Last Sunday was the Feast of All Saints. During worship, we brought pictures of saints, and remembered those who have gone before us. Some were saints with wider name recognition. Many were parents or grandparents, friends or relatives. The saint I carried in my heart yesterday was Rich Mullins.
As some of you know, I came to faith just after finishing high school. I didn’t grow up in the church. Didn’t hear the stories of many saints. In fact, I don’t think the word “saint” was in my vocabulary. Not because I was a bad kid! But simply because I didn’t think about the world in this way.
My journey into faith in Jesus ran parallel to my journey into music. They’ve been hand in hand since I was 18. Early on, I was introduced to the music of Rich Mullins. He was one of the first people I can remember “meeting” whose life I found compelling. Through his music, I encountered faith that was honest and raw, like the Psalms. His music was also shot through with faith…a kind of earthy, blue collar faith that I could get hold of. Rich had learned from the Psalms the simple truth that prayer is speech directed TO God. He speaks of much of his music as “prayer songs.” I think it was this unadorned, honest, salt-of-the-earth faith that made people love him. It made me love him.
Rich had no desire to be wealthy. And he had no desire to be famous. Early on in his career, he set up a board of trusted friends. Every penny he made went into an account he couldn’t access. And he instructed this board of friends to pay him a blue collar wage, roughly $20,000/year at the time. Once, while touring, he stepped out of the theatre in his usual jeans and white T-shirt. As the opening time for the concert approached, he returned to the stage door. Security wouldn’t let him in, as he didn’t look anything special…and he left! No argument. No need to press home, “don’t you know who I am?” I love that he was happy to be mistaken for a homeless man. In his later life, Rich moved onto an Indigenous reservation, and was building a wigwam for himself at the time of his death.
Today, as I was thinking about Rich, I thought about one of his songs, The Color Green.
The song begins with these words:
And the moon is a sliver of silver
Like a shaving that fell on the floor of a Carpenter's shop
Every house must have its builder
I awoke in the house of God…
The song is a meditation on creation as the house of God…a house that is teaching us to cry out, like the rocks and trees, the moon and sky, this refrain:
Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise, and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise
These Fall days have felt like this, to wake up and find yourself in the house of God. If I could encourage you to do anything this week, I simply suggest you step outside and let yourself gasp at the exquisite beauty of God mirrored to you in every turning leaf and iridescent blue sky. Let your gasp be a prayer of praise. It is good to belong to God. It is good to be alive in this bright world God makes and sustains.