When You're Gone - Video

This is my first post about my Mom, with some help from my little sister Tina. Though I think everyone who reads this blog knows me, just in case, here's the history....My Mom passed away suddenly on January 1st of this year. In hindsight, I wish I had this blog to put some of my thoughts and feelings down back then. Instead, I put my energy into the MomSite. I haven't updated it in a while - Work got busy and I think just doing the site was enough "therapy" for me.

So....on to Tina's contribution. Tina originally sent me the video below to put on the MomSite. Since I hadn't been updating that, I decided to post it here. The video has 3 story lines, one of which is about an older couple where the Mom dies. That alone would be emotional for us six kids, but Tina got the extra whammy - one of the other stories in the video is about a Marine who is sent to Iraq, like her husband Gary. I wouldn't say I am an Avril Lavigne fan (too old!) but this is pretty good. Normally I'd say enjoy, but in this case, just watch.

(If the embedded video doesn't work, try this link.)

Burying St. Joseph

From the title, this could be a post about the lack of attention St. Joseph gets in the Catholic faith, but, no, it's about the tradition of burying a St. Joseph statue in your yard to help sell your house. There are many websites out there about this practice - here is an example. Traditions like this have always seemed a bit like mixing religion and magic and I have always shied away from them. Others ones that bother me are ones that say if you say a certain prayer X times in Y days, something "good" will happen. For the St. Joseph burying tradition, I have heard it called idolatry (don't be shy Tom McG.), to a marketing ploy by Realtors, to superstition, to faith, to luck or coincidence.

What brought all this up is my friends Boom and Miss Nancy. Their house has been on the market for several months with no serious bids. They had lowered the price twice and as of the beginning of July hadn't had a nibble in two weeks. They also had a new house which they needed to close on in August. Our area of NJ is a real buyer's market right now with a glut of homes up for sale. St. Joe went in the ground on July 5th and at an Open House on July 7th, six couples saw the house and one made a cash offer which will expedite the closing.

Coincidence? An up tick in the housing market? Miss Nancy being out of the country? or St. Joe in the ground. Knowing Boom and Nancy, there was probably some prayers to St. Joe for intercession along with the burying of the statue. Maybe that's where the truth lies. Or maybe burying the statue is an act of faith, that God rewards. Not becuase it's magic, but because you put your faith in Him.

Element(al) Bumper Stickers

As many of you know, I have a bright orange Honda Element. It's a fun car and it even gets (sort of) decent mileage - 25 mpg. After seeing an Element ad where they cover the back of the car with bumper stickers, Nate and decided to do the same. The bumper stickers show the places we've been, bands we've seen and things we believe in (sort of a moving version of this blog). There is only one rule - nothing political. That doesn't mean no issues - it just means no "Leave Iraq" or "Vote Whoever 08".

The Cornerstone Festival was a big chance to get stickers so here are the before and after of the back of the Element:

Before & After

Cornerstone Festival - Final Thoughts

Some final thoughts, impressions, etc from our trip....

The Music - We found new bands and styles we liked, we realized that we really don't like extreme hard core and found out it's really cool to be in the front row (at least Nate did). How many kids can say they saw Switchfoot from the front row? The other cool thing is that the artists are so accessible - the sit at their own merch tables and will talk to you after their show. The guys from Hundred Year Storm were genuinely moved when I told them about Mom and their song "Yesterday We Had it All". The other cool thing that makes the artist real is that some of them stayed right in the Holiday Inn Express with us. Kinda neat to see the Wedding on stage on Wed. night and then see them at the breakfast buffet the next morning.

Faith, God & Religion - Two things that stuck with me here....First, a reminder from Kevin Young of Disciple that God loves us unconditionally, no matter what we do. If we are separated from God/Jesus, it's our doing. Second, from Jamie, the founder of To Write Love on Her Arms, when he talked about deciding to say they were NOT a Christian organization. Jamie said he does the ministry because he is Christian and this is where God has led him, but felt he could be much more effective by not identifying the organization as Christian. Part of it (he said) was the negative connotation of the label "Christian" (how sad!) but also his organization is all about helping people wherever they are. (I started this post on Sunday morning before we left and it was interesting that the priest at church touched on both these topics in his homily.)

The Trip - Sure we could have flown out to the midwest and rented a car to go to Cornerstone, but there is something about the concept of a road trip that is special. Even with his near constant Nintendo DS playing, Nate and I got to talk about religion, politics, school, etc. He also got to see firsthand the vastness of the country and see the mile after mile of corn and soy. Despite the 2277 miles and 33 hours in the car (click here for the route), it was a fun, memorable, experience, not just for the music but the time spent together.

So that's all from Cornerstone - to paraphrase a shirt I bought...

