Once in my (Earthly) Lifetime

One of the things I love about living in L.A. is that in one weekend, you can have a number of vastly different experiences.

Friday night I went to an incomprehensible performance art piece comprised of naked people and electricity. The usual crowd was in attendance, the usual conversation filled the air. A bunch of strangers showed up to see a performance, sat through ninety minutes of...well, you can read my last post...and then went our separate ways, possibly never to see each other again. It was a pretentious and disconnected scene.

Don't get me wrong; it was entertaining in its own special way.

But Saturday night, I went to the Billy Graham Crusade at the Rose Bowl...with about 90,000 other people. My main reason for attending was that I'd never heard the legendary Billy Graham (though he'd object to being called that) speak in person, and seeing as how he's about a thousand years old and everyone is calling this his last crusade in L.A., I figured this would probably be my last shot at the experience.

Since it was a youth-oriented night, the program started with a concert by a few popular Christian bands. Southern rockers Third Day (not just my favorite Christian group, they're one of my favorite groups of all time) sang a few of their particularly well-known hits. And, well, they're worship songs that a lot of churches have kind of co-opted for use in their own services, so a lot of people knew them.

Ever heard 90,000 people singing at once? Okay, if you were at the Depeche Mode "101" Rose Bowl show in 1988, you probably came close -- but Billy Graham actually had more seats filled. And what an amazing sound that was, 90,000 people singing to God.

Dr. Graham's message was simple, and people responded to it. Thousands of people.

We all went our separate ways after the show, too, just like the night before. But as the crowds streamed out of the stadium on the way back to the parking area, I thought to myself how strange and beautiful it is that I will see most of these people again, eventually.