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Arts + Entertainment
Sitting at the SXSW Table
by
Nate Risdon
Late in the summer of 2012, I called the headquarters of the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. I was calling on behalf of the Brehm Center at Fuller Theological Seminary—we were considering launching a course that looked at the relationship between popular music and spirituality. We were interested in the live experience. And since SXSW is the preeminent festival for popular music, we saw it as a possible launch pad for the course.
The guy who answered the phone took a long pause before he responded with a quizzical, “Really? Well . . . coooool.”
I had certainly piqued his curiosity.
We talked, which led to a small group of us taking a scouting trip in late winter to walk the festival, see it, and smell it in all of its glory. It was messy. It was loud. It was weird. And it was massive.
We knew we were on to something. When we returned to California, we began planning. Now, a year later, we’re returning—this time with a gaggle of seminary students, alumni, and friends.
Why would a seminary do this?
In one of my early courses at Fuller, my professor asked us to read through the Gospel of Luke through a particular lens: how often and with did whom Jesus share a meal around the table?
It was rather striking. He ate with all types—tax collectors, Pharisees, prostitutes, his own disciples. Amongst the swirl of humanity in all of its glory and messiness, Jesus sat, listened, laughed, ate, and told his own stories, taking part in one of the most intimate acts in that society, apart from sharing a bed.
This narrative from Luke is why we accepted the challenge to be present and to bring students to an event like the South by Southwest Festival. If we consider what Jesus did when he visited someone’s house for a meal, we can see a framework to follow.
Presence
We begin with the seemingly simple act of being present. That might not sound groundbreaking, but according to a church leader from Austin, “most churches here in Austin pack up and leave town during the festival. We want to learn how to better engage.”
We meet in the mornings at an official festival venue to discuss the influence of popular music on the spiritual life of society, thinking about why this cultural event and its artists have such influence. It’s insufficient to critique from a distance, in a classroom. Being present is a step in the right direction. We also acknowledge that we believe that the festival—especially the people present there—matters.
Listen
But there is more to being present than just planting yourself in a location. We begin by listening—meaning we listen proactively to the sounds, the words, the noise—with a posture of openness, perhaps even humility and grace.
That means we drop all pretenses, along with our desire to critique. It means intentionally going to spaces we wouldn’t normally go, leaving our agenda behind and hearing what is actually being said. We must acknowledge that we were really listening by engaging with those who (through performing) make themselves vulnerable to the audience. We begin by sharing what we heard and what was deeply meaningful to us.
Sound simple? It’s harder than you might expect. Most of us feel compelled to enter into an experience like this to critique it. But with that posture, we have already created separation that can sabotage real conversation.
There are times when our best efforts will not lead to a good two-way conversation. Some artists are not interested in engaging in a dialogue with a group of people interested in spirituality and popular culture. And yet so many are.
It reminds me of a story I heard from a colleague who had just returned from Sundance. Fuller teaches a course on Engaging Independent Film in which students attend one week of the film festival.
That year, one of the buzz-worthy documentaries had a particularly unflattering depiction of evangelical Christians. Some of the students and faculty attended a screening of the film. At the end of the film, several students and a faculty member approached the director, explained that they were from a seminary, and invited the filmmaker to speak to the class the next morning. They explained that they wanted to ask some more questions of him. He reluctantly agreed.
The next morning, when he stood in front of a room packed with students and faculty, the director was noticeably nervous and uncomfortable. As he explained later, he was expecting to ripped apart and run out of the room by this room full of Christians.
Instead, the students and faculty asked thoughtful questions that didn’t attack and acknowledged the places in the film where they felt he rightly critiqued the church. At the end of his time with the class, the professor moderating the conversation paused and simply said, “Can I pray for you?”
His response was simple: “Yes. I would like that.” Listening—really listening—followed by simple gesture showing compassion can be transformative.
Sit, Enjoy, and Wait
I suspect that if we go with an openness and posture that facilitates good listening, we’ll enjoy ourselves. Sure, there will be moments that are distracting, unpleasant, or worrisome. But there will be something to learn in these moments.
In Luke there’s another narrative that takes place at a table. Jesus is invited to the home of a Pharisee, and while he is there, a woman of “ill repute” enters and bathes Jesus’ feet. It is awkward. It is uncouth. Her entrance and actions fouled the home of the host and likely hushed a lively dinner discussion. Surely, there were many around the table who were aghast. Yet Jesus stopped the chatter to point out the beauty of this woman’s act.
If we begin by listening, we may find that even in those places where our natural inclination is to turn around and walk out, where we sense ourselves feeling uncomfortable, something unexpected and beautiful might occur. We may find that that God is indeed present even here asking us to pay attention. We may find at SXSW that spiritual profundity and beauty is present in the reverberations and lyrical musings bouncing off the club walls.
Tell Our Story
There is power in our story, in the gospel story. But the most powerful stories will fall flat if we are telling them to those who are not listening. When we are in someone else’s home, we usually don’t tell our stories until we are invited to do so. So how will we tell our story here, at this music festival? Do we sling on a guitar, grab some mics, and sing a five-part “Go Tell It on the Mountain”?
Well. Perhaps. But it’s most important to tell our story, the gospel story, when we are invited to tell it.
We don’t know how that might happen at SXSW. A thoughtful approach that corrals personal agendas and criticism is likely to be welcomed. An attempt to connect with the artist on who they are as expressed through their music might be it. Avoiding pretense might just be a novel thing in an atmosphere where so many are putting their best face on for a shot at fame.
What we must fight against is the assumption that because we have a better story, we are somehow better people. If we position ourselves that way, it can easily slip into what we observed last year happening on 6
th
Street in Austin. A small band of enthusiastic Christians manned with ladder, signs, and bullhorn screamed at the thousands of passers-by: “You are going to hell!” “Jesus is your only hope of salvation!” “Run from the darkness!”
Their posture conveyed superiority—they even stood above the crowds on a ladder. These people were viewed with curiosity, but nothing more—the same curiosity that greeted the buskers with plastic buckets 50 yards away. Most who passed by might have even considered it performance art had there been a hat for tips out in front of the ladder.
It. Did. Not. Work.
There was no story being told, no dialogue, no listening, no joy. Just loud, angry declaration signifying nothing.
So what would it look like to tell our story? We’re not sure. Yet. But we hope to find out.
Think Critically
Finally, we think there’s something to be learned in these places. After we have listened, sat, eaten, and maybe shared our stories, we do sit and think critically about all that we have experienced. We discuss the beauty we observed, those things that we found worrisome, challenging, or offensive.
We do this in dialogue with our faith, with Scripture as a lens, and with the hope that we better understand what we observe. If we truly believe that we have a better story to tell, then we must ask ourselves why so many don’t want to hear it. We can’t write it off as widespread apathy, though there is that. We can’t frame it as if the church is perpetually out of touch—we believe the gospel story is timeless.
What if we think critically and openly about where the sacramental
is
and less about where it
isn’t
? Sounds simple, but I don’t think it is.
I want to be surprised by God, not for some cheap thrill, but for the sake of getting a glimpse of the spark of the divine that illuminates God’s thumbprint on all of creation. Even at a loud, messy, weird, wonderful SXSW.
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