True Confessions of an Interim

Oct 9, 2024

By The Rev. Dr. Carl Grosse

For my birthday, Denise got tickets to see Marty Stuart at the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, VA last Friday. Much of the show, also featuring the Tennessee Mafia Jug Band, reminded me of old Hee Haw episodes: awkward humor, drinking songs, without the scantily clad women. Marty is a brilliant player (has been since he was 12, when Lester Flatt brought him on to play in his touring band), and his technical prowess shone through in a few really good solos. But Marty is also a conduit, connected to so many legendary musicians and keeping their songs and stories in play. That’s what I was excited for, and he delivered in his last song: Farther On by Sara Carter. Not only did he somehow manage to sing like her when she and Maybelle recorded the song on their reunion album in 1966, but he channeled Sara’s distinctive guitar style playing a solo on the lower strings. In that place, with that history and that song, it wasn’t just Marty Stuart performing and the people in the seats listening. There was a cloud of witnesses testifying of a woeful hope that only the words and music of an old Appalachian gospel song could convey.

There’s a sense in which we’re all conduits like that. Much of what we say and do conveys what we’re connected to. We might be immersed in memories, obsessed with social media, concerned for loved ones, searching for purpose. Hence, we might respond to the moment with nostalgia, the latest posts, anxiety for someone, or confusion. Supposedly, we as Christians are connected to “the way, the truth, and the life”. If we are communing with God, mindful of His instructions, grateful for His steadfast love that endures forever, shouldn’t that come through somehow? Would our memories, our use of social media, our concern for others, and our sense of purpose, be shaped by what matters to God, what Jesus has told us, and the knowledge that we are loved? What are you connected to, that you might bless someone with a word of hope or a gesture of kindness, paying forward what God has done for you?