Keep Worshiping at Full Volume!

Cornerstone Festival - Best of List

Here are a few "best of" awards from me and Nate:

Best Food: Nate - Pizza Hut Cheese Sticks, Dad - Monster Funnel cake
Best Main Stage Act: Nate - tobyMac, Dad - Flyleaf
Best Overall Act: Nate & Dad - Disciple
Loudest: Nate - UnderOath, Dad - Seventh Star
Most Fun Band: Nate - Switchfoot, Dad - Family Force 5
Best We'd Never Seen Before: Nate - Blissed, Dad - Hundred Year Storm
Weirdest Thing We Saw: Nate - Garbage Men in Suits, Dad - Guys in cow costume
Best T-shirt: Nate - "If You Don't Like Showbread, You're an Idiot", Dad - "Jesus Loves Porn Stars" (Honorable Mention to "Virginity Rocks")

Cornerstone Festival - The Trip Home

Sunday morning was time to say goodbye to Galesburg and head off for Columbus, OH our stopover for the way home. We headed to Corpus Christi Church more mass before hitting the road. I had been told Catholicism was a bit more conservative in the midwest and Corpus Christi was certainly old school. I was transported back to being Nate's age at St. Anastasia's with the altar biys wearing cassock & surplice, standing by the ambo during the gospel and the use of pattens during communion. Not quite pre-Vatican II but they did sing the Holy, Holy and Lamb of God in Latin. After mass, N "needed" a Bizzard so it was a last stop at DQ.

Sunday night dinner was at Bob Evans, since N says we can't get them in the East. I had the Pot Roast sandwich, which will definitely be off the menu once I start the diet. We stayed at the Comfort Suites ("I've been everywhere, man" says the commercial). It was a Suite - Ok it had a half wall with a couch, microwave and a fridge. Too bad the walls were paper thin and the beds were hard. Holiday Inn Express was much better.


The trip to NJ on Monday was pretty uneventful. We went through Ohio, W. VA, and PA before getting to NJ. I hadn't been on that part of the turnpike and it brought a lot of memories both from taking Nancy to college and VU band trips. We didn't feel the need to visit Breezewood despite the memories there. One cool thing we saw on the turnpike was windmills on top of the mountains east of Pittsburgh near Somerset PA. This farm produces 9 MW of power and the windmills are 210 feet tall with a blade length of 112 feet. Annual pollution offset is 25 million lbs of CO2.

We arrived safely back home around 6 PM and after unloading the car pretty much crashed. It was a long, fun and exhausting trip.

Cornerstone Festival - Saturday

Saturday's lineup was loaded up with the Cornerstone's "base" - hard core rockers. The Main Stage featured Norma Jean and Underoath as the headliners. Underoath had the coveted closing spot, which has been POD's for the last couple years. (POD is in the studio this Summer - good we get a new album, but bummer they didn't do Cornerstone).

As I said in the Friday post, Nate and I still had shopping to do, so we hit the merch tents as soon as we got there. I had stopped at the ATM since almost everything is cash at Cornerstone. I got a few more t-shirts, CDs and bumper stickers as well as a book. N picked up an old Disciple CD. Even though he thought a lot of the t-shirts were cool, I think he's still a bit shy about "Living out Loud" - I get that, I would have been the same way at 14. After shopping, we ate what may have been the biggest funnel cake we have ever seen. At least a couple pounds - from a place that deep fries their hot dogs and bacon, too. Obviously we were not counting calories on this trip.

The one non-Hard Core band at the Main Stage was Family Force 5 so we headed up to see them after the funnel cake - we needed the walk. I'm not sure how to categorize them - they have 80's feel with break dancing, but sound current, too. The show they put on is amazing, though - high energy, weird costumes, dancers. If you get a chance to see these guys, go for it, it's a wild show. Nate and I watched this set from the hill and the sound was great - the natural amphitheater works. We stayed up at the Main Stage for some dinner since we though the next band was Maylene and the Sons of Disaster. I know nothing about this band other than that they have gotten good reviews in CCM and have possibly the best band name, ever. Unfortunately, they were a no show and were replaced by August Burns Red, a hard core, slightly screamo group. The set was OK and unintentionally funny - the guitars and bass have the whole rocker stance and synchronized head banging thing going on. We decided to pass on Emery and Norma Jean and come back for Underoath.

Since we had a little time before Hundred Year Storm, we caught about half of a set by The Myriad, an alt rock band out of Seattle. We had heard them on Revolution on Sirius and they even better live. Great sound and very tight vocals and music. Exceptional for being in a tent in a corn field. (An aside here to boo Sirius for dropping Revolution, their Christian Rock station. Maybe they don't have Sirius, but 15,000 people at Cornerstone can't be an anomaly. Now I get my Christian rock online at ChristianRockRadio.com.)

