Closer Than My Skin

Sometimes you're further than the moon,
Sometimes you're closer than my skin.
Obsession, by David Crowder

I love worship music. I definitely have some favorite artists, but I can appreciate most all worship music at this point in my life because I finally understand that the beauty of worship is not to be found primarily in the quality or style of the band or the lyrics, but first and foremost in the greatness of our God.

Before I was saved, worship music used to make me gag. I thought it was just horrid. Terrible really. And quite frankly, a bit embarrassing. I didn’t get it at all – the lyrics, the raised hands, the blissed faces. Gospel was an exception. And I thought gospel lyrics were still cheesy and “churchy”, but I simply ignored the words and grooved to the soul and funk inherent in the sound. The only other kind of worship I had been exposed to was the stereotypical church soprano (her bright-pink lipsticked little mouth forming a tiny “o” as she sang), very much lacking soul and definitely not having any funk.

So, I hated worship music. That is, until I heard it done right. I started going to the night service at my church called Movement. They do it right. The music is loud and lifting, sometimes harsh and mind-altering. When the lights were set low and the amps turned high, even before I was saved I would somehow find myself singing these same “churchy” lyrics that used to so embarrass me. Because the music just somehow reached into me and through me, each beautiful, weighty note etching circles into the night, recalling sweet memories of years ago...

I love the band U2 and have seen them play live several times. It is always a transcendent and surreal experience. I started dating a guy at a U2 concert awhile back. We had gone in as friends with amazing seats in the pit, right up against the catwalk. As Bono strolled past us on his way to the B-stage during With Or Without You, gauzy sheets of translucent fabric fell down around us. Light sprinkled across the cloth and we found ourselves happily trapped inside this canopy – this peaceful, light blue, bayou. The night’s beauty was unfathomable and we felt privileged to be one of the chosen few in the inner circle.

Our overwhelming emotions soon got the better of he and I and we started slow dancing to the song, holding one another tightly as we swayed back and forth to the beat. Despite the visual buffet of boy and Bono and blue and bayou, I closed my eyes, trying to make a lasting memory the best way I know how – by cutting off the blaring sense of sight (which by this point had had time enough to store up images), and concentrating instead on the more forgotten senses.

I smelled the air. It was sweaty, aftershave-y. I recall the feeling of safety, of closeness, of his arms around me, the rising and falling of our chests as we breathed together. I remember being politely pressed in on all sides from adoring fans desperately heartbroken to be closer to Bono. They gazed up at him wide-eyed, starstruck by the moment – an insane intersection of their wildest dreams and this very reality. I felt tied to each one on some invisible heart plane. The bass’ rhythm thumped in the floorboards, resonating in my feet and traveling slowly up the length of my body. And I can recall the wailing of The Edge’s guitar in my ears, slightly muffled by the presence of the stubbly five o’clock shadow wedged up against my cheek. I stood this way for the rest of the song, trying to record each sensory stimuli for proper recall at a later date. And now, years later, if I am feeling homesick for this sense of communion with man and fan and rockgod, I can close my eyes and flash back to this moment and it is all right there.

The Movement band has given me more of these moments to file away for future use – these memories of overblown senses, of overflowing nights, of inclusion. Not with a friend or boyfriend or Bono, but something much bigger (yes, even bigger than Bono) – God, the Lord of the Universe. In the midst of the stage backdrop of brightly lit stars, the ebb and pulse of softly flickering candlelight, the sultry wah-wah’s of the electric guitar, the vocal harmony braiding together with the melody, and the lingering scent of coffee in the air and on my breath, God speaks to me. He tells me that I am His and He is mine and week after week I leave in awe of that magnificent and weighty knowledge and with the amazing sense that God was recently so very near to me, perhaps even dancing right next to me, feeling at times, closer than my skin.