good friend in college - one of the first people I met at JMU, and one of the hardest to say goodbye to after graduation. It's a shame we don't talk as much as we used to, but I'm thankful that this trip showed me the importance of keeping close with those who mean a lot to me. She had invited me up to Lake Winnipesaukee the past two summers, but I wasn't able to make it either time for one reason or another. I don't think I'll miss another trip for the rest of my life.

First off, it has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. Watching the sunset reflect off of the water in front of the mountains at the other end of the lake is the kind of thing that makes you feel so small, in the best way possible. I also got to do all sorts of things that I had never done in my life: I rode in a boat for the first time, I went swimming in a lake for the first time, I played Bananagrams for the first time, I got to ride in a 1966 Pontiac GTO for the first time, and see one of the coolest collections of antique cars in the country for the first time. More important than all of the things I did for the first time were all of the people I met for the first time.

At the lake, I met Jon and Kristin, a couple of Kendra's friends from work. Both are incredibly intelligent and funny and sweet; the kind of people that feel like old friends 5 minutes after meeting them. Accidentally slaying Kristin in a game of Never-Have-I-Ever on a shot meant for Kendra was the strangest introduction I've ever had to a person, and somehow it totally fit the playfully antagonistic rapport we shared the rest of the weekend. Jon and I totally nerded out talking about video games and Borges, and he told one of the greatest stories I've ever heard involving New Year's Eve, an unexpected pregnancy, and the phrase "raw-dogging". I also met Cam, Kendra's ultra-cool English rocker boyfriend who seemed to have an unending knowledge of music and a willingness to try anything, so long as it was new and exciting. He was also an incredibly thoughtful and sweet boyfriend, and it warmed my heart to see how much he cared for my friend. I met Melissa, the funny, sweet, playful, interesting, beautiful cousin of my friend Katherine. Many of the most memorable moments of that weekend, of this summer, came courtesy of her. I got to see Katherine and Biz again, friends from college that I see far too seldom. I got to hang out with my old roommate Jenny, back together with the old college crowd. I got to see Kendra's strange, funny, loving family, who I hadn't seen in years. I swear, every one of Kendra's sisters is smart and sassy and adventurous and so much fun to be around that you almost can't believe that there is one family that is so great. I can't decide if three days in New Hampshire flew by too quickly, or somehow stretched out over an impossibly long time. Looking back, it all seems like a whirlwind of music and games and food and fun, but I can pinpoint all these individual moments that surely must have taken weeks to create. It was a beautiful, magical three days that I hope reignited everyone's passion for living the way it did mine.

Yesterday afternoon, as a sort of figurative nightcap on the summer, I got another massage. It was one of the best I've ever received, and my body felt totally loose, relaxed, and restored. As great as that felt, I know that no corporeal invigoration could ever rival the power of the spiritual invigoration of meeting new friends, spending time with old friends, and remembering how lucky you are to be alive and surrounded by wonderful people.

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

Since I was very little, Where the Wild Things Are has been one of my absolute favorite books. One of my earliest memories is my mother reading that story to me in my bedroom in our old house in Richmond after I woke up from a nightmare, and her sleeping in the chair in the room with me all night. I used to have reoccurring dreams that I was in the world of the book at least once a week for much of my childhood. I still have that dream from time to time, though not as often these days. It's probably strange to have the same dreams at 24 that you did at 4, but I look forward to the nights when I can ride my private sailboat across the ocean and into the land of The Wild Things.

I've told a few people about my plans to decorate a room in my house, should I ever buy one, with the framed pages of the book. I've considered getting a WTWTA sleeve tattoo at some point. I have WTWTA decal stickers over my desk, and one of my favorite articles of clothing is my WTWTA tshirt. Despite the fact that it is a 37 page picture book for children, Where the Wild Things Are still has a strikingly profound effect on my life.

I've tried several times to figure out exactly what my fascination and connection with this book stems from, and I've come up with several unsatisfying answers. Is it pure nostalgia; a wish to go back to a time when my mom reading me a book and sleeping in the room with me could make me feel safe, like nothing could hurt me? Is it the fact that Where the Wild Things Are taught me how to use my imagination; that it awakened in me the idea that there is a world much bigger and with infinitely more possibilities than the one we can see with our eyes? Is there something innately cathartic about the story; does Max's kingship over The Wild Things satisfy some deeply human desire to control rather than to be controlled?

The answer to all of those questions, of course, is "probably". Maybe that should be reason enough to explain why I love this book so much. Maybe my quest for something beyond that is entirely quixotic, full of wholly-fruitless romantic idealism. Rereading the story today though, something else struck me:

Max is kind of a piece of shit.

I know he's a child and children get wild and that's sort of the point of being a kid sometimes. But Max goes above and beyond. He maliciously destroys things. He chases the dog with a fork. And when The Wild Things give him everything he ever wanted and treat him as a God, he sends them to bed without supper. Not the way his mother did - as punishment for misdeeds - but purely out of spite. Something bad happened to me, so now something bad has to happen to you too. It's the equivalent of one kid dropping his ice cream cone and deciding it would be appropriate to go around and knock everyone else's ice cream on the ground too.

I've read this book literally hundreds of times and I always knew that Max was doing bad things, but I think this last time through it really clicked exactly how bad he was.

But now I can't stop staring at this picture after the wild rumpus is over and Max has demanded that all The Wild Things go to bed without supper. The text below the picture reads:

"And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all."

And it's not just the words, but the look on his face - Maurice Sendak's illustration has the most nuanced and human expression that I've ever seen in a cartoon before. The words on the page say that Max is lonely and wants to be loved, but his face says that he's lonely and wants to be loved and he doesn't think that anyone can love him. It's on this page that Max realizes that he's been a total asshole, and THAT is why he leaves The Wild Things. He knows that they will be better off without him as their king - he waves them a simple goodbye, denies their pleas for him to stay, and then turns away from them forever, because he knows that he does not deserve their adoration.

If this were just a story of a bad kid doing bad things and then going home to find that his mom still loved him enough to give him his supper after she said she wouldn't, it would still probably be a fine children's book, but it wouldn't have the following it has or the impact it has. What makes Where the Wild Things Are really resonate with me is the fact that Max realizes he doesn't deserve love, but receives it anyway.

I've done, said, thought awful things in my life. Terrible things that were cruel and petty and heartless. I've sought vengeance and delighted in other people's misfortune. I have manipulated, played, and taken advantage of people. I have hurt countless numbers of people countless numbers of times. And as much as I try to never do things like that again, as much as I try to be a good person, I will always fail.

Like Max, I realize that I am not the person I ought to be. And like Max, inexplicably, people still love me. And I am grateful.

That is why Where the Wild Things Are has endured as a staple of kids' lives for almost a half-century. That is why I have loved it so much for nearly my entire life. I think that very few of us are entirely happy with every decision that we've made. Lingering on past mistakes too long is a mistake in itself, but the warm feeling you get when you realize that somehow people still love you despite all of the things you have done is something that feels as good and as surprising as an adult as it does when you are a kid.