Hundred Year Storm was another "must see" for Nate and me. I'll do a whole post on this, but their song "Yesterday We Had It All" really ministered to me after Mom's death. They didn't do that song (odd since it is their single, but this was also their second set on the Festival) but still were amazing. This is another band that is hard to categorize. They called themselves indie rock, but they also had hints of "art" bands like Renaissance from the 80's. The stage show featured TV's showing videos backing their songs. Turns out the CD also has voice overs behind the music of newscasts, etc. Very eclectic stuff, including instrumentals. They closed with a moving song called "Arms" that featured a harpist and closed with the line "Fall into the arms of Jesus" repeated over and over. Great stuff.

We headed up to the Main Stage to close out the Festival with Underoath and it was packed! The hill was completely covered and the floor of the amphitheater was full, too. We found a spot at the top of the hill where we could see the stage. Underoath was loud and was rocking the place, but about 3 songs in, Nate looked at me and said "I really don't like this" which I had to agree with. I guess we found our "rock limit" - POD, Disciple, Demon Hunter - yes, Underoath and hard core screamo - no. We decided we actually like being able to understand the lyrics.

No encore bands on Saturday, but since we left Underoath early, there were a few bands still playing. We though about more hard rock at the Underground stage, but chose Sleeping at Last at the same stage we saw Hundred Year Storm. They are a 3 man alt band and it was a nice finish to the week. As we headed back to the hotel, we listened to the Hundred Year Storm CD and talked about the week. N didn't even play his DS.

Cornerstone Festival - The Area

The Cornerstone Festival is held on a 500 acre farm near Bushnell, IL. Where is that, you say? Go to Peoria, IL and head another hour west or go to the Quad Cities and head an hour and half south. As Boom says, "Welcome to the prairie". It is corn and soy beans as far as the eye can see and boy can you see - it is flat. I think the highest elevation I hit was a railroad overpass. Oh yeah, in Galesburg, where we stayed, there was huge train depot. Gotta move that corn somehow...



When Nate and I headed to the Festival everyday, we saw these roads with weird names like 2250 St and 1900 St in the middle of nowhere. When I realized that each "hundred" was a mile, a memory from the deep recesses of my brain came to me - it was Township and Range! This is how the government laid out the West. (http://www.outfitters.com/genealogy/land/twprangemap.html). Thank you to the late, great Dr. Elaine Bosowski for teaching me that in North American Geography at Villanova. Nate's mom and I took that course for fun and I think I may have learned more there than any other class that year.





We drove through 4 little towns every day. Our favorite was St. Augustine (pop 150) which pretty much consisted of a few houses, a post office and a Catholic Church. If it had been a litle closer to Galesburg or I-74, we might have gone to mass there on Sunday.

Nüvi

A diversion from my postings about the Cornerstone Festival to tell you about the Garmin Nüvi. This is a GPS unit and one of the coolest gadgets I own. (www.garmin.com/nuvi) I have the 350 model, as do N&V. It is about the size of a deck of cards and contains maps and listings for the entire US. In a nutshell, you look up where you want to go and it gets you there. It has voice prompts and text-to-speech, so not only do you get "turn right", you get "turn right on Main Street". We have our set on "Emily", the British voice.

So far, it has not steered us wrong. I used it to get to a couple golf courses and it literally gave me directions to the front door of the clubhouse. For the Cornerstone trip, it was awesome. It got us to every hotel, the drop off for Jeff (a tanning salon) and even found the festival. I'm not sure how I lived without it on long trips. It actually had a "shortcut" through a corn field -- still a "real" road - that saves us about 5 minutes going to the festival.

It will recalculate the route if you intentionally or unintentionally go off course. It does have an annoying habit of doing this when you get off for gas or food, but this could be handy if you wander a bit to find that pizza you are longing for.

My favorite feature is when you tell it to 'Go Home". It's like cheap insurance - wherever you are, you can always at least get home.

Cornerstone Festival - Organizations and Causes

The merch tents - which officially are called the Exhibition Tents - were host to a varied group of organizations promoting all sorts of causes. Below is a listing of ones I found interesting, not that I necessarily agree or are promoting them:

The One Campaign - http://www.one.org - This is group that is working to end global poverty. They are a coalition of secular and religious organizations working together for change. You probably have seen the ads with Bono and famous actors and actresses.

To Write Love on Her Arms - http://www.twloha.com/ - Ok, so this one I really do think is cool. This is a group that helps kids deal with depression and self-injury. It was started because one guy (the founder, Jaime) helped one girl and has grown into this huge ministry. I think their website describes it best: "TWLOHA's mission is to communicate hope and love to broken people. We also aim to invite and inspire lives of compassion. We believe that "rescue is possible", that we can be rescued and we are called to live as rescuers. In the same way, we believe that all people are loved and called to love others. This is an attempt at community." Despite being founded and run primarily by Christians, they do not consider themselves a "Christian" organization, rather they are doing Christ's work. Nate and I went to a press conference they gave at the Festival, actually it was Nate's idea.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation - http://www.iwillnotkill.org - This is an antiwar/pacifist group that has been around since World War I. What I found interesting is that while they encourage conscientious objection, they really push that youth should make an informed decision, not just sign up.

DiscRevolt.com - This is a company that's trying to change the way music is sold, by giving control to the artists. The concept is that artist upload music to DiscRevolt and then buy download cards which they in turn can sell or give away at concerts. The cards usually have the band's logo on them so it's another form of marketing.

XXXChurch.com - This is an anti-pornography group - they catch attention with wild slogans - a couple of the tamer ones are that they are "The #1 Christian Porn Site" and "Jesus Loves Porn Stars". A bit outlandish, but what I found interesting is that they set up booths not just at Christian events, but at the big porn conventions. Talk about going into the lion's den.

Abort73.com - As you can guess from the name, this is an anti-abortion group. They seem pretty radical, not like blowing up clinics, but really in your face with their slogans and t-shirts.

StopConsuming.org - Their slogan is "The Only Customer of the Church is God". Their idea is that church is not about what we receive but what we should give to the world - grace and love.

Cornerstone Festival - Friday

Friday, we headed down to the Festival around the "usual" late afternoon time frame. N had seen a promo for a band called Blissed that wanted to check out and we both wanted to hit the merch tent before the nighttime acts on the Main Stage. We were pretty excited since the lineup was Pillar, Flyleaf and Switchfoot. Friday night is a short lineup of music, since they have a worship service around dinner time. We decided to hit the merch tent and eat during the worship service - I can hear it already - some scripture reference about God and money. The worship service was run by Jesus People USA (who put on Cornerstone) - http://www.jpusa.org and I suspected there would be an altar call and a love offering. Not that we wouldn't have enjoyed the worship music but I've heard the altar call talk enough times.


Nate made a good choice with Blissed. They are a band out of Toronto who play what I would call 80's rock. Just check out the singer in the pic. The music was good though N said it more my type than his. Funny moment during the half hour set - two guys who were older than me did a chest bump during one of the songs - I said "adult moshing", N says "senior moshing" - nice...


After Blissed and a little dinner, we hit the merch tents - hard. It's possible that Mr. P would still be there buying stuff and talking to vendors, bands and organizations. I bought some shirts and CDs but didn't really have time to hit all the stuff before the time came to head for the main stage. A plan was made to get there earlier on Sat., both to maybe catch so other "new" (at least to us) bands and to have more time in the merch tent. N headed up to the Main Stage and I went to the car to drop off the loot.

N did very well on scoring a good spot - I found him the front row on the (audience) left of the stage. I took up my picture taking spot - a little left and back. Even w/o moshing, the front row is no place for me and my camera. Although the crowd for Pillar was good, the ones for Flyleaf and Switchfoot were the biggest so far. N and I decided it was "mainstream" night since they both have had crossover success. God treated us to another spectacular sunset....

Pillar rocked the place as expected, playing old and new stuff. Flyleaf was amazing - their lead singer, Lacey Mosley, is this pixie of a girl who is so passionate and emotional in her singing. A lot of their songs are based on her personal experience which was pretty rough. Switchfoot was flat out great - they rocked, they were tight and the sound was good (even next to the speaker with earplugs). One cool thing was that both Lacey and Jon Foreman (Switchfoot's lead) did a little "preaching" - both bands are "Christian by faith, not genre" - I guess at a Christian event they can let their guard down a little. Jon talked about being "one" - not dividing the body of Christ before they did "We are One Tonight".

Flyleaf & Switchfoot

After the Mage Stage acts, N and I headed to a set that we had circled on the schedule as soon as we saw it - Disciple. The show was in one of the "encore" tents and started at midnight, so it was a smaller crowd. It was, though, one of the best shows we saw - it rocked, it had worship and had one of the craziest mosh pits we saw the whole festival. (An aside on moshing - I'm not sure I like it, especially at a Christian event. I know it's just supposed to be about energy, but it always, to me, seems to have an edge of trying to hurt each other). Nate and I were just behind the mosh pit and the music was awesome. Even better, right in the middle of the set, Kevin Young, the lead singer, read from Psalm 139 and talked about how God loves us unconditionally. It was probably the best teaching I heard all week. This show embodied what I like about Chritian rock - it's loud, but teaches and worships God.